Chapter 6 is entitled "Far
from Our Heavenly Home." I have to tell you
an incident that happened to us when we were
serving in Bordeaux as mission president. Our family went to the airport
to pick up the missionaries. There we met a Frenchman who was
waiting for his black labrador dog. We soon learned
something about this dog. I sensed he was treated
better than my children. I envisioned that he had
free reign of the house, probably slept in the
bed with the master, maybe even had a shelf
in the refrigerator where he got his food. But, then, think what happened. This man was
transferred to Bordeaux. The dog, in the kennel. Suddenly, two men take
him, put him in a crate, put him in the belly
of a big airplane, wondering what's going on. What has he done? What caused this? Now he's coming
into baggage, and we saw the crate was undone. The dog came out nervous,
tense, ready to defend himself. And then, suddenly, he caught
the eyes of his master, and his total demeanor changed. He started wagging his
tail, and his bark stopped, and he lunged into the
arms of his master. I thought about what we
learned from this experience. Like that black labrador dog, we
are far from our heavenly home. He gives us this
mortal experience, but it is not our
natural experience, just like the dog did not
have his natural experience. But in one way, we
are very different. We are sons and daughters of
Heavenly Parents who love us, and we have a great purpose to
be far from our heavenly home. And as we learn that purpose,
as we learn to repent, to follow the Savior,
to believe in Him, to have confidence that we
can be forgiven of our sins and that we can look
forward to our Resurrection, I promise you that we will
have joy and happiness, and we will be prepared to
enter back into His presence and fall into His arms. I know this is the way we
should look on our life. This is a special
time, a time of testing but a time of joy and
happiness and showing that we can have the faith
in our Savior Jesus Christ that we are meant to have.