Stop Being Polite

I recently read an interview that occurred at Pew Forum's biannual Faith Angle Conference. The interview was with a very prominent member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Richard Bushman. The catalyst for them choosing Richard Bushman seems to be Mitt Romney’s bid for the Presidency, and the fact that all these reporters wanted to get their questions concerning Mormonism answered. All types of questions were addressed like: Would Romney be obligated to take direction from the Church leaders in Salt Lake City? What’s the deal with Polygamy? Why are Mormons so secretive about the Temple? Bushman gave some good insight, and I feel like he represented the Church extremely well.

The conversation at one point turned to how there are so many misunderstandings in the world about our beliefs. Stereotypes and clichés about Mormons exist to the point that it is difficult for people to come to a real understanding about who we are and what we stand for. The reporter asked if members were looking at Mitt’s campaign as an opportunity to break those stereotypes down, or whether we were anxious about the publicity we would be receiving. Bushman responded:

I don't think it was Michael Paulson, but someone from The Boston Globe was writing a story about how the Mormon Church is going to be affected by the Romney campaign. Exactly the question you asked. I thought it was a good question. My own feeling is it's very good to air all of the inner feelings. Sally's question was very interesting to me. You've been really influenced by Martha Beck. This image of the church as secretly ominous and oppressive is common. I think those things need to get out in the open. Mormons need to hear it, and the people who voice those questions need to talk to Mormons about it. As long as we're all polite to one another, there isn't going to be true understanding.

When I was reading the transcript, the last line rang true with me. As a missionary I often taught people who believed the core doctrine but had a concern with a specific principle that led them to start trying to avoid the missionaries. Those people who would eventually share their concern with us, would get the answer, overcome their anxiety, concern or misunderstanding and be willing to follow what they had found to be true. Those who were unwilling to share their concern typically came up with a plethora of excuses to avoid meeting with us; which would begin a game of the missionaries trying to guess what the root of their concern was. If we guessed right, we were able to resolve it and the people were able to join the Church. If we did not, we often had to move on to people more willing to have honest, open conversations with us.

I do not think that Bushman meant for people to be rude, and accuse us of such and such, but I do think that he meant as long as people are unwilling to voice their concerns, their questions, true understanding will continue to elude us. As long as people who continue to associate us with the FLDS, or who believe that we have horns, or whatever, continue to keep those misguided beliefs about us to themselves, they will never come to know the truth. I can not speak for all members of the Church, but as for myself, I would be more than willing to engage with someone who wanted to know if we had horns on our heads (we do not), or why we do not talk about what occurs within the Temple, or if we practice polygamy (we do not). But in order for that to happen, people have to be willing to ask; to start the conversation.

Springboards of Faith

I am currently in the great city of San Francisco… actually a suburb outside of San Francisco called Walnut Creek. Sophie, my niece, is in bed and so the cute entertainment of the trip is gone until the morning. Seeing as I have a moment away from laughing at her little dances in the kitchen, I thought I would get on my first post of the month.

Jeff, my brother in law, is the deacon’s quorum adviser. So today at church, I decided instead of going to Elder’s quorum, I would sneak off to hear the wisdom that Jeff would be sharing with the 12 year old boys. For the lesson, he had each of them teach one section of the 2^nd missionary lesson. After each boy taught his section, Jeff would give some feedback. One of the boys mentioned how it was a lot more difficult sharing the lesson in front of the class than he thought it was going to be. Jeff’s response fit nicely into some things that I have been thinking about lately.

Jeff talked about how as a missionary, there will be times when you are nervous sharing the message. You often feel inadequate: your language skills are insufficient, and even if they weren’t your teaching skills are probably less than stellar. However, you have been set apart to be a representative of Jesus Christ. You have been given the authority to act in His name, and as you begin your mission you are blessed with the powers of heaven to be able to accomplish your responsibilities in the mission field. He mentioned how to help you remember who you are representing and the special call that you have, you wear a name tag over your heart, stating that you are a missionary for Christ’s Church. I remember putting that tag on each morning. You feel different with it on. It’s a strong reminder of who is supporting you in your work on a daily basis.

I have recently been studying Exodus and how Moses led the Children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage. Much like many young missionaries today feel, Moses was unsure if he would be able to fulfill the calling the Lord had given him. He slowly came to understand what it meant to represent the Lord. What I find interesting is that during the process in which Moses was coming to understand his calling the Lord had him continue to use his staff. Could God have turned the water to blood without Moses putting his staff in the water? Could God have parted the Red Sea without Moses having the staff? Could he have used something other than the staff to turn into a serpent? Without a doubt, I believe that the miracles could have been performed without the staff.

Looking at a more modern example, in 1820, Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to a 14 year old boy named Joseph Smith. Over the next few decades, Joseph Smith would be the tool through which Christ would restore His church, His authority, and His doctrine. One of the first responsibilities that Joseph had was to translate the records of some ancient American prophets. Joseph was unlearned and knew nothing of translation, so God provided him with some tools to begin the translation, the Urim and Thummin. During the first part of the translation, Joseph used the Urim and Thummin, however as time went on his need to use the Urim and Thummin grew less and less. He would eventually be able to translate and receive revelations without the help of the tools that God gave to him.

During the two years that I wore the missionary tag, I would expect miracles daily. I would see miracles daily. I no longer wear the tag, however, the God who provided the miracles is the same God who is looking out for me today. It would be silly for me to believe that just because the tag is gone, miracles would cease to exist in my life. Just like it would be silly for Moses to doubt the Lord if his staff broke, or Joseph to panic if his seer stones were taken. When I first noticed the pattern, the first thought that came to my mind was that those were almost crutches upon which we could begin to develop our faith. However, upon further thought I have decided that these things are more like springboards for our faith. As we begin to see the hand of the Lord in our lives, we begin to understand the type of relationship that we are to develop with Him, and we are able to dive in to continue our progression.

In fact, I think that there are many more examples of these types of springboards in our life. Parents, blessings, leaders, callings are all avenues through which we often see miracles. However, the ultimate source of those miracles is still God, and His grace. By recognizing the Lord’s hand in all things, our faith in the Lord will continue to develop.

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.”