Patrick Kearon

Everything about the Father’s plan for His beloved children is designed to bring everyone home.

During the dedication of the Tallahassee Florida Temple yesterday, I was again struck by the sacred nature of the house of the Lord. In this sacred space, where earth and heaven meet, we come to receive solace, peace, and refuge at any time, but especially when we feel lost. In this sacred space, we can learn more deeply of our eternal identity as cherished daughters and sons of our Heavenly Father, with limitless potential for good and growth. In this sacred space, our true selves can be found, as we leave the distractions and pettiness of the world outside and receive an extra measure of the Spirit of the Lord to help us hear His still, small voice and meet the demands of life. We can be found here in the temple because here in the temple we find Jesus Christ.

Our Father in Heaven sent His Son Jesus Christ to Atone, to help, to heal, and to demonstrate the pure love of our Father in Heaven. He yearns to have us all come home.

As fellow children of our Heavenly Father, it would do us well to talk with and listen to the thoughts and ideas of those who don’t agree with us. If we do this with an open heart, we’ll be blessed to understand one another and become a force for peace.

I had the wonderful opportunity to speak with an inspiring group of recently returned missionaries in the Philippines. In our discussion, I offered them the same counsel that I would offer to all of our wonderful returned missionaries: Don’t go back to who you were before your missionary service—reach up and move forward.

Because of the loving plan of our Heavenly Father for each of His children, and because of the redeeming life and mission of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, we can—and should—be the most joyful people on earth! Nowhere should our joy as a people be more apparent than when we gather together each Sabbath in our sacrament meetings to worship the Source of all joy! Even as the storms of life in an often troubled world pound upon us, we can cultivate a growing and abiding sense of joy and inner peace because of our hope in Christ and our understanding of our own place in the beautiful plan of happiness. "Light of the World," by Light Your Home.

Your Father in Heaven and Savior Jesus Christ love you more than you can imagine. Hold this truth in your mind and in your heart—you are treasured.

The Savior, the Good Shepherd, goes in search of His lost sheep until He finds them. He is “not willing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9). Let us follow His example and respond to the impressions we receive, no matter how insignificant they may seem. Let us ask our Father in Heaven what we might do, and for whom, and do it. #99plus1

I’m so grateful for my mother. She was the embodiment of the strength, generosity, and stoicism of the wartime generation. I will never fully appreciate her selflessness in raising and caring for me—but I know her devotion was treasured by our Heavenly Father. Her influence lives on in me and my brother and sisters. We all miss her.

Our loving Father oversaw the creation of this very earth for the express purpose of providing an opportunity for you and for me to have the stretching and refining experiences of mortality, the chance to use our God-given moral agency to choose Him, to learn, to grow, to make mistakes, to repent, to love God and our neighbor, and to one day return home to Him. #GeneralConference

Though it may seem impossible, feel impossible, healing can come through the miracle of the redemptive might of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He came here to make the impossible possible, the irredeemable redeemable, to heal the unhealable, to right the unrightable, to promise the unpromisable. #BecauseofHim

I’m pleased to send my Ramadan greetings to all our Muslim brothers and sisters around the globe.