May 1st, 2025, 6:45pm MDT
Provo, Utah – General President Susan H. Porter’s favorite major song is “I Walk With Jesus.”
“The main message of this beautiful, simple song is that once you receive the Savior and open your heart and heart to get in his way, he will walk with us,” President Porter said in a keynote address at the BYU Women’s Conference on Thursday, May 1.
At the invitation of President Porter, the voices of thousands of Latter-day Holy Women filled the Marriott Center, singing “Walking with Jesus” as depictions of the Savior and Children performing on fictional video boards and screens.
In introducing the song, President Porter said, “I encourage you to see that you choose to walk humbly with Jesus. I pray that you will feel his love for you.”
President Porter was one of the church leaders who attended the three-day meeting.
Sister J. Annette Dennis, the first counselor to the Relief Society President, held a meeting in a keynote address on Wednesday evening, April 30th. Elder Quentin L. Cook, a quorum of the 12 Apostles, will close the annual meeting on the afternoon of Friday May 2nd.
Talk to the Prophet Enoch about the Lord’s “life-changing” words on the theme of this year’s meeting – “Behold, my spirit is above you, you will remain within me.
“We pray that we will focus on becoming ‘humble believers of Christ’ (2 Nephi 28:14),’ said President Porter. “As we do, we will strengthen us with our weaknesses, receive his powers that allow us to move forward with God, allowing him to become a woman of God who we know what we can,” she promised.
The perfect example
“Humiliation is not weakness,” President Porter taught.
Citing a gospel topic entry on “humility,” she said, “Humiliation shows us that we know where our true strength lies. To be humble is to recognize that we depend primarily on our Lord.
As individuals grow humble, they are less critical, less compassionate, less demanding, and more useful.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the perfect example of humility, President Porter said. “Through his deadly life, he consistently saw his father as a source of his strength and power and as an example of everything he did.”
Jesus taught me, “I seek not my will, but the will of the Father who sent me” (John 5:30).
President Porter said: “When the Savior was humbled before his Father, he received the power of his Father. Similarly, when we humble ourselves before God, our hearts receive power from him, and help us bring God’s power into our lives and make us as we are.”
Humble like a little child
In his latest general conference, President Jeffrey R. Holland, the quorum representative of the 12 Apostles, told the story of a young butler named Easton, along with muscular bodies and myoisomers who tested all “mind and power” to go up three steps of muscle and pass through the sacrament.
“That story and President Holland’s message were concentrated on the invitation the Savior gave us all.
“Everyone will be humbled as this little child. The same is the greatest in heaven” (Matthew 18:4), President Porter said.
President Porter played a clip of one of the children’s choir singers who sang “Gessemane” at the October 2024 general conference, sharing the Savior’s testimony. President Porter then cited three Nephi 17:23.
President Porter said, “Look at humility. Humility touches the heart. Humility changes the heart. Humility receives our hearts the spirit of God.
Examples of strength of humility
President Porter then shared several examples of individuals who rely mainly on the people who are trying to walk humbly.
When the young Alma gives up his seat of judgment to teach the Word of God, he invites the people of Gideon to be “humble, obedient, calm, easy to beg” (Alma 7:23).
Last year, President Porter met a Caribbean woman, leaving her home at 5am each morning, traveling two hours by bus to work in town, then by bus for another two hours.
One night after dinner, when this woman lay down to rest, her 10-year-old son asked if they could read together from the Book of Mormon. She thought of rejection, but felt something and woke up.
“She humbled herself and allowed her to be “easy to beg,” said President Porter, “when reading God’s Word together, she receives the testimony of her son and the strength she needs to feed herself.”
After sharing the experiences of her granddaughter, step-sisters and her family, Argentina’s grief-stricken, President Porter, who despite their weaknesses and challenges, strived to walk with her Savior, shared her own experiences.
President Porter said she felt isolated and alone after moving to Munich, Germany with three children under the age of three. Her husband worked and worked as branch president, and most of their congregations lived 30 minutes apart on military bases.
“I began to feel that I had never contributed or achieved anything,” President Porter said.
One day she was asked to teach at Relief Society. After the lesson, several sisters approached to express their gratitude. When she listened to them, the words “The Lord loves Prodder” came to her heart.
“These five words brought to me by still small voices were like the healing balm of my soul,” President Porter said. “I was a prodder. I was walking slowly. But the Savior knew that he was completely aware of my situation, but he loved me. He was walking by me. It was humble to take care of young children. Their needs were constant.
President Porter pointed out that many of her listeners likely felt like they were walking alone. “Maybe you are now walking on a challenging path. You may not recognize his presence as our disciples walk the path to Emmaus. We will continue to get in his way, and we will give our eyesight and understanding to ensure he walks with us, and that he is supporting and strengthening us by his right hand.”
