The Virtue of Resilience

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While serving as a mission president in Uruguay from 1994 to 1997, I often likened missionary work to being enrolled in high-level college courses. I would tell our missionaries that serving a mission is like taking advanced classes in diligence and patience, among other virtues, which would help prepare them for their future as spouses and parents.

Unfortunately, some young people today aren’t prepared for life’s hard lessons. They lack the virtue of resilience. We see that lack of resilience among college freshmen, new military recruits, and even some of our full-time missionaries.

As parents, we love our children and want what’s best for them. We want their lives to be easier than ours have been. But we—and the culture in which we live—may be doing some things that result in the unintended consequence of lowering their resilience.

Thankfully, there’s an antidote. It is found in the application of powerful gospel principles that can help our youth become more like the Savior (see Luke 2:52). As we embrace and apply these principles, which I discuss beginning on page 36, I am confident that the Lord will bless us to strengthen the young men and young women He has reserved to confront and conquer today’s challenges.

Elder Lynn G. Robbins

Of the Seventy