“I once had an opportunity to accompany President Spencer W. Kimball to a distant land. We were given a tour of the various sites in the area, including underground catacombs—burial grounds for people who had been persecuted by Christian zealots. As we came up the dark, narrow stairs of that place, President Kimball taught me an unforgettable lesson. He pulled my coattail and said, ‘It has always troubled me what the adversary does using the name of our Savior.’ He then said, ‘Robert, the adversary can never have joy unless you and I sin.”
Robert D. Hales, “To Act For Ourselves: The Gift and Blessings Of Agency”, April 2006 General Conference
“Our agency—our ability to choose and act for ourselves—was an essential element of this plan. Without agency we would be unable to make right choices and progress. Yet with agency we could make wrong choices, commit sin, and lose the opportunity to be with Heavenly Father again. For this reason a Savior would be provided to suffer for our sins and redeem us if we would repent. By His infinite Atonement, He brought about ‘the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice.”
Robert D. Hales, “Agency: Essential to the Plan of Life”, October 2010 General Conference
“While we pass laws to reduce pollution of the earth, any proposal to protect the moral and spiritual environment is shouted down and marched against as infringing upon liberty, agency, freedom, the right to choose.
Interesting how one virtue, when given exaggerated or fanatical emphasis, can be used to batter down another, with freedom, a virtue, invoked to protect vice. Those determined to transgress see any regulation of their life-style as interfering with their agency and seek to have their actions condoned by making them legal.
People who are otherwise sensible say, ‘I do not intend to indulge, but I vote for freedom of choice for those who do.”
Boyd K. Packer, “Our Moral Environment”, April 1992 General Conference
“I have heard a few parents state that they don’t want to impose the gospel on their children but want them to make up their own minds about what they will believe and follow. They think that in this way they are allowing children to exercise their agency. What they forget is that the intelligent use of agency requires knowledge of the truth, of things as they really are (see Doctrine & Covenants 93:24). Without that, young people can hardly be expected to understand and evaluate the alternatives that come before them. Parents should consider how the adversary approaches their children. He and his followers are not promoting objectivity but are vigorous, multimedia advocates of sin and selfishness.”
D. Todd Christofferson, “Moral Discipline”, October 2009 General Conference
“As gospel learners, we should be ‘doers of the word, and not hearers only’ (James 1:22). Our hearts are opened to the influence of the Holy Ghost as we properly exercise agency and act in accordance with correct principles—and we thereby invite His teaching and testifying power. Parents have the sacred responsibility to help children to act and to seek learning by faith. And a child is never too young to take part in this pattern of learning.”
David A. Bednar, “Watching with All Perseverance”, April 2010 General Conference
“Some who do not understand the doctrinal part do not readily see the relationship between obedience and agency. And they miss one vital connection and see obedience only as restraint. They then resist the very thing that will give them true freedom. There is no true freedom without responsibility, and there is no enduring freedom without a knowledge of the truth.”
Boyd K. Packer, “Agency And Control”, April 1983 General Conference
“As we ask these questions, we realize that the purpose of our life on earth is to grow, develop, and be strengthened through our own experiences. How do we do this? The scriptures give us an answer in one simple phrase: we ‘wait upon the Lord.’ Tests and trials are given to all of us. These mortal challenges allow us and our Heavenly Father to see whether we will exercise our agency to follow His Son. He already knows, and we have the opportunity to learn, that no matter how difficult our circumstances, ‘all these things shall [be for our] experience, and … [our] good.”
Robert D. Hales, “Waiting Upon The Lord: Thy Will Be Done”, October 2011 General Conference
“Please understand, no one has the privilege to choose what is right. God reserved that prerogative to Himself. Our agency does allow us to choose among alternate paths, but then we are bound to the consequence God has decreed. Later, if we don’t like where the path takes us, the only out is through repentance.”
Richard G. Scott, “Healing Your Damaged Life”, October 1992 General Conference
“We tend to think of agency as a personal matter. If we ask someone to define “moral agency,” the answer will probably be something like this: ‘Moral agency means I am free to make choices for myself.’ Often overlooked is the fact that choices have consequences; we forget also that agency offers the same privilege of choice to others. At times we will be affected adversely by the way other people choose to exercise their agency. Our Heavenly Father feels so strongly about protecting our agency that he allows his children to exercise it, either for good or for evil.”
M. Russell Ballard, “Answers to Life’s Questions”, April 1995 General Conference
“Those opportunities require you to make choices, and choices depend on agency. A major reason for your mortal existence, therefore, is to test how you will exercise your agency. (See 2 Nephi 2:15, 25.)
“Agency is a divine gift to you. You are free to choose what you will be and what you will do. And you are not without help. Counsel with your parents is a privilege at any age. Prayer provides communication with your Heavenly Father and invites the promptings of personal revelation. And in certain circumstances, consultation with professional advisers and with your local leaders in the Church may be highly advisable, especially when very difficult decisions must be made.”
Russell M. Nelson, “Choices”, October 1990 General Conference
Position Statement:
When I stop to consider that agency is the only thing that is truly ours I am awed by the trust that our Heavenly Father places in each of us. He knew that each of us, in order to become like Him, would have to experience mortality. Our purpose here is to learn to become like Him that we may one day return to His presence. Of course, that will not be a haphazard event but in order to get there it will require the wise use of our agency, that we may be worthy to withstand His glory. I know that agency is an integral part of the Plan of Happiness and is the only thing that cannot and will not be taken from us. If we decide today to turn our agency back over to Heavenly Father, He will make more of our lives then we ever could have. Jesus’ words once spoken to His disciple perfectly embody the mindset we must have with our agency, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matthew 16:25)
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