2 Nephi 31:20 (part 3)


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20 Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.

Quotes for Discussion

It is a responsibility divinely laid upon us to bear one another’s burdens, to strengthen one another, to encourage one another, to lift one another, to look for the good in one another, and to emphasize that good.

Gordon B. Hinckley, From BYU address, Oct. 29, 1974

When I was a little boy, we children traded paper hearts at school on Valentine’s Day. At night we dropped them at the doors of our friends, stamping on the porch and then running in the dark to hide.

Almost without exception those valentines had printed on their face, “I love you.” I have since come to know that love is more than a paper heart. Love is of the very essence of life. It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet it is more than the end of the rainbow. Love is at the beginning also, and from it springs the beauty that arches across the sky on a stormy day. Love is the security for which children weep, the yearning of youth, the adhesive that binds marriage, and the lubricant that prevents devastating friction in the home; it is the peace of old age, the sunlight of hope shining through death. How rich are those who enjoy it in their associations with family, friends, church, and neighbors.

I am one who believes that love, like faith, is a gift of God.

Gordon B. Hinckley, “And the Greatest of These Is Love,” Ensign, March 1984, p. 3

Since they shared a hotel room, Elder Maxwell who was exhausted from their hectic schedule, asked President Hunter if it would be all right if he took a quick nap before their next appointment. After thirty minutes or so, Elder Maxwell awoke to the image of President Hunter sitting on the edge of his bed polishing Elder Maxwell’s shoes. Elder Maxwell perceived that President Hunter was embarrassed that he had been caught in the act, for he would rather not have had Elder Maxwell even notice what he had done. Such a simple act speaks volumes of what he was really like. An Apostle shining the shoes of his beloved junior companion is a modern-day example of the Master washing the dusty feet of his disciples to demonstrate that “he that is greatest among you shall be your servant” (Matthew 23:11).

Brent Top, Lord, I Will Follow Thee, p. 103-104

After a speech in which she had preached about the love of God and His forgiveness, Corrie was approached by and recognized a man who had been one of the concentration camp jailers who had treated them in such a humiliating way. “His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often…the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side. Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask more? ‘Lord Jesus,’ I prayed, ‘forgive me and help me to forgive him.’

“I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. ‘Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness.’

“As I took his hand, the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

“And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”

Corrie Ten Boon, The Hiding Place, 239

Winter came early that year and froze much of the sugar beet crop in the ground. My dad and brother Francis were desperately trying to get out of the frosty ground one load of beets each day which they would plow out of the ground, cut off the tops, and toss the beets, one at a time, into the huge red beet wagon and then haul the load off to the sugar factory. It was slow and tedious work due to the frost and the lack of farm help, since my brother Floyd and I were in the army and Francis, or Franz, as everybody called him, was too young for the military service.

While they were thusly engaged in harvesting the family’s only cash crop and were having their evening meal one day, a phone call came through from our eldest brother, George Albert,…bearing the tragic news that Kenneth, nine-year-old son of our brother Charles,…had been stricken with the dread “flu,” and after only a few hours of violent sickness, had died on his father’s lap; and would dad please come to Ogden and bring the boy home and lay him away in the family plot in the Lehi Cemetery.

My father cranked up his old flap-curtained Chevrolet and headed for Five Points in Ogden to bring his little grandson home for burial. When he arrived at the home he found “Charl” sprawled across the cold form of his dear one, the ugly brown discharge of the black plague oozing from his ears and hose and virtually burning up with fever.

“Take my boy home,” muttered the stricken young father, “and lay him away in the family lot and come back for me tomorrow.”

Father brought Kenneth home, made a coffin in his carpenter shop, and mother and our sisters, Jennie, Emma, and Hazel, placed a cushion and a lining in it, and then dad went with Franz and two kind neighbors to dig the grave….

The folks had scarcely returned from the cemetery when the telephone rang again and George Albert…was on the line with another terrifying message: Charl had died and two of his beautiful little girls—Vesta, 7, and Elaine, 5—were critically ill, and two babies—Raeldon, 4, and Pauline, 3—had been stricken.

Our good cousins, the Larkin undertaking people, were able to get a casket for Charl and they sent him home and in a railroad baggage car. Father and young Franz brought the body from the railroad station….

Next day my sturdy, unconquerable old dad was called on still another of his grim missions—this time to bring home Vesta, the smiling one with the raven hair and big blue eyes.

When he arrived at the home he found Juliett, the grief-crazed mother, kneeling at the crib of darling little Elaine, the blue-eyed baby angel with the golden curls. Juliett was sobbing wearily and praying: “Oh, Father in heaven, not this one, please! Let me keep my baby! Do not take any more of my darlings from me!”

Before father arrived home with Vesta the dread word had come again. Elaine had gone to join her daddy, brother Kenneth, and sister Vesta. And so it was that father made another heartbreaking journey to bring home and lay away a fourth member of his family, all within the week.

The telephone did not ring the evening of the day they laid away Elaine nor were there any more sad tidings of death the next morning….

After breakfast dad said to Franz, “Well, son, we had better get down to the field and see if we can get another load of beets out of the ground before they get frozen in any tighter. Hitch up and let’s be on our way.”

Francis drove the four-horse outfit down the driveway and dad climbed aboard. As they drove along the Saratoga Road, they passed wagon after wagon-load of beets being hauled to the factory and driven by neighborhood farmers. As they passed by, each driver would wave a greeting: “Hi ya, Uncle George,” “Sure Sorry, George,” “Tough break, George,” “You’ve got a lot of friends, George.”

On the last wagon was the town comedian, freckled-faced Jasper Rolfe. He waved a cheery greeting and called out: “that’s all of ‘em, Uncle George.”

My dad turned to Francis and said, “I wish it was all of ours.”

When they arrived at the farm gate, Francis jumped down off the big red beet wagon and opened the gate as we drove onto the field. He pulled up, stopped the team, paused a moment and scanned the field, from left to right and back and forth—and lo and behold, there wasn’t a sugar beet on the whole field. Then it dawned upon him what Jasper Rolfe meant when he called out: “That’s all of ‘em, Uncle George!”

Then dad got down off the wagon, picked up a handful of the rich, brown soil he loved so much, and then in his thumbless left hand a beet top, and he looked for a moment at these symbols of his labor, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.

Then father sat down on a pile of beet tops—this man who brought four of his loved ones home for burial in the course of only six days; made caskets, dug graves, and even helped with the burial clothing—this amazing man who never faltered, nor flinched, nor wavered throughout this agonizing ordeal—sat down on a pile of beet tops and sobbed like a little child.

Then he arose, wiped his eyes with his big, red bandanna handkerchief, looked up at the sky, and said: “Thanks, Father, for the elders of our ward.”

Quoted by Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone in Conference Report, April 1973, pp. 46-48

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