Articles

Let’s Decide Now to “Walk in the Spirit”

by Megan Hutchings

At twenty-three years of age, Wilford Woodruff decided that he wanted to make some changes in his life. Reflecting on this time later, he wrote:

“Up to this period, I ha[d] spent my life a little like a ship tossed upon the waves of the sea—up and down, unstable and unsettled in my mind, at times trying to worship the Lord and living the life of a Christian, and then at other times giving it up and trying to take pleasure in the things of the world. . . . I felt that I had spent a good deal of my time in a manner that was not profitable to me. Not that I had been guilty of committing any heinous or outbreaking sins . . . yet I had spent a good deal of my youth in vanity and folly, giving way at times to many idle words and vain and foolish recreations which did not store the mind with knowledge or produce any profitable fruit1 (emphasis added).

Preparing the Way to Zion

by Christian Decker

It goes without saying that we live in a fallen world, with bad situations and baser instincts leaving many of us physically and spiritually poor. The Lord has taught us to pursue self-reliance, learning to provide for ourselves and our families in every aspect of our lives. Take a moment and think of Christ’s teachings in the New Testament. Many were taught using everyday events and situations that His audience could understand. Roman coinage, wedding traditions, the rule of kings, and other aspects of ancient life can seem foreign to latter-day readers, yet mustard seeds and finding pearls of great price resonate with us centuries later because we recognize the eternal principles of growth and seeking to change. In order to effect change, one must put in work. This principle of sacrifice extends to everything we hope to build, yet this represents only half of the Lord’s instruction.

"This Is My Testimony, Spoken by Myself into a Talking Machine": Wilford Woodruff's 1897 Statement in Stereo

by Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Steven C. Harper

In March 1844, just weeks before his martyrdom, Joseph Smith “called the Twelve Apostles together and he delivered unto them the ordinances of the Church and kingdom of God.” Wilford Woodruff noted the events of the day in a terse journal entry. March “26th A rainey day. I met in council with the brethren.” Perhaps the sacredness and magnitude of the meeting called for the brief, cryptic note. Or perhaps it would take hindsight for Wilford to recognize the momentousness of the day’s events. In either case, fifty-three years later at age ninety, President Woodruff recorded his spoken testimony of the historic meeting.