This is obvious with tennis or piano playing, where it is impossible to pretend. But it is not so obvious in emotional and spiritual areas. We can "pose" and put on a friend. We can pretend. And "for a while" we can get by with it - at least in public or on "one-night stands." We might even decieve ourselves. Yet, I believe that most of us know the truth of what we really are inside, as do some of those we live with and work around.

To relate effectively with our wife, husband, or children requires emotional strength, because we must learn to listen. Listening involves patience, openness and the desire to understand. And when we are really open, we run the risk that we may be changed - we may be influenced. And if we are so sure that we are gith, we don't wan to change. We find it easier ot be closed and to tell and dictate. It is easier to operate from our day two emotinal level and to give day six advice.

Can I give you an illustration of how repentance might change? It is one thing to turn away from sin in the process of repentance, but it is quite another to turn to God. It is one thing to seek for forgiveness of our sins; it is another thing to seek for our hearts to be purified. It is one thing to receive a remission of our sins; but it is an even greater thing, a more spiritually demanding thing, to always retain in remembrance the greatness of God. It is one thing to have our sins removed; it is a different thing to have the desire to sin removed. The process of coming unto Christ is not a process that is sequential with little, separate steps. In a Gospel Doctrine class we typically diagram spiritual progress with boxes and arrows, i.e., you do this first and then you do this. And we get the notion that we move through this series of sequential steps. In a few minutes I am going to show an illustration of a helix. A helix is like a coil; but as it spirals upwards, it expands and becomes broader. For me, the answer to the so what question is that these preparatory conditions and ongoing requirements are not sequential; they are continuous. We exercise a particle of faith, and we come unto Christ. We receive ordinances, and we continue in the process of coming unto Christ. And we believe in prophesying and in the gift of tongues, and it becomes broader and more expansive. The same thing is true with repentance as we continue to cycle upward in a very significant way.

If you look at the ongoing requirements compared to the preparatory conditions, you will not find the word repentance. Does that mean you only need to repent before coming unto Christ and then you do not have to worry about repentance anymore? I believe repentance is a part of the ongoing requirement of doing. I think it is included in and distributed through a number of the ongoing requirements. In the same way that faith is an ever-increasing expectation as we are coming unto Christ, so is repentance. Repentance is repentance, but repentance changes. And as our faith is increasing and our knowledge is expanding, our repentance is changing as we are engaged in the process of coming unto Christ.

You can change anything you want to change, and you can do it very fast. That's another satanic suckerpunch--that it takes years and years and eons of eternity to repent. It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes you to say, "I'll change"--and mean it. Of course there will be problems to work out and restitutions to make. You may well spend--indeed you had better spend--the rest of your life proving your repentance by its permanence. But change, growth, renewal, and repentance can come for you as instantaneously as for Alma and the sons of Mosiah.

Brothers and sisters, the gospel of the Savior is not simply about avoiding bad in our lives; it also is essentially about doing and becoming good. And the Atonement provides help for us to overcome and avoid bad and to do and become good. There is help from the Savior for the entire journey of life--from bad to good to better and to change our very nature.

I am not trying to suggest that the redeeming and enabling powers of the Atonement are separate and discrete. Rather, these two dimensions of the Atonement are connected and complementary; they both need to be operational during all phases of the journey of life. And it is eternally important for all of us to recognize that both of these essential elements of the journey of life--both putting off the natural man and becoming a saint, both overcoming bad and becoming good--are accomplished through the power of the Atonement. Individual willpower, personal determination and motivation, and effective planning and goal setting are necessary but ultimately insufficient to triumphantly complete this mortal journey. Truly we must come to rely upon "the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah" (2 Nephi 2:8).

I express my appreciation for the infinite and eternal sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Atonement is not only for people who have done bad things and are trying to be good. It is for good people who are trying to become better and serve faithfully and who yearn for an ongoing and mighty change of heart. Indeed, "in the strength of the Lord" (Mosiah 9:17) we can do and overcome all things.

As we progress in the journey of mortality from bad to good to better, as we put off the natural man or woman in each of us, and as we strive to become saints and have our very natures changed, then the attributes detailed in this verse increasingly should describe the type of person you and I are becoming. We will become more childlike, more submissive, more patient, and more willing to submit. Now compare these characteristics in Mosiah 3:19 with those used to describe Alma and his people in the latter part of verse 15 in Mosiah 24: "and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord"

Brothers and sisters, do you know what I likely would have prayed for if I had been tied up by my brothers? My prayer would have included a request for something bad to happen to my brothers and ended with the phrase "wilt thou deliver me from the hands of my brethren" or, in other words, "Please get me out of this mess, now!" It is especially interesting to me that Nephi did not pray, as I probably would have prayed, to have his circumstances changed. Rather, he prayed for the strength to change his circumstances. And may I suggest that he prayed in this manner precisely because he knew and understood and had experienced the enabling power of the Atonement of the Savior.

This long-suffering love changes everything. As the Savior promised, it makes all things new (see Revelation 21:5). No other power calls forth love instead of resistance, changes the heart (see Alma 5:7 9), and actually makes things better rather than worse. Through His gentle example, by the voice of His Spirit, and in the faces of His children, it awakens us to life. For if we heed its invitation, we are stopped short in our arrogance or self-pity or distraction. We are humbled in our pride or anger or selfishness. Simple humility softens pride and may even redeem it.

Like scholarship, discipleship also requires time. Sometimes we recognize that a principle is true, but we don’t change our priorities to make time to live the principle. In so doing, we miss valuable opportunities to develop a change of heart as we are taught by the Holy Ghost.