The Church has designated one Sunday each month as a fast day on which members are neither to eat nor drink for two consecutive meals. Everyone who can do so should fast and make an offering for the care of the poor. The fast day is a special day to humble oneself before the Lord in fasting and prayer. It is a day to pray for forgiveness of sins, for the power to overcome faults, and for the strength to forgive others. On fast Sunday, members of the Church meet together and partake of the sacrament. They strengthen themselves and one another by bearing testimony in fast and testimony meeting.

"How many here know the origin of [the fast day]? Before tithing was paid, the poor were supported by donations. They came to Joseph and wanted help, in Kirtland, and he said there should be a fast day, which was decided upon. It was to be held once a month, as it is now, and all that would have been eaten that day, of flour, or meat, or butter, or fruit, or anything else, was to be carried to the fast meeting and put into the hands of a person selected for the purpose of taking care of it and distributing it among the poor" (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 12:115).