Learning to Dance in the Rain

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Remember Mary Poppins? Remember Bert, the chimney sweep who is friends with both Mary Poppins and the children? Well, one day Bert tries to "jump into" one of his chalk pictures with the children. These are the directions he gave to the children:

"Let’s see… you think. You wink. You do a double blink. You close your eyes, and jump."

At this point, Bert and the children jump onto another concrete square–the one with the picture drawn on it. Nothing happens. Mary Poppins then chimes in:

"Bert, why do you always complicate things that are really quite simple. Give me your hand, Michael. Don’t slouch. 1, 2…"

And everyone seems to jump without trying, and they travel into the magical world of Bert’s picture.

Why didn’t it work the first time? Bert thought he knew how to make the magic. Later in the movie you find out that Bert and Mary Poppins had had previous adventures together. Perhaps these instructions he gave were what he was doing when the magic happened before. But he left out the critical element, and actually the only element that was necessary: Mary Poppins.

While Mary Poppins was working magic, Bert was only aware of his telestial actions, and began to believe that they had something to do — in fact caused — the magic. He was mistaken, and the children were disappointed.

I tie this to conversion in the gospel and the Spirit. Many missionaries in training positions have taught techniques for door approaches, or special ways of leading discussions, that they promised would double baptisms. I have heard many, many promises. I have never witnessed or even heard of a story where applying the technique actually worked. On the other hand, when I and other missionaries have applied the Spirit, and put our whole faith in that, and followed the Spirit’s guidance — that is when the conversion happens. Now the unaware companion to the missionary who is led by the Spirit may inappropriately attribute the success to the techniques he used, rather than the true source.

The fact is that Heavenly Father is the source of all truth, all power, and true conversion. We must attribute each success to Him. And if we want to see an increase in baptisms as missionaries, we must focus on improving our relationship with Him, become familiar with the scriptures, and become more influenced by the Holy Ghost.

Sound preachy? Maybe there’s a reason General Conference sounds preachy. I submit to you my testimony: that there are many pure and splendid gospel truths that are only accessible through the scriptures and the power of the Holy Ghost. No wonder the brethren keep hitting on personal scripture study and prayer over and over again. They want us to have what they have. They can’t give it to us. They can only teach us how to obtain it for ourselves.

God loves each and every one of us. He wants us to feel his love always. We must be in tune to feel that.

Here are some of my own Aesop-style fables, that I wrote for a class:

The Stalemate Date

A boy and a girl went on a date. The boy wanted to please the girl by taking her anywhere she wanted to go. The girl liked the boy and wanted to appear cooperative and carefree to please him. When the boy asked the girl where she would like to go, she knew exactly where, but only said “I don’t care. Where would you like to go?” The boy insisted that he would like to go wherever she wanted to, but the girl never revealed her desire for fear the boy would not like it. In the end, the date ended with both upset that they could not please the other, and with neither’s wishes fulfilled.

Moral: A girl afraid to share her wish may not have it granted.

The Other Side

A father drove his daughter through a field they had not crossed before. The daughter looked out her window and exclaimed, “Look at the cows!” “Silly girl, those are not cows, those are antelope” the father corrected. Defensively, the daughter responded, “I know what cows are! Those are cows! How can you think they are antelope?” “They are antelope! Look at the way they are jumping!” “Jumping!? They are barely moving!” Frustrated with each other, each turned to look the other way, and discovered that the other was looking on the other side of the road.

Moral: Arguments with loved ones are usually based on misunderstandings.

The Violin

A well meaning child came home from a classical music concert and announced that he wanted very much to play the violin. He had seen a violinist play beautifully and simply, and the boy was confident that he could learn it and perform for others quickly. By assuring his parents that he would study hard, he convinced his parents to purchase the expensive violin and lessons. Very soon the boy tired of the lessons. They took longer than he thought, and he was not yet as good as the violinist he had seen. He stopped practicing, and his parents stopped giving him lessons. The violin went into a closet, right next to a dusty flute, trumpet and saxophone.

Moral: One who gives up too soon will never achieve one’s dreams.

The Movie

Once a boy walked up to a theater with his friends to look for a movie to watch. “Let’s watch that one!” cried one of the friends. The boy looked up at the listing. He knew he should not watch movies with that rating, but he so much wanted to be accepted by the others that he watched it with them anyway. The movie was much worse than he hoped it would be, and he felt awful through the whole movie.

Moral: Base your decisions on principles – not situations.

The Woodpecker and the Duck

A duck waddled through a field one day, when he heard a woodpecker approach him. “A duck is a waste of feathers,” said the woodpecker to the duck. He continued, “You are a bird, but you can’t fly, like me. I can fly high and fast, and I can make such a noise with my beak that people all around can hear me.” The duck made no response, but walked on and had a great day anyway.

Moral: Don’t sweat what you can’t control.

Idiot is a greek word for describing someone who wouldn’t vote because he was too preoccupied with private matters.

[Update 1/1/07] A humorous jibe at non-voters which I heard a while back.  But I just did a Google Search on it and found that it’s probably not all true.

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 
I am the second counselor in the elders quorum in my ward.

Alright! So I read in a news article online somewhere that active
Bloggers get special favors in getting Gmail invites. Hmmm… I’ve
blogged a few times. I wonder… So I visited Blogger.com again and
signed in. What do you know? There’s this link on the right-side of my
screen that offers me a Gmail account. Yay! This is great! So I sign
up, and now I have the email address: … wait, this diary is public. I
won’t tell you my email address here. Can’t have spam and all that. But
that’s not important to the story anyway.

The important part is, I have Gmail. Yay!

A true love for and trust in Jesus Christ sustains in all kinds of
trial. It can make the rainiest, bleakest day become clear and bright.

RELATionship Evaluation

How do you know when you love a person? When you think about them constantly? That’s called infatuation, or obsession. When you bring out the best in each other? That’s definitely a good thing. But at what point does a crush turn to love?

…Perhaps
when your motivation for visiting changes from selfish interest to
selfless caring for the other person. When you would stop seeing them
if they didn’t want to see you, not because you were offended, but
because you wanted that person to be happy.

Blind dates? I think I like them. I haven’t been on more than a couple.
But I think it’s fun to try to match my roommate up with a girl I used
to have a crush on (for the majority of my adolescent years). Heh heh.