Jesus is coming, says LDS President Russell Nelson, so we need more and more temples

Get ready, President Russell M. Nelson, the 100-year-old leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, told a global audience Sunday, “the Savior is coming again!”

That’s why the faith’s temple-building pace is so frenzied, he said in a recorded message at the church’s 194th Semiannual General Conference. “The Lord is indeed hastening his work.”

In his sermon, Nelson, who attended two of the five sessions at the Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City, announced 17 more temples to be built around the world, including another in Utah. Since becoming president of the 17.2 million-member faith in 2018, Nelson has announced 185, or more than half, of the church’s 367 planned or existing temples.

Participating in temple ceremonies is meant to help prepare the faithful for Christ’s return, he said. “Every sincere seeker of Jesus Christ will find him in the temple. You will feel his mercy. You will find answers to your most vexing questions. You will better comprehend the joy of his gospel.”

Nelson was the concluding speaker of the two-day conference, which included 33 other sermons, with three given by women.

In addition to the faith’s famed Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, music was offered by children from northern Utah and a group of Latter-day Saint missionaries, proudly wearing their recognizable black nametags.

[Read full summaries from the sessions on Saturday and Sunday.]

For his part, apostle Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the governing First Presidency and next in line to lead the global faith, lamented the state of public discourse on the eve of a tense and tight U.S. presidential election, stating “this is a time of many harsh and hurtful words in public communications and sometimes even in our families.”

These “sharp differences on issues of public policy” have serious and harmful consequences, he warned (without overtly mentioning the election), including “actions of hostility — even hatred” between people both privately and publicly. Other times, it “paralyzes” lawmaking on urgent matters.

Other speakers on the weekend talked about the holiness of everyday action, how to “sustain” leaders and members, reasons to avoid social media, and some faith-promoting accounts of conversion and repentance.

Here are further conference highlights:

President Dallin H. Oaks: Peacemaking in a time of division

Latter-day Saints “need to love and do good to all. We need to avoid contention and be peacemakers in all our communications,” Oaks advised. “This does not mean to compromise our principles and priorities but to cease harshly attacking others for theirs.”

This commandment, he said, is a “permanent commandment,” and one that — like tithing, fully embracing “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” and using the “revealed” name of the church — Latter-day Saints have been slow to fully realize.

Such commandments stand in contrast to “temporary commandments,” such as the one early Latter-day Saint pioneers followed when they abandoned the United States for the frontier.

“As we pursue our preferred policies in public actions, let us qualify for his blessings by using the language and methods of peacemakers,” he urged. “In our families and other personal relationships, let us avoid what is harsh and hateful.”

Young Women leader Emily Belle Freeman: Covenants ‘unlock’ divine power, not who officiates

It is not only the men who officiate in religious rituals that matters, said Young Women General President Emily Belle Freeman, “what the ordinance and our covenant promise unlocks also deserves the focus of our attention.”

God ordained men to stand in his place through ordinances, Freeman said, but women can experience “inward sanctification and covenant connection.”

She cited the example of church founder Joseph Smith’s wife, Emma, who learned through “divine revelation” that “ordinances combined with the keeping of her covenant promises would increase her companionship with the Spirit and with angels, empowering her to navigate her life with divine guidance.”

Emma knew, Freeman said, that “through his divine power, God would heal her heart, enlarge her capacity, and transform her into the version of herself he knew she could become.”

The sacrament of bread and water, or Communion, is “a weekly reminder of his power working in you to help you overcome,” she said. “Wearing the garment of the holy priesthood is a daily reminder of the gift of his power working in you to help you become. We all have access to the gift of God’s power. Every time we partake of the sacrament. Every time we cross the threshold of a temple.”

Apostle Dale G. Renlund: The church is ‘ordinary … disciples of Jesus Christ’

The “Lord’s church” is not “a location or a building,” said apostle Dale G. Renlund. It is “simply ordinary people, disciples of Jesus Christ, gathered and organized into a divinely appointed structure that helps the Lord accomplish his purposes … the instrument through which we learn the central role of Jesus Christ in Heavenly Father’s plan.”

The church “offers the authoritative way for individuals to participate in ordinances and make lasting covenants with God,” Renlund said. “Keeping those covenants draws us closer to God, gives us access to his power, and transforms us into who he intends us to become.”

Just as dynamite without nitroglycerin is unremarkable, “the Savior’s church is special only if it is built on his gospel,” the apostle said. “Without the Savior’s gospel and the authority to administer the ordinances thereof, the church isn’t exceptional.”

Without this church, Renlund said, “there is no authority, no preaching of revealed truths in his name, no ordinances or covenants, no manifestation of the power of godliness, no transformation into who God wants us to become, and God’s plan for his children is set at naught.”

He invited listeners to commit fully to the church and Christ’s gospel.

“This power is far greater than dynamite,” he concluded. “It’ll shatter the rocks in your way.”

Apostle David A. Bednar: The spiritual danger of pride

The Book of Mormon, the church’s foundational scripture, is not “primarily a historical record that looks to the past,” apostle David A. Bednar said. “Rather, this volume of scripture looks to the future and contains important principles, warnings and lessons intended for the circumstances and challenges of our day.”

The ancient stories “plead with us today to learn this everlasting lesson: prosperity, possessions and ease constitute a potent mixture that can lead even the righteous to drink the spiritual poison of pride,” Bednar warned. “Allowing pride to enter into our hearts can cause us to mock that which is sacred, disbelieve in the spirit of prophecy and revelation, trample under our feet the commandments of God, deny the word of God, cast out, mock, and revile against the prophets, and forget the Lord our God.”

If members are “not faithful and obedient, we can transform the God-given blessing of prosperity into a prideful curse that diverts and distracts us from eternal truths and vital spiritual priorities,” the apostle said. “We always must be on guard against a pride-induced and exaggerated sense of self-importance, a misguided evaluation of our own self-sufficiency, and seeking self instead of serving others.”

Apostasy can occur to institutions and individuals, he said. “At the institutional level, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will not be lost through apostasy or taken from the earth.”

He cautioned: “If you or I believe we are sufficiently strong and stalwart to avoid the arrogance of pride, then perhaps we already are suffering from this deadly spiritual disease.”

Apostle Patrick Kearon: Jesus Christ is joy

As Latter-day Saints, apostle Patrick Kearon said, “we are members of the church of joy. And nowhere should our joy as a people be more apparent than when we gather together each Sabbath.”

Weekly sacrament meetings offer those who assemble with their ward and branch families, he said, a chance to “to celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, our deliverance from sin and death, and the Savior’s powerful grace. Here we come to experience the joy, refuge, forgiveness, thanksgiving and belonging found through Jesus Christ.”

Everyone who comes together can “contribute, no matter our age or our calling, to making our sacrament meetings,” Kearon said, “the joy-filled, Christ-focused, welcoming hour they can be, alive with a spirit of joyful reverence.”

And reverence is not merely “folding our arms tightly around our chests, bowing our heads, closing our eyes, and holding still — indefinitely,” said Kearon, demonstrating that pose. “This might be a helpful way to teach energetic young children, but as we grow and learn, let us see that reverence is so much more than this.”

Worshipping is so much more than simply attending, the British apostle added. “There is a significant difference between the two. To attend means to be present at. But to worship is to intentionally praise and adore our God in a way that transforms us.” True worship shows in facial expressions, in singing and in welcoming all to this “sacred time for spiritual renewal.”

And taking the emblems of the sacrament is more than “thinking only about all the ways we messed up during the week before,” the faith’s newest apostle said, but also to “ponder the many ways we have seen the Lord relentlessly pursue us with his wonderful love that week.”

Apostle Dieter F. Uchtdorf: What is eternal — and what is not

In an unusually personal speech, apostle Dieter F. Uchtdorf reminisced about a church in Germany, where he worshipped as a boy, which has now been torn down.

“It was a sacred building to me. But it was just a building,” he said. “By contrast, the spiritual witness I gained from the Holy Ghost those many years ago has not passed away. In fact, it has grown stronger.”

It is important to learn “the difference between what is eternal and what is not,” the charismatic German said. “Once we understand that, everything changes — our relationships, the choices we make, the way we treat people.”

Some truths are “essential, the root of our faith,” he said. “Others are appendages or branches — valuable, but only when they are connected to the fundamental.”

He suggested that members “sometimes mistake the branches for the roots,” Uchtdorf said. “This was the mistake Jesus observed in the Pharisees of his day. They paid so much attention to the relatively minor details of the law that they ended up neglecting what the Savior called ‘the weightier matters’ — fundamental principles like ‘justice and mercy and faith.’”

At times, Latter-day Saints “may be drawn to the Savior’s gospel and church because we are impressed by the friendly members or by the kind bishop or the clean looks of the chapel. These circumstances are certainly important to grow the church,” he said. “Nevertheless, if the roots of our testimony never grow deeper than that, what will happen when we move to a ward that meets in a less impressive building, with members who aren’t so friendly, and the bishop says something that offends us?”

The apostle acknowledged that he misses “the old Zwickau chapel and its stained-glass windows,” he said. “But over the past 75 years, Jesus Christ has led me on a journey through life that is more thrilling than I could ever have imagined.”

Primary leader Tracy Y. Browning: On obtaining answers to gospel questions

Membership in God’s kingdom is not a passive matter, Tracy Y. Browning, second counselor in the worldwide children’s Primary presidency, told listeners.

“Our residency therein requires aligning our life to divine principles,” explained the first Black woman to serve in a general presidency, “and putting in the effort to grow spiritually.”

Part of that growth, she explained, comes from asking questions and patiently working toward answers through scripture study, temple worship and seeking out the words of modern leaders. Further, it requires obedience to God’s commands and putting trust in him.

“Despite all of these efforts,” she noted, “some questions may persist until God, who ‘has all power’ and ‘all wisdom, and all understanding,’ who ‘comprehendeth all things’ in his mercy, provides enlightenment through our belief on his name.”

In 2022, Browning became the first Black woman to speak at General Conference.

Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland: Jesus is not ‘a one-dimensional caricature’

Believers cannot watch Jesus “respond to difficult, often devious situations,” apostle Jeffrey R. Holland said, “without bearing witness that he was not and is not a one-dimensional caricature.”

Indeed, said Holland, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, “he is rather a divine being of profoundly rich character.”

The true nature of Jesus, considered by the faithful to be a “refuge from the storm, this prince of peace, and high priest of good things to come,” said the 83-year-old apostle, who spoke while sitting, “challenges our often shallow, very human perception.”

Believers have a tendency “to simplify, sometimes even trivialize, our image of him,” Holland said. “Down through human history, some people have reduced his righteousness to mere prudishness, his justice to mere anger, his mercy to mere permissiveness.”

Latter-day Saints must beware of and not fall for, he said, “any such simplistic versions of him that conveniently ignore teachings we find uncomfortable.”

To best understand this complex Savior, “through abundance as well as poverty, through private acclaim as well as public criticism, through the divine elements of the [church] as well as the human foibles that will inevitably be part of it,” Holland said, members must “stay the course with the true church of Christ.”

Apostle D. Todd Christofferson: Insidious ‘weapons of rebellion’

There are many acts of “willful rebellion” against God, said apostle D. Todd Christofferson, but possibly more “insidious” is “passive” resistance, like “ignoring his will.”

“Many who would never consider active rebellion may still oppose the will and word of God,” Christofferson said, “by pursuing their own path without regard to divine direction.”

And some aspects “that may be neutral or even inherently good,” he said, “but that [are] used in the wrong way become ‘weapons of rebellion.’”

Speech, for example, “can edify or demean,” the apostle said. “There is much in public and personal discourse today that is malicious and mean–spirited … much in conversation that is vulgar and profane, even among youth. This sort of speech is a ‘weapon of rebellion’ against God, ‘full of deadly poison.’”

A career may seem good but “could be turned against divine directives,” Christofferson said. “Still, it is possible that devotion to career can become the paramount focus of one’s life. Then all else becomes secondary, including any claim the Savior may make on one’s time and talent.”

Focusing on career might cause some to forgo legitimate opportunities for marriage, neglect a spouse or children. “Even intentionally avoiding the blessing and responsibility of child rearing solely for the sake of career advancement,” he warned, “can convert laudable achievement into a form of rebellion.”

Burying weapons of rebellion against God, Christofferson said, “means yielding to the enticing of the Holy Spirit, putting off the natural man and becoming a saint ‘through the atonement of Christ the Lord.’”