President Uchtdorf Speaks to Mormons After Hurricane Harvey

Excerpts from remarks given during a sacrament meeting in Houston, Texas, on September 3, 2017.

I bring you the greetings and love of the First Presidency, especially of President Monson; he is grateful for your prayers. And I hope that you will continue to pray for him, as we all pray for you. We love you, we bless you, and we're here to not to be in the way. We want to let you go and work, and we try to help and want you to know of our prayers, our support, and our love.

And your work, your service, your love, your kindness is a reflection of what the Church is all about. And you know that the two great commandments, to love God and to love our fellowman, is really magnified and manifest in when we serve God and serve our fellowman. And that's what you're doing today and always.

It is helping hearts to reach out to others with our heart, with our mind, with our might, with our hands, with our feet, with everything we have, and regardless of who they are, which religion they are coming from. And this is the purpose of the Church. When I look back to 1856 when Brigham Young had the Willie and Martin company out there, what he did, he said, "Okay, let's cut short the meeting here and go out and save them, because they need our help." And that's what we are doing.

But when you get down to the areas where the help is needed, where there's disaster, where there's great sorrow, where there is despair, where someone is lost, then it counts. And eventually that's what the gospel is all about. Sometimes we have to do muck work, which is, perhaps, not a carpet, but something else in life. Maybe, perhaps, not dry wall but, perhaps, something else, to get the mold out and prevent the mold to climb further. And so if we take this moment, this experience, as a symbol of what we need to do beyond this.

We are part of a huge work, and it is the work given to us by the Lord to serve Him and to serve our fellowman. And that is how we express our love and our wonderful love for our fellowmen. It is a signal of gratitude to the Lord when we reach out to others, and that we show our kindness now and continue to do this forever.

Generations of the future will remember your service, your helping hands, your helping hearts, your reaching out to those will be felt in the lives of those you touch. You might not even know it in the future, but it is a reality. So I would like just now to follow the admonition of President Young, just, let's go forward, go out there, get them, help them, serve them, whoever they are, and show them what this gospel, this Church, is really all about. It's a message of hope, it's a message of kindness, it's a message of reaching out to our fellowmen and helping them to see that this world has hope for the future, because of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now you're going out and are on your mission to help those in your neighborhoods, in the city, and wherever you go, to show them that the Lord is real, that God, our Heavenly Father, lives, that the Holy Ghost can and will direct us if we only let Him do this. That you will be protected, that even at times that angels will carry you and lead the way and lead the path. That you will feel the blessings of heaven in your own life and in the lives of those who are indeed sacred and wonderful and precious to you. I give of this my blessing and my gratitude, in the sacred name of our Savior, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Also see: Excerpts from Remarks Given by Presiding Bishop Gerald Caussé