Traveling is difficult when you go for long stretches at a time, but you always come back refreshed, feeling that you've accomplished something. I'm on my knees before I go anywhere in this world.
Many years ago, it was my opportunity to serve as president of the Canadian Mission. There we had a branch with very limited priesthood. We always had a missionary presiding over the branch. I received a strong impression that we needed to have a member of the branch preside there.
I'm a great believer that the Lord provides us specific experiences to prepare us to deal with some of the challenges that we're going to encounter in our own period of service.
I know that God lives, my brothers and sisters. There is no question in my mind. I know that this is His work, and I know that the sweetest experience in all this life is to feel His promptings as He directs us in the furtherance of His work.
Never delay a prompting. When you honor a prompting and then stand back a pace, you realize that the Lord gave you the prompting. It makes me feel good that the Lord even knows who I am and knows me well enough to know that if He has an errand to be run, and He prompts me to run the errand, the errand will get done.
You see your children growing. You look at your grandchildren, and you say to yourself, 'What if I weren't here? Have I done all I can to prepare them for their role in life?' You realize that you never quite do everything, but you want to do better than what you have done.
Each heartfelt prayer, each Church meeting attended, each worthy friend, each righteous decision, each act of service perfomed all precede that goal of eternal life.
On occasion we need to make a second effort - and a third effort, and a fourth effort, and as many degrees of effort as may be required to accomplish what we strive to achieve.
