The LDS Church’s 93-year-old president shared with Mormon millennials some advice for joyous living: Find your purpose, live God’s laws and avoid temptations.
Speaking Saturday in Las Vegas, Russell M. Nelson, a month after succeeding the late Thomas S. Monson as “prophet, seer and revelator” of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, cautioned the rising generation that “your ultimate safety in this life lies in never taking the first enticing step toward going where you should not go and doing what you should not do.”
Satan turns natural human appetites into desires and actions that derail the best of spiritual intentions, Nelson warned young adults who had gathered at four Las Vegas-area LDS meetinghouses for a “fireside.”
“These appetites are absolutely essential for the perpetuation of life. So, what does the adversary do?” Nelson asked. “He attacks us through our appetites. He tempts us to eat things we should not eat, to drink things we should not drink, and to love as we should not love.”
Discovering one’s divine purpose also reveals to the faithful seeker “one of the most important things you need to learn in life … to know who you really are,” he added. Part of that search should include plumbing the depths of family history and learning lessons from the lives of parents, grandparents and other ancestors.
Most important, though, will be realization of humankind’s eternal origins.
“Know that you are an elect son or daughter of God, created in his very image,” he told the young adults. “… When you begin to catch even a glimpse of how your Heavenly Father sees you and what he is counting on you to do for him, your life will never be the same.”
(Courtesy LDS Church) LDS Church President Russell M. Nelson addresses young adults at a fireside in Las Vegas on Feb. 17, 2018.
The Mormon leader’s wife, Wendy Nelson, urged the young Latter-day Saints to stop comparing themselves to others.
“When you let the Lord know that you are serious about doing exactly what you came to Earth to do, watch what happens,” she said. “He may change many things dramatically. So hang on for the ride of your life, the ride that you were born to take.”
(Courtesy LDS Church) Wendy Nelson, wife of LDS Church President Russell M. Nelson, speaks to young adults at a fireside in Las Vegas on Feb. 17, 2018.
