D&C 121–123

Structure your personal scripture study by following a 15-minute, day-by-day plan. Each day's assignment includes the required scripture passages from the Come, Follow Me curriculum, as well as suggestions for additional resources to bring context and understanding to your study. For the best experience, use our Reading Plan in the free ScripturePlus app! You can track your progress and have access to the best resources.

Monday

• Commentary: Section 121 Context, Steven C. Harper
• Scripture: D&C 121:1–10
• Commentary: Casey Paul Griffiths, Doctrine and Covenants Minute, Doctrine and Covenants 121:1–6.
• Commentary: Casey Paul Griffiths, Doctrine and Covenants Minute, Doctrine and Covenants 121:7–10.
• Quote: The children of Israel waited 40 years in the wilderness before they could enter the promised land. Jacob waited 7 long years for Rachel. The Jews waited 70 years in Babylon before they could return to rebuild the temple. The Nephites waited for a sign of Christ’s birth, even knowing that if the sign did not come, they would perish. Joseph Smith’s trials in Liberty Jail caused even the prophet of God to wonder, “How long?” (D&C 121:2).
  In each case, Heavenly Father had a purpose in requiring that His children wait.
  Every one of us is called to wait in our own way. We wait for answers to prayers. We wait for things which at the time may appear so right and so good to us that we can’t possibly imagine why Heavenly Father would delay the answer.
  Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Continue in Patience,” April 2010 General Conference.
• Quote: There are those among you who, although young, have already suffered a full measure of grief and sorrow. My heart is filled with compassion and love for you. How dear you are to the Church. How beloved you are of your Heavenly Father. Though it may seem that you are alone, angels attend you. Though you may feel that no one can understand the depth of your despair, our Savior, Jesus Christ, understands. He suffered more than we can possibly imagine, and He did it for us; He did it for you. You are not alone.
  If you ever feel your burden is too great to bear, lift your heart to your Heavenly Father, and He will uphold and bless you. He says to you, as He said to Joseph Smith, “[Your] adversity and [your] afflictions shall be but a small moment; and then, if [you] endure it well, God shall exalt [you] on high” (D&C 121:7–8).
  Enduring adversity is not the only thing you must do to experience a happy life. Let me repeat: how you react to adversity and temptation is a critical factor in whether or not you arrive at your own “happily ever after.”
  Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Your Happily Ever After,” April 2010 General Conference.

Tuesday

• Scripture: D&C 121:11–22
• Commentary: Casey Paul Griffiths, Doctrine and Covenants Minute, Doctrine and Covenants 121:11–16.
• KnoWhy 339: What Did the Book of Mormon Teach the Early Saints about Enduring Persecution?
• Quote: Do not miss that one simple, obvious absolute: The priesthood ever and always is conferred by ordination by one who holds proper authority, and it is known to the Church that he has it. And even when the priesthood has been conferred, an individual has no authority beyond that which belongs to the specific office to which one has been ordained. Those limits apply as well to an office to which one is set apart. Unauthorized ordinations or settings apart convey nothing, neither power nor authority of the priesthood.
  If they seek to do mischief with the priesthood and with the sacred things of the temple, the Lord has said he would “blind their minds, that they may not understand his marvelous workings” (D&C 121:12).
  Boyd K. Packer, “The Temple, the Priesthood,” April 1993 General Conference.

Wednesday

• Scripture: D&C 121:23–32
• Commentary: Casey Paul Griffiths, Doctrine and Covenants Minute, Doctrine and Covenants 121:17–25.
• Quote: I know our greatest happiness comes as we tune in to the Lord (Alma 37:37) and to those things which bring a lasting reward, rather than mindlessly tuning in to countless hours of status updates, Internet farming, and catapulting angry birds at concrete walls. I urge each of us to take those things which rob us of precious time and determine to be their master, rather than allowing them through their addictive nature to be the master of us.
  To have the peace the Savior speaks of (John 14:27) we must devote our time to the things that matter most, and the things of God matter most. As we engage with God in sincere prayer, read and study each day from the scriptures, ponder on what we have read and felt, and then apply and live the lessons learned, we draw nearer to Him. God’s promise is that as we seek diligently from the best books, “[He] shall give unto [us] knowledge by his Holy Spirit” (D&C 121:26).
  Ian S. Ardern, “A Time to Prepare,” October 2011 General Conference.
• Quote: Each member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has an individual responsibility to learn and live the Lord’s teachings and to receive by proper authority the ordinances of salvation and exaltation. We should not expect the Church as an organization to teach or tell us everything we need to know and do to become devoted disciples and endure valiantly to the end (D&C 121:29). Rather, our personal responsibility is to learn what we should learn, to live as we know we should live, and to become who the Master would have us become. And our homes are the ultimate setting for learning, living, and becoming.
  David A. Bednar, “Prepared to Obtain Every Needful Thing,” April 2019 General Conference.

Thursday

• Scripture: D&C 121:33–40
• Commentary: Casey Paul Griffiths, Doctrine and Covenants Minute, Doctrine and Covenants 121:26–33.
• Commentary: Casey Paul Griffiths, Doctrine and Covenants Minute, Doctrine and Covenants 121:34–40.
• Quote: I pray that we will not let the temporary challenges of mortality cause us to forget the great commandments and priorities we have been given by our Creator and our Savior. We must not set our hearts so much on the things of the world and aspire to the honors of men (D&C 121:35) that we stop trying to achieve our eternal destiny. We who know God’s plan for His children—we who have made covenants to participate in it—have a clear responsibility. We must never deviate from our paramount desire, which is to achieve eternal life. We must never dilute our first priority—to have no other gods and to serve no other priorities ahead of God the Father and His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.
  Dallin H. Oaks, “No Other Gods,” October 2013 General Conference.
• Quote: We read in the Doctrine and Covenants, section 121, verse 36, “The rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven.” What a wonderful gift we have been given. Ours is the responsibility to guard and protect that priesthood and to be worthy of all the glorious blessings our Father in Heaven has in store for us—and for others through us.
  Wherever you go, your priesthood goes with you. Are you standing in holy places? Before you put yourself and your priesthood in jeopardy by venturing into places or participating in activities which are not worthy of you or of that priesthood, pause to consider the consequences. Remember who you are and what God expects you to become. You are a child of promise. You are a man of might. You are a son of God.
  Thomas S. Monson, “A Sacred Trust,” April 2016 General Conference.
• Quote: This scripture says we must lead by “principles of righteousness.” Such principles apply to all leaders in the Church as well as to all fathers and mothers in their homes. We lose our right to the Lord’s Spirit and to whatever authority we have from God when we exercise control over another person in an unrighteous manner (D&C 121:37). We may think such methods are for the good of the one being “controlled.” But anytime we try to compel someone to righteousness who can and should be exercising his or her own moral agency, we are acting unrighteously. When setting firm limits for another person is in order, those limits should always be administered with loving patience and in a way that teaches eternal principles.
  Larry Y. Wilson, “Only upon the Principles of Righteousness,” April 2012 General Conference.

Friday

• Scripture: D&C 121:41–46
• Commentary: Casey Paul Griffiths, Doctrine and Covenants Minute, Doctrine and Covenants 121:41–46.
• Commentary: Section 122 Context, Steven C. Harper
• Scripture: D&C 122:1–4
• Commentary: Casey Paul Griffiths, Doctrine and Covenants Minute, Doctrine and Covenants 122:1–4.

Saturday

• Scripture: D&C 122:5–9
• Commentary: Casey Paul Griffiths, Doctrine and Covenants Minute, Doctrine and Covenants 122:5–7.
• Commentary: Casey Paul Griffiths, Doctrine and Covenants Minute, Doctrine and Covenants 122:8–9.
• Commentary: Section 123 Context, Steven C. Harper
• Scripture: D&C 123:1–6
• Commentary: Casey Paul Griffiths, Doctrine and Covenants Minute, Doctrine and Covenants 123:1–6.

Sunday

• Scripture: D&C 123:7–17
• Commentary: Casey Paul Griffiths, Doctrine and Covenants Minute, Doctrine and Covenants 123:7–10.
• Commentary: Casey Paul Griffiths, Doctrine and Covenants Minute, Doctrine and Covenants 123:11–17.
• Quote: Mortality is not a pleasure cruise on some luxury liner. It is a voyage fraught with challenges and constant buffetings of winds and waves. As James A. Michener wrote: “A ship, like a human being, moves best when it is slightly athwart the wind, when it has to keep its sails tight and attend its course. Ships, like men, do poorly when the wind is directly behind, pushing them sloppily on their way so that no care is required in steering or in the management of sails; the wind seems favorable, for it blows in the direction one is heading, but actually it is destructive because it induces a relaxation in tension and skill. What is needed is a wind slightly opposed to the ship, for then tension can be maintained, and juices can flow and ideas can germinate, for ships, like men, respond to challenge” (D&C 123:16).
  Carlos E. Asay, “Stay on the True Course,” April 1996 General Conference.
• Quote: The point is that faith means trusting God in good times and bad, even if that includes some suffering until we see His arm revealed in our behalf (D&C 123:17). That can be difficult in our modern world when many have come to believe that the highest good in life is to avoid all suffering, that no one should ever anguish over anything. But that belief will never lead us to “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).
  Jeffrey R. Holland, “Waiting on the Lord,” October 2020 General Conference.