Elder Ballard speaks about the direction the world is going with traditions and values being questions by those not of our faith.  He speaks about the trend of divorce and children outside of wedlock and the devastating effects that this has on society as a whole.  He speaks about the key to restoring values into our society is found in creating better family bonds.

• Everyone loses his or her way at some point, to some degree. It is through the promptings of the Holy Ghost that we can be brought safely back onto the right path, and it is the atoning sacrifice of the Savior that can return us home.

He speaks about the economic hardship that comes to people when they have children outside of wedlock and decide to not marry and make commitments to each other.  He shares that the research of the church has indicated that people have a better chance to succeeding in life if they live the principles of the gospel.

• When people make family and religious commitments to gospel principles, they begin to do better spiritually and often temporally as well.
  
• When couples marry and make commitments to each other, they greatly increase their chances of economic well-being. When children are born in wedlock and have both a mom and a dad, their opportunities and their likelihood of occupational success skyrocket. And when families work and play together, neighborhoods and communities flourish, economies improve, and less government and fewer costly safety nets are required.
  
• Inequities are resolved by living correct principles and values.
  

Elder Ballard clearly shares that our most important purpose of our lives is found within the family unit.

• The most important cause of our lifetime is our families. If we will devote ourselves to this cause, we will improve every other aspect of our lives and will become, as a people and as a church, an example and a beacon for all peoples of the earth.

Elder Ballard gives us advice on how to put our lives in order.  By doing so, we will be better prepared to hear the voice of the spirit guiding our lives.

• Put everything you do outside the home in subjection to and in support of what happens inside your home.
• Organize your personal lives to provide time for prayer and scriptures and family activity.
• We need to do things in the right order! Marriage first and then family.
• Husbands and wives, you should be equal partners in your marriage.
• Use the family resources of the Church. In raising children, families can draw upon the help of the ward. Support and work in tandem with priesthood and auxiliary leaders, and take full advantage of the Church’s youth and family programs.

To those that have lost their way along the path of life, Elder Ballard assures us that we are not lost and that reaching out for the Holy Ghost's companionship will result in us finding out way along the path of life.

• None of us will ever be so lost that we cannot find our way again through His Atonement and His teachings.
• As you seek to live the gospel and doctrine of Christ, the Holy Ghost will guide you and your family. You will have a spiritual GPS to tell you always where you are and where you are going.

Our families can be eternal and if we live the principles of the gospel, we have the greatest chance of success.

Elder Hales talks about the prodigal son and how in his darkest times the scriptures refer to him "coming to himself" and experiencing the change of heart that is necessary to return home.  He shares that we each have moments in our lives where we need to come to ourselves and have a similar experience.  He provides some guidance on how we can be encouraged in our efforts to seek out more spiritual things in our lives.

• Throughout our lives, whether in times of darkness, challenge, sorrow, or sin, we may feel the Holy Ghost reminding us that we are truly sons and daughters of a caring Heavenly Father, who loves us, and we may hunger for the sacred blessings that only He can provide. At these times we should strive to come to ourselves and come back into the light of our Savior’s love.

Elder Hales uses the idea of becoming spiritually self-reliant by taking the sacrament, being worthy of a temple recommend, and sacrificing for others.

• We become converted and spiritually self-reliant as we prayerfully live our covenants—through worthily partaking of the sacrament, being worthy of a temple recommend, and sacrificing to serve others.

He starts by talking specifically about the sacrament.

• For the sacrament to be a spiritually cleansing experience each week, we need to prepare ourselves before coming to sacrament meeting. We do this by deliberately leaving behind our daily work and recreation and letting go of worldly thoughts and concerns. As we do, we make room in our minds and hearts for the Holy Ghost.
• Then we are prepared to ponder on the Atonement. More than just thinking about the facts of the Savior’s suffering and death, our pondering helps us to recognize that through the Savior’s sacrifice, we have the hope, opportunity, and strength to make real, heartfelt changes in our lives.

He provides counsel to the adult leaders of the young men.  He shares that we need to teach them that they are standing in as representatives of the Savior when they provide the Lord's Supper to the members of the church.

• Fathers, priesthood leaders, and quorum presidencies have a special responsibility to help Aaronic Priesthood holders earnestly prepare to perform their sacred sacrament duties. This preparation is made throughout the week by living gospel standards. When young men prepare, bless, and pass the sacrament in worthiness and reverence, they literally follow the example of the Savior at the Last Supper and become like Him.

He speaks about the need for us to be worthy of a temple recommend and to use it often.

• Our desires to return to Heavenly Father increase as we, in addition to taking the sacrament, become worthy to obtain a temple recommend. We become worthy by steadily and steadfastly obeying the commandments. This obedience begins in childhood and intensifies through experiences in the Aaronic Priesthood and Young Women during the years of preparation. Then, hopefully, priests and Laurels set goals and specifically prepare themselves to be endowed and sealed in the temple.
• Worthiness to hold a temple recommend gives us the strength to keep our temple covenants.
• The standard for temple recommend holders is not too high for us to achieve. It is simply to faithfully live the gospel and follow the prophets.
• I testify that the sacrifices we make to receive temple ordinances are worth every effort we can make.

Finally, he speaks about serving others.  Our goal is to help others make and keep sacred covenants with God.

• The purpose of both temporal and spiritual self-reliance is to get ourselves on higher ground so that we can lift others in need.

It is key to remember that if we walk in faith, we will receive all that the Father has promised us.

• No blessings will be withheld if we faithfully endure in walking the path back to our Heavenly Father.

He concludes with encouragement to look at our lives and see if we have room for improvement.  We need to get ourselves right with God first, and then we will have the ability to help others be lifted.

• Let’s have a talk with ourselves in the mirror and ask, “Where do I stand on living my covenants?” We are on the right path when we can say, “I worthily partake of the sacrament each week, I am worthy to hold a temple recommend and go to the temple, and I sacrifice to serve and bless others.”

This is one of those talks that just highlights things we all know but have to be reminded of often.  We all know the importance of the sacrament, but to consider that we need to make it more personal to each of us is necessary.  We all know we need to be worthy of a temple recommend, but to explain that it is not enough to just make covenants, we need to keep them is needed.  I appreciated the reminder that being worthy of a temple recommend gives us strength to keep the covenants we have made.  When we are living our lives to be worthy of a temple recommend, we also have the strength to keep the covenants we have made.  And finally, to point our that we can't lift someone to higher ground unless we are on the higher ground reminds us to serve others by bringing them closer to the Savior.  It is good to have a self-assessment of where I stand and what I need to do to assure I am on the right path.

Elder Holland talks about the parable of the laborers where the master of the house hires people at 9am, noon, 3pm, and at 5pm.  When the day is over, the master pays each person hired the same wage no matter what time they started the day.  He speaks of the need to not be envious of those that worked less, but received the same reward as the others.  All were treated fairly while the master chose to be more generous with one than other really isn't anyone else's business to worry about.

Elder Holland uses this as the background to talk about hurt feelings, feeling unjustly compensated, or feeling life is unfair at times.

• Brothers and sisters, there are going to be times in our lives when someone else gets an unexpected blessing or receives some special recognition. May I plead with us not to be hurt—and certainly not to feel envious—when good fortune comes to another person? We are not diminished when someone else is added upon. We are not in a race against each other to see who is the wealthiest or the most talented or the most beautiful or even the most blessed. The race we are really in is the race against sin, and surely envy is one of the most universal of those.

He shares some great advice about the things that we should be aware of and keep out of our lives.

• Coveting, pouting, or tearing others down does not elevate your standing, nor does demeaning someone else improve your self-image. So be kind, and be grateful that God is kind. It is a happy way to live.
  

He speaks about faith to move on from those things that have hurt us in the past.

• The formula of faith is to hold on, work on, see it through, and let the distress of earlier hours—real or imagined—fall away in the abundance of the final reward. Don’t dwell on old issues or grievances—not toward yourself nor your neighbor nor even, I might add, toward this true and living Church. The majesty of your life, of your neighbor’s life, and of the gospel of Jesus Christ will be made manifest at the last day, even if such majesty is not always recognized by everyone in the early going. So don’t hyperventilate about something that happened at 9:00 in the morning when the grace of God is trying to reward you at 6:00 in the evening—whatever your labor arrangements have been through the day.
  
• We consume such precious emotional and spiritual capital clinging tenaciously to the memory of a discordant note we struck in a childhood piano recital, or something a spouse said or did 20 years ago that we are determined to hold over his or her head for another 20, or an incident in Church history that proved no more or less than that mortals will always struggle to measure up to the immortal hopes placed before them. Even if one of those grievances did not originate with you, it can end with you. And what a reward there will be for that contribution when the Lord of the vineyard looks you in the eye and accounts are settled at the end of our earthly day.

Elder Holland says this parable is about the goodness of God and how he gets to deal with each of us individually.  It is about God having the right to show us mercy and love when we believe we don't deserve it as much as another.

• This is a story about God’s goodness, His patience and forgiveness, and the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a story about generosity and compassion. It is a story about grace. It underscores the thought I heard many  years ago that surely the thing God enjoys most about being God is the thrill of being merciful, especially to those who don’t expect it and often feel they don’t deserve it.

He speaks about the need for coming unto Christ and not worrying about how late we are to coming.  It is more important that we show up instead of worrying about the late hour that we finally are able to arrive.  Don't worry about the past, the come to Christ today and let his atonement be part of your life.

• However late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don’t have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines.
• There is nothing in either case that you have done that cannot be undone. There is no problem which you cannot overcome. There is no dream that in the unfolding of time and eternity cannot yet be realized. Even if you feel you are the lost and last laborer of the eleventh hour, the Lord of the vineyard still stands beckoning. “Come boldly [to] the throne of grace,” and fall at the feet of the Holy One of Israel. Come and feast “without money and without price” at the table of the Lord.

He speaks to the men of the church to step up and be more than we currently are.  We should all take this challenge that Elder Holland gives to be better men of God.

• I especially make an appeal for husbands and fathers, priesthood bearers or prospective priesthood bearers, to, as Lehi said, “Awake! and arise from the dust … and be men.” Not always but often it is the men who choose not to answer the call to “come join the ranks.” Women and children frequently seem more willing. Brethren, step up. Do it for your sake. Do it for the sake of those who love you and are praying that you will respond. Do it for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, who paid an unfathomable price for the future He wants you to have.
  

He shares his testimony of God's love for each of us.

• To each of you, one and all, I testify of the renewing power of God’s love and the miracle of His grace. His concern is for the faith at which you finally arrive, not the hour of the day in which you got there.
  

Finally he ends with these words of encouragement.

• So if you have made covenants, keep them. If you haven’t made them, make them. If you have made them and broken them, repent and repair them. It is never too late so long as the Master of the vineyard says there is time. Please listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit telling you right now, this very moment, that you should accept the atoning gift of the Lord Jesus Christ and enjoy the fellowship of His labor. Don’t delay. It’s getting late.
  

This is a great talk to note the mercy that God has for each of us.  Sometimes we can feel we have been unjustly treated by someone because our reward is not greater, our pay is not as much, or we believe that someone has received more than us.  This parable reminds us that we are individuals in the eyes of God.  He will give us what we have agreed to if we are faithful and fulfill our responsibilities.  But that does not restrain Him from giving liberally to anyone that might need a little more than we do.  How grateful I am that God sees my individual needs and says that He will help me.  He doesn't add my name to a list and say He can't give me more because He hasn't rewarded someone else nearly enough yet.  I am grateful that he knows me as an individual and provides what I need.  There are enough blessings to go around so we don't need to worry about there not being enough for all of us.