Pray often
Exercise faith
Before delivering the address he had prepared for the Sunday morning session of conference, President Boyd K. Packer, acting president of the Council of the Twelve, spoke briefly about the outpouring of love members have demonstrated for a past and a present prophet.
He described scenes along the route of the cortege taking President Ezra Taft Benson's body to Idaho for burial: Scouts in uniform, families in their Sunday best, and farmers who left equipment in the fields all stood by roadsides and on overpasses to pay their respects.
President Packer said the "spontaneous outpouring of love" extended to President Benson is now transferred to President Howard W. Hunter.
Then, speaking on the topic of personal revelation, President Packer addressed his remarks to the youth of the Church. He noted there are two parts to one's nature, the temporal body and the immortal spirit within. He said one can see, hear, touch, feel and learn through physical senses and the intellect. "But if you learn by reason only, you will never understand how the Spirit works," he said.
He quoted Moroni 10:5, which testifies it is by the power of the Holy Ghost that the truth of all things may be known.
He spoke of prayer, saying, "Learn to pray. Pray often. Pray in your mind, in your heart. Pray on your knees. Prayer is your personal key to heaven. The lock is on your side of the veil."
Of the still, small voice of revelation, President Packer said, "While we speak of listening' to the whispering of the Spirit, most often one describes a spiritual prompting by saying,I had a feeling. . . .' "
He said the flow of revelation depends on faith. "You exercise faith by causing, by making, your mind accept or believe as truth that which you cannot, by reason alone, prove for certainty."
President Packer said the body is the instrument of the mind. "What you learn spiritually depends, to a degree, on how you treat your body," he said. "That is why the Word of Wisdom is so important."
He encouraged the youth to make wholesome music a part of their lives, and to learn what sacred music has to do with revelation.
He then warned of false spirits and "counterfeit revelations," and cautioned that the adversary will tempt and try to lead people astray. He suggested careful and repeated readings of the seventh chapter of Moroni, which tells how to test spiritual promptings.
President Packer said the Lord's house is a house of order, and that no one will receive instruction for those in authority higher than themselves.
Sorrow, disappointment, failure and fear may come, President Packer remarked. "You must face life `led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which
youT should do,' just as Nephi did. (1 Ne. 4:6.)
"You may not yet have a certain witness that Jesus is the Christ. Exercise your faith and trust in those who do."
