5 Years Ago My Name Became Elder

"Do you stand by what he said?"

The man with charcoal eyes, black as the pit, stared at me in the dim light of a shack in an alleyway known as Loma Lane. This was not a genuine question - our safety was at jeopardy and our lives had been threatened. At 18 years old I had a split second decision to make. To go back on our teachings would have protected us. But I would never deny the Christ.

Just a few weeks prior, on February 13th, I reached for the door handle on our Yukon. We were at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah. Mom, Dad, all the kids, and even Grandma and Grandpa were stuffed inside. I turned and said a quick goodbye, just long enough to glance at their faces - the real goodbyes had already been said. I stepped out onto the curb in my shiny black Johnson & Murphy shoes and a tailored blue suit.

The escorts had my bags out of our car before I even closed my door. I saw the kids with all four of their heads peering over the back seat, waving. My parents were crying, but we hugged and kissed and bid each other farewell. As Elder Pritchard led me down the walkway towards the complex, I remembered a friend telling me he didn't look back at his parents. That seemed to be a badge of courage for some, but not for me. I turned one more time and waved to my parents through the closing crowd of hundreds of missionaries before turning and being swallowed up into a sea of bodies.

MTC, Provo, Utah - February 2013

A few moments later I approached the check in table.  The lady asked my name. She found my packet and warmly said, "Welcome to the MTC, Elder Martinez."

I wouldn't hear my real name again for a very long time, so long that when I did hear it again it seemed foreign, alien. Two weeks later I would board a plane to Fresno, California. One could drive there from Price, Utah, my hometown, in just a day.  Yet as close as that seems I felt like I was on an entirely different planet.

Near Fresno, California - July 2014

As an Elder, you could call home four times in two years - 40 minutes each call. You could e-mail one time a week for 1 1/2 hours. You could also write letters one day a week, and others could write you letters. No visiting, no texts, no Facebook. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I felt entirely isolated in a world I did not know.  Yet, that was what I had gone to do.  I had gone intentionally, knowing those things.

Skype Call, Mother's Day - May 2014

I was rejected by many, accepted by some. Those few, those delightful few, made it all worth it.  I felt as if I was able to share something that gave me joy with other people, my sole hope being that they learned to feel that same joy I had felt.  The joy that comes with knowing where you came from before this life, what the purpose of life is, and what would happen after we would die - to what glorious place we would go.

Oakdale, California - July 2013

They made every 115 degree day on a bike from 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. worth it. They made every door slammed in my face and people telling me about what Hell I was going to worth it. They made the lone nights with silent tears running down my cheeks in the dark worth it.

Sonora, California - July 2013

Don't be mistaken - my mission was not 728 days of hardship.  There were equally as many good times.  Biking along country roads through endless miles of orchards, bright, blooming trees that seemed straight out of a painting.  Laughing with the people who we loved, and who came to love us.  Trying to play soccer against Latinos and explaining to the curious ones, in Spanish, why my skin was white and my last name was Martinez.  Sitting back and chatting with new people, learning
who they were, sharing stories and time together. Eating grapes in the church vineyard.

I knew joy. My life had been wonderful. But there was a joy there as a missionary that cannot be compared to any other joy I've experienced, and I've experienced a lot of happiness since that time. It's like comparing apples to oranges. A type of joy that you can only know from being a missionary.

Corcoran, California - July 2013

We would hear funny things.  People would say, "Don't you have six wives? You worship Joseph Smith, right? You can't be Christians, don't you have a different Jesus than us?"

Six wives?  I laugh at that still!  No, we don't have six wives, I can't even find one!

Riverbank, California - February 2014

No, we don't worship Joseph Smith, not a bit.

 We taught about the same Jesus Christ - the Jesus Christ of the Bible. The same God. The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of all of Israel. We taught about redemption and about how there is a life after this - how families are not only til death do you part, but for all eternity, how the same family structure that exists here will be in the life to come.

There were times I cried with people, there were times I cried for them. More often than that we smiled together. We helped people “find meaning where none once used to be”.

There were miracles that dropped my jaw, literally. I saw things with my own two eyes that defied any science I have ever known.

I met angelic people and maybe even more than once rubbed shoulders with unseen angels themselves.

Madera, California - June 2014

Church Vineyard, Madera, California - August 2014

Serving a mission didn't make me any better than any other person - that's not the point of a mission. It's not a count of how good you are.

Near Yosemite, California - September 2014

But it did make me a better me. It grew me, it taught me, it molded me. I learned to teach, to testify, to help people. I learned to rely on a God that some might say doesn't exist - he was my greatest ally.

Turlock, California - February 2015

Two years later the pilots started up the jet. As the plane pulled off the tarmac, I looked back on Fresno one last time, a city only I had known, experiences only I could fully understand.

As the city fell from view I prayed silently, telling Him that I had done my very best. I felt a confirmation that despite my shortcomings as a man and a missionary, I had found the people - the wonderful people - I had been sent to find. Not an hour later I had finished writing in my journal and the plane was arcing over the Salt Lake Valley.

           Fresno, California - February 13th, 2015

Flight from Fresno to SLC - February 13th, 2015

That day, February 11th, was the best day of my life.  I swiftly walked through the airport until I rounded the corner at the top of the escalator.  There was my family, my precious family.  We embraced.  They said my name.  It had a faint familiarity to it.

Mom, Salt Lake City, Utah - February 11th, 2015

Dad, Salt Lake City, Utah - February 11th, 2015

My family was so familiar.  The details of their faces, their personalities.  I hadn't entirely forgotten it, but remembering them was something that was only had in pictures sent to me, memories, and nearly nightly dreams.

I walked my house that night.  I looked in all the rooms.  It was my home.  A place that seemed like it too was forged out of just a dream, and there it was before me.

Life is good.  I've had many wonderful experiences since and expect there to be joys greater than that which I have already experienced.

Someday, after many years of life I will "cross the great divide" that separates our world from the next.  I assume I will walk the rooms and halls of my Heavenly home.  It will be familiar to me.

And my Heavenly Family, they too will embrace me.  They will be so familiar to me.  I will remember every detail of who they are, we will not be strangers.

They too will say my name.  I don't know what they will call me, but I know the Voice that calls will be familiar also.

Oakdale, California - May 2013

Don't Ever Grow Old, Little One

Every so often I walk up to my doorstep with my grey and orange Nautica duffel bag in hand.  It's usually around sunset on a Friday night, and I'm a student on break from school.  As I reach for the doorknob I can't help but smile because I know what I will hear the moment I open the door.

"Austin, will you play with me?"

If I had to rank the things I hear the most frequently, this would probably be at the top.  It comes with having a little sister who has lots of energy.  Kambree spares no time.  The second I'm home it is time to play toys.

Halloween, 2012

Playing with toys, 2015

I'm not particularly good at Barbies, Shopkins, My Little Pony, or Roblox.  I couldn't even tell you how to play those games or really what they are.  All I know is you take what toys they hand you and you just go with the flow.


It would be so easy to say no.  To say that I don't want to.  I could watch Netflix, hang out with friends, play the piano, adventure around town.  Naps always sound great.  My Mom would tell me to go on a date so I don't end up single forever - actually, my Dad would say that too.

But when I am asked to play, I try to never say no.

That's because I know that someday, I won't be asked that question again.  At least not by her.

Someday, she'll grow up and have friends and activities and those days of hearing that tiny little voice asking me to play with toys will be gone.  That doesn't mean the future is full of decay, rather the opposite - it is as bright as ever, augmented at the prospect of endless opportunities.  Yet, you have to face the truth - days like this will not last forever.

MTC, February 2013

I notice changes in everyone.  All the kids are a tad taller, voices a little deeper.  My parents aren't quite as young as they used to be, though they're certainly not old yet.

Yet, each time I wish I could say to each of them, "Don't ever grow old, Dad.  Don't ever grow old, Mom.  Don't ever grow old, Joseph. Bailee, Tanner, Colton, Kambree.  Don't ever grow old, little one," because next time I see them, they won't be so little even if that means being just a tad bit older.  Sometimes I wish I could go back and say that to myself.

Manti Utah, June 2015

I have a framed photo on my dresser.  The picture was probably taken 18 years ago.  My Mom and I were out boating at Huntington Reservoir near Price.  When I study that photograph I realize she really hasn't changed a whole lot.

Then you look at that thin little boy with the silky brown hair.  He has a timid smile.  He liked to read, a mind filled with an imagination from all the books he had read.  Dreams filled with sweet childish fantasies, toys and friends.  He probably thought about school and what he was going to do at recess or with his buddies. His most sizable worry had to have been whether he would have the peanut butter & jelly sandwich for lunch or the chicken nuggets.  Not long after that photo was taken he was about to go flying off the tube into the lake.  I remember that day well!

Mom and I, Huntington, Utah, approx. 1998

Then I look up from that photograph into my mirror and see a 6'1", 219 pound, 23 year old man staring back at me.  Hazel eyes.  Brown hair cropped and carefully swept to the right, a missionary's haircut even years later, accented by thick, dark eyebrows.  A few more scars.  Possibly a nearly invisible shadow of whiskers after a long week of finals.  A mind filled with imagination of what the future holds and reflections on what I have learned, the places an I have seen, the people I have met, the things I have survived.  Nightly dreams filled with chemical reactions, laboratory procedures, and occasionally that I've run out of bread (something college students are prone to dream about). Not sure which of those is the nightmare - maybe all the above.

Medical school interview, Cedar City, Utah, November 2017

Every time I step into my room to set down my bag and see that picture, the thought always crosses my mind, 'Where did that little boy on that boat go?'  I think about how happy his childhood was and sometimes wish, for just a moment, that I could part the curtain of time and peer back into his life, to see him - me - again.  Could that boy have had any clue what his life would bring him?  He would grow older, a bit wiser, a lot taller.  He would learn to play the guitar, then the trumpet, then the piano, then the organ, then the mandolin.  He would gain friends and lose others.  He would experience the pleasures and ills of life.  He would finish school, become a missionary, a college graduate.

In time he would spend cold nights searching dark streets and knocking on hundreds of doors for anyone willing to hear a message he had been called to carry, in a place that seemed far away from home.  Sometimes that would be in a foreign language.

He would spend nights with friends joking around and playing games.  Somedays he would find himself leaned over a laptop into the early morning hours with bloodshot eyes and class in just a few hours, other times waking up in the night on the couch with his chemistry book in hand.

He would witness "the treasure that waits for a man to find, the peaks of mountains that reach out and touch the sky...and the desert where dreams have died."1  He would have more in store for him than he ever thought imaginable.  And someday, somewhere I surely will look back at myself now and wonder if I had any idea what lied in store for me "not now, but in the coming years."2

Dad and I, Idaho Falls, Idaho, 1996

Someday my name will be Dad.  That's an interesting, nearly unfathomable thought.  In some ways I wish I could stay twenty-three forever, but I also know that there are some little children in a few years that will be my little ones.  If I stayed this age forever, I couldn't ever see them and the joy that comes with them.  I wouldn't ever experience getting married, holding them as babies and raising them up going to their games, plays, recitals, watching them grow.  I'll surely want them to stay little forever, and I suppose one day as I cradle each of those babes to sleep I'll quietly say, "Don't ever grow old, little one."  But I know they have to grow older to experience the joys I have.

Mom and I, Utah, December 1995

Oakdale, California, 2013

My entire point in all of this nostalgic sauntering is this: time is both a friend and foe and it will keep ticking by whether you want it to or not.  We can't know the joy of the future without letting go of the present.  That is why it is so important to enjoy your life right now and not let it pass you by without living it to the fullest.  That way you can look back and say that you did everything you wanted to do.  You won't be like "those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way."3

Martin's Cove, Wyoming, July 2010

A coworker recently asked me, "How many ball players do you know that are going to get up, miss the first swing, and go sit back down?"  I replied, "None, they've got at least three chances."

"Exactly. If they did that they would look back years later and wonder "what if" they had just taken another swing or two? You don't want to have regret, to let opportunities pass you by and think, years later, "what if?"

Dad and I, Salt Lake City, Utah, approx. 2005

So when the present time comes with all its opportunities, swing with all your might.

Live with no "what ifs".  What do you have to lose? Enjoy now - enjoy today.  As bright as the future is, don't sacrifice the present for it.  When it comes time for "greater things than these"4, move on knowing you've taken every opportunity and ran with it.  This year, if you don't do anything else, write every day down in your journal - even the most trying of days, even the ones you don't think were significant - so you can remember it when you're old.  You won't ever regret that.  Then, when the twilight of your life arrives and all the years of your existence flash before you, a soul ready to ascend to glorious, celestial heights - smile, knowing that you lived the life you were given to its fullest and "sing your death song like a hero going home."3


Happy New Year, all.




1. "The Pursuit of Knowledge", Zack Hemsey

2. "Not Now, But in the Coming Years", Maxwell N. Cornelius

3. "Die Like a Hero Going Home", Tecumseh

4. Mormon 8:12

Returning To School: Year 4

"You live your life by a code. An ethos, every man does. It’s your shoreline.  It’s what guides you home and trust me, you’re always trying to get home."

Angels Landing in Zion National Park

It's 12:45 a.m. and I really should be asleep.  I've been awake nearly 24 hours and I'm moving back to college today.  It's exciting, sort of, so when you can't really sleep on normal days the hype of it all makes for an interesting combination.

Every time I pack to move it's like an expedition.  I always spend way too much time going through the random items I find in my closet and drawers that I forgot I had.

One such discovery was my wallet.  I'm not the guy to really carry a whole lot - usually my phone, keys, debit card, and drivers license.  There are some important things to take with you when you are away from home though, so I figured I should start using a wallet again.

I found my long-lost wallet tucked in a drawer.  It only took me a minute to realize that this was the same wallet I carried throughout my mission several years ago.  There were three things inside.

First, there was a picture of my sister Kambree.  She must have been about three or four, holding a miniature baseball from an SLC Bees game.  I used to show it to everyone.

The photograph from my wallet

There were two more things.  One was a card my Dad gave me before I left - his card - that had all the Priesthood Ordinances on it.  In time I would learn them by heart, but I carried that card and that picture with me everywhere I went.

The third was a folded piece of paper.  I unfolded it and saw in my handwriting my parents cell phone numbers written down so I wouldn't forget them when it was time to call home.

My first day as a missionary

Looking at that paper, I saw for just a moment an 18 year old kid, me, who had never been away from home for more than a week.  One who looked just a bit younger and w
ho was just a bit more naive. One who struggled being away from home.  I absolutely loved my mission, but I've never been one to really like being away from home for long. Now, years later, when school ends I fly on in my truck with one destination: home.  That may or may not have got me pulled over last fall break for going a lot over the speed limit.  No ticket!

This summer has been wonderful.  I baptized that little girl in the photograph.  I traveled lots.  I paddle boarded to an island with my brothers, rode horses in Canada, saw Glacier and Yellowstone, rafted through rapids with everyone including my grandparents.

Rafting Montana's South Fork River

I spent lots of time watching all the Longmire that Netflix had to offer with my Mom and my Dad.  I took a trip to Las Vegas with my Dad and in another marathon beat Plants vs. Zombies with my Mom.  I spent many Sunday nights with family eating the best homecooked meals and playing board games. We popped lots of kettle corn to sell at the local fairs and events with the best people you could ask for.

Helper Arts Festival, 2017

Roadtrip to Las Vegas

I worked hard to save money so I could make it through college debt free.  I spent time shadowing an awesome surgeon in his clinic and in the operating room and that was sweet.  The picture on the left is of me as an "anesthesiologist" during career day during 9th grade, while the one on the right was taken just last week on my way to Dr. Jensen's office.

I'm wish the summer wasn't over, but although it was a great summer it's not the close of the book. Another great chapter begins as I go back down to Southern Utah University.

A picture I took of the Carter Carillon clocktower, SUU

This is my fourth year of ten years as a college student.  I get to apply to medical school this spring at Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine.  It's an early acceptance program - if accepted, I wouldn't have to worry about applying my last year of undergrad, my seat would be secured for Fall 2020.

SUU football, dances, concerts, socials, they're all on the schedule.  Hanging out with my roommates, midnight hikes, temple trips, getting snowcones from Soda Run.  Late night chats guessing which one of us will get engaged this year.  Last year was 0/4.

It's important to get out and see the world, to do something different, to have experiences you can only have elsewhere.  It's so bittersweet.  I'm ready to go and ready to come back home at the same time.  You always will be when you're never really ready to leave.  The good thing about it is that home is always going to be home.  My Dad still likes to wrestle me, my Mom and I still chat for hours.  Kambree still asks me to play with her.  You've got to enjoy those times while you can, and you've got to enjoy those college years while you can.  I love my family.  I really do, and I hope they know that I do.

My family, 2017

Wish me luck though there isn't much luck involved - what you put in is what you get out.  That goes for school and other things, like dating.  Everyone in my family hopes I find a wife.  That would be nice, but I'm really hoping to get an A in Organic Chemistry too. Pray for both, will you?

50 Random Things About Me

It's been a while since I've posted on my blog.  I've come to a new resolution to post more!

It seems standard for bloggers to include a post dedicated to introducing themselves.  Since I never did that, here it is!

The general things:

My Mom, Brenda, and I at my college graduation.

• I was born in Provo, Utah and raised in Price, Utah
• I'm the oldest of 5 kids
• My Mom is from Green River, UT, my Dad from Alcalde, NM
• I attended Utah State University - Eastern and graduated with my Associate's of Science there
• I served a full-time LDS mission in Fresno California from Feb. 2013 - Feb. 2015
• I am a chemistry major at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah
• I'm preparing for medical school

My Dad Lex, brothers Tanner and Colton, and myself at the Provo City Temple open house.

That's all the usual stuff.  Here's the random stuff:

Seeing my sister Kambree for the first time in 2 years

1. I use pomade
2. I have cut my own hair for nearly four years.
3. I have worn glasses or contacts since 2nd grade.
4. I taught myself how to play the piano at eleven years old.
5. I like to be politically involved/informed.
6. I am an Eagle Scout.
7. I like blondes, and brunettes, and redheads, and black hair too.
8. I broke my leg/ankle but didn't see the doctor until about two months later. Sometimes rafting the Green River the next day is more important.
9. I love international food.  Carson Tatton's Thai food is particularly amazing.
10. I ran myself over with my moped - sad, I know.
11. I am studying to become a doctor - either a family doctor or heart surgeon, depending on if I prefer clinical or surgical applications during medical school.
12. I'm a Mormon and I love it.
13. My humor is drier than a dead stick, or so I've been told.  I think I'm hilarious.

    

    Hammocking in Spring Canyon
14. My Pandora stations range from orchestra to dubstep to acoustic to rap.
15. I drink lots of milk  As in maybe more than two gallons in one week before.
16. I love camping.
17. I enjoy long, all-day trail rides on four-wheelers.
18. I prefer cool weather to hot weather - spring/fall are the best, followed by winter, followed by summer.
19. I'm a fan of thriller films, but generally dislike animated movies.
20. I'm pretty great at hide and go seek.
21. Heights terrify me, unless it's a rollercoaster.  I'll ride any rollercoaster.
22. To go along with 21, I had to be rescued off the top of a rock wall before.  Not my greatest moment.
23. I like to just look at my handwriting and think, "Man, that's good."
24. Someday I want to have my dream home built in the countryside.
25. I was a swimmer in high school.
26. I enjoy reading, especially history and non-fiction.
27. My ancestors came from England, Spain, and Native-Americans.  If you want to get technical, I also have ancestry from Poland, the Middle East, the Caucusus region, and North Africa,
28. I have a problem with laughing at times I probably shouldn't laugh, such as in class or in church.
29. I grew up in rural Utah but I'm probably more city slicker than cowboy.

30. 

    World of Concrete, Las Vegas

    I prefer dressing up to dressing down.
31. I speak fluent Spanish.
32. I prefer sweet to salty.
33. I was on a four-person competitive culinary team in high school.
34. I teach Sunday School.
35. I love to travel and want to visit Nepal and western Europe.
36. I was an assistant swim coach for our county youth team for several years,
37. I've slept in snow caves, handmade platforms high in the trees, and on a roof.  Urban camping at its finest.
38. I've been to Canada and Mexico.
39. Despite several close calls, I've never gotten a ticket.
40. I sang in the Utah All-State Choir for three years, once under the direction of Mack Wilberg.
41. I am always up for an adventure.
42. I drive a 2010 Chevy Silverado.
43. I enjoy shooting guns and my bow.
44. My favorite foods are snow crab and shrimp scampi.

    

    Riding near Green River, UT
45. I really like swimming in the ocean.
46. I currently work in e-commerce sales and marketing.
47. I prefer to be clean shaven.  Mostly because I can't grow a beard.  Yet.
48. I like time alone to just sit and think.
49. I enjoy watching professional football and basketball.


50. I'm 6'2" tall.

Well, there it is - everything you need to know about me.  I hope you can be friends with a guy that rides a moped.

How Gratitude Can Change A Life: Yours

Sonora, California has to be the most beautiful place I have ever lived. I moved there in July, 2013 as a missionary. Evergreen trees rose in all directions, beautiful, lush, and peaceful. Lakes and reservoirs dotted the landscape and deer so tame wandered about that we would feed them from our hands. Located on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, Sonora bordered Yosemite National Park where hundreds of thousands of tourists would visit each year,

Me as a missionary in Sonora, CA. 2013

During that summer, a horrific fire broke loose in Tuolumne County that would threaten the region all around. Known as the Rim fire, it became the third largest wildfire in California history, and we were in the thick of it.  I wrote of my surroundings, "The sun here is blood red, and some mornings it is blocked out by the smoke.  Other mornings, when a few rays of light are able to creep in, it casts an eerie orange glow across the forest."

Smoke billowing near Tuolumne, CA

Around this time, probably in connection with smoke inhalation, I began to have terrible headaches. I had not experienced these often in my then 18 years of life, though my Mother had dealt with migraines for years. I began to see flashes and absence of light in my vision. A doctor soon prescribed me an anti-epilepsy medication which made me so drowsy, one might assume I had no sleep. Each morning I would wake at 6:30, and, as my companion was unable to exercise due to a broken ankle, I would wander around our apartment. I would often wake up in another room on the floor. Once I woke up with a spider crawling across my face (you can imagine how that went). In addition to this medical stress, I was in the works of training a new missionary and trying to support him through the struggles that he would experience. I quickly became depressed.

I spoke to Sister Judith Ure, our mission medical director, and one of the most beloved and highly regarded missionaries in the California Fresno Mission. She discussed with me a way to solve my depressed mood. She said something to the effect of, "Elder Martinez, when you come home each night I want you to pull out a notebook, and in that notebook I want you to list down three things you are grateful for that day. Just three things. The next day, do the same thing. I want you to do this for a week."  Naturally I was skeptical. I didn't feel like I particularly had a lot to be thankful for at the time. Yet, I trusted Sister Ure entirely so I would do it.

That first night after I spoke with her, I pulled out my notebook, opened to a page, and wrote down three things I was grateful for that day. As I wrote, I quickly realized there was more than three things I was grateful for. I was certainly grateful for my parents back home who supported and wrote me faithfully and for the letter I had received in the mail that day. I was also certainly thankful for all of my family who I knew loved me. I was grateful for church members in the area who treated us like we were their own family, though we were "strangers in a foreign land." I couldn't forget the warm meal we had been fed that night.

I found that I couldn't just write three things. It would be unjust of me to write just three things, really. By the time I was done, my list extended much further than I had expected. The next day, and the day after that, I would do the same thing. I would sit down and write the things I was grateful for that day. I would not simply write what I had written the day before and each day, the list was longer than I had intended.

By the end of the week, things had changed. In one short week, my entire outlook on things was different. I felt so much better!  Did my circumstances change? Certainly not. The forest was still on fire, my head still hurt, and I was still struggling with supporting my companion in the first stages of his mission. Nothing had changed. But somehow, the way I tackled it had.

So what can gratitude do for you?

It will help you realize that things are better than they seem.

It is easy for our minds, clouded with stress as they are, to perceive our monsters as much larger than they actually are.  When our troubles really might only make up 5% of what we have to manage daily, we may view them as 50%.  By writing down what we are grateful for we remind ourselves that we have lots more to manage than what is currently troubling us. That may seem counter intuitive; however, we quickly realize that the other things we have to manage are actually going fairly well, which brings relief and puts our troubles in perspective.

It will change how you approach the coming day.

When we wake up the morning after a bad day, our expectations are already set: the next day will be as bad, if not worse, than the day prior. By writing down what we are grateful for before going to bed, we sub-consciously prime ourselves to look for those things in the coming day. Thus we wake on a better note than we would otherwise.

It will reduce your stress and help you avoid difficult situations.

By being grateful, we seem to focus on the road ahead rather than what is directly in front of us. A UHP officer once explained to me why the police always prevail in high speed chases. As a highway patrolman, he is trained to keep his eye on the horizon rather than his immediate surroundings. He looks down the highway a mile ahead of where he is, while the suspect focuses on the few yards ahead of the car. This way the officer can anticipate and prepare for curves, traffic, and other factors that the criminal will not account for until it is already too late, frequently causing the suspect to wreck the vehicle.  By being grateful, you will focus on the horizon and dodge circumstances that would otherwise derail you.

It will remind you of the temporary nature of all things physical.
Being grateful will remind you that the smoke overhead will clear eventually. Unemployment, course work, mental burnout - it's all temporary.  As terrible as these things are to face at the time, they will be over eventually.  You won't be unemployed forever, though it can break your spirit.  Your classes will eventually end, the tests will be over, and you will eventually move on to other classes or your career.  Even chronic physical and mental disabilities are temporary.  How can that be?  We associate lifelong illness and disability with forever, because it certainly feels that way.  For the rest of a person's life they may be afflicted.  However, deep inside, their spirit is the same person they always were, even before these afflictions fell upon them.  Even if they are afflicted for life, upon the parting of the body and the spirit, physical death, their spirit is freed, no longer disabled physically or mentally and as alive as they ever were. Does that make it easier now? No. You may have to deal with that issue for 10, 25, even 75 years.  But it separates the stigma that physical and mental disabilities are forever - they are not.  They are temporary in the lens of the Almighty.

Life will still deal you unfavorable hands. Your circumstances may not change.  The way you tackle your circumstances will and this will lead you to increased joy and purpose in life.  See how a gratitude journal can change your life the way it did mine.

What Saving A Boy Taught Me About The Savior

A sharp breeze kicked at my heels as I glanced out across the water.  A spray from the waves of the pool I was lifeguarding would occasionally come up towards me.  It was a day late in May and dozens of children had come to swim at our wave pool, as is typical during the winding down period of the school year.  I had been a lifeguard for several years and, as one can imagine at a wave pool, had experienced numerous saves.  It was not uncommon for a lifeguard at this pool to save someone, or multiple people, daily.

My eyes drifted to a small boy nearly directly in front of me.  He was jumping in the waves and enjoying his time, right in line with the perimeter the teachers had created at the point where the water deepened.  I looked right, observing the young ones in the shallow water playing and splashing, the few walking the deck.  I brought my eyes left again, quickly observing each child as I scanned when suddenly, I spotted the first small boy who had been directly in front of me being dragged back into the deep water by the waves.  He was now in water much taller than he was and any attempt to stay above the water was futile.  There was no time to call for backup, no time to turn off the waves. Now was the time to act.

I skirted the edge of the pool, eyes locked on the boy.  He turned to look at me just as a wave crashed into the back of his head.  The water reached around his head towards his face, almost resembling watery fingers encapsulating him.  His eyes met mine just before the water covered his face, and I yelled out to him, "I'm going to come for you!"

I jumped off the deck into the water and, eyes open, I spotted him near me underwater, thrashing.  The save went smoothly from there, wrapping my arm around his body and pulling him close to me while I held the buoy in my other hand. I took us back to the shallow as he coughed a bit and it was over.  I made sure he was alright, and he was, and I went back to my guard stand.  Yet, all this time later this rescue would come back to my mind.  He had looked into my eyes as he was drowning, something that was rather uncommon in my experience. What was he thinking when he looked up into my eyes?

I hope that he had one hundred percent confidence that I would come for him.  I hope that he had one hundred percent confidence that I was stronger than the waves and the water, that I had the ability to save him, the ability to come for him and not be drown too.

I would hope that when we see the Savior that we would have one hundred percent confidence, absolute trust, that He will come for us, and not just that He will come for us, but that He has the ability to save us.

Like the boy who had been gradually dragged back into waves, even depths, from which he could not rescue himself, you may at times be dragged back into the deep.  This may be from sins, no matter how small or large, even to the point of covenant breaking.  It also may be no fault of your own, uncontrollable situations such as mental disorders, physical challenges, and spiritual crisis.

On the last night of his mortal excursion, the Lord sat with his Apostles in perhaps one of the most sacred instances of instruction in the New Testament.  The Savior, in response to the Apostle's fear that He would no longer be with them, exhorted them, "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me"  He continues, "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you" (John 14:1,18).

Don't lose heart.  For those of you battling the temptations and sins of the flesh, even to the point of covenant breaking, the Lord has promised you great redemption.  In the words of Stephen E. Robinson, essentially the Lord says to you, "It doesn't matter what you did.  Whatever it was, no matter how horrible or vile, is not the issue.  The issue here is that whatever your sin was or is, I can erase it.  I can clean you up and make you innocent, pure, and worthy, and I can do it today; I can do it now" (8).  Believe that He has the ability to make you as clean as you ever were.

If you face the vast variety of crisis in the world that exist in both the human mind and around us, things mental, physical, financial, etc., know that the Lord is keenly aware of you.  If you haven't learned this by now, it is not in the Lord's nature to snap his fingers and cure or fix your problems instantaneously, though each of us, including myself, find ourselves praying that it will happen that way.  There may be times when the Lord will just keep you alive.  Know that there is a sunrise, somewhere, someday.  That may not come today or tomorrow, but it will come eventually.  Someday, all things will be made right.  For now, press on with faith in a brighter tomorrow and know that He will not leave you comfortless; He will come to you.


References:

Robinson, Stephen E. Believing Christ. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company. 1992. Print.