President Oaks provides a touching conclusion to October general conference

Tears filled the eyes of President Dallin H. Oaks on Sunday as he described the tender solace his grandfather offered him after he learned of his father’s death as a little boy.

The strikingly personal moment was part of a talk in which President Oaks declared, “We are a family church,” at the close of the 195th Semiannual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

It was a touching conclusion to the two-day conference that noted the heartache many are suffering alongside the joy and comfort available through devotion to Jesus Christ.

Many do not have traditional families, President Oaks said, but Latter-day Saints can serve and love each other and be devoted to the gospel Jesus taught.

“It is vital that Latter-day Saints do not lose their understanding of the purpose of marriage and the value of children,” President Oaks said. “That is the future for which we strive.”

President Oaks is the president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which is directing the church between the death of President Russell M. Nelson on Sept. 27 and the pending reorganization of the First Presidency with a new church president.

He directed church members to model our lives after the teachings and self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

“Following Christ and giving ourselves in service to one another is the best remedy for the selfishness and individualism that now seem to be so common,” he said.

He did not announce new temples, a first for one of the church’s twice-yearly conferences since October 2017.

“With the large number of temples now in the very earliest phases of planning and construction,” President Oaks said, “it is appropriate that we slow down the announcement of new temples.”

Leaders spoke frankly about two mass tragedies that struck Latter-day Saints in the past four months and declared that the love and Atonement of Jesus Christ has the power to comfort and strengthen the suffering.

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The centrality of family in Latter-day Saint doctrine

President Oaks said families aren’t simply important to Latter-day Saints. They are an inextricable part of core church doctrines.

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is sometimes known as a family-centered church. It is!” he said. “Our relationship to God and the purpose of our mortal life are explained in terms of the family.”

The proportion of U.S. households headed by married couples and the birthrate have declined for nearly 100 years, President Oaks said.

“The marriages and birthrates of our church members are much more positive, but they have also declined significantly,” he said. “The national declines in marriage and childbearing are understandable for historic reasons, but Latter-day Saint values and practices should improve — not follow — those trends."

He lamented societal changes that allow children “to treat their homes as boarding houses where they sleep and take an occasional meal, but where there is far less parental direction of their activities.”

“As parental influences diminish, Latter-day Saints still have a God-given responsibility to teach their children to prepare for our family destiny in eternity,” he said.

A father’s tragic death

President Oaks noted that divorce, death and other issues create many nontraditional families.

“I experienced that in the family in which I was raised,” he said.

He was teary Sunday as he talked about running to his bedroom and crying over his father’s death 85 years ago, when he was 7. He described his mother as lonely and broken. She was bereft for years.

President Oaks said families are one way God helps the shattered to heal. In his case, his maternal grandfather joined him on the floor by his bed, comforted him and said, “I will be your father.”

A deadly collision and the Grand Blanc shooting

Church leaders also referred to the fiery collision that killed 10 church members in Lesotho in June and the murders of four Latter-day Saints during a sacrament meeting last week in Grand Blanc, Michigan.

One also talked about looking into the eyes of church members hurt by kidnappings, murders and other traumatic attacks in Mexico.

They offered solace, endurance and hope through the gospel and Atonement of Jesus Christ.

“I testify that God knows you,” said Elder Henry B. Eyring of the Quorum of the Twelve. “He knows the trials you face. He is with you. He will not forsake you.”

Church leaders did not minimize the sorrow, grief and despair of their fellow Latter-day Saints. But they pointed to Jesus Christ as the healer.

In Africa, the collision killed six Young Women, two of their leaders, a branch president and his wife.

The survivors and the family members and friends of those who died or were hurt “have expressed a range of emotions, including moments of anger, depression and even guilt,” said Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Twelve.

Anguish is a part of humanity, leaders said, caused by trials of family life, illness, loneliness and the sins of others.

“It is in the nature of a fallen world,” Elder Christofferson said, “where the devil rages and where everyone is imperfect, that there will be disappointments and offenses, suffering and sorrow, failure and loss, persecution and injustice.”

The balm of faith, eternal perspective and unity

Despite the pain and their unanswered questions, he said, the survivors and those who grieve their lost loved ones in Africa have comforted each other, turned to God and found solace through sacred music, scripture and prayer.

Elder Christofferson quoted 17–year–old survivor, Setso’ana Selebeli, who said, “Jesus Christ loves us and is with us, even though our hearts hurt.”

“It is only by looking to God,” Elder Christofferson said, “that individuals, families and even nations can flourish.”

Latter-day Saints can unite to mourn with the mourning, said Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Twelve.

“We join (Christ) in his work when we minister to others, especially the vulnerable and those who have been wounded, shattered or crushed by their earthly experiences,” he said.

Elder Renlund said those in pain and those helping them benefit from keeping covenants with God.

“The reward for keeping covenants with God is heavenly power,” he said, quoting President Nelson, “(and that) strengthens us to withstand our trials, temptations and heartaches better.”

Choosing Christ over anger brings peace

Elder Ulisses Soares described meeting church members whose families had endured indescribable trials, including kidnappings and murder.

In a talk encouraging people to adopt the characteristic of temperance, he called it a sacred privilege to meet those members. He did not find anger or resentment but quiet humility and a longing for healing and comfort in their sorrowful faces.

“These Saints pressed forward with faith in Jesus Christ,” he said, “choosing not to let their afflictions become gaps in their faith or cause instability in their testimony of the gospel.

“We can choose to respond with temperance to the frustrations and challenges of life,” he added. “Their quiet and unassuming example served as a tender invitation to walk the Savior’s path with temperance in all things. We felt as if we were in the presence of angels.”

God can turn human trials into new strength

President Eyring shared his own story of feeling despair as a young man struggling with schooling as he tried to master physics. He turned to prayer and felt God assure him that he was with him but proving him.

“To prove something is not simply to test it,” he said. “It is to increase its strength. To prove a piece of steel is to place it under strain. Heat, weight and pressure are added, until its true nature is enhanced and revealed. The steel is not weakened by the proving. In fact, it becomes something that can be trusted, something strong enough to bear greater burdens.”

That proving comes, he said, “in moments when we feel stretched beyond what we thought we could bear.”

Christ is the ultimate example of proving and strengthening, President Eyring said. He drank the bitter cup and took upon him all the sins and pain of the world.

“Because of his glorious Atonement, Jesus Christ can strengthen us in our times of trial,” he said. “He knows how to succor us because he has felt all the challenges that we will ever feel in mortality.”

A beloved Latter-day Saint hymn sung during the conference was a reminder that scripture promises that God’s children can prove him, too.

More than 18,000 people in the Conference Center sang, “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet,” which includes the phrase, “We doubt not the Lord nor his goodness, We’ve proved him in days that are past.”

Evidences for faith

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve retold the story of Christ spitting in the dirt and placing the clay on the eyes of a blind man he directed to wash in the Pool of Siloam. When some challenged him for receiving his sight from “a sinner,” the man said he had evidence that “I was blind, now I see.”

Elder Holland said he has evidence for God, Jesus Christ, the church and the Book of Mormon and offered strong testimony of their validity.

“I suppose I have had a thousand — 10,000? — other evidences that what I have spoken of today is true," he said.

Then he softly sang from the hymn, “Amazing Grace” to the reverent faithful gathered in the conference center and throughout the world:

Amazing grace — how sweet the sound —

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see.

A pleasing final judgment

Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles reflected on the Book of Mormon prophet Moroni’s final teachings, which described the final judgment as “pleasing.”

“What did Moroni understand that you and I need to learn?” he asked, noting other descriptions of the judgment bar as terrible and frightening.

“I believe this stark contrast in language indicates that the doctrine of Christ enabled Moroni and other prophets to anticipate that great day with eager and hopeful anticipation, instead of the fear they warned of for those not spiritually prepared.”

He taught that people ultimate choose their own judgment by the choices they make. Those who choose to follow God will find the final judgment pleasing.

“No one will need to tell us where to go,” he said. “In the Lord’s presence, we will acknowledge what we have chosen to become in mortality and know for ourselves where we should be in eternity.”

The President Nelson ethos and the Christlike ethos

The first recipient of the University of Utah’s “Dr. Russell M. Nelson and Dantzel W. Nelson Presidential Chair in Cardiothoracic Surgery” has reported that he has tried to become more like President Nelson, said Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Twelve.

Dr. Craig Selzman proudly created an RMN ethos at the school’s Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, using President Nelson’s initials and example.

“I believe that President Nelson’s ethos is simply a manifestation of his life-long discipleship of Jesus Christ,” Elder Renlund said in the Sunday afternoon session of conference.

Elder Renlund said the doctor’s efforts to link his work to President Nelson forced the apostle to ask how he has adopted a Christlike ethos since linking himself to the name of Christ.

“Take upon yourself the name of Jesus Christ,” Elder Renlund said. “Identify with him. Always remember him. Strive to be like him. Join him in his work. Receive his power and blessings in your life. Etch his name in your heart, willingly and intentionally. This gives you ‘standing’ before God and qualifies you for the Savior’s advocacy on your behalf.”

An invitation

Sister Andrea Muñoz Spannaus, second counselor in the Young Women general presidency, invited the faith’s young people to learn about the church’s apostles, who she said are prophets, seers and revelators who testify of Christ — his existence, his ministry and his divinity.

“In the coming days, I invite you to kneel, open your hearts and pray with faith to Heavenly Father, asking him to confirm to you that his chosen prophet and apostles are his voice on the earth today.”