Depending on Your Choices

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Just before I was transferred to Tyrolia as a missionary, some of the leaders in my mission gave me a blessing in which I was promised that I would baptize there “depending on my choices”. Since then, I came to realize that it wasn’t about a choice between good or bad. It was just about differing outcomes based on different decisions. I decided not to take the transfer to Bolzano, Italy, because I was called to Austria, and I believed then as I do now that “You will be called by inspiration to where you are needed most” (Henry B Eyring). So, I stayed in Austria, and that made the difference.

It created interesting dichotomies that I believe worked to the better good. Although I never did baptize anyone, because of this choice, other things happened that might not have happened if I had gone into isolation in the Italian Alps. If I had gone to Italy, many of the people I met and with whom I spoke might have passed by without any contact. The family that asked us when we could come back on my last day would never have been visited. Daniella Palaora, Eugene Krastow, Maria Kaufman, the son of the Deacon of Tyrol, the Fuertner sisters, and others would have not been visited, at least not well. The mission president’s son would not have learned not to pretend to be an apostate. Elder Schmall would not have spent a day in Hall in Tirol teaching all day long. Elders Graham and Horrocks would have been on the rocks and at each other’s throats. Elder Gertge would have just played basketball all the time. Elder and Sister Neumann would have been kept in the mission home as secretaries. I was the only one who would take them. I was the man for the job. Before I went home, the Neumanns found out that I was the only Zone Leader who would accept them and they found out what I said to the mission president. “President, if God wants them in Innsbruck, you do not need my permission. Send them and we’ll make it work.” Depending on my decisions, I never did baptize anyone, and I never have. However, I think I made the best decision for everyone else.

Despite evidence to the contrary and the feelings of people who love me, I think I made the right choices in my life. I feel like it was right to attend UNR. I feel like it was the right choice to marry my ex wife. I felt like it was right to move to Vegas and buy this house. I felt it was right to let Katmandu go. None of these decisions were terribly easy to make, but the right thing is often difficult to do which is why so few people do it, and I do feel like I’m in a better place. I have told female friends who express gratitude that I was there when they needed me to thank God, because if my life had turned out the way I planned, we would never have become friends. He is using this cracked pot to water by the way as I go my way, and I have no idea where I will drip or what will bloom. My passing is insignificant.

You see, the choice that I made was to go find what God would have me do and do it wholeheartedly. Gordon B Hinckley said: “Many of you think you are failures. You feel you cannot do well, that with all of your effort it is not sufficient. We all worry about our performance. We all wish we could do better. We do not often see the results that come of what we do. “ By the metrics measured by men, I am a complete failure. It is true that I don’t have much to show for the choices I made. I have my integrity. I have my peace. I also have something you cannot see- the approbation of my Father God. When I received impressions, I followed them the best I could to whatever end, and while I have yet to see what watermelons may lie at life’s end for me, God reminded me the other night the only thing my mission president said to me before I left Austria. Roughly translated, he said, “You have fulfilled your responsibilities with honour. Period.” More recently, I felt as I prayed “Nobody would have done as well as you did in the circumstances.”

Often the right thing goes completely unrecognized. In a world governed so much more by doing what is right for self than what is best for everyone, it is rare enough that people do what they ought that there is little recognition for it and even fewer rewards. Truly, I have been penalized by people in positions of power for doing what I ought in several instances. My father thinks I have created my own vocational ceiling by taking on these people. He may be right. However, there is a just God who provides over the destiny of nations, and He will not let me fight my battles alone. Patrick Henry taught me that. Maybe years have given me perspective, but I believe that God wants me in this town, in this job, in these circumstances and in the company of the people I meet. I don’t know why I have met any of these people, because with rare exception most of the people I have met in Vegas are strangers once more. For some reason, He needs me here, living alone, writing mostly to people I have never met, because most of my audience comes here by clicking “next blog” at the top of the proceeding page. I don’t have any children in whom to inculcate wisdom and truth and knowledge against the burgeoning weight of deception and coercion. So, I talk to you. I let God bring readers to my blog who need to read what I have to say. Being single frees me to speak my mind and to crusade because even if the GOBNet is out to get me, at least they only hurt me. Besides, I know that if I follow God’s guidance I will be led to a land of promise, and if not today He will feed me and water me by Kidron like He did Elijah until a place can be prepared for me.

Trusting God is the best choice we can make. I trusted Him years ago, and I am trusting Him now. I know that the only way I can really keep what I desire is if people choose to join me of their own free will and choice. So, I teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves. Sometimes this means I have to let them go do something else somewhere else with someone else. It kills me. I told God I don’t know how He does this with billions of us who frit about doing whatever we like because it’s killing me to watch one person do it. In this way I have a taste of what it’s like to be a good parent and what it must be like for Him to watch me act like an idiot. I still don’t really know why I am where I am doing what I am and living a quiet life in a bustling metropolis. However, when God seeks me or anyone else, they will know where I stand, how to find me, and what I will be doing when they get there. I am doing what I can to improve the small spit of earth over which He gave me stewardship. Discipleship, like leadership, feels lonely, but discipleship, unlike other types of leadership, lands you in good company, His company. It is why I am alone. It is why I am a leader. It’s why I am different.