"Each of us should be careful that the current flood of information does not occupy our time so completely that we cannot focus on and hear and heed the still small voice that is available to guide each of us with our own challenges today," said Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks

Speaking during the Sunday afternoon session, Elder Oaks said, "We are accountable and will be judged for how we use what we have received. This eternal principle applies to all we have been given. The principle of accountability also applies to the spiritual resources conferred in the teachings we have been given, and to the precious hours and days allotted to each of us during our time in mortality."

Because of increased life-expectancies and modern time-saving devices, most of us have far more discretionary time than our predecessors. "We are accountable for how we use that time," he said.

"The Internet and the compact disc have put at our fingertips an incredible inventory of information, insights and images. Along with fast food, we have fast communications and fast facts," he said.

To illustrate his point, Elder Oaks told "a homely story" about two men who entered a business partnership. They built a shed beside a busy road and obtained a truck. They drove to a farmer's field where they purchased a truckload of melons for a dollar a melon. They drove to their roadside shed where they sold the melons for a dollar a melon. They drove back to the farmer's field where they purchased another truckload of melons for the same price. After selling the second load of melons at their roadside shed for a dollar a melon, one partner said to the other, "We're not making much money on this business, are we?"

"No," said his partner, "we're not."

"Do you think we need a bigger truck?" asked the first partner.

"We don't need a bigger truckload of information, either," Elder Oaks said. "Our biggest need is a clearer focus on how we should value and use what we already have."

Faced with an excess of information, "we must begin with focus. We also need quiet time and prayerful pondering as we seek to develop information into knowledge and mature knowledge into wisdom," he said.

"We also need priorities," Elder Oaks said. " 'Seek . . . first to build up the kingdom of God,' " means to assign first priority to God and to His work. Everything else is lower in priority."

He said that priorities should govern individuals in the precious time they give to family relationships. "I believe that many of us are over-nourished on entertainment junk food and undernourished on the bread of life," Elder Oaks said.

"We need to have inspired priorities and apply them in ways that will bring eternal blessings to us and to our families," he said. "No combination of science, success, property, pride, prominence or power can provide . . . eternal blessings."