October 2026 General Conference › Talks › President Timothy L. Farnes
President Timothy L. Farnes
Divine Appointments
Young Men General President
In brief
President Farnes recalls a discouraging day as a young priesthood leader when then-Elder Dallin H. Oaks noticed him in the temple, listened, and lifted him. Years later President Oaks did not remember it, but replied that "it's what we do." Linking the sacrament covenant to daily ministering, and telling of helping a frightened new missionary through his first flight, he invites listeners to pray each day for eyes to see the "divine appointments" God places in their path.
Themes in this talk
Number of coded passages from this talk in each theme.
Direct invitations
Sentences where the speaker directly invited, urged, asked or pleaded with us to act, in the exact words.
“let us pray every day for eyes to see the divine appointments God places before us!”
“Let us put compassion into action and minister to the person in front of us.”
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Test yourself on this talk
Three short quizzes on what President Farnes taught: easy for families and first-time listeners, medium for understanding, hard for careful study.
Questions and explanations are written for this site and are not official Church materials. Each answer points to the paragraph of the official talk it comes from. All quizzes →
Key passages
“Often this happens when God places someone in our path and we have eyes to see them. I call these ‘divine appointments.’”
“To Jesus, these people were not interrupting His mission. They were His mission.”
Scripture referenced
- Moroni 4:3
- D&C 20:77
- Matthew 25:34–40
- Mosiah 2:17
- Luke 10:25
- Luke 10:23–24
- Luke 10:30–35
- Mark 5:25–34
- Luke 7:36–50
- John 4:5–26
- John 5:1–17
- John 8:1–11
- 3 Nephi 17:1–9
- James 2:17
From the talk's official footnotes and in-text citations.