My cousin has taught me much about forgiveness and finding strength to survive. The strength of forgiveness rests on a person’s testimony of the atonement. It is through the atonement that we can be forgiven; it is also through the atonement that we can lay our burden on the Savior and trust in His judgment and in His restitution; since he has already suffered for this act.

My cousin’s days are better now and she is starting to find the joy that comes from doing mundane chores…every day. More then two years later, the ex-husband was sentenced to life with out parole for the murder of my cousin’s daughter and the attempted murder of my cousin’s husband.

The children have been adopted by my cousin’s oldest daughter and her husband. The whole family expresses miraculous blessings of strength, guidance and love from the Savior to bear the pain.

I am saving this and if I am ever in the position where I have to give a talk, I will include this in it.

On a personal note, I was blessed to be raised with a mother who never once raised her voice to anyone - not in anger and not in any other way. When we did something we shouldn’t have done, she would automatically tear up because of what she feared it would do to us. Those tears were worse BY FAR than anything my dad did to punish us. My dad used to say that if we came home and found everything gone, stolen by someone, my mom would say, “They must need it more than we do.”

I have a deep and abiding desire for respectful conversation and mutual understanding explicitly because of what I saw my mother live. She was loved, truly and deeply, by everyone who met her, and I wish I was like that more fully.

Elder Wirthlin’s words resonated with me largely because of my upbringing, but my experience since beginning to blog last year also made his words ring clearly to me. I have seen so much contention and bickering and vitriol in the past year, and it pains my soul - especially when I know what it does to people. I don’t ask for compassion in commentary because of what it does to a conversation; I ask for it because of what it does to the commenters.

God bless you, Sister Walker. May He comfort your heart and allow you to know - somehow - how much your example means to others.

Barton and Taylor–how could they come to hate so. The answer to this question would be worth a blog.

While most of us may never be in a position to have to forgive another for something so extreme, we can all practice peace and forgiveness on a smaller level by being less aggressive, more patient, and more kind to those with whom we interact.