Hello, Doer of the word!
*We are looking for one Administrative Manager who is willing to volunteer five hours per week for General Conference Applied. If you or someone you know is willing to join us in a big way, please reply to this email and let us know.*
REFERRAL PROGRAM. Between now and Christmas Day 2025, for anyone who refers five people to the General Conference Applied Newsletter, we will send you (by the end of 2025) the following two general conference invitations files: 1) A Google Spreadsheet with a tab for every October 2025 General Conference address; 2) A PDF with a page for every October 2025 General Conference address. You receive these files one page at a time in each of our Invitations newsletters, but this will package the invitations into one file, and you won’t have to wait an extra five weeks to receive the invitations for all the addresses. To receive this gift, here are the steps:
Reply to any Newsletter email (or email us directly) and provide the email addresses for the five people who signed up for the General Conference Applied Newsletter because of your referral (i.e., this only applies to those who subscribed to the Newsletter after 9:00 p.m. MST on Thursday, December 4, 2025).
As long as those five people are still active subscribers as of Christmas Day 2025, we will email your gift to you.
Let's dive into the President Dallin H. Oaks Study Schedule:
Addresses
Sunday, December 7, 2025:
Getting to Know China | BYU Devotional: March 12, 1991
Monday, December 8, 2025:
"Honour Thy Father and Thy Mother" | April 1991 General Conference
Tuesday, December 9, 2025:
Joy and Mercy | October 1991 General Conference
Wednesday, December 10, 2025:
The Relief Society and the Church | April 1992 General Conference
Thursday, December 11, 2025:
Our Strengths Can Become Our Downfall | BYU Devotional: June 7, 1992
Friday, December 12, 2025:
Bible Stories and Personal Protection | October 1992 General Conference
Saturday, December 13, 2025:
The Language of Prayer | April 1993 General Conference
Additional Resources
Download a copy of the President Oaks Study Schedule: Google Sheets | PDF. We've saved you work by providing links, but if you want to print the schedule, use the PDF (it prints prettier). Please invite anyone with whom you share these resources to subscribe to the General Conference Applied newsletter and podcast!
Quote of the Week from President Oaks' Life
In the Hands of the Lord: The Life of Dallin H. Oaks by Richard E. Turley Jr.:
Late one evening in August 1970, Dallin and June drove through a poor part of town to take home a 60-year-old woman who served with June at church. As June waited in the car, Dallin walked the woman to her door. As he returned to the car afterward, he encountered a 16-year-old hoodlum. "He stuck a small automatic into my stomach," Dallin recounted, "and demanded my money." Dallin pulled out his wallet and showed him he had no cash. The young man then told Dallin to have June open the car so he could rob her. Dallin refused. The young man threatened to shoot him, but Dallin again refused. Eventually, the youth ran off. "I know the Lord took care of me," Dallin wrote to family, "and that I enjoyed the fulfillment of the promises made in the temple."
Favorite Quotes
Clay's Favorite Quote: (TL;DR—the wrestle between making sacrifices to use your talents in furthering the Lord’s work and being realistic in seeking fair compensation for your hard-earned skills and efforts to provide for your family is a tricky one without any easy answers).
President Oaks spoke at BYU's commencement in 1980, where he previewed what the decade of the 80s would likely bring ("Challenges to BYU in the Eighties," 15 August 1980). We've been unable to locate a digital recording or transcript of this speech online, though a physical tape may be in BYU's archives. However, President Oaks quoted much of it when assigned to speak again in 1990 where he had the unique opportunity to reflect on those predictions. (He revisited them again in 1998).
One challenge he felt some remorse over not solving as BYU's President was the necessity to attract world-class employees for BYU to attain its prophesied potential, but to do so within a limited budget. He needed to convince top-notch candidates who could find highly-compensated employment most anywhere to make some salary sacrifices without being unfair or unrealistic. With tongue in cheek, and a line from Arthur Block, he poked fun at himself for failing to figure this out during his tenure, but also realized it probably has no one-size-fits-all policy solution.
His musings on balancing sacrifice/service with fair compensation for talents and honest toil struck me because for over a year now, I've wrestled with similar questions regarding General Conference Applied. It's primarily a missionary tool, but takes as much effort as a full-time job, with expenses Mitch and I personally pay. Multiple LDS content creators have been shocked to see how many free resources we release each week. Learning none of it has ever been monetized blows their minds.
A friend lovingly put me straight recently, explaining that I should have zero qualms about eventually earning income through my GCA efforts, pointing out that President Emily Belle Freeman and many other wonderful people have made their livings being paid for the kind of gospel content we're producing. That helped in my wrestle, as did a conversation with a wonderful service missionary that I discuss in tomorrow's podcast episode with Book of Mormon: A Graphic Novel creator, Pablo Smith. Definitely check that one out. Pablo has put in humongous effort, made something excellent, and now faces the same wrestle.
I wish I had a formula for balancing the countervailing pressures of market and sacrifice. We must not lose the spirit of sacrifice in employment at Brigham Young University, but neither must that sacrifice be exploited or become an excuse for unrealistic compensation policies in the University. After nine years of worrying over this problem, I have now left it behind for President Holland…. I suppose President Holland grappled with that problem and then left it to President Lee, who will do the same.
Those of us who are impatient with the time it takes to solve really difficult problems confirm the observation that "Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself" (Arthur Block, Murphy's Law, p. 80).
Mitch's Favorite Quote: My study of Church magazines of late has been limited to what members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles have written (i.e., check out our General Conference+ newsletters for the insights Clay and I are sharing each week). However, there is so much more that Church magazines have to offer. In fact, my favorite Church magazine article of all time was written by a regular member of the Church. Starting in December 2025, I want to do a better job of reading the monthly Liahona magazine cover-to-cover.
I agree with the sentiment voiced by President Gordon B. Hinckley. After describing the faithful Saints he had met at a conference, he added, "We have the responsibility of leading them, when, in fact, we can learn so much from them." Our faith and resolve are strengthened by the spiritual achievements and service of ordinary Latter-day Saints. There are thousands of such inspirational examples, but they are rarely published except on the pages of the Church News and the Church magazines—the Ensign, New Era, and Friend. I encourage everyone to have these unique publications in their home.
Your Favorite Quotes
Reply to this email and tell us your favorite quote, story, or teaching from one of the addresses you listened to last week and we'll share it here!
Thanks for joining us in becoming a "Doer of the word!" Please help others do the same by sharing this newsletter with them.