“A Marvellous Work and a Wonder”

In this video, a Sunday School teacher invites learners to share what they are learning about Jesus Christ from their personal scripture study.

By Amy A. Wright

Second Counselor in the Primary General Presidency

A few years ago, at a family gathering, my then-eight-year-old nephew William asked our oldest son, Briton, if he would like to play ball with him. Briton enthusiastically responded, “Yes! I would love to!” After they had been playing for quite some time, a ball got away from Briton, and he accidentally broke one of his grandparents’ antique pots.

Briton felt awful. As he began picking up the broken pieces, William walked over to his cousin and lovingly patted him on the back. He then comforted, “Don’t worry, Briton. I broke something at Grandma and Grandpa’s house once, and Grandma put her arm around me and said, ‘It’s OK, William. You are only five.’”

To which Briton responded, “But, William, I’m 23!”

We can learn much from the scriptures about how our Savior, Jesus Christ, will help us successfully navigate the things in our lives that are broken, no matter our age. He can heal broken relationships with God, broken relationships with others, and broken parts of ourselves.

While the Savior was teaching in the temple, a woman was brought to Him by the scribes and Pharisees. We do not know her full story, just that she was “taken in adultery.” Often the scriptures give only a small portion of someone’s life, and based on that portion, we sometimes tend to exalt or condemn. No one’s life can be understood by one magnificent moment or one regrettable public disappointment. The purpose of these scriptural accounts is to help us see that Jesus Christ was the answer then, and He is the answer now. He knows our complete story and exactly what we suffer, as well as our capabilities and vulnerabilities.

Christ’s response to this precious daughter of God was “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” Another way to say “go, and sin no more” could be “go forth and change.” The Savior was inviting her to repent: to change her behavior, her associations, the way she felt about herself, her heart.

Because of Christ, our decision to “go forth and change” can also allow us to “go forth and heal,” for He is the source of healing all that is broken in our lives. As the great Mediator and Advocate with the Father, Christ sanctifies and restores broken relationships—most important, our relationship with God.

The Joseph Smith Translation makes it clear that the woman did follow the Savior’s counsel and changed her life: “And the woman glorified God from that hour, and believed on his name.” It is unfortunate that we do not know her name or other details about her life after this moment because it would have required great determination, humility, and faith in Jesus Christ for her to repent and change. What we do know is she was a woman who “believed on his name” with the understanding that she was not beyond the reach of His infinite and eternal sacrifice.

In Luke chapter 15 we read a parable of a man who had two sons. The younger son asked his father for his inheritance, took his journey into a far country, and wasted his substance with riotous living.

“And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.

“And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.

“And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.

“And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!

“I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,

“And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

“And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”

The fact that the father ran to his son, I believe, is significant. The personal hurt that the son had inflicted upon his father was surely deep and profound. Likewise, the father may have been genuinely embarrassed by his son’s actions.

So why didn’t the father wait for his son to apologize? Why didn’t he hold out for an offering of restitution and reconciliation before extending forgiveness and love? This is something I have often pondered.

The Lord teaches us that forgiving others is a universal commandment: “I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.” Extending forgiveness can take tremendous courage and humility. It can also take time. It requires us to put our faith and trust in the Lord as we assume accountability for the condition of our hearts. Here lies the significance and power of our agency.

With the depiction of this father in the parable of the prodigal son, the Savior emphasized that forgiveness is one of the noblest gifts we can give one another and most specifically ourselves. Unburdening our hearts through forgiveness isn’t always easy, but through the enabling power of Jesus Christ, it is possible.

In Acts chapter 3 we learn about a man who was born lame and “whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple.”

The lame beggar was over 40 years old and had spent his entire life in a seemingly never-ending state of wanting and waiting, for he was dependent on the generosity of others.

One day he saw “Peter and John about to go into the temple [and] asked an alms.

“And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us.

“And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them.

“Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.

“And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.

“And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.”

Oftentimes we can find ourselves, like the lame beggar at the gate of the temple, patiently—or sometimes impatiently—“wait[ing] upon the Lord.” Waiting to be healed physically or emotionally. Waiting for answers that penetrate the deepest part of our hearts. Waiting for a miracle.

Waiting upon the Lord can be a sacred place—a place of polishing and refining where we can come to know the Savior in a deeply personal way. Waiting upon the Lord may also be a place where we find ourselves asking, “O God, where art thou?”—a place where spiritual perseverance requires us to exercise faith in Christ by intentionally choosing Him again and again and again. I know this place, and I understand this type of waiting.

I spent countless hours at a cancer treatment facility, united in my suffering with many who were yearning to be healed. Some lived; others did not. I learned in a profound way that deliverance from our trials is different for each of us, and therefore our focus should be less about the way in which we are delivered and more about the Deliverer Himself. Our emphasis should always be on Jesus Christ!

Exercising faith in Christ means trusting not only in God’s will but also in His timing. For He knows exactly what we need and precisely when we need it. When we submit to the will of the Lord, we will ultimately receive substantially more than that which we had desired.

My dear friends, we all have something in our lives that is broken that needs to be mended, fixed, or healed. As we turn to the Savior, as we align our hearts and minds with Him, as we repent, He comes to us “with healing in his wings,” puts His arms lovingly around us, and says, “It’s OK. You are only 5—or 16, 23, 48, 64, 91. We can fix this together!”

I testify that there is nothing in your life that is broken that is beyond the curative, redeeming, and enabling power of Jesus Christ. In the sacred and holy name of He who is mighty to heal, Jesus Christ, amen.

John 8:4.

John 8:11.

Joseph Smith Translation, John 8:11 (in John 8:11, footnote c).

See Luke 15:11–13.

Luke 15:14–20.

Doctrine and Covenants 64:10.

Acts 3:2.

See Acts 4:22.

Acts 3:3–8.

Isaiah 40:31.

Doctrine and Covenants 121:1.

2 Nephi 25:13.

By Elder Gerrit W. Gong

Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Dear brothers and sisters, I recently officiated in a temple sealing, following COVID-19 guidelines. With the bride and groom, both faithful returned missionaries, were their parents and all their siblings. This was not easy. The bride is the ninth of ten children. Her nine siblings sat in order, oldest to youngest, socially distanced of course.

The family had sought to be good neighbors wherever they lived. However, one community had been unwelcoming—because, the bride’s mother said, their family were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The family did everything to make friends at school, contribute, and be accepted, but to no avail. The family prayed and prayed hearts would soften.

One night, the family felt their prayers were answered, though in a very unexpected way. Their house caught fire and burned to the ground. But something else happened. The fire softened their neighbors’ hearts.

Their neighbors and local school gathered clothes, shoes, and other necessities needed by the family, who had lost everything. Kindness opened understanding. It was not the way the family hoped or expected their prayers to be answered. However, they express gratitude for what they learned through hard experiences and unexpected answers to heartfelt prayers.

Truly, for those with faithful hearts and eyes to see, the Lord’s tender mercies are manifest amidst life’s challenges. Faithfully met challenges and sacrifice do bring the blessings of heaven. In this mortality, we may lose or wait for some things for a time, but in the end we will find what matters most. That is His promise.

Our 2020 bicentennial proclamation begins with the profoundly inclusive promise that “God loves His children in every nation of the world.” To each of us in every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, God promises, covenants, and invites us to come partake of His abundant joy and goodness.

God’s love for all people is affirmed throughout scripture. That love encompasses the Abrahamic covenant, gathering His scattered children, and His plan of happiness in our lives.

In the household of faith there are to be no strangers, no foreigners, no rich and poor, no outside “others.” As “fellowcitizens with the saints,” we are invited to change the world for the better, from the inside out, one person, one family, one neighborhood at a time.

This happens when we live and share the gospel. Early in this dispensation, the Prophet Joseph received a remarkable prophecy that Heavenly Father desires everyone everywhere to discover God’s love and experience His power to grow and change.

That prophecy was received here, at the Smith family log home in Palmyra, New York.

Completed in 1998, the Smith home is reconstructed on its original foundation. The second-story bedroom occupies the same 18- by 30- by 10-foot (5.5 by 9 by 3m) physical space where Moroni, as a glorious messenger from God, came to the young Joseph on the evening of September 21, 1823.

You remember what the Prophet Joseph recounted:

“[Moroni] said … God had a work for me to do; and that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues. …

“[Moroni] said there was a book deposited, … that the fulness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in it.”

Here we pause. We worship God the Eternal Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, not the Prophet Joseph nor any mortal man or woman.

Yet consider how the prophecies God gives His servants are fulfilled. Some are fulfilled earlier, some later, but all are fulfilled. As we hearken to the Lord’s spirit of prophecy, we can become, in our own way, part of the fulfillment of His prophecies and promises—part of the gospel blessing the world.

In 1823, Joseph was an unknown 17-year-old boy living in an obscure village in a newly independent country. Unless it were true, how would he imagine to say he would be an instrument in God’s work and translate by God’s gift and power sacred scripture that would become known everywhere?

Yet, because it is true, you and I can witness that prophecy being fulfilled even as we are invited to help bring it to pass.

Brothers and sisters, across the world, each of us participating in this October 2020 general conference is among the nations, kindreds, and tongues spoken of.

Today, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints live in 196 nations and territories, with 3,446 Church stakes in 90 of them. We represent both geographic breadth and centers of strength.

In 1823, who would have imagined that in the year 2020 there would be three countries each with more than a million members of this Church—the United States, Mexico, and Brazil?

Or 23 countries each with more than 100,000 members of the Church—three in North America, fourteen in Central and South America, one in Europe, four in Asia, and one in Africa?

President Russell M. Nelson calls the Book of Mormon “a miraculous miracle.” Its witnesses testify, “Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people.” Today, general conference is available in 100 languages. President Nelson has testified of Jesus Christ and His restored gospel in 138 nations and counting.

Beginning with 5,000 printed copies of the 1830 first edition of the Book of Mormon, some 192 million copies of all or part of the Book of Mormon have been published in 112 languages. Book of Mormon translations are also widely available digitally. Current Book of Mormon translations include most of the 23 world languages spoken by 50 million people or more, collectively the native tongues of some 4.1 billion people.

By small and simple means—in which we are each invited to participate—great things are brought to pass.

For example, at a stake conference in Monroe, Utah, population 2,200, I asked how many had served missions. Nearly every hand went up. In recent years, from that one stake, 564 missionaries have served in all 50 U.S. states and 53 countries—on every continent except Antarctica.

Speaking of Antarctica, even in Ushuaia, at the southern tip of Argentina, I saw prophecy being fulfilled as our missionaries shared the restored gospel of Jesus Christ in a place called “the end of the earth.”

The mural formed by the covers of our four volumes of Saints depicts a global tapestry of the fruits of gospel living coming to faithful Saints everywhere. Our Church history is anchored in the lived testimony and gospel journey of each member, including Mary Whitmer, the faithful sister to whom Moroni showed the Book of Mormon plates.

Coming in January 2021, our three new global Church magazines—the Friend, For the Strength of Youth, and the Liahona—invite all to belong and share experiences and testimony in our worldwide community of faith.

Brothers and sisters, as we increase our faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, receive the blessings found in living restored gospel truths and sacred covenants, and study, ponder, and share about the ongoing Restoration, we participate in fulfilling prophecy.

We are changing ourselves and the world in a gospel pattern that blesses lives everywhere.

An African sister says, “My husband’s priesthood service makes him more patient and kind. And I am becoming a better wife and mother.”

A now-respected international business consultant in Central America says before he discovered God’s restored gospel, he lived aimlessly on the street. Now he and his family have found identity, purpose, and strength.

A young boy in South America raises chickens and sells their eggs to help buy windows for the house his family is building. He pays his tithing first. He will literally see the windows of heaven open.

In Four Corners, a community in the southwestern United States, a Native American family grows a beautiful rose bush to blossom in the desert, symbolic of gospel faith and self-reliance.

A survivor of bitter civil war, a brother in Southeast Asia despaired that life had no meaning. He found hope in a dream in which a former classmate held a sacrament tray and testified of saving ordinances and the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Heavenly Father invites us everywhere to feel His love, to learn and grow through education, honorable work, self-reliant service, and patterns of goodness and happiness we find in His restored Church.

As we come to trust God, sometimes through pleading in our darkest, loneliest, most uncertain moments, we learn He knows us better and loves us more than we know or love ourselves.

This is why we need God’s help to create lasting justice, equality, fairness, and peace in our homes and communities. Our truest, deepest, most authentic narrative, place, and belonging come when we feel God’s redeeming love, seek grace and miracles through His Son’s Atonement, and establish lasting relationships by sacred covenants.

Religious goodness and wisdom are needed in today’s cluttered, noisy, polluted world. How else can we refresh, inspire, and edify the human spirit?

Planting trees in Haiti is only one among hundreds of examples of people coming together to do good. The local community, including 1,800 members of our Church, which donated the trees, gathered to plant nearly 25,000 trees. This multiyear reforestation project has already planted over 121,000 trees. It anticipates planting tens of thousands more.

This united effort provides shade, conserves soil, abates future floods. It beautifies neighborhoods, builds community, satisfies taste, and nourishes the soul. If you ask Haitians who will harvest the fruit from these trees, they say, “Whoever is hungry.”

Some 80 percent of the world’s population are religiously affiliated. Religious communities readily respond to immediate needs after natural disasters as well as to chronic needs for food, shelter, education, literacy, and employment training. Across the world, our members, friends, and Church help communities support refugees and provide water, sanitation, handicap mobility, and vision care—one person, one village, one tree at a time. Everywhere, we seek to be good parents and good citizens, to contribute in our neighborhoods and societies, including through Latter-day Saint Charities.

God gives us moral agency—and moral accountability. Declares the Lord, “I, the Lord God, make you free, therefore [you] are free indeed.” In proclaiming “liberty to the captives,” the Lord promises His Atonement and gospel path can break temporal and spiritual bonds. Mercifully, this redemptive freedom extends to those who have passed from mortality.

Some years ago, a priest in Central America told me he was studying Latter-day Saint “baptism for deceased persons.” “It does seem just,” the priest said, “that God would offer every person opportunity to receive baptism, no matter when or where they lived, except little children, who ‘are alive in Christ.’ The Apostle Paul,” the priest noted, “speaks of the dead awaiting baptism and resurrection.” Vicarious temple ordinances promise all nations, kindreds, and tongues that no one need “remain a slave of death, of hell, or of the grave.”

As we discover God, sometimes unexpected answers to prayers take us from the street, bring us to community, chase darkness from our souls, and guide us to find spiritual refuge and belonging in the goodness of His covenants and abiding love.

Great things often begin small, but God’s miracles are manifest daily. How grateful we are for the supernal gift of the Holy Ghost, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and His revealed doctrine, ordinances, and covenants found in His restored Church, called in His name.

May we joyfully accept God’s invitation to receive and help fulfill His promised and prophesied blessings in all nations, kindreds, and tongues, I pray in the sacred and holy name of Jesus Christ, amen.

“All your losses will be made up to you in the resurrection, provided you continue faithful” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith [2007], 51).

See Mosiah 2:41.

“The Restoration of the Fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: A Bicentennial Proclamation to the World,” ChurchofJesusChrist.org; see also, for example, Alma 26:37.

See Revelation 14:6; 1 Nephi 19:17; 22:28; 2 Nephi 30:8; Mosiah 3:20; 15:28; Alma 37:4–6; 3 Nephi 28:29; Doctrine and Covenants 42:58; 133:37.

See John 3:16–17; 15:12; Romans 8:35, 38–39.

See 1 Nephi 22:3, 9; Doctrine and Covenants 45:24–25, 69, 71; 64:42.

See Ephesians 2:19.

See Doctrine and Covenants 104:14–17.

Ephesians 2:19.

A few hundred yards from the Smith home back door is a grove of trees, which became our Sacred Grove “the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty” (Joseph Smith—History 1:14).

Being in the specific, physical location of a known historical event can powerfully connect time and place. Still, our testimony of the sacred events surrounding Moroni’s appearance to the young Prophet Joseph is spiritual.

Joseph Smith—History 1:33–34.

See Amos 3:7; Doctrine and Covenants 1:38.

See Alma 37:6; Doctrine and Covenants 64:33.

Church statistics as of September 3, 2020; “nations and territories” include entities such as Guam, Puerto Rico, and American Samoa.

The 23 countries are the United States, Mexico, Brazil, the Philippines, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Honduras, Nigeria, Venezuela, Australia, Dominican Republic, Japan, El Salvador, New Zealand, Uruguay, and Nicaragua. Australia and New Zealand are included in the four countries in Asia with over 100,000 members. Paraguay has over 96,000 Church members and may be next to join the 100,000-member group.

Russell M. Nelson, “The Book of Mormon: A Miraculous Miracle” (address given at the seminar for new mission presidents, June 23, 2016).

“The Testimony of Three Witnesses” and “The Testimony of Eight Witnesses,” Book of Mormon.

Additional translations continue the promise that every man and woman will “hear the fulness of the gospel in his [or her] own tongue, and … language” (Doctrine and Covenants 90:11).

See Doctrine and Covenants 122:1.

The titles of the four volumes of Saints come from the inspired testimony declaration of the Prophet Joseph in the Wentworth letter—The Standard of Truth; No Unhallowed Hand; Boldly, Nobly and Independent; and Sounded in Every Ear.

See Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, vol. 1, The Standard of Truth, 1815–1846 (2018), 70–71.

See First Presidency letter, Aug. 14, 2020.

See Gerrit W. Gong, “Seven Ways Religious Inputs and Values Contribute to Practical, Principle-Based Policy Approaches” (address given at the G20 Interfaith Forum, June 8, 2019), newsroom.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

See Jason Swensen, “LDS Church Celebrates 30 Years in Haiti by Planting Thousands of Trees,” Deseret News, May 1, 2013, deseretnews.com.

See Pew Research Center, “The Global Religious Landscape,” Dec. 18, 2012, pewforum.org. This “comprehensive demographic study of more than 230 countries and territories … estimates that there are 5.8 billion religiously affiliated adults and children around the globe, representing 84% of the 2010 world population of 6.9 billion.”

Religious virtues and values anchor and enrich civil society; inspire community, civil engagement, social cohesion, service, and volunteerism; and foster justice, reconciliation, and forgiveness, including helping us to know when and how to hold on and to let go, to know when and what to remember and to forget.

In addition to their contributions to Latter-day Saint Charities (see latterdaysaintcharities.org), which serves as the humanitarian arm of the Church, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints join their neighbors and communities in giving of time and means through service in JustServe or Helping Hands projects (see justserve.org and ChurchofJesusChrist.org/topics/humanitarian-service/helping-hands) and through the donation of fast offerings (see “Fasting and Fast Offerings,” Gospel Topics, topics.ChurchofJesusChrist.org). Each of these efforts takes the significant generosity of Church members and friends to bless thousands across the world.

Doctrine and Covenants 98:8.

Isaiah 61:1; see also John 8:36; Galatians 5:1; Doctrine and Covenants 88:86.

This hope of freedom includes those seeking to overcome debilitating habits or addictions, self-defeating behaviors, intergenerational guilt, or any sorrow.

Moroni 8:12; see also Doctrine and Covenants 137:10.

See 1 Corinthians 15:29.

“While of These Emblems We Partake,” Hymns, no. 173, verse 3.