I have spoken at some length about things you don’t want to happen to you. Now let’s consider some of the good things that you do want to happen to you. If you are willing to pay the price for success, good things, even great things, can happen to you, even beyond your fondest dreams and expectations! Often we do not have even a glimpse of our potential for happiness and accomplishment in this life and in eternity because, as the Apostle Paul said, “Now we see through a glass, darkly.” ¹¹ But the lens can be lightened and become crystal clear through the influence of theHoly Ghost. The Savior promised us that the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, will “teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance,” ¹² and “guide you into all truth.” ¹³

We must recognize that our natural gifts and abilities are limited, but when augmented by inspiration and guidance of the Holy Ghost, our potential increases manyfold. You need help from a power beyond your own to do something extraordinarily useful. You young men can have opportunities and receive blessings beyond your wildest dreams and expectations. Your future may not hold fame or fortune, but it can be something far more lasting and fulfilling. Remember that what we do in life echoes in eternity.

Some of you young men may not yet have a strong testimony of the divine origin of this Church like your parents have. You may wish you could be more sure that Joseph Smith actually saw in vision God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, and that the Book of Mormon was truly translated from golden plates. You may have some lingering doubts about the law oftithing, the law of chastity, or the Word of Wisdom. This is not unusual for some young men your age. Your faith may not have been fully tested. You may not yet have had to defend your beliefs or lifestyle. I assure you that great things can happen to you. You can receive an unwavering testimony that this is the Church of Jesus Christ and that through Joseph Smith the gospel has been restored to the earth in its fulness. But that testimony may not come until your faith has been tried. ¹⁴

Many years ago two General Authorities called a very young man to be a new stake president. In his response, the new stake president said he would give total devotion to his calling and would not ask any of the members of his stake to be more devoted than he. Then he bore his testimony that he believed the gospel with all his heart and proposed to live it.

Later at lunch one of the General Authorities asked this new stake president whether he knew absolutely that this gospel is true. He answered that he did not. The senior Apostle said to his fellow Apostle, “He knows it just as well as you do. The only thing that he does not knowis that he does know it. It will be but a short time until he does know it. … You do not need to worry.”

A short time later, the new stake president testified that following a spiritual experience, “I shed tears of gratitude to the Lord for the abiding, perfect, and absolute testimony that came into my life of the divinity of this work.” ¹⁵

Many of us do not have a full awareness of what we really know. Even though we have been taught the gospel, we may not be fully aware of what the Lord has put in our “inward parts” and written in our hearts. ¹⁶ As young men of the covenant, you are heirs to great promises. You have the opportunity to become more than “hewers of wood and drawers of water.”¹⁷

I do not claim to have an absolute understanding of all of the principles of the gospel, but I have come to know with certainty the divinity and authority of this Church. This came to me gradually, line upon line and precept upon precept. I now know that I know, just as you can come toknow that you know. It can happen to you.” James E. Faust, It Can’t Happen to Me, April 2002 General Conference