Be an Active Priesthood Holder...

Photo: Lydia Stewart

“It is not enough to receive the priesthood and then sit back passively and wait until someone prods us into activity. When we receive the priesthood, we have the obligation of becoming actively and anxiously engaged in promoting the cause of righteousness in the earth, because the Lord says:
“‘… He that doeth not anything until he is commanded, and receiveth a commandment with doubtful heart, and keepeth it with slothfulness, the same is damned’ [D&C 58:29]” (So Shall Ye Reap [1960], 21).
-President Ezra Taft Benson

“One breaks the priesthood covenant by transgressing commandments—but also by leaving undone his duties. Accordingly, to break this covenant one needs only to do nothing” (The Miracle ofForgiveness [1969], 96).
-President Spencer W. Kimball

Long-Term Planning

Photo: Ben Romney, Europe

Short-term planning is important, but I do not believe in planning less than one week. I think people that are into "day-to-day" planning are just prioritizing crises and they'll find themselves buried in the thick of thin things and managing their lives by crises. The shortest unit of planning should be a week, but that doesn't mean we can't adapt or be flexible.

-Steven Covey, Lving the 7 Habits

Be Ready

Photo: Ben Romney, Europe

Hightlights from: "Be Ready" President Henry B. Eyring

What you will need in the dramatic moment will be built in the steady performance of obedient service. I will tell you two of the things you will need and the preparation it takes to be ready.

The first is to have faith. The priesthood is the authority to act in the name of God. It is the right to call down the powers of heaven. So you must have faith that God lives and that you have won His confidence to allow you to use His power for His purposes.

Now, the second thing they will need is confidence that they can live up to the blessings and the trust which God has offered them. Most of the influences around them drag them down to doubt the existence of God, of His love for them, and of the reality of the sometimes quiet messages they receive through the Holy Ghost and the Spirit of Christ. Their peers may urge them to choose sin. If young men choose sin, those messages from God will become more faint.

We can help them choose to prepare by loving them, warning them, and by showing confidence in them. But we can help them even more by our example of a faithful and inspired servant. In our families, in quorums, in classes, and as we associate with them in any setting, we can act as true priesthood holders who use its power as God has taught us.