Once Again Planning My Future

Preparing With Honor

An assignment was given to me for school to write an essay about becoming self-sufficient. I took this as an excellent opportunity to finish schoolwork and at the same time accomplish something I've been meaning to do for quite a while now: plan my future. My most immediate goal is to finish high school, but I've often wondered what exactly I will do after the fact. Throughout this lesson I have learned the importance of planning before making any kind of big change—be it a permenant or temporary change, I must be ready. The big changes that I see in my immediate future involve taking upon myself more responsibility than ever before; I must learn to be completely self-sufficient in under a year's time because that is when I will go off on my own. Where am I going? I'm going on a mission, and, save for God, I must be completely self-sufficient if I am to succeed then.

I'm male and I'm eighteen, and for a young Latter-day Saint—or Mormon—the eighteenth year is a natural year of preparation because at age nineteen, we go on missions. A mission is a period of two years spent in a place far away from home—often it is in another part of the world—where a missionary devotes his or her entire day, everyday—for up to two years—teaching the people there about God. A mission is not forced upon us, but still I very much desire to serve an honorable full-time mission. There is a Latter-day Saint saying that goes something like this: "Honor; prepare with it, serve with it, and return with it woven forever into the fabric of your being." Serving a mission is not for everyone; it takes financial planning and strict observance of the Lord's moral code in order to be worthy of the honor.

This honor doesn't come for free. The going rate per month as a missionary is $400; now strech that out for two years and you have $9,600 to pay, but that's only if you already have a suit and other proper missionary clothes and supplies. The amount I'm really going to save up will be $12,000 so that I can purchase clothing, supplies, and whatever other costs that might come up. Missionary work is a completely selfless work, and it doesn't come without significant sacrifice. I am not yet prepared to make that sacrifice, but when the time comes I will know I have covered all of my financial need for the next two years of my life. How many other people can say that about their finances I wonder. This financial sacrifice won't be a light one for me, nor will it be the only one I make before my preparation for a mission is complete.

I also have to prepare myself emotionally and spiritually for this. If I am to be God's willing servant in this task, then I need to be willing to obey him in all other callings as well. I believe that God has given his children certain rules that he expects us to obey—this is one of the things I will be teaching people as a missionary—and if I do not obey those rules myself, then I would be a hypocrite and anything I said would be completely worthless. I expect I will err and often make mistakes—I do quite frequently, actually—but each week I try harder to be better and each week I repent and get a little closer to where I want to be. Some things you can read about and study in preparation for a mission, but nothing is worth more to a missionary than experience.

To me, serving with honor means doing the best I can possibly do and even if somebody else could do better, I will know that I have done my very best and tried my hardest. I believe that I must prepare diligently if am to be able to serve my mission with honor. Semper fi means always faithful, and that will be my motto as I prepare for a mission right now. I will always be faithful to my God.

Pride Can Choke a Friendship

There was this time in the 2nd grade where my best friend, Tom, kept telling me lies, or at least I thought they were lies. He was telling me all these things that would be really cool, but for some reason I thought that it was impossible and so I thought he was making it all up. He insisted that he was telling the truth, but I stubbornly resfused to believe him and I let him know that if he couldn't tell the truth, then I wanted nothing more to do with him.

The next day at recess, I couldn't find my friend anywhere so I walked around until another boy came looking for me. He said that Tom was up at the top of the playground crying and that I should go talk to him. I was taken aback that my friend who had seemed so cool and tough would cry, especially at school. I just nodded at the other boy and started climbing the hill to the top of the playground.

I found Tom sitting on a low cement wall looking down at the ground, eyes still red from crying. Cooly, I walked over to my friend and sat next to him, sayingnothing. After a bit, Tom looked up at me and said, "I'm sorry that I made you mad Erik." It sounded so sincere that I was again taken aback. Why was he apologizing? Maybe he hadn't lied to me at all and I was just being a jerk. I said, "Tom, I was a jerk, I'm sorry for not believing you. That was a dumb reason for me to get mad at you for. Let's be friends again, k?" And that was it; best buds were reunited and I was careful never to let my pride ruin another friendship.

True Love Begats Miracles

Before I begin, here's a bit more about myself, I'm seventeen, male, and have moved around nearly as much as a military brat, even though I'm not one. I've been to many, many different schools, and I've met all kinds of people; some amazing people, some famous people, and quite a few foreign people. I was raised in a loving home where I was privileged be taught all of the principles of the Gospel. I love God, and try to support his work as much as I can, but I am by no definition of the word, great. Still, I do a lot of thinking about great things...

I am also a teenager, which means I have begun to search myself for answers to life's many great questions, one of which is love.

What is love? I might as well be asking you to put the whole sky in a box and mail it to me...love is too huge to just define like that! I can try to describe it though: it's long and wide, tall and thick, great and spacious and grand. Okay, so I can't tell you what love is, because it must be learned through experience, however, I can tell you what love isn't.

Love isn't lust, it's not sex, it's not giving up everything for some girl or boy who says they love you back...love has to be more than that. I know that love is more than that!

Love is what prompted God to give his Only Begotten Son as a sacrifice for the sins and pains of mankind. God's love for us is perfect. When I feel the spirit, I can feel His overwhelming love for me. It is a miracle that even me, a sinner, could be redeemed of all my sins.

Love of God and freedom is what brought our Founding Fathers to declare their indepence from Great Britain on July 4th of 1776 and it is a miracle that they won the war that followed.

Love is what brought my mother and father together and I was the product of that union. They cared for me so much, even though I was not yet born, that they give me a chance to receive a body and live in their home. Heck, they love me so much I know without a shadow of a doubt that my parents would give their lives if it would mean that I had a chance to survive. Now I'm not vain enough to say that my birth was a miracle, rather I submit that the birth of a human child is a precious and miraculous event!

There's a pattern here: love begats miracles.

I'm sure you're all very intelligent and you've already figured out much if not all of what I've said. I just wanted to share some of my thoughts on the subject. Let me conclude with this final statement: love is a gift from God to make our lives better, if you find that it is making your life more difficult then perhaps you should take a step back and do some soul-searching. Perhaps you just need an attitude adjustment. Think about what you want out of life, what is most important to you, and then ask yourself if your current actions are taking you closer to it. I did, and it's done miracles for me. ;)

By the way, if you havn't read the FRG blog yet, you most definitely should!! We have really excellent writers posting on there. Please check it out at http://youth.fairblog.org.

I came home at midnight smelling like beer and my parents didn't care.

This is the first step down a dark path...not!!

So I made a big deal about coming home smellin' like beer because I think it's hilarious, but the truth is I hate the stuff. I'll never start drinking, not even if my wife, kids, and dog leave me lol

What really happened was service. This is fiesta month here in San Antonio and my church youth group serves the community by bringing chairs for people to sit on while the parade marches by. Don't think too good of me, as I just came along because it sounded fun, the real service was done by the people who organized this project. So I missed the set-up part of the project, but I got to have the pleasure of clearing the street of chairs before the terrifying streetsweeper wreaked havoc upon them. We had twenty minutes to clear out 560 metal chairs before they became part of the mass of garbage that blanketed the gutters like rivers on a rainy day. Beer cans were EVERYWHERE, and I was up to my ankles in trash and beer and God knows what else...

I had to actually put my hands in the stuff so that I could detach the cables securing our property so that we could pack it all up in a trailer. We finished around 11, but our adventure had only just begun. On our way out, our designated driver backed up into a dumpster while trying to get into a steady stream of cars who wouldn't let us leave. Then when we finally did get on the road, we got stuck on this ramp thing on which we moved about every 5 minutes.

While we say their waiting, two motorcyclists pulled up behind us and these guys had to be the worlds drunkest idiots. They began singing and honking and screaming and revving their engines, I was sortof expecting a fight when a guy and his girlfriend drove up next to them on HIS bike. But the knife-wound scars on that man's arm must have been good enough of a hint, even for these dorks, to back down because they became silent very suddenly.

As a result of my praying for my life that the drunken people didn't kill me, I made it safely back to homebase. Phew!

When I walked in I said hey Mom, hey Dad, and I got up real close to both of them...they didn't notice a thing. "How was it?" my mom asked. "Not bad," I said "I'm a bit tired though." At this point I was intentionally slurring my speech and subtly swaying so as to pop the question, "ERIK, WHY DO YOU SMELL LIKE BEER?!" But it never came, and I finally asked my Mom to take a sniff of my cloths, but it was in vain for all she said was, "You smell weird."

Now, don't get me wrong kids, this does NOT mean your parents don't know what beer smells like, it just happens that mine don't, but I'm glad of that. My parents have always been very temperate and I have had a happy life at home because of it. What you should take away from this is a smile and a knowledge that alcohol makes people dumb...so don't drink it! Duh!

Why Should We Obey?

Obedience is an important trait for a person to develop in spite of his or her age. Rules have been put in place to protect the integrity and safety of the American people, these rules are called laws. If you obey the driving laws, you are protecting yourself, your passengers, and the other people on the road from potentially lethal accident. If you don't obey driving laws and decide to run a stop sign, you could damage property or even kill someone. Some people feel like rules are just restrictions, and restrictions just ruin their fun, but in fact, I feel that restrictions can make life more enjoyable. Let me explain: my friend had given in to peer pressure and decided to try a cigarette even though his parents warned him against any kinds of drugs; well he got addicted and now that he's decided to quit, he's not doing very well. He's going through withdrawal symptoms and relapses frequently and I can see the pain written on his features...all that for one stupid cigarette. If he had followed his parents' rule in the first place then he wouldn't be in this mess now.

In my own life, I have realized as I've grown up that my parents are doing everything they can to ensure that I grow up strong, healthy, and wise. I've discovered that they don't just make up rules to bug me, but because they want me to be safe. I'm old enough to realize that I don't know everything and that I need to trust the rules even though I may not understand them yet because they will protect me from unseen dangers.

I feel that while everyone needs to learn obedience, it is even more vital for an adult to have this virtue because and adult's actions have farther reaching effects upon the community and loved ones. If a husband is not faithful and obedient to his wedding vows, or chooses to dabble in the dangerous territory of pornography, it will destroy his marriage, tear apart his family and cause extreme pain to all of the members of it. Adults are not only responsible for taking care of themselves, they are also responsible for securing the future of their posterity. Obedience to the laws of the land and God's commandments are vital to setting a good example and leading others to do good.

The last point I want to make is that blind obedience is no substitute for using your judgment to determine what you should or should not do. Blind obedience puts your life in the hands of another imperfect being which, unless you trust them, is a careless mistake. When somebody gives you a rule to follow you should a) determine if you trust that this person has good intentions and has your best interest in mind and b) be aware of the consequences should you not obey that rule. Sometimes people will call a person a mindless sheep because they follow the rules, but in reality a sheep can be more intelligent than we are because it applies smart principles of trust to obedience. A sheep trusts its shepherd and will do anything for him. That sheep is wise to do so because the shepherd will scare away predators and feed the sheep and all the shepherd asks in return is for its wool. In the animal kingdom, the only creatures that don't obey any rules are the sick or insane ones. Animal instinct is based upon survival, therefore they must follow the rules in order to survive. Let that serve as a reminder to all of us that obedience to rules is in our best interest.

I Have a Testimony of Jesus Christ

This Easter season brings us all closer together as we study and ponder the teachings and the sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the World. I just got back from Youth Conference where I had not only tons of fun, I was reminded of the wonders of God's plan for His children. There had to have been an atonement so that we could return home to live with our Father in Heaven. If Christ had not suffered and then died on the cross, we would be doomed to this spiritual death forever. I was reminded that it was my choice to take up this body, made in God's own image, and be separated from Him, but because of the Atonement, I can be with Him in Heaven again. Woohoo!

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is Christ's church on the Earth and through its saving ordinances we can have all of the blessings that God wishes to bless us with, even all He has. I believe this with all my heart, in Jesus' name I share that with you, amen.

What will I do to fulfill my life?

It would be easy to pick something cool and socially accepted and say yeah, B-) that's me! But it would also be lame, and it would be untrue to myself. Someone asked me today what "will fulfill my life?" I thought about it, and this was my reply:

"I have very simple wants in this life: a loving family, a happy life, and an inspiring legacy to leave behind when I'm gone. I am aware that the key to happiness lies with love, and that I am never happier than when I am with my family. Someday I will be married to a wonderful woman and have several children. I will have worked my way up in some company and all the while I will seek opportunities to serve my fellow man. I will leave a legacy of love and charity in this world after I am gone. Then will my life be fulfilled."