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).

Life is much like a decathlon. To fulfill our own potential and to be of service to others requires that we take part in many events. If we attempt to set records in one event, we may fall far short in another. And if we measure our efforts against those of a specialist, we can feel inadequate and even guilty that we don’t do better.

Somewhere between the two extremes of being too busy and not doing anything is that glorious, yet elusive, condition called balance. It’s by approaching the many aspects of our life with a sense of balance that we can be champions in life’s great decathlon.

When we place our perceived genealogical duties into the busy mix of life, we sometimes feel that it is the one event which could break our back. I think we feel that way because we view genealogy as a specialized event rather than one essential event in a decathlon effort. We imagine that to do this work in an acceptable manner we must have a book of remembrance thirty-seven inches thick, census records on every shelf, a permanent seat in the genealogical library, and family group sheets on every table top.

Some specialists are indeed this involved, but we don’t all need to be that involved to make an acceptable genealogical effort.