Sustaining our Leaders-- ch. 18 Teachings of Lorenzo Snow

There is a lot of talk lately it seems maybe because conference is coming up on following the prophet and sustaining our leaders. I believe that Pres. Monson is the Lord's prophet, I believe in the priesthood and that the LDS church is the Lord's restored church. However, I think we as members sometimes take these truths a little too far in assuming that when The Lord calls mortal men to do church tasks that they will or almost cannot do any wrong or any harm because they are chosen and called, even to the point that we think questioning actions or decisions is wrong or unrighteous. I found this lesson in the current RS manual to be quite refreshing in this regard. The chapter talks about the duties of those who are called to positions of authority over others in the church and how they should act. I also thought there was a quote in there on how if you know that a leader is not doing their duty that you have a duty not to sustain them and should take the matter up with a higher authority, but I can't find it right now. I will keep looking, and maybe that's the article or talk I was thinking of more. I think we do have a duty to question and find truths for ourselves not just blindly follow people even if they are called of God, we need to know that what they are telling us is indeed the Lord's will for ourselves, and I believe The Lord will let us know that it is if we are sincere. But here is the link for this chapter anyway. https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-of-presidents-of-the-church-lorenzo-snow/chapter-18-church-leadership-and-selfless-service?lang=eng

Competition vs. Cooperation-- Being One

I have actually started to enjoy Relief Society. I switch off teaching music to the Primary kids and taking the week off. During the long winter when kids were sick, my husband and I switched off going and my turn going was always in primary. Now we have 1 o clock church with 3 yr. old twins in nursery and a 1 yr. old baby, and my husband is still recovering from working for the church, and he is much happier the rest of the week when he doesn't attend more than sacrament meeting so it works out for us to all go to sacrament meeting and then he takes the 3 little guys home. So I have had the opportunity to go to Relief Society when it's not my turn to lead the music in primary and I am baby free so I can stay for the whole lesson. I've been surprised at how good the lessons have been even with people I don't particularly like, they have given good lessons and the Spirit has been there. It has been years since I have enjoyed Relief Society. It is a welcome change. It has also given me an opportunity to think about some things and even to share a comment in class, but I have so much more to say and think about, I'll share it here or at least the main idea so I don't forget. So the lesson today was on being one, one in the gospel and one in Relief Society. This particular teacher handled an issue I had with her YW activity very poorly. Instead of reaching out to me to explain any misunderstanding on my part or trying to understand my concern, she replied to my email and basically told me that I misunderstood the activity and that I should not complain about anything. So I was not excited to be there, but she is a talented teacher and she had a lot of discussion questions and some good quotes and it ended up being very interesting. So she started off asking what being one means and there were some good comments about loving each other and how charity is the bottom line, and then the discussion somehow lead to how she is a perfectionist and when she was on her missin her mission president sat her down and told her that she was going to have a very hard life if she couldn't be happy bless things were perfect and if she was always second guessing herself an beating herself up for not doing better. So she wanted everyone in the room to know that they are good enough and they are trying hard enough. One sister mentioned how she didn't have the perfectionist problem until she joined the church at age 20, but that she has learned that we just have to be clean and trying, not actually perfect and that the atonement works. Everybody laughed at the perfectionist comment because there's a lot of truth to it-- recently I have seen memes and links to articles about women in the church being good enough. And there were other comments and such and then she had us read a quote by Elder Uchtdorf on how we are all different and that's good, that God didn't create us all the same, etc. and then she told a story about a guy who went around to schools teaching tolerance when she worked at a troubled teen school. The guy legally changed his name to the scary guy had tattoos all over his body and then showed the kids how nice he actually was and that we shouldn't judge. Then she went on on how we shouldn't judge others if they have a tattoo or whatever because God loves them just as much as he loves us. I thought it was interesting that she referred to tattooed people as them. Anyway, I didn't need any prompting to raise my hand this time. Because this whole concept of being one in the gospel and helping and loving each other in the church has been a huge let down for me. I've analyzed it a lot and I've worked through a lot of feelings and reset my expectations. It still makes me sad, but I am no longer devastated by it, I look at my experiences as learning and growth opportunities. I feel like I understand much better and I won't get stuck that way again. I am confidant. I have done my part to understand these bad behaviors and I can see that it's not my fault that I have been minimized and treated badly in 2 different wards by those who should have been my friends and brothers and sisters. So I made the point that sometimes it's easy to love those who are very different and have made obviously poor choices. It is a lot harder to love those who are very similar to us. I pointed out how in our ward we are all about the same and how it's really awful when we compete with each other instead of cooperate with each other and be happy for each other. Since we are so similar we have to find made up ways that we are better than someone else and then put those people down, And then I ended by saying how ridiculous and stupid it is that we do that. I am so tired of these made up competitions and games people play and how subtley rude they are to each other. Then there ends up being all these women who feel lonely and like they aren't good enough to be a president of any organization or to teach a lesson or do anything else. And the truth is any person in that room could have taught that lesson just fine. Any person in that room could be the Relief Society President or Young Women's President or Primary President. The leaders need to treat every person in that ward as an equal or greater peer to them. When the leaders use their calling for self aggrandizement everyone suffers including them. It seemed to me that when I was talking everyone liked my comment and agreed with me, because it's so clear and most the people in that room are not in charge of anything so they have had to learn to cope and find God on their own without any validation of a high church calling. I was especially glad that the stake RS Pres who is in our ward commented right after about how much harder it is to get along with people who are similar to you, so that made me happy and gave me some validation. So there you go.... Be nice to people, don't think that you are better than others because you or your husband have a high calling. Callings only mean something if you are humble and serve and do what God would have you do.

Happy- the Documentary

I recently watched the documentary, Happy, on Netflix. I really really liked it. It showed a wide range of people and cultures and things that made people happy. It started out with things like physical activity, counting your blessings and good relationships and support. It moved on to talk about how many Japanese men literally work themselves to death, then showed a Danish women who lived in a shred type of housing unit, and then a man teaching kindness in a middle school, the a piece on Bhutan, one on Okinawa and finally it ended with a piece on a man who serves in the home Mother Teresa started for the sick, destitute and dying. They actually go find these destitute people in public places there in India and bring to their home and care for them and mostly just want them to know that God hasn't forgotten them and that He loves them and that they are cared about and loved. I thought that part was very touching, because to me, that's what this life is all about-- caring for others and being kind. I was especially struck by the lesson taught to the middle schoolers. The instructor talked about the difference between cooperation and competition and how we need to help each other instead of bring each other down. He also had everyone who had felt minimized or made fun of to raise their hands, pretty much every student raised their hands, then he had them look around and see that. He invited some kids to come in front and talk about how it feels when they are called names and made fun of and how it feels to have others be mean to you. I was surprised at how much I related to that feeling of being disregarded and being made to feel inferior and stupid and not as good as everyone else. It made me feel a lot better to see how that is not OK. After the kids expressed their sorrow and frustration at being treated that way, he had the kids say how that's not right and how they shouldn't do that. And that people shouldn't say mean things to each other or be mean like that. It was so refreshing for me to see. Also, the things that make us happy are the simple things in life that don't cost money. Money and things don't make people happy. Serving others, contributing to each others' well-being, good relationships, being grateful and being active-- those are the things that bring happiness. I highly recommend this film, it made me happy!!