Elder Orson F. Whitney held out this hope for the parents of wandering or wayward children:
“You parents of the wilful and the wayward: Don’t give them up. Don’t cast them off. They are not utterly lost. The shepherd will find his sheep. They were his before they were yours- long before he entrusted them to your care; and you cannot begin to love them as he loves them. They have but strayed in ignorance from the Path of Right, and God is merciful to ignorance. Only the fulness of knowledge brings the fulness of accountability. Our Heavenly Father is far more merciful, infinitely more charitable, than even the best of his servants, and the Everlasting Gospel is mightier in power to save than our narrow finite minds can comprehend.” (CR, April 1929, p. 110.)
In that same spirit President J. Reuben Clark Jr. observed:
“I feel that [the Lord] will give that punishment which is the very least that our transgression will justify… I believe that when it comes to making the rewards for our good conduct, he will give the maximum that is possible to give.” (From “As Ye Sow … ” address delivered at Brigham Young University, 3 May 1955.)