Why Can't I Forget My Sins?

by Richard E. Turley Jr.

Have you-or has anyone you know-ever felt troubled by the memory of a past transgression? In the scriptures, the Lord promises that if we partake of the Atonement through sincere repentance, He will remember our sins no more. In this insightful talk, Richard E. Turley Jr. draws the important distinction between the Lord's forgetting our sins and the individual's forgetting his or her transgression. Brother Turley examines how the repentance process works. He dispels common misunderstandings and explains why memories that seem like a curse may in reality be a blessing because they enable us to avoid similar errors in the future!

Audio CD

First published March 1, 2006

About the author

Richard E. Turley Jr. retired in March 2020 as Managing Director of the Church Communication Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He served previously as Managing Director of the Public Affairs Department, the Church Historical Department, the Family History Department, and the combined Family and Church History Department. He also served as Assistant Church Historian and Recorder. An innovator by nature, he helped oversee the creation of the four-volume history Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, the launch of FamilySearch and FamilySearch Indexing, the building of the new Church History Library, the development of the Joseph Smith Papers, and the formation of the Church Historian’s Press. He acquired key books, documents, and artifacts for the Church’s historical collections, including the 1829 Printer’s Manuscript of the Book of Mormon. He also served for many years on the Church’s Historic Sites Committee.

He has authored or edited numerous books and articles on Latter-day Saint and Western U.S. history, including Massacre at Mountain Meadows: An American Tragedy; Victims: The LDS Church and the Mark Hofmann Case; How We Got the Book of Mormon; and How We Got the Doctrine and Covenants. He was the general editor for The Journals of George Q. Cannon print volumes, as well as coeditor of the series Women of Faith in the Latter Days.

Mr. Turley is also the recipient of numerous awards, including the American Historical Association's Herbert Feis award and the Historic Preservation Medal from the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Mr. Turley received a bachelor’s degree in English from Brigham Young University, where he was a Spencer W. Kimball Scholar. He later graduated from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU, where he served as executive editor of the law review, was elected to the Order of the Coif, and received the Hugh B. Brown Barrister’s Award, given to the student who demonstrates the highest standards of classroom performance.

In September 2023, the First Presidency announced that it had commissioned a new biography of the Prophet Joseph Smith to be written by Mr. Turley.

Reviews

[Jeff Birk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some gems in this address. Brother Turley shares some wise insights to help us understand the difference between remembering your sins versus dwelling on them. He also cites many scriptures to show that prophets and others in the scriptures remembered their sins in the right way (to allow their hearts to be broken so that they wouldn't return to their sins). If we never remembered our sins, we would return to commit them over and over again. Why don't we touch a hot stove? Because we remembered the pain from the first time we touched it and don't want to have that pain again. He also made it clear that repenting doesn't mean that you stop being tempted. Your disposition to sin may diminish (Mosiah 4) but you still have to deal with temptations from time to time and hopefully you deal with those moments like Joseph did and not King David. This was a quick yet very beneficial talk.

[Fhald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome talk. Put a new perspective on why we need to remember our past sins.