What Did LDS Apostles Teach During Sunday Morning Session?

The second day of the October 2026 General Conference consisted of two sessions – morning and afternoon. This essay will share excerpts from talks given by members of the First Presidency and other Apostles during the morning session. Holly Wallace reported on the conference in her article published in the Deseret News. 

President Henry B. Eyring of the First Presidency

The Lord fulfills His promise to sustain us through trials, often through faithful disciples who respond to others’ needs.

President … Eyring affirmed the promises of divine help in “How Firm a Foundation,” explaining that “It is important to realize that the promise is not for the removal of challenges.” His mother’s lifelong medical trials illustrated how faith in the Lord’s presence can sustain a person through enduring hardship.

Trials help prepare Heavenly Father’s children to live in His presence, with Jesus Christ making repentance and spiritual growth possible. President Eyring emphasized the Savior’s personal understanding: “The Savior not only understands and has felt grief, but He has borne your griefs and carried your sorrows.”

Remembering his father’s bedside care for his dying mother and gratitude toward her nurses, President Eyring explained that the Lord often provides help through other people. He thanked listeners who respond to promptings to reach out, explaining, “That you felt prompted to reach out to them was evidence to them that the Lord knew and loved them.”

President Eyring encouraged kindness toward missionaries and appreciation for those serving in Church callings, whose responsibilities require strength and reassurance. He also urged listeners to seek the Holy Ghost’s help in comforting others, teaching that the Lord entrusts His disciples with helping fulfill His promise to sustain Heavenly Father’s children.

Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Faith in Jesus Christ gives disciples spiritual courage, and exercising that courage strengthens their faith.

… After testifying of the Savior’s Atonement and Resurrection, he taught, “It has always taken spiritual courage, born of faith in Jesus Christ to be His disciple.”

Moroni’s refusal to deny Christ despite profound isolation illustrated the courage discipleship requires. Addressing today’s flood of information and distractions, Elder Andersen recalled quiet days tending cows and explained, “We need stillness to nourish our faith in Christ.”

Faith and courage strengthen each other through prayer, covenant keeping, and accepting opportunities to serve. Elder Anderson taught, “In those quiet moments when we speak with our Heavenly Father privately, independently, we are given the increased courage to choose the right,” and shared President Dallin H. Oaks’s decision to accept a demanding calling while working as a young attorney.

Spiritual courage also sustains disciples through missionary service, family responsibilities, disappointment, and devastating loss. Describing families whose homes had burned and a woman enduring her husband’s betrayal, Elder Andersen showed how faith helps people trust Christ when circumstances remain painful.

He promises answers and increased spiritual power to those who strengthen their faith by believing in Christ, following Him, and keeping His commandments. Recalling Peter and John’s courageous witness of the resurrected Savior, Elder Andersen concluded with his own testimony: “He guides this holy work, the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles

Lifelong discipleship requires integrity and virtue expressed through daily choices, service, and repentance.

Elder … Cook taught that the covenant path is well marked, but following it requires a Christlike life of integrity and virtue. Recalling the inscription that inspired President David O. McKay to fulfill every responsibility well, he emphasized, “We need to live our lives with integrity and follow His example.”

Integrity means being honest with God and others and living according to one’s beliefs and commitments. Elder Cook connected virtue with lasting happiness, explaining, “True happiness, often translated as blessedness, is the actual outcome of integrity and being virtuous.”

He warned that coarse language and online attacks undermine civil discourse and violate the Savior’s teachings. Despite attacks directed at the Church, he counseled, “We cannot control the conduct of others, but we can strive to be a peaceable people who live in accordance with the Christlike conduct and virtues taught by the Savior Jesus Christ.”

Daily scripture study and spiritual renewal help disciples follow a Savior who came to save the world. Elder Cook explained that obedience, service, and virtue demonstrate integrity, teaching “The ultimate reward of integrity and virtue is the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.”

Acknowledging faults and repenting daily are also essential expressions of integrity. Elder Cook recalled a World War II veteran who compared learning about repentance to the overwhelming relief of returning home, illustrating the joy available through forgiveness and the desire to share that joy with family.

President Dallin H. Oaks

Drawing closer to Jesus Christ is the way to face doubts and struggles while continuing on the covenant path.

“Strong faith requires more than strong desire. It means daily trying, one step at a time with prayer and scriptural learning.”

“There is no ultimate conflict between knowledge obtained by these different methods, because God, our omnipotent Father, knows all truth, and expects us to learn by both methods.”

President Dallin H. Oaks affirmed that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Christ’s Church, possessing the restored fullness of His doctrine and authority. Expressing love and gratitude for members’ prayers, he directed those facing struggles, questions, or doubts toward the Savior: “Whatever they are, the way to overcome them is to get closer to our Savior, Jesus Christ.”

Building faith requires daily prayer, scriptural learning, and patience with ourselves and others. Acknowledging that resolving uncertainty can take time, President Oaks counseled, “Hold on to the first article of faith, even if something else is uncertain,” and urged listeners to trust the Lord’s timing and promises.

Addressing those whose faith is diminishing, he emphasized God’s persistent love and urged faithfulness to commandments and covenants. He taught that scientific and spiritual learning have no ultimate conflict because God knows all truth, while encouraging humility and warning, “never let your secular learning limit your spiritual horizons.”

President Oaks urged members to renew their covenants through the weekly sacrament, live according to those covenants, and attend the temple regularly if endowed. He promised, “These simple practices will protect and strengthen you,” and explained that forgiveness through Christ’s Atonement requires meeting His prescribed conditions, including faith, repentance, and baptism.

Through its account of Christ’s ministry to His scattered sheep, the Book of Mormon witnesses that He loves and reaches out to all people, with grace available to everyone.

Anticipating additional inspired records coming forth, President Oaks concluded, “I call upon all to act on these truths and to share them with others, that we may all draw closer to Jesus Christ, our Savior.”

What Did LDS Leaders Teach at General Conference?

Eighteen leaders, including seven Apostles, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spoke to a global audience at the Saturday sessions of General Conference. Their messages were “about the gospel of Jesus Christ’s ability to provide peace and guidance during a conference that is taking place during a dynamic era of growth and visibility for the church.” Tad Walch reported on the conference. 

President D. Todd Christofferson said gambling is morally wrong because its structure requires any gain to come at others’ expense.

[He] drew a bright line on the stunning spread of gambling, leaving no question where the church stands.

“We are against it,” said President D. Todd Christofferson, second counselor in the First Presidency.

Elder Ronald A. Rasband counseled members aching for loved ones who left the faith to love them as God does and trust Christ can change hearts.

… Elder Ronald A. Rasband, empathized with church members whose hearts ache for loved ones who have turned away from God.

He counseled them to love their loved ones the way God does, and to turn their despair over to Jesus Christ.

“We cannot change their hearts, but [He] can,” Elder Rasband said. “He is a God of miracles … who knows and loves them even more than we do … By the power of Jesus Christ’s Atonement, there is always a way back.

[Elder Dale G. Renlund] explained why the gospel of Jesus Christ makes it possible to feel spiritual peace even in the worst circumstances. But it requires continued focus and effort….

Too often, he said, “We focus on the here and now and lose sight of the bigger picture, both where we have been and God’s promises to us.” When that happens, doubt about God’s care can creep in.

But Latter-day Saints have a covenant relationship with Jesus Christ. When their faith is centered on him, they are freed from uncertainty “because our hope rests on his faithfulness and righteousness, not on our own,” he said.

“We can trust him,” Elder Renlund said, adding, “You can rely on God’s promises.”

The most powerful reason peace is available in all human circumstances is because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, which made his redemptive reach infinite, he said.

“The power of the Messiah to save and exalt is profoundly intimate and infinite beyond human comprehension,” he said. “There is more than enough to cover any breach, need or deficit for all of us, for each of us.”

Elder Gerrit W. Gong said God is inviting his children to the church’s rapidly growing number of temples because they are sanctuaries of peace, blessings and learning in a world meant to challenge and shape us.

“In a world of commotion, contention and cares, the Lord invites us to a place of spiritual safety, harmony, and holiness — the House of the Lord,” he said….

He encouraged church members to celebrate and treasure “even more” the spiritual blessings temples bring.

“Let us always be grateful for the gifts of eternity sacred temples bring,” he said. “Look for the miracles.”

 

Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve told listeners that fasting provides sanctifying spiritual power that brings each person closer to God in ways that provide a better understanding of God’s plan.

“This divine pattern of devotion brings strength, guidance, peace and divine help to sustain us throughout our mortal journey,” he said.

Elder Soares noted that Jesus Christ himself set an example of fasting and prayer, one that shows that they may not remove every burden but “draw heaven near and endow us with divine power to overcome or endure whatever circumstances we may face.”

He said he has witnessed how the blessings of fasting often enter a person’s life quietly and tenderly, “softening hearts, strengthening testimonies, sanctifying souls and transforming lives.”

Elder Patrick Kearon of the Quorum of the Twelve said the crucial skill in gliding is finding rising air called lift. There is also sinking air. Called sink, it shortens the distance a glider can fly and may threaten a safe landing.

“At the heart of our faith is the glorious truth that we have an adoring Father in Heaven, whose Son, our Savior, loves to lift,” Elder Kearon said.

He said that in both gliding and life, one who is not actively climbing is descending.

“How easy it is to slowly slip from spiritual heights we have worked so hard to climb when we neglect the practices and behaviors that brought us there,” he said. “We rarely intend to sink. We want lift — its joy and blessings — but we may not recognize the quiet cost of neglecting vital communion with our Father, Savior and the Holy Spirit.”

He asked listeners to pay close attention to what he described as the sweet, peaceful feelings that come with spiritual lift and the dim and dampening feelings that lead away from the Christ’s infinite love.

“Your Savior is your lift,” Elder Kearon said. “He is your ever-rising air. There is no limit to how high you can climb with him. Jesus Christ lives to lift.”

[Elder Gérald Caussé] who joined the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles last year said that his calling came with an immediate invitation to share his testimony of Jesus Christ with the quorum and the First Presidency.

“I knew that nothing could be more meaningful, as my first act as a newly ordained Apostle, than to bear witness of the Redeemer of the world,” he said. “... Today, in the restored Church of Jesus Christ, the apostolic witness remains central to our doctrine and compelling evidence of its truth.”

He said that each person’s testimony is different from any other, and it is disciple’s foundational responsibility to share it.

“Please trust it, nurture it and bear it, because it is uniquely yours,” Elder Caussé said. “... Our testimony is not a talent to be hidden. It is a gift to be shared — with grateful hearts and in a spirit of humility and love.”