November 28, 1994
Dear Noel,
Well, here I am. We got your letter yesterday and were glad to hear from you. It has been really hectic around here. I am the activities Committee Chairman (we just finished a Musical Interlude that was a lot of work and we have the Christmas party in Dec, a talent show in Feb and the Road shows in March. I am conducting a band for the Christmas Program. They meet in our garage every Wednesday). The sports program is in full swing and my physical activities director just moved to Orem. I am also on the scout committee and the Christmas stroll is this week and we just finished popcorn sales. (Not to mention that I work 40 hrs a week).
I have learned to live on a lot less sleep than I ever though possible. Ben and I do the paper route every morning except Wed and Sat. (Dad and Christy do it then) and all 4 of us do it on Sunday. It seems like my bed time is consistently 11:38 pm and I get up at 4:05 am. We do the papers and are home by 5:15. We get up Christy and Dad and read scriptures from 5:30-6:00. Then Christy and Ben get ready for Seminary. If the weather is good, Christy drives and I go back to bed from about 6:10 to 7:15. But if the weather is bad (like today) then I have to drive them to Seminary at 6:35. They are getting really picky about attendance. If you are more than 10 minutes late you don’t get credit for that day. Seminary starts exactly at 6:40 so it is exciting around here in the mornings.
I am sure that your schedule is also hectic. I can accomplish everything I need to if I just keep working at it. It’s just that I have to keep a list. Once I get to work I have a full day and sometimes more. We are getting ready to put up several Novell Networks. I now have 72 Pc’s in 15 different offices in 3 states. It is a technical support nightmare. Besides the PC’s I have the AS 400 so when I get to work I am also busy. Oh well enough of me. I will get done what needs to be done and do it to the best of my ability.
I have been thinking about you a lot lately. I want to say something in here that will help you in your search for personal revelation. Please read this carefully because I think you are better prepared to hear some of this now than you ever have been before.
First,?I think you already have a testimony. You have had one for a long time. Partly it is based on intellectual understanding and appreciation for how the Gospel goes together and party it is based on faith. You have by now had some experiences with the spirit in teaching and seeing people touched by the gospel. So don’t think that just because you may not have yet had a personal experience with the spirit that leaves no doubt in you, that you don’t have a testimony because you do have a testimony.
Second, know that appreciation for what you have as you seek for more is a key. As you seek for a sure knowledge of your standing with God you need to maintain an attitude of appreciation for what you have been given and not frustration with what you have not been given. The Lord needs to know that if you never receive anything more you will still serve Him. You also need to know that in your heart. I remember for many years seeking a sure witness that didn’t come. I finally decided that it didn’t matter if I knew for sure, I would live my life as if I did. That is, I would have faith and act on that faith. The action is also a key. What does it mean to act in faith? For me it meant always examining what I was doing to see if it was consistent with what the Lord would have me do. Did I treat those around me as the savior would? Even tho at that point I didn’t know He was really there I decided to act as if He was.? If He was there, and what I read in the scriptures was true, than I needed to behave in certain ways towards other people. I couldn’t let myself think that I was better than they were in any way. I needed to see them the way the savior would and act accordingly. That took a lot of work and got much easier once I had felt the Saviors love but I worked on it constantly. I prayed each night that I would be humble and teachable. That I would see the good in other people and not judge them. Then I spent my days looking at people in just those ways. Finding good and not judging. I also asked what Heavenly Father wanted me to change about myself and set about to do it.
The third thing you need to know is that gaining a personal witness will require sacrifice. You can not expect to know of a surety unless you are willing to sacrifice whatever the Lord wants you too. As I prayed, I always asked what he wanted of me, and what I needed to change or sacrifice in order for Him to know that I loved Him enough to follow Him in all things. This is where this gets hard. Think for a minute of Abraham. The Lord asked him to sacrifice Isaac. He didn’t actually have to but he had to be willing to. Not pretend to be willing to, because the Lord knew Abraham’s heart and he knows your heart. Abraham had to demonstrate that he would sacrifice Isaac. Other people have sacrificed other things and sometimes that hand of God was not? stayed.
I think of President Hunter. He was a musician. Not just a run of the mill musician but a very good one. In fact a professional. Music could have been his profession for life. He had his own dance band and right out of High School was asked and accepted a job on a Cruiser to the orient. His band provided the music for entertainment and dances. He could have had a career in California in professional music. He played the saxophone, clarinet, drums, piano and who knows what else. He arranged music and wrote scores. Let’s just say that up to a point he lived and breathed music. But after his marriage, in the quiet moments in his mind he determined that the associations that professional music was bringing him was not what he wanted for his family.
Even though he loved music and performance as much as anything you can think of, he gave it all up. He packed up his instruments and has not played them except for the piano on a few special family occasions since just after his marriage.? He didn’t just pretend to give something up, nor did he figure that if he gave it up for a little while the Lord would let him have it again. He gave it up willingly and permanently because he felt that the spirit of professional music in California at that time was not conducive to having the Lord’s spirit with him. He put his trust in the Lord and willing sacrificed a career and a hobby. The Lord has blessed him for it. I am sure that is not the only sacrifice he made. But that is one that is visible and that I know about.
It is the attitude that I want you to be aware of. He didn’t plead with the Lord to let him do what he wanted while he tried to serve him. He gave up music to serve more fully. You can not bargain with the Lord. In the scriptures it is referred to as being double minded. You can’t have it your way and the Lords way also on the things that the Lord expects you to sacrifice.
In my life I know that this principle is true. At one point in my life I fell in love with a man who was not a member of the Church. He was a good man, he loved children, he loved the outdoors, he was kind and loving to me. He would have made an ideal husband and father and I loved him. He asked me to marry him and I wanted to marry him. I had not yet had my sure witness from the Lord about the Lords love for me personally but I knew that Father in Heaven wanted me to be married in the Temple. I wanted to marry this man, in the Temple. I wanted both the man and the temple but when I asked him to investigate the church (I even took him to my Bishop and had him ask him to investigate the Church) he said no. He said he loved me and wanted to marry me and if I loved him I would marry him just like he was. I did love him but decided that marriage in the Temple was more important. It was the hardest decision I had? made to that point in my life and one of the hardest ever.
I wanted so badly to be loved and cherished and this man loved me and wanted to marry me but I decided to sacrifice that marriage (even though I didn’t want too) because I had been taught and knew that Heavenly Father? wanted me to marry in the Temple. I choose what Heavenly Father wanted rather than what I wanted. I could have tried to have it both ways. I could have convinced myself that it was ok to marry him and that I could convert him later and my heart was not much help because I loved him so much but ultimately I knew that it was wrong for me and that if I was going to be true to the faith that I had, that Jesus Christ had revealed the right way for me to be married than I had to give up this relationship.
I did give it up and 3 years later met your Father and found more love than I ever could have had in the other relationship. I didn’t know for 3 years, however, if I would every marry. It was during those three years that I received my witness from Heavenly Father that He loved me and it didn’t matter anymore. I knew I had done the right thing.
Noel, the whole point here is that you have to be willing to sacrifice for the Lord. Your whole life if need be. He may want you to be an entirely different kind of person than you are now. He will school you, if you let him but you must be willing to make whatever change he asks of you. It may not be one big thing. In fact in both my case and President Hunters, I think those sacrifices were just examples of many that both of us willing made. Again the key is willing. You may consider giving two years of your life in the mission field a sacrifice but it may not be in the eyes of your Heavenly Father unless it is accompanied by the humility necessary to be teachable. Humility is more than not telling people how good you are and then feeling good about how humble you have been. Humility has to do with accepting counsel from the spirit, from your mission president, from your parents, from your companions and seeking to follow that council by the spirit not just by the letter.
When you read the scriptures and this letter and when you pray, ponder, ask in you heart and out loud if necessary, what does this mean to me? What do I need to do differently than I have done? The Lord will give you an answer to that question. You already have the answer to that question. Once you know or even think of things you need to change than you need to acknowledge those things to the Lord and go about changing them. Not just trying to change them but changing them. If the Lord requires you to sacrifice your personality, know that it is worth it. He Lives! He is real! And He loves you! He wants for you what is best, you have to turn your life over to Him. If you do you will experience more growth than you thought possible. If you don’t you will find yourself dissatisfied with yourself and your life. The Lord will show you how if you just make yourself available and the way to make yourself available is to be willing to change anything and everything about yourself, your habits, your attitudes, your feelings, anything that is necessary to please the Lord. Don’t hold back. Ask Him how and he will show you the way but you must be willing. You can’t ask and then say ? Well I don’t know what to do. Or I don’t think I can do what I think he expects.? I know you can do whatever it takes because I know I did and you and I are a lot alike. I love you Noel and I pray for you everyday.
I am going to stop for now but will write again soon. Please read this letter more than once and ask the Lord about it. I have watched several opportunities for great growth develop in your mission, its time for you to take advantage of that growth.
Love, Mom