The Tender Mercies Of The Lord In The Tonga Nuku`alofa Mission

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The tender mercies of the Lord has to be one of those phrases.

It was a paradigm changing talk where I had always known that the Lord gave these personalized blessings, but Elder Bednar articulated it in a way that gave it definition. I had this vague idea in my head and now all of a sudden I knew.

He talked about the tender mercy that he received because the hymn which had been prepared far in advance that he would be speaking in conference six months earlier was his favorite hymn.

And he said some people might think it was a coincidence that they had chosen his favorite hymn to sing just before his first talk in general conference, but to him, he said, it was a personalized blessing.

Sometimes we have those tender mercies. That phrase just came into the vocabulary of the church ever after that talk. We talked about, oh, that was a tender mercy all the time.

Often the Lord's timing in his tender mercies enables us to discern and recognize them.

I think what I saw most in preparing that was that the Lord is very active in our lives. He does not take a passive role in people's lives.

And if we're careful and we're taking part in that work, we'll see more and more of those tender mercies.

I would encourage everybody to, when you see a personalized blessing, first go listen to that Elder Bednar talk.

I think it was President Eyring who was--I don't remember the exact words, but the idea was a journal isn't for your trips and your trophies.

A journal is to document the hand of the Lord in your life, exactly what you're saying, to document those tender mercies.

And then I kind of hear the line from Count Your Blessings, it will surprise you what the Lord has done if you start writing those down.