Architects of Our Own Lives

It is not thought safe by the doctor for me to make a talk of any length at the conference, so I have decided merely to thank the Saints for their faith and prayers in my behalf, and to assure them I am gaining a little all the time. I hope that by the next conference I may be able to address the Saints at greater length. ¶

Architects of Our Own Lives ¶

I have decided to have read to you what I desire to say, and also to add what I said at a meeting a number of years ago, as follows: "If you want to know how to be saved, I can tell you: It is by keeping the commandments of God. No power on earth, no power beneath the earth will ever prevent you, or me, or any Latter-day Saint from being saved, except ourselves. We are the architects of our own lives, not only of the lives here, but the lives to come in eternity. We ourselves are able to perform every duty and obligation that God has required of men. No commandment was ever given to us but what God has given us the power to keep that commandment. If we fail, we, and we alone, are responsible for the failure, because God endows his servants, from the President of the Church down to the humblest member, with all the ability, all the knowledge, all the power that is necessary, faithfully, diligently, and properly to discharge every duty and every obligation that rests upon them, and we, and we alone, will have to answer if we fail in this regard." ¶

The Soldiers Remembered in Prayer ¶

As it was during our meeting last April in our Annual Conference, so today we have thousands of our young men in the armed forces of the warring nations. ¶

Constantly I pray that the Lord will bless each and every one, and that he will help each of them to live in accordance with the principles of the Gospel, so that he may have a claim to the blessings of the Lord to the full extent that accords with his wisdom. I pray that, so far as it accords with the providences of the Lord, each of them may be preserved from accident, sickness, and death, to return in due course to his loved ones. I pray God to help them to stand up under the terrible strain which they must meet. I appeal to the Lord to bring the war to an end at the earliest possible date. ¶

Sympathy Expressed for Parents ¶

Constantly my heart goes out in the deepest sympathy for the comforting influence of the Lord to be given to the fathers and mothers of the sons who are in the war at the present time. May the comforting influence of the Spirit of the Lord be given to them in carrying their burdens, and to bring solace to their yearning hearts. ¶

I am praying with all my heart and soul for the end of this war as soon as the Lord can see fit to have it stop, and am earnestly praying for the influence of the Spirit of the Lord to be with all who have loved ones in the war. ¶

I pray that the spirit of peace and of increased faith may pervade all the homes of the Latter-day Saints, and with all the power and authority I have to bless, I invoke God's blessing upon the Church as a whole and upon the honest in heart everywhere. ¶