Elder Robert D. Hales speaks at BYU campus devotional

PROVO — Individuals must reach eternal life, said Elder Robert D. Hales, of the Quorum of the Twelve for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, during the BYU campus devotional, at a crowded Marriott Center, on Tuesday.

It is by using one's agency to make right choices today, tomorrow and for the rest of an individual's time on earth that they are able to follow the Savior and return to his presence, he said.

"There must be opposition in all things," Elder Hales said. "Because of that opposition, we have the essential spiritual agency to choose spiritual life here and eternal life in the world to come."

Drawing from the life of the Prophet Joseph Smith as an ideal example, Elder Hales spoke of examples in young Joseph's life, in which he exercised personal agency to seek out things of the spirit and accomplish his foreordained mission.

"This development always takes time and testing and faith," Elder Hales said. "So it is for all of us. We will all be tested, often to our limit. Yet all of us are assured that we will never be tested more than we can endure. And the greatest blessings will be based on how well we endure our test."

Elder Hales said that whatever challenges or hardships an individual may experience in life are provided for a reason — to help individuals become and accomplish what they were specifically sent to the earth to be and do. Although no life is exempt from challenges, Elder Hales said that Heavenly Father has unique plans for every individual that are more glorious than anything an individual could imagine or arrange for themselves.

"His way is always to prepare us line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little," he said. "And that always happens on his timetable."

Elder Hales shared how individuals can use personal agency to make good decision and lay a strong foundation of faith. He said individuals have a choice to either move toward a new door with many possibilities, or into a closed corner with very few options.

"If we do what is right our opportunities increase," he said. "If we don't, our opportunities decrease."

Elder Hales spoke of the critical "decade of decisions" many students are currently in, a time for making critical choices in regards to education, employment, church and marriage. He said individuals must listen to the Spirit rather than the opinions of men in order to make correct decisions.