Tolstoy and Mormons

[Tolstoy] envisioned a world ruled not by policemen but by moral choice, a world where every man's chief ambition was to be Christlike."

So what value do you think Tolstoy would have placed on the church which contains the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ? I will close with a quote from Elder David B. Haight in the Ensign, May, 1980, where he reports a conversation between Tolstoy and Andrew White, the foreign ambassador of the United States to Russia: "[The Mormons'] principles teach the people not only of heaven and its attendant glories, but how to live so that their social and economic relations with each other are placed on a sound basis.

If the people follow the teaching of this church, nothing can stop their progress—it will be limitless."There have been many great movements started in the past but they have died or been modified before they reach maturity. If Mormonism is able to endure, unmodified, until it reaches the third and fourth generation, it is destined to become the greatest power the world has ever known."

In The Home

Remember that having religious observance in the home is as important as providing food, clothing and shelter.

Elder Quentin L. Cook

To The Youth

“Some years ago another First Presidency made this statement, and your First Presidency today echoes the appeal. I quote, ‘To the youth . . . , we plead with you to live clean [lives], for the unclean life leads only to suffering, misery, and woe physically,—and spiritually it is the path to destruction. How glorious and near to the angels is youth that is clean; this youth has joy unspeakable here and eternal happiness hereafter. Sexual purity is youth’s most precious possession; it is the foundation of all righteousness.’ “May you have the courage to be chaste and virtuous.”

Thomas S. Monson, “May You Have Courage,” Ensign, May 2009, 126

A Witness to Sacred Things

"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaims to the world that this church is a restoration of Christ's church. A restoration was necessary because prophets and Apostles, who were the foundation of the Lord's original church, were put to death or otherwise taken. The Church today is built on a foundation of prophets and Apostles, with Jesus Christ as its chief cornerstone. It is therefore not a reformation, a revision, a reorganization, or a mere sect. It is the Church of Jesus Christ restored in these latter days. "A distinguishing feature of the Church is the claim to continuous revelation from the Lord—'the making known of divine truth by communications from its heavens.' (James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith, 12th ed., Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1924, p. 296.) Today, the Lord's church is guided by the same relationship with Deity that existed in previous dispensations. "This claim is not made lightly. I know there is revelation, as I am a witness to sacred things also experienced by others who administer His work."

David B. Haight, "A Prophet Chosen of the Lord," Ensign, May 1986, 7

An Invitation

“The invitation to repent is rarely a voice of chastisement but rather a loving appeal to turn around and to ‘re-turn’ toward God. It is the beckoning of a loving Father and His Only Begotten Son to be more than we are, to reach up to a higher way of life, to change, and to feel the happiness of keeping the commandments.”

Neil L. Andersen, “Repent . . . That I May Heal You,” Ensign, Nov. 2009, 40

Essential Foundation Stone

Essential Foundation Stone

"The year was 1820; the season, spring. The boy with questions walked into the grove of his father's farm. There, finding himself alone, he pleaded in prayer for that wisdom which James promised would be given liberally to those who ask of God in faith (see James 1:5). There, in circumstances which he has described in much detail, he beheld the Father and the Son, the great God of the universe and the risen Lord, both of whom spoke to him."This transcendent experience opened the marvelous work of restoration. It lifted the curtain on the long-promised dispensation of the fulness of times."For more than a century and a half, enemies, critics, and some would-be scholars have worn out their lives trying to disprove the validity of that vision. Of course they cannot understand it. The things of God are understood by the Spirit of God. There had been nothing of comparable magnitude since the Son of God walked the earth in mortality. Without it as a foundation stone for our faith and organization, we have nothing. With it, we have everything."Much has been written, much will be written, in an effort to explain it away. The finite mind cannot comprehend it. But the testimony of the Holy Spirit, experienced by countless numbers of people all through the years since it happened, bears witness that it is true, that it happened as Joseph Smith said it happened, that it was as real as the sunrise over Palmyra, that it is an essential foundation stone, a cornerstone, without which the Church could not be 'fitly framed together.' "

Gordon B. Hinckley, "Four Cornerstones of Faith," Ensign, Feb. 2004, 5

I add my witness that I know this to be truth too! - Becky Rose Mason

John Adams:

“As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation.”

(In God We Trust, p. 75.)