“Special Witness: We Have a Savior,” Friend, Mar. 2002, 7
Special Witness:
We Have a Savior
Did you know that Elder Boyd K. Packer, who is now Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, makes beautiful wood carvings? He also likes to paint. He loves you children and often bears a powerful testimony of the Savior and His importance to you:
Little ones, you will be tested, perhaps more than any generation that ever lived here. You will meet many people who do not believe in Christ. Some will be agents for the evil one and teach wickedness. Sometimes this will be very tempting. There will be times when you will make mistakes (and all of us make mistakes). There will be times when you will wonder if you can live the way he taught we should live. When you are tested, when you are disappointed, or ashamed, or when you are sad, remember him and pray to your Heavenly Father in his name.
Some men will say that he did not come to earth. But he did. Some will say that he is not the Son of God. But he is. Some will say that he has no servants upon the face of the earth. But he has. For he lives. I know that he lives. In his church there are many thousands who can bear witness of him, and I bear witness of him, and tell you again the things you should remember, things you should learn when you are yet a little one.
Remember that each of you is a child of our Heavenly Father. That is why we call him our Father.
You lived before you came to this earth. You came to receive a mortal body and to be tested.
When your life is over, your spirit and body will be separated. We call that death.
Our Heavenly Father sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem us. Because of what he has done we will be resurrected.
There is another kind of death you should think of. That is the separation from the presence of our Heavenly Father. If we will be baptized and live his gospel, we may be redeemed from this second death.
Our Heavenly Father loves us, and we have a Lord and Savior.
I thank God for a church where you, our little children, are precious above all things. I thank God for our Savior who suffered the little children to come unto him.
(Ensign, July 1973, page 54.)
Elder Packer carved this Noah’s ark with some of his grandchildren. (Ark photo by Welden Andersen.)
Jesus Knocking at the Door by Del Parson