Hard Things Make for a Good Life
As we come to the close of 2019, we also come to the close of a long-standing tradition within the Church. The Church and the Boy Scouts of America worked together for more than 100 years to help develop boys into men. The new activity program for children and youth will carry on the goal of developing the youth of the Church into women and men prepared to meet the challenges of adulthood. A basic, but unwritten element of the Scouting program is to allow boys to experience difficult situations (winter camps, food cooked by fledgling boy cooks, time away from mother, etc.) and help them understand that they can survive hard things and become stronger because of it. Similarly, one of the goals of the activities of the new program for children and youth will be to give our youth opportunities to experience and overcome challenges. We have too many missionaries who we have not prepared to rise above the hard things in the mission field. This is because we have not provided opportunities for them to overcome hard things and difficult situations. As we transition to the new program, we hope to provide opportunities for our youth to experience winter camps, food cooked by fledgling young cooks, and time away from mother to prepare them for the challenges of missionary work, marriage, and raising families.
When we met in the councils of Heaven, we all understood that this earth life would not be easy. We understood that we would all experience difficult situations as part of our Heavenly Father’s plan to prepare us for the eternities. We all embraced His plan and fought a great war in Heaven to defeat Lucifer’s easy way out. Lucifer’s easy way out would have left us as young children, incapable of meeting the challenges that were sure to come in the eternities. Lucifer’s plan, in eliminating opposition, the hard things of this life, would have left us without the joys of this life.
Let us embrace the hard things in life. Let us continue to give our children opportunities to rise above difficult experiences as we undertake activities in the new program for children and youth. Let us learn to teach our children as our Heavenly Father is doing for us. Let us understand that, as adults, we too must find the joy in this life through experiencing both the hard things and the good things of this life.
~ Lyle Odendahl