Branding; as a Cowboy and a Missionary

      I love branding time. I look forward to it all year. Out on my mission I have branded afew times. I love getting the call from a rancher to see if we are able to come out and help him brand on Saturday. I love to be out there as the ropers rope the calves and and us muggers wrestle the calves. I really enjoy the team work it takes to work with them.

      It takes a whole team of people working together to tackle this task. Not just one or two people can brand without having the help of others. Branding would be very hard, expecially when the one big one gets roped and its your turn to wrestle it. But it is those difficult ones that make the job alot of fun. This is when you have to rely on your team to come help you. Without the help of others you wouldnt be able to accomplish this task

      We as missionaries are kind of like the muggers. But we dont force out friends to do anything that they dont want to do. We are simply here to just lead and guide them to better their understanding of our Father and his Son. The ropers bring the calf to the mugger just like members bring their friends to us missionaries. It takes two muggers per calf, and it takes two missionaries per investigator. As we teach our new friend, the rest of our team, the ward members, come and help out our new friend. Just as when our branding team comes and doctors up the calf.

      Then comes the branding. When we brand the cattle we leave a mark on the outside to show everyone that it belongs to someone. When we brand our friends it is on the inside. This is called baptism. It is an inside brand that reflects on the outside. But just like with cattle, others can try to brand over your brand or the hair might grow over it, but that brand will always be there.

      Just as ranchers have to tend to their herds we as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints have to tend to our new friends that have just joined our herd. This means pulling them out of a ditch, getting them untangled when they step off the path and end up in a barbwire fence, and so on. Ranchers dont get a day off tending to their cattle and neither do we.

Facing the Trials

       We all have faced some sort of trial in our life. Some of us are even going through one right now. Some of these trials and challenges we face leave us to become depressed or feel that we have not done what we should have. Some of the trials may include financial issues, argueing with loved ones, loosing a loved one, having to face someone that we have offended or have offended us, and so many more. Sometimes we are lost on what we should do, we have done all that we can and yet we still feel that we havn't progressed. It may seem that our own friends and family have left us alone.
      We face trials in our life to test us on how we fallow God's commandments. Our Father in Heaven allows us to go through these trials to help us learn and grow from them. Even when we can't figure out what lesson we are to learn, there is something that can benifit us from it. It may even be that someone else might be going through something like what we are, we are going through it so that we can help them through our expierence. Or maybe its just for us to learn from.
      Alot of us have asked the question "Why is this happening to me?" The scriptures say 'first comes trial by faith, then comes your reward' We are tested first then we can recieve our reward. When the times get tough we are to look to our Heavenly Father for guidence. He is the best person we can turn to to help us through the trial that we are facing. Allways look to Him for help, for only he knows what we are to do.
      "Whoever puts their trust in God will have him with them." (Paul V. Johnson, LDS General Conferance April 2011)