Editor’s note: To support personal and family gospel learning, the Church News is publishing articles on messages from October 2025 general conference. It is recommended to listen to or read the full address in addition to reviewing these resources.
About this talk
- “Do Your Part With All Your Heart”
- Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf | Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
- Saturday morning session of October 2025 general conference.
- Theme: Discipleship takes self-discipline, and everyone has gifts to do their part.
Read the full message here.
Read a summary of Elder Uchtdorf’s message here.
Outline
- In 2024, during a trip to Europe, Elder Uchtdorf flew a 747 simulator at Lufthansa German Airlines, where he used to work. In his prime, flying had become almost second nature, but this time it took all his concentration “to do the basic things.”
Discipleship takes discipline
- Elder Uchtdorf’s experience in the flight simulator was a reminder that getting good at anything takes consistent self-discipline and practice. If practice stops once a skill or talent is developed, knowledge and abilities will gradually be lost.
- This applies to becoming a disciple of Christ. “Discipleship takes self-discipline. It is not a casual endeavor, and it doesn’t happen by accident.”
- Receiving faith in Jesus Christ is a conscious choice, a practice of every day and every hour. Faith becomes stronger as it is tested, and it needs constant nourishment.
- The Savior’s parable of the talents teaches that God wants His children to use and amplify the gifts He gives, such as knowledge, ability and opportunity. “Our gifts magnify and multiply only when we put them to use.”
You are gifted
- Each individual is a being of light and the spirit child of an infinite God, with a potential beyond imagination. “Your origin story is divine, and so is your destiny. … You are gifted.”
- God declared “every [person] is given a gift by the Spirit of God” (Doctrine and Covenants 46:11–12), and these gifts might manifest themselves in “different ways” (Moroni 10:8).
- Spiritual gifts are not always flashy, but they are precious to the Lord’s work. Such gifts include noticing people who are overlooked, finding reasons to be joyful, being a peacemaker and helping others know they belong.
Do your little part
- The Spirit will help individuals recognize their gifts and talents. The day will come when each individual will stand before God to give an account of their stewardship and how they used their gifts to bless His children.
- Growth happens “gradually and patiently — but also consistently and unrelentingly.” Turn toward the Savior and walk in His way, one step at a time.
- Approach discipleship not as a casual tourist but a wholehearted believer. “Trust the Savior and engage, patiently and diligently, in doing your part with all your heart.”
Reflection questions
What is a skill or talent you’ve worked to develop, and how do you maintain your ability to do it? How does this relate to becoming a disciple of Christ?
What does it look like to you to make discipleship “a practice of every day, every hour”?
What gifts of knowledge, ability and opportunity has God given you? How can you magnify and multiply them to bless others?
How does it make you feel to know that “if we place our hope and faith in [Christ], our victory is assured”?
What can you do today to trust more in the Savior and “do your part with all your heart”?
Speaker quotes
- “Simply put, discipleship takes self-discipline. It is not a casual endeavor, and it doesn’t happen by accident.”
- “The fire of yesterday’s testimony can warm us for only so long. It needs constant nourishment to keep burning brightly.”
- “Because of our beloved Savior, there is no such thing as a no-win scenario. If we place our hope and faith in Him, our victory is assured. He promises us access to His strength, His power, His abundant grace. Step by step, little by little, we will grow ever closer to that great and perfect day when we will live with Him and our loved ones in eternal glory.”
Reference scriptures
- “Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.”
- “For all have not every gift given unto them; for there are many gifts, and to every man is given a gift by the Spirit of God. To some is given one, and to some is given another, that all may be profited thereby.”
- “And again, I exhort you, my brethren, that ye deny not the gifts of God, for they are many; and they come from the same God. And there are different ways that these gifts are administered; but it is the same God who worketh all in all; and they are given by the manifestations of the Spirit of God unto men, to profit them.”
Invitations and promises
- “My beloved brothers and sisters, dear friends, I pray that the Spirit will help you recognize the gifts and talents God has given you. Then, let us, like the faithful servants in the Lord’s parable, increase and magnify them.”
- “Our part is to follow the Christ. It is our part to turn away from sin, turn toward the Savior, and walk in His way, one step at a time. As we do this, diligently and faithfully, we eventually cast off the shackles of imperfections and faults and slowly become refined, until that perfect day when we will be perfected in Christ.”
- “I urge and bless every member of the Church, and all who desire to be part of it, to trust the Savior and engage, patiently and diligently, in doing your part with all your heart — that your joy may be full and that, one day, you will receive all the Father has.”
Stories
- Elder Uchtdorf flew a 747 simulator at Lufthansa German Airlines, where he used to work, during a recent trip to Europe. Flying had become almost second nature to him in his prime, but this time it took all his concentration “to do the basic things.” He related this to discipleship.
From the footnotes
- 6. See Matthew 25:14–30. In the early days of the Restoration, the Lord referred to this parable as He chastised those who hid the talents He had given them. He even warned them that if they continued to bury their talent, “it [will] be taken away, even that which they have” (Doctrine and Covenants 60:2–3).
- 7. Sometimes we overemphasize the importance of gifts and talents at the expense of persistent effort. One of the most successful authors of our time wrote: “Of course there has to be some talent involved, but talent is a dreadfully cheap commodity, cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work and study; a constant process of honing” (Stephen King, Danse Macabre [2011], 88).
Additional resources
- Related image: “The Talents” in Chapter 48 of New Testament Stories illustrated for children
- Related video: “The Parable of the Talents”
- Related hymn: No. 1025, “Take My Heart and Let It Be Consecrated”
Recent conference talks on discipleship
- Elder Dale G. Renlund: “Taking on the Name of Jesus Christ” (October 2025)
- Elder John A. McCune: “Joy Through Covenant Discipleship” (April 2025)
- Elder Gerrit W. Gong: “Holiness to the Lord in Everyday Life” (October 2024)
Who is Elder Uchtdorf?
- Born in Czechoslovakia, Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf was called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 2004. He served as second counselor in the First Presidency under President Thomas S. Monson, from February 2008 to January 2018. From 1965 to 1996, he was a pilot, captain and corporate executive for the German airline Lufthansa.
