This Shall Ye Do In Remembrance

Today is my beautiful wife Ashley's birthday! She is such a beautiful soul who has made me happier than I have ever known.  She is sweet and pure and kind and wonderful, and every day with her is a blessing. I'm more grateful for her than I could possibly express.  Her birthday completes a set of four important December days that testify to me of the Atonement.  On the 11th (today), I celebrate her birthday.  On the 19th, I commemorate my Dad's passing.  On the 23rd we celebrate the birthday of the Prophet Joseph.  And on the 25th, we celebrate the birth of the Savior of the World.  Each of these events, reminds me of the goodness of God and of the gift of His Son and His Son's atonement.  It is a beautiful month of testimony!

Yesterday I had a thought as I was reading scriptures.  I had wondered for awhile why the Savior had waited until the end of his first day's visit to heal the Nephites.  Why, when he had had the people come forth one by one, didn't he just heal them right then and there of their afflictions.  My original thoughts, and they may not be wrong, were that He had either taken care of the most important things first, or that He had waited until the faith of the people was sufficient to be healed.

Yesterday another idea occurred to me.  I began thinking about the Savior's visit in terms of a teacher giving a lesson.  Every teacher and every writer knows that there are two moments in a lesson or in a book or article that those in attendance are most apt to remember: the beginning and the ending.  Many of the details in the middle are apt to be forgotten, but what is said in the beginning and the ending are the things that need to be remembered.

So structured as a lesson, the Savior began by introducing Himself and inviting the people to come forward one by one and feel the wounds of His love in His hands and feet.  There, standing before them and tangible and touchable, was evidence of Divine love and evidence of the atonement.  The Savior closed by introducing the sacrament, providing the people with emblems that represented those very wounds.  In connection with the sacrament, He healed their sick and blessed the people and their children.

Each time that they would then partake of those sacred emblems, they could remember the feeling of those wounds.  And then they would remember that the Savior had healed them and blessed them as they came unto Him.  What a wonderful opportunity to remember the sacrament must have represented for those privileged souls!

Most of us are not privileged to physically feel the wounds in His hands and feet and side in this life, but each of us has the opportunity to feel His healing and His blessings.  Each of us can then approach those sacred emblems with memories of what that atonement has meant, means, and will mean for us in the future.  What a great blessing!

Brett

The Gift of Seeing

This was definitely an interesting and unpredictable week. But being as none of you can go to most of your favorite websites without hearing about the election, I'm going to stop at that small observation. Instead I wanted to focus on an impression that has begun to occur to me during the past several weeks.

In the scriptures we read about Prophets, Seers, and Revelators. We are told that "a seer is greater than a prophet" as "a seer is a revelator and a prophet also; and a gift which is greater can no man have, except he should possess the power of God, which no man can; yet a man may have great power given him from God" (Mosiah 8:15-16). The scriptures explain further that "a seer can know of things which are past, and also of things which are to come, and by them shall all things be revealed, or, rather, shall secret things be made manifest, and hidden things shall come to light, and things which are not known shall be made known by them, and also things which shall be made known by them which otherwise could not be known. Thus God has provided a means that man, through faith, might work mighty miracles; therefore he becometh a great benefit to his fellow beings" (Mosiah 8:17-18).

Obviously when we speak of prophets, seers, and revelators (and especially of seers), we tend to refer to those who hold prophetic keys. But yet the scriptures also define the term "prophecy" more broadly, as "the testimony of Jesus" (Revelation 19:10) and Moses declared emphatically, "Would God that all the LORD's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!" (Numbers 11:29) In other words, there is a sense in which each of us is to be a prophet (with a small p). We are all to obtain and share the testimony of Jesus. Similarly, the Prophet Joseph declared, "God hath not revealed any thing to Joseph, but what he will make known unto the Twelve & even the least Saint may know all things as fas as he is able to bear them" (Joseph Smith, discourse, circa 26 June to 2 July 1839). In other words, in our own ways, and always in accordance with the principles of keys and stewardships, we are to be revelators. Which leads me to seership.

Perhaps I may be forgiven if, from time to time, I have aspired to certain callings where I could be seen or heard. I assume I am not the only person who has struggled with the desire for attention in the Church. Recently as I was praying and seeking to repent of this desire and asking for the Lord to inspire me to be called to any calling where I could serve (I did not have a calling), I had an impression come to my mind: "In this Church we serve to see, not to be seen."  That impression came like a lightning bolt to my mind and opened up new vistas of understanding, particularly concerning the calling of a seer.

Traditionally we think of a seer as one who has tremendous visions like Joseph Smith and Section 76, or his magisterial vision in January 1836, a part of which has become D&C 137. And indeed, such visions do come in the Lord's own time and way, and particularly to those who hold the keys of His kingdom (though they are not limited to them). But as I thought about this impression, I thought about the fact that the basic gift of a seer is the ability to see; and to see things that others do not see. Ammon described it as the ability to see "secret things" and "hidden things" in Mosiah 8. But as our hymn reminds us, celestial visions are not the only hidden and secret things in this world, for "in the quiet heart is hidden, sorrow that the eye can't see" ("Lord I would Follow Thee," Hymn 220). The gift of seership is not just to see that which is past or that which is to come, but also to see that which is present, but which is hidden and concealed from our view. It is therefore a gift that each of us needs to seek for an obtain if we are to truly "bear one another's burdens, that they may be light" (Mosiah 18:8).

To truly keep our baptismal covenants requires us to learn to see as our current Prophet, Seer, and Revelator learned to see. President Thomas S. Monson has been a seer for a long time because he learned to see the pains, heartaches, struggles, and challenges of those around him; and particularly those for whom he had a stewardship. The young bishop who cared for all those widows was a seer because he perceived their challenges and their pains and then he reached out to their relief. The calling as an Apostle did not bring the gift of seership to Thomas S. Monson any more than it brought the gift of faith to him. No, he brought those gifts to the calling, and then the Lord added upon them as he was willing to continue magnifying his calling and administering to the needs of those whom he was called to serve.

Because each calling in this Church carries with it a stewardship for souls and a commission to serve, each calling in this Church carries with it an opportunity to seek for and obtain the gift of spiritual sight, the gift of seership. As we pray to see more clearly, it will be as though we are the blind man in John 9. Through the hands of those whom He has appointed, He will lay His hands upon us (see D&C 36:2) and give us the opportunity to open our eyes and to begin seeing the needs of others related to that calling. If we are willing and will listen to the promptings of the Spirit, secret and hidden worries, needs, and concerns will begin to manifest themselves; we will begin to see what others cannot see.

Very few Latter-day Saints will ever be called to be an apostle. Very few will ever be sustained as a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator. Few will ever have the visions of heaven opened to their view during this life. But every single Latter-day Saint is entitled to and should seek to possess the spirit of prophecy and revelation.  And every single Latter-day Saint should seek to possess the gift of seership within his or her various responsibilities in the Kingdom. We need these gifts in our homes and in our families. We need these gifts as home and visiting teachers. We need these gifts in our various callings. To be able to receive revelation, to see needs, and to share our heartfelt testimonies of Jesus will allow us to "walk with God" (Moses 6:34; Moses 7:68) as did Enoch and his people.

Brett

Rereading 3 Nephi 11

This past week, I've been back in 3 Nephi 11.  This chapter holds special meaning for all Latter-day Saints, myself included.  When I was a missionary, this was the first chapter that we asked people to read out of the Book of Mormon.  In spite of the fact that they had no idea who the Nephites, the Lamanites, etc. were, it had a way of touching them.  Often my investigators struggled with reading, and so we would read it with them and explain it to them.  The visit of Jesus and the experience of the people in touching his wounds and falling at his feet moved them.  Reading these words with the people were some of my favorite experiences as a missionary, as the Spirit testified to their truth.  And so over the years, I would suspect that I have read this chapter well more than 100 times.  I know the story inside and out.  And yet, this week as I've turned back to this old familiar chapter, there have been things there that I never saw before.  So I wanted to write about a few of those things.

I have always been touched by the beginning of this chapter, as "a great multitude gathered together, of the people of Nephi, round about the temple which was in the land Bountiful" (3 Nephi 11:1).  In the shadow of the temple, they were "conversing about this Jesus Christ, of whom the sign had been given concerning his death" (3 Nephi 11:2).  It was in that setting that they heard a voice come out of the heavens.  Twice they heard the voice and did not understand it, but did not instantly know from whence it came.  Here they were, people gathered around a temple, speaking of Jesus, and yet they still did not comprehend the voice.  I love this because it is a reminder that even for those who are striving to be faithful, it requires significant work to come to understand the voice of the Lord.  They heard it; they felt it; but they did not understand it until they "did open their ears to hear it," "did fix "their eyes . . . toward the sound thereof," and "did look steadfastly towards heaven, from whence the sound came" (3 Nephi 11:5).  Understanding the voice of heaven required more than just ears; it required the effort of their whole soul.

But here is where my learning began.  The third time they heard the voice, they understood the words.  It was the Father introducing His Beloved Son.  He said, "Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name--hear ye him" (3 Nephi 11:7). And with that introduction, they saw the Savior descend from heaven.  But they still struggled to connect the words that they had heard with the things that they saw, thinking that the Savior was an angel rather than the very Son of God.  After He had descended, He spoke to them, saying "Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world.  And behold, I am the life and the light of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning" (3 Nephi 11:10-11).  With those words, those assembled remembered the words of the prophets and fell at His feet.  They finally understood, and with that understanding, they were ready to come unto Him and to feel the wounds in His hands and feet and side and then be taught.

As I thought about the early part of this chapter, I realized that it is a chapter about coming unto Christ.  The people began as good people who knew of Christ, who had heard the words of the Prophets, who loved His Temple, and who were spiritual enough to hear His voice.  And yet they had still not fully come unto Him.  There were righteous people who had faith in Him (see Ether 12:7), and yet they still had a lot of room to grow.  They heard the voice but they did not understand it.  When they understood the voice, they still did not fully understand what they were seeing with their eyes.  Perhaps some of us, at least myself, may be like these people.  Perhaps, we have not yet fully come unto Christ and do not yet enjoy the fullness of the blessings He offers us.

Those blessings came as the people experienced the gospel, linking what they had learned from the Prophets and heard from the voice of the Father with what they were seeing with their eyes and feeling with their hearts. Three times in this short experience, the word behold is used.  The Father invited the people to "behold" His Son.  The Son invited them to "behold" that He is the Messiah.  And the Son invited them to "behold" that He was the light and life of the world, that He had drunken the dregs of the bitter cup, that He had glorified the Father, that He had taken upon Him the sins of the world; and that He had suffered and done the will of the Father from the beginning.  The 1828 Webster's dictionary defines the word behold as "to fix the eyes upon; to see with attention; to observe with care."  It is not just to see something, it is to give rapt attention to what we are seeing; to see with an effort to comprehend.  As the people saw in this way, their hearts were touched and they "remembered that it had been prophesied among them that Christ should show himself unto them after his ascension into heaven" (3 Nephi 11:12).  It was this remembering that brought full comprehension to their minds and hearts, and to behold Him with perfect clarity, driving them to their knees in worship.  Is it any wonder that we are asked to "always remember Him" (D&C 20:77).

Only when they had fallen to their knees, only when they had remembered and truly understood, were they ready to come.  At that moment the Savior invited them to come and "feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world" (3 Nephi 11:14).  Much later, after He had taught them His doctrine, He would heal them and bless their little ones (see 3 Nephi 17).

Perhaps some of you are like me and have an idea that if the Savior were to come today, the first thing He would do would be to heal us of all of our afflictions and challenges.  At the very least, He would immediately invite us forward to touch His sacred scars.  But 3 Nephi 11 suggests something different.  Before we can come unto Him and before He can heal us--even before He can really teach us--we must hear, understand, behold, comprehend, remember, and fall down in worship.  He cannot truly teach us nor heal the greatest wounds of our souls until we come unto Him and feel the power and depth of what He has done for us.  And we will not come unto Him and feel the power and depth of what He has done for us if we do not truly know Him and believe in Him.  We will not truly know Him and believe Him unless and until we have heard, recognized, and understood His voice.

And so we begin like the people of Nephi, spending time in His house, speaking of Christ and the prophets, and listening for His voice.  Having heard His voice, we seek for understanding and comprehension.  We accept the humble invitation of the Father to behold, to truly see and fix our gaze upon, His perfect Son.  And we accept the humble invitation of the Son to behold, to truly see and fix our gaze upon, His perfect sacrifice and His perfect example.  Having done these things, we will remember and come to a new understanding of the words and testimonies of the prophets.  And we will fall to our knees in humble adoration and heightened comprehension of who He is, and what that means for us.  In this humble state, He can lift us up, invite to feel of His sacrifice in greater depth, to be taught with greater clarity, and to be healed of our various afflictions.

That we may all so come.

Brett

Finding Joy

Just a short entry tonight.  I've realized that things are a bit busier on Sundays these days and so I don't always find time to write. This was an interesting conference weekend.  It was my first being married to Ashley and began with her being quite sick on Saturday, which definitely wasn't fun for her.  But all in all we had a good time together listening to the Prophets.

One of my favorite talks was President Russell M. Nelson's talk about "joy" and about how we can find joy in even the most difficult of life's circumstances.  He spoke about Lehi's great words that "men are that they might have joy" (2 Ne. 2:25) and then he talked about how the joy we experience is not dependent upon life's circumstances, but upon the direction of our focus.

His words reminded me of a sacred moment that I experienced nearly a year ago on December 20, 2015.  My Dad had just died the day before.  All of us were in absolute shock, as none of us had had any clue that there was anything wrong with Dad's heart.  I'm not even sure that Dad had any clue--though he did have a propensity for not telling us when he was having surgeries.  But that Saturday was an absolute blur.  To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure what happened that day other than the fact that Dad died, I didn't sleep, and many wonderful people came to show their love and their shock.  Rob and I stayed in Orem that night, not wanting to leave Mom alone and probably not wanting to go anywhere else for ourselves either.

The next morning, Mom needed to make a quick trip out to Pleasant Grove in connection with the funeral and so Rob drove her out there.  Mere seconds after they had left, I became aware that I was alone in the house for the first time since Dad had died and I could see the exact spot where I had seen him and learned that he had passed.  I began to hyperventilate and didn't want to be alone there.  I picked up the phone to call my sister to see if I could go over there rather than be alone in the house at that moment.  But just as I was about to push the call icon, I had a distinct feeling: "Spend some alone with your Dad."  Not only was I supposed to stay in the house alone for that hour, but I was supposed to go out to the area where I had seen him lay and think about him.  In all honesty that impression was counterintuitive to my mind, but I followed it.

Going out to the family room, I knelt down where Dad had last been and began to pray.  With tears streaming down my cheeks, I had a thought that I ought to look at some of the things that Dad might have seen in his last moments of mortality.  A couple of things in particular stood out to me.  One was a small sign that read simply "JOY" and the other was a small carving depicting the Last Supper and the Sacrament.  A lot of other thoughts went through my mind in those moments there as I thought of my Dad, but one of the most profound was that because of what the Sacrament meant, I could indeed have JOY.  Regardless of the pain I was feeling, there were and are answers in the gospel of Jesus Christ, answers that transcended, gave purpose to, and healed the pain of death.  I was still pained and heartbroken by my Dad's death.  I still hurt at his loss and miss him when I think of it today.  But in that sacred moment, I knew that the things of which I had taught and testified for years were all true and had a greater value and power than I had ever understood.  There really were and are answers.  There really was and is healing and comfort.

It was of this joy that President Nelson testified so powerfully today.  No matter the depths of our pain; no matter the size of our loss; there can be and is joy available to each one of us because of Jesus.  It is the ultimate message of hope in a troubled and at times discouraging world.

Brett

A New Season

At the PCC 1986 in some sort of 3 point stance.  Dad is in the blue shirt, I'm on the end.

Saturday begins another BYU football season.  I have to admit that the approach of this particular season is a bit emotional for me.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am as devoted a BYU fan as there is on the face of the earth, to the point that watching them play gives me anxiety.  But it's not worries about wins or losses or whatever that give me pause this year.

My love for BYU football grew out of and was always attached to my relationship with my Dad.  I remember watching the games with him on the rare Saturdays that he had off and then going to games with my Papa Haycock and Aunt Marilyn when Dad had to work.  I remember singing the fight song with Dad.  And I particularly remember watching some of the most important games with him:  The 1988 Freedom Bowl, the 1990 Miami game, the 1996 Cotton Bowl, and so forth.  In recent years, Rob and Dad and I went to many games together at Lavell Edward Stadium.  We cheered together.  Dad calmed me down when my fandom got away with me. Without fail, Dad would buy Rob and I a water and a hot dog, despite our efforts to take care of that for ourselves and for him.  We celebrated wins and commiserated losses.  And mostly we just enjoyed spending time together.

In short, BYU football was always about more than just football for me.  It was and is about the relationships connected with it, and especially my relationships with Dad and Rob.  With that in mind, I made a short trip to the cemetery yesterday and told Dad about the upcoming season.  I'm sure he's busy as there is a lot of work to do where he is, but I decided it wasn't inappropriate to invite him to come to the games with Rob and I this year, if he had time; and that he could bring Grandpa Dowdle and Papa Haycock with him too.  Even if they aren't able to make it, I know that both Rob and I will definitely be thinking of them while we are there.

Brett

Just Checking In

It's been awhile since I last wrote.  I guess that life has gotten pretty busy.  Since then Ashley and I were married, had the honeymoon, and have been working our way back into regular life together.  Regular life is always a bit of a challenge.  I don't know anyone who enjoys waking up at 5 am and then commuting to work an hour, but it's a blessing to have a job that I love and to be able to work for a wife that I adore.

The sealing at the Provo City Center Temple was absolutely wonderful.  My friend Buddy Richards performed the sealing and it was wonderful.  The reception the night before was a beautiful occasion and afterwards my sister Lynley and Ashley's sister Tevi took us up Provo Canyon, up a dirt road most of the way up South Fork where we found this beautiful spot to take pictures.

Ash and I spent a short but wonderful honeymoon in Park City.  On one of the days we decided to drive up the Mirror Lake Highway.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  It was a little different than the regular stuff to do in Park City (less expensive and fewer people), but it was just a beautiful drive and we had a great time!

All in all, things are wonderful.  For a previously single 35 year old man, marriage has its moments where it is an adjustment.  But as Sister Neill F. Marriott said recently, "Love is making space in your life for someone else."  Nothing could be more rewarding than enjoying the space that Ashley has filled in my life.

Brett

But the Greatest of These is Charity

Today is Father's Day (ok, I'm counting it because it's 11:18 pm the night before, but it's close enough).  It is also the six-month anniversary of my Dad's passing.  I wanted to write a short post for my Dad today.  But before I get to that, I wanted to mention one thing that happened this past week.  On Monday, my Mom hosted a bridal shower for my beautiful Ashley.  It was a beautiful occasion that brought together a lot of the wonderful women in my family.  I was honored to see how many of them had come to celebrate with my Ashley--most of them never having met her before.  And then when the time came for Ashley to open the gifts, both Ashley and I were absolutely overwhelmed by the generosity and love of these amazing women.

Since the shower, others have also generously sent us beautiful items for which we are very grateful.  I confess that the gifts are the thing about marriage that are the hardest for me to accept.  I love each of them, but often feel wholly unworthy of such incredible generosity.  I just wanted to take a minute to say thank you to each of you for the blessing that you are in my life.  Each of you has given me a gift of time, friendship, service, and especially love.  I'm reminded of Paul's phrase, "But the greatest of these is charity" (1 Corinthians 13:13).  It is this gift which each of you has given most readily, and for which I am likely most unworthy.  But please know how very grateful I am for your generous bestowals.

This gift is something that my Dad possessed in enormous quantities.  As I've reflected on my Dad in recent months, my admiration of him has grown immensely.  In many ways, I'm not sure I fully appreciated the enormity of my Dad's greatness while he was alive.  Sadly, this is so often the case with the great ones; it takes their passing for us to grasp just how great a man or woman had walked among us.  It was only at the end of the evening that the two disciples on the Emmaus Road grasped who had walked with them, asking "Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?" (Luke 24:32)  At the end of his life, Joseph Smith uttered that famous phrase, "You never knew my heart[;] no man knows my hist[ory]."  Because it is never flashy or self-aggrandizing, it often takes time for us to come to a recognition of true greatness. And my Dad was truly great.

I am convinced that above all else, the thing that made my Dad a great man was his ability to love.  Dad learned to love others in a way that many people never achieve.  While most people--like myself--want to love others upon our own terms and conditions, my Dad discovered how to love people on their terms and conditions; loving them in the way that they needed to be loved, rather than loving them in the way that was easiest for him to love.  This gave Dad the ability to reach people from multiple walks of life and to love them.

It is easy to love people that seem to offer us some sort of advantages in exchange for our love.  In other words, it is easy to bestow effusive praise and love on those that we think may be able to help us get places in this world.  But this kind of quid pro quo relationship is not love.  My Dad didn't think in terms of who could get him places in this world.  He thought about who he could reach out to, who he could bless, who he could build.  As a result, Dad placed little value in the titles that we hold so dear in this world.  Whether someone was a doctor, a superintendent, a principal, a secretary, a teacher, or a janitor wasn't what mattered to my Dad.  What mattered to him was that they were people with hopes, dreams, worries, concerns, and potential.  What mattered to him was that they were his friends.  And all of Dad's friends deserved his time, love, and effort.

My Dad was great because he resisted the temptation to let the titles before and the initials after a name define the man or woman, and whether they were worth his attention.  Dad was great because he saw the potential within people as well as their pains, struggles, and present status.  No matter where they were, he believed that they could become great and that he had an obligation to help them achieve that greatness.  Truly, there "abideth faith, hope, and charity; but the greatest of these is charity."

Brett

Sacrifice Brings Forth the Blessings of Heaven

This week's blog is a little disjointed, but we'll see where it goes.  I'm scheduled to speak in my ward on June 26 on the theme of sacrifice.  Being as it is one day before the anniversary of the martyrdom, naturally, I am going to spend at least a little bit of time talking about Joseph Smith, and his example of sacrifice.  So these are just a few ideas, more in terms of helping myself to formulate my thoughts than anything.  How did Joseph Smith exemplify the principle of sacrifice?

1) The Prophet was willing to sacrifice how others thought of him in order to obey the Lord.  Early on in his ministry, the Prophet had an experience where he transgressed a strict commandment of the Lord in order to please his friend; allowing Martin Harris to take the 116 pages of the Book of Mormon manuscript home to show his wife.  The experience was a difficult one.  The young Joseph Smith wanted to help his friend and financier who was being pressured to show that he wasn't wasting his time and money on a useless pursuit.  We all know how that story went.  The Prophet learned a hard lesson as the Lord chastised him, saying, "Behold, you have been entrusted with these things, but how strict were your commandments; and remember also the promises which were made to you, if you did not transgress them.  And behold, how oft you have transgressed the commandment and the laws of God, and have gone on in the persuasions of men.  For behold you should not have feared man more than God.  Although men set at naught the counsels of God, and despise his words--Yet you should have been faithful" (D&C 3:5-8).

Joseph Smith had to learn how to let go of his natural inclination to please those around him whenever that required that he disobey God.  Like the Prophet, each of us has to come to a point where we learn how to sacrifice our desires to be well thought of by our peers in order to follow the commandments of the Lord.

2) The Prophet was willing to sacrifice his own financial well being for the good of the Lord's kingdom.  A few months ago, I wrote about the financial difficulties that the Prophet experienced as a result of his dedication to the Lord's kingdom.  Time and time again, the Prophet put himself in financial peril in order to build the Lord's kingdom.  Furthermore, his generosity with his own funds extended to those around him.  When a number of Nauvoo residents began talking about the plight of a poor brother, whose farm had burned down the previous night, the Prophet was the first to "put his hand in his pocket" and remove five dollars, remarking, "'I feel sorry for this brother to the amount of five dollars; how much do you feel sorry?'" (Andrew Workman, "Recollections of the Prophet Joseph Smith," Juvenile Instructor, 15 October 1892, 27:641).

3) The Prophet sacrificed his life for the Kingdom.  Almost from the beginning of his ministry, The Lord made it clear to the Prophet that the world might "do unto you even as they have done unto me" (D&C 6:30).  He was told, "Be patient in afflictions, for thou shalt have many; but endure them" (D&C 24:8).  The history is clear on this matter: Joseph Smith and Mormonism were lightning rods for enemies and persecution.  Now, to be clear, we managed to bring many of our struggles upon ourselves.  The early Saints weren't perfect, and were, perhaps, not always as kind and loving and inclusive of their neighbors as they ought to have been, but the litany of Joseph Smith's struggles is more than anyone ever earns in this life.  To have your life threatened numerous times, to be arrested on multiple trumped up charges, to be taken away from home and family; and finally to be killed is more than I can imagine.  And yet his was a life lived in crescendo, with the finest teachings and greatest moments coming at the end, evidences of a lifetime of faith in God.

I've, of course, got a lot more to consider, but here is a start.

Brett

Be Still and Know that I am God

Things have gotten quite busy of late.  This past week I put in extra hours finishing a paper for publication, and then immediately had to begin working on another paper for a conference that I am presenting at in early June.  Neither of these papers have anything to do with my dissertation, that really big piece of writing that I still have hanging over my head.  Combined with a full work schedule and, of course, wedding plans, I've found myself quite stressed out of late.

Friday night, my mom and my dear Ashley bore the brunt of my stress, as I chose to stress out over how many invitations we would need to order.  Admittedly, it was not one of my finer moments, despite the patient and loving suggestions from Ash and my Mom.  It was one of those moments where I allowed things that were larger than the question of wedding invitations make me into an unreasonable person who was acting as someone much less than himself.

On Friday night and Saturday morning as I prayed for forgiveness, I also prayed for help to manage my stress.  Help came in thoughts of my wonderful Dad and a phrase that he frequently repeated in times of trial. In times of stress, Dad would often give me a blessing, and he would draw upon the words of the Lord: "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalms 46:10; D&C 101:16).

In such times, this counsel can seem counterproductive.  The problem usually seems to be that we don't have enough time or energy to do everything that needs to be accomplished.  And yet the Lord tells us to "Be still, and know that I am God."  We understand how His command "Peace, be still" is helpful when the sea is raging, but how does it help us when we are stressed? Perhaps we may wonder, "How will being stopping and being still help me when the problem is that I don't have enough time to do everything that is needed?"  And yet, a moment of stillness is exactly what is needed.

To be able to stop, take a deep breath, and say a prayer with faith that He is God will help us to stop working ourselves into a frenzy.  I suspect that I'm not the only one who gets more and more anxious as the responsibilities pile up, and in an effort to accomplish them all, I work myself into a frenzy.  Resultantly I manage to do less and accomplish less.  By stopping for a moment and calling upon the Lord in faith, we can return to our work with renewed faith and calmer hearts, accomplishing far more in such a state than is possible in a state of frenzied anxiety.

As I stopped for a small moment of prayer and faith, I returned to my work with an ability to accomplish more than I had been able to do earlier.  That is always the case.

Brett

Here's My Heart, O Take and Seal It

"Consolator" by Carl Bloch

This was an interesting week. On Monday, I learned that my longtime friend and mentor, Ronald W. Walker, had died after a long battle with cancer.  I had seen Ron just a few weeks ago and he had been anxious about plans for additional articles.  The two of us had planned to meet just a couple of days later to discuss a project that would assist his work.  But the day that we were supposed to meet, Ron wrote to me and informed me that he would have to reschedule, as his health had been bad since we had last met.  We never got to have that rescheduled meeting.

Ron's death was difficult for me for many reasons.  On the one hand, I had known just how bad his health had been for a long time now.  This past year, it was evident that the cancer was taking a serious toll and would eventually take his life.  And so I was happy to see my good friend released from pain and suffering.  But on the other hand, I was losing a man to whom I owe much of my history career.  More than that, I was losing a friend.  Coming as it has on the heels of my Dad's unexpected death, Ron's passing seemed all the more difficult.

On Friday, I attended Ron's funeral.  It was a beautiful occasion and fostered thoughts about Ron, but also a lot of thoughts about my Dad.  The music was most fitting.  Ron's grandchildren sung "Beautiful Savior," a hymn that had also been sung at my Dad's funeral.  His son sung Antonín Dvořák's beautiful hymn "Goin' Home."  And his children sung a lovely rendition of my long time favorite, "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing."

I first became acquainted with "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" as a young missionary in Memphis.  I was particularly struck by these words:

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be!

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here's my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.

I love this beautiful reminder of my own deep need for the Savior, and of His constant goodness to me.  I came to understand that I am indeed, "prone to wander" and "prone to leave the God I love," as are each of us.  Accordingly, my humble prayer became "Here's my heart, O take and seal it, Seal it for Thy courts above," hoping that the Lord, in His goodness, would help me to stay steady and to rise above my own natural imperfections.

The rendition that Ron's children sung at his funeral included the fifth verse, which I had not been aware of, but whose words struck me:

O that day when freed from sinning

I shall see Thy lovely face;

Clothed then in blood washed linen

How I'll sing Thy sovereign grace;

Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,

Take my ransomed soul away;

Send thine angels now to carry

Me to realms of endless day.

These beautiful words were a comfort to me as I pondered the loss of a good friend, and more particularly the loss of my Dad.  Both of them had been among the best of men.  Through their good lives, they had prepared to meet the Lord, and had been ushered through the veil by angels whose faces they knew and immediately recognized.

There is no more important truth for us to grasp, than the truth of the Savior's victory over death.  Sooner or later, each one of us will face a loss, the extent of which will be so great, that it would be impossible for us to deal with it were it not for the Savior.  But because of the Savior's suffering, death, and resurrection, we are blessed with an assurance of future blessings and future reunions with those whose faces we most desire to see.  For this I am eternally grateful.

Brett

A Tower of Strength

My entries have become quite short of late, as time comes at a premium on Sundays, but I had to write a note today for Mother's Day.

I don't have the words to express just how blessed I am by my angel mother!  With my Dad, she has been my greatest supporter and encourager throughout my life and has provided me with a constant example of goodness, grace, and kindness.  In times when I have been less than I ought to have been, it has been the image of my Mother that impelled me to correct my ways and to strive for greater righteousness.  In the moments when I have been weighed down with grief, she has lifted me up.

Early in the morning of December 19, 2016, well before the sun came up, I arrived at my parents' home in Orem to learn that my Dad had unexpectedly passed away.  In those moments of complete shock and grief, my Mom stood resolute and faithful.  Setting aside her own grief and pain, she embraced each of us children, reassured us of the truthfulness of the gospel, and did all within her power to serve and lift us.  All my life I have known that my Mom is a woman of tremendous strength, but in those first days after Dad passed, I saw just how strong she really is.  Over the years Rheumatoid Arthritis has gnarled her hands and fingers, destroyed her knees and elbows, kept her awake at night, and inflicted more pain than I can possibly imagine.  But while her arthritic fingers may not extend as straight as they once did, and while her arthritic back may not allow her to stand as tall, my Mother is just like her father, whose mission president once described him as "a tower of strength."

Thank you Mom for the strength and power you have always demonstrated.  I hope that I have learned well these lessons, so that I might likewise stand strong and tall through all the storms and afflictions of life, passing on your legacy of faith to the next generation!

Brett

Looking for Addresses

I'm sorry that I really haven't had a chance to write much of late.  Sundays tend to be quite busy at the moment.  But Ashley and I are hoping to get addresses from those we love for our wedding invitations.  If you would like an invitation, please follow this link and submit your address.  Even if you can't make it in July, we would love to send you an invitation!

Brett

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/18sSP5pdZ_mQaE9V2gBuCGYA4624FY4LRC1G52aGeuvg/edit?usp=forms_home&ths=true

Engagement Photos

This is just a short post to put up a couple of the engagement photos that my sister took of Ashley and me a couple of weeks ago.  Lynley did such a beautiful job with these pictures. Each one reminds me of just how blessed I am to have Ashley in my life, not only because of how beautiful she is, but because of how good she is.  Ashley is the kind of person that makes everyone around her smile because she lifts them through love.  She is one of the most Christlike individuals I've ever met, and is an absolute blessing in my life!  I look up to her and hope to one day be as good as she is!

Brett

We Must Live According to the Precepts of Our Holy Religion

George Q. Cannon (1827-1901)

The past little while I've realized that engaged life is quite busy, particularly when you add in Ashley's college class, a dissertation, two full time jobs, Church callings, etc. But being with Ashley is also the best experience I've ever had and I'm so grateful to be with her!  She builds me up each day and makes life wonderful with her smile and her constant positivity.  I am truly blessed!

Recently I've been spending quite a bit of time with the writings of George Q. Cannon.  For those who are unfamiliar with him, here's a short introduction.  George Q. Cannon was a native of Liverpool England came into the Church in 1840, when his uncle, John Taylor, preached the gospel to the Cannon family in England.  George Q. and his family emigrated to Nauvoo in 1842 and he became John Taylor's apprentice on The Times and Seasons and The Nauvoo Neighbor.  In later years, he printed another newspaper known as the Western Standard and then a periodical titled The Juvenile Instructor. He opened up the Church's first mission to Hawaii as a young elder.  While in that position, he and brother Jonathan Napela translated the Book of Mormon into Hawaiian and printed it. Then in 1860, he was called to be an apostle.  In 1872, he was elected to be Utah's territorial delegate to Congress, a position he held until 1882.  In 1873, Brigham Young called him to be an additional counselor in the First Presidency, and then in 1880 John Taylor called him to be his first counselor in the First Presidency, a calling that he would hold until his death in 1901.  To demonstrate his significance as a leader, in 1887, the government issued a wanted poster for Presidents Taylor and Cannon.  President Cannon had the higher bounty on his head.

Simply put, George Q. Cannon was one of the most influential leaders of the Lord's kingdom.  But President Cannon's significance was not due to the callings he held, or the newspapers he printed, or his time as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.  George Q. Cannon's greatness lay in his faith and in his understanding of the gospel.

In December 1863, President Cannon was serving as the President of the European Mission.  On December 31, he held a conference with his elders and gave a beautiful discourse.  I just wanted to share a few of his comments from that discourse, which I found instructive as I read them this week.

"The price of such a [Celestial] glory is great, for the reward is great, and much is required at our hands before we can obtain it.  We must lay everything upon the altar, subdue every evil desire, and the propensities common to our nature, before we can dwell in the exalted presence of God.  When I see Elders disposed to sacrifice everything they possess, even to themselves, and place all upon the altar, my heart warms toward them and I love such men.  My brethren, I know there is nothing that I hold dear upon this earth that I should consider of greater importance than the progress of God's work.

". . . While we are laboring in this mission I trust we will do so contentedly and faithfully, and that the faith & desires we now have and the good resolves we may form, will live and abide with us, and be so indelibly impressed upon our minds that we will never cease to entertain them while we have existence on the earth.  All the instructions we may hear, and every new resolution of our minds that we may make while we are here assembled, we will be, I hope, able to put into practice to the fullest extent, not alone while we are upon these missions, but throughout our lives.  Let us from this period form determinations that we will discharge those responsibilities which rest upon us and labor for God while we live.  Let us retain in our remembrance, when we return to Zion, the precious blessings we have received while we have been fulfilling our Missions, & the happy times we have had in consequence; and, instead of being a load upon the shoulders of brother Brigham [Young], brother Heber [C. Kimball], brother Daniel [H. Wells] or the Twelve, let us assist them and labor with the same purpose in view.  Our missions are not ended when we return home, but we are constantly--so long as we are connected with the Church of God and bear the Priesthood we at present are called to--missionaries engaged in the development of his purposes.  Let every Elder be the same Elder when he returns to Zion that he is while laboring in these lands; and if there should be any change in him, let it be for the better, that he may be a man of God in the widest sense of the term, & be an example for them who surround to profitably imitate.  To prosper and have the blessing of God we must live according to the precepts of our holy religion and the whisperings of the Spirit, whether at home or abroad" (George Q. Cannon, journal, 31 December 1863).

This is good counsel for all of us.  We must seek to continue growing, to continue improving, to enjoy the blessings of the Lord's Spirit.

Brett

O Death, Where is Thy Sting? O Grave, Where is thy Victory?

Today is a beautiful Easter day!  Although this holiday has always meant a great deal to me, it means more today than it ever has before.

As most all of you know, I am a devoted sports fan.  In fact, yesterday I managed to spend several hours watching what was essentially a BYU football practice for the simple fact that I love BYU football.  I love seeing my team win.  I hate seeing my team lose.  When they win, I am elated and talk about it for a long time.  When they lose, sometimes I want to disappear because of the frustration.  I have lost my voice numerous times in cheering during and after victories. Today, I celebrate the greatest and most complete victory this world has ever known, in the most important contest this world has ever witnessed.

Because the Savior's victory was so absolutely complete that it was assured before the world was, sometimes we forget just how much was at stake.  Lehi declared that "all mankind were in a lost and in a fallen state, and ever would be save they should rely on this Redeemer" (1 Nephi 10:6). Amulek explained that unless an atonement were made, "all mankind must unavoidably perish" (Alma 34:9).  And Jacob gave the most detailed description of our fate, explaining that had it not been for the atonement, "this corruption [meaning our mortal bodies] could not put on incorruption [immortal bodies].  Wherefore, the first judgment which came upon man must needs have remained to an endless duration.  And if so, this flesh must have laid down to rot and to crumble to its mother earth, to rise no more. . . . For behold, if the flesh should rise no more our sports must become subject to that angel who feel from before the presence of the Eternal God, and became the devil to rise no more.  And our spirits must have become like unto him, and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presence of our God, and to remain with the father of lies, in misery like unto himself" (2 Nephi 9:7-9).

In short, everything was at stake.  It wasn't just a little disappointment that was on the line, where perhaps we didn't get to go home, but we could remain as good people.  No, our very ability to progress and to develop all of the virtues that make this life beautiful was on the line.  The Savior spoke an eternal truth when he declared, "for without me ye can do nothing" (John 15:5).

But on that first glorious Easter morning, He burst the bands of death forever and for all "men, women, and children who belong to the family of Adam" that "the resurrection might pass upon all men, [women, and children]" (2 Nephi 9:21-22).  I can only imagine how we shouted that morning!  I can only imagine how glorious that greatest of all victories felt as we looked on in faith and wonder when the sinless Son of God took up His perfect body with His perfect wounds!  What an honor it must have been for two of our fellow children of God to declare those perfect words, "He is not here; for he is risen, as he said" (Matthew 28:6)! It was the victory of victories; the championship of championships!

With so very much having been won, we celebrate again today.  With Paul, we ask in humble adoration, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory. . . . But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ?" (1 Corinthians 15:55, 57)

Today I celebrate the assurance that because our Savior was victorious over death, so too will we be, and so too will be each of our loved ones, and so too will be each member of the divine household of God.  At some future date, my beloved Dad will rise again.  In fact, I expect to take a picture similar to this one above.  We took that picture in May 2014 as we were driving home from Texas for the last time.  In previous years, we had made that drive for me to come home to visit for the summer, knowing that we would be going the opposite direction the following August.  In May 2014 we made the drive home with plans for me to stay.  We took this picture right before we drove across the Colorado border into Utah.  I was home.  Someday I will be home again, and my Dad will be there to greet me and make the journey together with me and with the rest of our family.  And that day will be glorious, made possible because the Perfect Son of a Perfect God "hat borne [my] griefs, and carried [my] sorrows. . . . He was wounded for [my] transgressions, he was bruised for [my] iniquities: [and] the chastisement of [my] peace was upon him; and with his stripes [I am] healed" (Isaiah 53:4-5).  It will be possible because that first Easter, "the Son of Righteousness [arose] with healing in his wings" (3 Nephi 25:2; Malachi 4:2).

And this is truly a victory for which we can and will rise and shout to all eternity.

Brett

Let us Choose to Be Humble

This has been an interesting week.  On Monday, we celebrated my Dad's 72nd birthday.  It was his first birthday on the other side of the veil.  We all hope that it was a wonderful day for him and we miss him very much.  That day was a reminder that there will, of necessity, be some sobering times when his absence is more apparent than usual.  And yet we all know that he is nearby.  Speaking to a congregation in June 1856, President Brigham Young asked, "When you lay down this tabernacle, where are you going?" and then answered "Into the spirit world."  He then asked, "Where is the spirit world?" and answered, "It is right here." (Brigham Young, Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, 2:1131).  And so we know that my Dad is close by and we are grateful for those sacred moments when we are blessed to brush up against the veil and feel his presence nearby us.

The following day I learned that I hadn't gotten a job that I had applied for.  The news was delivered in a kind and compassionate manner and the person who received it is very well qualified, but it was still difficult to hear.  Of course whenever you apply for a job, there is the chance that you might not get it.  Despite this understanding, this experience can bring with it a measure of personal shame and embarrassment.  And it did for me.  I forced a smile for a couple of days, but it was hard.  But hard as this was, the Lord showed great care for me.  My beautiful fiancé assured me of her love and that she was proud of me and that things would work out.  My Mom and siblings each did the same.  And throughout the remainder of that week, I was blessed to have good friends and colleagues offer words of comfort and encouragement at work.  Through each of these words of encouragement, my feelings of failure dissipated and my hope in the future grew.

The challenging experiences of earlier this week were a wonderful reminder to me of God's love.  Sometimes we wonder how could show his love to us through hard experiences.  But the older I've gotten, the more I've realized that often these experiences are some of the most profound manifestations of God's love.  They are reminders of God's love because they help us to be humble and to remember just how much we need to turn to the Lord.  And then as we come to Him, we are able to experience the full majesty of His divine work in our lives.

In each of life's experiences, we have a choice as to how we will respond.  Writing about the end of a long period of Nephite wars, Mormon wrote, "But behold, because of the exceedingly great length of the war between the Nephites and the Laminates many had become hardened, because of the exceedingly great length of the war; and many were softened because of their afflictions, insomuch that they did humble themselves before God, even in the depth of humility" (Alma 62:41).  These people had experienced exactly the same experiences, but where some were led to humility, repentance, and divine healing, others hardened their hearts in pride and found their lives made more difficult.  If we are humble, life's setbacks can and will become the "training ground for better and happier days."

As President Ezra Taft Benson admonished, "Let us choose to be humble. . . . We can choose to humble ourselves by loving God, submitting our will to His, and putting Him first in our lives.  Let us choose to be humble.  We can do it.  I know we can" (Ezra Taft Benson, Beware of Pride)

No matter what challenges life holds for us, let us choose to be humble, and in our humility may we then find the great power of God's love for us.

Brett

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?

This has been a wonderful week!  On Monday afternoon, I asked Ashley A. Camargo to marry me and she said yes!  It would be impossible for me to describe just how much this beautiful woman has and does mean to me.  And I can only glimpse the smallest portion of what she will mean to me for the rest of my life and for all eternity.  But she is a kind and tender and wonderful woman whose goodness inspires me each day of my life and urges me to become better!

As Shakespeare once wrote, for me she is "more lovely and more temperate" than even the warmest and brightest summer day.  And whereas "summer's lease hath all too short a date" her "eternal summer shall not fade" (Sonnet 18).  And as Shakespeare's Henry V said of Katherine, I expect that as I spend more time with Ashley, she will "wear me, better and better."

As I contemplated my proposal, I really struggled to find the proper place.  I wanted it to be at a place that would be special and that would be something that was connected to our relationship.  For our second date, Ashley and I had gone up to Snowbird where we had ridden the Alpine Slide, so I thought that perhaps that would be the most romantic place that we could go.  But then I remembered that the Granite Quarry where the Saints had gotten the stone for the Salt Lake Temple was right at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon--where Snowbird is.  Suddenly, I had found "the right place."

I told Ashley that we were going to go to Snowbird and recreate our second date, but then stopped off at the Quarry site and told her that I wanted to show her something.  We walked down the path to where there are some large blocks of granite and I started telling her some of the history of the site.  I told her that Brigham had wanted to build the temple out of granite because he wanted it to last through the millennium and granite is big and strong and lasts forever.  I then told her that this was the kind of marriage that I wanted us to have, one that would be big, strong, and last forever, with the temple and its covenants at its core.  And then I knelt down and proposed to her in the snow.  (I was grateful to Rob for role playing the situation the night before.  He made a fantastic Ashley).

After that we went up to Snowbird and took the tram to the top of the mountain, which is where we took the picture shown above.  We visited Ashley's friend Hannah and her beautiful little boy Alvin and then we went to Sandy's amazing restaurant "Tuscany."  We capped off a perfect day by video chatting with Ashley's parents and grandparents and visiting my Mom.

It's been a wonderful week and I'm excited for a lifetime and an eternity of love and happiness with Ashley!

Brett

When One Door Closes Another Opens

It's been a busy week!  I spent most of the week preparing a presentation for a job interview.  Then on Wednesday I had an all-day job interview (results pending).  Work has been extra busy, but it's a good busy, as I find myself getting to spend time on more and more time on documents that are new and exciting.  I genuinely love what I do.  Getting up at 5:15 every morning isn't easy for me, but I find that I absolutely love each day that I get to spend at work.

Perhaps best of all, most days I get to spend time with the beautiful Ashley Camargo.  I find myself smiling and happy whenever I'm around her--except for the times when I'm preoccupied with other concerns or am nervous and she lovingly puts up with me!  She loves the Lord and she is constantly helping me to become a better person.  So it is a true blessing to be with her!

About a year ago I wrote a post about the opening and closing of doors, where I drew upon President Howard W. Hunter's fantastic talk "The Opening and Closing of Doors".  At the time, I was beginning to see the possibilities of a few doors opening after a year that had seemed to be filled with nothing but closed doors and closed opportunities.  I reflected on a phrase in President Hunter's talk where he said, "Doors close regularly in our lives, and some of those closings cause genuine pain and heartache.  But I do believe that where one such door closes, another opens (and perhaps more than one), with hope and blessings in other areas of our lives that we might not have discovered otherwise."

Looking back, not all of the doors that I was referring to actually proved to be ajar or even unlocked.  And yet, at the time, it was enough just for me to believe in the possibility of other open doors.  Nearly a year later, as I survey the past several months, I can see just how true President Hunter's promise was.  There were indeed open doors, but they were a little further down the hallway.  I just had to keep believing, keep walking, and keep trying.

I trust that the future will yield new closed doors and that those closings will cause some "genuine pain and heartache."  But along with the surety of that fact, I now know with a surety that along with those closed doors, the future will also offer additional corridors, unexpected blessings of incalculable worth, and opportunities that far exceed my own plans and designs.  All I must do is keep believing, keep walking, and keep trying.  Doors will open for me as I do these things.  And doors will open for you as you do these things.

Brett

Finding Healing

Happy Valentine's Day all!  This past week, my cousin Monica sent an email to my family explaining that she would be teaching her young women's class about dealing with the challenge of death this Sunday.  She asked if we could provide her with any insights about how we had dealt with my Dad's sudden death, and how we had found comfort through the gospel.  I thought I would post my response as my post today, some of which I've likely said before.

For me personally, one of the keys to finding comfort after Dad's death went back to some earlier experiences that I had had.  Over the span of my adult life, I have had a few experiences that caused me to turn to the Lord in search of healing.  Struggles getting married, struggles finding employment, the stress of school, etc., all provided me with opportunities to seek for His healing touch in my life.

In trying to understand these experiences, I have spent a lot of time trying to heal.  I have spent several hours meeting with my bishops.  Additionally, I spent a lot of time in the scriptures and in the temple.  And finally, I became very, very engaged in my callings in the ward.  I had been doing all of these things before this happened (though my temple attendance hadn't been as consistent as it should have been), but I'm not sure that my heart was fully there.

Little by little, He completely healed me in these experiences.  More than that, He made me happier than I had ever been before.  In actuality, I was better off because of these experiences than I had ever been before.  I could have given all of the right answers to the questions and I really believe that I had a close relationship with the Savior, but it wasn't close enough.  These experiences made me cultivate that relationship with Him to the point that my testimony changed.  It was no longer just an idea that I knew and had felt confirmation of, I had experienced what it meant to be healed.  It turned out to be one of the greatest things that ever happened to me because it helped me to come unto Christ.


Flash forward to December 19, 2015.  Dad's death was the most shocking and unexpected thing I have ever experienced.  When Rob and I rushed to the house at 2 am, we thought that he had fallen or something and we were rushing to give him a blessing.  We expected to find an ambulance there or to find that Dad had been taken to the hospital.  But when we got there, there was only a police car and the door to the house was open.  Mom and Jeni were sitting on the couch crying and I could see Dad with a blanket over him.  None of it registered and I even asked the police officer what was wrong with him and what we could do, at which point he explained to me that Dad had passed.  I literally had not been able to piece together what had happened (which is essentially my job) even though it should have been so obvious.  It was unthinkable.  


It hurt and continues to hurt.  In one instant, so many things that I had always expected changed.  Dad was not going to physically be present to see me get married; he was not going to get to hold the children I will have; he wasn't going to be there in person to see me receive my doctorate; and on, and on, and on.  All of those things hurt then and are occasionally hurt me now.  Just the other day when I scheduled the Temple, for a moment it stung so deeply.


But, during the previous year, I had learned how perfectly and completely the Savior heals wounds and rectifies life's losses.  Because I had already experienced His healing touch in that powerful way, I knew that I would experience it again.  I knew that if my Dad couldn't be mortally present as a witness at my sealing, that he could be there as one of the onlooking angels.  I had learned that the Lord has a purpose in everything that He does, including and perhaps especially in asking us to undergo the hardest experiences of our lives.  And I knew as the Prophet Joseph had said, "All your losses will be made up to you in the resurrection provided you hold out faithful to the end.  By the vision of the Almighty, I have seen it!"  I knew that somehow the Lord would make this up to me and my family because He's done it before.  I knew that comfort would only be as far away as a heartfelt prayer, a verse of scripture, a trip to the temple, or an act of selfless service.  And not even 2 months after that difficult day, I find myself smiling and I find that the Lord has indeed sent many great compensating blessings in the midst of my grief.  And I'm grateful.


So I guess in response to the question of how do we prepare? We gracefully and even gratefully accept the tragedies in our lives and utilize those experiences the way that the Lord intends us to utilize them: by allowing them to bring us to Him so that we can experience His atonement.  We prepare by learning to trust Him and by learning to let Him heal us from all of our afflictions.  We prepare by allowing the atonement to become real in our lives.

Brett

There is Beauty All Around

Ashley and me on the beach at Torrey Pines State Park

This week has been wonderful.  On Friday, Ashley and I flew down to San Diego to spend the weekend with her parents.  We've had a wonderful time seeing beaches, eating street tacos, and spending time with her parents.  The last time I had been in San Diego was 1990 for the Holiday Bowl with Rob and my cousin Becky and Aunt Marilyn.  So far as I can tell, Ty Detmer hasn't suffered two separated shoulders and BYU hasn't lost 62-14 this time, so it's been kinder to BYU football.

Upon arrival, I had a few realizations.  I realized that I had not seen any ocean since I saw the Atlantic Ocean from the window of my plane flying into New York City in 2009.  I had not seen the Pacific Ocean since returning from a family trip to Hawaii in 1997.  And I had not visited an ocean beach since that same trip, Waikiki being the last one I had been to.  Ashley and I laughed about this a little as we rode to her parents' home.  But it was only when we visited Black's beach in La Jolla later that afternoon that I realized just how much I had missed out on in all those years.  The distinct smell of oceanic waters, the constant tranquility and beauty of waves crashing on the shore, and the feel of sand under your feet.  All of these are such distinctive and wonderful feelings that simply can't be replicated anywhere else.

By nature I'm a bit of a home body.  As a historian there are dozens of places that I would love to visit, but by nature I get a little anxious being away from home.  This has been true of me for as long as I can remember.  The key has always been getting me out the door and onto the new destination, after which I begin to find the beautiful scenes and the wonderful people, and I start to feel at ease--so much so, that it becomes difficult for me to leave.  Some places have taken longer to grow on me than others, but I've never been in a place that I didn't grow to love if I had enough time.  (This of course excludes the Cincinnati airport, where I spent several miserable and anxious hours waiting to get on a plane in May 1999).

Perhaps it is good for us to remember the opening words to the hymn "Love at Home," for indeed "There is beauty all around."  Work and school and church and other duties are all vital and must be attended to.  But from time to time, I believe that God wants us to take a short break and enjoy the beauties of the world He has created for us; be those oceans, mountains, plains, etc.

Furthermore, while being at home is important and it is a blessing to want to be home, sometimes we need to go to different places.  In addition to adding variety and beauty to our lives, going to different places allows us to experience the beauty of coming home and finding that it is even more beautiful and wonderful than we had realized.

I'm grateful for the beauties of this earth and for the opportunities the Lord provides us to see it.

Brett

"This Was Their Finest Hour"

This is just a short post after a day filled with meetings. This past week I was reading in Alma 53 and decided to look up some words that I understood contextually but not exactly.  I've found that I often don't know the precise meaning of words and when I look them up, my understanding of the text grows.  So I pulled up Webster's 1828 dictionary online and proceeded to look up the words valiant, soberness, and stripling.  I was particularly impressed with the definition of the word stripling.  "Stripling, noun [from strip, stripe; primarily a tall slender youth, one that shoots up suddenly.]  A youth in the state of adolescence or just passing from boyhood to manhood; a lad."  The phrase that particularly stood out to me was "one that shoots up suddenly."

In the context of Alma 53, it seemed incredibly illuminating.  The context of the story is, of course, that the sons of the people of Ammon offered to fight in the place of their fathers when Helaman asked their fathers not to break their covenants that they had made.  Hearkening to the call of the prophet, those noble fathers stepped away from their desires to defend their nation with the sword in order to be obedient to the covenants that they had made long ago.  But into their place stepped their young sons who had not ever made a covenant not to fight.  Where their fathers had covenanted that they would not take up their swords--even to the laying down of their lives--their sons covenanted that they would "fight for the liberty of the Nephites" even if it was "unto the laying down of their lives" (Alma 53:17).  And so Mormon referred to them as "stripling soldiers."

It is clear that these boys were basically still adolescents.  They were not trained soldiers.  But the term stripling refers not only to their youth, but also to the fact that they had suddenly shot up to manhood.  In the hour of need, they had risen up and had become the men that their families and their nation needed them to be.  And they had done so by making covenants.  When these boys joined the army, it was not in search of adventure, nor was it with images of glory.  These boys joined the army likely expecting that just as some of the original Anti-Nephi-Lehites had needed to lay down their lives for their covenants, even so some of these boys would lay down their lives for this covenant.  War, for them, was no adventurous thrill.  They understood, as General William Tecumseh Sherman aptly stated, that "all war is hell."  They shot up suddenly, not only in terms of added responsibilities, but also in terms of wisdom, understanding, faith, and consecration beyond their years.

Each of us had moments in our lives when we need to shoot up suddenly, to rise up to the challenges placed before us as did these boys.  When these challenges come, they must and can be met if we will place our faith in the Savior and if we will devote ourselves to the covenants that we have made with Him.  With Sir Winston Churchill, "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if [our families and memories] last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'"

Brett

In Him All Things Hold Together

Happy Sunday!  Today's Sunday brings a lot of snow, several meetings, an opportunity to see my sister Stephanie again, and an opportunity to teach. Due to an unexpected illness, I got to teach Sunday School today.  In all honesty, there are few things that make me happier than to hear that I will need to fill in for a Sunday School teacher who wasn't able to be there.  I don't get to teach very often these days, so any opportunity to teach is a welcome blessing! Today's lesson was on 1 Nephi 8-11, 15.

This is the perfect lesson to teach when you haven't had any notice or time to prepare earlier in the week.  You can't possibly mess Lehi's dream up.  Everyone knows the dream and everyone has insights.  So things went well despite my lack of preparation.

As I was teaching, I had a thought that I had never had about Lehi's dream.  It grew out of years worth of pondering what it was that distinguished the two groups who managed to arrive at the tree.  Of course the first group that arrived at the tree ended up leaving as they looked around and heard the mocking emanating from the Great and Spacious Building.  The second group, on the other hand, paid no attention to the mockers and remained faithfully at the tree.

Years ago it occurred to me that Lehi was an example of what those who remained faithfully at the tree had done after they partook of the fruit.  Whereas those who left began to "cast their eyes about as if they were ashamed" (1 Nephi 8:25) Lehi had "cast [his] eyes around about, that perhaps [he] might discover [his] family" (1 Nephi 8:13).  In other words, both groups began to look around after they had partaken of the fruit.  But while one group looked for validation from the world, the other group looked for others they could bring to the Tree (who in this dream is symbolic of the Savior); and they looked specifically for family.  And so it began to occur to me that the thing that would make the difference was what you are looking for after arriving at the Tree.

But as I taught my lesson today, that thought went a step further.  If the Tree is symbolic of the Savior--the embodiment of the perfect love of our perfect Father--then the fruit is symbolic of the atonement that He wrought, both the tree and the fruit being the love of God.  But unlike an apple or a mango or a pear, the atonement can never be fully enjoyed by a lone individual.  By it's very nature, the atonement is meant to bring disparate people to one.  Of course it brings us to one with God, reconciling us to heaven.  But the atonement also brings us to one with each other, and most powerfully within the family unit.  It is the power of the atonement that activates and validates the sealing keys that bind families forever.  It is the atonement that makes eternal marriages, eternal families, and eternal friendships "coupled with eternal glory" (D&C 130:2) an actual possibility.  In the words of Paul to the Colossians, "all things in him hold together" (Colossians 1:17, Greek Translation), or as the NIV renders the phrase, "in Him all things hold together" (NIV Colossians 1:17).  Foremost among those things that hold together in Christ, are the relationships we cherish and seek to make eternal.

With these thoughts of eternal marriages, eternal families, and eternal friendships in mind, it struck me that it is perfectly understandable why those like Lehi remained at the Tree while others left in search of validation from the world.  When Lehi and the faithful partook of the fruit and Christ's atonement, they did so with a view towards using it to becoming one, not only with God and Christ, but also to become one with those they loved.  Accordingly, they immediately went in search of their loved ones whom they might bring to the tree.  Those who left disenchanted, however, partook of the fruit and then sat around waiting for it to make them happy alone, never realizing that our very doctrine of salvation requires us to be bound to others by Christ.  Our very doctrine of salvation requires relationships.  As such, we must seek for others to bring to Him, "for their salvation is necessary and essential to our salvation. . . that they without us cannot be made perfect--neither can we without [them] be made perfect" (D&C 128:15).  There is no such thing as being exalted alone.

How do we remain at the Tree?  How do we remain at the feet of Christ?  We bring others with us.  We search them out.  We love them.  And we invite them to partake of the fruit of at-one-ment with us, that in Christ, "all things [may] hold together," and do so eternally.

Brett