This has been a remarkable session. In behalf of all who participated thus far in word or music, as the President of the Church, I have chosen simply to say to you at this moment just two words, known as the two most important words in the English language. To Sister Cheryl Lant and her counselors, the choir, the musicians, the speakers, those words are “Thank you.”

I believe this man to truly be called of God as the mouthpiece of the Lord Jesus Christ, a servant to God to help lead the inhabitants of this earth to return to live with Heavenly Father. So, when he said that those are the two most important words, I took it most seriously. But why; why is ‘thank you’ the two most important words?

Being Grateful in the Moment

Have you ever noticed that you find out what you are grateful for once it is gone? My little family and I have moved away from family for the summer to complete an internship for my husband’s schooling. We were so excited to leave to have this great big adventure. It only took a few hours after arriving to realize this wasn’t going to be a fun party the whole time–we were going to miss our family like crazy! And oh how we have missed them! I can’t count the many tears I have shed since being away, but I can tell you my regrets for the times that I thought it a hassle to drive 30-40 minutes to drive to family dinner. I have realized, since being away, how blessed I am to have them. This experience has given me the desire to live with open eyes to see the all of my blessings. On another occasion, the Mormon Prophet Thomas S. Monson shared this story to teach us how we can live with gratitude always:

I share with you an account of one family which was able to find blessings in the midst of serious challenges. This is an account I read many years ago and have kept because of the message it conveys. It was written by Gordon Green and appeared in an American magazine over 50 years ago.

Gordon tells how he grew up on a farm in Canada, where he and his siblings had to hurry home from school while the other children played ball and went swimming. Their father, however, had the capacity to help them understand that their work amounted to something. This was especially true after harvest time when the family celebrated Thanksgiving, for on that day their father gave them a great gift. He took an inventory of everything they had.

On Thanksgiving morning he would take them to the cellar with its barrels of apples, bins of beets, carrots packed in sand, and mountains of sacked potatoes as well as peas, corn, string beans, jellies, strawberries, and other preserves which filled their shelves. He had the children count everything carefully. Then they went out to the barn and figured how many tons of hay there were and how many bushels of grain in the granary. They counted the cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and geese. Their father said he wanted to see how they stood, but they knew he really wanted them to realize on that feast day how richly God had blessed them and had smiled upon all their hours of work. Finally, when they sat down to the feast their mother had prepared, the blessings were something they felt.

Gordon indicated, however, that the Thanksgiving he remembered most thankfully was the year they seemed to have nothing for which to be grateful.

The year started off well: they had leftover hay, lots of seed, four litters of pigs, and their father had a little money set aside so that someday he could afford to buy a hay loader—a wonderful machine most farmers just dreamed of owning. It was also the year that electricity came to their town—although not to them because they couldn’t afford it.

One night when Gordon’s mother was doing her big wash, his father stepped in and took his turn over the washboard and asked his wife to rest and do her knitting. He said, “You spend more time doing the wash than sleeping. Do you think we should break down and get electricity?” Although elated at the prospect, she shed a tear or two as she thought of the hay loader that wouldn’t be bought.

So the electrical line went up their lane that year. Although it was nothing fancy, they acquired a washing machine that worked all day by itself and brilliant light bulbs that dangled from each ceiling. There were no more lamps to fill with oil, no more wicks to cut, no more sooty chimneys to wash. The lamps went quietly off to the attic.

The coming of electricity to their farm was almost the last good thing that happened to them that year. Just as their crops were starting to come through the ground, the rains started. When the water finally receded, there wasn’t a plant left anywhere. They planted again, but more rains beat the crops into the earth. Their potatoes rotted in the mud. They sold a couple of cows and all the pigs and other livestock they had intended to keep, getting very low prices for them because everybody else had to do the same thing. All they harvested that year was a patch of turnips which had somehow weathered the storms.

Then it was Thanksgiving again. Their mother said, “Maybe we’d better forget it this year. We haven’t even got a goose left.”

On Thanksgiving morning, however, Gordon’s father showed up with a jackrabbit and asked his wife to cook it. Grudgingly she started the job, indicating it would take a long time to cook that tough old thing. When it was finally on the table with some of the turnips that had survived, the children refused to eat. Gordon’s mother cried, and then his father did a strange thing. He went up to the attic, got an oil lamp, took it back to the table, and lighted it. He told the children to turn out the electric lights. When there was only the lamp again, they could hardly believe that it had been that dark before. They wondered how they had ever seen anything without the bright lights made possible by electricity.

The food was blessed, and everyone ate. When dinner was over, they all sat quietly. Wrote Gordon:

“In the humble dimness of the old lamp we were beginning to see clearly again. …

“It [was] a lovely meal. The jack rabbit tasted like turkey and the turnips were the mildest we could recall. …

“… [Our] home … , for all its want, was so rich [to] us.”

My brothers and sisters, to express gratitude is gracious and honorable, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live with gratitude ever in our hearts is to touch heaven.

Don’t you just love that account? It inspires me on many levels.

What can we do to recognize what we are grateful for?

At even another Mormon General Conference, President Monson shared with us a simple solution to live with gratitude:

As I have reviewed the past 49 years, I have made some discoveries. One is that countless experiences I have had were not necessarily those one would consider extraordinary. In fact, at the time they transpired, they often seemed unremarkable and even ordinary. And yet, in retrospect, they enriched and blessed lives—not the least of which was my own. I would recommend this same exercise to you—namely, that you take an inventory of your life and look specifically for the blessings, large and small, you have received.

What is the benefit of doing this? He continues to say:

Reinforced constantly during my own review of the years has been my knowledge that our prayers are heard and answered. We are familiar with the truth found in 2 Nephi in the Book of Mormon: “Men are, that they might have joy.”1 I testify that much of that joy comes as we recognize that we can communicate with our Heavenly Father through prayer and that those prayers will be heard and answered—perhaps not how and when we expected they would be answered, but they will be answered and by a Heavenly Father who knows and loves us perfectly and who desires our happiness. Hasn’t He promised us, “Be thou humble; and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answer to thy prayers”?

Perhaps President Monson has taught the principle of gratitude time and time again because of the Lord’s promise found in a book of Mormon scripture, “He who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious” (Doctrine and Covenants 78:19). His counsel to live with gratitude  inspires me to share with you some of the things I am deeply grateful for: I am grateful for a living Prophet, even Thomas S. Monson, I am thankful for my family, my parents, my children, my husband, the Gospel, and I am especially grateful for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who makes all of my blessings possible. May we live with gratitude always in our hearts, in our expressions to others, and in our prayers to God.

Mormons believe we are saved through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

In the mid-19th century, when rhetorical, emotional oratory was common, some church members and leaders used strong language that included notions of people making restitution for their sins by giving up their own lives.

However, so-called “blood atonement,” by which individuals would be required to shed their own blood to pay for their sins, is not a doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We believe in and teach the infinite and all-encompassing atonement of Jesus Christ, which makes forgiveness of sin and salvation possible for all people.” (See Mormon Church Statement on Blood Atonement.)

Many people do not realize that every word spoken by a prophet or other church leader is not official doctrine. Prophets, like everyone else, have agency and intelligence and, when a specific doctrine has not been given to us from God, is permitted to make his own decision. Sometimes they discuss these personal beliefs in public. In past times, leaders were not as cautious about this as they are today. In today’s world, where the most casual statement can live forever on the Internet, leaders often preface opinions with a reminder that this is what they are. However, when the Church was younger and smaller, this was not always true. Unless a belief has been canonized, it is not official doctrine. Blood atonement is one such belief, arising out of the common beliefs of the time.

Many people use as their source for this teaching the Journal of Discourses, a  book containing various talks by early church leaders. However, this record is not an official church publication and the talks were not recorded and were not official versions. They are based on notes taken by listeners and were not vetted by the leaders themselves. General Conferences, the semi-annual gathering of the Mormons, was different then than it is now, and in the first year of the Church, attendees could even ask the speakers questions and get opinions from them. The Journal of Discourses was intended to be used like a newspaper, not a book of scripture or doctrine. It was written for those who lived far from the central church.

The Mormons teach that we are saved through the atonement of Christ. It is His blood that saves us, not our own. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)

This teaching is expanded on by Elder David A. Bednar, an apostle of Jesus Christ in modern times:

Prophets throughout the ages have emphasized the dual requirements of (1) avoiding and overcoming bad and (2) doing good and becoming better. Consider the penetrating questions posed by the Psalmist:

“Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?

“He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully” (Psalm 24:3–4).

Brothers and sisters, it is possible for us to have clean hands but not have a pure heart. Please notice that both clean hands and a pure heart are required to ascend into the hill of the Lord and to stand in His holy place.

Let me suggest that hands are made clean through the process of putting off the natural man and by overcoming sin and the evil influences in our lives through the Savior’s Atonement. Hearts are purified as we receive His strengthening power to do good and become better. All of our worthy desires and good works, as necessary as they are, can never produce clean hands and a pure heart. It is the Atonement of Jesus Christ that provides both a cleansing and redeeming power that helps us to overcome sin and a sanctifying and strengthening power that helps us to become better than we ever could by relying only upon our own strength. The infinite Atonement is for both the sinner and for the saint in each of us.

In the Book of Mormon, we find the masterful teachings of King Benjamin concerning the mission and Atonement of Jesus Christ. The simple doctrine he taught caused the congregation to fall to the earth, for the fear of the Lord had come upon them. “And they had viewed themselves in their own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth. And they all cried aloud with one voice, saying: O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified; for we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created heaven and earth, and all things; who shall come down among the children of men” (Mosiah 4:2; emphasis added), (David A. Bednar, “Clean Hands and a Pure Heart,” Liahona, Nov 2007, 80–83).

Mormons teach that grace comes to us through the atonement of Jesus Christ. It is what allows us to overcome death to live forever. Grace also allows us to repent of our sins and to be forgiven after we have done so. This comes to us without any conditions—every person who has ever lived on this earth has the gift of grace without any acts at all. Mormons do not believe the act of accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior is required to receive God’s grace. It is without conditions.

However, to receive the fullness of the atonement, we must follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and live the gospel. Doing so allows us to return to God’s presence. The scriptures teach us that no unclean thing can dwell in God’s presence, and so we must cleanse ourselves and live as pure a life as possible while we’re on the earth. Of course mistakes happen. No one is perfect. However, through the atonement and grace, we are able to repent and start over as often as necessary and in time, this way, we will feel worthy to be in God’s presence. We will be ourselves in Heaven; to make it the perfect place God promised us, it can only be filled with those who love God and keep His commandments.

“If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15) Jesus taught. He repeated again and again the importance of obeying God’s commandments, warning that only those who do will be with God again. “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 7:21)

However, although we must obey the commandments and we must repent when we fall short, we cannot bring about our own atonement by doing so. Only the voluntary atonement of Jesus Christ, which happened in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross at Calvary could bring about our atonement. We cannot use our own blood to atone for our sins, no matter what type they are, because the atonement required the voluntary sacrifice of a perfect being. For this reason, Mormons do not believe in blood atonement as the term is used to describe capital punishment.

Many evangelicals teach that a person gets to heaven by being “saved.” This involves the act of accepting Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. At the same time, they teach that acts cannot get you into Heaven. The Mormons also believe that a person must accept Jesus Christ as His Savior in order to return to God’s presence after death. Both groups agree that at least one act is required of all of us in order to be with God.

The confusion over the number of acts required to be saved comes from the differences in terminology used by Mormons. Mormons believe everyone is saved through the atonement of Jesus Christ, even if they never accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. However, grace and eternal life, to a Mormon, are not the same thing. To understand this complex issue, let’s look at several essential points.

What is grace?

The Bible Dictionary, found in LDS editions of the King James Bible, defines grace for us:

It is through the grace of the Lord Jesus, made possible by his atoning sacrifice, that mankind will be raised in immortality, every person receiving his body from the grave in a condition of everlasting life. It is likewise through the grace of the Lord that individuals, through faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, receive strength and assistance to do good works that they otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means. This grace is an enabling power that allows men and women to lay hold on eternal life and exaltation after they have expended their own best efforts.  (see Bible Dictionary.)

In other words, grace allows us to rise from the dead, receive our bodies back from the grave in a perfected form, and life forever. This is possible only because Jesus Christ voluntarily gave up His life for us after taking on the sins of the world. No fully  human being was capable of doing this for Himself. Had Christ not made this sacrifice for us, life would end with death because none of us could live a perfect life or satisfy the demands of justice fully. Only Jesus, with a mortal mother and a Heavenly Father could live perfectly and choose to die for us.

Each person then, is resurrected and given a place to spend eternity. However, living forever isn’t the total sum of our goals for eternity if we love God. We who love Him want to live with Him in His home forever. This requires a bit more. Again, it is grace that makes this additional gift possible. Without grace, we could not repent of the sins we commit here on earth.

Why does repentance matter?

For this, we need to search the Bible, where we find the following scriptures:

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 7:21, KJV of the Bible)

The Book of James, who is believed to be the brother of Jesus, took this thought even further, and answers the question without any room for doubt:

17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?

22 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?

23 And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.

24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.

25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?

26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. (James 2, King James Version of the Bible)

James points out that believing in God is good, but even Satan believes in God. No, more is required that just to believe. He explains, using Abraham and Rahab as examples, that they obeyed the commandments because they had faith, and that faith was made perfect when they chose to not just believe, but to do what God taught them to do. It was the combination of faith and works that made them perfect in the eyes of God. Note especially the inclusion of Rahab. Rahab is a woman who was a harlot, so not a prophet or other person we might normally think to hold up as an example. If we looked only at that one aspect of her life, we’d see her as a lost soul, but God sees her as more and notes that she made courageous choices that helped to progress the work of God. She was, in fact, listed as an ancestor of Jesus Christ. This does not give her the right to sin as she chooses, but it demonstrates that the good works she did mattered and counted in the long run.

We see then, that faith and works must work together as a unified total in order for either of them to “get us into Heaven.”

Can Mormons (or anyone else) work their way into Heaven?

No. An evil person who did good works could not get himself into Heaven. A person who did good works every single day would not be admitted to God’s presence unless he had also accepted Jesus Christ as His Savior and unless His good works were an outward manifestation of the private faith in his heart.

A person who truly loves God will want to do His will. The greater our faith, the easier it becomes to make good choices. A person who says he has faith, who publicly proclaims that he has accepted Jesus Christ as His Savior, but who happily goes about his life robbing banks or hurting others, and who does not bother to repent is not going to be admitted into Heaven, as Jesus made clear, because his faith is not real and because no unclean thing can enter into God’s presence. Faith without works is a dead faith, but so is works without faith dead works. No one will live a perfect life, but we have a responsibility to repent when we do wrong, and to continually strive to keep the commandments.

The Book of Mormon teaches:

23 For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do. …

26 And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.  (2 Nephi 25)

It is only through Jesus Christ that people can be saved. If we want to live with God, rather than to merely live forever away from His presence, we must have faith, and we must also keep the commandments, as Jesus Christ instructed us to do.