As the secretary of the stake YM presidency, I want to let you know that both the Stake YM and YW presidencies love each of you youth and continually have you in our minds and hearts. To give you a glimpse of their concern, here are key points we talked about in our meeting last week:

1. The biggest trial that Satan gives us is to make us feel like trash and alone.
2. Youth are worthy.
3. The Savior is there to save you, not condemn you.
4. Your trials in life matter even if adults have told you otherwise.
5. God has prepared a way for you to come out of your trials.
6. We need to endow youth with hope.
7. Youth need to get back to the Spirit.
8. The Spirit will come back into your life as soon as he is able to come.
9. The Spirit is evidence that God has love for you.
10. We have learned to accept the mediocre, but we should expect the miraculous.

We recently had a transformational experience during youth conference, and I find myself constantly reflecting on the miraculous experiences affecting both youth and adults in attendance. As part of the planning process, we pivoted many times because we felt the Lord inspired us to change directions. These pivots brought on more challenges. However, we continually put one foot forward even as we felt the need to pivot again and again. We even drastically altered course the night before the most life-changing, tree of life experience we had during youth conference. I remember a few months into the planning process, Sister Johnson (the stake YW president) said something to the effect, “With how difficult this process has been, Satan must be fighting hard because something powerful is going to happen.” And she was right! This was a manifestation of what President Nelson stated in his October 2022 general conference address:

“My dear brothers and sisters, so many wonderful things are ahead. In coming days, we will see the greatest manifestations of the Savior’s power that the world has ever seen. Between now and the time He returns ‘with power and great glory,’ He will bestow countless privileges, blessings, and miracles upon the faithful.”

The love of Christ and his power was present in full force. For many, this marked the beginning of their journey to have faith in Christ and restored hope.

Today, I wish to speak to you about a message of hope. Where can we find hope? Through repentance and living the principles of the gospel. However, we might feel like repentance is a steep covenant hike as Sister Runia said in her recent conference address. I would even go as far to say it might feel like a covenant climb as we stand before a wall in front of us.

Climbing this wall may feel debilitating, like there is no hope at all. When I was a young man, my friend and I returned to the cliffs at Bridal Veil falls in Provo Canyon in Utah to rescue a flip flop that my friend lost over a cliff a few weeks earlier. I asked him to bring rope, and I would help him recover it. When we made the trek to the top (where he lost the flip flop), I realized the rope he had brought was an extension cord. I knew my weight would snap the extension cord and told him that I would just free climb it. We scouted the flip flop and found that it was at the base three cliffs down from the top (my friend told me that wind must have blown it down one more cliff); the first cliff was about 10 feet tall, the second was about 20 feet tall, and the third was about 30 feet tall. The next cliff had a drop of considerable height. Between each cliff was about a five-foot landing. Getting down the cliffs was relatively easy as we supported each other. I told my friend I would go down the third cliff alone because I had more climbing experience and there would be no need for us to both go. It was easy getting down. I grabbed the flip flop and held it up to my friend in triumph. Then I looked at the wall I had just come down and reality set in. Initially overwhelmed about what stood before me without the use of proper climbing gear, I began to climb the first cliff. I summitted it with no issue other than my arms were a little shaky due to nerves. On the second cliff, my friend and I tried to climb up where we came down but realized there was an overhang that we both couldn’t make it over. So I boosted my friend high enough with my hands then back then shoulders until he could clear the overhang. Again, I was alone. I decided to scout out another spot as I doubted my ability to climb the overhang. I found a doable path up and proceeded to climb. Five feet from the top, I found a hold for my left hand. However, as I began moving my left leg up, the pressure of my weight broke the loose shale under my left hand. I lost grip with my left hand causing me to swing away from the wall and lose my footing. I found myself dangling by my right hand with all the might I could muster. I quickly scrambled back to the wall, brushed all the loose shale off and made my way up. I collapsed at the top, next to the ledge, breathless and relieved, knowing that I was one hand away from losing my life. To my relief, the last cliff up was a simple climb, and we were back at the top.

Rock climbers usually bring many supports to help along the way including rope, specialized shoes, harnesses, quick draws, cams, and chalk. Even with all these tools, climbers rely on a belayer to support them when they fall. I chose to neglect all this at great risk of peril. Yes, I was safe this time, but would I be as lucky if I tried this again? How many of us choose to go solo through life at great risk of spiritual peril? Do we neglect the support given us and free climb our own way? Or do we just surrender between ledges overcome with the vastness of the wall the lays before us? Christ is the belayer and he has put supports along the way (scriptures, prophets, prayer). We are not on our own.

As part of youth conference, we asked the youth to anonymously write down things they are struggling with and the answers were very real! They included depression, anxiety, lack of faith, lack of friends, wanting girls/boys to notice them, safety, etc. These were taped to water bottles, and as the youth drank the “living water” of Christ, they literally and metaphorically threw these issues away. So how do we overcome these challenges we are facing? President Nelson addresses this in his April 2019 conference talk:

“We need to do better and be better because we are in a battle. The battle with sin is real. The adversary is quadrupling his efforts to disrupt testimonies and impede the work of the Lord. He is arming his minions with potent weapons to keep us from partaking of the joy and love of the Lord. Repentance is the key to avoiding misery inflicted by traps of the adversary. The Lord does not expect perfection from us at this point in our eternal progression. But He does expect us to become increasingly pure. Daily repentance is the pathway to purity, and purity brings power. Personal purity can make us powerful tools in the hands of God.“

So repentance leads to purity and purity leads to power. We all want this power in our lives, but often we are our own roadblock to this power. As I have studied scriptures and sources beyond scriptures such as Brene Brown, I have learned a lot about the difference between guilt (godly sorrow) and shame (worldly sorrow). As I run through this list, consider what you feel or have felt in the past:

1. Shame tells us we are our mistakes; guilt tells us we made a mistake.
2. Shame has us questioning, “What was I thinking?” or “Do I ever get anything right?” Guilt has us questioning, “What can I do to make this right?”
3. Shame would have us harbor resentment; guilt motivates us to forgive.
4. Shame tells us we are not worthy of repentance; guilt inspires us to repent.
5. Shame encourages us to keep things secret; guilt encourages us to make things sacred.
6. Shame shrouds us in darkness; guilt welcomes light into our lives.
7. Shame turns us away from the Savior; guilt turns us toward the Savior.

When we experience guilt, Satan immediately pounces and tries to turn this guilt into shame because as Sister Runia states, “[He is] the great accuser and deceiver [who] uses shame to keep us from God.”  President Nelson encourages us in his April 2022 general conference address to:

“Please do not fear or delay repenting. Satan delights in your misery. Cut it short. Cast his influence out of your life! Start today to experience the joy of putting off the natural man. The Savior loves us always but especially when we repent. He promised that though ‘the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed … my kindness shall not depart from thee.’”

What joy are we depriving ourselves of or what hope are we lacking when we delay repentance? Alma the younger, who spent a good portion of his life fighting against the gospel, describes what he felt after repenting in Mosiah 27:28-29:

28 Nevertheless, after wading through much tribulation, repenting nigh unto death, the Lord in mercy hath seen fit to snatch me out of an everlasting burning, and I am born of God.

29 My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. I was in the darkest abyss; but now I behold the marvelous light of God. My soul was racked with eternal torment; but I am snatched, and my soul is pained no more.

Sister Runia continues, “Shame is a darkness so heavy it feels that if you took it out of your body, it would have an actual weight or heft to it.” I can testify that this weight feels real as I have felt it many times in my own life. If we feel an everlasting burning, a gall of bitterness, bonds of iniquity, the darkest abyss, or eternal torment, we too can experience the marvelous light of God through repentance. I testify that repentance quickly, if not immediately, releases this burden. As we start to climb the metaphorical wall, God changes it to where it might even seem easier to climb.

Some might feel that they must become perfect in something before they can repent. Sister Runia clarifies, “I’ve learned that if you wait until you’re clean enough or perfect enough to go to the Savior, you’ve missed the whole point…I testify that while God cares about our mistakes, He cares more about what happens after we make a mistake… We don’t stay on the covenant path by never making a mistake. We stay on the path by repenting every day.”

I want to do a little exercise. Pause what you are doing and say these words in your mind as I say them, “I am not the voice in my head or the mistakes I have made.”

During youth conference, I spoke to the youth about taking two paths and how we can see the other path for a little time even as we continue on the second path. As we take the wrong path, the Spirit will continue to prod us, but eventually there comes a moment when staying on the wrong path will chase the Spirit away to where we have lost contact with the correct path. However, I reminded the youth, we can choose to come back at any point. We learn in Isaiah 42:16 that none of us are past forgiveness:

16 And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.

I conclude with these remarks by Sister Runia:

“The invitation to repent is an expression of God’s love. Saying yes to that invitation is an expression of ours.

“So, on those days when you feel that voice telling you to hide, that you should hide in a dark room all by yourself, I invite you to be brave and believe Christ! Walk over and turn on the Light—our Perfect Brightness of Hope.

“Bathed in His light, you’ll see people all around you who have felt alone too, but now, with the light on, you and they will wonder, ‘Why were we so afraid in the dark? And why did we stay there so long?’”

As we repent, we will experience joy, hope, and light in our lives. I know this to be true.