“Latter-day Saint Voices: Loving and Sustaining Others,” Liahona, Sept. 2002, 32–37
Latter-day Saint Voices:
Loving and Sustaining Others
“When we sustain a friend or a neighbor or a stranger in the street,” says Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, “we give support, we share strength, we provide help. We hold each other up under the weight of present circumstance. We bear one another’s burdens under the heavy personal pressures of life.” This responsibility comes to us as members of the Lord’s Church because “as with all else in our experience, the Lord Jesus Christ is our exemplar and ideal in this very important matter of providing sustenance” (see this issue, page 11).
Because we receive such great love and sustenance from the Savior, we desire to follow His example and love and support others. It is this desire that moves young men and women to serve as missionaries and to testify of Him. This desire also motivates members to reach out in love to those who have strayed. The following stories illustrate how this desire changes lives—of those who give this sustaining love and those who receive it.