Hakuna matata, It means no worries

"Hakuna matata, what a wonderful phrase. Hakuna matata, it aint no passin craze. It means no worries for the rest of your days. It's our problem free, philosophy. Hakuna matata."
     As a kid I loved to watch the movie The Lion King. Even now at 20 years old I still love that movie. One of my favorite characters is Mufasa. He is just so cool and I always wanted to have his voice. But anyways, Mufasa is the one that leads Simba, his son, throughout his life. He guides him and helps him along the way. He is there to give Simba advice when he needs it.
     My second favorite characters are Timon and Pumbaa. They are best friends that meet up with Simba when he ran away. They make him their friend and look after him. They teach him the term " Hakuna matata" which means no worries. Simba ran away from his problems and feelings of guilt and shame. He tries to forget his past and just worry about now. But his past catches up with him. Simba runs into this monkey named Rafiki. He tries to tell Simba that he can't always run away from his past. But Simba wont listen, so Rafiki has to show him instead of tell him. Rafiki hits him on the head with his stick. Simba says "What was that for?" Rafiki says back "What does it matter? Its in the past." Simba answeres " Ya, but it still hurts." Rafiki replies, "What happens in the past may still hurts if not takin care of."
     Rafiki helped Simba understand that you still have to take care of things that happened in the past in order to overcome them. Now Simba has the support of his friends Timon and Pumbaa, and the guidance of his father, Mufasa. Simba goes back to his home in Pride rock to face his past. Simba's uncle Scar has takin over his land and has ruined it all. Simba, with the help of Mufasa, overcomes his trials and regains his land and gets rid of the guilt and shame he felt.
     I have related this great movie to myself and others. How often do we try to run away from our past? Trying to forget our feelings of guilt and shame that are caused from our past transgressions and sins. Just like Simba did, we have a loving 'Heavenly' Father to guide us along our way. He is here to help us IF we ask and accept it from him. Because of our Savior's atonement we are able to face our past and overcome those feelings that we felt. Through Him we can once again be happy and have peace and joy in our life. Just like Rafiki said "What happens in the past still hurts..." but we can overcome it with our fathers help.

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)

Firts comes trial by faith, then comes your reward

      "There was no rain when Noah began to build the ark. There was no ram when Abraham got the sticks to sacrifice Isaac. There were not two personages when Joseph knelt to pray. First comes trial by faith, then your reward" (Thomas S. Monson). Just as these three prophets were all tried to see if they are faithfull, we are tried to see how faithfull we are. Just like Preident Monson said we are tried by faith, then comes our reward. We all have things that we have to deal with in our lives. This is our time for us to see how faithfull we are to our Father in Heaven.
        He places us in these situations for our benefit. Our job is to learn from them and in the proccess of learning from them we are drawing ourself closer to our Heavenly Father. We are to look to him for help. He has created this test for us, so he knows the right answeres to it. We are able to study for it through the scriptures. This is an open book test and we can even ask te teacher for help. But first we have to show him that we are willing to learn. We show him by exercising our faith. Because once we do that we can recieve our reward.



        There was a man who was about to retire from his job. He was the Chief Executive of his company. He still had a year until he was going to retire. He was debating on who he should apoint to the new Chief Executive of his company. After pondering on this he called in ten of his top employees. He explained his delema and then gave them all a small envelope with a seed in it. He told them that they are to take care of this seed and write down everything that they do to it, for one year. At the end of the year he will chose who is the new Chief Executive of the company according to how well they took care of the seed.
        As the time went on some of the employees were bragging about how big their plant is getting. But one of the employees wasn't saying anything. His seed has not even sprouted yet. Over the next year this man watered the seed and took great care of it. But still it never grew. When the year was up it was time for them to bring in their plants and their record books of what they did to help it grow. This man's friend told him to just go buy a plant and show that to his boss. But the man said that that would be dishonest.
        The day finally came and still the man's seed hasn't grew. When he arrived at his job he saw everyone else had great beautiful plants. He felt really bad for not being able to have it seed grow. When his boss came in he looked at everyone's record of what they did to take care of their seed. When he got to the one man, he asked what happen to his seed. The man staited that he did all he could , but the seed wouldn't grow. The boss asked him when the last time he watered it was. The man said he watered it this morning. Then the boss anounced to everyone that this man is the new Chief Executive of the company.
        All the other employees were so mad because his plant didn't even grow and theirs did. The boss then said that the seeds that he gave to all of them were unfertilized seeds. They were all bad. This man was the only one who had enough respect and dignity to say after all he did the seed never grew. This man stook with this one seed even though it never grew. He was there to help it and care for it. Then he had the respect and dignity to tell his boss that the seed didn't grow.
         When we set goals for ourselves we need to stick with them. Even if we don't accomplish them, there is a bigger picture that we can't see. Just like this man getting the job even though his seed never grew, we will get our reward later on if we hold true to ourselves and our fellow man. As long as we set our goals and keep true to them to the end, we  will have accomplished them.

What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger

     We all go through hard times in our life. Whether it be in school, at work, at home, around our friends, or anywhere. We all face difficult situations throughout our lives. My dad always told me "What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger." I never really understood what that meant. I now realize that that was his way of saying everything will work out. Some of us have problems that we have to deal with in our families. This is one of the hardest things to deal with, watching a family member fall and you can't help them. As much as we try they still just don't want to listen to our advice, even if we went through the same thing they are going through.
     What we can do is to be there for them when they do decide to come back. We can show our love to them by being there when they need us. We show them that we are here to help by talking to them and listening when they have something to say. I love this picture of this little girl and the quote that comes with it. That quote says it all. "The hard times [I] go through will lead to the good times [I will] have" (Henry).
     Even though it's not us going through the hard time. We still do suffer by watching a loved one go through it. But we both can learn from it. Our job is to see how we can better our lives and also our loved ones' as well. Don't ever give up on someone you love. Because hopefully you will be the one to bring them back.

I always loved the song "Daddy Never was the Cadillac Kind" by The Confederate Railroad. In the begining of the song it says:
   "We were poor when I was a youngun
       I don't remember ever going hungry
       Daddy made sure we didn't do without
       I went to school with some of these fellas
      They had money and I was jealous
      I didn't know then what I know now
      Daddy'd say you can't judge a book by looking at its cover
      It's what's inside that really matters"
This song applies to us all, because at some point in our lives we get alittle jelious of others. Just like in this section of the song when he says "I don't remember ever going hungry..." then, "I didn't know then what I know now..." How often do we not appriciate what we have, even if sometimes its not as great as someone else's? Looking back to when we were younger we can see the blessings that we had but didn't realize. This part of the song applies to me because we didn't have the best things growing up, but I can not remember ever going hungry. I am so gratefull now for what I had when I was a kid. then he goes on and says:
    "It took a while but now I'm grown
      I've settled down with kids of my own
      The more I give them
      The more they want"
Our Father in Heaven gave us everything we have. We need to be more gratefull for what he has given us instead of wanting the best of everything. The name of this song is Daddy Never was the Cadillac Kind. We don't need the best of everything, just be happy with what we have.
Daddy Never was the Cadillac Kind lyrics