"They were patient in all their sufferings."

"Wherefore ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ having a perfect brightness of hope and a love of God and of all men.  Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold thus saith the Father, ye shall have eternal life." -2 Nephi 31:20.  

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I've been reading the Book of Mormon again and have currently just finished Alma 20.  Ammon's brothers served in a different mission area than him and "happened... to have fallen into the hands of a more hardened and stiffnecked people" than Ammon. Verse 29 notes though "they were patient in all their sufferings." 

This morning I listened to another talk from Neal A. Maxwell entitled, "If Thou Endure Well".  This part really struck me:

"Brothers and sisters we're not simply to exist to the end, rather we're to persist in following the example of the son of the living God.  Quite a different emphasis than we sometimes think of in connection with enduring. 

No wonder then, as a wise man wrote, 'there is no disappointment we endure one half so great as that we are to ourselves.' (Philip James Bailey, Sharing the Care.)  Especially I think, for Latter-day Saints.  Where we have great expectations, and then must endure the difference between what we could be and what we are and to try to make of that some useful 'divine discontent'  rather than corrosive affliction of the self.

This quality about which we're speaking therefore is graceful endurance and it includes becoming and growing.  It includes, but is not limited to, hanging on for one moment more.  It is as has been observed, a circumstance in which 'all virtues at the testing point take the form of courage.' (C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters)  And then after you and I have passed breaking points without breaking, our virtues take the form of endurance.  Besides, this life is not lineal it is experiential.  It is not really chronological, though we use clocks and calendars and wristwatches.  It is essentially experiential.  Someone said it well, 'we live in deeds, not years, in thoughts, not breaths, in feelings, not figures on a dial and we really should count times, by heart throbs.' (Phillip James Bailey)." - Neal A. Maxwell