7 A final word

A best-selling book called The Fred Factor recounts the story of a simple mail man in Denver who went to extraordinary lengths to serve people and make a difference in their lives. Most of us have encountered Freds in our lives, people who have looked after us, brightened our days, helped us through the tough times, performed extraordinary service.

Saturday Claudia and I attended a funeral of just such a person. Fred's name in this case happened to be Aunt Beth. She was Claudia's great aunt, a widow of some 37 years. She had this unique ability whenever you were in her presence to make you feel like you were the most special person in all the world. She radiated love and cheerfulness and warmth and safety.

My mission president was like that too. Whenever I was around him, whether during the two years we served together in Brazil or during the score of years thereafter before he passed away, I always felt lifted, enabled, respected, and loved. I always wanted to be a better person.

And then on Sunday I came across this marvelous insight: "Someday, when we look back on mortality, we will see that so many of the things that seemed to matter so much at the moment will be seen not to have mattered at all. And the eternal things will be seen to have mattered even more than the most faithful of the Saints imagined" (Neal A. Maxwell, Even as I Am [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1982], 104).

I think the two incidents—attending the Saturday funeral and finding the Sunday quote—are somehow related. They were not coincidences. The eternal things that matter so very much are centered in families, in personal relationships, in making and keeping sacred covenants, in obedience to eternal truths, in quiet acts of selfless service.

The common ingredient in all of these? Love. Charity. The pure love of Christ.

Which may be why the Savior, when asked what was the greatest commandment, said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Matthew 22:37-39).

Love is what Aunt Beth was all about. Love is what my mission president was all about. Love, I suspect, is what Fred the postman was all about. And love should be at the heart of families and indeed all our personal relationships. It is surely at the heart of the eternal things that Elder Maxwell said "will be seen to have mattered even more than the most faithful of the Saints imagined."