I Believe in Missions

I Believe in Missions

I think this week it is appropriate for me to write about my belief in missions, having just received our mission call to serve in the temple in Oaxaca, Mexico.  I believe missions are important, no they are essential, vital, life changing, necessary, need I go on.  I hope you get the message that for me they are extremely important.  Let me try and explain why I believe they are so important.  First, there are many different kinds of missions.  There is the mission that we might serve when we are in our youth, 18 to 25 or so.  I think men and women that raise a handicapped child are on a mission.  There are senior missions.  For me, men who are called to be bishops and stake presidents are on a mission for a time.  There are service missions.  Missions for me are experiences or set periods of time where we are focused on service to others.  They can be formal with a call from the President of the Church or they can be informal, but they are about service and putting others ahead of yourself and if you do it well, the experience becomes life changing. The spiritual growth, the increased understanding of the scriptures, the pure knowledge that flows into your mind and the refining and sanctifying of one’s soul, are the blessings that come to those that serve missions.  There are other blessings that come to senior missionaries.  We are promised that not only will we be happier and that our marriage will grow stronger, but we are promised that our children and grandchildren will be blessed.  The words of Elder Holland say it best, “Those little darlings will be just fine, and I promise you will do things for them in the service of the Lord that, worlds without end, you could never do if you stayed home to hover over them. What greater gift could grandparents give their posterity than to say by deed as well as word, “In this family we serve missions!”  I love the facebook page, “Mission Calls”. I get tears in my eyes when I listen to people as they are opening their mission calls say the words, “you are hereby called to serve as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”  I know that they are about to have a life changing experience, and I am about to have one also.

My Mission Call

I Believe in Blogging

I Believe in Blogging

I believe in blogging is a given.   If I didn’t, I wouldn’t, but I do, so I blog.  Blogging serves a couple of purposes.  First, it is a great way to record what you have been doing and thinking.  You might think that no one cares.  I believe even if no one follows your blog right now, your blog has value.  Some day your grandchildren or great-grandchildren will want to know you and they will go to your blog and little by little they will get to know you.  The day to day stuff is what will help them know what your life was like and how you lived day by day.  I believe that blogging is Family History and is one of the best ways to connect and stay connected to those you love and who love you.  I follow a number of blogs of friends from our last mission and will continue to follow what they are doing in their lives, because they have become important to me.  I am connected to them.  I can’t write letters to hundreds of friends and family, but I can write once a week and stay connected to lots of friends and family.  Second, blogging for me is cathartic.  It makes me feel good.   I don’t know why, but after I have written a blog and put it out there for everyone to read, I feel good inside.  Maybe it is because I know that some of my kids will read my blog and maybe I will in some small way be an influence for good in their lives.  I at least hope so.  I believe in blogging.

I Believe in Patience

I Believe in Patience

It has been almost 5 weeks since we sent in our papers for our next mission and this wait has caused me to think about being patient.  I really do believe in patience but that doesn’t mean that I have a lot of patience.  I really believe that good things come to those that wait.  In today’s world everyone wants things right now.  We and our children want instant gratification and most of us don’t like to wait.  What is it about waiting that is so hard and why is it when we do wait for something we have wanted for a long time there is such joy when we finally receive it.  We usually appreciate it more than if we had not waited.  In a gospel sense we long to return to our Father in Heaven but we have to wait till we have finished our work on the earth.  This process of enduring to the end makes the receiving of this desire so much sweeter when we finally are permitted back into the presence of our Father.  If we received Eternal Life without the wait and the enduring we might not appreciate it the way we should.  Good things come to those that wait.  I think we should add good things come to those that wait and endure well.  I have been trying to develop more patience by trying to not make every yellow light and letting cars in when they are trying to change lanes or turn onto the road.  I have been trying to just slow down a bit and not be in such a hurry.   I remember my mother always use to say to us kids “patience is a virtue, virtue is a grace, put them both together and have a happy face”.  In looking up this saying, I found that it is usually quoted as “patience is a virtue, virtue is a grace, both put together makes a pretty face.  I like happy face better.  I think that when we were not being patient we would make weird faces of pain and torture and mom would say this rhyme and what she was really saying was, “look be patience and happy with what you have.”  Yep I am right back with be thankful and content and patient and happy.  Let’s see what I can add to this recipe for life next week.  Remember I believe in patience. 

I believe in being Thankful and Content

I believe in being Thankful and Content

I have been thinking about the last 4 years, 2 in China and 2 in Bolivia.  These experiences have had a profound effect on my thinking.  I have seen the lives of many of my students at Nankai and what they have had to do to get where they are.  I have seen the lives of many members of the church members in Bolivia and know how hard life is for them.  Their lives are much more difficult than mine and yet they are thankful for what they have.  I believe we don’t realize the great blessing it is to live in the United States, to be members of the church.  I believe that we should be more thankful.  I love the idea that being thankful for our blessings and all that we have includes the concept that at the same time we are content with what we have.  I’m not saying we shouldn’t strive to improve our lives and provide well for our children.  The concept is more like I don’t covet the new car my neighbor just got.  I am thankful that I have a car that runs and I am content.  Too often we spend a great deal of energy and time trying to obtain things and in the process we forget to be thankful for all that we do have.  Our worst day is a good day for most of the world.  I believe that being thankful also means that I will be content and I will not covet.  No one can take away the things that matter most, our testimonies, our family, they are forever, our knowledge of the truth of plan of salvation, our love for the Savior and his church here on earth.  Even when we feel down and are having a bad day we should never forget the things that matter most and we should be thankful for what we have, knowing that most of God’s children here on earth have much less than we have.  I believe that we should be more thankful and content and as we endure well our trials we will be blessed.  Maybe we will only receive the blessing of contentment, oh but what a blessing that is.