Pride and A Bike Ride

Shoot off some fireworks for me!  God bless America!

So, this week has been one of the worst of my mission in terms of success.  Haha.  Man, sometimes when you´re on the floor, life has no mercy for ya and keeps pushing you down when you try to get up haha.  It was kind of funny the amount of unfortunate events that have happened this week.  But, the work goes on and I´m not sad or discouraged.  I´ve learned that from my mission and from President Hinckley.  Even in the worst of circumstances, he never got discouraged.  When people asked him about a tough situation, his replies were often (with a smile): "things will work out" and "oh, the Lord will know what to do with that".  That is great faith to me, and I´m trying to develop it likewise.  Two people together can do anything, as long as one of them is God.  There´s no jam I can´t get out of or no problem I can´t fix when I have the Lord´s help.  I´ve personally experienced that on my mission, and I know it will be the same this time.  It all depends on me.

Elder Stephen Lytle - one of my best friends on the mission who went home last year - wrote me a Dear Elder last week.  He´s enganged!  He´ll be married in December and I´m totally going to be there.  I´m going to be his best man, but he doesn´t know that yet ;).  I´m actually really excited to start my own family when I get home.  I don´t know how long it will take, and it´s dang scary thinking about how I´m going to support a wife and eventually kids, but I know I´ll be able to do it.  I´m excited for that.

I had an important issue I had to write to President Callan about for a good length of time, so I´ll just share a short thought I heard while in church last week.  We had gotten on the topic of pride, and Hermano Nappa made an interesting comparison.  He said the process of being prideful is like the process of riding a bike.  Pride and a bike ride - I like it because it sounds good haha.  You start out new, scared, hands glued to those handlebars.  You don´t dare let go, go fast, or take risks.  You have the help of parents, training wheels, and a helmet and pads to give you extra security and assurance.  You eventually get the hang of it, and start to loosen up a bit.  The more experience you get, you take the training wheels off, and you start to try different things.  One day, you get really brave and decide to ride without one hand.  You think you´re cool, and you show off to your little friends.  Soon enough you´re going off curbs and riding fast down streets and hills.  You feel freedom with your new skills.  And then one day you decide to ride with no hands at all, taking them completely off the handlebars.  What do you need handlebars for?  You´ve mastered the bike!  You get used to the feeling of your new ability, get careless, and one day crash hard.

That is a little what it is like with the Gospel sometimes, or anything really.  The more we know, the more we forget that the word of wisdom and the sabbath day are the training wheels and handlebars used to help us to control the bike, not for the bike to control us.  We let go slowly of the iron rod, thinking we know enough to make it safe and take a few risks.  And then sometimes we let go completely.  And then we hit the pavement.  I understand that there are a few kinks in the analogy if explored too deeply, and I am not suggesting that we go through life scared and never take our training wheels off, but the idea is expressed quite nicely in the Book of Mormon: "For it is good to be learned, if you heed to the counsels of God".  Let´s never forget Who is in control and the tools He has given us to better steer our bikes through life.  I love and miss you!

-Élder Moore