Be Not Weary in Well-Doing

To my son,

Yesterday I had the opportunity to listen to Elder Renlund in a broadcast to our area, and as he concluded his message he paraphrased these words of Helaman 10:4 that the Lord gave to Nephi: “Blessed art thou, Nephi, for those things which thou hast done; for I have beheld how thou hast with unwearyingness declared the word, which I have given unto thee, unto this people. And thou hast not feared them, and hast not sought thine own life, but hast sought my will, and to keep my commandments.” When I think of your strengths, one that comes to mind is that you too seek for what you want with “unwearyingness” like Nephi did. In the book The Little Prince the narrator said of the little prince: “[He] never in his life had let go of a question once he had asked it.” I think of you I might similarly say that you never let go of a desire once you had made it! That strong will and determination that you have can be a great strength to you if, like Nephi, you make your quest in life the Lord’s will and seek to do that with all your heart.    

                One of my favorite talks from Elder Holland is one that he gave many years ago entitled However Long and Hard the Road. He was speaking to young adults and said this, “My concern this morning is that you will face some delays and disappointments at this formative time in your life and feel that no one else in the history of mankind has ever had your problems or faced those difficulties. And when some of those challenges come, you will have the temptation common to us all to say, ‘This task is too hard. The burden is too heavy. The path is too long.’ And so you decide to quit, simply to give up. Now to terminate certain kinds of tasks is not only acceptable but often very wise. If you are, for example, a flagpole sitter then I say, ‘Come on down.’ But in life’s most crucial and telling tasks, my plea is to stick with it, to persevere, to hang in and hang on, and to reap your reward.” Sometime we too get stuck up on the figurative flagpole, insistent upon something that we want which is not the will of the Lord or what is best for us. But as we learn to be humble and seek for what He wants, we should never give up even when the going gets hard. Elder Holland then quoted this scripture which is also one of my favorites: “Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great. Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind; and the willing and obedient shall eat the good of the land of Zion in these last days” (Doctrine and Covenants 64:33–34). I know that as you persevere in that which is right, never wearying of the daily acts of faith and devotion the Lord expects, you will indeed do that which is great.

                Recently we have had the great opportunity to watch the Layton Temple rise from the ground as the construction on it continues. We look forward with great anticipation for its completion, and the total construction time will probably be about 2½ years. That may seem long to us, but compared to the Salt Lake Temple which took 40 years to build it seems like no time at all. In this talk Elder Holland also spoke about the countless setbacks and difficulties that those pioneer saints had in building the Salt Lake Temple, from government opposition to problems in the initial foundation to the unimaginable effort of moving all of that heavy granite to the temple site. But, they labored year after year, decade after decade, and they finally completed it in 1893. One magazine dubbed it “a monument to Mormon perseverance.” I hope your life will be the same—a monument to perseverance in following our Savior Jesus Christ as you with “unwearyingness” seek to accomplish the great work that He has for you.

Love,

Dad