Testing controller & mocking request

Hi, Struggling to get to grips with some basic testing. I have a store method on user controller which receives form data and uses a form request class for validation.

I want to test this using php unit but have no idea how I can pass some dummy data to the user controller and check that everything works, and also check the validation is working as expected. Do i need to mock the class in some way? I have dug around and seen something called Mockery? But also seen that things can be mocked within phpunit itself using $this->getMock

This is wahts happening in the controller:

public function store(createUserRequest $request){

        if($request->persist()){
            flash('User added successfully', 'success');
        } else {
            flash('User not added', 'warning');
        }
        
        return Redirect('/users');
            
    }

This is the form request class

namespace App\Http\Requests;

use App\Http\Requests\Request;
use App\User;

class createUserRequest extends Request
{


    public function authorize(){
        return true;
    }


    public function rules(){
        return [
            'name'                              => 'required|max:50',
            'surname'                           => 'required|max:50',
            'password'                          => 'required|min:6',
            'email'                             => 'required|email|unique:users|max:250',
            'work_mobile_code'                  => 'required',
            'work_mobile'                       => 'required',
            'notes'                             => 'max:500'
        ];
    }

    public function persist(){

        $user            = new User($this->all());
        $user->password  = bcrypt($this->password);
        $user->api_token = str_random(60);

        if($user->save()){
            return true;
        }

        return false;

    }




}

Do I need to split things up and test the controller method by itself, and then test the for request class seperatly in another test? And if so what is the way to that?

Thanks