Revenge

In October of 2008 we had the wonderful opportunity of gathering together as a church (through the internet, satellite, and so forth) in order to listen to our living prophet, the 12 apostles and other leaders of our church. 

Then we wait with anticipation until the November Ensign comes filled with all of the addresses that we heard a month earlier (or if you can't wait you can usually go online within a week and all of the talks are there in several languages!). 

I love rereading the conference talks and it is really amazing what you miss the first time through.  Tonight I sat reading a particular talk entitled, The Test, by President Boyd K. Packer, the president of the 12 apostles.  It is an excellent article talking about the saints as they were forced to leave their homes in both Kirkland and Nauvoo but how they never lost faith.  I particularly enjoyed the article because it talked about how the Saints had been treated cruelly and unfairly almost unceasingly by US Government but that they still celebrated that same government.  

I quote from the talk, "One would think that, compelled by force of human nature, the Saints would seek revenge, but something much stronger than human nature prevailed...  If you can understand a people so longsuffering, so tolerant, so forgiving, so Christian after what they had suffered, you will have unlocked the key to what a Latter-day Saint is.  Rather than being consumed with revenge, they were anchored with revelation." 

I am still striving for the faith and patience of the saints and the understanding and wisdom they possessed.  I am striving and fighting to overcome the natural man which yells inside of us to claim revenge.