Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Council of the Twelve began his Saturday afternoon conference address citing 2 Nephi 31:15, in which the Father said, ". . . He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved."

"Of all the Father might have said, He stressed endurance," noted Elder Maxwell. "Why? First, because God has also repeatedly said He would structure mortality to be a proving and testing experience. . . ."Elder Maxwell said there are many things to be endured: illness, injustice, insensitivity, poverty, aloneness, unresponsiveness, being misrepresented and misunderstood, and, sometimes, one must endure enemies.

If certain mortal experiences were cut short, he declared, it would be like pulling up a flower to see how the roots are doing, or opening the oven door too often, making the cake fall instead of rising.

Patient endurance is to be distinguished from fatalistic, indifferent resignation. "Endurance is more than pacing up and down within the cell of our circumstance; it is not only acceptance of the things allotted to us, but to `act for ourselves' by magnifying within what is allotted to us," said Elder Maxwell. He noted that Christ endured temptation, but did not yield to it. "You and I tend to dally over and dabble in temptations, entertaining them for a while, even if we later evict them," he said. "However, to give temptations any heed can set the stage for later succumbing."

With enduring comes a willingness to "press forward even when we are bone weary and would rather pull off to the side of the road."

Elder Maxwell further said impatience suggests that one likes his own timetable better than the Lord's. Some people, like the prodigal son, often need the "process of time to come to our spiritual senses."

"Personal, spiritual symmetry emerges only from the shaping of prolonged obedience. Twigs are bent, not snapped, into shape. Without patient and meek endurance we will learn less, see less, feel less and hear less. We who are egocentric and impatient shut down so much of our receiving capacity. In any case, how can there be refining fires without enduring some heat?"

Elder Maxwell said the enlarging of the soul requires not only some remodeling but also some excavating. "Hypocrisy, guile and other imbedded traits do not go gladly or easily," he said. "If we `endure it well,' we will not grow testy while being tested."

Calling enduring "one of the cardinal attributes," he said it simply cannot be developed without the laboratory of time. Other cardinal virtues - love, patience, humility, mercy, purity, submissiveness, justice - require endurance for their full development.

He said with spiritual endurance there can be felicity amid poverty, gratitude without plenitude, meekness amid injustice.

He said Jesus both partook of the bitter cup and finished His atoning ministry. "No wonder Paul called Jesus `the finisher of our faith,' " said Elder Maxwell.