The Path and Power for Your Promised Land

Thank you, President Reese, and all, for such a warm welcome. It is an absolute joy to be with you. I love this school. I grew up on this campus. My wife, Paige, and I were both educated here. I began my career here. And all my children have been educated here. When it comes to BYU, we could not have warmer memories or more devoted hearts. I think the only exception was that night in 2016 when the BYU men’s basketball team first lost to UVU. I am not sure what color blue and green make, but the Hollands bleed it. We treasure both of these remarkable institutions.

From the Wilderness to the Promised Land

I begin today with a memory. In November 1985, just days before I entered the Missionary Training Center for my mission, President Spencer W. Kimball died. It affected me deeply. He was the beloved prophet of my youth. I admired him so much. I was not sure anyone could replace him. But a year later I was serving in Scotland, watching general conference, riveted by President Ezra Taft Benson’s words. Something special was happening. Though his style and demeanor were different than President Kimball’s, I recognized that he was sharing important new revelation with the Church. Entitled “The Book of Mormon—Keystone of Our Religion,” it proved to be a sermon that changed me and the entire Church.¹ If you have never read it, you should.

President Benson began by declaring that the Book of Mormon was “one of the most significant gifts [ever] given to the world,” and then he explained why.² Much of what he said now serves as the heart of chapter 5 of Preach My Gospel.³ President Benson also offered other important insights in his general conference talk:

We must make the Book of Mormon a center focus of study [because] it was written for our day. The Nephites never had the book. . . . It was meant for us. Mormon . . . abridged centuries of records, choosing the stories, speeches, and events that would be most helpful to us. . . .

If [the Book of Mormon prophets] saw our day, and chose those things which would be of greatest worth to us, is not that how we should study the Book of Mormon? We should constantly ask ourselves, “Why did the Lord inspire Mormon (or Moroni or Alma) to include that in his record? What lesson can I learn from that to help me live in this day and age?”⁴

I cannot recommend more highly the practice of reading the Book of Mormon in this way. Even remote passages and concepts can start to speak to you with personal meaning and application. Let’s try this exercise now, with an eye on the book’s extensive wilderness imagery.

Chronologically, the Book of Mormon begins with the Jaredites, who were “commanded . . . [to] go forth into the wilderness, yea, into that quarter where there never had man been.”⁵

Narratively, the Book of Mormon begins with Lehi, who was “commanded . . . that he should take his family and depart into the wilderness.”⁶ For the next eight years, they “wandered”⁷ (that’s Nephi’s word, not mine) through what Lehi called “the wilderness of mine afflictions.”⁸ Then, shortly after having reached their long-awaited promised land, which also required an unsettling ocean crossing, Nephi and his followers were commanded again to “flee into the wilderness” to escape his older brothers’ anger.⁹

Nephi’s younger brother Jacob, who was born in the wilderness, reminded us by quoting Isaiah that Zion and her people are often found in “waste places,” the “wilderness,” and the “desert.”¹⁰ In his dying days, Jacob confessed that early Nephite life had “passed away like as it were unto us a dream, we being a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers, cast out from Jerusalem . . . in[to] a wilderness.”¹¹

Many others also described themselves as wanderers in the wilderness or “in a strange land.”¹² Counting at least 336 references to the word wilderness in the Book of Mormon (that’s more than one every other page), Hugh Nibley concluded that when it comes to the wilderness, “the Book of Mormon people never entirely leave it. Wandering in the wilderness is . . . for them both a type and a reality.”¹³

So, following President Benson’s counsel, we should ask ourselves: Why would the editors of this book make this such a focal point? And how does this apply to us in any way?

Most readers today will rarely, if ever, spend any time at all in a true physical wilderness—unless they suffer from that painful, terrible, difficult-to-comprehend disease we call “I like camping.” My son-in-law suffers from this disease. We pray for him every day.

My own impression about all this is that we have so many episodes of righteous people wandering through a literal wilderness in the Book of Mormon because God knew that in these latter days many of us would so often wander through our own personal, metaphorical wilderness.

It is quite easy, even today, to get a graphic sense of what going into the wilderness meant to Lehi, his wife, Sariah, and their children. From Mt. Scopus, on which the BYU Jerusalem Center sits, one can look west and take in the incredibly vibrant view of Jerusalem with its array of trees, traffic, and striking buildings, both ancient and modern. But turn around east and what you see is the mostly barren wilderness of rocks, sand, and the difficult-to-distinguish hills of the Judean desert.

When Lehi’s family left Jerusalem, they left comfort, prosperity, prominence, safety, friends, and neighbors. Life in the city was generally pleasing and efficient, and it made sense. In the wilderness they found pain, impoverishment, obscurity, danger, and isolation. Life often seemed boring, wasteful, and confusing.

Could it be that this morning someone here is experiencing one or more of these latter conditions? Could one of you here today be relishing this spectacularly appointed campus with its incredibly rich offerings for body, mind, and soul and yet be feeling perplexed, lonely, disappointed, and unsure about exactly where you are or where you are headed or what means you have to be able to move forward in life? Maybe things are grand and wonderful in many ways, but in one or two important areas things suddenly may be feeling strange and disorienting because they are so different from what you have had in the past or from what you have expected right now in life. Maybe you feel lost in an academic performance wilderness, a friends or dating wilderness, a marriage fulfillment wilderness, a career choice wilderness, a faith crisis wilderness, a health challenge wilderness, or a moral transgression wilderness. Maybe this condition is so excessive and unexpected that, like Jacob, you feel this all must surely be a dream.

If this is the case for anyone here today in any degree, I offer you this piece of counsel: Cling to the Book of Mormon. In doing so, you will see that you are not alone. You will see that Saints of all ages have had to wander through a wilderness—often more than once and sometimes for a long time. You will also see that many wilderness moments have a purpose designed by a God of love who is preparing you for and taking you to—often through some of His greatest miracles—a magnificent promised land that could be enjoyed in no other way.

Most importantly, the Book of Mormon will provide you with a path that, in a wilderness, is the most needful yet hardest thing to find. It won’t spell out every step of escape from every specific wilderness you face, but it will direct you to the wisest, most foundational, and most illuminating path there is. I speak of the “path which leads to eternal life.”¹⁴ Eternal life means “living with God forever in eternal families,” being like God and Jesus Christ, and experiencing “the life They enjoy.”¹⁵ When you are most safely and securely on this path, all other necessary paths for your personal happiness and direction become easier to discern and navigate.

“Jesus Christ Is the Way!”

The path to eternal life begins with an active belief in Jesus Christ that He, along with your Heavenly Father, is all good, all powerful, all knowing, all loving, and anxious and able to rescue you from sin and personal weakness as well as from death and physical pain. With such a faith firmly rooted, the next step is natural: “Follow the Son, with full purpose of heart.”¹⁶ This is done by repenting—or changing, setting aside the impulses of the natural man or woman and, with God’s help and grace, appropriately confessing your sins and diligently seeking to keep God’s commandments and to emulate His character.

We signal our intent to so live by taking “upon [us] the name of Christ, by baptism.”¹⁷ We willingly enter a watery grave as one person and come up out of it as a new person with a new name: His name. We have declared ourselves Christians—underscoring that Christ is our “Master,”¹⁸ our “guide and stay.”¹⁹ This “introductory ordinance of the gospel”²⁰ “provides a necessary initial cleansing of our soul from sin.”²¹

The process of change continues with a second ordinance: namely, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. With a proper heart, and under proper authority, it completes the baptism of water with a baptism of fire. As Nephi put it, “Then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost.”²² To your new name is now added “a new tongue, yea, even [an ability and desire to speak] with the tongue of angels”²³—with language that is wholesome, reverent, and, when appropriate, revelatory.²⁴

Nephi also taught that these steps alone are not enough. As he so memorably declared:

Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.²⁵

As modern prophets have clarified, this also includes the ordinances and covenants we make when we take the sacrament and attend the temple.²⁶ In an ultimate punctuation statement, Nephi concluded, “My beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God.”²⁷

Just recently the Church was given a powerful reminder of all of this. I was an eyewitness to the moment. On October 15, 2025, President Dallin H. Oaks granted his first interview as president of the Church. With my Church communication responsibilities, it was my privilege to be there in person. Just as with others present, I listened especially carefully when Jane Clayson Johnson trenchantly asked her final question. She asked, “If there was one phrase or one scripture or one image that you would want members of the Church to carry with them right now as you begin this prophetic ministry, what would it be?”²⁸

Before I could even start to guess at the one thing God’s mouthpiece on this earth might say, President Oaks answered like lightning. And the response was electrifying. He forthrightly declared five words: “Jesus Christ is the way!”²⁹ Then, after a little pause, he noted, “That is taught in at least five different, important scriptures in the Book of Mormon.”³⁰

Consider the truly unique blessing of the Book of Mormon. Of all books on earth, it provides the clearest and most convincing portrait of the path to eternal life, which is the happiest destiny that anyone can possibly seek—the promised land of all promised lands. Reading the Book of Mormon also gives us strength to complete the path. It provides numerous inspiring examples of those who were fortified, led, and rescued by God in their perplexing journeys. According to multiple prophets, great spiritual strength flows into our lives simply from reading the book—whatever the passage or topic at hand. For example, President Russell M. Nelson promised, “As you prayerfully study the Book of Mormon every day, you will make better decisions—every day.”³¹ The Book of Mormon not only reveals the path to our ultimate promised land but also gives us the power to pursue that path.³² So yes, cling to the Book of Mormon.

“This Book Has Given Me Life over and over Again”

With my father’s recent passing, I have joined my two siblings in the emotional task of sorting through our parents’ belongings. At some point one of us asked, “Could we each get a volume of scripture that Mom and Dad marked up?”

My blessed sister, Mary, who is leading this project, immediately went to work looking for all marked scriptures remaining in the house. On Saturday she sent us a picture of her labors. [A picture was shown of nearly 50 copies of scriptures laid out on a bed.] If there is a single image that captures my parents’ lifelong love affair with the scriptures—all of scripture, not just the Book of Mormon—this may be it.

But what of the Book of Mormon in particular? Much has been said lately about my father, including his legendary love and testimony of the Book of Mormon. If you have not listened to his October 2009 general conference talk about the Book of Mormon, “Safety for the Soul,” you should.³³ What is less well known but no less powerful is my mother’s love and testimony of the Book of Mormon. It is also not as well known that at an earlier time, she too came very close to dying and was brought back to life in a miraculous fashion, just like my father was two and a half years ago. Let me share this video with her testimony of how the Book of Mormon got her through a wilderness of near-death health challenges and what it has meant to her and to our family:

I leave with you my testimony of this wonderful book. Recently, during a near-fatal illness, I wanted Jeff and his priesthood to be with me constantly. Because he couldn’t always be at my side, I wanted the next best thing. I wanted my Book of Mormon in my hands, holding it. And when I slept, I wanted it under my pillow. With doctors telling us that I wasn’t going to make it, as they had done everything they could, and we should call our children, I knew if I did live, it would be because of the blessings and the truths that I have studied so many times in this gospel that the Book of Mormon teaches.

Nephi could raise his brother from the dead. I knew if God could do that that He could raise me as well. And He did, by the same apostolic faith and authority that the ancient Nephite prophet had.

I bear witness to you, brothers and sisters, that this book has given me life over and over again since I first read it as a young woman. It has given Jeff and me and our children a blueprint and the power to live peacefully and calmly and patiently with the brightness of the sun lighting the way, even the brightness of the Son of God.³⁴

My dear brothers and sisters, with my mother’s example and with other impressions from today ringing in your heart, may I invite you again to cling to the Book of Mormon and to make regular reading of it a lifelong commitment, whatever else you are reading for school and Church. Along with my “goodly parents,”³⁵ I declare to you that it is true. I know it is the very word of God, and it reflects His pure love and righteousness. Cherish it in good times and bad, and you will remain unshakable in difficulty and conquer in your aim to achieve your fullest potential and divine destiny.

“I Will . . . Be Your Light in the Wilderness”

Now, one final and most important point. What makes the Book of Mormon so uniquely powerful is that it is the purest and most extensive testament we have of Jesus Christ. More than any other book, it provides “the fulness of [His] gospel.”³⁶ It also gives us more direct witnesses of and more direct language from Jesus Christ Himself than any other book.

The Book of Mormon is “the keystone of our religion”³⁷ because it is the most relentless, poetic, and prophetic reminder we have that Jesus Christ Himself is our “cornerstone.”³⁸ The true path and power needed for the wildernesses of life is Jesus Christ—the Good Shepherd, our pillar of cloud by day and our pillar of fire by night.³⁹ As He promised the Nephites anciently, He thus promises you today:

I will . . . be your light in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you . . . ; and ye shall know that it is by me that ye are led.⁴⁰

Just last week I got a very personal reminder of this truth. Besides my wife and children, my father was my very best friend on this earth. You can see that from childhood to adulthood, he has been my greatest hero—and, apparently, my most important stance and wardrobe advisor. [Two pictures of Matthew Holland with his father, Jeffrey Holland, were shown—one when Matthew was young, the two standing in the same pose, and the other when Matthew was grown, both wearing similar suits.] Losing him leaves an enormous hole for me. For as long as I can remember, he has brought laughter, confidence, and wisdom into my life like no other.

So I wasn’t really prepared the other day when I turned on my phone and realized that I needed to remove his contact from my favorites list. After two weeks of stoic resolve, it all hit me, and I broke. Never again would I get a call and hear that cheery, upbeat voice. Never again would I get a little text-based love note or inside joke or gentle correction about how to be a better man. Never again could I pick up the phone and get that nugget of needed counsel. Raw emotions tumbled out. I was grief-stricken and more than a little unsure of myself and of the world that I would now live in for the rest of my life.

That evening, as I sat brooding in a chair, I felt a repeated impulse: Go and read your Book of Mormon. Finally I retrieved the book and picked up where I had last left off: Alma 58.

As I began to read, I quickly realized that certain passages were speaking directly to me. Though the page was new and unmarked, the following words seemed highlighted to me, as if in bold relief:

We were grieved and also filled with fear. . . .

Therefore we did pour out our souls in prayer to God, that he would strengthen us and deliver us. . . .

Yea, and it came to pass that the Lord our God did visit us with assurances that he would deliver us; yea, insomuch that he did speak peace to our souls, and did grant unto us great faith, and did cause us that we should hope for our deliverance in him.⁴¹

Every word was seared into my soul. I dropped to my knees and called upon the Lord. And in Him I found—and continue to find—the strength, peace, and deliverance I was missing that bewildering afternoon. The Book of Mormon was the conduit, but the power was in Christ. We cling to His book to cling to Him!

I cannot promise you that every time you turn to the Book of Mormon you will have an experience exactly like that. Nor can I say that experience has wiped away every tear or sense of loss I may have. But I know this: Whatever you are facing, Jesus Christ is the way. And the Book of Mormon reveals this better than any book on earth.

I also declare that your wildernesses are way stations, not destinations. You are not meant for pain, loneliness, failure, and confusion. You are meant for bliss. Over and beyond every single wilderness lies a promised land—your promised land. Move toward it with optimism and faith each day, one step at a time. And for those seasons of wilderness-like detours and difficulty, I join Isaiah of old in solemnly witnessing to every student in Zion that God lives and that He can be trusted to help and bless you to the uttermost:

For the Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein.⁴²

That, my bright, young, beautiful friends, is your foreordained destination. Settle for no other. In the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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