Boyd K. Packer Quotes - 167 quotes

Boyd K. Packer (1924 – 2015) was an influential American religious leader and educator. He served as the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 2008 until his death. Born in Brigham City, Utah, Packer was the tenth of eleven children. He served as a bomber pilot during World War II and later pursued higher education, earning degrees from Utah State University and Brigham Young University. Packer was known for his work in the Church Educational System and his extensive service as a general authority of the LDS Church, beginning in 1961. Throughout his life, Packer was also an accomplished artist, particularly known for his bird carvings. He married Donna Smith in 1947, and they had ten children together.

 He does not have to be spiteful or vengeful in order that punishment will come from the breaking of the moral code. The laws are established of themselves.
- Boyd K. Packer
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 Lehi's dream or vision of the iron rod has in it everything a Latter-day Saint needs to understand the test of life.

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 At your baptism and confirmation, you took hold of the iron rod. But you are never safe. It is after you have partaken of that fruit that your test will come.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The whole focus of our lives in the military had been on destruction. That is what war is about. We were inspired by the noble virtue of patriotism. To be devoted to destruction without being destroyed yourself spritually or morally was the test of life.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 You too live in a time of war, the spiritual war that will never end.

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 The ultimate end of all activity in the Church is that a man and his wife and their children might be happy at home, protected by the principles and laws of the gospel, sealed safely in the covenants of the everlasting priesthood.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 I repeat, save for the exception of the very few who defect to perdition, there is no habit, no addiction, no rebellion, no transgression, no apostasy, no crime exempted from the promise of complete forgiveness. That is the promise of the atonement of Christ.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 If men were really 'dead' when they die, why concern ourselves? why the vast resources of time and money and effort directed at this work? If there were no resurrection, why would we do it? But if there is life beyond the veil. Every thought or word or act we direct at this sacred work is pleasing to the Lord. Every hour spent on genealogical research, however unproductive it appears, is worthwhile. it is pleasing to the Lord. it is our testimony to Him that we accept the doctrine of the Resurrection and the plan of salvation. it draws us close to those who have gone before. it welds eternal links in family associations and draws us closer to Him who is our Lord and stands in the presence of Him who is our Eternal Father.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 There are some spiritually destructive techniques used in the field of counseling. When you entrust your members to others, do not let them be subject to these things. Solve problems in the Lord’s way. Some counselors want to delve deeper than is emotionally or spiritually healthy. They sometimes want to draw out and analyze and take apart and dissect. While a certain amount of catharsis may be healthy, overmuch of it can be degenerating. It is seldom as easy to put something back together as it is to take it apart. By probing too deeply, or talking endlessly about some problems, we can foolishly cause the very thing we are trying to prevent. You probably know about the parents who said, “Now, children, while we are gone, whatever you do, don’t take the stool and go into the pantry and climb up to the second shelf and move the cracker box and get that sack of beans and put one up your nose, will you?” There is a lesson there.

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 When the servants of the Lord determine to do as He commands, we move ahead. As we proceed, we are joined at the crossroads by those who have been prepared to help us. They come with skills and abilities precisely suited to our needs. And, we find provisions; information, inventions, help of various kinds, set along the way waiting for us to take them up. It is though someone knew we would be traveling that way. We see the invisible hand of the Almighty providing for us. For instance, inventions in the fields of travel and communication have come along just as we were ready for them…The airplane did not come as an accidental discovery…Revelation was involved. It came precisely when we could use it to move across the world to restore the Gospel…When we are ready, there will be revealed whatever we need—we will find it waiting at the crossroads.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 When people are able but unwilling to take care of themselves, we are responsible to employ the dictum of the Lord that the idler shall not eat the bread of the laborer. (See D&C 42:42)

- Boyd K. Packer

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 It is a self-help system, not a quick handout system. It requires a careful inventory of all personal and family resources, all of which must be committed before anything is added from the outside. It is not an unkind or an unfeeling bishop who requires a member to work to the fullest extent he can for what he receives from Church welfare.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 My feeling about our present opportunity with this change in funding is based on doctrine. For generations we have taught that the temporal salivation of the Saints depends upon independence, industry, thrift, and self-reliance. We would never stray from that in teaching about temporal things. On the other hand, it is possible that we are doing the very thing spiritually that we have been resolutely resisting temporally; fostering dependence rather than independence, extravagance rather than thrift, indulgence rather than self-reliance. We send two diverging signals and the Lord has told us: "if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand" (Mark 3:25).

- Boyd K. Packer

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 But for the family there is no such thing, not so much as a committee. The family has been everybody's business. Everybody's business, as we know, is nobody's business. I used to worry as we designed programs to fit the weak, unstable family, scheduling for men, women, children, youth, young adults, singles, everything, with too little attention paid to the effect it was having on stable families. I remember when some pressed for a written form so families could report their compliance with the family home evening program. We did not permit it. And to this day we have some who want to program formal interviews between parents and their children

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 I once wondered if we should create an agency to represent the family. But on more serious reflection, I changed my view. There are some things which cannot be counted and should not be programmed. Matters with deepest doctrinal significance must be left to married couples and to parents to decide for themselves. We have referred them to gospel principles and left them to exercise their moral agency. Serious problems often come voluntarily to their bishop. That is the best way.

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 A virtue when pressed to the extreme may turn into a vice. Unreasonable devotion to an ideal, without considering the practical application of it, ruins the ideal itself.

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 Men and women have complementary, not competing, responsibilities. There is difference but not inequity. Intelligence and talent favor both of them. But in the woman’s part, she is not just equal to man; she is superior! She can do that which he can never do; not in all eternity can he do it. There are complementing rewards which are hers and hers alone.

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 You who have such talents might well ask, 'Whence comes this gift'? And gift it is. You may have cultivated it and developed it, but it was given to you. Most of us do not have it. You were not more deserving than we, but you are a good deal more responsible. If you use your gift properly, opportunities for service are opened that will be beneficial eternally for you and for others.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 We have been taught to store a year’s supply of food, clothing, and, if possible, fuel—at home. There has been no attempt to set up storerooms in every chapel. We know that in the crunch our members may not be able to get to the chapel for supplies. Can we not see that the same principle applies to inspiration and revelation, the solving of problems, to counsel, and to guidance? We need to have a source of it stored in every home, not just in the bishop’s office. If we do not do that, we are quite as threatened spiritually as we should be were we to assume that the Church should supply all material needs.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 While fathers and sons bear the burden of the priesthood, it was declared in the very beginning that it was not good for man to be alone. A companion, or “helpmeet,” was given him. The word meet means equal. Man and woman, together, were not to be alone. Together they constituted a fountain of life. While neither can generate life without the other, the mystery of life unfolds when these two become one.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Ever and always there is the destroyer waiting to disturb and disrupt, to scatter abrasives into this marvelous system. His purpose is to rupture those circuits which interconnect the physical, the emotional, and the spiritual, or to cross-connect them in ways that never were intended. His purpose is to pollute that sacred fountain of life and to generate, if he can, unnatural affections. (See 2 Tim. 3:2–3.)

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The separate natures of man and woman were designed by the Father of us all to fulfill the purposes of the gospel plan.

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 The well-being of the mother, the child, the family, the Church, indeed of all humanity depends upon protecting that process. The obligations of motherhood are never-ending. The addition of such duties as those which attend ordination to the priesthood would constitute an intrusion into, an interruption to, perhaps the avoidance of, that crucial contribution which only a mother can provide.

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 The prophet who said that “no success [in any field of endeavor] can compensate for failure in the home” (David O. McKay) did not exempt callings in the Church.

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 It should not disturb either men or women that some responsibilities are bestowed upon one and not the other. Duties of the priesthood are delegated to men and are patriarchal, which means “of the father.” From the very beginning this has been so. The scriptures plainly state that they were “confirmed to be handed down from father to son. … This order was instituted in the days of Adam.” (D&C 107:40–41.)

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  When our sons were growing up, they enjoyed a very broad tolerance from their father toward their mischief and mistakes. But there was no tolerance for even the slightest disrespect toward their mother.        And the question our daughters-in-law have heard most often from me has been, “Is he being good to you?”

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 The gospel might be likened to the keyboard of a piano—a full keyboard with a selection of keys on which one who is trained can play a variety without limits; a ballad to express love, a march to rally, a melody to soothe, and a hymn to inspire; an endless variety to suit every mood and satisfy every need. How shortsighted it is, then, to choose a single key and endlessly tap out the monotony of a single note, or even two or three notes, when the full keyboard of limitless harmony can be played. How disappointing when the fullness of the gospel, the whole keyboard, is here upon the earth, that many churches tap on a single key. The note they stress may be essential to a complete harmony of religious experience, but it is, nonetheless, not all there is. It isn’t the fullness.

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 To endow is to enrich, to give to another something long lasting and of much worth. The temple endowment ordinances enrich in three ways: a) The one receiving the ordinance is given power from God. “Recipients are endowed with power from on high.” b) A recipient is also endowed with information and knowledge. “They receive an education relative to the Lord's purposes and plans.” Mormon Doctrine, page 227.) c) When sealed at the altar a person is the recipient of glorious blessings, powers, and honors as part of his endowment.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The world seems to be turned upside down...The rules of honesty and integrity and basic morality are now ignored. Conversation is laced with profanity. You see that in art and literature, in drama and entertainment. Instead of being refined, they have become course.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Several publications are now being circulated about the Church which defend and promote gay or lesbian conduct. They wrest the scriptures attempting to prove that these impulses are inborn, cannot be overcome, and should not be resisted; and therefore, such conduct has a morality of its own. They quote scriptures to justify perverted acts between consenting adults. That same logic would justify incest or the molesting of little children of either gender. Neither the letter nor the spirit of moral law condones any such conduct.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 But few have captured the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the restoration of it in music, in art, in literature. They have not, therefore, even though they were gifted made a lasting contribution to the onrolling of the church and kingdom of God in the dispensation of the fullness of times. They have therefore missed doing what they might have done, and they have missed being what they might have become.?

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 True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior. The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior.

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 Preoccupation with unworthy behavior can lead to unworthy behavior. That is why we stress so forcefully the study of the doctrines of the gospel.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 If a member is unable to sustain himself, then he is to call upon his own family, and then upon the Church, in that order, and not upon the government at all.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 When people are able but unwilling to take care of themselves, we are responsible to employ the dictum of the Lord that the idler shall not eat the bread of the laborer. (See D&C 42:42.)

- Boyd K. Packer

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 There should not be the slightest embarrassment for any member to be assisted by the Church. Provided, that is that he has contributed all that he can. President Romney has emphasized, “To care for people on any other basis is to do them more harm than good.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “The purpose of Church welfare is not to relieve [a Church member] from taking care of himself.”

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 Once you really determine to follow that guide, your testimony will grow and you will find provisions set out along the way in unexpected places, as evidence that someone knew that you would be traveling that way.

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 Boyd K. Packer, General Conference, April 1995 The wicked who now oppose the work of the Lord, while different from, are no less terrible than the plundering Amalekites. The sustaining of the prophet is still an essential ongoing part of the safety of this people

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 The fact that sacred spiritual experiences are not discussed widely---for instance, by the General Authorities----should not be taken as an indication that the Saints do not receive them. Such spiritual gifts are with the Church today as they were in years past.

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 The punishment may, for the most part, consist of the torment we inflict upon ourselves. It may be the loss of privilege or progress. We are punished by our sins, if not for them.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Years ago I visited a school in Albuquerque. The teacher told me about a youngster who brought a kitten to class. As you can imagine, that disrupted everything. She had him hold the kitten up in front of the children. It went well until one of the children asked, “Is it a boy kitty or a girl kitty?” Not wanting to get into that lesson, the teacher said, “It doesn’t matter. It’s just a kitty.” But they persisted. Finally, one boy raised his hand and said, “I know how you can tell.” Resigned to face it, the teacher said, “How can you tell?” And the student answered, “You can vote on it!” You may laugh at this story, but if we are not alert, there are those today who not only tolerate but advocate voting to change laws that would legalize immorality, as if a vote would somehow alter the designs of God’s laws and nature. A law against nature would be impossible to enforce. For instance, what good would a vote against the law of gravity do?

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 I returned to Elder Lee and told him that I saw no way to move in the direction I was counseled to go. He said, ‘The trouble with you is you want to see the end from the beginning.’ I replied that I would like to see at least a step or two ahead. Then came the lesson of a lifetime: ‘You must learn to walk to the edge of the light, and then a few steps into the darkness; then the light will appear and show the way before you.’ Then he quoted these 18 words from the Book of Mormon: ‘Dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.’

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Before going to the temple for the first time, or even after many times, it may help you to realize that the teaching in the temples is done in symbolic fashion. ... Have you ever wondered why it is that many patrons of the temple can go session after session, week after week, month after month, year after year, and never become bored or tired or resistant? At the end of that time they are quite as anxious to go as they were in their beginning days. That is a testimony indeed. By that time, you might imagine, they could have the entire endowment memorized. Yes, they could, and I suppose some of them do, particularly those who are temple workers. How, then, could they continue to learn? The answer to that lies in the fact that the teaching in the temple is symbolic. As we grow and mature and learn from all of the experiences in life, the truths demonstrated in the temple in symbolic fashion take on a renewed meaning. The veil is drawn back a little bit more. Our knowledge and vision of the eternities expands. It is always refreshing. ... If you will go to the temple and remember that the teaching is symbolic you will never go in the proper spirit without coming away with your vision extended, feeling a little more exalted, with your knowledge increased as to things that are spiritual.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 It is the understanding of almost everyone that success, to be complete, must include a generous portion of both fame and fortune as essential ingredients. The world seems to work on that premise. The premise is false. It is not true. The Lord taught otherwise.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior. The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior …That is why we stress so forcefully the study of the doctrines of the gospel.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Nowhere is the right of choice defended with more vigor than with abortion. Having chosen to act, and a conception having occurred, it cannot then be unchosen. But there are still choices; always a best one. Sometimes the covenant of marriage has been broken; more often none was made. In or out of marriage, abortion is not an individual choice. At a minimum, three lives are involved.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “The authority of a man set apart as president of a stake is limited to the boundaries of that stake. … When a man is ordained a bishop, he is also set apart to preside in a specific ward and has no authority outside its boundaries.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Moral laws do not apply to animals for they have no agency. Where there is agency, where there is choice, moral laws must apply.

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 No work is more of a protection to this Church than temple work and the family history research that supports it. No work is more spiritually refining. No work we do gives us more power.

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 The word tolerance is also invoked as though it overrules everything else. Tolerance may be a virtue, but it is not the commanding one.

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 We live in a time of war, that spiritual war that will never end.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 You need not be either rich or hold high position to be completely successful and truly happy. In fact, if these things come to you, and they may, true success must be achieved in spite of them, not because of them. It is remarkably difficult to teach this truth. If one who is not well known, and not well compensated, claims that he has learned for himself that neither fame nor fortune are essential to success, we tend to reject his statement as self-serving. What else could he say and not count himself a failure? If someone who has possession of fame or fortune asserts that neither matters to success or happiness, we suspect that his expression is also self-serving, even patronizing. Therefore, we will not accept as reliable authorities either those who have fame and fortune, or those who have not. We question that either can be an objective witness. That leaves only one course open to us: trial and error—to learn for oneself, by experience, about prominence and wealth or their opposites. We thereafter struggle through life, perhaps missing both fame and fortune, to finally learn one day that one can, indeed, succeed without possessing either. Or we may, one day, have both and learn that neither has made us happy; neither is basic to the recipe for true success and for complete happiness. That is a very slow way to learn.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 President Romney has emphasized, “To care for people on any other basis is to do them more harm than good. The purpose of Church welfare is not to relieve [a Church member] from taking care of himself." The principle of self-reliance or personal independence is fundamental to the happy life. In too many places, in too many ways, we are getting away from it.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “Priesthood is the authority and the power which God has granted to men on earth to act for Him. When we exercise priesthood authority properly, we do what He would do if He were present.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “Authority in the priesthood comes by way of ordination; power in the priesthood comes through faithful and obedient living in honoring covenants. It is increased by exercising and using the priesthood in righteousness.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “The priesthood is greater than any of its offices. … After the priesthood has been conferred upon him, he is ordained to an office in the priesthood. All offices derive their authority from the priesthood. … The priesthood is not divisible. An elder holds as much priesthood as an Apostle. (See D&C 20:38) When a man receives the priesthood, he receives all of it. However, there are offices within the priesthood—divisions of authority and responsibility. One may exercise his priesthood according to the rights of the office to which he is ordained or set apart. … There are different rights, privileges, and authorities which expand with each succeeding office.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “All men who are ordained Apostles and sustained as members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles have all priesthood keys conferred upon them. The President of the Church is the only person on earth who has the right to exercise all the keys in their fulness. He receives authority by setting apart by the Twelve Apostles.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 That is a difficult balance because some families need more support than others. Perhaps we have been over-programming stable families to meet the needs of those with problems. We must seek a better way.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Question: Will that boy go on a mission? I have known young men who have thought to disqualify themselves rather than to put what they feel is an impossible financial burden upon the family with perhaps the mother leaving younger children to find work to support him on his mission.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 In recent years we might be compared to a team of doctors issuing prescriptions to cure or to immunize our members against spiritual diseases. Each time some moral or spiritual ailment was diagnosed, we have rushed to the pharmacy to concoct another remedy, encapsulate it as a program and send it out with pages of directions for use. While we all seem to agree that over medication, over-programming, is a critically serious problem, we have failed to reduce the treatments. It has been virtually impossible to affect any reduction in programs. Each time we try, advocates cry to high heaven that we are putting the spiritual lives of our youth at risk. If symptoms reappear, we program even heavier doses of interviews, activities, meetings, and assessments.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 It is time now for you who head the auxiliaries and the departments and those of us who advise them, after all the repetitive cautions from the First Presidency, to change our mind-set and realize that a reduction of and a secession from that constant programming must be accomplished.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The hardest ailment to treat is a virtue carried to the extreme. We cannot seem to learn that too much, even of a good thing, or too many good things, like vitamins taken in overdose, can be harmful.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The most dangerous side effect of all we have prescribed in the way of programming and instructions and all is the over regimentation of the Church. This over regimentation is a direct result of too many programmed instructions. If we would compare the handbooks of today with those of a generation ago you would quickly see what I mean.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 "Teach them correct principles," the prophet said, "and then let," let--a big word, "them govern themselves." (See messages of the Firsts Presidency, p. 54.) Our members should not, according to the scriptures, need to be commanded in all things. (See D&C 58:26)

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The agency the Lord has given us is not a "free" agency. The term "free" agency is not found in the revelations. It is a moral agency. The Lord has given us freedom of choice: "That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment." (D&C 101:78)

- Boyd K. Packer

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 We cannot program individual and family prayer, indeed all of the basic human relationships, the emotional and the feelings, the bonds that bind man to woman and parents to children, all of the quiet influences, the sacred things that are centered in family life. The family is apart from and above the other organizations and under the sealing authority, more enduring than them all.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Our Father’s Plan: We rightly call it the Great Plan of Happiness, for so it is. It should be known as well as Our Father’s Plan. As we grow older and, we hope, wiser, particularly when we have children of our own, we come to realize that the whole plan of happiness was designed for us and for them by our Father.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 It is possible to be both rich and famous and at the same time succeed spiritually. But the Lord warned of the difficulty of it when He talked of camels and needles (see Matt. 19:24).

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Position and wealth are no more essential to true happiness in mortality than their absence can prevent you from achieving it.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Many in the world now press for a melding of the identities of man and woman, claiming that the virtue of equality requires a homogenization of all relationships. Following an absolutely hopeless quest, some seek for an enduring physical and spiritual relationship with one of the same gender. That wicked deception has unleashed a pestilence which now threatens the whole of humanity. There can be no fulfillment there. To find fulfillment, they must—and praise be to God, they can—find it where it has been from the beginning.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Some members wonder why their priesthood leaders will not accept them just as they are and simply comfort them in what they call pure Christian love. Pure Christian love, the love of Christ, does not presuppose approval of all conduct. Surely the ordinary experiences of parenthood teach that one can be consumed with love for another and yet be unable to approve unworthy conduct. We cannot, as a church, approve unworthy conduct or accept into full fellowship individuals who live or who teach standards that are grossly in violation of that which the Lord requires of Latter-day Saints. If we, out of sympathy, should approve unworthy conduct, it might give present comfort to someone but would not ultimately contribute to that person’s happiness.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Put difficult questions in the back of your minds and go about your lives. Ponder and pray quietly and persistently about them. The answer may not come as a lightning bolt. It may come as a little inspiration here and a little there, ‘line upon line, precept upon precept’ (D&C 98:12). Some answers will come from reading the scriptures, some from hearing speakers. And, occasionally, when it is important, some will come by very direct and powerful inspiration.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “A virtue when pressed to the extreme may turn into a vice. Unreasonable devotion to an ideal, without considering the practical application of it, ruins the ideal itself.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 We want our children and their children to know that the choice of life is not between fame and obscurity, nor is the choice between wealth and poverty. The choice is between good and evil, and that is a very different matter indeed. When we finally understand this lesson, thereafter our happiness will not be determined by material things. We may be happy without them or successful in spite of them. Wealth and prominence do not always come from having earned them. Our worth is not measured by renown or by what we own.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 It is the misapprehension of most people that if you are good, really good, at what you do, you will eventually be both widely known and well compensated.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Much of the teaching relating to the deeper spiritual things in the Church, particularly in the temple, is symbolic.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Our lives are made up of thousands of everyday choices. Over the years these little choices will be bundled together and show clearly what we value.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Those who talk of blind obedience may appear to know many things, but they do not understand the doctrines of the gospel. There is an obedience that comes from a knowledge of the truth that transcends any external form of control. We are not obedient because we are blind, we are obedient because we can see.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The Lord revealed that the purpose of it all is “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” (Moses 1:39.) Ordinances and covenants were ordained to protect this power to generate life. When laws are obeyed, happiness follows, for “men are, that they might have joy.” (2 Ne. 2:25.)

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “Brother Widtsoe reaffirmed that ‘those who give themselves with all their might and mind to this [family history] work receive help from the other side. Whoever seeks to help those in the other side receives help in return in all the affairs of life’” (Boyd K. Packer, The Holy Temple, 252).

- Boyd K. Packer

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 I have come to believe also that it is not wise to continually talk of unusual spiritual experiences. They are to be guarded with care and shared only when the Spirit itself prompts you to use them to the blessing of others.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “We have done very well at distributing the authority of the priesthood. We have priesthood authority planted nearly everywhere. We have quorums of elders and high priests worldwide. But distributing the authority of the priesthood has raced, I think, ahead of distributing the power of the priesthood. The priesthood does not have the strength that it should have and will not have until the power of the priesthood is firmly fixed in the families as it should be.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 When our youth are taught that they are but animals, they feel free, even compelled, to respond to every urge and impulse. We should not be so puzzled at what is happening to society. We have sown the wind, and now we inherit the whirlwind. The chickens, so the saying goes, are now coming home to roost.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “The priesthood is always regulated by those who have the keys… While the word key has other meanings, like keys of wisdom or keys of knowledge, the keys of the priesthood are the right to preside and direct the affairs of the Church within a jurisdiction. All priesthood keys are within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and no keys exist outside the Church on earth.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 It was meant to be that life would be a challenge. To suffer some anxiety, some depression, even some failure is normal. If you have a good, miserable day once in a while--or several in a row--stand steady and face them. Things will straighten out. There is great purpose in our struggle in life.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “There are spiritual and physical laws to obey if we are to be happy.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The scriptures speak of tithes and of offerings; they do not speak of assessments or fund-raising. To be an offering, it must be given freely—offered. The way is open now for many more of us to participate in this spiritually refining experience.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “You are growing up in enemy territory. When you become mature spiritually, you will understand how the adversary has infiltrated the world around you.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 As I grow in age and experience, I grow ever less concerned over whether others agree with us. I grow ever more concerned that they understand us. If they do understand, they have their agency and can accept or reject the gospel as they please.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 It is not an easy thing for us to defend the position that bothers so many others.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 I returned to Elder Lee and told him that I saw no way to move in the direction I was counseled to go. He said, ‘The trouble with you is you want to see the end from the beginning.’ I replied that I would like to see at least a step or two ahead. Then came the lesson of a lifetime: ‘You must learn to walk to the edge of the light, and then a few steps into the darkness; then the light will appear and show the way before you.’ Then he quoted these 18 words from the Book of Mormon:‘Dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith’ (Ether 12:6).

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Every verse, whether oft-quoted or obscure, must be measured against other verses. There are complementary and tempering teachings in the scriptures which bring a balanced knowledge of truth.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “He does not have to be spiteful or vengeful in order that punishment will come from the breaking of the moral code. The laws are established of themselves.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “When people are able but unwilling to take care of themselves, we are responsible to employ the dictum of the Lord that the idler shall not eat the bread of the laborer.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Some suppose that the organization was handed to the Prophet Joseph Smith like a set of plans and specifications for a building, with all of the details known at the beginning. But it did not come that way. Rather, it came a piece at a time as the Brethren were ready and as they inquired of God.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The Lord will bless us as we attend to the sacred ordinance work of the temples. Blessings there will not be limited to our temple service. We will be blessed in all of our affairs.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior. The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Our labors in the temple cover us with a shield and a protection, both individually and as a people. So come to the temple — come and claim your blessings. It is a sacred work.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The Lord will bless us as we attend to the sacred ordinance work of the temples. Blessings there will not be limited to our temple service. We will be blessed in all of our affairs.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 You may not be able, simply by choice, to free yourself at once from unworthy feelings. You can choose to give up the immoral expression of them.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Temples are the very center of the spiritual strength of the Church. We should expect that the adversary will try to interfere with us as a Church and with us individually as we seek to participate in this sacred and inspired work. Temple work brings so much resistance because it is the source of so much spiritual power to the Latter-day Saints and to the entire Church.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 All of us are subject to feelings and impulses. Some are worthy and some of them are not; some of them are natural and some of them are not. We are to control them, meaning we are to direct them according to the moral law.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 I have come to believe also that it is not wise to continually talk of unusual spiritual experiences. They are to be guarded with care and shared only when the Spirit itself prompts us to use them to the blessing of others.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 We now have ourselves in a corner. For instance, we have reason to be seriously concerned about the lack of reverence in the Church. Perhaps this one thing, general across the world, is as much an interference with and a short-circuiting of inspiration as anything that could be pointed to. However, I dare not press for the corrections of that issue because we do not seem to be able to solve a problem without designing a program with pages of instruction and sending it out again.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The plan of redemption, with its three divisions, might be likened to a grand three-act play. Act I is entitled “Premortal Life.” The scriptures describe it as our First Estate. (See Jude 1:6; Abr. 3:26-28)  Act II, from birth to the time of resurrection, the “Second Estate.” And Act III, "Life After Death or Eternal Life".

- Boyd K. Packer

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 They would not, for instance, take the same position with regard to education. Who would not smile at a statement that all schools are alike, that one is just as good as another, and that a person deserves the same diploma no matter which school he attends, or which course he takes, or for how long? Would you agree to send students to just any school, taking any variety of courses, and then award them specialized degrees, anything they wanted—in architecture, law, medicine? Such an attitude would suggest that a man would be just as good a surgeon by not studying for it as he would by following the prerequisite courses. No person who has given it real substantial thought would take such a position, and neither you nor I would want to be under the knife of a surgeon who had been trained, or maybe I should say “untrained,” in such a pattern.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Now we do not say they are wrong so much as we say they are incomplete. The fullness of the gospel has been restored. The power and the authority to act for Him is present with us. The power and the authority of the priesthood rests upon this church.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The scriptures are generally positive rather than negative in their themes, and it is a mistake to assume that anything not specifically prohibited in the “letter of the law” is somehow approved of the Lord.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 All the Lord approves is not detailed in the scriptures, neither is all that is forbidden.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The Lord said, “It is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant.” (D&C 58:26.) The prophets told us in the Book of Mormon that “men are instructed sufficiently that they know good from evil.” (2 Ne. 2:5; see Hel. 14:31.)

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Life is meant to be a test to see if we will keep the commandments of God. (See 2 Ne. 2:5.) We are free to obey or to ignore the spirit and the letter of the law. But the agency granted to man is a moral agency. (See D&C 101:78.) We are not free to break our covenants and escape the consequences.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The laws of God are ordained to make us happy. Happiness cannot coexist with immorality: the prophet Alma told us in profound simplicity that “wickedness never was happiness.” (Alma 41:10.)

- Boyd K. Packer

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 We should not, according to the scriptures, need to be commanded in all things.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Meetings and activities can multiply until they take “strength unto themselves” at the expense of the gospel—of true worship.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Church activities must be replaced by family activities. Just as we have been taught with temporal affairs, the spirit of independence, thrift, and self-reliance will be re-enthroned as guiding principles in the homes of Latter-day Saints.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “God must have a huge sense of humor So righteously to resist The temptation of turning the tables On your pretending he does not exist.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Local leaders have been effectively conditioned to hold back until programmed as to what to do, how, to whom, when, and for how long. Can you see that when we overemphasize programs at the expense of principles, we are in danger of losing the inspiration, the resourcefulness, that which should characterize Latter-day Saints. Then the very principle of individual revelation is in jeopardy and we drift from a fundamental gospel principle!

- Boyd K. Packer

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 It is just that we can do far too much of good things. One or two reports of inactivity or extreme behavior and we rush to make corrections across the whole Church with more programs, more interviews, more assessments.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 This change will cause a reduction in programs and activities; that we intended. I quickly admit that there are risks involved when we simplify instructions or loosen up on regimentation. It is no different than what we face when our own children begin to mature and venture out into the world. Wise parents loosen the apron strings and help children to leave the nest to start anew the cycle of mortal life.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 If we teach them correct principles rather than overburdening them with too many instructions and programmed activities, they can be both free and spiritually safe in any nation, among any people, in any age. If we indulge them too much, or make them too dependent, we weaken them morally, then they will be compelled by nature itself to find the wrong way.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The only safe course is to make sure that they know the gospel, that they are acquainted with the scriptures, with revelation, with repentance, with how the Holy Ghost functions, with the voice of the Spirit.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 A knowledge of right and wrong does not automatically result from programmed activities. It must be taught.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 We need a sensible balancing of and a careful withdrawal of this medication of over programming. It can begin simply by restraining ourselves from writing more prescriptions, and by counseling local leaders not to replace the ones we phase out. So, the problem Regional Representatives! There will be the tendency, we have seen it already when we began to phase out and withdraw, for the local leaders, conditioned as they are, to want to use that time and build up more detailed programs on their own.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 There is no agency without choice; there is no choice without freedom; there is no freedom without risk; nor true freedom without responsibility.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 It is important to maintain a cordial and cooperative relationship with the leaders and members of other denominations. Representatives of the Church should not join interfaith organizations that have as their focus ecumenical activities or joint worship services. Interfaith relationships should center on moral values and on community betterment.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 I repeat, perhaps for one time only we have the opportunity to adjust that balance so that Church activities sustain parents and families rather than the other way around.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Now, there will be smaller budgets and fewer activities, fewer programs. That will leave a vacuum. Nothing likes a vacuum. We must resist, absolutely resist, the temptation to program that vacuum.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The scriptures speak of tithes and of offering they do not speak of assessments or fund raising. To be an offering it has to be freely given, not assessed or requested.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The Lord said that not at any time has he given either a law or a commandment which is temporal. (See D&C 29:34-35) Of course he has not! Temporal means temporary and, whether his laws govern the physical or the spiritual, his laws are eternal!

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Yesterday in our temple meeting we were talking about this and talking a little about the other meetings that the other meetings that the bishop is scheduled to be to. Every time there is a graduation or a change in something, they prescribe the bishop to be at the meeting. President Monson mentioned that when he was a bishop, he followed the practice that if the counselor had something to do with the organization, he said, "Well even though the handbook said the bishop should be there, you will be the bishop for that meeting!" There can be a delegation.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 A principle is an enduring truth, a law, a rule you can adopt to guide you in making decisions. Generally principles are not spelled out in detail.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 You who are young will see many things that will try your courage and test your faith. All of the mocking does not come from outside of the church. Let me say that again: all of the mocking does not come from outside of the church. Be careful that you do not fall into the category of mocking.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The commandment to multiply and replenish the earth has never been rescinded. It is essential to the plan of redemption and is the source of human happiness. Through the righteous exercise of this power, as through nothing else, we may come close to our Father in Heaven and experience a fulness of joy, even godhood! The power of procreation is not an incidental part of the plan of happiness; it is the key—the very key …Reverently now I use the word temple. As I do, there comes to mind the words: “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground” (Exodus 3:5) I envision a sealing room and an altar, with a young couple kneeling there, or perhaps a more mature couple who joined the Church a year ago. This sacred temple ordinance is more, much more, than a wedding, for this marriage is sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise, and the scriptures promise that the participants, if they remain worthy, “shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions” (D&C 132:19) I think of the words of the sealing ordinance, which cannot be written here. I understand, in a small measure at least, the sacred nature of the fountain of life which is in us. And I see the joy that awaits those who accept this supernal gift and use it worthily.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 You are better than we were. I have the conviction that against what was surely coming and the prophecies that were given, the Lord has reserved special spirits to bring forth at this time to see that His Church and kingdom are protected and moved forward in the world.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Some members wonder why their priesthood leaders will not accept them just as they are and simply comfort them in what they call pure Christian love. Pure Christian love, the love of Christ, does not presuppose approval of all conduct. Surely the ordinary experiences of parenthood teach that one can be consumed with love for another and yet be unable to approve unworthy conduct. ...If we, out of sympathy, should approve unworthy conduct, it might give present comfort to someone but would not ultimately contribute to that person’s happiness.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “Now, fathers, I would remind you of the sacred nature of your calling. You have the power of the priesthood directly from the Lord to protect your home. There will be times when all that stands as a shield between your family and the adversary’s mischief will be that power.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “Gideon had an interesting way of selecting his recruits. When the men drank water at a stream, most ‘bowed down … to drink.’ Those he passed over. A few scooped up water in their hands and drank, remaining completely alert. They were the ones chosen. … Gideon’s small force succeeded because, as the record states, ‘they stood every man in his place.’”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “Hold on, think for a moment. Surely you can’t believe that in the great confusing variety of religious beliefs, not one of them is true, is right.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Always when these destructive life-styles are debated, “individual right of choice” is invoked as though it were the one sovereign virtue. That could be true only if there were but one of us. The rights of any individual bump up against the rights of another. And the simple truth is that we cannot be happy, nor saved, nor exalted, without one another.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 For His own reasons, the Lord provides answers to some questions with pieces placed here and there throughout the scriptures. We are to find them; we are to earn them. In that way sacred things are hidden from the insincere.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 The limitation of priesthood responsibilities to men is a tribute to the incomparable place of women in the plan of salvation.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 You have the power of the priesthood directly from the Lord to protect your home. There will be times when all that stands as a shield between your family and the adversary’s mischief will be that power.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 No work is more of a protection to this church than temple work and the genealogical research which supports it. No work is more spiritually refining. No work we do gives us more power. No work requires a higher standard of righteousness. Our labors in the temple cover us with a shield and a protection, both individually and as a people.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Those who hold the Aaronic Priesthood, or the preparatory priesthood, hold the authority, when specifically directed, to perform those ordinances that belong to that priesthood. They can baptize. They can bless the sacrament and perform every service relating to the lesser priesthood. They cannot confirm someone a member of the Church, however, for that takes a higher authority.

- Boyd K. Packer

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       There is no task, however menial, connected with the care of babies, the nurturing of children, or with the maintenance of the home that is not his equal obligation. The tasks which come with parenthood, which many consider to be below other tasks, are simply above them.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 If we do not protect and foster the family, civilization and our liberties must needs perish.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 "He [Christ] does not have to be spiteful or vengeful in order that punishment will come from the breaking of the moral code. The laws are established of themselves.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “There are two ways authority is conferred in the Church: by ordination and by setting apart. Offices in the priesthood—deacon, teacher, priest, elder, high priest, patriarch, seventy, and Apostle—always come by ordination. The keys of presidency and the authority to act in callings in the priesthood are received by setting apart.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 There is great safety to the Church in having the names of those called to offices in the Church presented in the proper meeting. Anyone who is a pretender or a deceiver will be recognized. If someone claims to have been secretly ordained to a special calling or higher order of the priesthood, you may know immediately that the claim is false!”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “We can and in due time certainly will influence all of humanity.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “The patriarchal order is not a third, separate priesthood. Whatever relates to the patriarchal order is embraced in the Melchizedek Priesthood. … The patriarchal order is a part of the Melchizedek Priesthood which enables endowed and worthy men to preside over their posterity in time and eternity. … The Levitical Priesthood is an order in or a part of the Aaronic Priesthood. … While the Levitical order does not function today, its privileges and authority are embraced within the Aaronic Priesthood for whatever future use the Lord may direct.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Except where the wicked crime of incest or rape was involved, or where competent medical authorities certify that the life of the mother is in jeopardy, or that a severely defective fetus cannot survive birth, abortion is clearly a “thou shalt not.” Even in these very exceptional cases, much sober prayer is required to make the right choice. We face such sobering choices because we are the children of God.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 This change in budgeting will have the effect of returning much of the responsibility for teaching and counseling and activity to the family where it belongs. While there will still be many activities, they will be scaled down in cost of both time and money. There will be fewer intrusions into family schedules and in the family purses.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 President Kimball said, “This is a shocking thing to me … to come to a realization of what we have been attempting to do, all with the best of intentions.” He said the cost of membership in both time and money was “becoming prohibitive for the members of the Church, and they find it very difficult and sometimes we lose the members of the Church because they do not want to admit they cannot afford the things we expect.” (“Reduction and Simplification,” 13 Apr. 1979.)

- Boyd K. Packer

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 We cannot, as a church, approve unworthy conduct or accept into full fellowship individuals who live or who teach standards that are grossly in violation of that which the Lord requires of Latter-day Saints. If we, out of sympathy, should approve unworthy conduct, it might give present comfort to someone but would not ultimately contribute to that person’s happiness.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 There is no greater protection from the adversary than for us to know the truth-to know the plan!

- Boyd K. Packer

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 There are spiritual and physical laws to obey if we are to be happy.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 For His own reasons, the Lord provides answers to some questions, with pieces placed here and there throughout the scriptures. We are to find them; we are to earn them. In that way sacred things are hidden from the insincere.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Put difficult questions in the back of your minds and go about your lives. Ponder and pray quietly and persistently about them. The answer may not come as a lightning bolt. It may come as a little inspiration here and a little there, ‘line upon line, precept upon precept’ (D&C 98:12). Some answers will come from reading the scriptures, some from hearing speakers. And, occasionally, when it is important, some will come by very direct and powerful inspiration.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 Growing numbers of people now campaign to make spiritually dangerous life-styles legal and socially acceptable. Among them are abortion, the gay-lesbian movement, and drug addiction. They are debated in forums and seminars, in classes, in conversations, in conventions, and in courts all over the world. The social and political aspects of them are in the press every day. The point I make is simply this: there is a MORAL and SPIRITUAL side to these issues which is universally ignored.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 What I shall say I could say much better if we were alone, just the two of us. It would be easier also if we had come to know one another, and had that kind of trust which makes it possible to talk of serious, even sacred things. If we were that close, because of the nature of what I shall say, I would study you carefully as I spoke. If there should be the slightest disinterest or distraction, the subject would quickly be changed to more ordinary things.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “A virtue when pressed to the extreme may turn into a vice. Unreasonable devotion to an ideal, without considering the practical application of it, ruins the ideal itself.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 If we are acquainted with the revelations, there is no question—personal or social or political or occupational—that need go unanswered…. Therin we find principles of truth that will resolve every dilemma that will face the human family or any individual in it.

- Boyd K. Packer

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 "Some members wonder why their priesthood leaders will not accept them just as they are and simply comfort them in what they call pure Christian love. Pure Christian love, the love of Christ, does not presuppose approval of all conduct. Surely the ordinary experiences of parenthood teach that one can be consumed with love for another and yet be unable to approve unworthy conduct. We cannot, as a church, approve unworthy conduct or accept into full fellowship individuals who live or who teach standards that are grossly in violation of that which the Lord requires of Latter-day Saints. If we, out of sympathy, should approve unworthy conduct, it might give present comfort to someone but would not ultimately contribute to that person’s happiness.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 “It was meant to be that life would be a challenge. To suffer some anxiety, some depression, even some failure is normal. If you have a good miserable day once in a while--or several in a row--stand steady and face them. Things will straighten out. There is great purpose in our struggle in life.”

- Boyd K. Packer

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 quote icon When the servants of the Lord determine to do as He commands, we move ahead. As we proceed, we are joined at the crossroads by those who have been prepared to help us. They come with skills and abilities precisely suited to our needs. And, we find provisions; information, inventions, help of various kinds, set along the way waiting for us to take them up. It is though someone knew we would be traveling that way. We see the invisible hand of the Almighty providing for us. For instance, inventions in the fields of travel and communication have come along just as we were ready for them…The airplane did not come as an accidental discovery…Revelation was involved. It came precisely when we could use it to move across the world to restore the Gospel…When we are ready, there will be revealed whatever we need—we will find it waiting at the crossroads. ⁠— Boyd K. Packer

- Boyd K. Packer

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