Elder Clark G. Gilbert of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his wife, Sister Christine Gilbert, have seen the hand of the Lord in their lives as they have strived to live the covenants they made at baptism and in the house of the Lord.
The Gilberts have grown closer as a family and learned how to give and receive the Savior’s relief while fulfilling professional and Church assignments.
As the newest Apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Elder Gilbert knows he is to be a special witness of the name of Christ in all the world (see Doctrine and Covenants 107:23).
Just a few days after being called by Church President Dallin H. Oaks, Elder and Sister Gilbert joined Church News reporter Mary Richards to share more about their family, faith and testimonies of Jesus Christ.
Listen to this episode of the Church News podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, bookshelf PLUS, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.
Transcript:
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: Those young men in Boston — I was a young graduate student, we had a young family, I was overwhelmed with my responsibilities, but I felt like I gave everything I had to those boys. It changed me, more than even maybe my mission, being committed to a group of young men and serving them with all I had, and when I felt like I did not have enough, feeling the Lord pick up and take it to another place.
0:31
Mary Richards: This is Mary Richards, reporter at 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.
Elder Clark G. Gilbert knows that to be an Apostle of the Lord, he is to be a special witness of the name of Christ in all the world (see Doctrine and Covenants 107:23). He was called to be a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles by Church President Dallin H. Oaks on Wednesday, Feb. 11.
Just a few days later, Elder Gilbert and his wife, Sister Christine Gilbert, join me in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building to share more about their family, faith and testimonies of Jesus Christ.
Elder and Sister Gilbert, thank you for joining us on the Church News podcast. What a whirlwind has it been for the past few days for both of you?
Sister Christine Gilbert: It has.
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: It has, yeah. Overwhelming and yet joyful at the same time.
1:30
Mary Richards: Talk about receiving the news and then sharing that news with Sister Gilbert. And then you tell me how you felt to get that phone call.
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: President Oaks came to us in the Church Board of Education meeting, at the end of the meeting, and said, “Brother Gilbert, will you join me for a quick follow-up item?” And I thought it was going to be quick and just a follow-up item. And then he grabbed some paper, so I thought it was just going to be some research he wanted me to do. And then he just went right to, “We would like to call you as the next Apostle.”
And it was overwhelming. I felt the rush of the weight of that assignment immediately, and it was almost hard to process. But then he started right into explaining what it means to be a special witness to the name of Christ in all the world (see Doctrine and Covenants 107:23). He gave me some counsel on that, asked if I had had any feelings leading up to that. And then he said, “You can go tell Christine.” And I slipped out of the Prophet’s office, went down in the Church parking lot, got in the car, because I felt like that was the most private place, and called Christine. And I think she was shocked.
Sister Christine Gilbert: I was.
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: But we came home. I came home a couple hours later. I had to kind of make it through a few meetings to end the day. And we just got down on our knees, and we prayed and asked for help and asked to be lifted in ways that would make this possible. And then the next day, in a meeting with the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency, President Oaks set me apart. And to feel all of their hands on my head and have those keys bestowed and feel the strength of President Oaks’ words and how he counseled me in that blessing, it gave me confidence even as I was feeling overwhelmed.
And we know we are not perfect. We know we have things to improve and work on. And yet, I felt really confident that the Lord would make up the difference, that the keys were bigger than any one person and that I would be magnified in that calling.
4:01
Sister Christine Gilbert: It was a really interesting experience to feel, at the same time, both overwhelmed and peaceful. And we had a lot going on. When he called me, I was home with our two children that are still with us and getting things ready because our married kids were coming into town and our granddaughter, and I was not expecting anything like this at all, of course. And I just couldn’t believe it.
I just started, I think, walking in circles and not knowing what was real. And I realized later: “This is real. This is real.” And we are so excited to be a part of it. Just like President Oaks has said, we are grateful for this opportunity, and I think that’s brought us peace. And having our children with us through the weekend, there feeling their support, that’s brought us a lot of peace. And we’re so grateful that we’ve made it through a few days.
5:01
Mary Richards: Talk about your family. My mother heart goes out to you. We have children that are around the same age. You’ve been married 32 years, so happy anniversary recently.
Sister Christine Gilbert: Thank you. We just had it.
Mary Richards: And eight children. Tell me about your family.
5:13
Sister Christine Gilbert: Our oldest is 29, married and with their one baby and another one on the way. We’ve got six daughters and two boys, counting our oldest son. Our youngest is 12. Just such great kids, so supportive, so united together and loving. We really felt their strength as we spent time together this weekend and in their own places on the path and how they felt with all of this.
And we — I’ll just tell a little story. When they were young, we liked to travel a lot, and we’d go places faraway, internationally sometimes. And it was hard traveling with eight children. And I remember we were kind of a spectacle, and people would look at us and make comments sometimes, and I just remember saying: “OK, we are not going to look at anyone. We are just going to stay focused on our kids.”
And I’ve had that thought come back to me, that we’re going to stay focused on our kids during this time as we take on this new role and the responsibility and just make sure that we know where they are and how they’re doing along the way.
6:20
Mary Richards: There’s such strength and power in that family, those family relationships and connections and support for each other. And I see that with you two and your kids, this happiness to be “The Gilberts are together. We’re together again.”
As they’ve been growing up and moving on and different things in their lives, to get them all back together is pretty joyous, isn’t it?
6:40
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: We have a family tradition, when we are on the elevator, with just our family.
Sister Christine Gilbert: No one else. We’ve let our daughter-in-law in on it.
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: We sing this little jingle, and it is called “We Are the Gilberts,” and we sing this. And then at the end, everyone says their name. And we have to go fast as the elevator is about to open up. But we felt that bond and that connection that has been there for so long and so much support from each of them.
And this will affect all of them. And yet, every one of them in their own unique ways was willing to support this and support their parents and the calling. And it has been amazing.
7:21
Mary Richards: I was reading this week about Addison Pratt, read about him in “Saints.” He sailed to what is now French Polynesia in the early 1840s, and for two years he didn’t hear from his family. He knew that they were writing him, and he was writing them.
How much better is it to live in 2026, and you can communicate when you’re traveling? And there’s going to be more travel now for you, Elder Gilbert, isn’t there?
7:47
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: There will be a lot of travel. And yet, we thought someday we would maybe get assigned to go back to Japan as a General Authority Seventy.
Sister Christine Gilbert: I think some of our kids might be disappointed.
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: Yeah, they were like, “Oh, we would love that.” And we have been joking with them all weekend. Well, we will be right here in Salt Lake, but we will travel. It is a global Church, and a worldwide Church needs the leadership of the Church out amongst the Saints, and that will affect us a lot, but we are excited to do that, and we hope at times, we can involve them in that as well.
8:24
Mary Richards: Speaking of travel and living different places, you’ve been so many places in your lives, in your married lives: Provo and Japan and California, Boston, Rexburg.
How have those different experiences shaped you? And how have you seen the hand of the Lord in those experiences, in those places?
8:45
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: I think we could point to something we learned in each place we lived.
Sister Christine Gilbert: We loved every place.
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: We have loved every place. People will say, “What is your favorite?” And we can’t answer that. We can just say what we loved about each place and each experience. And I knew when I married Sister Gilbert that part of what was amazing about her is she would be willing to go anywhere, especially if it was something the Lord asked of us. And early on, those moves were answers to prayers and changes in career, and later on they were Church assignments.
But I think in every place in Japan, we learned to be together as a couple. It was our first time really on our own. In northern California, we learned how to serve in the Church, and we had great mentors in the Palo Alto 2nd Ward, and they were remarkable at kind of laying a foundation. And everywhere we went, it seemed like there was something the Lord wanted us to give and something He wanted us to receive. And that has happened over and over again. And we grew so much in Boston and working with the inner-city youth in Boston; which, still, these boys are still a part of our lives.
Sister Christine Gilbert: And girls.
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: Yeah, and some of the young women.
10:10
Sister Christine Gilbert: They’re parents themselves now.
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: Yeah, they are amazing.
Sister Christine Gilbert: So proud of them. And we left Boston, and we thought, “We don’t know if the Church is going to stick together if we’re not there,” because we felt like we were doing so much. And we left, and it was just fine without us. We moved to Rexburg, and we suddenly became the needy family, and we learned in Rexburg how to allow others to serve us, and we needed it.
10:35
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: We had had twins, and then a daughter right behind them a year later, and then in the middle of that, our home burned to the ground. And people in Rexburg just picked up and served us, and it was amazing.
Sister Christine Gilbert: And we will love them forever because of the things they did for us, the way they ministered to our children, shoveled our snow, mowed our lawn, things that you just can’t even imagine people just did without even thinking.
11:05
Mary Richards: This makes me think of the teachings of our Relief Society General President Camille N. Johnson, who has talked about the Savior’s relief. Those who give it and those who receive it, both are drawing closer to Jesus Christ.
Did you see that? How did you see that, I guess, in those different experiences of offering the Savior’s relief and then you received it from those others?
11:28
Sister Christine Gilbert: Yeah. Oh, I remember when we were in Rexburg, someone gave me the best advice I’ve ever heard when having a baby, and I was having twins, we were having twins, and someone said to me, “You’re going to need help, so just get ready if somebody offers something, even if you don’t feel like you really want it, just say yes, and just use it as an opportunity to love them, because they’re trying to love you.”
And that was hard at first, but I recognized the more we said yes and allowed people into our little, chaotic, busy life, the more relief we felt, the more strength we had, the more they felt good about their offering, whatever it is and whatever it was. And I learned a lot that we can offer, and we can accept that offering, whatever we need.
12:21
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: I felt that, those young men in Boston — I was a young graduate student, we had a young family, I was overwhelmed with my responsibilities, but I felt like I gave everything I had to those boys. And it changed me, more than even maybe my mission, just being committed to a group of young men and serving them with all I had, and when I felt like I did not have enough, feeling the Lord pick up and take it to another place. And, yeah, we did a lot for those young men in our lives, but we received it back.
And we mentioned Rexburg, and just another example, President Oaks in his talk “The Need for a Church” talks about the blessings of attending church and how we are put in these communities of righteous sociality of people striving to do their best, no one perfect, but people working to serve and be served by each other.
And we had a woman in our ward, when I was a bishop in Bountiful, who was confined to her bed and had a stroke, and we would try to go see her as a family, we would go see her with the youth. And yet, in all that outreach we did, somehow she found ways to minister back to our girls. And even to this day, she makes comments and follows the girls and saw that Lucy had this tennis match or Mary had a lacrosse match or is the first one to comment. And I think here is this amazing woman who we tried to serve, who has only turned around and given us so much support.
14:12
Mary Richards: That beautiful consecration and community and all of those. I’m led to ask you about your covenants, those covenants that you made at baptism and in the house of the Lord.
I’m hearing it through what you’re speaking about, but tell me more about living those covenants and what it has meant in your life.
14:32
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: You know, I point to Christine a lot of our big life decisions. I remember when we moved to Boston, I mentioned how hard my graduate program was, and I was in this six-week math program, intensive math program, studying econometrics. And it was way beyond what I could do. And I remember one night, we were at a picnic together on the Charles River, and I said, “Chris, I work hard. I know how to work hard, but that is not going to be enough. I can’t do this. It is not a question of working harder. It is beyond my capacity. And maybe we should just go and finish the master’s program and not do the doctoral program.”
And she looked at me, and she said, “You prayed for this. You know the Lord wants us here.” And then I always tell the story she said, “Buck up and do the math.” She is not sure she remembers it the same way. But regardless, it was: “You do this. You made covenants, and the Lord is going to direct your paths.”
And a few, seven, eight years later, when we were asked to leave Boston, 10 years later, when we were asked to leave Boston, it was hard, and we had to give up so much. But we learned, because we had made covenants, we could do it. And we left Harvard Business School, went to BYU–Idaho, and it was amazing. And it was not that much longer, I was back at BYU, this time as the president.
Sister Christine Gilbert: At BYU–Idaho.
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: At BYU–Idaho. And I come home from a day of meetings in Salt Lake with the Church Board of Education, got there in time for dinner. We had dinner with the kids. I had helped with homework. We had done evening devotional and prayers and got in bed, said our prayers, and lights turned off. And I said, “I think we are going to be asked to move to Salt Lake to create BYU–Pathway.”
Christine turned the light back on and said, “What?” We had only been there a year and a half as president of BYU–Idaho. And once again, we were asked to leave and do something that the Lord had asked us to do. And it was not ever hard for my wife. If it was right and she knew the Lord had put it into our lives, then she had the confidence, and it made it easy for me when there were hard decisions, to know my wife had confidence that if the Lord had called us to do something, He would honor it.
And I think all of that is grounded in the covenants we made early on in the temple and in our temple sealing, and we have never looked back and always wanted to do what the Lord wanted us to do.
17:35
Mary Richards: I love that you said “confidence,” because I’ve always pictured you both as so competent and so confident, and I look up to you both.
And I think: How, then — you’re so good at so many things — how, then, do you rely on the Lord and His direction? But it sounds like you do that, is what was in your answer.
17:54
Sister Christine Gilbert: We’re not perfect. We have a lot of a lot of relying on the Lord and on each other. I think there are times that one of us feels like we need that strength, and the other one can come in and help us, and sometimes it’s our kids that give us the strength. I really feel like this past weekend, our kids gave us strength. So we’re all bound together through Jesus Christ. That’s what making and keeping covenants means, that we’re doing it together with the Lord.
18:22
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: And, Mary, I, in my conference talk I gave a few years ago, I was only half joking when I showed the picture of me with only one front tooth and referred to myself as “Clark the toothless wonder.” But I was just an average kid and doing my best. And I learned to work hard, but I never thought I could live up to my parents and all they had done in their lives.
And it all really changed when I became a missionary in Japan. And I had gone through my first year at BYU, I had worked really hard, I did pretty well, but I never thought of myself as a scholar, as being overly capable. But I got onto my mission, and I realized, “This language is hard, but I am pretty sure the Lord wants me to learn it, or he would not have called me here.”
And I learned to make the Lord my partner in learning Japanese. And I studied hard, I got up early, I practiced, I paid attention, I kept track of my vocabulary and improving my grammar and learning how to speak with the enunciation of the Japanese language. But I realized as a missionary, if the Lord wants you to do it, if He has called you to do it, He will magnify and make up the difference. And I came home from my mission as a much better student.
And everything we have done, we have had confidence, but not in our capabilities. We have had confidence that if it was right, the Lord had called us to do it, we could do it, and He would make up the difference. And so I think a lot of our confidence as a couple, my confidence, professionally, intellectually and even now spiritually comes not in myself but in the trust that comes knowing that if the Lord has called you, He will make up the difference.
20:30
Mary Richards: That’s so beautiful, for every calling, that — oh, I love that so much. There might be this tendency to think, “Oh, this is Elder Gilbert’s background. He has XYZ,” or “This Apostle that has just come into the quorum, he’s known for this and this and this, and so therefore that will be the kind of Apostle he is.”
But tell me more about what you’re learning about what this council really is, this Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, what it means.
20:58
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: You know, in the end, there is only one responsibility, and that is to testify, witness to the name of Jesus Christ in all the world. And that is scripturally grounded in D&C 107, verse 23. In many ways, the last few years, I have tried to be a witness of the Savior — that is a calling of the Seventy — and I have tried to be a resource to the Twelve instead of any other. That is also a distinctive responsibility of the Seventy.
But I learned this in so many ways, and this calling to be a witness to the name of Christ in all the world. And that first night when just the Twelve and the First Presidency and us knew, we stayed up late at night talking about how we had seen each of them do this.
I mean, you start with President Oaks, and I had put together a series of statements he had made as an Apostle through the years. But it all started in 1984 when he was first called. And he said, “I will wear my life out in the service of my calling.” And then he added, “Especially to the special responsibility, in particular to the special responsibility to be a special witness of the name of Christ in all the world.” And there he was in the first moments of his service, 1984, and he has done that over and over and over again.
And I had an experience with President Christofferson. We were in Hawaii, he was asked to fill in at the very last moment for President Holland. I think he had seven or eight messages or devotionals he was assigned to give, with no lead time, no preparation, no time to write out the talk. And I was sitting on the stand looking at him, and I still remember just watching him as he spoke, and he said, “Well, regardless of what I say today, all I really have to remember is that I need to bear witness to the name of Jesus Christ.” And when he spoke those words, I just felt an electric charge come over me, and I knew he was a special witness of the Savior, and I knew he knew that was his responsibility to bear witness to the name of the Savior.
And we went through, and President Eyring and then President Christofferson, Elder Bednar, Elder Cook, all the way down through every member of the Twelve. And there had been a moment where I had heard them bear witness to the name of Jesus Christ — not only where I heard it, but where I had a witness of their calling. And that has been a strength to me, and I feel like that was a blessing, that the Lord gave us those experiences and that we had a moment, before any of this became public, to reflect on those and how they have blessed us.
And we hope we can join with them now bearing witness to the name of Christ in all the world.
24:18
Mary Richards: And you’ve been able to be with our dear Prophet, President Dallin H. Oaks, and more recently, Feb. 10, when he spoke at BYU.
And I wondered if you could tell me about hearing that message from a living Prophet there and those things he invited us to do.
24:34
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: Yeah. You know, can I share one thought on President Oaks in this? I really, for me, the substance of that talk was amazing. I will come back to that. But it also gave me a witness of his calling as the Prophet.
In the weeks ahead of that, we had been working on a message. I had been doing some research on his behalf to get ready for that message, and it was to commemorate the sesquicentennial of BYU, 150th anniversary. He was excited to give that message. I was excited. It was going to be the bookend of a former Prophet who had spoken, President Kimball in 1975 on that campus.
And I went in with some assignment follow-up that had come from President Oaks. And he said, “Clark, when we were first working on this, I was not yet the Prophet. And now that I am the Prophet, He is giving me a message that I need to give. This will be the first public address I have given as the Prophet.” You will remember at conference, he was not yet ordained the Prophet. He said, “This will be the first address.”
And then he gave me an assignment to carry it to all of the Church Educational System. So we streamed it for the devotional, replaced the devotional on every other campus. So instead of having a speaker at BYU–Idaho, it was a livestream of President Oaks. And at BYU–Hawaii and at Ensign College, we showed it in all the institutes, it was the Pathway devotional. It went all across the world.
And of course, the Marriott Center was completely full, and we had done so much work to prepare for that. And then he mentioned at the start of the talk the weight and loneliness that comes with being the Prophet and how he felt that mantle. He said the mantle gets described in many ways, but for him, he felt the weight and the loneliness of being there, and he had the strength of it, and in a very personal way.
And then after he shared that, he shared the message the Lord had given him to take to the whole world. And those messages are what not only the young people of the Church need right now but the whole world needs. And I felt like I had a front-row seat to not only see that message come together but have a witness that it came from the Lord through the Lord’s Prophet.
And so right now, that message, we will have that through conference to study and learn from that. If you want to overcome questions and doubts and concerns you have, stay anchored in Jesus Christ, and be humble. Turn to trusted sources, and be patient. And he gave those four messages in such a powerful and beautiful way. And that would have been a powerful message at any time.
But knowing that this was the message that God gave His Prophet, that the Prophet had to give up a message he would have loved to give on the history of BYU and its significance, but he is God’s Prophet on the earth, and He listens to the Lord, and that was the message God wanted us to hear. So what a beautiful opportunity for me to see that and now bear witness of that in this assignment.
28:14
Mary Richards: Amplify the words of our living Prophet, yes. Those invitations. What did you think, Sister Gilbert?
Sister Christine Gilbert: There was a power and a strength there that day. I was so honored to be there. And of course, we knew nothing, I knew nothing, of what was happening in the week ahead, but I did feel a witness of our Prophet. And as we sang “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet” and I looked out at all of those students — and particularly our four BYU students, our children — I couldn’t look at them because it made me emotional.
And I just felt so grateful to have an opportunity to see him in action, close up, and to know he is our Prophet for this time, this is who we need, Dallin H. Oaks as our Prophet.
29:00
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: And not only a witness of him, but you could feel our young people are amazing.
Sister Christine Gilbert: They were ready for it.
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: They wanted to hear the Prophet speak.
Sister Christine Gilbert: They were there early, and they were holding up their lights if there were seats near them so they could pack the Marriott Center in. And there were lines. They couldn’t get everyone in the doors.
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: We have such confidence in the rising generation. And people will talk about, “Oh, young people are losing their faith,” and I just feel like saying: “Well, come with me down to BYU. Come with me to an institute here in the state of Utah or a Pathway gathering around the world, and feel of their strength everywhere we go.”
29:45
Mary Richards: This testimony I’m hearing from both of you about a living Prophet and your testimonies throughout this conversation, I’m so grateful for this time to be with you.
And to me, it leads perfectly to what we always have as our last question on the Church News podcast, which is, “What do you know now?” And so, I thought I would give you the opportunity to also bear your testimony. We’ll start with you, Sister Gilbert, and then end with Elder Gilbert.
What do you know now about being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with a living Prophet on the earth and Twelve living Apostles on the earth? What do you know now about all of this?
30:25
Sister Christine Gilbert: I know that there has never been a time in the history of the world that has been better to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. The Lord is hastening His work, and we are so honored to be a part of it. Ever since I was a little girl, all I’ve wanted to do was to share the gospel. That’s been one of my greatest goals and ambitions in life. And I am so grateful that I can, with my husband, continue to share the gospel on a greater scale and share the good news of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
I know He loves His children, and I know that there are hundreds and thousands of His children, millions, all over the world, that are making and keeping covenants, and He wants to pour out blessings on His children. And He’s done that in so many ways. We’ve watched it through education, but He’s also poured out His blessings through missionary work and temples and so many other areas the Church focuses on.
And I’m so grateful that we get that opportunity to see so many different places and people, and to share our witness that Jesus Christ lives, that we are His covenant people and that, as we follow Him and as we look to Him, we can make it back to our Heavenly Father.
31:53
Elder Clark G. Gilbert: Beautiful. Thank you. You know, these last few days, there has been such deepening and clarity in my testimony, but that testimony has been growing and building since I was young. And I remember as a young missionary, a pattern started where I had recurring witnesses of the truthfulness of the gospel. And for some reason, they always came tied to the Book of Mormon, and they always were tied to its message around the Savior.
And that started for me in the MTC. I wanted to know the Church was true. I believed it was good. I did not yet have a deep, abiding testimony, and I prayed and prayed for that. And I read the Book of Mormon, I got to the end, and I prayed about the Book of Mormon promise. And I did not get an immediate answer. And I got back into my desk and kept reading. And it was just one page from the end of the Book of Mormon.
And I got to Moroni, chapter 10, verse 32. And it says: Wherefore come unto Christ and be perfected in Him. And if you are perfected in Him, you can serve Him with all your might, mind and strength, then is His grace sufficient for you, that you may be perfected in Him. I was not even ready for the answer. I just was reading that verse, and as I read, I had a light and a clarity come over me, and I knew it. For the first time, I knew the Church was true. I knew the Book of Mormon was true, and I knew that its anchor purpose was to witness that Jesus was the Christ.
And then this just kept happening over and over throughout my life. I remember President Nelson teaching us, “Take charge of your testimony. Work for it. Own it. Nurture it so that it will grow. ... As you make your testimony your highest priority, watch for miracles to happen in your life.” And that has been our experience. And a year out from my mission, I had lots of other witnesses of the Book of Mormon and of its message on the Savior.
But about a year into it, it happened again, and with someone who was struggling, and I had to share the Atonement of Jesus Christ with him, and a verse from the Book of Mormon where it talked about Christ succoring us in our infirmities. And as I read that and spoke to that, I knew I could not help this missionary, but I could point him to the Savior. And as I sat there that night preparing to go share some difficult news with this young missionary, the spirit said to me again, “Clark, the Book of Mormon is true. Its purpose is to witness that Jesus is the Christ.”
And this has happened all through my life. And one of the more recent ones was with the October conference of the first year of President Nelson’s service. We were asked, the sisters were asked, to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year and mark every time they saw Jesus Christ referenced in the Book of Mormon. And I was not in that meeting. It was a sisters’ meeting. But I took that invitation as the father of six girls.
And there I was, at age 48, already with a deep testimony of the Book of Mormon and of the Savior. And morning after morning after morning, as I turned the pages and marked for evidence of the Savior on those pages, late in my life, the Spirit said, “Clark, this book is true, and its purpose is to witness that Jesus is the Christ.” Well, that has only deepened in the last week, but it did not start this week.
I think there has been a lifelong set of experiences the Lord’s given us, given me, to know that the Church is true, that the Book of Mormon is true, and that its purpose is to witness of Jesus Christ. And now I take that witness, and it will deepen and be strengthened with the keys I have been given to be a witness to the name of Christ in all the world.
He lives. I love Him. We can overcome death because of the Savior. We can be forgiven of our sins because of Jesus Christ. He will succor us in our infirmities and heal us when life is not fair. He is the Savior of the world. And I know that is true. And He has a Prophet on the earth today, President Dallin H. Oaks, who speaks for Him and does not teach what he was prepared to do or what his background would suggest, but he teaches what the Lord tells him to speak. I have a testimony of a living Prophet, and I bear my witness of the Savior and this Prophet on the earth and do that in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
