The purpose of God's creations and of His giving us life is to allow us to have the learning experience necessary for us to come back to Him, to live with Him in eternal life.

The thirst for education that comes with the change the gospel brings can be a blessing or a curse, depending on our motives.

Throughout my life, the scriptures have been a way for God to reveal things to me that are personal and helpful. When I was a little boy, I was given a small Bible. If I remember correctly, it was only the New Testament.

The scriptures were one of the ways God spoke to me - even when I was a child - about my needs, my situation, and my life. They still are. Since our needs change over a lifetime, God has different things to tell us at different times.

The Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ, and we learn about Him in its pages. We know that it has great power. It has the power to change lives. It has the power to convert. If you read it with an open heart, you will know that it is the word of God and that it is true.

When I am in situations where I break out of the pattern, it's hard on me. Once you get used to regular scripture study, you miss it if you don't have it. It's like food - you have to have it. I know that I need the scriptures like I need food. I don't miss a regular meal, and I don't miss regular scripture study.

A little prosperity and peace, or even a turn slightly for the better, can bring us feelings of self-sufficiency. We can feel quickly that we are in control of our lives, that the change for the better is our own doing, not that of a God who communicates to us through the still, small voice of the Spirit.

We are spirit children of a loving Heavenly Father who placed us in mortality to see if we would choose - freely choose - to keep His commandments and come unto His Beloved Son. They do not compel us. They cannot, for that would interfere with the plan of happiness. And so there is in us a God-given desire to be responsible for our own choices.

The Lord protects, guides, and watches over those who are His trusted friends in His work. His work and that of His Father and our Father is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of the children of God. And Satan, the enemy of our happiness, opposes those who serve the Lord.

The Holy Ghost is a comforter and a guide. But it is also a cleansing agent. That is why service in the kingdom is so crucial to enduring. When we are called to serve, we can pray for the Holy Ghost to be our companion with assurance it will come.

The Savior warns that if we start along the path and go far enough and then fail and deny Him, it would have been better if we had never begun.

When tragedy strikes, or even when it looms, our families will have the opportunity to look into our hearts to see whether we know what we said we knew. Our children will watch, feel the Spirit confirm that we lived as we preached, remember that confirmation, and pass the story across the generations.

If you reflect often on how His Atonement has changed you, and if you give thanks often, you will find that your witness of Him gains power to touch the hearts of others. When those you invite out of your own testimony feel that witness, they will come to accept Him as their Lord and Savior.

When you give your heart to inviting people to come unto Christ, your heart will be changed. You will be doing His work for Him. You will find that He keeps His promise to be one with you in your service. You will come to know Him. And in time you will come to be like Him and 'be perfected in him.'

'You better do a lot of praying' is good counsel for all of the Lord's servants, new or seasoned. It is what His wise servants do. They pray. The disciples of Jesus Christ when He lived on the earth noticed that about Him.

The Savior will help you do what He has called you to do, be it for a time as a worker in the Church or forever as a parent. You may pray for help enough to do the work and know that it will come.

The enemy of human happiness as well as the cause of poverty and starvation is not the birth of children. It is the failure of people to do with the earth what God could teach them to do if only they would ask and then obey, for they are agents unto themselves.

Children are the inheritance of the Lord to us in this life and also in eternity. Eternal life is not only to have forever our descendants from this life. It is also to have eternal increase.

No one who strives with full faith and heart for the blessings of eternal life will be denied. And how great will be the joy and how much deeper the appreciation then after enduring in patience and faith now.

What all of us long for in our hearts, at Christmastime and always, is to feel bound together in love with the sweet assurance that it can last forever.

The tithe payer helps the Lord build temples, where families can be sealed forever. The tithe payer helps Him send the gospel to people everywhere. The tithe payer helps Him relieve hunger and suffering in His own way through His servants.

The Lord is anxious to lead us to the safety of higher ground, away from the path of physical and spiritual danger. His upward path will require us to climb.

Let us do whatever is required to qualify for the Holy Ghost as our companion and then let us go forward fearlessly so that we will be given the powers to do whatever the Lord calls us to do.

As a child of God, your destiny, if you work hard enough and are faithful, is to become like Him. That means that there is nothing that is true that you cannot learn, because He knows all truth.

Most people stop learning out of fear. They are afraid they cannot learn.

When I was a little child, my parents taught me by example to pray. I began with a picture in my mind of Heavenly Father being far away. As I have matured, my experience with prayer has changed. The picture in my mind has become one of a Heavenly Father who is close by, who is bathed in a bright light, and who knows me perfectly.

Our understanding, great as it sometimes seems, can be nothing but the wide-eyed wonder of the child when measured against omniscience.

Some people conclude that the injustices existing in the world prove there is no God. On the contrary, I conclude that God, being both just and merciful, will and can rectify all inequities in a life after death.

God will use us for his purposes, but it takes a certain kind of listening.

I believe that what is really important is that God can speak to us. If we have the humility to approach him in prayer with the right attitude, he can speak to our intelligence directly.

Death is not the end; it is but one more step in a great forward march made possible by the redemption wrought by the Savior. This is the spirit of true science - constant and eternal seeking.

I perceive myself as rather uninhibited, with a certain mathematical facility and more interest in the broad aspect of a problem than the delicate nuances. I am more interested in discovering what is over the next rise than in assiduously cultivating the beautiful garden close at hand.

Growing up without a dad and not having a father figure - I noticed a hole in my life. For the longest time, I would run away from my problems instead of confronting them. I felt empty at one point. Not depressed, but empty.

The medal just was an object, just a medal, and that's it. What really meant something was the blood, the sweat, the tears that went into getting that medal. I'll always have the memories of that with me.

I've accomplished everything I've ever wanted to in my career.

Henry Cejudo is going to become the greatest combat athlete of all time, being an Olympic champ and a two-division champ in the UFC.

Look at Colby Covington. The guy can fight, and the guy can talk. To a lot of people, he just grinds people out, and many people consider him boring, but because he opens his mouth, people want to watch him fight. A lot of people want to see him win; a lot of people want to see him lose.

I can easily fill out at 135 pounds and feel good.

I don't like to open my mouth a lot because, I'll be honest with you, man, I come from the streets.

I'd like to see him fight at 135 for the championship. I want to see how good Demetrious Johnson is or how far he could take it.

The only thing I know how to do is survive.

I actually won the Copper Gloves in Arizona.

It was very important to me to join an organization that has an established track record of helping young fighters grow into world class athletes and champions. Gladiator Challenge has been a home to such fighters as Quinton Jackson, Rashad Evans, Urijah Faber, Tyson Griffin, Chael Sonnen, Michael McDonald, and many others.

To beat Henry Cejudo, you might have to bring an AK-47 and a couple dudes.

I come from the sport of wrestling, where there's nothing but respect on the mat.

I think something that has separated me from the rest of the competition - maybe it's just my way of thinking - I don't necessarily go into fights just wanting to win but to actually dominate. So when I don't feel like I dominate, sometimes I feel like a loser, I guess, you know, maybe in that perspective.

M.M.A. is growing, and it's a basic wrestling sport. A lot of fighters are ex-wrestlers. A lot of guys take the easy way out, make quick money.

I would love to fight in Mexico City.

I know success; I've done it, but success is not what everyone thinks it is. It's only a tool and a platform for a greater message. That's where my nickname 'The Messenger' comes from. The UFC and a world title are a platform for something greater. For a bigger purpose.

I think T. J. Dillashaw and Demetrious Johnson - I'm a bad matchup for both of them.