Tragedy

Junior Fifita, the oldest son of the first counselor in our ward's bishopric, was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting in Hawthorne early Sunday morning.  I don't know the specific details, but from what little I have learned from Bishop Galindo and news reports, he and some teammates from the Mount Sac football team and a female cousin went to a church sponsored dance in Torrance Saturday night and then went out to eat afterward.  They were on their way home (probably headed to get on the freeway) early Sunday morning and were stopped at a red light waiting to turn left when a car pulled up alongside them and someone started shooting at them.  Junior was driving.  My understanding is that he actually pushed his cousin (who was in the passenger seat) down seconds before the shooting began—she was uninjured.  He was hit in what was described in news reports as the "upper torso" and died at the scene.  The male occupants in the car were injured, but I don't know the nature of the injuries.

Even though I've had a little over a day to process this, I still feel like I've been punched in the gut.  Junior returned about five months ago from his mission to Guatemala.  The chapel for his welcome home address was packed with people who came up the hill to hear him speak.  He is a part of the group of young men and women who were a part of a wave of missionaries who left from our ward after the age limit was lowered.  Ben has said that he (along with Jared, Gage, and Robert) set an example for him and increased his desire to serve a mission.  One of my favorite temple class memories is of having all those young brethren in our home to teach them the temple preparation lessons.  Junior has been living down the hill with his grandparents, so we haven't seen him too much since he returned, but he was in church with us only a couple of weeks ago.  I came out of the room where we hold opening exercises for priesthood a few minutes before the meeting started and saw him coming toward the door.  He had his customary big smile and we talked for a few moments about what he was doing (work, school and such).

I'll admit that when Bishop Galindo called a little after 7 Sunday morning, the phone woke me up and I wasn't coherent and didn't completely understand his message.  When the news was reiterated when we came to church and I finally understood the impact of what had happened, I was in shock.  Bishop told us that he had asked Brother Fifita what we could do for them as a ward.  The reply was, "Pray for us."  That's what we've been doing.

As I've been attempting to come to grips with this tragedy, I've found my thoughts turning back to chapter 2 in the manual Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball titled "Tragedy or Destiny?"  A month ago, I wrote a post that included a quote by Elder Orson F. Whitney.  There is another quote from that chapter that I will share: "Is there not wisdom in [God's] giving us trials that we might rise above them, responsibilities that we might achieve, work to harden our muscles, sorrows to try our souls? Are we not exposed to temptations to test our strength, sickness that we might learn patience, death that we might be immortalized and glorified?

"If all the sick for whom we pray were healed, if all the righteous were protected and the wicked destroyed, the whole program of the Father would be annulled and the basic principle of the gospel, [moral] agency, would be ended. No man would have to live by faith.

"If joy and peace and rewards were instantaneously given the doer of good, there could be no evil—all would do good but not because of the rightness of doing good. There would be no test of strength, no development of character, no growth of powers, no [moral] agency, only satanic controls" (Teachings: Spencer W. Kimball, 15).

As I think about it, another thing mentioned by Bishop Galindo yesterday was that the area of Guatemala in which Junior served his mission is one of the most dangerous places on the earth right now because of the political and social unrest going on in that area.  He served there for two years without any incident and then came home and lost his life in a suburb of Los Angeles.  It seems so unfair that a young man who had his whole life ahead of him could have that life so callously taken from him.

At the same time, I can think of other times when I or members of my family have been spared from injury or death.  Ben was in a car accident back in January on slick roads that caused an oncoming car to swerve into their lane and hit them.  He testified to us in his letter that week that he felt heavenly protection during and in the aftermath.  My sisters Joanna and Jaime and brother Jay were protected from death during the bombing of the Cokeville elementary school.  Those are two examples; there are others.  Please don't misunderstand.  By offering these examples I, in no way, am saying that I and my family are somehow more righteous or more deserving than someone else who died in a similar situation.  I absolutely and unequivocally do not believe that to be true (my sister Joanna eloquently touched on this topic in a blog post she wrote not long after The Cokeville Miracle movie was released).   Does this mean it was Junior's "time" while it was not ours?  I have no real answer for that.  Can we make choices that will end our life before our appointed time?  Yes.  Can someone's immoral use of their agency cut short someone else's appointed time?  Also, yes (this situation is a tragic example).

When adversity comes in our lives, we can do either one of two things: blame God for it or endure it with God's help.  The first reaction can make us become bitter toward Father; the second can help us humbly come closer to Him.  President Henry B. Eyring expressed it this way: "That aching for an answer to 'How could this happen?' becomes even more painful when those struggling include those we love. And it is especially hard for us to accept when those afflicted seem to us to be blameless. Then the distress can shake faith in the reality of a loving and all-powerful God. ... And if unchecked, those feelings can lead to loss of faith that there is a God at all.

"My purpose ... is to assure you that our Heavenly Father and the Savior live and that They love all humanity. The very opportunity for us to face adversity and affliction is part of the evidence of Their infinite love. God gave us the gift of living in mortality so that we could be prepared to receive the greatest of all the gifts of God, which is eternal life. Then our spirits will be changed. We will become able to want what God wants, to think as He thinks, and thus be prepared for the trust of an endless posterity to teach and to lead through tests to be raised up to qualify to live forever in eternal life" (Ensign, May 2009, 23-24).

The principle to remember is that our Father in Heaven sent us here to earth to test us to see who we will become.  Our choices do matter and those choices are not made in a vacuum.  We can't say that our choices only hurt ourselves and no one else because they have consequences that ripple out like a rock thrown in a pond.  If we decide to become bitter after a tragedy like this, that choice will not only affect us, but others around us.  I'm not saying that people should "put on a happy face" and act like nothing happened—that would be ridiculous.  What I am saying is that with our Father's and Elder Brother's help, we can receive the comfort we need to help us when we feel emotionally overwhelmed by the adversity that comes to us in our lives.

As for those who make choices that adversely affect others, one way or another, they will receive the full weight of justice if they do not repent of those choices.  My sister Joanna put it this way: "God allows us to choose who we will be, and those choices affect others.  Sometimes those choices cause death, other times bodily injury, and still other times it is trauma to the mind and the emotional makeup of a child.  All these things are seen and remembered by an all wise and all-knowing and loving God, and they will be the terrible inheritance of those who perpetrated them" ("On Miracles," So This Is My Life ... I'll Take It, Thursday, June 18, 2015, post).

All I know for sure is that we have a loving, kind, merciful and just Father in Heaven.  When we talk about His plan, we are including everything that comes along with it--joy and sadness, righteousness and evil, the moral and immoral use of agency (to name a few).  Bad things happen to good people, but that is a part of what this life offers—it's what we decided we wanted to experience when we opted to fight for Father's plan rather than accept Lucifer's.  Although there is a chance that bad things can happen to us even when we are doing all that we can to make righteous choices, through the Atonement of the Savior, all will be made right, for "God shall wipe away all tears from [our] eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away" (Revelation 21:4).

Heavenly Father's plan is real.  Jesus Christ is the central figure and focus of that plan.  As we strive to do our best to keep Their commandments and follow Them with all our heart, might, mind and strength, we will have the blessing of receiving the comforting benediction, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant" (Matthew 25:21).  I feel satisfied that Junior will receive (and probably already has) such a benediction to his mortal life.  I will mourn with those who have been left behind and strive to so live that I may renew my friendship with him when my mortal life reaches its conclusion.

Believing in God

Ever since Brother Devin Durrant's October 2015 conference talk, we have been choosing "ponderizing" scriptures each week.  Each Monday, we take down the last week's scripture and talk about what we learned as we read it and thought about it during the week.  After all three of us talk about the scripture, then the next person unveils the new scripture.  It is then posted to the door of the refrigerator and the bathroom mirrors.  We rotate each week.  Jennifer chooses a scripture, then Isaac, and lastly me.  One of the things I've enjoyed is listening to Isaac talk about what he has learned.  I like hearing his insights and have noticed that he's been really thinking about them; not just spitting out "Sunday school" answers.

Jennifer picked our latest ponderizing scripture and it has been an interesting one for me to think about all week.  It is Mosiah 4:9: "Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend."  After Jen unveiled her choice, I was looking at the Deseret News website and came across an article by Taylor Halverson discussing how to teach children about the translation of the Book of Mormon..  The article is a dialogue between the author and his wife and their children.  During this question and answer format, he talked to his children about the Urim and Thummim and seer stone and how Joseph Smith used those instruments to help him translate the Book of Mormon by "the gift and power of God."  Brother Halverson then used modern devices as a way to help his children better understand this concept.

I thought it was interesting article.  Then, I made the mistake of scrolling down far enough to see the top 3 comments about the article.  At the time, all 3 attacked the article and its purpose in some fashion.  There are 68 comments on this article in all.  I only looked at the first page of comments and they showed me that half (or more) of them are criticisms and the other half are defenses or just comments about the article without referencing the attack comments.

This brought me back to our ponderizing scripture.  If a person believes "in God" and that He "created all things" and that He has "all wisdom" and "all power," that's one thing.  But believing that man "doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend" is another thing altogether.  In this day and age men and women are becoming like Korihor from Alma chapter 30.  They don't want to look to a higher power, they want the final say in all things to rest with themselves.  According to this way of thinking, the only way a person truly prospers is "according to his genius" or the only way one gets ahead in this life is to conquer "according to his strength" (Alma 30:17).

To believe that there is a higher Being or a higher power that comprehends things in a way that is greater than mortal men and women is to give that ultimate power over to this being and this is something that cannot be allowed.  Consequently, two things occur.  Either people imagine a god who allows them to believe and do whatever they want ("God loves me for who I am, not what I do.  He's not going to condemn me for what I do or how I act or the things that I say.") which causes the higher power to not be better than its human counterparts; or the person attacks religious beliefs by attacking prophesies with claims that "no man [prophet] can know of anything which is to come" and tearing down the past by claiming that already held beliefs are the "foolish traditions of your fathers" (Alma 30:13-14).

Sometimes it's subtle; other times it's blatant, but in this instance, many of the negative comments I read in conjunction with the article boiled down to the second of the two scenarios.  From the comments, there seems to be this prevailing idea that for Brother Halverson to teach his children in the manner he describes is to not allow them to think for themselves or to not give them "all" the information.  To teach his children to have faith in the process used by the Prophet Joseph Smith (even though that process appears to individuals in these modern and "enlightened" times to seem completely ridiculous) is to allow them to believe that "man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend."  Those comments, whose intent was to tear down faith, pointed to the story of Joseph Smith translating the plates by the "gift and power of God" as the "effect of a frenzied mind; and this derangement of your minds comes because of the traditions of your fathers, which lead you away into a belief of things which are not so" (Alma 30:16).  Attack the past, dismiss the future; focus only on the "now" because "now" is all that matters.  The now, however, is a fickle mistress.  She'll stay with you as long as you give her a good time, but she'll drop you without a second thought if someone better comes along—and then what do you have other than empty promises and nothing to show for them?

Coming to understand that "man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend" is a very humbling experience.  Moses had this type of experience.  Moses was shown this world "and the ends thereof" (Moses 1:8).  Hours after receiving this vision, Moses finally regained "his natural strength" and "said unto himself: Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed" (Moses 1:10, emphasis added).  This humbling experience could have made Moses bitter.  Instead, he used it to ward off the temptations of Satan (see Moses 1:12-22), which then allowed him to behold and learn even greater things than he did before (see Moses 1:24-40).  As Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught, "it is only the meek mind which can be so shown and so stretched—not those, as Isaiah wrote, who 'are wise in their own eyes' (Isa. 5:21; see also 2 Ne. 9:29 and 2 Ne. 15:21)" (Ensign, May 1985, 71).  If we strive to be humble and teachable, then we will be able to withstand Satan's attacks upon the future and past and hold firm to faith in the present.  On the other hand, if we become wise in our own eyes, then we run the risk of allowing these types of attacks to weaken our faith and cause doubt.

Can we have questions?  Yes.  It is one thing, however, to have questions with a desire to have them appropriately answered and another to question only for the sake of insighting doubt and cynicism.  The answers to our questions pivots on the attitude and willingness we bring to the Lord.  King Benjamin's quotation encourages a person who has doubts or questions and sincerely wants an answer to understand that the beginning of true wisdom is to "believe that [he or she does] not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend" and do what James directs: "let him [or her] ask of God" (James 1:5).  As President Dieter F. Uchtdorf explained: "There is no magic to belief. But wanting to believe is the necessary first step! God is no respecter of persons. He is your Father. He wants to speak to you. However, it requires a little scientific curiosity—it requires an experiment upon the word of God—and the exercise of a 'particle of faith.' It also takes a little humility. And it requires an open heart and an open mind. It requires seeking, in the full meaning of the word. And, perhaps hardest of all, it requires being patient and waiting upon the Lord" (Ensign, Nov. 2015, 78, emphasis in original).

The answer may not be as immediately forthcoming as it was for Joseph Smith.  Sometimes we need to show Heavenly Father that we are really serious about our question—that we're not asking just out of curiosity or because it might be a nice thing to know—but that we are prepared (as Joseph was) to act in faith upon the answer and follow through with whatever the answer may be.  Joseph was ready and willing to join the church that God told him to join (see JS-H 1:18).  Instead he was told to join none of them, so he didn't.  If we are ready and willing to act on the answer we receive from Father, then He will be able to more readily give us that answer.  If we are not, He may wait to see if we will continue to ask until our will aligns with His.  When we are humble and ready to be taught, He will teach us and we will then begin, ever so slightly, to comprehend the things that He comprehends.

New Stake President & Some Thoughts Concerning Moroni

Today we participated in the release of our former stake presidency and the sustaining of a new stake presidency.  Our two visiting authorities were Elder Daniel L. Johnson who is a General Authority Seventy and Elder W. Mark Bassett who is an Area Authority Seventy.  Elder Higham is the Area Authority Seventy for this area.  Since he was not here, I figure he may have been assigned to other duties today.  I'm not sure exactly where Elder Bassett is from.  He did mention Sacramento one of his talks, but also mentioned he knew President Hobbs (the RC Mission Pres.) so that could mean Idaho.  I guess it doesn't really matter.  What matters is that he was needed and he came.

Before Elder Bassett conducted the "business" portion of the meeting, he asked the congregation to consider the nearly 9 years President Skinner and his counselors have served.  He then asked that as we raised our arms to the square to release them "with a vote of thanks" to really think about that in terms of what these brethren have done for us as a stake over the course of their service.  This was a unique request, but one I very much appreciated because it got me thinking about my contact with President Skinner over the years and how much I appreciated him.  He has this talent for being able to stand and give a sermon with no prepared text and yet, when he finishes, I've always felt that he was able to say everything he needed to say.  I can talk off the cuff in a pinch, but I have a penchant for rambling and taking off on side bars.  My family has reached the point that they get this look of, "Here he goes again," when I do it.  I eventually bring the side bars back to the main point, but it sometimes takes me several minutes to do so and I lose whatever moment I may have had.  This is one of the reasons I seem to easily fall behind in writing my posts.  Once I've written something I have a habit of hashing and rehashing it to make sure I'm happy with what I want to say.  That's why I find that it is so much better for me to write my talks.  It gives me the luxury (or maybe curses me with the ability) of honing my meaning and my words until I am happy with the end result.  Having my thoughts written in front of me keeps me focused and on task (no side bar trips).  This isn't the only thing that I appreciate about President Skinner, but it is something I've always admired.  These three brethren have capably lead the stake for a significant period of time and I was thankful for all they had done for me and my family either directly or through their talks at stake conferences during their tenure.

Now our stake president is President Arlan Garcia, with President Loveland and President Mortensen as his counselors.  I am not as familiar with President Mortensen as I am with the other two brethren, but I look forward to getting to know him better through his service and his counsel.  It was also interesting to listen to both Elder Bassett and Elder Johnson testify of the process of selecting this new presidency.  They testified that when the Lord identified to them who He wanted to lead the stake, that the Spirit testified to them and they both knew it.  I had already felt good about raising my arm in sustaining them, but the words of these two authorities solidified the feelings I had previously experienced.

I've already discussed the importance of sustaining our leaders, so I am going to now change lanes (at least I'm using my directional indicator) and go in a different direction with this post.  Last night at the adult session of stake conference, Elder Bassett talked about Moroni in a way that fascinated me.  Since I don't take short hand type notes that would allow me to recreate his words with exactness, I'm going to rely on my faulty memory.  I want to be up front with the fact that this was his talk, but what I'm most likely going to end up with is an amalgamation of his thoughts and my own.

After the final battle at Cumorah, Moroni went into hiding because he had "not friends nor whither to go" and the Lamanites had "hunted [his] people ... from city to city and from place to place, even until they [were] no more" (Mormon 8:5, 7).  Consequently, Moroni was alone (see Mormon 8:3).  From the time his father and his people were killed until the time he writes Mormon chapter 8 through the book of Ether, 16 years had passed for Moroni.  Think about that, 16 years alone, hiding so as to not be killed.  I like to have my alone time, but I'm not sure if I could endure 16 years of being by myself, while, at the same time, constantly looking over my shoulder to see if my enemies were closing in on me.  Considering this makes me appreciate even more Moroni's words in Ether when he testifies: "I have seen Jesus, and ... he hath talked with me face to face, and ... he told me in plain humility, even as a man telleth another in mine own language, concerning these things" (Ether 12:39).  Also, we have this statement: "I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing" (Mormon 8:35).  From both of these verses, I glean that there were times when the Savior came to visit Moroni--possibly in those moments when his isolation became crushing.

When he completed Mormon 8 through Ether, Moroni hid the plates and left the Camorah, but eventually returned to the hill in what is now upstate New York to write his own book because, as he declared: "I have not as yet perished" (Moroni 1:1).  By the time Moroni reached the end of his book, another 20 years have passed (see Moroni 10:1).  I'm no math wiz, but I can add; that's 36 years of being alone, wandering "whithersoever [he] can for the safety of [his] own life" because the Lamanites "put to death every Nephite that will not deny the Christ.  And I, Moroni, will not deny the Christ" (Moroni 1:2-3).  Even with what I would term as occasional visits from the Savior, it would be safe to say that Moroni had a very unique perspective of what it means to be alone.

There is no record of Moroni's death.  In chapter 10 of the book of Moroni, Moroni issues his challenge to those who read the entire abridgment of what is to become the Book of Mormon and offers his second and final farewell to all of us in this modern day (whether we read and believe his words or not).  After that, we have no idea what happened to Moroni other than the fact that he states that he will "soon go to rest in the paradise of God" (Moroni 10:34).  But because he is the person to bury the gold plates and knows of their hiding place, it isn't a stretch to believe that he knew that he had a definitive role to play in the restoration of the gospel.  He had 36 mortal years to think about and refine what he would say when the opportunity for him to disclose the location of the plates came. 

Finally, on September 21, 1823, Moroni was sent to Joseph Smith in response to young man's prayer for forgiveness and with "full confidence in obtaining a divine manifestation, as [he] previously had one" (JS-H 1:29).  The first scripture Moroni quoted was from Malachi.  He first quoted "part of the third chapter of Malachi" (JS-H 1:36), but, then, Moroni declared Malachi 4:5-6 to the young prophet differently than how it reads in the Bible.  Elijah the prophet would come to "reveal ... the Priesthood" in order to "plant the promises made to the fathers" to their children in order to keep the "whole earth" from being "utterly wasted" (D&C 2:1-3).

I'm not sure if Joseph totally understood the significance of that scripture when it was first quoted to him, but Moroni had announced that the sealing key of the Priesthood would soon be "revealed" by Elijah.  For 36 mortal years, Moroni had wandered the land by himself.  This Nephite prophet had a profound understanding of what it meant to be a singular soul without family and friends to comfort him.  He had gained a level empathy for those bereft of loved ones with no welding link to tie their family connection to each other throughout eternity.  Because of this profound identification with the need to be together with others, a part of a family and the blessings that connection afforded, one of the first things he wanted to tell Joseph Smith was that the time for the restoration of the sealing key and the marvelous blessings it held was now at hand.  Moroni understood that once that sealing key had been revealed and turned by Elijah to unlock its blessings to the Prophet Joseph Smith, no longer would anyone be alone in the profound way that he had been for 36 long years on the earth.  From that point forward, families could be sealed together (Moroni could be sealed to his father Mormon and his mother and his wife and children) and the purpose of the earth would not be "wasted."

I am so grateful for the temple and the priesthood power that allows sacred, covenant making ceremonies to take place within them that link people together in families in such a way that they are never alone.