Romans 13:10 "love is the fulfilling of the law."
Prioritizing Our Eternal PurposeLast spring, while I was visiting a class of young women, the teacher asked the class to write our 10 priorities. I quickly began to write. I have to admit, my first thought began with “Number 1: clean the pencil drawer in the kitchen.” When our lists were complete, the Young Women leader asked us to share what we had written. Abby, who had recently turned 12, was sitting next to me. This was Abby’s list:
- Go to college.
- Become an interior designer.
- Go on a mission to India.
- Get married in the temple to a returned missionary.
- Have five kids and a home.
- Send my kids on missions and to college.
- Become a “cookie-giving” grandma.
- Spoil the grandchildren.
- Learn more about the gospel and enjoy life.
- Return to live with Father in Heaven.
"In fact, God has created us to be dependent on others. And “dependent” means that we must quickly learn that others have things to offer us without which we cannot live. It is true that many of the Lord’s creations never see a parent and are able to be self-sufficient the moment they hatch out of an egg. But not so with God’s children. The most helpless creature on the planet is a newly born human, who could not survive for more than a few hours without immediate care. Newborn humans are programmed from birth to receive—and to do so for years. " Kent P. Jackson
We all have gifts that make us part of the great team of humanity. It's truly wonderful to see, and here in the mission, we have the opportunity to see the reality of that statement through our companions. For example, my companion right now, Elder McKeachnie, is a hard worker who is insanely driven on missionary work. His companion before me also had some gifts. He had a wonderful gift of talking to everyone and finding people who need to hear the gospel. I have a wonderful gift of being excited about the gospel, and being able to make other people excited about it. I also have worked hard to have the gift of love, something which I pray to strengthen.
So the beautiful thing is that the missionary who was here was super great at finding people to teach, now I come, and I help welcome them in and feel driven.
Also this week, it is always a miracle to be in a new ward, to get to meet new people and meet new families. And one thing really special, is that we have a large interaction with families who have been working hard to be a eternal family, and also families who love each other and want more. I cannot explain what its like to share a few minutes in the house of a family who is based on the gospel. They are very special and to me, it makes me want to have a family very much.
Families are basically always the same, they all have the same problems and rough spots, but there is something special about a family sealed in the temple with hopes and dreams of having an eternal family...or an eternal perspective. When looked at with an eternal perspective, the most important things really only matter. Which more than anything is love.
We all have are gifts. We need each other and their special gifts.
I LOVE YOU ALL,
ELDER AMANN
ME WIT HDINOSAURAS YESS
Now I am fully aware that there are times when we want to be by ourselves; when we have to get away from others; when our roommates, classmates, brothers and sisters, and others just drive us crazy. All of us can relate, at one time or another, to the character in Jean Paul Sartre's play No Exit when he observed that "hell is other people." But in the long run, the converse is also true—heaven is other people. Heaven will be heaven because of the other people who will be there. And experiencing heaven on earth will ultimately depend, to a large degree, on the quality of our relationships with others.
Very little that is positive is solitary. When was the last time you laughed uproariously? The last time you felt indescribable joy? The last time you sensed profound meaning and purpose? The last time you felt enormously proud of an accomplishment? Even without knowing the particulars of these high points of your life, I know their form: all of them took place around other people.
Think about it. Whenever we experience something truly good in our lives, that feeling is enhanced when we share it with others—either in the very moment or at some future time. That is a universal truth. When Lehi partook of the fruit of the tree of life and found that "it filled [his] soul with exceedingly great joy," his first desire was "that [his] family should partake of it also." Lehi understood implicitly that he could not experience a fulness of joy by himself. His happiness could not be complete unless he could somehow share it with those he loved.
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| I said goodbye to my friend Elder Christensen |
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. . . . There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. . . . It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit.
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| WE WENT BACK TO MENDOZA |
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| (LOVE ALWAYS) |
The Word of Wisdom revelation was received in 1833. In 1921 President Heber J. Grant, inspired by the Lord, called on all Saints to more fully live the Word of Wisdom. At the time, mass marketing and glamorization in the movies made cigarette smoking appear fashionable, sophisticated, and fun. It wasn't until 1964, forty-three years later, that the surgeon general of the United States concluded, "Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action."
The statistics today with respect to cigarette smoking are not in dispute. Smokers are more likely than nonsmokers to develop heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer. It is estimated to increase the risk of lung cancer by twenty-five times.
So what the adversary portrayed as fashionable, sophisticated, and fun has in fact resulted in misery and untimely death for millions of people.
Over many years I have followed a research project that commenced in the 1940s. Initially there were 268 men attending Harvard University who were periodically studied over their entire lives. Later, others, including women, became part of the study. The goal of the original study was to find out about success and happiness. The study showed that college entrance scores and grade averages did not predict either success or happiness in later life.
This study contains three significant insights for me. First, adult happiness has a high correlation with childhood family happiness, especially love and affection from parents. Second is the importance of a healthy, stable marriage to lifelong happiness. Third is the negative effects of alcohol on marital and lifetime success and happiness. Alcohol abuse touches one-third of families and is involved in one-fourth of hospital admissions. It plays a major role in death, bad health, and diminished accomplishment.
In "Wine, Women and Danger," a recent Washington Post front-page article based on U.S. federal health data, it was reported that "women in America are drinking far more, and far more frequently, than their mothers or grandmothers did, and alcohol consumption is killing them in record numbers." The article concluded with comments by Robert D. Brewer that "the current and emerging science does not support the purported benefits of moderate drinking" and that "the risk of death from cancer appears to go up with any level of alcohol consumption."
In the last two or three years, many universities across the world have been trying to diminish alcohol use because of its connection to serious antisocial behaviors, including sexual assault and serious health concerns, especially from binge drinking. The terrible impact of alcohol on young brains is now medically established.