Get the full lesson material at LDS.org.
Note: As the Church has said, the manual has been prepared as the primary source of lesson material. These supplements, from general conference addresses, are meant only as a complement to your study on this lesson’s topic.
Supplement is an excerpt from "Can Ye Feel So Now?" by Elder Quentin L. Cook, October 2012 General Conference:
This question, “Can ye feel so now?” rings across the centuries. With all that we have received in this dispensation—including the Restoration of the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the outpouring of spiritual gifts, and the indisputable blessings of heaven—Alma’s challenge has never been more important.
Soon after Ezra Taft Benson was called as an Apostle in 1943, President George Albert Smith3 counseled, “Your mission … is to … warn the people … in as kind a way as possible that repentance will be the only panacea for the ills of this world.”4 When this statement was made, we were in the midst of the conflagration of World War II.
Today moral deterioration has escalated. One prominent writer recently said, “Everyone knows the culture is poisonous, and nobody expects that to change.”5 The constant portrayal of violence and immorality in music, entertainment, art, and other media in our day-to-day culture is unprecedented. This was dramatically described by a highly respected Baptist theologian when he stated, “The spiritual immune system of an entire civilization has been wounded.”6
It is not surprising that some in the Church believe they can’t answer Alma’s question with a resounding yes. They do not “feel so now.” They feel they are in a spiritual drought. Others are angry, hurt, or disillusioned. If these descriptions apply to you,7 it is important to evaluate why you cannot “feel so now.”