Pride.

I am going to talk about something that I think is one of the things I struggle with the most. It often hurts my ability to perform in the ways the Lord would have me. Pride comes in many shapes and sizes. I am not someone who thinks that I am better than people in fact it is really somewhat the opposite, I tend to have a low confidence. So I will share a few examples from my mission. First starting with when I first arrived in the mission field, I knew that I was not good at the whole missionary thing but I was not really ready to change. I liked the things that I did and didn’t feel like I needed to budge. Wrong! It was pride I thought that where I had come so far in life was good enough, that’s not how I would have phrased it then but in retrospect it’s the closest description to the truth. 

Secondly I was placed with a companion that was a little less than diligent and I then decided that I needed to change to be better. Humbled… no. I then repositioned my pride, with this companion I used pride to push myself. My thoughts were “everyone knows he is not living up to his potential so will impress people by doing better than him”. I needed/wanted the praise of men. A song quote comes to mind, “Could you hold your head high, when no one knows your name”! At this time I could only say no.

The last example is the most recent, as missionaries we teach many lessons and a problem many have is teaching everyone a rote presentation of our lessons. A cookie cutter lesson, with a one size fits all sort of mentality, where we clearly just go through the motions and wonder why our friends that we teach don’t keep their commitments. This one gets worse as missionaries get older and think “I have seen it all”, with a memorized solution to every concern or problem.  We forget to rely on the spirit because our pride says “you know how to do this now, you don’t need help”. Pride is a terrible thing and it is some thing I still struggle with, but I continue to work on. The scriptures are full of examples of pride and its eventual outcome. The entire Book of Mormon shows the destruction of a nation because of their pride which led to them forgetting God and losing His promise of safety. “Behold, the pride of this nation … hath proven their destruction except they should repent.”(Moroni 8:27)

Choice.

One of the greatest blessings our Heavenly Father gave us is our Agency, or our right to choose. All through life we make decisions some small, like what to have for breakfast, and others quite large, like what to do for a career. These choices really show us who we are and will be. For instance, the small choice of not doing homework leads to choosing that repeatedly. This will eventually lead to poor grades, which will ultimately limit career choices. Choices of spiritual matters are even more important, because “I can’t stress too strongly that decisions determine destiny. You can’t make eternal decisions without eternal consequences.” (Thomas S. Monson, Prophet. As Quoted by Elder Randall K. Bennett) When we look at these choices with that eternal perspective things get more clear and we can better see what we really want for ourselves. We must always realize that although we can make our choices the consequences are naturally connected, we don’t choose those. “My dear brothers and sisters, your eternal destiny will not be the result of chance but of choice. It is never too late to begin to choose eternal life! (Elder Randall K. Bennett) If you want it, Choose it. I love the scripture in Joshua 24 which reads: “choose you this day whom ye will serve; …but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”. (v.15) So let’s all make our choice, and let it be to Serve God!