Genesis 24:3 Don't shortchange yourself by marrying outside the temple

President Gordon B. Hinckley:

“There is no substitute for marrying in the temple. It is the only place under the heavens where marriage can be solemnized for eternity. Don’t cheat yourself. Don’t cheat your companion. Don’t shortchange your lives. Marry the right person in the right place at the right time” (“Life’s Obligations,” Ensign, Feb 1999,2)

Genesis 24:18-20. If I want to marry someone with spiritual qualities, I also need them.

Elder David A. Bednar:

“If you hope to have an eternal companion who has certain spiritual qualities, then you must strive to develop those spiritual qualities in yourself. Then someone who has those qualities will be attracted to you” (in “Understanding Heavenly Father’s Plan”; lds.org) 

Of all of the creations of the Almighty, none more beautiful than a daughter of virtue.

Gordon B. Hinckley:
"Of all the creations of the Almighty, there is none more beautiful, none more inspiring than a lovely daughter of God who walks in virtue with an understanding of why she should do so, who honors and respects her body as a thing sacred and divine, who cultivates her mind and constantly enlarges the horizon of her understanding, who nurtures her spirit with everlasting truth" (Gordon B. Hinckley, "Our Responsibility to Our Young Women," Ensign, Sept 1988, 11)

Gen 22:9-10. How hard it must have been for Heavenly Father

Elder Melvin J. Ballard:

“In that hour I think I can see our dear Father behind the veil looking upon these dying struggles….His great heart almost breaking for the love that He had for His son. Oh, in that moment when He might have saved His son, I thank Him and praise Him that He did not fail us….I rejoice that He did not interfere, and that His love for us made it possible for Him to endure to look upon the sufferings of His Only Begotten and give Him finally to us, our Saviour and Redeemer. Without Him, without His sacrifice,….we would never have come glorified into His presence….This is what it cost, in part, for our Father in heaven to give the gift of His Son unto men” (Crusader for Righteousness 1966, 137) 

Genesis 20:6. The Holy Ghost will always warn us before we make a serious mistake

President Boyd K. Packer taught:

“No member of this church – and that means each of you – will ever make a serious mistake without first being warned by the promptings of the Holy Ghost.

“Sometimes when you have made a mistake, you may have said afterward, ‘I knew I should not have done that. It did not feel right,’ or perhaps, ‘I knew I should have done that. I just did not have the courage to act!’ Those impressions are the Holy Ghost attempting to direct you toward good or warning you away from harm” (“How to Survive in Enemy Territory,” New Era, Apr. 2012,3).

Genesis 19:26. Don't look back

Boyd K. Packer:

“President Joseph Fielding Smith told me of a repentant woman struggling to find her way out of a very immoral life. She asked him what she should do now.

In turn, he asked her to read to him from the Old Testament the account of Lot’s wife, who was turned to a pillar of salt. Then he asked her, “What lesson do you gain from those verses?”

She answered, “The Lord will destroy the wicked.”

“Not so!” President Smith said that the lesson for this repentant woman and for you is “Don’t look back!”

Strangely enough, it may be that the simplest and most powerful prevention and cure for pornography, or any unclean act, is to ignore and avoid it. Delete from the mind any unworthy thought that tries to take root. Once you have decided to remain clean, you are asserting your God-given agency. And then, as President Smith counseled, “Don’t look back.” (Boyd K Packer. Cleansing the inner Temple. 2010-0:74)

Gen 15:6. Trust that the Lord will fulfill his promises

Elder Richard G. Scott:
"This life is an experience in profound trust....To trust means to obey willingly without knowing the end from the beginning (see Prov. 3:5-7)....
"To exercise faith is to trust that the Lord knows what He is doing with you and that He can accomplish it for your eternal good even though you cannot understand how He can possibly do it" ("Trust in the Lord," Ensign, Nov 1995,17)

Abraham 3:23 God held you in reserve for the final days

President Benson said the following:

"For nearly six thousand years, God has held you in reserve to make your appearance in the final days before the Second Coming. Every previous gospel dispensation has drifted into apostasy, but ours will not. … God has saved for the final inning some of his strongest children, who will help bear off the kingdom triumphantly. And that is where you come in, for you are the generation that must be prepared to meet your God. … Make no mistake about it—you are a marked generation. There has never been more expected of the faithful in such a short period of time as there is of us. … Each day we personally make many decisions that show where our support will go. The final outcome is certain—the forces of righteousness will finally win. What remains to be seen is where each of us personally, now and in the future, will stand in this fight—and how tall we will stand. Will we be true to our last-days, foreordained mission?" (quoted by Marvin J. Ashton, in CR, Oct. 1989, 48; Ensign, Nov. 1989, 36–37)

Abraham 3:23. We were foreordained in the premortal life

“In the Premortal spirit world, God appointed certain spirits to fulfill specific missions during their mortal lives. This is called foreordination…

“The doctrine of foreordination applies to all members of the Church, not just the Savior and His prophets. Before the creation of the earth, faithful women were given certain responsibilities and faithful men were foreordained to certain priesthood duties. Although you do not remember that time, you surely agreed to fulfill significant tasks in the service of your Father” (True to the Faith: A Gospel Reference 2004, 69,70.)

Abraham 1:15. The Savior knows how to help us.

Elder David A. Bednar,

…The Savior has suffered not just for our iniquities but also for the inequality, the unfairness, the pain, the anguish, and the emotional distresses that so frequently beset us. There is no physical pain, no anguish of soul, no suffering of spirit, no infirmity or weakness that you or I ever experience during our mortal journey that the Savior did not experience first. You and I in a moment of weakness may cry out, ‘No one understands. No one knows.’ No human being, perhaps, knows. But the Son of God perfectly knows and understands, for He felt and bore our burdens before we ever did. And because He paid the ultimate price and bore that burden, He has perfect empathy and can extend to us His arm of mercy in so many phases of our life. He can reach out, touch, succor—literally run to us—and strengthen us to be more than we could ever be and help us to do that which we could never do through relying upon only our own power. (Elder David A. Bednar “The Atonement and the Journey of Mortality,” Ensign, Apr. 2012.)

Questions and answers about the Pearl of Great Price

QUESTION: Why did Joseph Smith say he had translated the writings of Abraham even though the manuscripts do not date from Abraham’s time?

ANSWER: The Prophet Joseph Smith never claimed the papyri were indeed the writings of Abraham. He said the book of Abraham was “a translation of some ancient Records that have fallen into our hands, from the Catacombs of Egypt, purporting to be the writings of Abraham, while he was in Egypt” (Times and Seasons, Mar. 1, 1842, 704). “In 1966 eleven fragments of papyri once possessed by the Prophet Joseph Smith were discovered in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. They were given to the Church and have been analyzed by scholars who date them between about 100 B.C. and A.D. 100. A common objection to the authenticity of the book of Abraham is that the manuscripts are not old enough to have been written by Abraham, who lived almost two thousand years before Christ. Joseph Smith never claimed that the papyri were autographic (written by Abraham himself), nor that they dated from the time of Abraham. It is common to refer to an author’s works as ‘his’ writings, whether he penned them himself, dictated them to others, or others copied his writings later” (The Pearl of Great Price Student Manual, 28).

QUESTION: What did Joseph Smith do with his translation?

ANSWER: “The book of Abraham was originally published a few excerpts at a time in Times and Seasons, a Church publication, beginning in March 1842 at Nauvoo, Illinois (see [the introduction] at the beginning of the Pearl of Great Price). The Prophet Joseph Smith indicated that he would publish more of the book of Abraham later, but he was martyred before he was able to do so. Concerning the potential length of the completed translation, Oliver Cowdery once said that ‘volumes’ would be necessary to contain it (see Messenger and Advocate, Dec. 1835, 236). “In addition to hieroglyphic writings, the manuscript also contained Egyptian drawings. On 23 February 1842, the Prophet Joseph Smith asked Reuben Hedlock, a professional wood engraver and member of the Church, to prepare woodcuts of three of those drawings so they could be printed. Hedlock finished the engravings in one week, and Joseph Smith published the copies (facsimiles) along with the book of Abraham. Joseph Smith’s explanations of the drawings accompany the facsimiles” (The Pearl of Great Price Student Manual, 28–29).

QUESTION: What happened to the mummies and the papyri?

ANSWER: “After the death of the Prophet Joseph Smith, the four mummies and the papyri became the property of Joseph’s widowed mother, Lucy Mack Smith” (The Pearl of Great Price Student Manual, 29). After Lucy Mack Smith died, the collection was sold to a man named Abel Combs. The collection may have been sold by Joseph Smith’s wife Emma, or it may have been sold by his brother William. Mr. Combs sold some of the collection to a museum in St. Louis, Missouri. He retained other portions and later gave some of them away. (The Story of the Book of Abraham: Mummies, Manuscripts, and Mormonism [1995], 204–9, 257.)

“Several theories have been offered regarding what happened . . . to the mummies and the papyri. It appears that at least two of the mummies were burned in the great Chicago fire of 1871 (see B. H. Roberts, New Witnesses for God, 3 vols. [1909–11], 2:380–382).

How Joseph obtained the writings of Abraham

“On 3 July 1835 a man named Michael Chandler brought four Egyptian mummies and several papyrus scrolls of ancient Egyptian writings to Kirtland, Ohio. The mummies and papyri had been discovered in Egypt several years earlier by Antonio Lebolo. Kirtland was one of many stops in the eastern United States for Chandler’s mummy exhibition. Chandler was offering the mummies and rolls of papyrus for sale and, at the urging of the Prophet Joseph Smith, several members of the Church donated money to purchase them. In a statement dated 5 July 1835, Joseph Smith, declaring the importance of these ancient Egyptian writings, recorded: ‘I commenced the translation of some of the characters or hieroglyphics, and much to our joy found that one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham. . . . Truly we can say, the Lord is beginning to reveal the abundance of peace and truth’ (History of the Church, 2:236)” (The Pearl of Great Price Student Manual [Church Educational System manual, 2000], 28).

“the Prophet Joseph Smith never communicated his method of translating these records. As with all other scriptures, a testimony of the truthfulness of these writings is primarily a matter of faith. The greatest evidence of the truthfulness of the book of Abraham is not found in an analysis of physical evidence nor historical background, but in prayerful consideration of its content and power” (The Pearl of Great Price Student Manual, 28).