The Sanctifying Effects of Afflictions

"At about this same time, I was watching a close friend my age decline physically from multiple sclerosis. I had seen him gradually lose his ability to walk, to stand, and then to sit. During the stage when he was fully bedridden, his wife passed away from cancer. His family wheeled him into her funeral on a mobile bed. Not long after his wife's funeral, we had a visit in his home. The more he talked, the more amazed I was at the spirit of peace and light that surrounded him. He said he couldn't stop thinking about how fortunate his life had been--so blessed by the woman he'd married, by the children the Lord had given them, by their rich life together in their wholesome little town. He chuckled as he said how glad he was now that he and his wife took so many "happily ever after" trips in their early years, even though they couldn't afford it. And he kept talking about his admiration for the pioneers, the ones who left Nauvoo and helped settle the town where he lived. He felt so thankful to them. He'd been thinking about why they needed the temple endowment before leaving Nauvoo for the wilderness. Every word and feeling that came from him was genuine. There was no trace of self-pity. The light in his face and the spirit in the room gave me the sacred impression that I was seeing the process of sanctification."

- Elder Bruce C. Hafen, March 21, 2008, Annual Maxwell Institute Lecture, Brigham Young University:
"Reason, Faith, and the Things of Eternity"