Some things I needed to hear

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Women's Session of the October 1985 Conference.

The theme of this session was "Drawing Near Unto God" and there were some really good talks. Here are some quotes that spoke to me:

We are sanctifying ourselves one step at a time as we accept personal responsibility for our actions and honor the covenants we make at baptism, in the temple, and as we take the sacrament each Sunday. ("Draw Near Unto Me Through Obedience," Sister Barbara W. Winder) 

And then a bunch of thoughts from President Hinckley:

I urge you to lift your heads and walk in gratitude. Spare yourselves from the indulgence of self-pity. It is always self-defeating. Subdue the negative and emphasize the positive. Count your blessings and not your problems.…

You have the gift, the opportunity, and the responsibility of doing good. You possess an instinctive inclination to help those in distress, and you have a peculiar and remarkable way of doing so. There are so many who need your help. …

Yours, my sisters, is the privilege to teach, yours the responsibility, yours the opportunity. There are few resources of which we are in greater need than dedicated teachers of the gospel who teach with faith, with conviction, and with the knowledge that comes of study. …

Yours may be the spirit of prophecy.…Can anyone doubt that many women have a special intuitive sense, even a prescient understanding of things to come?… John the Revelator makes a very interesting statement: “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” As much so as any man in the world, each of you has the opportunity and the responsibility to develop a testimony of Jesus as the Savior of mankind. That testimony is the “spirit of prophecy.” It is a gift that may be yours. …

To you who are mothers, I wish to say that I know that your labors are heavy, that your burdens are many, that the task of rearing children in this complex age is a serious and demanding one. But there can be no doubt that as the years pass you will enjoy a sense of satisfaction that will come in no other way. You will enjoy a measure of peace, of love, of that gladness which is deep and sweet and good and which can come from no other source. ("Ten Gifts from the Lord," President Gordon B. Hinckley)