As expected in the spring, Mark applied to, interviewed with and prayed about different graduate schools. We never thought we would accept the offer in sunny California to UC San Diego. So in August, we sold everything that didn’t fit into our car, packed up our junk once again and drove across county. We explored caves in Kentucky, listened to country music in Nashville, and rode in stingray corvette with a total stranger. Route 66 provided some excitement across Oklahoma, and in Texas we counted the different types of road kill. The southwestern part of the USA provided a chance to hike in the Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion.

The Truth of God Shall Go Forth
Elder M. Russell Ballard
Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
October 2008 General Conference
1. My brothers and sisters, on July 19th of this year the Sons of Utah Pioneers placed at This Is the Place Heritage Park in Salt Lake City a statue of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his successor, President Brigham Young. This statue, entitled Eyes Westward, shows these two great prophets with a map of the western territories.
2. Many people, including Latter-day Saints, forget that Joseph Smith was very much aware that the Church would eventually be relocated to the great American West. In August of 1842 he prophesied “that the Saints would continue to suffer much affliction and would be driven to the Rocky Mountains, many would apostatize, others would be put to death by our persecutors or lose their lives in consequence of exposure or disease, and some [would] live to . . . build cities and see the Saints become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains” (History of the Church, 5:85).
3. Even Joseph’s closest associates in those early years did not fully understand the trials that the Latter-day Saints would endure as the Church rolled forth from its small beginnings in the early 1800s. But Joseph Smith knew that no enemy then present or in the future would have sufficient power to frustrate or stop the purposes of God. We are all familiar with his prophetic words: “The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done” (History of the Church, 4:540).

Come What May, and Love It

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin
Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
October 2008 General Conference
1. When I was young I loved playing sports, and I have many fond memories of those days. But not all of them are pleasant. I remember one day after my football team lost a tough game, I came home feeling discouraged. My mother was there. She listened to my sad story. She taught her children to trust in themselves and each other, not blame others for their misfortunes, and give their best effort in everything they attempted.
2. When we fell down, she expected us to pick ourselves up and get going again. So the advice my mother gave to me then wasn’t altogether unexpected. It has stayed with me all my life.
3. “Joseph,” she said, “come what may, and love it.”
4. I have often reflected on that counsel.
5. I think she may have meant that every life has peaks and shadows and times when it seems that the birds don’t sing and bells don’t ring. Yet in spite of discouragement and adversity, those who are happiest seem to have a way of learning from difficult times, becoming stronger, wiser, and happier as a result.