This Sunday – Continue in Patience

[Anonymous]

First off, this may bore most people here to tears. I don’t have a blog as I don’t think that I have nearly enough interesting things to say to merit one. This is more for me to revisit sometime in the future.

The journey of life certainly is an interesting one. For a while now I’ve been craving a bit of isolation and a break from my church calling. Lo and behold work whisked me 5000 miles away from for about a month. Life had conceded me my desire to be a lone man in the garden of eden. I’m not in the country where I served my mission but I am in a place that speaks the language of my mission. It occurred to me that the only reason I was sent here was because of faithfulness in serving a mission for the church. I saw a bit of irony in that.

I decided to attend church while here and today’s sacrament meeting was really good. The theme was women are equal partners with men in their relationships. One speaker even brought up a popular quote “behind every great man there’s a great woman” but insisted that it be changed to “beside every great man there’s a great woman.” I liked the change. I did find it interesting that there were no women speakers but it was high council Sunday.

A portion of one of the talks touched on Dieter Uchtdorf’s conference talk called Continue in Patience. The speaker brought up the experiment of placing a marshmallow in front of children and telling them that they could eat the marshmallow now or wait 15 minutes and receive two marshmallows. I hate to admit this but I remember that shortly after hearing Uchtdorf’s talk back in 2010 I subjected my son to the test. He immediately ate the marshmallow. I was worried.

The talk this Sunday made me reflect on that experience and I saw something for the first time.

First off I tried to place my adult self into the experiment. My hypothetical results were not favorable. I decided that I would have waited. Not only that, I would have asked the scientists if I could wait an additional 15 minutes to receive three marshmallows, perhaps an hour for four. Maybe if I waited an entire day I could earn 96 marshmallows. I saw how greed could potentially take me down a path where I never ate so much as one marshmallow, a path where I continued to defer blessings in hopes of an increase in future blessings.

While listening to the talk it dawned on me. I saw in my son an amazing christlike quality, a quality that was absent in my own life. It was this quality that governed his choice that day. He ate the one marshmallow immediately because that was all he wanted. Happy was the boy that wanted only what he had. I’ve seen him live that principle for years now.

It got me thinking. I’ve got far too much experience looking for potential trouble areas. I was temporarily blind to the good example my son was providing. I want to go forward employing my efforts in discovering the good in everything. I want to gain experience in this new mindset.

Thank you for setting a good example son. I’m truly sorry for having misjudged you.

[Anonymous]

As one of my daughters would say:

Quote:

There is a lot of awesome in this.

:thumbup: :clap:

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

First off I tried to place my adult self into the experiment. My hypothetical results were not favorable. I decided that I would have waited. Not only that, I would have asked the scientists if I could wait an additional 15 minutes to receive three marshmallows, perhaps an hour for four. Maybe if I waited an entire day I could earn 96 marshmallows. I saw how greed could potentially take me down a path where I never ate so much as one marshmallow, a path where I continued to defer blessings in hopes of an increase in future blessings.

Thanks for sharing this Nibbler.

I am extremely frugal. I do not know if I was born frugal or was made frugal by early life experiences. Possibly a combination of the two.

I used to think that my inherent frugality made me a better Mormon (what with our emphasis on self reliance). As I matured, I began to see not only that I didn’t choose to be frugal but also that it has drawbacks as well.

For me, money is the ultimate variable. It can be converted to almost anything. But like a Genie’s wish, once used it is spent and cannot be reclaimed. This leads me to hoard money that I might never spend. Likewise, it is very difficult for me to enjoy experiences that might be pricey because I can’t let go of how much it is costing me.

In my family – we adapt by having a multitue of free/low cost activities.

I guess that my takeaway is that people are different – and that is OK.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

The journey of life certainly is an interesting one. For a while now I’ve been craving a bit of isolation and a break from my church calling. Lo and behold work whisked me 5000 miles away from for about a month. Life had conceded me my desire to be a lone man in the garden of eden. I’m not in the country where I served my mission but I am in a place that speaks the language of my mission. It occurred to me that the only reason I was sent here was because of faithfulness in serving a mission for the church. I saw a bit of irony in that.

I have a lot of moments like this. Thanks for sharing, and good on your son!

[Anonymous]

I’ve heard that marshmallow study tons of times, but your response is so wonderful!

[Author]

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