Patience is a purifying process that refines understanding, deepens happiness, focuses action, and offers hope for peace.

This is our high and holy calling-to be agents of Jesus Christ, to love as He loved, to serve as He served.

We each have a covenant responsibility to be sensitive to the needs of others and serve as the Savior did-to reach out, bless, and uplift those around us.

The Lord has blessed you with a testimony of the truth. You have felt His influence and witnessed His power. And if you continue to seek Him, He will continue to grant you sacred experiences. With these and other spiritual gifts, you will be able not only to change your own life for the better but also to bless your homes, wards or branches, communities, cities, states, and nations with your goodness.

Sin is the willful transgression of divine law. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is the gift of God to His children to correct and overcome the consequences of sin. The gift of the Atonement of Jesus Christ provides us at all times and at all places with the blessings of repentance and forgiveness.

Patience is not passive resignation, nor is it failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something and doing all that we can - working, hoping, and exercising faith; bearing hardship with fortitude, even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. Patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well!

We are important to Him not because of our resume, but because we are His children.