Concepts of the Atonement

I will probably repeat a few concepts that I make in this post on my post about the Atonement, but I believe strongly that the more I write them, the more they become a part of me. The past few weeks, I have truly been struggling. Struggling with the stresses of life, struggling with moving on from my mission, struggling with my health, and frankly, just struggling with just about everything. I am grateful for the opportunity to study the Atonement and remind me of past experiences and important doctrinal points to help me make it through this tough time.
When I was serving in Switzerland, we had a primary age girl in the ward who was 11. She thought up questions that were very deep into the gospel, things that I never would have thought out at that age. One day, over Sunday dinner, she asked my companion and I why the Savior had to be Jesus Christ. We mulled over what kind of answer she was looking for and tried several times  to give her an answer, but it was never quite the answer she was looking for. I was wondering why in the world I couldn’t accurately answer an 11 year old’s question, and was feeling quite self-conscious about it. I wanted her to understand what I did, but I couldn’t explain it in simple enough terms. I felt frustrated with myself and what I felt like was a lack of knowledge.

About a week later, My companion and I had been on the street for about 3 hours talking to people without much success. We had passed a man on a bench a time or two, but the third time both felt the deep impression to speak with him. As we approached him, it became clear that he couldn’t speak German, but did speak English. He was from London, and we asked him what he had been doing there in Switzerland. He told us that he was just there for the day and would fly home afterwards. He told us that he had suffered his entire life from a tremor, for 78 years, and that he had just come out of experimental surgery that had healed his tremor. This left quite an impression on me. I thought about suffering under the circumstances of life, things we cause, things caused by others, or things that just happen by chance. So many of our brothers and sisters in the world are weighed down by these things, and to know that Jesus Christ has paid for those sufferings would be so beneficial to them. I have seen the Atonement heal people. It caused me to reflect on the basics of my testimony. I know that Jesus Christ came into the world and suffered more than imaginable. More than we have all suffered. He did it because He was the only one ordained of God to do so. He did it so He could fulfill the words of Alma 7:13, “That He may know how to succor His people.”

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