Sunday Afternoon Session: Elder Robert S. Wood
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Members of the church should seek to help change the course of society's trend toward lewd and demeaning behavior.
Words and external expressions reflect who people are and who they are becoming. What people say and how they act will create an atmosphere welcoming or hostile to the Holy Ghost. In Doctrine and Covenants Section 88, the Lord counsels to avoid light speeches and excess laughter. "Light speeches" are irreverent and demeaning language and "light-mindedness" refers to trifling with sacred things. The Lord has called for words and actions that edify, not defile.
"Over the years, there has been increase in sexual innuendos, raucous humor, violent expressions and great noise in talk, in music, in gestures. Much around us is crude and rude — with a corruption of moral behavior and sensitivity."
Each day everyone can obscure the light or chase away the darkness. Members have been called to invite the light and to be a light — to sanctify themselves and edify others. Members' words should be calculated to invite the powers of heaven into their lives.
"We must treat sacred things with reverence. We need to eliminate from our conversations the immodest and the lewd, the violent and the threatening, the demeaning and the false."
The prophet Nephi invites all to speak with the "tongue of angels," and the Apostle Peter said to be holy in conversation.
