Finding Peace Amidst Uncertainty 

I am so grateful for the blessing of being with all of you today! Thank you for coming! More than forty years ago, on Tuesday mornings I often sat where you’re sitting, comfortably listening to the devotional speakers. Being an introvert, I could never have imagined that one day I would be one of those speakers. It’s still hard for me to believe!

I can remember my first speaking assignment in sacrament meeting as a very young child in my small branch in Vicksburg, Mississippi. I was going to speak on Daniel and the lion’s den. I still remember it well because of how traumatic it was! I was so nervous when I stood up that all I could do was cry! My mother had to give my talk for me. I am a living example of how the Lord can work with us and prepare us over time for the things we were sent here to do, even when we feel weak and simple and unqualified. I’m still an introvert, but because of the experiences the Lord has given me over the years that drew me out of my comfort zone, I now enjoy speaking assignments, even to large audiences.

Protection, Peace, and Love in the Middle of Chaos

Today I would like to speak about finding peace amidst uncertainty—a peace that can come because of our faith and trust in Jesus Christ despite what is happening around us or to us. It’s a peace we can feel despite our uncertainty about the future or about our own capacity. It’s a peace that often defies logic and understanding. Our Savior has told us:

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.¹

In President Russell M. Nelson’s October 2024 conference talk, he said:

My decision to follow Jesus Christ is the most important decision I have ever made. . . . That choice has made all the difference! That decision has made so many other decisions easier. That decision has given me purpose and direction. It has also helped me weather the storms of life.²

President Nelson talked about the experience of being with his wife in a distant land when armed robbers put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger, but the gun didn’t fire. The Nelsons’ very lives were threatened during that incident, but President Nelson said they both felt an undeniable peace—a peace “which passeth all understanding,”³ as the scripture says.

In recalling this past experience, President Nelson then said:

Brothers and sisters, the Lord will comfort you too! He will strengthen you. He will bless you with peace, even amidst chaos.⁴

I would like to add my witness to President Nelson’s that we can feel peace even in the midst of chaos because of our covenant relationship with our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ. In 2013, my husband and I were called to be mission leaders of the Ecuador Guayaquil West Mission. When President Henry B. Eyring extended the calling to us, we told him that neither of us had served missions when we were young, so we didn’t know anything about how a mission was run. 

President Eyring’s counsel stayed with both of us throughout the next three years. He said that the Lord would be with us in the details of our mission if we sought His guidance. Our lack of certainty would teach us to rely on Him.

After we had been in the mission for about nine months, my husband had a very disturbing dream. In it he saw black clouds approaching and many people running and screaming. When he woke up, he told me about the dream, and we wondered if it might have some meaning. But things were so busy that we just kept going with our day-to-day efforts to run the mission and really didn’t think much about the dream after that. However, a month later he had a similar dream, but this time the ominous black clouds were closer, more people were running and screaming, and my husband was trying to get to the mission home where our daughter and I were.

This time we paid attention and chose to believe that it wasn’t just a dream; we started making plans to prepare our mission for an emergency. There was no hard evidence that we should prepare for anything. But we chose to believe those dreams were a warning. Although the dreams were symbolic and didn’t specify what the emergency was, my husband always felt we should prepare for an earthquake.

Because of those dreams, we prepared our missionaries by having them each put together a seventy-two-hour emergency pack that was checked monthly. We directed each zone to develop emergency plans so that each missionary would know what to do and the missionaries would have two options for safe places to go within their zones in the event of an emergency. The missionaries were all required to review those plans monthly and keep their emergency packs stocked and ready, even though many of them thought they would never have to use them. We did this for two years.

But much more important, we felt very strongly the need to prepare our missionaries spiritually and to strengthen their covenant connection with the Lord. With every teaching opportunity we focused on the power of the Savior and His Atonement, the blessings of repentance, and the protecting and strengthening power of keeping covenants and obeying commandments.

Two years after my husband had those dreams and two-and-a-half months before we finished our mission, on April 16, 2016, a powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit Ecuador. The hardest hit areas were in our mission, and our entire mission was affected.

The earthquake hit early on a Saturday evening. My husband and I were three hundred miles away from the epicenter, and it felt as if the building we were in was going to collapse because the shaking was so strong. The epicenter was in the northern part of our mission, and 80 percent of the city there was destroyed. A third of our missionaries were in the hardest hit areas. The electricity had gone out as the shaking started, so the missionaries experienced the earthquake in complete darkness. Buildings were collapsing around them, people were running and screaming, and there was utter chaos and devastation. Hundreds of people were killed and thousands were injured.

But miraculously, not one of our missionaries was hurt, and they all knew where to go and what to do because of their emergency preparation. And although cell phone service went down immediately and stayed down for weeks, miracles happened that enabled all of them to contact their zone leaders, which enabled us to know of the well-being of each of our 185 missionaries within the space of two hours. Within forty-eight hours, many miracles happened that enabled us to get all of them out of those devastated areas and bring them to the safety of the temple grounds in Guayaquil, where they stayed in temple housing until we could accommodate them with the other missionaries.

There were many, many miracles that day—before, during, and after the earthquake—that saved our missionaries’ lives. The missionaries felt angels protecting them, and they felt great peace and God’s love for them in the middle of the extreme shaking, chaos, and destruction. That protection, peace, and love that they felt during the shaking—when so many were feeling terror—was not because of their emergency preparation but because of their spiritual preparation through their covenant relationship with their Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ.

I would like to share with you excerpts from some of the personal testimonies of those missionaries.

Sister Cox: My companion and I had been standing directly under some power lines, and a voice inside of me told me to grab my companion and move to the middle of the street. As the earth moved under our feet, we felt as if we were surfing, and the houses and buildings behind us began to fall and the power lines we were previously under snapped and fell as well. . . . I know that we had . . . angels surrounding every one of us.

Elder Valdez: We were on a balcony next to a brick wall when the shaking started and the lights went out. Buildings were falling around us, but I felt great amazement that the building we were in didn’t fall. I felt that someone was holding up the walls. But even more amazing was that I felt my [deceased] grandmother was there.

Sister Pugh: Afterward there was no cell phone service, and we couldn’t immediately contact our leaders, but I really felt very protected. I was scared, but I felt the Spirit so strongly, and I knew everything would be allright.

Elder Solórzano: I felt a great feeling of love and peace during the earthquake.

Elder Lugo: I felt immense peace in the middle of total devastation.

Sister Phippen: I don’t know why I felt so calm, but I knew that everything was going to be okay—even when we kept receiving news that our area was destroyed, that it was burning, and that many people had died.

Sister Tirrell: Although we were in the middle of a catastrophe, I felt a strong sense of peace and comfort.

Sister Ganán: I felt Heavenly Father had sent angels to hold up the walls. I felt very strongly the protection. Upon leaving the house, we saw many houses around us that seemed to be much stronger had fallen down.

Elder Ureta: After the shaking stopped, I realized that I had felt completely calm throughout the experience.

Elder Rios: I testify that the Holy Spirit guides us and that peace is so necessary in moments of difficulty. I will remember that all my life, especially when spiritual earthquakes come.

Elder Morán: I know that we have the opportunity to call down the powers of heaven and ask for help and protection. Through this experience I felt even more strongly the love of my Heavenly Father.

Elder Siggard: I felt a profound peace throughout the entireexperience.

Dear brothers and sisters, I testify that you too can feel profound peace and God’s love for you in the middle of whatever chaos or uncertainty you may experience in your life, now or in the future. There is power, peace, and protection in choosing a strong covenant relationship with our Father in Heaven and the Savior.

“Direct Access to the Power ofGod”

President Nelson said:

Please listen to this promise of Jesus Christ to you: “I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.”

There is no limit to the Savior’s capacity to help you.⁵

I bear witness that what our prophet has said is true. We have the Lord, the Spirit, and angels around us to bear us up. That includes you! There really “is no limit to the Savior’s capacity to help you”! Our missionaries received a personal witness of that, we received a personal witness of that, and if you don’t yet know that for yourselves, you can come to receive a personal witness as well.

President Nelson has said:

The reward for keeping covenants with God is heavenly power—power that strengthens us to withstand our trials, temptations, and heartaches better. This power eases our way. Those who live the higher laws of Jesus Christ have access to His higher power.⁶

That is what our missionaries experienced—a power and peace that eased their way through that major earthquake. They felt a divine sense of relief in the middle of chaos and destruction that only the Savior had the ability to offer them and that they could only fully receive because they had chosen to invite Him more deeply into their lives through a covenant relationship that they were honoring.

President Nelson has said:

Every man and every woman who participates in priesthood ordinances and who makes and keeps covenants with God has direct access to the power of God.⁷

The prophet also said:

To each of you who has made temple covenants, I plead with you to seek—prayerfully and consistently—to understand temple covenants and ordinances. Spiritual doors will open. You will learn how to part the veil between heaven and earth, how to ask for God’s angels to attend you, and how better to receive direction from heaven.⁸

Brothers and sisters, these are powerful promises to those who make and keep covenants with God in the house of the Lord! If you have not yet received your temple endowment, I would invite you to ask the Lord if it’s time for you to prepare to enter a deeper covenant relationship with Him. You will need those blessings and privileges in the days ahead.⁹

I know this is a time of important decisions in your lives. Many of you may feel great uncertainty about the future, just as my husband and I felt great uncertainty about our ability to lead a mission. And it was a new mission, which increased our uncertainty even more! We had zero experience because we had never been young missionaries. 

Most of you will not have had any experience either as you consider major life decisions such as getting married and having children. But just as the Lord was with us in the details of our mission as we sought for His guidance, I promise you that He will also be with you in the details of your lives as you walk forward with faith and invite Him to walk with you.

As you look down the road at your future—the opportunities that will come to you and the decisions you will be required to make—please don’t make those decisions out of a sense of fear just because you haven’t had any experience and there is uncertainty. Don’t allow the voices of the world or even the voices of some of those around you to tell you what you should and shouldn’t do if that diminishes your faith and trust in the Lord and in His called servants. Remember the voice of a prophet of God: “There is no limit to the Savior’s capacity to help you.”

Remember the voice of the Lord Himself in Isaiah 41:

Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.¹⁰

And in Isaiah 43:

When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.

For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour. . . .

Fear not: for I am with thee.¹¹

Brothers and sisters, trust the Lord and believe that He can send angels to hold up the walls of your faith as you walk forward into the uncertainty of the future. Trust in His unlimited capacity to help you. Trust in His ability to give you a peace and a strength and a capacity that defy logic and understanding—just as He gave to our missionaries in the middle of that major earthquake when everything around them was in chaos and just as He gave to President and Sister Nelson when their very lives were threatened. 

I testify that our God is a God of miracles! He “is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”¹² He can also bless you with His peace, strength, and capacity as you choose to walk forward with faith and trust in Him in spite of the uncertainty you may feel.

We were sent to earth to learn to walk by faith. There are times in all our lives when we are faced with uncertainty as we walk the path of faith. Faith is choosing to believe and trust in something or someone we cannot see.¹³ Faith is ultimately a choice. But I can testify from personal experience that as we choose to move forward with faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ, even though we may feel uncertain, He will bless us with the guidance we need at the time and in the way He knows is best for our growth.

Lifting and Influencing the World for Good

I want to share something with you that I believe—not because of any hard evidence I have but because I choose to believe what prophets have said and because of the deep witness of the Spirit I have each time I am with members of the Church your age.

I will use an analogy. Think about a championship sports competition such as the final game of the World Cup or the Super Bowl, or maybe just think about any rivalry game between BYU and the University of Utah, which always feels like a championship game. In the last minutes of that game, if the score is very close, which of his players will a coach put in to increase his team’s chances of winning? His best players, of course! The players he has the most confidence in! He would be foolish not to do that.

As covenant sons and daughters of God, you have been sent to earth in the final part of the latter days—the final minutes of the championship game between good and evil when the stakes are higher than they have ever been and when the battle is the most heated it has ever been because Satan knows he doesn’t have much time left.¹⁴ You have been sent at this time and for this time!

What does that say about who you are? What does that say about who you were before you came to earth and about the confidence your Father in Heaven had in you to send you at this time? What does that say about your mission and purpose for being here?

Our dear prophet declared in a worldwide youth devotional a few years ago:

Our Heavenly Father has reserved many of His most noble spirits—perhaps, I might say, His finest team—for this final phase. Those noble spirits—those finest players, those heroes—are you!¹⁵

What another Church leader said at this pulpit more than twenty years ago also applies to you today:

Do you think God would have left the last days to chance by sending men and women He couldn’t count on? . . . You were sent now because our Father’s most trustworthy children would be needed in the final, decisive battle for righteousness. That is who you are, and it is who you have always been.¹⁶

I testify that what they said is true! You have been sent here to fight in the final championship battle between good and evil, and the stakes are higher than they have ever been. You are some of our Father’s most noble spirits, His finest team. You are latter-day covenant sons and daughters of God,¹⁷ children of the promised day. We need you! The Lord needs you! The world needs you!

Please go out to lift and influence the world for good as covenant children of God and as disciples of Jesus Christ. Do not allow Satan and the voices of the world to negatively influence you and convince you that you are merely sons and daughters of men, as Satan tried to convince Moses.¹⁸ It will be tempting for you to go after the world’s idols, but remember who you are and who you were before you came to this earth. What your Father in Heaven has to offer you will bring lasting peace, joy, and happiness not only here but into the eternities:

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.¹⁹

You are sons and daughters of a king, the Most High God. Nothing the world has to offer you can compare to what He desires to give His sons and daughters, and He can deliver on His promises in a way the world never can. But Satan will never stop trying to convince you otherwise. Be very careful to stay close to your Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ so you won’t be deceived. 

Satan has thousands of years of experience deceiving God’s sons and daughters, and he is very good at it. He can make a path that will ultimately lead to regret or even heartache look enticing. You alone are no match for him! Stay firmly connected to God and His promises of divine power and protection through your covenant relationship with Him. Seek daily to access the blessings of the Savior’s Atonement.

Choosing to believe that you are a valiant, courageous, and strong son or daughter of God who was saved to come to the earth at this time and that you have a divine purpose and mission can change the way you view everything, including the uncertainties you face now and that you will face in the future. It can give you power over the convincing voices of the world about what will bring you true happiness, joy, and fulfillment.

There will be many decisions that will require you to move forward without having certainty about the outcome—serving a mission, getting married, having children, accepting a challenging calling, moving to a new location, and many others. But I testify that as you walk forward with faith in what the Spirit guides you to do—heeding the words of living prophets and trusting the Lord—you can be blessed with divine peace and support and with strength and capacity that defy logic and understanding. You are not alone. There are angels around you, on both sides of the veil, who will help you and lift you. Trust your Father in Heaven; trust your Savior.

Listen to the voice of an apostle of God, President Jeffrey R. Holland:

I testify of angels, both the heavenly and the mortal kind. In doing so I am testifying that God never leaves us alone, never leaves us unaided in the challenges that we face. . . . On occasions, global or personal, we may feel we are distanced from God, shut out from heaven, lost, alone in dark and dreary places. Often enough that distress can be of our own making, but even then the Father of us all is watching and assisting. And always there are those angels who come and go all around us, seen and unseen, known and unknown, mortal and immortal.²⁰

I know there are some who haven’t had the opportunity for marriage and children but very much desire those blessings. And there are others who have the opportunity for marriage and family but are paralyzed from moving forward by the fear of uncertain outcomes. I felt some of that fear as well, but, looking back, I’m so grateful to have chosen marriage when the opportunity arose, even though there was so much uncertainty about the future.

My husband and I had nothing materially when we started out, but the Lord was with us, and somehow things always worked out. I’m so grateful for the opportunity we had to bring children into the world, even though we were young and so uncertain about our ability to be parents or to provide for our children. The Lord was with us then, and He’s still with us now. We moved forward with faith in Him, and somehow we were always blessed to have what we needed. 

I testify that there really is joy and rejoicing in having a posterity, just as the Lord counsels us to do in the sealing ordinance. We have found great joy in being parents, and that joy was multiplied as we became grandparents. Doesn’t that little face just make you smile?! [A photo was shown of a food-spattered grandchild in a high chair.] That picture shows that life can be incredibly messy and joyful at the same time!

Now, please don’t misunderstand. I am not saying our lives have been easy! Besides the normal ups and downs of marriage and raising children, our family has also gone through times of serious physical and emotional health challenges, years of infertility, times of job loss and financial insecurity, and even times of faith struggles. Throughout the years we have worried and prayed over our four children because of serious challenges they were having, and now our prayers include our eleven grandchildren. We’ve experienced great joy as well as great heartache. That’s all a part of this journey of mortality.

But I testify that through all the joys and sorrows of life, we have never been alone, even when sometimes it felt as if we were. So often we have looked back and have realized how much the Lord was sustaining us even when it didn’t feel that way at the time. But He knew what we needed for our growth and development. He knew how much to allow us to struggle to be able to gain that growth. I will be eternally grateful to Him for the joys of life as well as for the challenges and sorrows because it has been through those challenges that I have learned and grown and become who I am today. I hope to continue learning and growing and to one day become like Him.

In closing, I would like to read one of my favorite scriptures:

And now, my sons [and I would add “my daughters”], remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men [and women] build they cannot fall.²¹

I testify that as we build upon the rock of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, we cannot fall. There may be times of great uncertainty when we must make a choice to walk forward into the dark, not feeling sure that He is even there. I have personally had those times, but as I have made the choice to believe, to walk forward with faith, and to trust in Him despite my uncertainty, the light has eventually come. And because I chose to trust the Lord through those times of uncertainty, the roots of my faith in Him have grown much deeper and stronger.

Jesus Christ is our “rod of iron”²² and our “sure foundation.” With Him we can go through “the mists of darkness”²³ and through the earthquakes of life²⁴ with a peace and a strength that defy logic and understanding as we allow Him to be our light and our guide.

The Lord is my light; then why should I fear?

By day and by night his presence is near.²⁵

I bear witness that the Lord will be your light and your strength in uncertain times if you choose Him. It is your choice. I invite you to use your agency and choose to believe and walk forward into your future with faith and trust in Christ. I promise you, He will be with you! In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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