I have been asked to speak about the Atonement, and will share my testimony of the resurrection from physical death, and being saved from a spiritual death when our sins separate us from our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

Let me share with you how the resurrection became even more important to the Waite family. Seven years ago in March, our family, whom I call "We Thirteen" were gathered together at the University of Utah Medical Center in SLC. One of us was dying. Our third child, beautiful, funny, red-haired Amy, was not expected to live, despite our pleadings, fastings and Priesthood blessings.

Long story short. Amy had suffered with poor health for a long time, and had finally been diagnosed with a very rare disease from which only one or two people per million suffer. Idiopathic arterial Pulmonary Hypertension had attacked her lungs. There was no known cause and no cure. She had been given three to five years to live. An exorbitantly expensive drug (thousands of dollars per month) was prescribe, in addition to many other costly and very painful procedures were begun to lengthen her life. No company would ensure her at that time, so her husband made the painful decision to work for a security company, not the military in Iraq, working for higher pay than he could earn in the US, managing drug-sniffing dogs. Amy fought for her life with great courage and humor. I would hear medical personnel laughing during her many appointments. She was 41 years of age and mother of four children ranging in age from seventeen to little Eli, being eight years of age. She had been on oxygen for many, many months.

Tragically, the med which would help lengthen her life, actually shortened it, as it destroyed her liver. She was hospitalized as her health began to worsen. Her name was placed at the very top of the liver transplant list, but we were told it could be months, before a suitable one could be located. How could she survive that long? Rick, her husband was called to come home, and each of her ten siblings were gathered at the U of U Medical Center. Though very ill, she was able to recognize each of us. Then miraculously, a liver arrived the very next day, and on the night of March 19th, a transplant team was being assembled and she was being prepped for surgery. However, the morning of the 20th, about an hour before the surgery was scheduled, her brave, but exhausted heart began to fail, and she was unhooked from the life-saving apparatus. We were all in a waiting room near the intensive care center, and were taken to her room as she was near death. We Thirteen were all together again in the same room , along with Amy's and Rick's children and his family. She was unconscious, but we were told she could maybe able to hear us. I was at the bottom of her bed, trying to warm her cold feet with my hands. Rick's brother, Jim was holding his cell phone against Amy's ear, as her bereft husband, all alone in Iraq, still trying desperately to get a flight home, spoke to her. Among the sounds of our sobbing, her father, her oldest brother, Adin, and Jim laid their hands on her head, and in a sacred, solemn event, her earthly father, with the power of his Holy Priesthood, released her from this life and passed her spirit from his hands, into the care of her Heavenly Father. She took her last breath at 8:14 Sunday morning, March 20th 2011. Her husband, Rick, arrived home 30 hours after she passed away.

Forty-one years before, I had been with her when she took her very first breath, and was there for her last. AS her sister, speaking at her funeral said, "When a light shines so bright its absence is felt so strongly when it is put out. Amy was that light for us, and she left a void that cannot be filled.

The day before her funeral, twenty-three of us from both families were together in one of the holiest rooms in the world, the Celestial Room of the Mt. Timpanogos Temple. We truly felt Amy's presence, and for a brief time, We Thirteen, plus others, were together again until that glorious morning of the Resurrection, when all our tears will be wiped away, because of the blessings of eternal sealing.

I share this sacred story, to add to countless others, some of them your stories, as to what the Resurrection means to all of humanity. Unbelievable, every one of the billions of people ever born on this earth, or whomever will be born, will be resurrected because of the suffering of our older brother, Jesus Christ. This is a free gift to all, never mind how good or wicked each person may be. Even the sons of Perdition, that relatively small group will be resurrected.

The second part of the Atonement is not free to all. In fact, to receive this gift, we must ourselves pay a price. It is often wrongly assumed that because of the Atonement, we can commit sin, and then simply repent, and our sins will be removed. Men will be punished for their own sins. Repenting is a rather difficult thing to do, and requires suffering by the sinner. Pres. Kimball said, "One has not begun to repent until he has suffered for his sins. If a person hasn't suffered, he hasn't repented." We suffer the pains of guilt and sorrow until our hearts are broken and we become contrite. There must be a mighty change, and we must become new and different persons. "No unclean thing can dwell with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. We must wonder if the Lord can ever forgive us, and can we forgive ourselves? Again, Pres. Kimball said, "Very frequently, people think they have repented and are worthy of forgiveness when all they have don't is say they are sorry that it happened. But forgiveness is certain when we have paid the price. Salvation isn't cheap. How can it be when it was so hard even for the Savior. And as we pray for forgiveness, it may seem that our prayers are not being answered in the way and time we desire. Forgiveness always depends on the order of heaven, the wisdom and timing of the Lord." Again, forgiveness is certaiin when we have paid the price.

Sometimes we feel we aren't worthy to have our sins removed, but as Elder Holland has said, "However late you think you are, however many chances you think y9ou have missed, or however many mistakes you feel you have made, or talents you feel you don't have, or however far from home and family you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ's Atonement shines." Gratefully, Christ has paid the price for our eventual forgiveness, s if our sins have never happened.

At amy's funeral, I gave her life story, and her sister, Chelsea and brother, Ethan spoke. Chelsea quoted some very comforting words about how our pains and sorrows can be made lighter and easier because of the power of the Aronement. "Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, in referring to the death of Christ on that Friday, and his miraculous resurrection that following Sunday said this: "Each of us will have our own Fridays...those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will havae our broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays. But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death...Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come. No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or in the next, Sunday will come."

Only the Atonement of Jesus Christ can take away the unbearable grief, pain and sorrow that can be made lighter and easier to bear through the power of Jesus Christ. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning, through the miraculous Atonement. This is my testimony.