Calling All Missionaries

There are two things that I have wanted to do all my life: Serve a mission and attend beauty school. From a spiritual perspective it doesn't seem like the two paths could possibly go in more opposite directions since cosmetologists have earned themselves a relatively poor reputation because of the nature of the industry. Vanity and pride seem to be the core values of most in the profession, and within Utah at least, the typical girls that cosmetology schools attract aren't exactly known for being dedicated to getting a thorough education. For me, I have always wanted to do it because it's something that I thoroughly enjoy and that I'm good at. I get immense satisfaction in making a visible change for the better, especially with people. For the same reason I always took a little pleasure in mowing the lawn, vacuuming, and mopping an especially dirty floor. The change is immediate and dramatic and I particularly enjoy seeing the excited reactions of others upon encountering the beautiful completed project.



As far as always wanting to serve a mission, I have had the examples of 13 older siblings and a father who's mission experiences I have been able to learn from and aspire to. I just knew it was something I always wanted to do, and it was always something looming in my future that I couldn't ever seem to see past. My aspirations for the future only vaguely extended beyond my mission, and I knew that those decisions would become more clear to me as I reached the peak of my service. When it finally came time to put in my application papers, however, I was suddenly unsure because I had neglected to ask the Lord if it was right for me to go. I always just assumed it was right. I got on my knees and prayed fervently for an answer, but none seemed to come. After some time, I still wasn't getting the affirmative or the negative, so I decided to exercise a little faith. In my prayers I finally said, "Heavenly Father, I have decided I want to go on a mission. Please let me know if this is wrong." I submitted my papers and within 4 days I received my call.

In my family there seemed to be a trend as far as where we were sent to serve. All the girls had covered every populated continent except Australia. They went to Quito, Ecuador; Johannesburg, South Africa; Nashville, Tennessee (This one covered the North American continent); St Petersburg, Russia; Dusseldorf, Germany; San Salvador, El Salvador; and Kaohsiung, Taiwan. My brothers had all been called to different quadrants of the States. Macon, Georgia; Fresno, California; Cleveland, Ohio; Lubbock, Texas; and Eugene, Oregon. Naturally I hoped to be called to Australia or New Zealand to continue on this tradition, but when I got my call to Los Angeles (even though it was only a 6 hour drive from my home) I was overjoyed.

I was very excited about my call, but I still felt like I had not yet received an answer as to whether it was right for me to go. The following Sunday after I got my call, it just happened to be my best cousin Shawna's birthday. Her family invited me to eat a little family birthday breakfast with them at their home in Sandy and then attend their Stake Conference at which Elder Richard G. Scott was speaking. When we got to the conference our large family laid claim on a couple of rows towards the back and listened quietly as Elder Scott began to speak. Suddenly, in the middle of his talk he said "Can I get Rachel and Laura Stout to come up to the podium, please?" Rachel and Laura were my two cousins, 16 and 18 years old sitting on either side of me. They were as startled and surprised as the rest of us at the request of Elder Scott. How did he know who they were? So they timidly made their way up to the podium and Elder Scott put his arms around them and asked them a few simple questions. He asked them why they decided to be such stalwart examples of living the Gospel. He asked them why they dressed modestly and why they chose to read their scriptures regularly, and then invited them to bear their testimonies to the congregation. As he excused them to sit down he told them he wanted to meet their wonderful family at the conclusion of the meeting. As the meeting ended we all went up and stood behind the podium and waited for Elder Scott to finish shaking hands with the members of the Stake. He then turned to us and went around the circle asking each individual about their lives and their plans. When he finally got to me he shook my hand and immediately my Aunt Linda announced "She just got her mission call!". He asked me where and I told him proudly that I was to be serving in the California Los Angeles Temple Visitors Center, Spanish speaking. As soon as I said it he cocked his head a little and looked at me with sort of a quizzical eye and asked "when did you get that call?" To this I responded, "it was just last week!". Then he said, slowly and thoughtfully "I remember you! I was the one who issued your call. If you don't know already I can bear testimony to you that you are making the right choice. I remember feeling a very distinct impression that that is where you should go and you will have many rich and rewarding experiences while you're there."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing! Here was the member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles telling me that he was the one who issued my call and that he felt very strongly that it was right for me to go there. It was amazing that with the hundreds of applicants they have each week that he even remembered who I was. The answer to my plea was given directly to me by a Prophet of God! This tremendous response to my request played a vital role in my continued preparation to serve my mission. In the 4 months that I waited to leave, a truckload of opposition was dumped right in my path. Because of this experience, however, I was able to refer back to it to remind myself about why I made the decision to go. His final statement proved to be Prophetic. I did have many great and rewarding experiences while I was there, and no experience could have ever prepared me for life like my mission did.

I learned a few things from this experience. I learned that God really does care about us and He is there to answer our prayers. It was reaffirmed to me that there really are Prophets of God to lead and guide us and that they are in direct communication with God to do so. Also, if we are doing everything we can to keep the commandments, God will allow us to be in the right place at the right time to have the experiences we need to prepare us for future events. He really cares about where we go and what we do. The callings we receive as missionaries and members alike are inspired wholly by Him.

Fish Are Food, Not Friends

In todays world if I were to tell the public about every experience with animals I had growing up on the farm, my family would probably be apprehended and locked away, or at the very least shunned by the general population. Since we were raised on a farm we have quite a different perspective of animals than most people do. We're always respectful to life, but sometimes things just happen, you know? Like that one time as the weather was finally heating up we found 3 dead chickens in the swamp cooler. Or when we came home from church to find that someone had left the front door open and a bunch of chickens were kicking back on our couches watching the sports channel. Or that other time with Haylee and the frog and the door... yikes. Or that other time when we never solved the mystery of the missing goldfish. My mom found the 2-year old on the counter by the previously occupied tank, but never found the fish. Then there was the time when Sara had that accident with an entire family of ducks, or the new driver Savannah with the dog, or Daniel with the goat. Then those countless times with the homeless baby chicks in a box, the tadpoles in a cup, and the ants and spiders in a mason jar. Then that one time with Mom and the gopher and the hose, and mom and the scorpion, and Mom and the lizard, and Mom and the hyper little dog named Rascal. Then Jared and the hamsters, Sondra and that nasty millipede from South Africa and Tyler and the dove... yech. The more I think about it, the more I realize why I'm not fond of the idea to keep animals as pets. Let them be. They're safer without human interaction. At least from my family, anyway.

Obviously, animals all have a purpose and a place in life. Sometimes their place is to torment me like those pesky mosquitos, flies and goldfish. (Remember when Sondra got her hair all caught up in that insect-covered fly trap?) Sometimes their place is for the use of man. Cows serve a couple different functions. We did have that one cow, Betsy that gave us literally everything she had to offer. 17 years of milk and 17 year-old meat. Chickens are some of the dumbest animals I have ever interacted with, but I do appreciate their product. One time it was harvesting time for the chickens (if you know what I mean) and I was assigned the task of catching them all at dusk and putting them in the chicken coop to be ready for easy catching in the morning. (One time we had a headless rooster that literally kicked a bucket, then died). I caught almost all of them, but there was this one hen who kept jumping up on a small haystack to settle in for the night. I kept trying to corner her but she always jumped up and ran over the top of the stack before I could catch her. Then I'd back off a bit and within minutes she was right back on the same haystack and we'd do our little dance all over again. I must have tried 25 times to catch her. I don't know who was dumber, me or the chicken.

Pigs are strictly for eating, but I suppose I have had a precious little moment with a pig before. It's how I earned my nickname "Fern". I must have been 15 or so when a sow had just finished birthing a litter of pigs. There must have been 8 or 9 of them. It was in the middle of the winter and there was this one little runt that we didn't expect to live because the other little piglets kept pushing it out into the cold and it wasn't big enough to push its way back in. So I decided to take it upon myself to take that little pig in. It was about the size of a tennis shoe, and wiggly as a bored toddler. I guess he was kinda cute, but being not much of an animal person it was hard to let go of my pride to admit it. I washed him and gave him a box to sleep in for the night in my room and made him as comfortable as I could with plenty of towels to cuddle up to, but Wilbur wouldn't have it. He squealed and squealed all night long until I couldn't take it anymore. I finally wrapped him in a towel and let him cuddle up to me in my bed. It worked. The night became peaceful and quiet. I suppose the little girl in me was satisfied and I felt somewhat validated because the little guy loved me like his mother. I ended up keeping him for a couple of weeks I think before we plumped him up enough to get him back outside again. But he did live, and I suppose I was happy about it.

 I haven't figured out the purpose of keeping ducks or geese yet, but we have them. Some of those geese are mean little suckers. I was always afraid of gathering the eggs when we had geese because I was afraid one of them might attack me. I had been chased plenty of times before and seen enough battle wounds on my brothers and nephews to know not to mess with them. We have turkeys too, one we named "Obama". I've never heard of a rogue turkey but because they were similar in size and I'd had enough scares with the geese, I always grouped them in the same "animals to avoid" category. Especially since they're so scary looking.

If I were forced for whatever reason to have any kind of pet, you might could pay me to have a beta fish. They're relatively easy to maintain and they don't make noise, leave their DNA on the couches or leave the premises where they can get snatched up by a predator or animal control. Goldfish, on the other hand, are way too high maintenance, are annoyingly orange, and die if you so much as look at them funny. Last summer my roommate/best cousin Shawna "won" a goldfish from the carnival. She very proudly brought it home and put it in a bowl and there Warrior has lived like a champion up until three days ago. When I heard the news of his death I was a little less than sad; I sipped the rest of my Jamba and skipped merrily on my way. A few days later I was driving myself and my hilarious niece Anna home from Institute. Naturally, the subject turned to goldfish and I proceeded to tell her that if anyone asked me if we could have another goldfish I would tell them no. She thought it was unusually hilarious. When we got home, she collapsed into a giggling fit in the entry way and I couldn't figure out why. Only to turn around to see this:

NOOOOOO!!! What a dirty trick. Yep, that's 50 of them, folks. 50 slimy little replacements for Warrior. These are the culprits of this sick little joke:

Anna, Emily, Abby. How could you do this to me? You know my disdain for goldfish. I just feel bad for those little fishies because when Shawna cleans the bowl she's going to have to use a strainer to get them all out. I'll probably just save her the hassle and sneak them off to that nice little Koi pond at a nearby Sushi restaurant when no one is looking.

Media Vs. the Word of Wisdom

I recently had a very explicit epiphany: Your body is made up of what you put into it, and it functions accordingly. The food we eat is what our vital organs have to thank for keeping us alive. It is what goes into building our muscles and organs and gives us the energy to perform our daily tasks. So what if we put nutrient-deficient or polluted substances into our body? I’m no doctor, but it seems to me like the body will either reject it and eject it, store it elsewhere, or use the inadequate substitute anyway in place of the real nutrient that it needs. What if we consistently eat faulty or impure substances? The body tries to draw from an empty well. It can’t function properly, and the deficit manifests itself in ways like lack of energy, slower metabolism, illness, mental incapacities or system failure. How long can we expect our car to run if we put oil in our gas tank?

It's kind of like when Andrew Carnegie started up his steel mills. Raw steel wasn't strong enough to use for heavy duty projects because of the impurities found within it. So Andrew Carnegie figured out a way in his mills to eliminate the weak elements such as sulfur, phosphorus, and excess carbon and to add alloying elements such as manganese, nickel, and chromium to produce a steel beam strong enough to support a building. With the food that is available to us now, we need to figure out a way to get it into its purest form so that our vital organs will be strong enough to sustain our lives for years to come. Our biggest battle is convenience. It's not very convenient to have to prepare your food before you eat it, but such is the way to a healthy lifestyle.

Since our bodies are a precious gift we were given by the Lord to house our spirits and to use as a tool for progression, it seems to me like the Lord would also give us everything we need to take care of it and keep it healthy. To me that means that the closer to natural the food is that we eat, the better it is for us. The more efficiently and easily our body can use it, the more energy we have and the better we feel. Up until the last few decades the world has always eaten natural food from the earth. Obviously there were still natural foods that were more wholesome and preferable than others such as in the story of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshac and Abed-nego as they requested to be fed differently from the other boys in the house of King Nebuchadnezzar; but never has there been so much confusion in the nutritional world as there is now, and never has there been so much nutritional deficiency. Substances that appeal to our senses and preserve our food are now being used excessively which is causing severe imbalance to our diet as a nation.

The bottom line is: What we eat determines how we function. Here's my recent realization: It's the same with our spirits. Everything that we expose our minds to determines how we spiritually and mentally develop. If the mental activities we choose to engage in are stimulating, educational and will help us learn then our mental capacity will expand and we can expect to do better in life. We can more easily understand certain principles of life and therefore our actions will change and our quality of life will be much improved. For example, someone learning about the Plan of Salvation for the first time might come to understand and value life in a different way than they did previously. They will change their behavior in order to qualify for the blessings of Heaven and as a result receive extensive earthly blessings for keeping the commandments. If, however, we choose to fill our minds with dirty or pointless entertainment such as what is rampant in music, movies and social media today, what do we gain? We are entertained for the moment. It is a waste of precious time and you will not have anything to show for it except maybe a few movie lines. Even worse, though, if what you are watching is offensive, not only will you be unreceptive to the promptings of the Spirit, but you actually digress rather than progress. All those hours you spend at church, studying your scriptures and spiritually "climbing a mountain" will be less effective if you are just going to roll back down that mountain by exposing yourself to filth. I don't know about you, but when I go hiking I would rather just go straight up. The journey is so much harder than it needs to be if we are consistently taking one step back for every two steps forward. And all for what? Entertainment? Allowing contamination to penetrate your thoughts causes one to become def to spiritual promptings and blind to truth. It is a literal spiritual incapacitation, and we all do it so deliberately and so frequently. Sure, there is a place for music and entertainment; but there is never a place for obscenity or vulgarity. 

Because we are spirit children of our heavenly parents, and physical children of our earthly parents, we need to work to grow both spiritually and physically. Natural foods are the best way to receive proper physical nourishment. Spiritual promptings from the Holy Ghost are the best way to receive spiritual nourishment. Any time we block that channel with the Spirit we are literally engaging in spiritual starvation. But the more we allow the Spirit to penetrate our hearts, the better we come to know the Savior, the stronger our testimony becomes, the more good we do and the more blessings we receive. We thrive in all areas of life. "If there is anything virtuous, lovely or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."