Discussion Questions:
• What are some of the standards in For the Strength of Youth that have been most helpful to you in combating the challenges of the world? How have these standards strengthened you?
• What specific scriptures or words of the prophets have been helpful to you recently? What blessings have come to you from following the counsel of prophets?
• When you feel alone in living the standards, how can you keep the influence of the Spirit and feel confident? Where can you go for support?
Supplement from "Safety for the Soul," by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, October 2009 General Conference:
Prophecies regarding the last days often refer to large-scale calamities such as earthquakes or famines or floods. These in turn may be linked to widespread economic or political upheavals of one kind or another.
But there is one kind of latter-day destruction that has always sounded to me more personal than public, more individual than collective—a warning, perhaps more applicable inside the Church than outside it. The Savior warned that in the last days even those of the covenant, the very elect, could be deceived by the enemy of truth. 1 If we think of this as a form of spiritual destruction, it may cast light on another latter-day prophecy. Think of the heart as the figurative center of our faith, the poetic location of our loyalties and our values; then consider Jesus’s declaration that in the last days “men’s hearts [shall fail] them.” 2
The encouraging thing, of course, is that our Father in Heaven knows all of these latter-day dangers, these troubles of the heart and soul, and has given counsel and protections regarding them.
To read the full talk, click here.