Commenting in the October 1994 general conference about the "strident sounds and discordant voices" that seem always to have been in the world, Elder W. Don Ladd of the Seventy said: "Every day in the newspapers, over television, in movies and magazines we are bombarded with violence and immorality clothed in the enticing voices of permissiveness.

"In His Sermon on the Mount, the Master admonished, 'Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' (Matt. 6:34.)

"Sufficient indeed is the evil thereof unto this day in which we live. There seems to be a rising tide of evil, a flood of iniquity spreading throughout the world. Crime and violence are increasing at an alarming rate. Fear openly stalks our streets and invades our homes."

Elder Ladd said that some claim one can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements, "and many of the ones I see do not speak well of us. Someone said there was a time when movies were rated on how good they were, not on who was allowed to see them."

Further, Elder Ladd said, "According to the Book of Mormon, the devil 'seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.' (2 Ne. 2:27.) The evidence of his handiwork is certainly around us. Elder Richard L. Evans once said, 'If we don't change direction, we will arrive at where we are going.' " (Richard Evans' Quote Book p. 244.)

Elder Ladd added, "It is not in idleness that our prophets admonish again and again to strengthen ourselves and our families — to hold family home evenings, to read and study the scriptures, to have daily personal and family prayers, and, to quote our prophet, Howard W. Hunter, to 'treat each other with more kindness, more courtesy, more humility and patience and forgiveness.' (Ensign, July 1994, p. 4.)

"The immoral influences of the world are especially destructive to children. But our children, like ourselves, aren't going to live in a vacuum. They never have and they never will. In all their growing and developing, we can do much to help them, to protect them, and to guide them. But we cannot isolate them from the influences of their own time and generation. There will be times when other voices are in their ears, when other hands are on their shoulders, and when they are away from home.

"We would do well, then, while ours is still the strongest influence in their lives, to give them a sure set of standards and a firm foundation of safe and sound principles."