Aloha! It is good to be with you today. Thank you for being here.
My 16-year old daughter Auriol recently wrote an essay entitled “Aurisight is 20/20” about the difference in her perspective now compared to her outlook as a small child. It was interesting to see how what she yearned to be as a child she has become but in that becoming now yearns for some of what she no longer is.
When Caryn, who you just met, was about 14, we were sitting in sacrament meeting when she leaned over to me and said, “Mom, what’s the hymn number?” I looked to the front of the chapel to see the, clear to me, hymn number and asked, “Can’t you see it?” “No,” she replied, “I can’t.” We soon discovered, after Caryn put on her first pair of glasses, that not only could she not see, she didn’t even realize what she couldn’t see. It broke my heart when she looked up at a coconut tree and said, “I can see the leaves!” It had all been a blur to her.
Around a couple of corners from where we are right now, there is a large mango tree that grows out of a fenced yard and overhangs Moana Street. It was Old Man Goo’s tree. It was a very fruitful tree that produced pretty great mangos. In fact, there were so many mangos that many believed that it was okay to help harvest those mangos when Old Man Goo wasn’t looking. If you had a truck and a few friends or siblings or cousins to ride in the back of that truck, you could drive slowly under that tree, knock a few mangos into the back of the truck, and speed off with the makings of some awesome pickled mango. At least, I imagine you could have done that.
Elder Dallin H. Oaks once said that “Desires dictate our priorities, priorities shape our choices, and choices determine our actions.”
How do we put ourselves into a position of strength where, for example, the desire for a mango will not set a priority that drives us to choose a course of action that is not in harmony with a Christ-centered life?
Earlier this year, we all had a lesson in Relief Society and Priesthood on temples. Do you remember the story about the Salt Lake Temple and how cracks in the walls of the foundation were found five years into construction? Construction stopped until those stones were replaced so that the temple would have a strong, sure foundation.
Brigham Young said, "Build not for today nor tomorrow, but for all eternity."
Build for eternity. What builds our personal foundations? What do we do when we find cracks in our foundation walls? How do we prepare to see clearly when we don’t even know what it is we can’t see?
I would suggest that we manage the content of our lives.
According to Margaret Rouse on WhatIs.com, “Content management (CM) is the administration of digital content throughout its lifecycle, from creation to permanent storage or deletion. The content involved may be images, video, audio and multimedia as well as text. The usual stages in digital content management are:
1. Creation
2. Editing
3. Publishing
4. Oversight
5. Removal.”
We could say that the usual stages in personal and spiritual content management are:
1. Learning
2. Choosing
3. Acting
4. Hindsight
5. Repentance
We’ve all heard the phrase “You are what you eat.” Well, you are also what you read, watch, listen to, and see.
In D&C 88:118, the Lord says, “And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.”
One of the very best things about this life is our free agency. We came here to this earth to learn, to gain experience, to prepare ourselves for eternal growth. Since all we take with us from this life into our next stage of learning and growth is our knowledge and experience, what we learn in this life becomes very important.
Elder Bednar teaches us that we need to learn to love learning, but we need to be careful of just gaining knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Paul taught that in the last days we run the risk of “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7).
Learning does not just happen in the classroom. One of the definitions of learning is “the modification of behavior through practice, training, or experience.” My sister Val decided that she wanted to try out for the basketball team in high school. She knew the basics of basketball as we would often play as a family and with friends, and she was a gifted athlete. However, she didn’t want to walk into tryouts and run the risk of possibly not being good enough to make the team, so she practiced dribbling, hundreds of repetitions, with both hands, hours spent in the driveway dribbling in one place, walking and dribbling, running and dribbling, dribbling between her legs until the ball was as familiar and easy to handle to her as her own hands. She would shoot and shoot and shoot until the motion and action of shooting was so smooth and natural that she didn’t have to think about shooting but was able to take the shot whenever the opportunity presented itself.
This allowed her, when she made the team in high school and later when she played in college, to play the game. The interesting thing about Val was that she continued to practice outside of team practice all through college and throughout her life. She continued to dribble. She continued to shoot. She continued to hone those skills and keep her body in shape so that she could continue to focus on the game.
Brothers and sisters, what is it that we practice every day? Do we know the lyrics to all the verses of the latest songs on iTunes but only know some of the first verses to some of the hymns? Can we quote movie lines but not scripture? It may just be me, but I’m pretty sure that on judgment day we won’t be asked, “Thingamabobs? I’ve got 20! – What movie?” Can we name more celebrities than apostles and prophets?
I have this theory about what we call the “real world.” The real world is used to describe the life we will live in when we grow up—the world outside, the world of jobs and careers, the world where life is hard and competitive. However, I believe that to be the world of illusion, the world of temptation, the world of confusion. The real real world is the one our Heavenly Father has created, and it starts in our homes where we learn and hone the skills we need to play in our Father’s game, where we learn to recognize the voice and follow the directions of our Savior through the Spirit. Then, when we step out into the world of illusion, we are not confused, we can see a clear path, and we play the game by our Father in Heaven’s rules without hesitation because we have, in essence, dribbled hundreds and thousands of times so that the feel of the Spirit and its guidance is as familiar to us as our own hands.
Close to two hundred years ago on the island of Tutuila in what has become American Samoa, my great-great-great grandfather Kerisiano Te’o had a choice: let the people of his village kill the Mormon missionaries who were in his home or defend them. He stood with his spear in one hand, shotgun in the other, and said, “If you want the missionaries you’ll have to go through me first.”
Across the ocean in Clay County, Missouri, Michael Arthur, another great-great-great grandfather who was not a member of the Church, also had a choice: persecute the Mormons or help the Mormons. He chose to give jobs to Lyman Wright, Wilford Woodruff, and others and offered the use of a cabin on his farm where Joseph Smith disbanded Zion’s Camp and organized a stake. Michael Arthur also wrote to the newspapers and spoke passionately against the persecution of the Saints in Missouri.
Many years later in a sacrament meeting in Samoa, the great-great grandson of these two men made a decision to ask the Lord’s help in choosing to love going to church more than he loved football. This choice by my father, William Cravens, would set the tone of our home then and forevermore where the Lord comes first and football and everything else follows.
Do you think the choices you make now don’t matter? That the movie you chose to watch over the weekend won’t affect tomorrow? That because Super Bowl Sunday only happens once a year it doesn’t matter in the long run?
Choice opens the door to action. My parents taught my brothers and sisters and me that we always have a choice and that those choices always have a consequence. A consequence is defined as a result or an outcome of action.
Kerisiano Te’o could have chosen to keep his life as it had always been before the LDS missionaries came to his village. He could have chosen not to act on the opportunity the Lord sent to him, to not listen to their message. He could have let the villagers have their way with the missionaries. He could have avoided putting himself in a situation where he chose to make a stand with his life. He could have chosen to sit still.
Instead, the consequence of his action has been a legacy that each generation following him has chosen to act upon, a legacy that continues today as his five-time great-grandchildren attend primary far away in a land very different from Samoa called Utah.
Action is very often forced upon us. We may think we know what will happen from one day to the next based on our experience of the previous days, but then our English teacher says, “We’re having a pop quiz.” You students who are in Sister Lesuma’s classes, were you prepared? Did you think to yourself “No problem, I’ve got this”? Or did you groan and make a face, wishing you had finished all the assigned reading?
Although I do not want to minimize the importance of Sister Lesuma’s English classes, sometimes the actions we need to choose have more directly eternal consequences.
When my husband Steve and I were first dating here at BYU–Hawaii, he was not a member of the Church and had spent the first two years of his education dodging missionaries. Then he met me, the great-great-great granddaughter of Kerisiano Te’o. Soon after our first date, we realized that we were heading down a path that most probably had marriage at the end of it. To me, that meant setting a date in the big white house on the hill. That meant that Steve needed to join the Church.
We set up lessons with the missionaries at my family’s home here in Laie, and Steve began to go to church with me in the Laie 2nd Ward. He would pick me up for church with his surfboard in his car, covered by a towel, and right after Sacrament meeting, he would say, “See you later!” and spend the rest of the day in the water on his beloved board.
After a while, not being known for my patience, I finally asked him what the hold-up was:
“Is it Joseph Smith?”
“No, I believe Joseph Smith had the First Vision.”
“Is it Jesus Christ?”
“No, I believe in Christ.”
“Is it the gospel?”
“No, I believe the gospel is true.”
“Then what?!”
“If I get baptized I won’t be able to surf on Sundays anymore,” he said.
That may seem like a small thing to those of us who are not surfers, but to Steve, who would surf before, in-between, and after classes, who came to BYU–Hawaii because it was the closest university to Sunset Beach, the consequences of becoming a member of the Church was to give up the one day when, as all surfers know, or at least Mormon surfers, that the waves are always the best.
Steve’s choice to take action 31 and a half years ago early in the morning at Clissold’s Beach where my dad baptized him has meant that we can be together forever, that our eight children are also ours forever. It doesn’t mean that it has become forever easy—he still won’t go check the waves on Sunday because it is not worth placing himself in temptation’s way.
The key to making the right choices when the consequences are life-changing is to make all the right little choices so that we are prepared and ready for the big choices.
When Steve goes surfing, he spends a few minutes on the beach watching the waves. He notes the direction of the wind, the direction of the swell, where the best part of the break is, where the channel is, how frequently the sets come in, and how big they are. Then, when he knows exactly what the conditions are and where he needs to go, he grabs his board, paddles out through the channel, and puts himself in the perfect spot for the wave he wants to catch, and when that wave comes, he is in position to stroke into that wave and ride it.
The same is true in everything we do. For our English quiz, if we had spent a few minutes studying our syllabus, noting dates and assignments on our calendar, following through on all expectations, we would be in the perfect spot to handle any pop quiz Sister Lesuma wants to spring on us.
In our spiritual lives, if we decide whom we will choose—whether God or mammon—then take small actions every day—prayer, scriptures, good music, good books, good friends, good movies—we will be in position to make the right choices and take action regardless of the circumstance.
Fortunately, the surf isn’t always the best, we aren’t always prepared for pop quizzes, and struggle is a common word in our vocabulary. Why do I say fortunately? Because if we are here on this earth to learn all we can in our progression towards acquiring the ability to create our own worlds, having an easy, unchallenging life is not going to do it.
When Steve and I were dating, I used to go sit on the beach while he would surf, often with a book in my hand to pass the time. Once, when the surf was really big, I climbed up into a platform that had been built into a tree so that I could see better. It was 12 to 15 feet at Sunset Beach, and Steve was practically beside himself with excitement.
The next couple of hours were some of the worst of my life. I don’t know how close any of you have been to 15 foot waves, but these were huge and close to closing out the break—which means unsurfable. You also have to keep in mind that Hawaiian surfers measure from the back of the wave, which means that the face of the wave, what you and I see from the beach, is double the size of the back of the wave.
For most of that time, I couldn’t even see him. I would see him catch a wave and then disappear into the huge crashing white wash. Then I would search desperately until I saw him catch the next wave. It was not fun. I kept thinking, “Is he going to make it back out? Am I going to lose him? What if he doesn’t come back up after this one?”
When he finally paddled in, I scrambled down out of the tree and ran to meet him. He was grinning ear to ear and totally pumped. “Steven,” I said, “don’t ever bring me to watch you in surf that big again.”
In hindsight, I shouldn’t have gone to watch him. I’ve lived on islands all my life. I know what big surf looks like, and I know the dangers involved. This was just the first time that someone I loved was out there in that crazy stuff! Steve and I worked out a compromise—he continued to surf big waves, and my rule of thumb as a spectator became 8 feet or under.
We learn from experience. Steve learned to surf really big waves from experience using the very valuable tool of hindsight. Auriol’s title, “Aurisight is 20/20,” comes from an old saying that says, “Hindsight is 20/20,” meaning that when we look back at our choices and actions, we can see them more clearly than when we were actually in the moment.
We often use hindsight to help us learn from our experience those things which we should not do. But what if we also used hindsight to emphasize that which we do right?
In the 1971 April General Conference, Elder Sterling W. Sill shared this story:
“This philosophy of excellence was demonstrated by the artist Whistler, who once painted a tiny picture of a spray of roses. The artistry involved was magnificent. Never before, it seemed, had the art of man been able to execute quite so deftly a reproduction of the art of nature. The picture was the envy of the artists who saw it, the despair of the collectors who yearned to buy it for their collections, but Whistler refused steadfastly to sell it.
“‘For,’ said he, ‘whenever I feel that my hand has lost its cunning, whenever I doubt my ability, I look at the little picture of the spray of roses and say to myself, “Whistler, you painted that. Your hand drew it. Your imagination conceived the colors. Your skill put the roses on the canvas.” Then,’ he said, ‘I know that what I have done I can do again.’
“Then he gave us a great philosophy of success. He said, ‘Hang on the walls of your mind the memory of your successes. Take counsel of your strength, not your weakness. Think of the good jobs you have done. Think of the times when you rose above your average level of performance and carried out an idea or a dream or a desire for which you had deeply longed. Hang these pictures on the walls of your mind and look at them as you travel the roadway of life’” (Sterling W. Sill, "Great Experiences," Ensign, April 1971, 5-7).
In Romans 5:3-4, Paul teaches us that there is also success in tribulations: “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope.”
I would hope that Auriol, instead of the yearning she expresses in her essay for a perspective that is now changed, would use her Aurisight to celebrate the wonder she has learned and to learn hope from the stumbles.
With hindsight, we can build on our successes, learn from our mistakes, make better choices, and improve our actions.
Hindsight also allows us to see our opportunities for repentance.
Paul continues in that same chapter in Romans to teach us that “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement” (Romans 5:8-11).
Brothers and sisters, I don’t think I can adequately express to you the absolutely incredible gift of the Atonement. We chose freely to come to this earth knowing that we were going to fail. We knew that there was no way that we could return to our Father in Heaven if left to our own devices—not a single one of us. We knew this.
However, we trusted in our Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. We knew that He would be our Savior, that His sacrifice for us would allow us to go home again. Well, that sacrifice has been made. He has taken upon Him all of our burdens, all of our sins, and if we will choose to go to Him, He will wash those sins away as if they had never been, leaving us simply with experience and hope.
A few years ago, I had a little home-based business making wooden puzzles. I really enjoy working with wood. One of the joys of woodworking is sanding. Sanding is hard work, and the dust, noise, and vibration of the sander can be a challenge, but the finished product is always worth the effort. To be able to smooth out the imperfections, to bring out the individual beauty of each piece of wood, is very rewarding.
When you prepare to sand a piece of wood, you need to determine what grit of sandpaper you need for the task. For very rough wood, you need sandpaper with a rugged texture, and for smoother wood, a finer texture. In most cases, you will start with a rough grit, and as the grooves and scratches in the wood begin to smooth out, you will use sandpaper with a finer and finer grit until you have a piece of satiny smooth wood that is a joy to touch and beautiful to look at. If you use sandpaper that is too rough, it will mar the wood and if you use sandpaper that is too fine, you will use up the sandpaper before the wood is smooth.
Our Savior knows to the most minute detail exactly what kind of sandpaper we need for any given sin. He works patiently and lovingly to remove every imperfection if we will submit ourselves to His will. It is not easy. It is a process that goes on throughout our lives as we have moments of satiny smooth perfection which become marred by scratches as we struggle outside the Sander’s shop, thinking that we don’t need his touch, that we aren’t scratched too bad or are too marred for even divine help.
All of these thoughts are untruths and exactly what our adversary wants us to think. If he can keep us from the Savior’s touch, if he can convince you and me that there is time enough to visit the Sander, he wins, and we lose.
In Alma 34, Amulek is very clear when he explains that “this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God … that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end. … For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his” (Alma 34:32-33, 35).
Brothers and sisters, choose obedience. Choose to do the right thing. Choose to ask the Lord to turn your heart to him. Choose to help those in need even when all around you choose otherwise. Choose to stake your life on your testimony because your life is exactly what is at stake in this eternal plan we chose.
Content Management for the Soul: Learn, Choose, Act, Hindsight, Repent. It is a continuous circle that we repeat over and over as we become shaped by our Master’s hand to become the beautiful, joyous beings of our potential.
I would also suggest that as you manage the content around you that you are also content as in contentment. Contentment comes from obedience and gratitude.
My mother is a very obedient woman. As a convert to the gospel, her view was that she would do all that was expected of her. When my dad, who had grown up in the Church, would say, “You know we don’t have to do – fill in the blank – exactly like that,” my mom would respond, “Oh, yes we do.” As we were growing up, the expectation was that we were at every meeting from seminary to Mutual to all Sunday meetings. We fasted every Fast Sunday—dinner wasn’t until 5 PM. We paid our tithing faithfully. We had Family Home Evening and family prayers. We did occasionally have family prayers during halftime of a televised football game. The Lord came first, but there was still time for sports.
We weren’t perfect, but my mother was and is obedience personified. She is a master of content management, being a lifelong student of gospel principles, choosing actions that keep her on track to eternal salvation. She uses the hindsight tool with precision and enters the Sander’s shop daily for the healing power of the Atonement.
Because of this obedience, she is content. Even with the great trials she has faced, some that are greater than I think I could endure, she speaks of gratitude.
She is happy, serves with joy, and remains the person I most want to emulate in this life because she is the most Christ-like person I know.
Gordon B. Hinckley believed that “Our society is afflicted by a spirit of thoughtless arrogance unbecoming those who have been so magnificently blessed. How grateful we should be for the bounties we enjoy. Absence of gratitude is the mark of the narrow, uneducated mind. It bespeaks a lack of knowledge and the ignorance of self-sufficiency. It expresses itself in ugly egotism and frequently in wanton mischief. ... Where there is appreciation, there is courtesy, there is concern for the rights and property of others. Without appreciation, there is arrogance and evil. Where there is gratitude, there is humility, as opposed to pride" (Gordon B. Hinckley, "'With All Thy Getting Get Understanding'," Ensign, Aug 1988, 2–5).
I have found when I whine, its because I am ungrateful. If I am unhappy, I have a spirit of ingratitude. However, if I am grateful, every challenge becomes surmountable. When I am full of gratitude, I can endure my trials. As President Hinckley taught us, where there is gratitude there is humility.
My dear brothers and sisters, life is good. You sit here in peace and comfort surrounded by people who believe as you do. Many of you come from places and situations where this is not the case, but life is still good.
We see the world around us degenerating. We see disasters and tragedy. Our hearts ache for those who suffer, but life is still good.
Life is good because regardless of circumstance,s you can choose your actions.
When Amulon was persecuting Alma and his people, their circumstances became more than they thought they could bear.
“And it came to pass that so great were their afflictions that they began to cry mightily to God. And Amulon commanded them that they should stop their cries; and he put guards over them to watch them, that whosoever should be found calling upon God should be put to death. And Alma and his people did not raise their voices to the Lord their God, but did pour out their hearts to him; and he did know the thoughts of their hearts. And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them in their afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage. And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions. And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord” (Mosiah 24:10-15).
A few Sundays ago in my ward, Laie 7th, we had our Primary program. One young man said something that really struck a chord with me. I don’t remember exactly what his whole talk was about or the exact wording of this quote. but he said, “Why do we ask for our burdens to be taken away? Why don’t we just ask for stronger shoulders?”
My dear brothers and sisters, your Heavenly Father loves you. He knows you. He sent you His only Begotten Son so that you can go home.
As you manage the content of your souls, may you be filled with contentment. As you pray in gratitude each day, as you prepare to enter the Sander’s shop, may your shoulders be strengthened. May you continue to learn, to choose to act with obedience, to have joy in the good life your Father in Heaven has given you.
I leave you with my testimony that God lives. That Christ is our Savior. That Joseph Smith saw the First Vision. That the Book of Mormon is true. That Thomas S. Monson is a prophet, seer, and revelator. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.