[MUSIC PLAYING]
The Atonement was definitely not a one-time thing.
It's something that you have to work at continually because
no one has a perfect day.
Every day you make mistakes, and you constantly need to
rely on Jesus Christ's Atonement and be able to ask
for forgiveness for those things that you slip up on.
You don't want to admit to someone that you have a
problem that needs to be taken care of.
You want to keep it to yourself and say, "OK, I made
this mistake.
I'll just never do it again.
And if I don't ever do it again, it won't be a problem."
But then when you don't take care of it, then it ends
up--you just think to yourself, "Well, it's
not even worth it.
I messed up, and I didn't confess to it." And so you
don't feel obligated to fix anything.
One guy just gave me a phone call, and he said he needed to
talk to me.
And I said, "Well, OK.
Let's meet at a certain time." And he came in, and we talked
about some issues that he was dealing with.
And it takes a lot of courage to call your bishop when you
know that he thinks you're perfect.
All bishops know that no youth are perfect, that they're
involved in different things.
And the temptations that are around our youth today are
very strong.
For a long time I just felt like, "OK, I'm accountable to
the bishop." And you make sure that's taken care of.
Then you have to really think--Jesus Christ literally
died for us, and so we're accountable to Him even more
than the bishop.
At around that time, they called me as a ward
missionary.
I went out with the missionaries a lot.
I realized that it's just really awesome to be out with
the missionaries because they have that Spirit with
them all the time.
They live a lifestyle that allows them to have the Spirit
with them always, and I realized that's
something that I wanted.
"And now, O my son Helaman, behold, thou art in thy youth,
and therefore--"
Alma's telling Helaman about--recounting his story of
when he was racked with his sins.
He felt better, and he was relieved from that the second
he caught hold of that thought about Jesus Christ being able
to take over and take care of our sins.
And that's definitely the feeling you get when you take
that first step.
Each day, ours is the challenge to access the power
of the Atonement so that we can truly change, become more
Christlike, and qualify for the gift of exaltation and
live eternally with God, Jesus Christ, and our families.
[MUSIC PLAYING]