April 2026

President Oaks opened the 196th Annual General Conference by explaining the solemn assembly that would take place — a sacred practice held only at the first conference following the call of a new Church President. He expressed gratitude for the sustaining vote of the membership and invited all to participate reverently in the formal recognition of Church leadership. The occasion marked a historic moment as members worldwide raised their hands to sustain President Oaks as prophet, seer, and revelator.

Elder Kearon opened with a personal memory from his conversion in London — the raised hands of ward members welcoming him, followed quickly by a calling as assistant ward clerk that stretched him well beyond his comfort. From that experience, he drew a powerful principle: callings from the Lord are tailor-made for our growth, and how we serve matters more than where we serve. He connected this to the young Jesus in the temple, being about His Father’s business, and invited every member to join in that same work. Service, he taught, is not an assignment to fulfill but an offering to God.

Sister Yee drew on the Savior’s command to love one another as He has loved us, and explored what it actually means to minister in that spirit rather than in a programmatic way. True ministering, she taught, begins with genuinely seeing the person in front of us — their specific needs, their specific season of life — and responding from love rather than obligation. She invited members to allow the Savior’s love for each person to flow through them, transforming both the act of ministering and those who receive it.

Elder Gilbert extended a tender and direct invitation to all who feel distant from the Church, from God, or from their own sense of goodness — the door is open and the Father runs to meet them. Drawing on the parable of the prodigal son, he emphasized that the Father in the parable does not wait for his son to clean himself up before welcoming him — he sees him from a distance and runs. Elder Gilbert also called on active members to create communities where returning souls feel safe, seen, and genuinely welcomed rather than reminded of how long they have been away.

Elder Bednar taught that enduring to the end is far more than gritting your teeth through hard circumstances. By inserting the phrase possessed of the pure love of Christ after the scriptural phrase endure to the end, he revealed the inextricable link between charity and endurance. Enduring is not a matter of willpower — it is the natural outward expression of a heart increasingly filled with the love of Christ. This means enduring to the end is a joyous, lifelong pursuit of becoming more like the Savior, not a grim survival task. With the Lord’s grace, he testified, each of us can believe, hope, and endure all things.

Elder Teh bore testimony of the living prophet and the safety, clarity and peace that come from following his counsel — especially in a world full of competing voices and uncertainty. He shared personal experiences where following prophetic guidance brought specific blessings, and invited all members to trust not just the principle of a living prophet but the specific man called to that role today. In a historic conference moment, he testified directly of President Oaks as the Lord’s prophet for our time.

Elder Becerra reframed tithing not as a financial transaction but as a daily declaration of where our hearts truly are. Paying tithing is a tangible act of faith — we acknowledge that God is the source of all we have and that we trust Him more than we fear financial uncertainty. He testified of both the temporal and spiritual blessings that flow from this law, and invited those who struggle with the principle to begin with faith, trusting that the Lord opens windows of blessing for those who put Him first.

President Eyring bore fervent testimony that sincere, faith-filled prayer is the pathway to the peace the Savior promised — a peace the world cannot give or take away. He drew a clear distinction between the fragile, circumstantial peace the world offers and the deep, abiding peace that comes through communion with God. Consistent prayer, he taught, does not just petition God — it changes us, softens us, and opens our hearts to receive the Spirit that brings that promised peace. He testified with conviction that the Savior hears and answers prayers personally.

Elder Stevenson opened with the relatable frustration of lost luggage at an airport — an estimated 33 million bags were mishandled in 2024 alone — and then pivoted to something far more sacred. How much more does a loving Heavenly Father feel, he asked, sending His most precious possessions — His children — away from their heavenly home, knowing the challenges of mortality? His great comfort is knowing they do not travel alone. Elder Stevenson taught that every person carries a divine tag marking them as a child of God — never to be forgotten or lost. He called on members to treat their ministering assignments as Christlike caring for the Lord’s most treasured possessions.

Elder Ortega explored the profound declaration in Hebrews that Jesus Christ is both the Author and the Finisher of our faith. He taught that Christ does not merely model faith for us to imitate — He actually authors it in us, implanting the seed and providing the conditions for it to grow. And He does not abandon the work halfway — He sees it through to completion in those who remain faithful. This framing removes the burden of manufacturing faith on our own and replaces it with an invitation to cooperate with the Savior in a process He has already begun.

Elder Wu drew on the dramatic moment in the Book of Mormon when King Lamoni’s father — facing a genuine crisis of faith — offered to give up everything he had, including all his sins, in exchange for knowing God. Elder Wu used this as a template for the kind of complete surrender that truly coming to know God requires. Sin, he taught, creates distance from God — not because God withdraws, but because we do. Repentance closes that distance. And the joy of knowing God, he testified from personal experience, surpasses anything we could possibly give up to find Him.

Brother Wunderli addressed directly a misperception that keeps many people from fully engaging with gospel living — the idea that following Christ is exhausting and heavy. He taught that this gets the relationship exactly backwards. Christ does not pile more requirements on already-burdened people. He lifts burdens. The yoke He offers is easy, and His burden is light — not because the covenant path has no difficulty, but because He carries the weight alongside us, and often for us. He invited all who feel weary and heavy-laden to experience for themselves that Christ is relief, not requirement.

Elder Causse explored the tension between loving all of God’s children in an abstract, universal sense and actually loving each particular person in front of us. The Savior, he observed, consistently collapsed that gap — He loved the masses and then turned to love the one. Elder Causse warned against the spiritual trap of feeling warmly about humanity in general while failing to truly see or serve the specific individuals we encounter each day. He called on members to bring both dimensions of love to their discipleship — broad enough to include everyone, and specific enough to see each person.

In a world offering countless competing paths, philosophies and voices claiming to provide direction, Elder Holmes bore clear and simple witness: there is one Way, and His name is Jesus Christ. He acknowledged that the noise of the world is real and loud, and that many attractive alternatives present themselves as viable substitutes for the covenant path. But he testified from experience that only the path that runs through Jesus Christ leads to life, peace and the joy our souls are made for. He invited members to recommit to that path with full purpose of heart.

Elder Matswagothata taught the deeply personal truth that God does not know us as a category or a congregation — He knows each of us individually, specifically, by name. Drawing on multiple scriptural accounts where the Lord called individuals by name — Adam, Moses, Joseph Smith — he showed that this is a consistent pattern of how God relates to His children. Those who feel overlooked, forgotten, unseen or unknown are not accurately seeing themselves as God sees them. The Lord’s knowledge of us is not approximate or general — it is precise, complete and deeply personal.

Elder Soares explored the Savior’s teaching in John 15 — I am the vine, ye are the branches — and showed that this is not merely poetry but a description of spiritual reality. Our capacity to bear fruit, to do good, to grow spiritually, depends entirely on remaining connected to Christ. Disconnect from the vine and the branch withers no matter how healthy it looks. Abiding in Christ, he taught, is more than outward observance of religion — it is a living, daily connection that draws life directly from Him. As we abide in Him, He abides in us, and the fruit we bear endures.

On Easter Sunday morning, President Uchtdorf invited every listener to do more than know about the empty tomb — to personally encounter it as a living, present reality that transforms how we face each day. He taught that the disciples who first witnessed the Resurrection were changed not by a theological argument but by a direct, personal encounter with the risen Christ. We must do the same, he urged. The Resurrection is not background doctrine — it is the ground on which all our hopes stand. Because the tomb is empty, death, grief, fear and doubt do not have the final word.

President Freeman spoke with warmth and directness to all who know what it feels like to have both best days and worst days — and that audience is everyone. She taught that the Savior is not only present on the mountain-peak days of spiritual clarity and joy — He is most deliberately present on the worst days, in the valleys, in the moments of confusion and grief and failure. For youth especially, she invited a reframing: the worst days are not proof that God has abandoned you. They are often the days He is most near, most active, and most urgently reaching toward you.

Elder Rasband bore Easter testimony in some of the most direct, unembellished language of the conference: He is risen. Not as metaphor. Not as theological concept. But as literal, physical, glorious fact that changes the trajectory of every human life. He taught that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the foundation on which every other gospel promise rests — without it, faith is vain and hope is hollow. With it, every promise becomes possible. He called on all members to live as people who truly believe in the risen Christ, not just intellectually but in how they face suffering, death and the unknown.

Elder Renlund organized his entire talk around four words: because of Jesus Christ. He walked through the full landscape of what exists and what is possible because of Him — hope for the hopeless, forgiveness for the guilty, peace for the anxious, reunion for the bereaved, eternal life for the faithful. Every good thing in the gospel, he taught, traces back to Him. This is not just theological truth — it is the ground of authentic gratitude that naturally produces discipleship. When we truly understand what exists because of Christ, we cannot help but love Him and want to become like Him.

Elder Mutombo reframed what it means to live a covenant life — not as a list of obligations to fulfill but as a relationship with a God who loves us perfectly and keeps every promise He makes. The joy of covenant living, he taught, comes not from perfect performance but from the security of knowing that God is faithful even when we fall short, and that He invites us to return, try again, and grow. He drew on his own testimony to show that this is not a theoretical joy — it is a lived, daily experience of walking in relationship with the divine.

Elder Walker reclaimed the biblical description of God’s covenant people as peculiar — not as an embarrassment but as a badge of profound honor. To be peculiar in the scriptural sense is to be specially set apart, consecrated and treasured by God for His purposes. In a world that pressures members to blend in and minimize what makes them distinct, Elder Walker invited a different posture — to embrace covenant identity with confidence and even joy. The distinctiveness of discipleship is not a bug but a feature, a witness to the world of what it looks like to belong to God.

President Oaks used Easter Sunday to call on all members to be peacemakers — not passive bystanders to conflict, but active, deliberate people who use the language and methods of those who follow the Prince of Peace. He echoed the Sermon on the Mount: love your enemies, forgo contention, avoid what is harsh or hateful. Being alive in Christ, he taught, means demonstrating the pure love of Christ in every relationship — families, communities, and all interactions with God’s children. He closed by inviting all to show that love in specific, observable ways.

President Christofferson drew a vital distinction between following Christ’s commandments and acquiring His character. Obedience is the beginning, he taught — but the goal of the gospel is not compliance, it is transformation. The character of Christ is marked by a distinctive pattern: in the moment of His own deepest need, He consistently turned outward toward others. This is the opposite of natural human instinct. President Christofferson invited members not just to ask what they should do, but who they should become — because a person with the character of Christ will naturally do the right thing without needing to consult a checklist.

Elder Wong identified spiritual forgetfulness as one of the great dangers of our day — the slow erosion of testimony, of sacred experiences, of God’s past faithfulness, as the noise of daily life crowds them out. He called on members to actively cultivate remembrance — through journals, through returning often to moments of genuine testimony, through the weekly repetition of the sacrament covenant. The Lord, he testified, never forgets us. And when we remember Him — His covenants, His promises, His past acts of mercy in our lives — we draw closer to Him and find renewed strength for the present.

Elder Hall modeled something rare in general conference: unguarded, enthusiastic, personal love for Jesus Christ — not as a doctrine but as a person. Drawing on Nephi’s declaration that he glories in his Jesus, Elder Hall invited all members to let that same kind of love be visible in their lives. Too often, he suggested, discipleship becomes restrained and private when it should be joyful and expressive. He testified that glorying in Christ is not sentiment or immaturity — it is the natural expression of a soul that has been touched by the Atonement and genuinely knows the Savior.

President Porter drew on Isaiah’s willing response to the Lord’s call — Here am I, send me — and on the premortal council in heaven where that same willingness was first expressed. She taught that our readiness to serve did not begin at our baptism or our calling — it began before mortality, in a choice we made to come to earth and to covenant with God. She invited members of all ages to respond to the Lord’s callings with that same immediacy and faith, trusting that the Lord equips those He calls, even when we feel unprepared or unlikely.

Elder Andersen reframed eternal marriage not as a status achieved at the temple altar but as a lifelong journey of growing together in love, sacrifice and covenant with God. The sealing ordinance begins the journey — it does not complete it. He taught that eternal marriage requires daily renewal: choosing each other again each morning, extending forgiveness before sleep, investing in the relationship with the same energy and attention that other important things receive. He testified that the sealing power makes marriage an eternal partnership and that those who faithfully walk this journey will find it among life’s greatest joys.

Elder Cook wove together three threads that might seem separate — priesthood keys, temple covenants and the Easter Resurrection — and showed how they form a single, unbreakable chain of eternal hope. The sealing power, restored through Elijah, is what makes temple covenants binding beyond death. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is what makes those sealed relationships eternal rather than merely sentimental. He bore testimony that families sealed by priesthood authority will be together forever — not as a comforting hope but as a doctrinal certainty grounded in the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Elder Wakolo taught that the covenant path is not a solo journey — we walk it together, as families, as wards, as the covenant people of God. The gospel is designed for community, not isolation. He invited members to see their fellow ward members not merely as people who attend the same meetings but as covenant companions on the same journey home. Strengthening one another is not an add-on to personal discipleship — it is part of what personal discipleship means. We come unto Christ together, each carrying the other when carrying alone becomes too much.

Elder Gong closed the conference by walking with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus — sad, confused, walking away from Jerusalem after the Crucifixion — and showing how the risen Christ joined them unrecognized, opened the scriptures to them, and revealed Himself in the breaking of bread. This Emmaus pattern, he taught, is our own: Christ walks with us even when we do not recognize Him, speaks to us through scripture, and reveals Himself through ordinance and covenant. He spoke tenderly to those who feel alone, burdened, unseen or misunderstood — and testified that because Christ is risen, no one ever walks alone.