As was foretold in the scriptures, today is a moment in history when individuals around the world are looking for God and for his eternal truths, Church President Dallin H. Oaks taught during the Sunday morning session of October 2026 general conference.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is home to the Savior’s restored doctrine and authority, President Oaks said. In it, God’s children learn about the nature of the Godhead and the significance of the Savior’s Atonement in Heavenly Father’s plan.
“God the Father, the great Elohim, is the Father of our spirits, the framer of heaven and earth, and the author of the plan of our salvation. (See Moses 1:31–33; 2:1–2; Doctrine and Covenants 20:17–21.) Jesus Christ is His Only Begotten Son, Jehovah, and the Messiah, ‘the God of the whole earth’ (3 Nephi 11:14),” he said.
Members of the Church both obey the invitation of the Book of Mormon prophet Amaleki and invite all others to “come unto Christ” (Omni 1:26).
“As your president, I pray for what our Heavenly Father wants for each of us — to be active members of the Church of Jesus Christ, proceeding forward on the covenant path into the eternities. We need one another’s prayers.”
Each individual on the earth is a work in progress with personal trials and challenges to work through and help others to work through, he said.
“We all have present or future concerns or struggles we are trying to overcome. This may include questions or doubts. Whatever they are, the way to overcome them is to get closer to our Savior, Jesus Christ.”
Those challenges of mortality have the purpose of providing opportunities for individuals to develop faith in Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ.
“Strong faith requires more than strong desire. It means daily trying, one step at a time, with prayer and scriptural learning,” he said.
In that process of personal development, individuals need to have patience with themselves and others, President Oaks said. That patience includes allowing time for increased understanding by one’s self or a loved one. It also includes being patient with the progress of scientific understanding and the “sometimes-incomplete teachings of religion,” he said.
Reconciling the conflicts that may exist between science and religion can take time. This process may also help build faith and humility. That same faith and humility compels obedience to the Lord’s commandments to repent and be baptized.
“A major concern to your prophet leaders are those members of diminishing faith in Jesus Christ. We love you ... So does the Lord God. He is relentless in His loving pursuit of each of you,” President Oaks said.
The prophet invited individuals to maintain momentum in the building of their faith by keeping the commandments, keeping their covenants and avoiding the artificial limits of secular learning.
2 ways to learn
The Sunday morning general conference address was President Oaks’ second in such a conference since being sustained in a general conference solemn assembly on April 4. In the April 2026 general conference, President Oaks invited individuals to act as peacemakers at home and in all relationships.
Six months later, President Oaks invited continued learning and the study of the Book of Mormon.
President Oaks taught there are two ways to earn the necessary knowledge of life.
- Evolving disclosures of man through the scientific method and digital information.
- The truths discovered by the spiritual method, which begins with faith in God and relies on scriptures, inspired teaching and personal revelation.
“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 Oaks also invited individuals to maintain humility as they seek and obtain learning by these two methods. He referenced then-Elder Spencer W. Kimball’s 1963 address at BYU in which the member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and future President of the Church referred to humility as “teachableness.”
“Teachableness is an ability to realize that all virtues and abilities are not concentrated in one’s self. … [Humility] is forgiving others in the realization that there may be errors of the same kind or worse [that we ourselves commit],” Elder Kimball taught.
One way members of the Church can strengthen their humility is through the weekly participation in the ordinance of the sacrament and living up to the promises made in that covenant each week. For those who have made additional covenants in the temple, President Oaks invited them to attend the house of the Lord regularly.
“These simple practices will protect and strengthen you,” he said.
The Book of Mormon witnesses of Christ
President Oaks also shared teachings from the Book of Mormon that can strengthen testimonies of the Savior Jesus Christ.
First, he said the Book of Mormon teaches that Jesus, as the Creator, died “for all men, that all men might become subject unto him” (2 Nephi 9:5).
“This means that if our sins are to be forgiven through His Atonement, we must comply with the conditions He has prescribed, including faith, repentance, and baptism,” President Oaks said.
Those conditions will not and cannot be compelled by the Savior or Heavenly Father, President Oaks taught. Their execution must arise from individuals’ desires, choices and actions.
Second, President Oaks taught that the Book of Mormon illustrates how the Resurrected Savior ministered to some of those who did not have the chance to learn from Him during His mortal ministry in Jerusalem.
When the Savior appeared to the Nephites on the American continent, He said he was fulfilling Heavenly Father’s commandment to visit “other sheep” than those who had witnessed His teachings in and around Jerusalem. (See 3 Nephi 16:1; John 10:16.) The Savior was also clear in the Book of Mormon that the Nephites were not exclusively those “other sheep” to whom He would minister.
Third, the Book of Mormon includes teachings that show God loves everyone, President Oaks said.
From 2 Nephi 29:7, President Oaks read, “Know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon the isles of the sea; and that I rule in the heavens above and in the earth beneath; and I bring forth my word unto the children of men, yea, even upon all the nations of the earth?”
Fourth, President Oaks said the Book of Mormon serves to correct the “erroneous assertion that the grace of God saves only a chosen few.”
The Book of Mormon prophet Nephi taught in 2 Nephi 26 that the Savior will receive everyone to Him regardless of their differences.
“His grace is for all,” President Oaks reiterated. And everyone who lives on this earth will have the opportunity to receive a manifestation of Christ’s reality through the power of the Holy Ghost, he said.
President Oaks said that millions of people have had personal experiences and can testify that that promise has been fulfilled in their lives.
“I invite all believe them,” President Oaks said of those promises contained in the Book of Mormon.
The book’s purpose, as stated in its title page, is to help everyone “know of the covenants of the Lord” and “that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations.”
President Oaks concluded his message by inviting individuals to live the truths of the Book of Mormon and to share them with others. Doing so will allow all to “draw closer to Jesus Christ our Savior,” he said.
