Of all the gifts that our Redeemer gave us through His Atonement, surely the gift of repentance is one of the greatest.

Before I learned of this freely-offered gift, I didn't like myself very much.  I was dirty.  I was miserable.  I was always going to feel that way because there was nothing that I could do about it.  I was always going to feel dirty and miserable because of my sins, and I was powerless to stop sinning or to change anything.

A bright light came on in my mind when I learned that my Redeemer could take my sins away.  Hope and peace and light came flooding in.  I don't remember the change as being gradual, but rather immediate.  The only gradual thing about it was proving to myself that I really was different, that I really was changed, and that I really was going to finally be rid of dirty, mind-numbing, and paralyzing habits.

I was free.  I was clean.  Several weeks after my baptism I was in the most miserable of circumstances (military boot camp), yet I was happy.  I had a feeling of lasting euphoria.  I have always described that experience as being on cloud nine as I marched around the grinder with my 59 miserable companions in the hot sun at San Diego.

The euphoria has worn off after all these years because it has become the norm, but the happiness and peace haven't.  My baptism and remission of sins took place over 53 years ago, but only today did it occur to me that my repentance blessed generations unborn.  My repentance made it possible for my children and grandchildren to be born into situations where they wouldn't have to ever be as dirty and as miserable as I was.  They will have to repent of their own sins, but they know how to do it.

The rest of the world has no idea how to go about it, and feels dirty and miserable like I did.  Our duty is to tell them what we've learned.  Many will not want to hear it.  They are as Hyrum Smith, the Apostle-son of Joseph F. Smith said:  "When the light comes, they can no longer hide their errors, their iniquities, their secret acts.  The light reveals these things.  That is the true cause of the enmity toward the Church.  They want the light extinguished.  It hurts them."  (Hyrum M. Smith, Doctrine and Covenants Commentary, pg. 4).

I am grateful that I had the opposite reaction.  My healing was immediate.  My healing was permanent.  My healing was multi-generational.  My gratitude for my Savior grows day by day and year by year.  What He has done for me and my family is monumental.  It is a miracle.