Progressive Commercial – Intro
President Hinckley:
You live in a world of terrible temptations. Pornography, with its sleazy filth, sweeps over the earth like a horrible, engulfing tide. It is poison. Do not watch it or read it. It will destroy you if you do. It will take from you your self-respect. It will rob you of a sense of the beauties of life. It will tear you down and pull you into a slough of evil thoughts and possibly of evil actions. Stay away from it. Shun it as you would a foul disease, for it is just as deadly. Be virtuous in thought and in deed. God has planted in you, for a purpose, a divine urge which may be easily subverted to evil and destructive ends. When you are young, do not get involved in steady dating. When you reach an age where you think of marriage, then is the time to become so involved. But you boys who are in high school don’t need this, and neither do the girls. (Ensign, November 1997, p. 51)
President Eyring
The world in which our [youth] choose spiritual life or death is changing rapidly… The language in the hallways and the locker rooms has coarsened. Clothing is less modest. Pornography has moved into the open. Tolerance for wickedness has not only increased, but much of what was called wrong is no longer condemned at all and may, even by our students, be admired.
Parents and administrators have in many cases bent to the pressures coming from a shifting world to retreat from moral standards once widely accepted. The spiritual strength sufficient for our youth to stand firm just a few years ago will soon not be enough. Many of them are remarkable in their spiritual maturity and in their faith. But even the best of them are sorely tested. And the testing will become more severe.
CES Conference, 14 Aug 2001
Elder Holland
When crisis comes in [their] lives—and they will—the philosophies of men interlaced with a few scriptures and poems just won’t do.
Are we really nurturing [those we teach] in a way that will sustain them when the stresses of life appear?
Or are we giving them a kind of theological Twinkie—spiritually empty calories? President John Taylor called such teaching ‘fried froth,’ the kind of thing you could eat all day and yet finish feeling totally unsatisfied. (“A Teacher Come from God,” Ensign, May 1998, 27)
Elder Richard G Scott – Finding The Way Back, General Conference April 1990
Paradise:
Brother Robert L. Millet: “…those things which burdened the obedient–the worldly cares and struggles, the vicissitudes of life–are shed with the physical body. Paradise is a place where the spirit is free to think and act with a renewed capacity and with the vigor and enthusiasm which characterized one in his prime. Though a person does not rest per se from the work associated with the plan of salvation…, at the same time he is delivered from those cares and worries associated with a fallen world and a corrupt body.” (Studies In Scripture, 8:57-58)
President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) testified: “They are interested in us (Meaning Christ and Heavenly Father), and we are the substance of Their great concern. They are available to each of us. We approach the Father through the Son. He is our intercessor at the throne of God. How marvelous it is that we may so speak to the Father in the name of the Son.”2
“Fatherhood is not a matter of station or wealth,” said President Ezra Taft Benson. “It is a matter of desire, diligence, and determination to see one’s family exalted in the celestial kingdom. If that prize is lost, nothing else really matters” (Ensign, May 1981, p. 36).
Hell or Outer darkness
Joseph Smith: “The great misery of departed spirits in the world of spirits, where they go after death is to know that they come short of the glory that others enjoy and that they might have enjoyed themselves, and they are their own accusers.” (TPJS, p310)