End of April...

Two posts in one week is a lot, I know. But I recommitted myself to blogging at least twice a month, and so if you procrastinate the first post till the last week of the month, this is what you end up with.

And seeing as I am currently suffering the consequences of procrastination, I thought I would just share a couple of quotes on the subject and resolve to not do it again.

One of the most serious human defects in all ages is procrastination, an unwillingness to accept personal responsibilities now.
Spencer W. Kimball

Two centuries ago Edward Young said that procrastination is the thief of time. Actually, procrastination is much more. It is the thief of our self-respect.
Thomas S. Monson

Procrastination, as it may be applied to gospel principles, is the thief of eternal life—which is life in the presence of the Father and the Son.
Joseph Fielding Smith

In reading those in my current state I have come to realize that what Nephi said is true: the truth cutteth the wicked to the very center. Ouch.

Learning from the little ones...

Those of you who know me know that I get to teach Sunday School about once every three Sundays. Today was one of those Sundays. The subject matter for the lesson was from Mosiah 1-3, which are some of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon. Typically when I prepare a lesson, I work from the end backwards. I think of the commitment that I want to leave with the class, and then prepare the bulk of my lesson with that commitment in mind. By doing so I am able to have more direction in the body of the lesson.

The commitment I felt would be applicable comes from one of my favorite verses in the Book of Mormon, Mosiah 3:19.

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

I thought I would invite the class to try to learn more from the little children that they associate with. I then went about preparing my lesson, and was finished this morning around with a few hours to spare before Church started. With the extra time I had, I decided that I would re-read a talk that had a profound impact on my mission. I pulled out Qualifications for the Work, by Gene R. Cook. In the talk Gene R. Cook shares the following story:

I remember hearing of a case in the pioneer days somewhere in southern Utah where there had been a long drought and many of the crops were about to die. The bishop had called the ward together and asked them to fast and pray. The saints had done so. On a particular Sunday, the bishop asked them to come together in the afternoon to offer a final prayer that the rain might come.

As one family prepared to leave home, a little five year old girl said, “Wait a minute, Dad, I forgot something.” She ran into the house and came out with a bag.

The Saints gathered together in the church courtyard and offered prayer with all of the saints exercising their faith. Before the final “amen” raindrops began to fall, and then it came down in bucketsful. Everyone ran for the chapel. Interestingly enough, there were two people left in the courtyard—the bishop and the five year old girl. She opened up her bad and said, “Bishop would you like to share my umbrella?”

Would you think about that for just a moment? A five year old girl heard that they were going to pray to the Lord with all their hearts that rain would come. As far as the history shows, she was the only one—the only one—with an umbrella. That little girl had total faith that it would rain.

Turns out, that story fit in perfect with my commitment and so I shared it prior to inviting the class to focus on learning from little children how to develop the qualities described in Mosiah 3:19. I am thoroughly excited to learn from and try to emulate those pure, innocent qualities of children. So pure and innocent that Christ would exhort us to become like them. If any of you have little stories of things you have learned from the little ones in your lives, please post them. I figure I might not run into too many kids living in a singles ward at a university, so maybe I could learn vicariously through you.

The Cold, Windy Desert of Sleepy Ridge

Last Saturday I got the chance to play golf for the first time this year. It was a cold day, and the wind was quite fierce. Those who know my golf game, know that I play a high ball, and the wind typically owns me. When I left to head out to the golf course, I was not expecting any adverse weather conditions. The area by my apartment, the weather was beautiful and the temperature was just perfect. When I got to Sleepy Ridge Golf Course, I stepped out of my car, and immediately thought of heading home. After a short conversation with myself, in which I convinced myself that it was the first round of the year and I would rather play golf in crappy conditions than have to wait another week, I threw on my mock turtleneck and my rain pants and went to start my round.

Seeing as I was one of only a handful of crazy people to play golf on such a day, I got to play by myself. The wind was such that when I was driving downwind, I would hit the ball somewhere over 400 yards and when I was hitting into the wind, I would only hit it a measly 240. I quickly decided that I would just enjoy the journey, and not worry about my score.

I ended up playing pretty well. After figuring out that the wind was about a 2-club wind, I played pretty much even-golf. Which, considering the conditions, and the fact that it was the first round of the year, I was pleasantly surprised. Now, instead of dreading to play golf when I see the trees bending with the wind, I am actually excited to go out and prove that my solid round last Saturday was not a fluke and that I can do it again.

What’s funny is that about a year ago, whenever I would play golf on a windy day and come home with a poor score, I would blame my sad performance on the wind. People would ask how I played, I would mutter my score, and then include a huge description about the horrible conditions. One day I realized that my excuses were stopping my progression. Instead of going out and working on the shots that windy days would require of me, I would choose to play golf on calm days. Instead of learning to hit a lower ball of the tee, I would just concede that I could not hit driver into the wind, and I would play a long iron, to try and at least control the ball a little bit. The fact that I would always blame the weather for my bad round of golf, stopped me from accepting responsibility and making the necessary changes to adjust my game. So sometime last year, I made a goal to stop making excuses. Whenever people would ask me why, I would use this example about how I used to always blame the wind for my hacker-like scores, and how that essentially prevented me from developing into a better golfer.

I recognize that one solid round in horrendous conditions does not qualify me to play in the British Open. I could not even say with confidence that the next time I go out with the breeze blowing I would be able to play with similar confidence or results. But I am glad to finally see that by getting rid of my excuses and being accountable for my weakness gave me the opportunity to grow and finally begin to overcome one of my many nemeses on the golf course.

"If I could be like Mike!"

Remember the commercial, with all the cute little kids playing basketball and the music playing in the background “If I could be like Mike?” I do. In fact, I still want to be like Mike. However, the other day after reading an article from ESPN The Magazine that was written about an interview with Michael Jordan, I changed my mind. In the article MJ compared how the NBA was when he was a rising star to how the NBA is today. He went from being Michael Jordan, a relatively unknown rookie out of UNC, to becoming known worldwide as MJ… mainly because he had a personality that fit the change that the NBA was making at the time. In his own words, the “stars lined up.” Once they had lined up, and the NBA realized what a special opportunity they had, the NBA partnered up with MJ and he became the face of the NBA.

In MJ’s opinion the NBA is now trying to find the next MJ. They are trying to recreate something that happened spontaneously in the past in order to create similar success. They are promoting up and coming stars as the next Jordan, and in essence, pressuring the players to try and fit the MJ mold. Jordan talks about how that is backwards, the NBA should allow the players to develop on their own, to be themselves, to allow their own personality to show through, and once they are established, then partner up with them. Makes sense, right?

I remember when I first went to the Missionary Training Center, I remember feeling as if I had to fit a mold. I felt as if I needed to completely reinvent myself according to the expectations of my teachers and leaders. I tried to do that, and I felt I was making some progress until after one teaching experience, I was told very bluntly how poorly I had taught. I felt like I did alright, like I had somehow filled the mold, the expectations. But in that experience, I realized there was not really a mold for a perfect missionary. I was an individual and was to allow my own personality to shine through as I did the work. I could let my personality show through when I taught, in fact, to be successful, I needed to be true to myself. Not that there were not changes and improvements that I needed to go through, there were and still are plenty to keep me busy, but the process was one that I needed to experience my own way.

The interesting thing is that the Scriptures admonish us to be like Christ. He is the perfect example, and He teaches us to be perfect, even as He and Heavenly Father are perfect. (3 Nephi 12:48) Some have felt a need to rebel against that, stating that diversity is good, and that if we all become like Christ we would lose many of the good things about ourselves. C.S Lewis gives an illustration that show how in our efforts to lose ourselves and become like Christ, we actually allow our own selves to shine brighter.

“Imagine a lot of people who have always lived in the dark. You come and try to describe to them what light is like. You might tell them that if they come into the light that same light would fall on them all and they would all reflect it and thus become what we call visible. Is it not quite possible that they would imagine that, since they were all receiving the same light, and all reacting to tit in the same way (i.e. all reflecting it), they would all look alike? Whereas you and I know that the light will in fact bring out, or show up, how different they are.”

Turns out being like Mike is a completely different process than becoming like our Savior. One process stifles you, while the other sets you free. The only way in which we can be true to ourselves, to truly find out about who we are is to come in the light, the light who is Christ.

City of Brotherly Love?

In the everlasting fight to stay awake in class, I decided my only hope for today was to write my blog in my afternoon psych class. With the 45 minutes of sleep that I got this morning, I do not really know why I decided to show up to class, but I am here, and I might as well make the best use of my time.

This past weekend my roommates and I went on a road trip to San Francisco. We all had our own reasons for going: I wanted to see my sister and her family, Quinn wanted to see off his significant other (she’s going on a mission), Satish wanted to see Alcatraz and eat Ghirardelli chocolate, and Justin wanted to eat Chinese food. In addition to accomplishing all of the above, we were also able to make 2 music videos, take numerous pictures that I am sure are worth a lot of money, and start a Rock Band… kind of.

Interestingly enough, although I loved every minute of the road trip, with the possible exception of arriving home this morning at five and having to wake up at six for a meeting, I realized I am basically still living the dream, and was living the dream before we even thought about the trip. It was not necessarily San Francisco that made the road trip memorable, it was the people that I was with that made it unforgettable.

It started with four guys driving across the country in a little VW Passat. When one of those guys is a crazy Indian man, you are almost guaranteed that something crazy will happen. In addition to him cleaning the windshield with his pants, he ended up ripping his shirt off. This made it almost natural to start recording a music video. Although we almost died around minute 3:18 of the music video, we ended up getting to San Francisco in one piece. Justin, Quinn and Satish went off to see Claire, while I got to stay and spend time with my niece, sister and brother-in-law. The entire weekend was magical, as we got to see Alcatraz, eat an overpriced seafood lunch, yell Chinese idioms at old people in Chinatown, and hear a future missionary share her testimony. The exclamation mark was put on the trip as we left Claire’s house. Justin, Satish and I broke out into a rendition of “Kiss the Girl” as we tried to shield the two love birds from the views of her family. She then proceeded to grab Quinn and pull him in to top off her canteen.

We came home at 5 in the morning, and although we were groggy, we talked about how we had lived the dream. After my head cleared from the fog that inevitably comes with no sleep, I realized that the destination of the trip was not what made it memorable. The memories were formed because of the people I was with. The trip was amazing because I went on a trip with my roomies, and visited people that we cared about. We could have gone to North Dakota and I would have come home with the same type of feeling. After that epiphany, I realized that if I would just stop taking for granted those who I have the opportunity to associate with on a daily basis, I could always be living the “dream.” It’s funny how friends and family mean so much to me, but they are so easily taken for granted. It is so easy to think that the ties that bond you together are so strong that consistent effort is unnecessary to maintain those bonds. But, as with everything else in this world, if you do not put effort and energy into your relationships they will deteriorate. BFF can only be forever if both people are willing to work towards that. Families can only be together forever if we support one another in staying on the strait and narrow path. If we do not care enough to maintain those relationships in this life and work towards helping people get and stay on the path, why would we even want to have the opportunity for eternal families?

So I guess I need to be a better brother, friend, son, uncle, and nephew. I guess I better stop taking for granted the wonderful people in my life. I guess I should do a little bit more reaching out. Maybe if I did, my life would become one big “road trip.”

Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods won yesterday. Surprised? I wasn’t. For some reason it just seems like he always wins. He’s 32 and just reaching the prime years of professional golfers, and he is already considered the greatest golfer to have played the game. There is always some young and upcoming player that is touted as the next challenger to Tiger’s throne. But nothing ever materializes, and it just ends up being Tiger and the rest of the PGA Tour. He has all the money he could ever want; in fact, some think he will be the first billion dollar athlete. Over the years he has changed his swing, his coach, his caddie, his clubs, his ball; maybe the only thing he has not changed is his shirt color on Sunday. Through all the change, he continues to dominate.

I have often wondered what it would be like to get inside his head. To see what drives him. To see why he has not pulled a Michael Jordan and switched to baseball, just for something new and exciting. To see why he never sounds off when his competitors talk smack. To see why he still outworks those around him, when the gap between him and the next competitor is already nearly insurmountable.

Why is he an exception to the rule that you often fall to the level of your competition? How did he come back from his 1-over par 73 on Saturday to fire a 7-under for his largest come-from-behind win since 2000?

He is a freak of nature in all aspects. There is no other explanation.

Although I can not answer those questions and do not claim to understand what really drives him, seeing Tiger Woods continue to do his thing reminds me of something I have been taught my whole life. My dad always said, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. It’s whether or not you are improving.” When he would say that, I used to think to myself “That’s what losers say to keep their confidence up.” But now I think I am starting to see the wisdom within it. Think about Tiger. He won by eight strokes a few weeks ago, but in the press conference he talked about how he was disappointed with many facets of his game. His honest evaluation of his performance compared to his view of his potential allowed him to determine ways to improve and develop.

But I am not Tiger Woods, and golf is not my number one priority; following my Savior is. Unlike Tiger, to be successful in my priority I do not need to beat out someone else. Seems a little more conducive to the whole “compete with yourself” mentality, doesn’t it? But being the prideful kid I am, I still struggle with that. I get complacent when I feel that I am one-upping my neighbor, and my progress slows. I get frustrated when I see someone else who is not struggling with the same things as myself, and stop focusing on what I can do better and think instead about why this guy thinks he’s got it all figured out. Dumb, huh?

What’s even worse is that even when I am in the right mind set, and only competing against myself, I will sometimes think “Well I did better at that yesterday, so today I failed.” That mind set almost seems to be true. But that thought comes up short. It is lacking the eternal perspective of my Father in Heaven. He never compares me to others, only to my own potential. He does not even compare what I do today with what I did yesterday, because He understands that today is not yesterday. He recognizes that my potential to do something today might be a little less than yesterday, maybe because I did not sleep well last night. But I often over look that, and that short sightedness can lead to discouragement and despair.

Tiger seems to get this principle. He can bounce back from days in which the public claims he did not play up to his “standards.” He seems to not make excuses, but to take into account all the factors that contributed to the outcome, and make changes where he needs to. He stays within himself, and he plays his game, regardless of what others do. I think if I were to approach life the way that I feel Tiger approaches golf, I would be more optimistic, recognize more ways to improve, and be happier as I understand that all I can give is all I can give. If it is not as much as I gave yesterday, so be it; as long as it was all I had.

President Gordon B. Hinckley

When I was in Hong Kong serving as a missionary, I had the choice experience of shaking hands with President Hinckley. He had stopped by the Mission Home while we were holding a leadership training meeting and decided to visit with us for a minute. As he walked in the room which we were sitting, President Ong immediately turned the time over to him. I remember I sat about 3 feet away from him, watching intently and listening to every word which he spoke. When a man whom you know talks with God speaks it's always a good idea to give him your full attention. I remember him sharing about his previous experiences in Hong Kong, how the Lord spoke to him about where the Hong Kong temple should be, how it's always hot and humid in Hong Kong and how amazed he was that we were all looking sharp in our suits. He expressed how much he loved us, and more importantly how much the Lord loved us, and then he flashed that smile of his, bore his testimony and went on with his business.

After President Hinckley left the room, our mission president, President Ong, spoke. He did not return to what he was talking about before our Prophet had entered, but shared some of his thoughts and feelings about being in the presence of the Lord's spokesman. He shared about how when you looked into President Hinckley's eyes you could tell that he was a man who loved the Lord. He was a man who you knew dedicated his life to serving his God, and those around him. He was a man who could light up a room just by walking into it, and his smile and attitude to those around him was such that it could melt away any bitterness or hate. President Ong then told me something that I will never forget. He said that even without the mantle of the prophet, even without being called as the President of the Lord's church, President Hinckley would still have had that look in his eyes, that effect when he walked into rooms, and that ability to make everyone feel at home. He said that if each of us would be willing to give ourselves to the Lord in the same way that President Hinckley decided to give himself to the Lord, that one day we might be able to have that same influence on people.

Although, the above experience is my only personal experience interacting with President Hinckley, he has greatly influenced my life. His example, teachings, demeanor, love for others, love for life, and prayers have been a great strength to me as I strive to develop a close relationship to my Savior. And although the prospect of not hearing his voice in this life again is quite saddening, when I think of his reunion with his wife Marjorie, I can not help but to smile. In addition, I know that the voice of the Lord will continue to come down to His people through the next prophet that will be called. The work on this side of the veil will continue to go forward, and the work on the other side of the veil now has another great leader to help its cause!