A viewer wrote:
Q: "Here is a question I have been wondering about. Why do you think so few have repented in our day? We see examples of entire cities repenting together in the Book of Mormon. I only know of a handful of people who have actually received the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Is it because of the surplus in our modern Babylon? Are we all just too distracted with the abundance of toys, gadgets, ease and entertainment to be humble enough to repent?"
A: The number of people who have "actually received the gift of the Holy Ghost" is probably much lower than you think. To get a more accurate number, ask yourself how many people only do what they believe Jesus would in their place, all of the time. This is the requirement to have and retain the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Why are their numbers so few?
1) Is it environmental, as you suggest? ("Are we all just too distracted with the abundance...") This is certainly a factor. The less obvious the need for God, the fewer the people who will be willing to submit to him. However, God is perfectly just. Those who repent under easy conditions must contend with the difficulty of exercising greater faith under such easy conditions. Those who repent under difficult conditions have greater opportunities to exercise greater faith, but must overcome the lack of obvious need to submit to God.
2) God sends people to earth at precise times and places to the greatest good of mankind and according to their choices before birth. This is why whole cities repented at certain times in history. As near as I can tell, it seems that God stopped sending the critical mass of righteous spirits to the United States sometime around the 1970s, if not earlier. This is yet another way the foundations were removed without anyone noticing. Rather than seeing this as stacking the deck against us, we ought to see it as the righteous response to people using his blessings for evil. As promised, he has withdrawn his spirit, and he did it by ceasing to send so many choice spirits here, and he did that in response to the wicked choices of those who turned away from his gracious blessings. You can read all about this in the Lord's sermons in 3 Nephi. For instance:
27 And after that ye were blessed then fulfilleth the Father the covenant which he made with Abraham, saying: In thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed—unto the pouring out of the Holy Ghost through me upon the Gentiles, which blessing upon the Gentiles shall make them mighty above all, unto the scattering of my people, O house of Israel.
28 And they shall be a scourge unto the people of this land. Nevertheless, when they shall have received the fulness of my gospel, then if they shall harden their hearts against me I will return their iniquities upon their own heads, saith the Father. (3 Nephi 20)
10 And thus commandeth the Father that I should say unto you: At that day when the Gentiles shall sin against my gospel, and shall reject the fulness of my gospel, and shall be lifted up in the pride of their hearts above all nations, and above all the people of the whole earth, and shall be filled with all manner of lyings, and of deceits, and of mischiefs, and all manner of hypocrisy, and murders, and priestcrafts, and whoredoms, and of secret abominations; and if they shall do all those things, and shall reject the fulness of my gospel, behold, saith the Father, I will bring the fulness of my gospel from among them.
11 And then will I remember my covenant which I have made unto my people, O house of Israel, and I will bring my gospel unto them.
12 And I will show unto thee, O house of Israel, that the Gentiles shall not have power over you; but I will remember my covenant unto you, O house of Israel, and ye shall come unto the knowledge of the fulness of my gospel.
13 But if the Gentiles will repent and return unto me, saith the Father, behold they shall be numbered among my people, O house of Israel. (3 Nephi 16)
3) The End Times Gentiles were never expected to be faithful. They were kept somewhat in the way mercifully by God through his sending a bounty of choice spirits in the generation of the Founding Fathers, and the trickle necessary to keep a sufficient volume of his spirit before and after. But there was never a time when the Gentiles exercised anything close to the light and power of God enjoyed by the Israelites before them, who in turn only tasted through the living ministry of Jesus what was enjoyed by the patriarchs before them. In our day, God is renewing his covenant with his people, and his people will respond in ways that make all gospel responses you have seen so far pale in comparison. Relatively few Gentiles will respond to this message, because what you are seeing and have seen from the Gentiles is basically all you will see from the Gentiles. The Lord knew that in the day when his gospel would be plainly revealed, they would reject it. You will be hard pressed to find anyone among those who claim to believe in God who has actually repented, whether they claim to believe in the Book of Mormon or not. When Jesus saw that the Jews rejected him, he explained how this was no surprise, since they rejected Moses, who prophesied of his coming (see John 5:46). If you assume that many Gentiles will receive Christ because of the End Times work when they have already rejected the prophets in the Bible and Book of Mormon who predicted it, you will be sorely disappointed.
4) Almost all people who initially receive the fullness of the gospel[1] will be of Lamanite ancestry. Most people who repent in our day will be, in chronological order, the Lamanites in America, then the first wave of dispersed members of Israel around the world. Only after these events will the gospel be embraced by the rest of the world. No one should expect that to be a chronologically close conclusion.
To conclude:
God sent the doofuses to the first world in the last days to precipitate the transfer of the gospel to the house of Israel. He has removed his spirit from these nations, and their fall will continue until it is complete. He has mercifully withheld the fullness from those who are now living who would receive it in order to mercifully prevent the destruction of those who have taken it lightly. This will not continue for very much longer.
In our day, the gospel will reach those who were sent here to receive it, and those who have taken it lightly will be cut off and destroyed, just as God has repeatedly warned. When you see people actually repenting of their sins, know that your judgment is at hand.
[1] The fullness of the gospel is in the Book of Mormon, but even those who claim to believe in the Book of Mormon do not have it, and will not except as the great and marvelous work described there is accomplished. To those who would balk at this statement, I need only refer you back to where this post started: how many of those people have actually repented of their sins? Can you claim to have the fullness of the gospel if you have not yet even entered the gate of the path to it?