Thomas S. Monson: Our Head Coach

What makes The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints so unique?

   The word "restoration" is defined in the dictionary as "the act of restoring; renewal, revival, or reestablishment." Our message is that the church that Christ himself organized has been restored, or renewed, or it has been revived and reestablished. This church IS that very church that Christ organized. 
Why was this restoration necessary? 
   Christ established His church while He was on the earth. He called 12 apostles to run His church (see Luke 6:13). As we all know, eventually Christ was rejected and crucified. Also, all of his apostles were eventually rejected and killed one by one, until no one was alive that could run the Church of Christ. The people had rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father took the Church off the earth, including all the prophets and authority, because of wickedness. This time period is called the Great Apostasy. Let's look at it from a football point of view:
   A football team has a lot of key components that helps the team run and win games. Not one piece can do it all himself. Imagine a big time coach of an SEC football team. Let's take Steve Spurrier of the South Carolina Gamecocks football team for example. Let's say for one game, he decides to not show up for the game against Alabama. And none of his coaches on his coaching staff show up either. The Gamecocks are without an entire coaching staff for the big game with Alabama. South Carolina takes the field with just the players, absolutely no coaches. The players are still going to try and play the game. They have practiced and they feel they can go on without help from the coaches. Let's throw in another wrench. Every play must be ran as such: before each play, the team opens it up to the crowd and the fans to decide what play to run. They take suggestions from the crowd of 60,000+ people every single play. That would be confusing right? People would be shouting random, different things all over the place. The team would have a hard time deciding what play to run, much less running it successfully. They would try their best to execute the suggested play but against such a fierce team in Alabama, they would be destroyed.
Here's the translation:
   During this time of the "Great Apostasy," there was no prophet, no apostles, no authority and no real church of Christ. The people in the world at this time were left without coaches. Without leaders ordained of God. They were forced to try and make it on their own. They tried their best,but the world told them many different things about the Bible. They heard hundreds of interpretations of the Bible and they could never agree or decide which one was the right one to go with. They didn't know what play to run. They were confused. They were going off of the wrong source, the world. Because they didn't have any coaches, or a head coach...a prophet with that authority from God. The head coach and the coaching staff have that authority on the sidelines to interpret the playbook ("scriptures" for an offense) on a football team. Without that authority, the team would be crushed. Without prophets and apostles and other leaders with that authority from God, the church would crumble and the ultimate opposition, Satan, would win. The head coach directs his players (which represents people in the world) on what play to run to overcome the opposition. If we take advice from the crowd (interpretations of man), we will be confused and eventually lose. We have a prophet on earth today. He is our head coach standing on the sidelines in mortal life. His name is Thomas S. Monson, and he is our head coach today. If we pay attention to him, and the playbook (scriptures), we will not lose. The authority has been restored to the earth to run the Church of Christ, which is, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.