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You young adults are now living in “the decade of decision.” Many of the most important choices of your life will be made in your late teens and twenties, such as “going to the temple, serving a mission, getting an education, selecting an occupation, and choosing a companion and being sealed for time and for all eternity in the holy temple.” Today I speak particularly to those persons who are struggling with one of these important decisions—some perhaps almost paralyzed from fear of making the wrong decision and some maybe needing only a little reinforcement to remain confident in a decision made previously. Four lessons of inspired decision making by Nephi in the well-known opening chapters of the Book of Mormon, if applied, can reduce your fears and increase your confidence to go forward. Read, watch, or listen to this devotional address at speeches.byu.edu

My hope today is to encourage you that healing is possible if you apply the principles that lead to healing. I will try to explain clearly three principles that can lead to healing and to knowing that all healing is a gift from Jesus Christ, for, as Isaiah said, “with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). Healing is much more than “getting better” or “having our problems go away.” Healing is growth, development, and maturation. In a word, healing is change. It takes time and energy and struggle, but healing teaches us.  Read, listen or watch this devotional address at speeches.byu.edu

Face the future with optimism. I believe we are standing on the threshold of a new era of growth, prosperity, and abundance. Barring a calamity or unexpected international crisis, I think the next few years will bring a resurgence in the world economy as new discoveries are made in communication, medicine, energy, transportation, physics, computer technology, and other fields of endeavor. I believe many of today’s young adults will be active participants in temporal blessings if they keep the commandments of the Lord. With prosperity will come a unique challenge—a test that will try many to their spiritual core. As you step into this new world of prosperity and engage in converting your education and skills into financial success, you will always have to distinguish between wants and needs. From a commencement address given at BYU-Idaho on April 6, 2012. Read , listen , or watch at byui.edu.

The pavilion that seems to intercept divine aid does not cover God but occasionally covers us. God is never hidden, yet sometimes we are. From a conference talk given in October, 2012. Read, watch, or listen at lds.org

If life hasn’t yet taught you the wisdom of the proverb I am about to share, it would be my prayer that by the end of my remarks it will have enlightened your understanding and touched your hearts sufficiently to motivate you to make some helpful and wise changes in your life. Here is the proverb: “Enter not into the path of the wicked. . . . Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.”  2 The wisdom of Solomon in this passage is to be discovered in the word  avoid.  Solomon had discovered, as all wise people do, one of life’s most helpful guiding principles:  It is easier to avoid temptation than it is to resist temptation. From a devotional address given at BYU on September 13, 2013. Read, watch, or listen at speeches.byu.edu

In moments of fear or doubt or troubling times, hold the ground you have already won, even if that ground is limited. In the growth we all have to experience in mortality, the spiritual equivalent of this boy’s affliction or this parent’s desperation is going to come to all of us. When those moments come and issues surface, the resolution of which is not immediately forthcoming, hold fast to what you already know and stand strong until additional knowledge comes. From a general conference address given in April, 2013. Read , watch , or listen at lds.org