Agency to Choose Happiness

Agency used righteously allows light to dispel the darkness and enables us to live with joy and happiness in the present, look with faith to the future, even into the eternities, and not dwell on the things of the past. Our use of agency determines who we are and what we will be.

Elder Robert D. Hales - April 2006 General Conference "To Act for Ourselves; the Gift and Blessings of Agency"
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2006/04/to-act-for-ourselves-the-gift-and-blessings-of-agency?lang=eng

Be Happy

Finally, and most importantly, choose‍ to believe in the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Accept the Savior’s forgiveness, and then forgive yourself. Because of His sacrifice for you, He has the power to “remember [your sins] no more.”²⁴‍ You must do likewise.  After you are on the path and are “free to choose” again, choose to reject feelings of shame for sins you have already repented of, refuse to be discouraged about the past, and rejoice in hope for the future. Remember, it is Satan who desires that we be  miserable like unto himself.  Let your desires be stronger than his.  Be happy and confident about your life and about the opportunities and blessings that await you here and throughout eternity.  

Elder Robert D. Hales - April 2006 General Conference "To Act for Ourselves; the Gift and Blessings of Agency"
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2006/04/to-act-for-ourselves-the-gift-and-blessings-of-agency?lang=eng

Feeling the Influence of the Spirit

 Choose‍ to put yourself in a position to have experiences with the Spirit of God through prayer, in scripture study, at Church meetings, in your home, and through wholesome interactions with others. When you feel the influence of the Spirit, you are beginning to be cleansed and strengthened. The light is being turned on, and where that light shines, the darkness of evil cannot remain.

Elder Robert D. Hales - April 2006 General Conference "To Act for Ourselves; the Gift and Blessings of Agency"
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2006/04/to-act-for-ourselves-the-gift-and-blessings-of-agency?lang=eng

Getting Out of a Black Hole

As with the real black holes in space, it may seem all but impossible for light to penetrate to where you are. How do you escape? I testify the only way is through the very agency you exercised so valiantly in your premortal life, the agency that the adversary cannot take away without your yielding it to him.

Elder Robert D. Hales - April 2006 General Conference "To Act for Ourselves; the Gift and Blessings of Agency"
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2006/04/to-act-for-ourselves-the-gift-and-blessings-of-agency?lang=eng

Do Not Yield

Sometimes we forget that our Heavenly Father desires that each of us have this joy. Only by yielding to temptation and sin can we be kept from that joy. And yielding is exactly what Satan wants us to do...the adversary can never have joy unless you and I sin.

Elder Robert D. Hales - April 2006 General Conference "To Act for Ourselves; the Gift and Blessings of Agency"
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2006/04/to-act-for-ourselves-the-gift-and-blessings-of-agency?lang=eng

Meekness Through Submission

·         Every one of us is more beloved to the Lord than we can possibly understand or imagine.  Let us therefore be kinder to one another and kinder toward ourselves.  Let us remember that as we wait upon the Lord, we are becoming “saints through His atonement, … submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon us, even as a child doth submit to his father.

      Elder Robert D. Hales - October 2011 General Conference "Waiting Upon the Lord: They Will Be Done"

      https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/waiting-upon-the-lord-thy-will-be-done?lang=eng

Trusting in the Lord Develops Other Virtues

·        To hope and trust in the Lord requires faith, patience, humility, meekness, long-suffering, keeping the commandments, and enduring to the end.  To wait upon the Lord means planting the seed of faith and nourishing it “with great diligence, and … patience."

     

      Elder Robert D. Hales - October 2011 General Conference, "Waiting Upon the Lord: Thy Will Be Done"

     https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/waiting-upon-the-lord-thy-will-be-done?lang=eng

Seek A Personal Witness

You too can seek our Heavenly Father and “this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have [testified]” in the scriptures and n this general conference.  As you seek a personal witness – your personal revelation – you will discover that Heavenly Father has provided a special way for you to know the truth for yourself; through the third member of the Godhead, a personage of spirit we know as the Holy Ghost.

Elder Robert D. Hales - October 2014 General Conference "Eternal Life - to Know Our Heavenly Father and His son, Jesus Christ"
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/eternal-life-to-know-our-heavenly-father-and-his-son-jesus-christ?lang=eng