Today is April 6, the anniversary of Jesus Christ restoring His latter-day Church—and part of the Easter season, when we joyfully testify of Jesus Christ’s perfect life, atoning sacrifice, and glorious Resurrection.

A Chinese story begins as a man’s son finds a beautiful horse.

“How fortunate,” the neighbors say.

“We’ll see,” says the man.

Then the son falls off the horse and is permanently injured.

“How unfortunate,” the neighbors say.

“We’ll see,” says the man.

A conscripting army comes but doesn’t take the injured son.

“How fortunate,” the neighbors say.

“We’ll see,” says the man.

What did you take from Elder Gong’s story?

Promise

This fickle world often feels tempest tossed, uncertain, sometimes fortunate, and—too often—unfortunate. Yet, in this world of tribulation, “we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.” (Romans 8:28) Indeed, as we walk uprightly and remember our covenants, “all things shall work together for your good.” (D&C 90:24)

Orson F. Whitney said: “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven” (cited in Spencer W. Kimball, Faith Precedes the Miracle, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1972, p. 98).

All things for our good.

A remarkable promise! Comforting assurance from God Himself! In a miraculous way, the purpose of Creation and the nature of God are to know beginning and end, to bring about all that is for our good, and to help us become sanctified and holy through Jesus Christ’s grace and Atonement.

How do you feel about this promise?

Promise

Jesus Christ’s Atonement can deliver and redeem us from sin. But Jesus Christ also intimately understands our every pain, affliction, sickness, sorrow, separation. In time and eternity, His triumph over death and hell can make all things right.

In his footnotes, Elder Gong says:

‘God respects moral agency, sometimes allowing even the unrighteous acts of others to affect us. But as we willingly seek to do all we can, Jesus Christ’s grace and His enabling and atoning power can cleanse, heal, bind up, reconcile us with ourselves and each other, on both sides of the veil.’

Why does God allow the unrighteous use of moral agency by some to impact others?

Promise

He helps heal the broken and disparaged, reconcile the angry and divided, comfort the lonely and isolated, encourage the uncertain and imperfect, and bring forth miracles possible only with God.

Have you experienced this in your life?

Promise

We sing hallelujah and shout hosanna! With eternal power and infinite goodness, in God’s plan of happiness all things can work together for our good. We can face life with confidence and not fear.

Left on our own, we may not know our own good. When “I choose me,” I am also choosing my own limitations, weaknesses, inadequacies. Ultimately, to do the most good, we must be good. Since none save God is good, we seek perfection in Jesus Christ. We become our truest, best selves only as we put off the natural man or woman and become a child before God.

Promise

With our trust and faith in God, trials and afflictions can be consecrated for our good. Joseph, sold into slavery in Egypt, later saved his family and people. The Prophet Joseph Smith’s incarceration in Liberty Jail taught him “these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.” Lived with faith, trials and sacrifices we would never choose can bless us and others in ways never imagined.

Have you experienced this in your life?

In the footnotes to the talk, Elder Gong writes:

‘We learn by experiences we would never choose. Sometimes bearing burdens with the Lord’s help can increase our capacity to bear those burdens; Mosiah 24:10–15 illustrates the Lord’s promise to “visit my people in their afflictions” and to “strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens.” Alma 33:23 teaches that our “burdens may be light, through the joy of his Son.” Mosiah 18:8 reminds us that when we are “willing to bear one another’s burdens … they may be light.”’

We increase faith and trust in the Lord that all things can work together for our good as we gain eternal perspective; understand our trials may be “but for a small moment”; recognize affliction can be consecrated for our gain; acknowledge accidents, untimely death, debilitating illness, and disease are part of mortality; and trust loving Heavenly Father does not give trials to punish or judge. He would not give a stone to someone asking for bread nor a serpent to one asking for a fish.

It is essential to recognize that challenges can be opportunities for growth and refinement. Trials can forge us into stronger people just as a blacksmith tempers metal through fire. Through our struggles, we can develop virtues such as patience, resilience, and empathy, enabling us to become more Christlike.

In what ways can challenges be opportunities for growth and refinement?

In the footnotes to his talk, Elder Gong says:

‘The prophet Isaiah speaks of the Messiah: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, … to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” (Isaiah 61:1–3). Likewise, the psalmist offers the Lord’s promised perspective: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psalm 30:5). This includes the glorious promises for the righteous on the morning of the First Resurrection.’

And

‘Believing trials may be for what is in eternity a “small moment” does not mean to downplay or make less trying or challenging the agonizing pain or suffering we may experience day after day in this life, the unbearable sleepless nights, or the excruciating uncertainties of each new day. Perhaps the promise of being able to look back and see our mortal suffering in light of God’s compassion and eternal view adds some perspective to our understanding of mortality and our hope to endure with faith and trust in Him to the end. Also, when we have eyes to see, there is often good in the now; we need not necessarily wait for a future time to see good.’

And

‘Letting God prevail in our lives is not passively to accept whatever comes. It is actively to believe that Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ, want only and always what is best for us. When tragedy strikes, we can ask with faith, not “Why me?” but “What can I learn?” And we can mourn with broken hearts and contrite spirits, knowing, in His time and way, compensating blessings and opportunities will come.’

What do we learn from these footnotes?

When trials come, often what we most want is for someone to listen and be with us.

In the moment, cliché answers can be unhelpful, however comforting their intent. Sometimes we yearn for someone who will grieve, ache, and weep with us; let us express pain, frustration, sometimes even anger; and acknowledge with us there are things we do not know.

Here is a link to a helpful video that contrasts empathy and sympathy.

Promise

When we trust God and His love for us, even our greatest heartbreaks can, in the end, work together for our good.

I remember the day I received word of a serious car accident which involved those I love. At such times, in anguish and faith, we can only say with Job, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Across the worldwide Church, some 3,500 stakes and districts and some 30,000 wards and branches provide refuge and safety. But within our stakes and wards, many faithful families and individuals confront difficult challenges, even while knowing that (without yet knowing how) things will work together for our good.

In Huddersfield, England, Brother Samuel Bridgstock was diagnosed with stage-four cancer shortly before the calling of a new stake president. Given his dire diagnosis, he asked his wife, Anna, why he would even go to be interviewed.

“Because,” Sister Bridgstock said, “you’re going to be called as stake president.”

Initially given a year or two to live, President Bridgstock (who is here today) is now in his fourth year of service. He has good and hard days. His stake is rallying with increased faith, service, and kindness. It is not easy, but his wife and family live with faith, gratitude, and understandable sadness they trust will become eternal joy through Jesus Christ’s restoring Atonement.

Why would the Lord call President Bridgstock given his circumstances?

When we are still, open, and reverent, we may feel the beauty, purpose, and serenity of the covenant belonging the Lord offers. In sacred moments, He may let us glimpse the larger eternal reality of which our daily lives are part, where small and simple things work together for the good of givers and receivers.

Rebekah, the daughter of my first mission president, shared how the Lord answered her prayer for comfort with an unexpected opportunity to answer someone else’s prayer.

Late one evening, Rebekah, grieving her mother’s recent passing, had a clear impression to go buy gas for her car. When she arrived at the station, she met an elderly woman struggling to breathe with a large oxygen tank. Later, Rebekah was able to give the woman her mother’s portable oxygen machine. This sister gratefully said, “You’ve given me back my freedom.” Things work together for good when we minister as Jesus Christ would.

Have you had any similar examples of ministering or being ministered to?

A father assigned with his teacher-age son as ministering companions explained, “Ministering is when we go from being neighbors who bring cookies to trusted friends, spiritual first responders.” Covenant belonging in Jesus Christ comforts, connects, consecrates.

How can we become better spiritual first responders?

Even in tragedy, spiritual preparation may remind us Heavenly Father knew when we felt most vulnerable and alone. For example, a family whose child was taken to the hospital later found comfort in remembering the Holy Ghost had whispered in advance what to expect.

Sometimes the larger eternal reality the Lord lets us feel includes family across the veil. A sister found joy in conversion to Jesus Christ’s restored gospel. Yet two traumas had deeply impacted her life—seeing a boating accident and tragically losing her mother, who had taken her own life.

Yet this sister overcame her fear of water enough to be baptized by immersion. And on what became a very happy day, she witnessed someone, acting as proxy for her deceased mother, be baptized in the temple. “Temple baptism healed my mother, and it freed me,” the sister said. “It was the first time I felt peace since my mother died.”

Elder Kimo Esplin in his October 2023 General Conference talk said: 

‘Through temple blessings, the Savior heals individuals, families, and nations—even those that once stood as bitter enemies. The resurrected Lord declared to a conflict-ridden society in the Book of Mormon that unto those who honor “my name, shall the Son of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings.” 3 Nephi 25:2’

How can we liken this to ourselves?

How can temple blessings heal us?

Our sacred music echoes His assurance that all things can work together for our good.

Be still, my soul: Thy God doth undertake

To guide the future as he has the past.

Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;

All now mysterious shall be bright at last.

Come, come, ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear;

But with joy wend your way.

Though hard to you this journey may appear,

Grace shall be as your day. …

And should we die before our journey’s through,

Happy day! All is well!

Do you have a favourite hymn that strengthens you when times are tough?

The Book of Mormon is evidence we can hold in our hand that Jesus is the Christ and God fulfills His prophecies. Written by inspired prophets who saw our day, the Book of Mormon begins with raw drama—a family dealing with deep differences. Yet, as we study and ponder 1 Nephi 1 through to Moroni 10, we are drawn to Jesus Christ with a firm testimony that what happened there and then can bless us here and now.

As the Lord, through His living prophet, brings more houses of the Lord closer in more places, temple blessings work together for our good. We come by covenant and ordinance to God our Father and Jesus Christ and gain eternal perspective on mortality. One by one, name by name, we offer beloved family members—ancestors—sacred ordinances and covenant blessings in the Lord’s pattern of saviors on Mount Zion.

In the footnotes to his talk, Elder Gong says:

‘The Prophet Joseph Smith taught: “How are they [the Latter-day Saints] to become saviors on Mount Zion? By building their temples, erecting their baptismal fonts, and going forth and receiving all the ordinances … in behalf of all their progenitors who are dead” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith [2007], 473).’

Invitation

As temples come closer to us in many places, a temple sacrifice we can offer is to seek holiness in the house of the Lord more frequently. For many years, we have saved, planned, and sacrificed to come to the temple. Now, as circumstances permit, please come even more often to the Lord in His holy house. Let regular temple worship and service bless, protect, and inspire you and your family—the family you have or the family you will have and become someday.

Invitation

Also, where your circumstances permit, please consider the blessing of owning your own temple clothes. A grandmother from a humble family said of anything in the world, what she most wanted were her own temple clothes. Her grandson said, “Grandma whispered, ‘I will serve in my own temple clothes, and after I die, I will be buried in them.’” And when the time came, she was.

As President Russell M. Nelson teaches, “Everything we believe and every promise God has made to His covenant people come together in the temple.”

In time and eternity, the purpose of Creation and the nature of God Himself are to bring all things together for our good.

This is the Lord’s eternal purpose. It is His eternal perspective. It is His eternal promise.

Invitation

When life is cluttered and purpose isn’t clear, when you want to live better but don’t know how, please come to God our Father and Jesus Christ. Trust They live, love you, and want all things for your good. I testify They do, infinitely and eternally, in the sacred and holy name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Do you need to act on any of Elder Gong’s invitations?

NB: Passages in italics are direct quotes from Elder Gong’s talk.

You can watch Elder Gong’s talk here.