Each year, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides a scripture-based theme for the young men and young women of the Church to study and learn from. The 2026 youth theme, “Walk with me,” comes from Moses 6:34 and is part of the greater “Come, Follow Me” study of the Old Testament.
On this episode of the Church News podcast, Young Men General President Timothy L. Farnes and Young Women General President Emily Belle Freeman discuss how this year’s study can help youth have transformative experiences as they accept the invitation to “Walk with me.”
Tools related to the theme can be found at youth.ChurchofJesusChrist.org, including upcoming and recent worldwide discussions, publications, music, FSY conference information and the “For the Strength of Youth: A Guide for Making Choices.”
President Farnes and President Freeman are joined by Church News editor Ryan Jensen.
Listen to this episode of the Church News podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, bookshelf PLUS, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.
Transcript:
President Timothy L. Farnes: I tend to approach life trying to do it on my own a lot of times, not unlike Peter. I’m OK leaving the boat, but I’m kind of — I want to be the strong one to not have to need anybody else. I think we often are like that in life. And every day, I’m taught that I need to call out, “Lord, save me.” And if I can begin my day like that, if the young men and the young women of the world can begin their day with a callout to Him, “Lord, save me,” they face Him to start the day, then they’ll feel His power in every moment of the day, and it’s real, and He’s immediately available for them. Just turn to Him, walk to Him, cry out to Him, and He’s there to stay, to strengthen, to give comfort, give peace. His greatest desire is to walk with us.
1:05
Jon Ryan Jensen: This is Jon Ryan Jensen, editor of the Church News. Welcome to the Church News podcast. Today, we are taking you on a journey of connection as we discuss news and events of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Each year, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides a theme based in the scriptures for the young men and young women of the Church to learn from and study. Today on the Church News podcast, we’re excited to welcome the Young Men General President Timothy L. Farnes and Young Women General President Emily Belle Freeman to talk with us about this year’s theme and about how the youth of the Church can learn from it.
President Farnes, President Freeman, thank you for being here today.
President Emily Belle Freeman: Thanks for having us.
President Timothy L. Farnes: It’s our blessing to be here. Thank you.
1:48
Jon Ryan Jensen: President Farnes, this is our first chance to have you on the Church News podcast. And for members of the Church who haven’t heard a lot from you since your calling to serve with the Young Men general presidency, I’d love to give you a chance to kind of introduce yourself to our listeners today.
2:02
President Timothy L. Farnes: Yeah, I’m Tim Farnes. I live in Bountiful, Utah. We’ve got five children, 31 to 21 — sons at either end and three girls in the middle — and six grandchildren that are six under 6. And so we’re grateful for that opportunity to spend time with family, and I’m grateful for this opportunity to spend time with the Church in a unique and different way, with the youth throughout the world. And it’s a blessing to me and my family to be able to see the youth differently and to be with them. And I know that God’s greatest desire is that we walk with His Son. And so I’m excited about this year’s theme.
2:34
Jon Ryan Jensen: Well, President, I’m particularly excited to have you here. You served as stake president in the ward that I grew up in and were a leader to my family. So I’m personally grateful for you.
President Timothy L. Farnes: You’ve got a dear family. I love them very much. Grateful for them, their example and your example.
2:49
Jon Ryan Jensen: For regular readers of the Church News, you also served as a mission president for one of our writers, Sydney Walker, and she has spoken very highly of you.
President Timothy L. Farnes: Sydney is the best of the best, and I wish she was here today. She’s moved, I guess; not here in Utah anymore, but we love Sydney, and she’s a phenomenal missionary. We’ve learned a lot from her and love her very much. But yeah, we served from 2014 to 2017 in the [Brazil] São Paulo North Mission. So to all those who speak Portuguese: Sejam bem-vindos aqui hoje e queremos dar um boa vida para todos vocês e um grande abraço para todos. [Welcome here today, and we want to wish you a good life and give a big hug to everyone.]
3:26
Jon Ryan Jensen: I love that. Well, we hope that you’ll rely on some of that experience serving as a mission leader to share with us kind of what the youth can learn from this year’s theme as we talk about that.
To start out, I really want to know what the two of you feel or hope that youth get out of this year’s 2026 youth theme.
3:48
President Emily Belle Freeman: Well, we have been looking forward to this theme since last year. We love how last year’s theme kind of builds right into this year’s theme. Last year, we were looking unto Christ in every thought. And this year, we are hoping the youth will learn what does it mean to actually walk with Him as they go through this year. And it reminds me of a quote that President Thomas S. Monson said many years ago, that we do not need to travel to the streets of Jerusalem or the shores of Galilee to walk where Jesus walked. But as we study His life and His teachings, and we invite Him into our story, we can walk with Him.
4:32
President Timothy L. Farnes: I think miracles begin to happen when we walk with the Savior. And there is a change. If you can imagine Peter walking on the water, that leading up to him is walking to Him, and when it came to time when he felt a greater need, a desire to be with the Savior. And it was a time of trouble and trial, when He began to sink. And then He recognized, as He called out, “Lord, save me” (Matthew 14:30), that the Lord was immediately there. And he began to walk with Him.
And I think too often we spend time on leaving the boat or walking to Him, but the real miracle happened when He began to walk with the Savior. And there’s a difference there. Walking to Him at times is, “What can Jesus do for me?” Walking with the Savior is, “What in the name of Jesus can I do for another?” And that’s when transformation takes place. That’s when healing happens. That’s when miracles begin to be seen in your life and the life of others, as you pursue life in that fashion of, “What in the name of Jesus can I do for another?” That’s walking with Him.
5:36
Jon Ryan Jensen: I love your example because it represents also the cyclical nature of learning and doing, because last year we did “look unto,” and now the walking. And I’m sure the two of you have seen examples of youth who are both beginning that learning process, taking steps and then needing to relearn and take steps as well.
What have you seen as you ministered with youth around the world?
6:02
President Timothy L. Farnes: I had an experience with a young man in Mexico, since I was called and started serving in this capacity, had the chance to be in Mexico and the Philippines and Tonga and Fiji, and we’re going to Peru in a couple of weeks. But the first experience I had was with a young man in Mexico. He’s a deacons quorum president. We did a little training before, but then I wanted them to put the training into action. So I challenged all the deacons quorum presidents to determine who could use a visit from them as the deacons quorum president. We were going with the bishop, and we went on the visits.
We got to the door, and I just whispered to the young man, “So, tell me a little about who we’re visiting. Who is this young man?” He looked at me and got a little teary, and he said, “This is my home, and we’re here to visit my mother. She’s a single mom. She’s taking care of my sister’s baby, and so we’re visiting here to visit my mom. I think she’s the one that needs this visit the very most.” This is a deacons quorum president. And we walked through this little alley and up this little set of stairs. And there was no room to sit, just a couple of bunk beds in this room, and we all stood in a circle in the middle of the room, kind of darkly lit, and he blessed his mom.
He challenged her to do different things. He asked her to follow the Savior. And then I said, “This has been beautiful. We should probably end in prayer. Who would you like to say the prayer?” And he said, “Can I say the prayer?” And I said, “Of course you can.” And it was a heaven-and-earth-come-together moment as this young deacons quorum president called down the powers of heaven to bless his mother. And I thought, “What a great example of someone who knows what it means to walk with Jesus.”
Jon Ryan Jensen: Thank you for sharing that.
7:49
President Emily Belle Freeman: I love that. I think of a young woman who I met in Germany, and we were there in August, and I have thought about her almost every day since we left in August because of a sweet conversation that we had together. And I had the opportunity to go with her Young Women’s president to visit her and her mother. And as we sat there and we talked together, and we were talking about some of the joys of her life, but then some of the struggles of her life and the questions. And there came a moment when I asked her, “If you could ask me any question, what question would you ask?”
And I remember her sitting for some time and thinking that through and then turning to me with tears in her eyes and saying, “Is there a path for me?” And I, in that moment, we opened up Doctrine and Covenants 25 and the story of Emma Smith, and we remembered how the Lord speaks to His daughters and that He has a work for them to do, and that there is a purpose and a plan for the daughters of God in His Church and in His gospel.
And as I think about that question that she asked — “Is there a path for me?” — to remember that who is on that path with you, who is walking with you, and who is leading you, and who is guiding you and who will be with you to answer those questions of the heart is Jesus Christ. This is His path. He is the way. And I love that He is a companion, a source of enabling strength that we can look to no matter what life brings.
9:48
Jon Ryan Jensen: When I hear these stories, I’m brought to think about the fact that, while the theme is teaching us to walk with the Savior, we’re studying the Old Testament, talking about a people who had not known the Savior yet. And so to go from Doctrine and Covenants, where we’re at the beginning of the Restoration, to studying the Old Testament, before the Savior came.
How do you feel that youth and leaders and their parents can see the Savior in Doctrine and Covenants as they learn to walk with Him? Because those people were also walking with a Savior they hadn’t known.
10:22
President Emily Belle Freeman: That’s such a great question. You know already this about me, that — and you are starting to learn this about me — that of all of scripture, the Old Testament is my favorite book of scripture. And people always ask me why. And I think it’s because, for me, in my life, the story of my life and the struggles of my life have led me to know that I need a Deliverer, and I need a Rescuer, and I need someone who can part the Red Sea and who can help me find a well in the wilderness. And those are the stories that we see in the Old Testament.
When Jehovah shows up in the Old Testament, we are seeing miraculous things. And one of my favorite stories reminds us that the battle is not ours but God’s. And that’s in 2 Chronicles 20. And I love that as we think about that promise that He’s going to show up in our battles and in our Red Sea moments and in our stories everywhere as Jehovah, as the Deliverer. And how many of us need a Deliverer right now?
Jon Ryan Jensen: That’s great.
11:45
President Timothy L. Farnes: I love that. Even in these first few pages or first few chapters of Moses, as we begin to study the Old Testament, there’s a lot that points us to Christ. And I think if we look through that lens of finding Christ in every story, then it’ll help propel us to know Him, understand Him and walk with Him. Even in Moses 6, it talks about, “All things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of [Him]” (verse 63), all things to witness of Him.
So you think about Moses 1, that we just studied, talks about, “I am your Father, God Almighty. You are my son or my daughter” (see verses 3-4). But then it says, “I have a work for you to do, and you are to be in the similitude of my Only Begotten” (see verse 6). I used to always think of similitude as being created in His image. But if you think of similitude as like Him, pattern that He’s shown us becoming like Him and doing as he did, then that becomes more meaningful.
And do we bear record of Him in our daily walk, in our daily life? Are we walking in similitude of Him? Do others see Him because of how we are and how we engage in what we do? And so they can look through that lens of the Old Testament as well, of “How do I find Christ in this?” And then, “How do I magnify, or how am I His witness in the life of others? Do I turn them to Him? Am I similar to Him? Am I in His similitude as I worship, as I engage with others and love others? Am I doing it like Him?” There’s power there.
13:22
Jon Ryan Jensen: Yeah. So many times, I think that the Old Testament gets a bad rap, and that’s why you get the question that you get, because it can be for some people hard to understand. We get not just the few Isaiah chapters that we see in the Book of Mormon, but all the Isaiah chapters. And so there’s a lot to learn and a lot to take in there.
So, as they read these stories, the ones that you’ve mentioned, the ones that you see, how can youth develop faith in Jesus Christ as they read those stories and step away from just seeing the Old Testament as a really challenging history book? How do they develop faith in the Savior through them?
13:57
President Emily Belle Freeman: I think it helps if in every story, whether you’re reading or some of us will be teaching — some of the youth will be teaching — one of the things I love to do every time I open up and start working on a lesson is always at the top of my paper, I write the same thing: “Where is Jesus?” Because we’ll get caught up in the details of the story. We’ll get caught up in the history, like you’re talking about. Maybe we’re trying to find the principle or the doctrine there. And I always love to just have right at the top: “OK, but where is Jesus in this story?” And I think if we can read the Old Testament with that lens every time we open it up, “Where is Jesus or Jehovah?” every time we read, we will start seeing His thumbprint everywhere in this book.
Jon Ryan Jensen: Stepping away from the timeline, and we’ll see.
14:58
President Timothy L. Farnes: I think that’s so important, because our faith needs to be always directed to the Savior. I think sometimes we have faith in an outcome or a desired thing we want to have happen, and we always need to turn our faith back to Jesus. And I think that Peter on the water story is relevant as well, where maybe his own strength allowed him to get out of the boat and start to walk. But it’s important to recognize that the wind and the waves, the water, didn’t change. What changed was his willingness to submit and perfectly focus his faith in Jesus, on the Savior. And that’s when, even though the waves and wind continued, he was able to walk differently with Him.
So always turn everything we do, everything denotes there is a God, everything points us to Christ. We just have to be looking through that lens and have a desire to see Him in every story, in every moment of our lives. And as we start to look, I promise we’ll find Him.
15:57
Jon Ryan Jensen: I remember when I was in seminary, one of the teachings that my Old Testament seminary teacher gave was similar to what you said: Those wind and waves didn’t necessarily go away. What happened? But when we talk about, “Well, could I walk on water? Could I move a mountain?” If the Savior asked you to. Have faith in Him. That’s when you can do it. You don’t just do it because you walk out to a pool and say, “I wonder if I can,” but when the Savior asks us to do something, we trust that He’ll make the way.
16:24
President Emily Belle Freeman: That’s so good. And as you’re explaining that, it reminds me when we sat around the table as Young Men and Young Women’s presidencies, and we looked at the entire Old Testament, because every year we choose the theme according to the book of scripture that we’ll be studying.
Now, imagine stories we could have chosen. You think of all of the powerful stories of the Old Testament. And what happens is we will lay out scriptures on a whiteboard, and there will be 40 scriptures, and our council members will come through, and they’ll say, “This one feels the best,” and we’ll end up with six. And then we’ll be praying about those six: “What would be most important for the youth this year?”
And I can remember the conversation that we had, and it came by opening up the scriptures, like we do, to the book of Moses, chapter 6, and we thought about the youth of this generation and the needs that they have. And what comes before the scripture that we will focus on this year is a really important question, in Moses 6, verse 31, because the Lord has come to Enoch, just as you were talking about, and He’s come to him with a call. He’s come to him, like you were saying, with this move-this-mountain moment, with this open-the-Red-Sea moment. He has come to him with a call.
And Enoch asks such an important question. He says, “Why is it that I have found favor in [Your] sight, and am but a lad, and all the people hate me; for I am slow of speech; [so] wherefore am I thy servant?” And I just think: How many of us in our life do we look at the conditions of our life and who we are and what maybe we think might not be worthy of great use for the Lord? And Enoch speaks to that. He’s like, “I think You could do better. There’s probably someone who could do this better than me. I’m slow speaking, and actually people don’t even like me. Go look again.”
Jon Ryan Jensen: “Go to my neighbor’s house.”
President Emily Belle Freeman: “Go somewhere else.” And I love that the Lord’s answer in that moment isn’t to say, “No, you’re not slow speech” or “I don’t think everybody hates you.” His answer to him is what ends up becoming our scripture, that “my Spirit is upon you. [So all your words I will justify]; and the mountains shall flee before you, and the rivers shall turn from their course; and [you will] abide in me, and I in you; therefore walk with me” (Moses 6:34).
That becomes the answer to his lack. That becomes the answer to his doubt. That becomes the answer to everything that he feels inadequate about him, that the answer is “OK, walk with me, and then together, we will get through this year.” And I love the power in that. As we worked as presidencies and studied these words and studied these scriptures and talked about the lesson that would come out of those three words, it felt like a really powerful lesson for the youth and the leaders today.
20:07
President Timothy L. Farnes: I love that. I love verse 31 as well. It’s recognizing — he’s saying, “I am but a lad.” So he’s young like these young men and young women are. And then in verse 33 it says, “Choose ye this day.” And I think it’s a choice that these young men and young women need to make every single day or every single hour, “choose ye this day.” And then “abide in me, and I in you” (verse 34). It’s not “Christ, walk with me on my path.” It’s Him inviting us to walk on His. It’s not “walk with me” as much as it is “I will walk with Thee.” And we need to understand that, that He has the way, and as we walk with Him, that’s the way.
And then He says as we walk with Him, “thou shalt see” (verse 35). So, “Choose ye this day, walk with me, thou shalt see.” And we see more clearly as we walk with Him. We have greater understanding of the wind and the waves that are around us. Where before, it’s confusing: “Why are these hitting me? Why am I suffering this way?” And the promise is, as we walk with Him in His way, that we’ll have eyes to see. And that’s a great promised blessing in this grouping of scriptures as well.
21:19
President Emily Belle Freeman: And I love that invitation. That’s what it is. It becomes this invitation. I’ve been thinking over the Christmas holidays, we had one of my daughters came and stayed with us for a week. And they have a little 2-year-old Teddy, and he’s just mastering language, you know how you do. And he got to the point that week where he had realized that if he came to one of us and he said, “Nana, come” and then he took our hand, that he could get any of us to do anything he wanted. And so he would walk up to all of us doing whatever we were doing, and he would look around to who he wanted. And then it was just this gentle invitation: “Papa, come.” And you got to the point where you couldn’t wait to see who was the one who was going to be chosen, who got the invitation.
But as it happened, over and over and over and over, I thought, “You know, that’s actually how the Savior is,” where it’s not a command, this “Walk with me,” as much as it is this gentle invitation, “Come, walk with me.” And it is true; we had no idea where we were going, because he would just take our hand, and maybe we were going to the basement, or maybe we were going — we didn’t know. He knew, Teddy knew, where we were going, but we just had to trust he was about to show us something good.
And I love what you pointed out there that it wasn’t just an imitation, “Walk with me,” but what follows in the next verse is: “I’m going to show you something good. Thou shalt see.” And just being willing, even though we don’t know, that “Nana, come,” that there’s going to be something on the other side of that invitation that was worth walking to. And I love those three things, one right after the other.
23:17
President Timothy L. Farnes: Yeah. It reminds me a little bit of that blessing that’s yet to come that we don’t understand. The lad — what does that call back to another time when the Savior is teaching a big group of people. And there’s 5,000-plus women and children, and there’s but a lad, a young individual, that has but five loaves and two fishes. (See John 6:1-14.)
And sometimes, I think young men and women, they feel like they don’t have enough or they need to do more in order to walk with Him. And that’s the wrong perspective. And He’s there for them always — immediately, even — as they turn to Him and cry out for that help, no matter where they’re at in life, whether they have five and two or two and four or one and six. But this lad, I think he showed us a pattern in the feeding of the 5,000.
And it’s a pattern that’s shown in here as well, that Enoch actually teaches. And he took what he had to the Savior. That could be repentance as we turn to Him. And then after they did that, they looked to God and gave thanks. Prayer was involved, and then they acted in faith together, and miracles happened. The 5,000-plus were fed to satisfaction. They didn’t have any additional need, and with the five loaves and two fishes, there were still a remaining 12 basketfuls overflowing.
That’s the abundance of the Lord. That’s His grace. That’s His love. And that’s what I want the youth to feel, is that that’s the God of heaven that blesses us with His Son to be able to walk with Him, feel that love and experience the abundance that comes as we walk with Jesus. So, whatever you have, take it to Him, offer thanks, act in faith, and see the miracles happen. See His hand in your life.
25:08
Jon Ryan Jensen: As a father currently of four teenagers, I love the way this invitation gets posed, to come, because it’s so frequently for teenagers in their life, the things they experience are, “Well, if you want to be on the basketball team, come audition. We’ll evaluate you and tell you whether or not you can come play with us.” Or the choir or the play, whatever it is, you have to have a list of qualifications and skills. And the Savior is saying, “You’re going to be qualified if I invite you to come and do this thing. Just trust, and you’ll see something you don’t know you have.
President Emily Belle Freeman: That’s so good.
President Timothy L. Farnes: Beautiful. Beautifully stated.
25:43
Jon Ryan Jensen: One of other invitations to come is that that comes with FSY conferences, For the Strength of Youth conferences, a place where so many youth around the world are now having experiences to learn these principles together. You all have seen what happens at FSY conferences.
For those who this year are eligible to attend a conference, what would you say to encourage them to go and have a positive experience at FSY this year?
President Emily Belle Freeman: So, you just got back. You should start and tell where you’ve been.
26:11
President Timothy L. Farnes: I was in Tonga, and then partway through, we got asked to go over and visit the FSY at Fiji as well. And once again, remarkable. In Tonga, we had about a thousand youth meeting under a tent in the grass. We had sacrament meeting to begin the FSY conference, which is not common, but they came in early, and that’s why we had to have it. They came in by boat — 250 of them came by boat — 24 hours by boat, and not in a comfortable cruise line kind of thing we think of; on a hard surface, no mat, no mattress and wavy seas. A lot of them were sick. A lot of first time away from home.
And they just had the most extraordinary experience, testifying to me of what they were learning of what it meant to walk with Jesus. But they had a sacrifice to get there. And I think that’s part of their experience; they sacrifice something. We all sacrifice, give up something to participate in FSY, give it a little time. But what the outcome is is that 12 baskets full at the end of the day. You leave with an abundance of His Spirit, His love and renewed desire to walk with Him, an ability to walk with Him like you hadn’t before.
I saw that in Tonga. It was extraordinary. A thousand young men and young women, and 250 of them coming over 24 hours by boat to get there. So they had to arrive three days before the FSY conference. Extraordinary. The young men and women of the islands are unreal. So it was a blessing for me to be there.
27:43
President Emily Belle Freeman: And I think as you have the opportunity to send your kids to FSY, and maybe people wonder what’s happening there. And I love watching the kids that come in at the beginning of the week and each day of the week just shifting a little bit, learning a little bit, that heart opening up a little bit and the soul expanding. And we all talk about — all of us who work closely in FSY — the day you want to be there is Thursday, because that is the day of remarkable change. And you see the youth start to realize who they are, but more importantly Whose they are, and the great work that is ahead of them.
And as you watch that settle on the youth of the Church and you feel that lift, that’s when I think about the rising generation, that there actually is a rising that is taking place. And that happens at church on Sunday, and that happens at girls camps and Aaronic Priesthood quorum camps and happens when they go ministering. And it’s happening in different ways all throughout the year, but in a powerful way, all over the world, for these youth who gather together to find strength with each other for one week that will then propel them into that year ahead of them.
And it’s just a remarkable experience. If your youth haven’t been yet, look into “What do I need to do? What do we need to move as a family? What do we need to rearrange?”
President Timothy L. Farnes: “What sacrifices do we need to make sure this happens?”
President Emily Belle Freeman: Yeah, to make sure they get there. Because I’m telling you: That Thursday experience is life changing, and it’s worth being a part of it.
29:43
President Timothy L. Farnes: The Thursday experience is probably powerful because of what’s led up to that. They’re in their scriptures every day. They’re praying like they haven’t prayed before. They’re being immersed in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so that’s back to this “choose you this day” (Joshua 24:15). Every day after that, this needs to propel them into something greater. It’s not an event that happens and then we look back on. It’s an event that we have, and then we look forward, not unlike the sacrament.
The sacrament is — I think we oftentimes think of the sacrament as something that we come to as a concluding thing of our week. What if we looked at it as the thing that propels us into the week? We’re willing to take His name upon us, today, tomorrow, every day. It’s something that moves us forward. FSY should be like that, where it moves us forward in the year differently. We become true disciples of Jesus Christ. It’s who we are. It’s not a thing that happens once a year. It’s something we live and choose to do every single day.
30:42
President Emily Belle Freeman: And there’s something about it that is so critical for the youth right now to gather together. Those kids who came from the islands, and they come to this place, but also the kids who are coming in Provo, Utah. And what they see is, “I am part of something bigger, and it’s worldwide. And there is this cause for Christ, and I am a part of what’s happening in the cause of Christ that is just powerful.” There’s a powerful effect that happens when righteous youth gather to worship together.
31:18
President Timothy L. Farnes: My nephew just left for Peru, and in his testimony of when he’s leaving for his mission a couple weeks ago, he brought up FSY. And he lives in Tennessee, so it’s uncommon to find a group of Saints or youth that way, but he referred back to FSY as his moment in time when he determined he was going to go on a mission. He’s a great young man. I didn’t know that he would ever think of not going or going. I kind of thought he was just one of those who would always go. And he turned back and talked about, very vulnerable, and talked about not knowing FSY was that experience, that tipping point, that got him determined to, “I’m going to serve a mission.”
31:59
Jon Ryan Jensen: Like you talked about in Moses; he chose. They choose in the moment.
President Timothy L. Farnes: Yeah, and that made the difference; not just that, but who he is today. A remarkable young man now entered the MTC this week in Peru.
32:10
Jon Ryan Jensen: My first experience with FSY came in Guatemala and seeing the youth. I hadn’t experienced anything like it before. And as we talked with youth down there — “Why do you come? Why do you do this?” — it was interesting to listen to some of those older young men, 16 and 17 years old, who’d done it already, and hear them say, “Oh, I had to invite my brother. I had to invite the other kids in our quorums, because I had that Thursday experience.”
And then, by the time they hit their second Thursday FSY experience, saying, “I cannot wait to go on a mission,” and having that propulsion; the late President Russell M. Nelson would talk about that positive spiritual momentum. It really is a place where you get that momentum.
President Timothy L. Farnes: Amen. Yeah, it is. It is.
32:51
Jon Ryan Jensen: Speaking, though, of missionaries, recently we did have the news that the age for sister missionaries is lowering to 18. Earlier this morning, I heard Elder Ronald A. Rasband from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles speaking to a group of sister missionaries, and he told them that there are thousands of sisters who have put in their mission papers who are looking to join this young missionary force.
So, as we talk about this year’s youth theme and FSY, how do these things come together to help youth be better prepared to go serve a mission at age 18?
33:23
President Emily Belle Freeman: So, one of my favorite outcomes of that announcement for the young women has been listening to them talk about what this year is going to look like now for them as they’re preparing and they’re part of this great force. And what I’m hearing is these young women and young men saying, “We’re putting together groups to study ‘Preach My Gospel’ outside of church and outside of our weeknight activity and outside of all the other things that I’m doing,” just this enthusiasm to be part of the hastening of the Lord’s work and to pull these groups together all over the valley here, but all over the world, of, “We’re going to study together, and we’re going to be part of this great force.”
At FSY, they learn that medley that we love so much. And the young women start out singing “As Sisters in Zion,” and the young men join in, and they’re singing about the armies of Helaman. But there comes this moment at the very end of the song where you see those young men and young women standing and singing together about being this force of strength that will go out and share the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I think we’re watching that. We’re watching them come together and empower each other to be that strength, that force for good.
34:53
President Timothy L. Farnes: Yeah. I think there’s a real positive momentum in terms of missionary work. We’ve got more missionaries, more missions, more convert baptisms than ever before in this dispensation. So it’s really remarkable to see how the Lord is hastening His work. And it’s happening with young women. It’s happening with young men. There’s five young men here locally in Bountiful that this last year, they got together, and they decided in a week, they’re going to visit every temple in Utah, kind of as a mission prep. And they did. They got every temple.
There was one young man — I couldn’t believe it; he’s a priest — he had never been to the temple, as a priest. And he’s active but never been. And by the end of the week, he was determined to go on that mission. And remarkable what these young people are doing and how they’re choosing to walk with Jesus and the Spirit that’s carrying them forward in a powerful way like never before.
35:47
Jon Ryan Jensen: Well, I’m grateful for the testimonies that both of you have shared today of the experiences that you have seen with youth.
Is there anything else that you feel that those youth and leaders need to hear as they prepare and learn from this year’s theme?
36:03
President Emily Belle Freeman: I think just as they counsel together with their youth, their young men or their young women, and they talk about what this year might look like at their camps, at youth conferences, if they’re having them at their weeknight activities, to be thinking about, “How can we walk with Him this year?”
One of their greatest resources is going to be the “For the Strength of Youth” guide. That actually is a guide for walking with Him. And maybe to be using that, to be pulling that into what they’re doing and finding ways to help the youth open those pages and pair it with their scriptures and then discover ways that they might be able to walk with Him.
36:51
President Timothy L. Farnes: I think it’s awesome. I think the Lord speaks to us in a lot of different ways, and we need to turn to Him time and time again. Never give up. And I think it has to happen on the daily. I think too often we don’t recognize the power that is ours to turn to God every single day, at the start and throughout and at the end, in every moment of need or every moment of gratitude. We just need to turn to Him more often.
We had a little meeting prior to this launch of this thing with President D. Todd Christofferson, and it was interesting, I thought, because we asked him what he thought should be taught about what it means to walk with Jesus. And after a few days of thought and reflection and prayer, he came back to us, and he said three things. He said prayer, daily repentance and covenants — in particular, the sacrament is what he referred to, but preparing for temple covenants as well.
I think that’s something that should be kept in mind, that those three topics that we’re going to be talking about in the youth devotional were determined by a prophet of God. They weren’t something we determined us to do; it was a prophet of God that asked us to teach about prayer, about daily repentance. And he took the teaching on the covenants and focused a little bit on the sacrament there as well. Those are things we have to do every week, every day, every moment, so we can walk with Him. That’s the covenant we make at sacrament, to take His name upon us, act in similitude of Him. So, what are we willing to do right now, this week, to do that?
Jon Ryan Jensen: Those methods of walking with Him, all of those are ways that we walk with Him.
38:28
President Emily Belle Freeman: So, the youth broadcast will be available this year starting Jan. 18, and you can find it at ChurchofJesusChrist.org and use it wherever you want. It can be a weeknight activity. It could be a fifth Sunday experience. It could be a Sunday evening. It might be in your backyard or your basement. You might do it at the Church. But the youth can help plan what that might look like, and we’re excited to hear about your experience with that.
38:58
Jon Ryan Jensen: I’m looking forward to it. Our stake has chosen to do it as a stake — the stake youth council asked if they could do it as a stake activity, and so all of the youth of our stake are going to join together.
President Emily Belle Freeman: Oh, that’s so awesome. We love hearing that.
President Timothy L. Farnes: It’s always good to gather.
39:10
Jon Ryan Jensen: Well, President Freeman and President Farnes, thank you so much for coming on the Church News podcast today. We have a tradition on the podcast where we always love to give our guests the last word.
And so, as we conclude the podcast today, I would love to know, President Freeman and then President Farnes, what do you know now as you have prepared for this youth theme, as you watch the youth of the Church grow, what do you know now?
39:32
President Emily Belle Freeman: I had such an interesting experience just on Tuesday of this week. We’ve launched into the year now, we’re preparing for the broadcast to release, and it’s kind of been on my mind. And I got in my car and started driving, and we had actually had a really rough weekend at our house and with our family, and some really heavy and hard things, and so that was also on my mind. And I often pray in my car on my way downtown, and so I was praying as I was driving and just asking for help and even more strength and thinking about all of those things as I drove.
And out of the corner of my eye, I saw this white van going past me, and someone had put a million stickers on the bottom of that van, and I’m always so intrigued by that; how is it that you just start putting stickers all over your car? And so it had caught my eye. And then I looked up on the back window of this van, and written in pink marker was the phrase “You’ll never walk alone.”
And I thought to myself, “God answers our prayers in all different ways.” But it was so sweet to me that on that morning at this first week of this new youth thing, “Walk with me,” that there was that immediate promise that “you’ll never walk alone.” And I clung to that. I’ve thought about it every day this week, that part of the promise from that invitation is if we choose to walk with Him, we’ll never walk alone. And I bear witness that that is true.
41:32
President Timothy L. Farnes: I have been overly impressed with the youth of the world and their choices to walk with Jesus. They’ve been a great inspiration and example of what it means to walk with Him. And they’re facing challenges left and right, but they seem to know where to turn. And so I would just tell them: Thank you for that example, that inspiration. I love them, but more importantly, He loves them. His greatest desire is that they walk with Him. And that is my reminder time and time again.
I tend to approach life trying to do it on my own a lot of times, not unlike Peter. I’m OK leaving the boat, but I want to be the strong one to not have to need anybody else. I think we often are like that in life. And every day, I’m taught that I need to call out, “Lord, save me.” And if I can begin my day like that, if the young men and the young women of the world can begin their day with a callout to Him, “Lord, save me,” they face Him to start the day, then they’ll feel His power in every moment of the day, and it’s real, and He’s immediately available for them.
Just turn to Him, walk to Him, cry out to Him, and He’s there to stay, to strengthen, to give comfort, give peace. And as we walk together this year, looking for what in the name of Jesus we can do for another, there’s healing in that. There’s power in that. As we look up and connect and look out and connect, we will find the peace, the strength, the power we so desire in life. And He’s ready. He’s willing. His greatest desire is to walk with us, and I pray that we’ll accept that invitation.
43:35
Jon Ryan Jensen: Thank you for listening to the Church News podcast. I’m your host, Church News editor Jon Ryan Jensen. I hope you learned something today about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had your faith in the Savior increase by looking through the Church News window as a living record of the Restoration. Please subscribe, rate and review this podcast so it can be accessible to more people. And if you enjoyed the messages we shared today, please share the podcast with others. Thanks to our guests; to my producer, KellieAnn Halvorsen; and to others who make this podcast possible. Join us every week for a new episode. Find us on your favorite podcasting channels or with other news and updates about the Church on TheChurchNews.com or on the Church News app.
