We spend our lives looking forward.  We look forward to future events.  Some we anticipate with eagerness and pleasure.  Others we dread.

Often we almost wish our lives away as we wish the anticipated event would hurry and arrive.  That was the case for me as a small boy where Christmas was concerned.  It was also the case as I anticipated the end of each school year, and my eventual graduation.

Conversely, I dreaded the beginning of school each September.  I really, really, really wished that the time wouldn’t come for me to leave home and go to college.  I also wished that I could somehow have stopped the clock and kept my induction date into the Navy from ever arriving.

But time doesn’t stop, and the anticipated days always arrive.  The granddaddy of all anticipated events finally arrived for me on 23 September 1969 when I was able to take my bride to the temple and have her sealed to me for time and all eternity.

We’ve looked forward to the births of all of our children, their missions, their marriages, and the births of our grandchildren.  We looked forward to our own mission call and departure.  Now we’re looking forward to the end of our mission, and being able to return to our family.

What, then? I ask myself.  What do I have to look forward to next?  How am I going to spend my time when I get home?

The answer is easy.  I’m going to be what I set out to be when I decided to retire.  I’m going to be a grandfather, a horticulturist, an author, and a temple worker.  In the wintertime when I can’t be a horticulturist, I’m going to be a woodworker in my shop.  I hope to be able to return to working in the temple.  The calling of temple ordinance worker has been the ultimate calling, and I dearly miss being able to attend the temple.

As I think about our future, I’m rather shocked to find that I’m 67 years old.  How did that happen?  Where has the time gone?  I don’t feel old yet, but many of my peers are dying.

And there is the next big event to be anticipated in my life.  I’ve already lived three-quarters of the years I expect to have allotted to me.

How do I feel about death?

I’m looking forward to it with pleasant anticipation.  I’m not wishing it to hurry and arrive, but I have not the slightest dread about the day coming.  It’s going to be a sweet experience.  Someday I’ll write an article on why that is so.

Many people look upon death with the greatest dread.  That’s because they don’t understand it, and have not prepared.

Death is like “the great and dreadful day of the Lord” that Malachi prophesied about.  (Mal. 4:5).  For those who are ready, the Lord’s second coming will be great.  For those who have not prepared, the day will be dreadful.

The faithful among the Nephites watched “steadfastly for that day and that night and that day which should be as one day as if there were no night that they might know that their faith had not been in vain.”  (3 Ne. 1:8).  The faithless “rejoice(d) over their brethren saying:  Behold the time is past” (3 Ne. 1:6), and “it came to pass that there was a day set apart by the unbelievers, that all those who believed…should be put to death except the sign should come to pass…”  (3Ne.1:7).

But the day arrived.  The believers rejoiced.  The unbelievers “fell to the earth and became as if they were dead, for they knew that the great plan of destruction which they had laid for those who believed in the words of the prophets had been frustrated; for the sign which had been given was already at hand.

And they began to know that the Son of God must shortly appear; yea, in fine, all the people upon the face of the whole earth from the west to the east, both in the land north and in the land south, were so exceedingly astonished that they fell to the earth…and they knew that it was the day that the Lord should be born, because of the sign which had been given.  (3 Ne. 1:16-17, 19).

That was both a great and a dreadful day.

Even more great and dreadful was the day 33 years later as the people looked forward to being witnesses of the signs that would signal the death of Christ.  Both the righteous and the wicked knew that it was prophesied that there would be a great storm accompanied by tempests, terrible thunder, exceedingly sharp lightnings, earthquakes, fire, and great destruction.  It was a dreadful event for everyone, but the righteous survived and rejoiced.  The wicked were slain.

The Lord is going to come again.  Hopefully it will be before my own death.  But be that as it may, I will be a witness of His coming, and I plan to rejoice in that day.  His second coming will be preceded by a repeat of the storm, tempest, thunder, lightnings, and earthquakes that accompanied His death.  (Isa. 13:6-13; D&C 88:87-91; Joel 2:28-32; Joel 3:15-16; D&C 43:17-25; 2 Ne. 27:1-2).  That will be dreadful, but the righteous will survive.  The righteous will rejoice, and the Millennial era of peace will be ushered in.  That will be a great day.

And it will come.