The only change that matters

"The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ would take the slums out of people, and then they would take themselves out of the slums.
The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature."

-Ezra Taft Benson




















I also really like this quote:

"God loves us. He's watching us, he wants us to succeed, and we'll know someday that he has not left one thing undone for the eternal welfare of each of us. If we only knew it, there are heavenly hosts pulling for us -- friends in heaven that we can't rememer now, who yearn for our victory."

And this is pretty flippin pure as well:

"The tenth plank in Karl Marx's Manifesto for destroying our kind of civilization advocated the establishment of "free education for all children in public schools." There were several reasons why Marx wanted government to run the schools.…one of them [was that] ‘It is capable of exact demonstration that if every party in the State has the right of excluding from public schools whatever he does not believe to be true, then he that believes most must give way to him that believes least, and then he that believes least must give way to him that believes absolutely nothing, no matter in how small a minority the atheists or agnostics may be.’

It is self-evident that on this scheme, if it is consistently and persistently carried out in all parts of the country, the United States system of national popular education will be the most efficient and widespread instrument for the propagation of atheism which the world has ever seen."

I didn't really realize it at the time, because he was often very sick and was unable to attend conference just as I was coming of an age to have an interest in conference, but what an inspired leader he was. People like the prophets are a living testament to the truth of the exaltation and amplification of the weak things of the world. There wasn't anything particular amazing about any of these people-they were just normal guys from different backgrounds with modest education. But they had a testimony and quiet strength of character, and the Lord turned them into mountains. Some of the most dynamic and intelligent and inspired men who ever walked the earth, and yet who knows about it other than less than 1% of the world's population?