Author: Michael Christensen

You have tremendous worth. Inherent worth. More than you can possibly imagine.

When I was 19, I spent 2 years in the wonderful country of Ecuador serving as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

My Mission Call

Like a lot of young men my age who graduated from high school and went to a semester of college, the next step for me was always to serve a mission. I was mission bound. There was never even a second thought! I had three older brothers who all went on missions, and I spent my teenage years writing them on Sundays and reading their letters they would write back. Their mission stories and experiences were uplifting and inspiring, and I wanted a chance to serve! I wanted to be prepared.

So much so that when I left for my first semester at BYU, I didn’t go the route that a lot of BYU freshman go. My older brothers told me all about freshman dorms, and the cafeteria food, and freshman wards, and staying up late, and getting bad grades their first semester because they couldn’t balance school and their new-found freedom away from home… At the time, I didn’t want to do that (which proved harder to do than I thought…). I already had three brothers at BYU. How fun would it be to just live with them instead? Off campus. With a bunch of returned missionaries. In a singles ward full of slightly older non-freshman girls who, (I came to find out, and to my advantage) were tired of dating gung-ho marriage bound returned missionaries, and needed a break, so they’d go out with me because I was “safe.” It was actually a lot of fun. But that’s a story for another time…

The point is, I lived in housing off campus with my brothers, and I was the only freshman in the entire complex and in the ward.

Unlike the freshman dorms at BYU where hundreds of young men were getting mission calls every week, I was the only one waiting for a mission call in my ward! It was a big deal! The entire ward gathered in our apartment and I read out loud that I’d be serving in the Ecuador, Guayaquil South Mission. Wow! What a feeling. I’m getting goosebumps now just thinking about it. I would get to learn Spanish! I would get to live in a foreign country! I would get to serve the Ecuadorian people! I couldn’t wait.

Ecuadorian Currency

This might sound funny, but one of the experiences I was looking forward to while living in a foreign country was the experience of using foreign currency! My oldest brother had served in Ukraine where the currency is hyrvnia! My 2nd oldest brother went to Dominican Republic where the currency is the dominican peso! And my 3rd oldest brother went to Japan where the currency is yen. I looked up the currency in Ecuador and… the American dollar.

Yup. They use the American dollar in Ecuador. The currency used to be sucres, but Ecuador had apparently experienced a financial crisis back in 98-99 and switched to the American dollar.

Although disappointed, I’d collect old sucres anyways during my time there, even if they were worth nothing more than a fun souvenir.

For anyone who may not know, when you serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you pay for it. My parents had been wise with our money since I was a child and put plenty into our savings so that we could save up for our mission. I had made some money as a child model in Japan (another story for another time) and also received a yearly Permanent Fund Dividend as an Alaskan resident for the entire time I lived there. While my friends would spend their PFD’s on snowboards and video games, mine went into savings. I’m sure I griped at the time, but I’m grateful that by the time my mission came around, I didn’t need to worry about finances.

“No Vale”

While serving in Ecuador, we used cash (again, the American dollar…) to pay for pretty much anything. We had ATM cards to pull out cash, but any food or supplies we bought, it was all cash. American dollars. We walked everywhere on my mission. No bikes. No cars. All walking. We carried as little cash as possible around with us and prayed we didn’t get robbed, an occasional occurrence among my fellow missionaries (and once almost to me, but he was too drunk to do any harm while he fumbled for his knife).

While exchanging cash among the Ecuadorians, I learned something pretty quick about how they view money. And it was extremely odd.

We were on the street and stopped to buy some food from a vendor. I pulled out a $20 bill and attempted to pay. The vendor looked at my $20 bill, shook his right hand like he was doing jazz hands, then shook his head, and said to me:

“No vale“

(Pronounced “Noh bah-leh.”)

At first I didn’t understand what he was saying. It took me a second to work out the conjugation of the word “valer” which means “to be worth.” I looked at my Panamanian companion for help, but he just smiled. I barely understood him anyways. Why was this vendor saying my $20 bill wasn’t worth anything? It’s a $20 bill! I attempted again to hand the vendor the $20 bill saying “Si! Si vale! Vale veinte dolares!” Yes, it’s worth $20! As a new missionary, there wasn’t much I was sure about, but as a born and raised citizen of the United States of America, from which this here $20 bill came from, I can unequivocally tell you that this is worth $20! It’s possible, Mr. Vendor sir, that I might have more authority than you on this subject! Now take it! And give me my food!

“No, no vale!” he said again, this time pointing to the corner of the $20 bill I held in front of him. Trying to not get frustrated, and seeking to understand, I looked at what he was pointing at. In the upper left corner of my $20 bill, there was a small, almost microscopic tear. I hadn’t seen it. But even if I had, who cares! It doesn’t matter. Money gets crumpled and torn all the time. It doesn’t diminish the value of the currency. In broken Spanish, I tried to explain that just because there is a tear in the corner of the $20 bill does not mean it’s worthless. It was still very much in tact. But he refused. No matter what I did, he would not take it, and eventually we walked away.

As we made our way to our apartment, my Panamanian companion explained to me that I need to watch out for any cash that comes to me that might be damaged in any way. When getting change from vendors or stores, I had to inspect each bill carefully, because if I got stuck with any imperfections in my money, I wouldn’t be able to spend it. And if I did have any damaged money, I had to do the best I could to hide it when I exchanged it. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s something I had to get used to.

Perception of Worth

What happened in Ecuador? Who decided that just because paper money is slightly torn, it all of a sudden is worth nothing?

When it comes to money, what’s the difference between us and the Ecuadorians?

Perception.

Our perception of worth for that dollar bill does not change based on its worn and torn condition. In my experience, at least here in the U.S., even if a dollar bill has some rough edges and minor tears, we still see value. We still see worth.

It goes without saying that just because someone comes along and decides, for whatever perceived reason, that your dollar bill is not worth something, does not make it true. You know your dollar bill is worth exactly $1. Regardless of what anyone else says or thinks.

I wish I could have waved a magic wand over Ecuador and gotten rid of this negative perception, especially for a poor country that needs to use all the currency it’s people have so they can afford to live! If they could just change their perception and see the inherit worth in the money they carried, regardless of the imperfections, it would only help everyone!

Your Worth

What does it mean to have worth?

I don’t really have a good answer.

But I do know that no outside influence can determine your worthiness. Your worth is not conditional. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about you. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says about you. It doesn’t matter how anyone else judges you.

You have worth. Tremendous worth. Inherent worth. More than you can possibly imagine.

Your tears and stains and beautiful imperfections do not diminish that worth. If anything, they add to it. They make you unique. They help make you YOU.

Others may look at you and decide that you’re less than worthy. They may see your differences and think they can decide your fate. They might even forget about their own rips and tears because they’re so focused on yours. They may even laugh at you, belittle you, and tell you just how unworthy you are.

But that’s just their perception. Who cares what they think they know? You know the truth.

You know your worth.

And if you can see your own worth, and perceive the God given worth of those around you, regardless of their imperfections, you can just ignore anyone who tries to tell you…

…”No vale.”

When should you lead, and when should you follow?

When should you lead, and when should you follow?

Moving to Alaska

When I was nine years old, my family moved from California to Alaska. I still remember telling my next door neighbor and best friend at the time, Danny Bueno, while we played Sonic the Hedgehog on his Sega Genesis, that we were moving to Alaska. He paused the game, let the controller fall, and looked at me.

“What? Alaska? You mean where the eskimos live? Why are you going there?”

I also had this picture in my mind of snow and igloos and eskimos because, well, I was nine. I didn’t know what to expect. I explained to Danny that my dad was in the Air Force and that meant we had to move around a lot, and this time, my parents chose Alaska.

My family and I drove up the Al-can highway that summer and found a house in Eagle River, Alaska. Turns out that in the summer time, Alaska is pretty amazing. Even though I was a military brat and lived several different places in my formative years, when people ask me where I’m from, I say Alaska. Partly because that’s where I spent the most time, and because it’s literally the coolest place ever.

But what does a family of nine do in the winter time in Alaska? I had no idea. I hadn’t really experienced snow before. It never snowed in California, and that’s as far back as my memory went.

Learning to Ski

Turns out that back in the day, my dad, who grew up in Utah, was quite a skier. Our first winter in Alaska, he wisely decided to begin a new family tradition as we were invited to partake of the wonder and joy of skiing. I’ll never forget pulling up to Hillberg, a very small ski slope on Elmendorf Air Force Base, in our 12-passenger van, gazing out the window at what we were about to experience. It was scary. I watched as people rode up the one (yes one) chair lift and then flew down the hillside. How did they not crash? How could they stay balanced and controlled? It seemed impossible.

We all got beginner skis and started on the bunny hill. My brother and I, after a few times down the bunny hill and our confidence somewhat boosted, decided that before we left, we would go down the big hill.

And we did. And it was epic. At least for us.

We spent years going to Hillberg, and only Hillberg, perfecting our skiing skills. The reality is that Hillberg is a pretty lame ski hill. It takes 3 minutes to ride up the lift and 15 seconds to fly down. This allowed us plenty of time to get creative. We would build jumps, play follow the leader, play tag, race, scoop up snow on our skis as we got on the lift, and then dump the snow on the heads of siblings or friends or strangers passing underneath. We’d steal each other’s gloves and hats (nobody wore helmets…) while riding the lift and toss them on the ground, then race to be the first to pick it up. We’d even try to knock each other’s skis off as we rode up, although I don’t think we ever succeeded. I’m surprised we didn’t fall off ourselves, we were so rambunctious and chairs back then didn’t have cross bars to lower in front of you. I also eventually branched out into snowboarding. Now I could switch back and forth (Bi-skidoral?… sure why not). There was nothing else to do on such a small ski slope. But we didn’t care, it was a wonderful family event that we all looked forward to.

Dad. The Boring Skier.

Most of my memories of skiing at Hillberg involve my siblings. I’m number 5 of 8, so I had plenty of siblings around me to play with. I loved growing up in a big family.

But while we were off finding ways to injure ourselves at unnecessary speeds on a bunny-hill of a ski slope, where were mom and dad?

Well my mom was also new to skiing, so my dad stuck with her of course. And there was Jarom, my little brother, who needed a little more care and attention than us older and more skilled children (Although Jarom now skis better than the rest of us ever did, and is still going strong! Guess that’s what happens when you start at 3!).

The point is, I wanted to see my dad SKI. Go fast with us! Show us his master ski skills! Race and be crazy with us! But… he never did. He was perfectly content to do his slow-quick turning, controlled, 1970’s style paralleled skiing, at a boring pace, sticking with mom and the younger siblings. We’d yell and wave to him while riding the lift, he would wave back and mosey on his way… Yawn. How could he possibly be having any fun?

Even when we eventually graduated to Aleyeska Resort level (an actual awesome resort in Girdwood Alaska, with double black diamonds and everything!), we would still just watch him take the green circle routes with mom and be perfectly content. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do a black or double black diamond.

Skiing with my kids

Since I’ve left home and been on my own, skiing has only become more and more expensive, and my frequency of going has been less and less over the years. But I will still try and go a few times a year. I’m decent, and can pretty much do anything on a ski slope. But my perspective has drastically changed.

Based on my own experience of learning to ski as a kid, I wanted to impart that joy upon my own children. Again, it’s ridiculously expensive… so we haven’t gone very much. But the last few years, I’ve been able to take the kids one-on-one and begin to teach them. I’m not that great of a teacher, but they seemed to pick it up pretty well on a very beginner level.

Zoe, my oldest and now nearly 12-year old daughter, has really taken a liking to it. She picked it up very fast, and has a lot of fun when we go. We mainly stay on groomed trails, veering off every now and then into some powder or trees or little jumps here and there. Circle trails, maybe some Squares. But certainly no black diamonds.

I have never had more fun skiing than I have right now, skiing with Zoe. I’ll take skiing with Zoe or any of my kids, over flying down double black diamonds through the trees. Not because I can’t. I probably could. But I don’t want to. Yes, my skill level has probably died down over the years, and I am pushing 40 now, but even still… I’m perfectly content to ski with my kids on the easy trails. More than content. I’ll do it all day long.

I have become my dad. The boring skier. And I love it.

Lead and Follow

A little over a month ago, I went skiing with Zoe. We had a wonderful time. Just me and her, chatting, making videos to show mom, and finding new trails to explore.

One of the challenges I encountered while skiing with Zoe was going back and forth between leading Zoe, or following Zoe. As we got off the lift, I would sometimes say “Ok Zoe, lead the way!” and then I would follow her. But then she would start to head a direction I didn’t want her to go, or where I knew there might be something she might not be able to handle yet. She’s good, but she is still a beginner skier. My instinct to protect her would kick in, and I would yell “Stop!” and then suggest a different way. I would lead the way for a few minutes, and once I could see a safe path ahead, I would say “Ok Zoe, go ahead and lead the way!” Then I would follow her. This repeated 4 or 5 times as we made our way back to the bottom of the hill. We would stop and rest and chat occasionally about which direction to go, and she usually started out leading the way. But we never made it down the mountain without me taking over at some point and leading her a different direction.

I noticed this and I decided to test myself, and Zoe. I told Zoe to lead the way and she could decide every path we took, and I would follow wherever she went. This worked for a little while, she played it pretty safe and I just followed along. We got to a point where there was some deeper powder and a few small trees, and she said “I want to go into those trees!” I had been in those trees before, they were more like bushes and I knew that as long as she was careful, she would be ok. I also knew that if she went too far into the trees, it eventually led to a steeper hill she probably didn’t have the skill level to do yet.

Well, ten seconds into the deep powder and small trees, she “biffed it” as we say and ran into a small tree. One of her skis popped off and was now buried in the snow. We were on a bit of a steeper slope and I happened to stop a little bit below her and couldn’t really get up to help her. I made sure she was okay, but she was struggling to find her ski. For anyone familiar with this predicament, once you do find the ski, putting it on again on a slope in deep powder, is no easy task, even for advanced skiers. Once she found her ski, I watched her struggle for about 5 minutes to put it back on. I resisted the urge to take off my skis and hike back up to help her. I just waited and watched, giving some verbal help and instructions. Eventually she got it, got herself turned around, and I followed her back over to the main trail.

What if I only ever led Zoe down the safe paths? What if I never allowed her to decide which way to go, and I protected her from all potentially dangerous terrains? What if she begs and pleads “Please dad, please can we go through the trees or in the deep powder or down a black diamond?” And I refuse. What if we only stuck to the Blue and Green easy trails because my singular concern was to keep her safe from harm?

I think that strategy leads to two outcomes. 1- She might (MIGHT!) be safer for a slightly longer period of time, only to then be completely un-prepared when she is older and out of my control and protection. Or 2- She sneaks off on her own and tries black diamonds anyways without me, ill-prepared, and increases her chances of severely injuring herself or worse.

Both of these outcomes suck. And whether I like it or not, I have to accept the fact she cannot and will not remain under my protection forever.

My only option, therefore, is to prepare her. That doesn’t mean I stop protecting her cold turkey. She is still mine to protect and love and care for. I will still lead her down paths I decide for her. But every now and then, I need to be able to say “Ok Zoe, go ahead and lead the way!” Maybe I still yell “Stop!” from behind. Maybe we rest occasionally and discuss which way to go together. Maybe I let her “biff it” on a tree and struggle to get her bearings.

Maybe she deserves to be empowered and have feeling of my confidence behind her, letting her lead the way while she can still hear my voice of support and encouragement from behind.

Because soon she won’t hear my voice right behind her. It will be somewhere in the back of her mind, and she may or may not decide to follow it. And there’s nothing I can do about that.

The most I can do is prepare her. There is no alternative.

In the mean time, I’ll happily be the boring ski dad who is perfectly content to mosey along with my kids and spend as much time as possible leading, and following, my children down whatever paths lay ahead for them.

And I’ll wave to them as they ride up the lift on their own.

Dissonance, alone, is not enjoyable or beautiful. But mixed in with musical harmonies, all of a sudden it becomes the most interesting and beautiful part of the song.

Dissonance

When I first think about Dissonance, I think about it in terms of music. Dissonance is a lack of harmony between music notes.

Like only playing the first part of the song “Chopsticks” on the piano. I’m cringing just thinking about it. There’s nothing beautiful about banging on 2 or more piano keys right next to each other. It’s cute when my young kids used to do it, but not pleasant.

That being said, there is a time and place for it. One of my favorite piano songs I learned as a teenager is entitled “All of Me” by Jon Schmidt. At the climax of the song there’s a brief moment where you literally bang your right forearm on all the keys for one measure! It’s fun! It’s interesting! It’s exciting and loud! It makes an audience cheer as they’re not quite sure what just happened! And it’s a wonderfully exhilarating song to play.

So how can dissonance on the piano go from cringe to making people cheer?

I think it depends on the what comes before and what comes after.

Dissonance, alone, is not enjoyable or beautiful. But mixed in with musical harmonies, all of a sudden it becomes the most interesting and beautiful part of the song.

Cognitive Dissonance

I often feel a mental toll on my mind from the world I perceive around me with endless contradictory information and ideas. I feel this cognitive dissonance at home, at work, in politics, religion, community, social relationships… My mind is sometimes screaming at me to get a grip. To get out from the cringe. To run away from the uncomfortableness of being undecided or uncommitted one way or the other.

As an overall very passive individual, running away from a difficult thing is an unfortunate special skill I possess.

Back when I was in college, I was a horrible procrastinator. Unlike high school, college facilitated an element of freedom in regards to schedule, classes, and studies. I would frequently put off large assignments or sufficient study time for a test. This of course resulted in everything coming crashing down at the end of the semester. My brain could not handle it. My mental capacity would be overloaded, and in the moment I should have been frantically studying or preparing myself for end of term projects and exams, I would find myself distracted with music or games, or simply just fall asleep, too exhausted to endure the mental load. I would just let myself escape and run away from the consequences of my choices, and deal with whatever result came about later.

School is behind me, and now I deal with the much more pressing burden of providing for my family and daily survival. I often feel this same mental strain I felt in college in regards to cognitive dissonance, but multiplied a hundred fold. The stakes are much, much higher now.

If I fail, I won’t just get a low grade and a bad test score. I might not be able to pay the mortgage or make the car payment. I might forget to do this or that task at work and risk failing at or losing my job. I might make terrible parenting decisions and unintentionally hurt one of my children with my words or lack of attention and care. I’ve had to learn how to apologize and ask forgiveness from my children on more than one occasion. If only I could be as quick to forgive as they are…

I could write a novel on my own parenting fails. But I can save that for another time.

The point is, the mental toll is there. And I don’t always know what the right thing is to do.

The Beauty of Dissonance

But that not knowing. That undecidedness. Those mistakes and errors. Those are not something to be afraid of. To be ashamed of. To run away from. They’re actually quite beautiful.

Maybe not alone, by itself. But mixed in among the beautiful harmonies before and after.

Over the past few years, I’ve learned to be more comfortable in the uncomfortable. I’ve found more joy among sadness. I’ve discovered how to navigate the bridge of Assertiveness between Passive and Aggressive peaks. I’ve tried to be less judgmental and more open-minded. If something doesn’t make sense to me, I try not to be consumed by it. This might sound odd, but I’ve learned to enjoy sometimes NOT knowing. NOT having the answers. Letting the mystery of whatever I’m trying to figure out keep me on my toes. Keep me wondering. I relish relaxing in the hammock of dissonance held up by two contrary concepts or ideas. Not out of laziness or indifference, but simply taking the time to step back, think, ponder, pray, prioritize, and not worry so much about the outcome.

Nowadays anyone can look up the answer to anything at any time. Even in my own home, we have little Google Home speakers that mykids will constantly ask questions to. In fact, they will fact check me! They’ll ask me a question, I’ll give them an answer, and then they’ll turn around and ask Google the same question! How rude! I wish I could have fact checked my parents when I was a kid!

I feel fortunate to have grown up in a time that I didn’t have that kind of access to information. When I was a kid, if I didn’t know something, I had no choice but to just sit there and wonder. Maybe I could ask a parent or consult an encyclopedia, or go ride my bike to the library to look it up, but those were pretty much my only options. I had no other distractions. No readily available contradicting information. And as a result, I had to use my imagination as my guide through childhood.

Both as a child and even now as an adult, I learn a lot by trial and error. Maybe I’ll just make a choice and if it’s the wrong one, so be it. I can always correct my own course. I’ve always thought of myself as building my own path as I go along, instead of following it. It’s not a straight one. There’s a lot of U-turns. Probably a few abandoned piles of rocks along the way as well. But those are MY rocks. May they serve as beautiful landmark reminders of what NOT to do, of where NOT to go, and what did NOT work.

My 11-year old daughter Zoe has a little visible scar over her left eyebrow. She got it when she was 5 years old and fell off a rock at the Zoo. I tell her it’s her “Beauty Mark.” Because it is. She is the most beautiful little girl I have ever seen in my life, and that little scar is part of that beauty. It hurt. It wasn’t fun to get it. But there among the beautiful and wonderful person that is Zoe, it’s beautiful.

I want to continue to live my life surrounded by the Beauty of Dissonance. I don’t want the music I listen to to only have perfect harmonies. I don’t want everything to turn out exactly the way I planned it. I don’t want what’s easy. Life is hard, and I like it that way. An easy life is a boring life. No struggle means no dissonance means no beauty.

When I’m playing the piano and my kids come up and start banging on the keys to play with me, or some other song in a completely different key, it sounds terrible. But rather than push them away and tell them they’re ruining my perfect song, I like to let them play with me. That beautiful dissonance they created will make the harmonies sound even sweeter, whenever they come.

It might take a while, and I may even have to plug my ears occasionally. But rest assured, the beautiful music will come.

And with it, beautiful dissonance.

A mother’s heart, a sacred place,
Of clement pulse and firm apace,
Though simple, soft and small, in truth,
Allow verisimilitude,

It stretches far beyond the bind,
Periphery of human mind,
Dilating each parturition,
Encompassing the babe within,

It strains, it pounds, it throbs, it quivers,
It flows with love, each kind of river,
Exasperates each ventricle,
With chambers made of solid gold,

And once it seems the brim it’s reached,
For no more love could be beseeched,
Alas, from unknown sources flow,
Capacity to surge and grow,

And Oh! The aches of mother’s soul,
The anguished heart she takes a toll,
“Relinquish all!” The mind requests,
The body bids a slumber rest,

But nay, such love will never cease,
‘Twil stop at nothing, still increase,
Such power jolts the wondrous art,
The fervid, gentle, mother’s heart,

For life it gives, it sparks the coal,
Ignites the blessed immortal soul,
A soul like me, who once in part,
Lay a breath away from mother’s heart.

It seems to be human nature to test the boundaries of complacency by inching closer and closer to a known danger convincing ourselves we won’t get harmed.

I love playing games with my kids. It’s probably my all-time favorite thing to do ever.

There’s one little game I play with my kids almost on a weekly basis. I call it the “Hand-Snatch Game.” I’m sure there’s another name for it and I’m sure I’m not the only Dad who’s ever played it, but the game is fairly simple.

The game is played when I’m in a situation sitting next to my children, most commonly in church. Usually I have a kid sitting next to me and they’ll reach to hold my hand, but instead I snatch their hand tightly and apply gentle pressure until they’re able to pull it free. Then I open my hand, palm up, and wait for them to reach their hand again. They’ll inch their hand near again, watching for my hand to snatch, and pull back at the slightest movement of my fingers, not wanting to get caught in my grip again.

An interesting thing happens whenever I play this game. If I jolt to snatch as soon as they start to come near, they pull back immediately and don’t even get close. But if I wait… if I don’t even flinch my fingers… they’ll come closer and closer, slowly, until they are just touching my palm. And if I still wait, they will eventually put their entire hand in mine. Sometimes they’ll even look up at me and wonder if I’m still playing the game. And in that moment, my hand quickly snatches around theirs, and I get them every time.

There’s other games we play where I follow a similar pattern, like when I pretend to be a sleeping monster. The behavior from my kids is the same. They’ll creep closer and closer to me, start poking me gently, cautiously, and they’ll even start laying or jumping on my back. Then, in a moment they least expect it, I’ll shoot up from the ground, grab them by their ankles and hold on tight as they scream and try to get away.

What I’ve learned as the hand-snatcher or the sleeping monster is that if I can just wait patiently until their guard is down, until their fear of capture decreased, or perhaps until they’ve even thought I’ve stopped playing the game at all, I will increase my chances of successful capture.

It’s a fun harmless little game I enjoy playing with the kids, but it provides a simple reminder for me about the importance of not getting complacent. Of not letting your guard down.

I’ll share two experiences I had as a brand new missionary that illustrate my personal experience with this idea:

Mission Story #1

Eighteen years ago, I served as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Ecuador, Guayaquil South Mission. After arriving in Ecuador to the mission office, I was sent the next day to a small town, 9 hours inland, called Catamayo. When I say small town, I mean you could walk across this town in about 15-20 minutes, something I did on nearly a daily basis. As a new gringo who barely spoke Spanish, I was trained by a wonderful missionary companion from Central America who didn’t speak any English. There was nobody within many many miles that I could really communicate with. But he was very patient with me, and with his help I quickly learned essential language communication skills and missionary training materials.

My companion was very diligent in making sure that I spent the time I needed for study, memorization, language, developing all the skills I needed for success. My companion also loved buying movies. And in this little town of Catamayo (and really, everywhere in Ecuador) there are pirated movie stands on every street corner. We’d be walking back to the apartment for the day and we would always stop for him to buy some $2 DVD’s. He was collecting some of his favorite movies to take home with him. Since we were companions, and I had to be with him 100% of the time, I would go and wait. Eventually I would go check out movies with him. Soon I started finding movies I liked as well, and I ended up buying some for myself. Nothing wrong with that, just buying movies to take home at the end of my mission.

My companion carried with him a little DVD player that we would use as part of missionary lessons with people we would talk to. We loved playing little movies about Jesus or the Restoration that we carried with us, it was engaging and entertaining for anyone interested in the message we had to share.

My companion felt the need to start “testing” some of the DVD’s he had bought to make sure they worked. So several times during any given week, he would take me to the little church where we met as a branch on Sundays and send me to a classroom by myself to study and practice my language and missionary skills, while he would pull out the TV in the other room, plug in his DVD player, and “test” his movies. I was perhaps naive to think he was really just testing them, but I tried to just focus on my studies. The amount of time we started spending at the church increased and increased. For hours sometimes, I would be studying while he was watching his movies.

After several weeks of this, I had finished up my study goals (there were little certificates and landmarks I had to surpass with memorization and language skills) so there was no need for us to spend as much time at the church during the week anymore, but we were still doing it. You can guess where this is going, eventually we found ourselves just watching movies in a room of the church building. Although I did not feel comfortable doing something that was clearly against mission rules, I felt too afraid to confront my companion. I was new, inexperienced, and weak. I wanted to get out there and do missionary work, but I felt stunted.

What started as just buying movies on the way back to the apartment turned into watching several movies a week instead of proselyting.

Mission Story #2

I’ll share another experience with this same companion. He LOVED soccer (well, fútbol), as do most people in Central and South America, and as do I! Every Wednesday evening, the Catamayo branch and any friends in the town would all gather to play soccer behind the church building. However, like most missions, there are many rules that missionaries are obligated to follow, many of them up to the discretion of the Mission President. One of those rules was we were not allowed to play soccer with members or investigators. I knew this, but my wonderful companion decided it was a rule he had no interest in following, and justified it as a good opportunity to invite potential investigators and interact with them. Again, he’s my companion so I went where he went and although at first I resisted the urge to play and would just watch, eventually I ended up right along side him playing soccer every Wednesday night.

One night we were playing and the ball was accidentally kicked over the fence that surrounded the church property. It landed on top of the tile roof of one of the neighbors houses. Being a young, active, and eager to help missionary, I volunteered myself to go up and retrieve it. It was almost 9:00 at night and quite dark and I climbed over the fence and up onto the roof.

Now, I’m from Alaska, and I’d been on plenty of roofs in my life thus far, but never a tile one. So I was very unfamiliar with how unstable and brittle these clay tile shingles could be. I walked as carefully as I could to where the ball lay, and right as I was reaching down to pick it up…

I fell through the roof. Right into someone’s house.

Thankfully nobody was directly below me. But the family whose house I just fell into was sitting close by at their kitchen table, and I scared the living daylights out of them.

Instead of getting upset, they immediately came over and started asking if I was alright, still somewhat in shock that a gringo just fell through their ceiling. Other than a sprained ankle, I told them in broken spanish that I was okay. Through the open front door, I saw my companion’s frantic face rushing towards me. I could tell by looking at him that he felt responsible and guilty for what had happened. I hobbled out of their home, apolgizing and embarrased, unsure of how to repair the damage I’d just caused.

That was the last night we ever played soccer at the church building. Interestingly enough, we also never went to watch movies at the church again for the rest of the time he was my companion.

He was transferred soon after and I remained in Catamayo with an American companion, but for the rest of his mission whenever I saw him, we would chuckle about me falling through someone’s ceiling. We had even tried to teach a missionary lesson to the family whose roof I fell through, thinking it would have been quite a unique story had they decided to join the church. They could have told their kids and fellow church members that they heard the message of the gospel from a missionary who fell from the sky into their home. Maybe some day I’ll go back to Catamayo and see what’s become of them.

Ambush Predators

Nature is full of predators and prey. We’ve all watched a video perhaps in school or on the Discovery channel, of a lion or a cheetah chasing down their prey. Eventually with speed and strategy, they capture their prey. But another type of predator we maybe don’t see as much are ambush predators. Ambush predators are usually carnivores that capture their prey by stealth, luring their prey and using the element of surprise. Ambush predators don’t have to bother with speed or fatigue, they just have a tremendous amount of patience and wait and wait and wait before launching a sudden overwhelming attack that quickly incapacitates and captures their prey. It’s a highly effective strategy and to me, even more intriguing.

Now, I shared those stories from my mission to illustrate the message of what can happen when we find ourselves inching closer and closer to what we know to be a wrong choice. Just like my kids in the hand-snatch game. If they keep their distance, they’re safe and I’ll never get them. And from that distance, we can say to that choice “you’re so far away, I’ll never even come close.” But then we find ourselves making small compromises, small adjustments in the wrong direction, justifiying and making excuses along the way, and before we know it, we’ve arrived at the choice we claimed we’d never have to make. And it reacts. It snatches us. It might even wait until we feel quite comfortable as we snuggle up right against it, then it closes in on us.

In reality, it’s not the choice that does this, it’s the consequence of the choices we made to get there. We can control our choices, but we can’t control the consequences.

Now I had a wonderful missionary campanion, and many others after him, who all made their own choices about how to serve as a missionary. But regardless of whatever choices they made, I also made my own choices. I also suffered the consequences of those choices. And not just as a missionary, obviously, but throughout my entire life.

It seems to be human nature to test the boundaries of complacency by inching closer and closer to a known danger convincing ourselves we won’t get harmed. Whether that’s physical, spiritual, emotional or mental harm, we seem to be quick to forget the consequences of wrong choices or the severity of the grip that awaits us when we get snatched.

I remind myself when I play the hand-snatch game or the monster game with my kids, that the best strategy to avoid the consequences of those games is just to steer clear. Right? To keep my distance. To not compromise or justify. So why don’t my kids do it?

Well, partly because it’s just a fun and silly game with dad. No real harm is going to come to them.

But also because that’s not reality. I’m going to slip up. I’m going to give into temptation. Everybody does. Sometimes the game is just too enticing.

And it’s what I do after that that really matters. Hopefully, I learn. Hopefully, I grow.

And hopefully, I have the strength to pull my hand back out after it gets snatched.