Well, first item of business: Congratulations to my older sister, Briana, who has just made the most important decision of her life in the
right place, at the right time, with the right man. :)
My mission has taught me a lot
about work. I've done farming, ranching, mechanical, and quite a few other
forms of work. Missionary work is easy physically (as long as you do your 30
minutes of exercise and you stretch every time you work hard), but I'll tell
you, the things we do for people!
Someday when I'm home and
you're all asking me about my mission stories, you'll have to ask me about the
time we tattooed cattle. I think I told you Elder S's (shout out!)
analogy about how we find and how it relates to branding cattle. There's the
easy way and the hard way. The hard way is wrestling them down one at a time
and holding them there as they squirm. The easy way is putting them through a
chute where you push them through one at a time and do it as they are pinned by
a machine.
According to Elder S,
when you find the hard way, you get covered in crap, you get kicked by cattle,
and you are exhausted by the end of the day, but you feel like a cowboy (or a
missionary). But, in my experience, when you push them through the chute, you
still get covered in crap, you get kicked by cattle, and you are exhausted at
the end of the day, and you feel like a cowboy. The difference is simply
quantity.
You missionaries out there...
feel free to consider the analogy and let me know what you come up with.
Life's good.
Maybe I've shared this story
before, but it's something that I'm learning and I think is important to share.
Maybe it's not even a true story, but it still teaches important truths.
In the 1500's there was a
gentleman by the name of Hernan Cortes. You may know that our friend Cortes is
responsible for the fall of (and the annihilation of) the Aztec empire.
There was a reason for this, he
wasn't some genocidal maniac thirsting for the blood of a foreign nation,
rather he was seeking for something else. Aztec treasure (I'm not saying that
that justifies the genocide that happened, just focus on the symbolism and quit
worrying about the details). Many others before Cortes had sought the wealth of
the New World, but Cortes was exceptional. He understood something that nobody
else did. As long as you leave a way back home, you'll never fight like you
have nothing to go back to.
So, what did Cortes do? He
burned the ships that could take them home. Burned the boats.
You can imagine that his men
were either really discouraged or really really motivated. They must have
immediately recognized that unless they conquered, they likely would not return
home. So, they fought like they wanted victory more than anything else. Because
they burned the boats behind them, they gave more than anyone else had given
before.
Cortes, obviously, won the
treasure.
Well, there's an awful lot that could be said about this,
relating to missionary work and life, but I'd just like to share a quote from
Elder Holland. "There is something in us, at least in too many of us,
that particularly fails to forgive and forget earlier mistakes in life—either
mistakes we ourselves have made or the mistakes of others. That is not good. It
is not Christian. It stands in terrible opposition to the grandeur and majesty
of the Atonement of Christ. To be tied to earlier mistakes—our own or other
people’s—is the worst kind of wallowing in the past from which we are called to
cease and desist....
Now, like the Anti-Nephi-Lehies of the Book of Mormon, bury your weapons
of war, and leave them buried. Forgive, and do that which is harder than to
forgive: Forget. And when it comes to mind again, forget it again. You can remember just enough to avoid repeating the mistake, but then put the rest of it all on the dung heap Paul spoke of to those Philippians. Dismiss the destructive and keep dismissing it until the beauty of the Atonement of Christ has revealed to you your bright future and the bright future of your family and your friends and your neighbors. God doesn’t care nearly as much about where you have been as He does about where you are and, with His help, where you are willing to go. That is the thing Lot’s wife didn’t get—and neither did Laman and Lemuel and a host of others in the scriptures."
Our lives are things to be enjoyed, do yourself and others a favor. Burn the Boats. Leave the past in the past and just be who you ought to be. Be where you ought to be. And be there when you ought to be there. Leave the past behind you, and look forward with faith. Whether you're a trunky missionary, or one who is afraid to go home because you don't want to slip back into the past. Maybe you're hurting because of something that someone has done to you. Please, just let it go. Allow the Atonement to be yours. Allow Him in.
Burn the boats.
I love you all!
Rock on. Peace. Love. Temple Marriage. In that order.
Elder Hill
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