“Lasting Discipleship—Excerpts,” For the Strength of Youth, Nov. 2022.
Lasting Discipleship
Excerpts
Experiences like FSY conferences, camps, sacrament meetings, and missions can help to burnish our testimonies, taking us through arcs of growth and spiritual discovery to places of relative peace. But what must we do to stay there and continue to “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ” (2 Nephi 31:20) rather than slipping backward? We must continue to do those things that brought us there in the first place, like praying often, drenching ourselves in scripture, and serving sincerely. …
At FSY, a couple of hundred thousand and more of our youth came to better know the Savior by using a simple formula of coming together where two or more of them were gathered in His name (see Matthew 18:20), engaging the gospel and the scriptures, singing together, praying together, and finding peace in Christ. This is a powerful prescription for spiritual awakening. …
The stalwart youth of Zion are voyaging through stunning times. Finding joy in this world of prophesied disruption without becoming part of that world, with its blind spot toward holiness, is their particular charge. …
I know that through trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and His covenant path, we can find spiritual confidence and peace as we nurture holy habits and righteous routines that can sustain and fuel the fires of our faith. May we each move ever closer to those warming fires and, come what may, remain.