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)

Responsibility and/or Priorities

I haven’t written anything for a while and by way of excuse I offer only this: my responsibilities and priorities were changed and jumbled. This topic is something of a big one and I will try to keep it short. Often times as people we wonder what are different responsibilities are and how we can better prioritize them, because we struggle to complete everything that needs doing in just one lifetime. Some struggle with the balance between career and family, as teens, we struggle with the balance of family and friends, some struggle with a balance of virtual things (technology) and the real world. As I have been away it has been because of the fact that I have was called as a missionary trainer, which gives me the responsibility of helping a new missionary find and control the reigns of missionary work. I was told that everything I did would shape this missionary's entire mission. This added weight caused me to evaluate my priorities and I changed a few things around, deciding to put other things ahead of my blog.

I have come to realize that this was a mistake, small, but nonetheless a mistake. So this has made me ponder and think of how we can really know how to find this balance in our lives, I was led my Preach My Gospel (page 107) to the scriptures. In 3 Nephi 13 Jesus teaches the people in America about laying up treasures in heaven and not on earth, then he tells the disciples not to worry about food or clothes or drink, because God will provide. It says he takes care of the lilies so he will take care of you. After reading this I was thinking we should all quit our jobs and just do the lords work… that really wouldn’t work, and that confused me, but as I read on, He sheds a little more light on the subject, he says “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”(3 Nephi 13:33) So what he is saying is that if we seek to keep the commandments first he will help us to also do what is necessary to provide for our temporal well being. So the answer to figuring out our priorities is to seek to do what Christ would do. The choice I made was well intentioned and at the time what I thought was right. But my leaders were all stressing that we continue doing what I was weeding out, I was reasoning that the message they were sharing was to those who weren’t facing the same issues as I was/am. I was wrong. If we want to know what is most important we need to seek for revelation from two venues: personal and priesthood. To know more on the revelation topic see "Two Lines of Communication".

The Grand Opening

     I have begun this blog as a way to share my thoughts and feelings of the savior and his teachings. As a missionary my purpose is to "Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end." I will be spending two years of my time and money to do this, away from my family and my home in Idaho. I do this because I love Jesus Christ and know that it is through him and his teachings (the Gospel) that we can find true happiness in this life. I know that he has called a prophet to lead and guide his children today. I know that his authority, The Priesthood, was restored to the earth by three of Christ’s original apostles. I know that I am a child of God and he loves me (and you). I know that families can be together forever. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God along with the bible.  I know that prayer works and if we pray we will receive answers to them.