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.