Great fight of Affliction

"I wish to encourage every one of you today
regarding opposition that so often comes after
enlightened decisions have been made, after
moments of revelation and conviction have
given us a peace and an assurance we thought
we would never lose.In his letter to the
Hebrews, the Apostle Paul was trying to
encourage new members who had just joined
the Church, who undoubtedly had had
spiritual experiences and had received the pure
light of testimony, only to discover that not
only had their troubles not ended, but that
some of them had only begun.
Paul pled with those new members
the way President Hinckley is pleading with
new members today. The reminder is that we
cannot sign on for a moment of such eternal
significance and everlasting consequence with-
out knowing it will be a fight—a good fight
and a winning fight, but a fight nevertheless.
Paul said to those who thought a new testi-
mony, a personal conversion, or a spiritual
baptismal experience would put them beyond
trouble, “Call to remembrance the former days,
in which, after ye were illuminated,ye endured
a great fight of afflictions”--- Jeffrey Holland