City, this is the Saturday morning session

of the 186th Annual General Conference

of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Speakers are selected from the General Authorities

and general officers of the Church.

Music for this session is provided

by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Members and officers of the Church

gather from all areas of the world

to receive counsel and instruction from their Church

leaders.

This broadcast is furnished as a public service

by Bonneville Distribution.

Any reproduction, recording, transcription,

or other use of this program without written consent

is prohibited.

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor

in the First Presidency of the Church,

will conduct this session.

[MUSIC PLAYING - "HOW WONDROUS AND GREAT"]

Dear brothers and sisters, dear friends,

we welcome you to the Saturday morning session

of the 186th Annual General Conference

of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

We extend a warm welcome to members and friends

participating in the conference throughout the world.

It is a beautiful spring day here in Salt Lake City.

Our beloved Prophet and President Thomas S. Monson,

who presides at the conference, has asked

that I conduct this session.

We acknowledge and welcome the General Authorities

and the general officers who will be in attendance

throughout the conference.

The music for this session will be by the Mormon Tabernacle

Choir under the direction of Mack Wilberg and Ryan Murphy,

with Richard Elliott and Andrew Unsworth at the organ.

The choir opened this meeting with "How Wondrous and Great"

and will now favor us with "Come,

Ye Children of the Lord."

The invocation will then be offered by Sister Linda K.

Burton, Relief Society general president,

after which the choir will sing "I Feel My Savior's Love."

[MUSIC PLAYING - "COME, YE CHILDREN OF THE LORD"]

Our beloved Father in Heaven, we are

delighted to be gathered here this beautiful spring morning.

We love Thee.

We love Thy Son and thank Thee for His Glorious

and Infinite Atonement and Resurrection

that gives us hope.

We celebrate His life that leads us to Thee

as we seek to follow Him.

We rejoice to be with living prophets, seers, and revelators

and ask a particular blessing on our beloved prophet, Thomas S.

Monson.

Please give him the strength that he

needs as he presides over these sessions of conference.

Father, we've come to deepen our discipleship,

that we will be better as we strive

to move along the covenant path that leads back to Thee.

Please help us to feel Thy Spirit, that we will be taught

by the Holy Ghost, that we can better

do as we strive to be worthy to welcome in the Second

Coming of Thy Beloved Son.

We pray for Thy Spirit to rest over all that happens today,

in the name of thy Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, amen.

[MUSIC PLAYING - "I FEEL MY SAVIOR'S LOVE"]

We will now be pleased to hear from President Henry B.

Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency.

He will be followed by Sister Mary R.

Durham, second counselor in the Primary general presidency.

Elder Donald L. Hallstrom of the Presidency of the Seventy

will then address us.

My beloved brothers and sisters, I

welcome you to the 186th Annual General

Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day

Saints.

I rejoice to be with you, and I welcome you warmly.

I am grateful that you have come to the conference

to feel inspiration from heaven and to feel closer

to our Heavenly Father and to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Gathered in this meeting, which stretches across the world,

are millions of disciples of Jesus Christ who

are under covenant to always remember Him and serve Him.

By the miracle of modern technology,

the separation of time and of vast distances vanishes.

We meet as if we are all together in one great hall.

But even more important than our gathering

together is in whose name we do so.

The Lord promised that even with the great number

of His disciples on the earth today,

He would be close to each of us.

He said to His little band of disciples in 1829, "Verily,

verily, I say unto you, . . . where two or three are gathered

together in my name, . . . behold,

there will I be in the midst of them--even so am I [I am]

in the midst of you."

Now numbering more than one or two,

a multitude of His disciples are gathered in this conference,

and as promised, the Lord is in our midst.

Because He is a resurrected and glorified being,

He is not physically every place where Saints gather.

But by the power of the Spirit, we

can feel that He is here with us today.

Where and when we feel the closeness of the Savior

depends on each of us.

He gave this instruction:

"And again, verily I say unto you,

my friends, I leave these sayings with you

to ponder in your hearts, with this commandment which

I give unto you, that ye shall call upon me while I am near--

"Draw near unto me and I will draw

near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find

me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock,

and it shall be opened unto you."

I know of at least two people listening today

who want that blessing with all their hearts.

They will try earnestly to draw nearer to the Lord

during this conference.

They each wrote to me--their letters arriving at my office

in the same week--pleading for the same kind of help.

Both of them are converts to the Church

and have previously received clear testimonies

of the love of God the Father and

of His Son, Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.

They knew that the Prophet Joseph Smith organized

the Church by direct revelation from God

and that the keys of the holy priesthood were restored.

Each felt a witness that keys are

in place in the Church today.

They bore to me their solemn testimony in writing.

Yet both lamented that feelings of love for the Lord

and His love for them were lessening.

They both wanted, with full heart,

for me to help them regain the joy and the feeling of being

loved that was theirs as they came into the kingdom of God.

Both expressed a fear that if they could not

regain in full those feelings of love

for the Savior and His Church, the trials and tests they faced

would finally overcome their faith.

They are not alone in their concern,

nor is their test a new one.

During His mortal ministry the Savior

gave us the parable of the seed and the sower.

The seed was the word of God.

The sower was the Lord.

The survival of the seed and its growth

depended on the condition of the soil.

You remember His words:

"And when he sowed, some seeds fell

by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:

"Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth:

and forthwith they sprung up, because they

had no deepness of earth:

"And when the sun was up, they were scorched;

and because they had no root, they withered away.

"And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up,

and choked them:

"But other fell into good ground,

and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold,

some thirtyfold.

"Who hath ears to hear, let him hear."

Again, the seed is the word of God.

The soil is the heart of the person who receives the seed.

All of us have much in common with the wonderful people who

wrote to me for help and reassurance.

We all have had seeds, or the word of God,

planted in our hearts at one time.

For some, it was in childhood when our parents

invited us to be baptized and confirmed

by those in authority.

Others of us were taught by called