Today (28 February 2016) I reached a milestone.

Last fall, because of our mission, I was five conferences behind in my indexing of general conference addresses.  I’d been indexing for over 40 years.  I didn’t want to drop the project, but I was so far behind that the thought of trying to catch up was so daunting that I couldn’t even start.  After all, I was behind by nearly 200 conference talks, and each one would require about an hour to properly read, analyze, take apart, and index.

It was probably last August that I set a goal to read and to index one conference address per day.  I calculated that if I was faithful in the endeavor I would finish the project the 15th of March.

I was faithful, and rarely missed a day.  On a few days I even indexed two talks.  As a consequence, today I reached my goal.  I read and indexed the last talk, and finished the project two weeks early.  No one but me can properly appreciate the magnitude of what I’ve accomplished.  No one but me knows the effort that went into reaching this goal.

It was accomplished one by one.  That’s how all worthwhile things are done.

I bragged on what I’d done to my wife.  She was politely impressed, and compared my accomplishment to her own.  “It’s just like what I’ve been doing,” she said.  She’s been going through the Old Testament chapter by chapter, one at a time.  Rather than just reading the chapters, she’s trying to understand and to internalize what she reads.  She has the Old Testament seminary study guides right there beside her scriptures as she studies, and reads every word of both books.  What she is doing is equally as intensive as what I’ve done, and she’s doing it the same way, one verse and chapter at a time.

One by one.  That’s the way every worthwhile thing is done.  You put one fence post in the ground at a time.  After a lot of time and a lot of work, the fence is complete.  As you stand back and survey what you’ve accomplished, you admire how perfectly aligned the posts are and how tight are the wires.  It’s a great feeling of satisfaction, and all of it was accomplished just one step at a time.

It’s the same way the Church works.  In the Church there is no such thing as a group baptism or a group ordination, endowment, or sealing.  It’s one individual at a time.  It’s one important individual at a time.  We can teach people in groups, but when it comes to ordinances it’s one by one.

How long will it take to teach the gospel to everyone in the world?  How long will it take to do the temple work for every individual who has ever lived upon the earth?  The magnitude of the efforts required to accomplish such tasks is staggering—impossible some would say.  “Perhaps,” Elder Boyd K. Packer said, “but we shall do it anyway.”  (Ensign, Nov. 1975, 99).

It’s a matter of just starting, and of then sticking to the task.

Hopefully each of us has had the incomparable feeling of satisfaction that comes from having finished something that we and others considered impossible.

What is the impossible task ahead of you?  What have you been dreading or procrastinating?  Is it reading the Book of Mormon?  Raising a difficult child?  Improving a strained relationship?  Writing your life history?

Whatever it is, just begin.  Commit to taking a daily step toward the ultimate goal.  The day will surely come when you’ll be standing and surveying the wonderful, impossible thing you’ve accomplished; and oh, how good the Lord’s and the Spirit’s approbation will feel because they, like you, will know what effort went into the task.