"What is to be done?"

Every time I watch this video, I'm amazed at its beauty. Hearing Joseph Smith's words come from a modern girl's mouth, while the other voices of our world shout opinions all around her, is so powerful. The girl in this video could have been me.

At some point, almost everyone feels the way young Joseph Smith did, when he was trying to choose which religion to join. "In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, I often said to myself: What is to be done? Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be right, which is it, and how shall I know it?"

While I was laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contests of these parties of religionists, I was one day reading the Epistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse, which reads: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

 Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know; for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible.

 At length I came to the conclusion that I must either remain in darkness and confusion, or else I must do as James directs, that is, ask of God. I at length came to the determination to “ask of God,” concluding that if he gave wisdom to them that lacked wisdom, and would give liberally, and not upbraid, I might venture.

I felt this confusion in my late teens and early 20's. I was raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (a Mormon), but the world's shrill voices still called out their opinions, and it was sometimes hard to know what to believe. I prayed hard, sometimes through tears, and eventually learned, without a doubt that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us, and knows us. And that the fullness of Christ's gospel has been restored on the earth once more, including holy temples and living prophets (and apostles!) and families being together forever.

It's pretty cool stuff. Try it, you'll see :)