Elder Dallin H. Oaks, member of the Quorum of the Twelve apostles, spoke at Harvard Law School on 26 February 2010. This speech was part of the annual Mormonism 101 series. In the talk, Elder Oaks addressed a number of basic
principles of Mormonism, explaining that a survey showed few people really knew anything at all about Mormons, and what they did know was wrong or misunderstood. (more…)
Personal Response by Karen Merkley
You can know the truth for yourself. It is possible. It is more than possible. We were born to know our purpose and to live for it.
While there is a crisis of knowing in our day, truth is in fact knowable, and we have an inborn capacity to know and recognize the truth. That knowledge is discernible, and it is real and absolute. All knowledge is not, as many claim in our day, just a social construct or a relative idea, equal to every other. Truth matters. Truth exists. So you are on the right path if you desire in your mind and heart to know it. It comes to us through the voice of the Spirit, God’s voice to us, His children.
As we desire to know what is true, we search for it by reading, thinking, pondering what we can find that pertains to that truth. We are enlightened in the process through the light of Jesus Christ, which brings understanding to us. We can recognize that burst of light as we connect ideas and thoughts in a way that exceeds our own ability and as we see that we feel and know has come to us from an outside source of revelation in a language we understand and that penetrates us in an unmistakably clear way. As we act on whatever we learn, we are guided further to greater light. (more…)