In case you hadn’t noticed it, in the last days, discipleship is to be lived in crescendo. Our adversities and extremities will merely bring out the strong simplicities and the reassuring realities of the gospel. Likewise, brisk challenges to basic beliefs, and some afflictions, will aid in the development of even greater convictions concerning these basic beliefs. Though it will be the key doctrines which are assailed, after the dust of this dispensation has settled it will be the key doctrines which will have prevailed. – Neal A. Maxwell, “Premortality, a Glorious Reality,” Ensign (CR) November 1985