“No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude, and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God… and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we came here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven.”
– Orson F. Whitney
“You can progress much more rapidly here on earth with your mortal body in this environment of good and evil than you will as a spirit in the Spirit World.”
– Richard G. Scott
“The process of gathering spiritual light is the quest of a lifetime.”
– Dieter F. Uchtdorf
“God’s ultimate purpose is our progress.”
– D. Todd Christofferson
“Whatever level of spirituality of faith or obedience we now have, it will not be sufficient for the work that lies ahead.”
– Kim B. Clark
“This work is a progressive work, this doctrine that is taught the Latter-day Saints in its nature is exalting, increasing, expanding and extending broader and broader until we can know as we are known, see as we are seen.”
– Brigham Young
“Can we not appreciate that our very business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves? To break our own records, to outstrip our yesterdays by our todays, to bear our trials more beautifully than we ever dreamed we could, to give as we have never given, to do our work with more force and diner finish than ever – this is the true idea; to get ahead of ourselves. To live greatly, we must develop the capacity to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness, and triumph with humility. You ask, ‘How might we achieve these goals?’ I answer, ‘By getting a true perspective of who we really are!’ We are sons and daughters of a living God, in whose image we have been created. Think of that truth: ‘Created in the image of God.’ We cannot sincerely hold this conviction without experiencing a profound new sense of strength and power, even the strength to live the commandments of God, the power to resist the temptations of Satan.”
– Thomas S. Monson
“Worthiness is a process, and perfection is an eternal trek. We can be worthy to enjoy certain privileges without being perfect.”
– Marvin J. Ashton
“God did not send us here to simply give us a grade; he sent us here because he knew the process would change us.”
– Henry B. Eyring
“We do not have to be perfect, but we need to be good and getting better.”
– Kim B. Clark
“Rise up and become the person you were designed to be.”
– Dieter F. Uchtdorf
“When you climb up a ladder, you must begin at the bottom, and ascend step by step, until you arrive at the top; and so it is with the principles of the gospel – you must begin with the first, and go on until you learn all the principles of exaltation. But it will be a great while after you have passed through the veil before you will have learned them. It is not all to be comprehended in this world; it will be a great work to learn our salvation and exaltation even beyond the grave.”
– Joseph Smith
“Sometimes Latter-day Saints express the wish that they could be baptized again – and thereby become as clean and worthy as the day in which they received their first saving gospel ordinance. May I respectfully suggest that our Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son do not intend for us to experience such a feeling of spiritual renewal, refreshment, and restoration just once in our lives. The blessings of obtaining and always retaining a remission of our sins through gospel ordinances help us understand that baptism is a point of departure in our mortal spiritual journey; it is not a destination we should yearn to revisit over and over again. The ordinances of baptism by immersion, the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and the sacrament are not isolated and discrete events; rather, they are elements in an interrelated and additive pattern of redemptive progress. Each successive ordinance elevates and enlarges our spiritual purpose, desire, and performance. The Father’s plan, the Savior’s Atonement, and the ordinances of the gospel provide the grace we need to press forward and progress line upon line and precept upon precept toward our eternal destiny.”
– David A. Bednar
“Change is inevitable, growth is optional.”
– John C. Maxwell*
