Saturday, October 29, 2011

Learn to Lead with Love and not Push with Force


       An old farmer drives his John Deere tractor down the road carrying a bail of hay, his cattle fallowing behind him. A young cowboy saddles up his horse and puts on his hat to head out for a long day at work.
       The young cowboy spends all day trying to round up his cattle and get them to move to the south 40. Its hot outside and he is getting real frustrated. The cattle aren't doing what he wants them to do. No matter how much he yells or as much as he cracks his whip, they still will not move.
       The old farmer continues to lead his cattle down the road. His cattle, all in a line down the shoulder of the street, follow their leader. The farmer gets to the gate and opens it. He pulls his tractor just inside to allow every cow to enter behind him. He gives each one an apple and slowly heads back home.
       The young cowboy finishes up for the day and heads home to prepare for supper with his parents. He rounds up his children, kicking and screaming along the way. He yells at them to sit down and be quiet until they get to grandma and grandpa's. When they arrive at his parents his kids pile out to give grandpa a big hug and see what grandma is cookin, then go outside to play. When supper is ready the young cowboy hollers for his kids to come and wash up. He gets them and put in their seats as grandma and grandpa wait patiently.
       After supper the kids get down and head out to play. The young cowboy, right after them, tries to make them settle down. After a lot of frustration from the young cowboy, grandpa get up and takes the kids by the hand and walks them to his chair. He sits down and puts the children on his lap as he reads a book with them. Then that old farmer looks up at the young cowboy and says "Son, you must learn to lead with love rather than push with force."

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

My Personal Bodyguard


I love Jackie Chan. He is someone that I wouldn't mind being around if something bad was going to happen. When I watch a Jackie Chan movie, I get all excited to go out and see if I can fight like him. As with a lot of people. When we are in a movie and the setting is an action movie then we get all ready and excited to get out and see what we are made of. But its when we are excited and then we leave the movie and we realize that Jackie Chan is not with us anymore and we realize that we are not as great of a fighter as he is. We get into that situaltion that calls for us to do something, but we get intimidated or just give into peer preasure and we don't do what we are suppose to. We dont have that comfort of Jackie Chan right there beside us.
       The same happens to us when we have a great spiritual experience in church, at a fireside, in a prayer, listening to a church speaker, or meeting with the missionaries. We have such a spiritual high and are excited to get out and follow along with the things that the spirit has talked to us about. But once we get around our friends or out into the worldly things, we realize that we arent around the same people and we lose that feeling of power. We forget about the things that we just learned and the goals that we just made because we are not in the same atmosphere as we were while we had that great feeling.
        What if we had Jackie Chan right beside us when the time for us to stand up to someone arose? Would you be scared to still go over and confront that person or that problem? If I had Jackie Chan next to me I would go out looking for somone to start something so I could watch him work. I would want to show my friends that I have Jackie Chan as my personal bodyguard. I would have that great feeling with me all the time knowing that he is right there to have my back.
       The same goes for us when we have that great spiritual experience. We can still have the spirit with us. And when we do it, is just like our Savior, Jesus Christ, walking along side us. Now what do we have to worry about? What possible problem could arise that He couldn't take care of? Wouldn't you want to share that great feeling with your friends? To show them that they too can have Christ walking along side them. By setting the exsample for them, they will notice the difference in us and they will want the same feelings that we have. But we first have to remember the things that we must do in order to have the spirit with us. Such as reading our scriptures, going to church and our other meetings, and saying our payers. These things will allow the spirit to be in our lives. We won't have anything to be afraid of anymore.