Missionary Photoshoot

I want to put Jaxon's talk that he gave in sacrament here between the pictures we took of him. I am just copying and pasting from a word document. I have not gone through to make sure there were not typos and stuff. It is a rough-ish draft because Jaxon changed things as he talked. But this gives you an idea.

Hello brothers and sisters.  My name is Elder Bartlome for those who I have not had the pleasure of meeting.  This is the part of my missionary talk where I attempt to speak the language of the place I will be serving.  Luckily, I seem to be graced with the gift of tongues and am able to speak English with remarkable proficiency.  My only hope is that I will be able to teach the people of Arizona well, as I don’t have the excuse of not knowing the language to lean on.

As I am sure parents who had to drag their kids to church today would be familiar with, my topic is adversity.  When we hear the word adversity, we turn to what is happening in our own lives as examples.  Young kids may think of homework and being grounded as adversity and I am sure we all wish that is all we need to worry about.  As we grow up the thoughts of what adversity is mature as well.  Things like a lost job, divorce, financial troubles, addiction, cancer, and death are often on the mind.  Skeptics of religion will often ask some variant of the same question.  “Why are these awful things happening in a world with a supposedly loving God.”  I am sure that you have all heard the answer.  It is to shape us into the beings that God wants us to be, after all isn’t that why god sent us to earth?  As Elder Quentin L. Cook taught us in the Fall 2011 General Conference: “The refiner’s fire is real, and qualities of character and righteousness that are forged in the furnace of affliction perfect and purify us and prepare us to meet god.” 

I testify that what Elder Cook says is true, every part of it.  In the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes there is a running joke that Calvin’s dad will give Calvin a chore to do and when asked why he has to do the chore the dad will say it builds character.  Calvin will then proceed to complain not understanding how shoveling the driveway for the umpteenth time builds character at all.  Much like Calvin I think we often see this truth that god is having us “Build Character” as an insufficient excuse.  I have, in times of my life thought the same thing.  But much like deciding to start exercising, you can’t see the results as you are experiencing the hardship, only after.

However, that does not teach you how to deal with adversity now.  How do you get through it?  I give you one answer that will if not solve, will get you through any kind of adversity that life gives you.  Forget yourself and help others.  As Dieter F. Uchtdorf once put it, “As we lose ourselves in service of others, the discover our own lives and our own happiness.”  Even the hymns we sing give this same message, for example: “Because I have been given much I too must give.”

We live in a world where it is easy to look around you and not see hardship.  You can look at the people of the ward, city, or people you follow on social media and not get so much as a tip off that anything is going wrong in their life.  Let me let you in on a secret, it is all a façade.  Our culture has wrongfully taught us to hide our troubles and deal with them ourselves.  Service is such an old-fashioned way of doing things that the simple act of holding a door can lead to an argument.  It is a tough barrier to crack, but once you do you will find that not a single person in this room, this city or the world doesn’t have some sort of adversity plaguing their life.  Don’t hide behind this façade that you are doing fine, let people help you, and in the mean time help others with their struggles.

Think right now of what adversity you are facing now and compare them to the problems happening all around the world.  Think how they compare to the millions of people in the Middle East stuck in a war zone.  How to they stand up to the massive starvation that is happening in countries like Venezuela, North Korea, or Zimbabwe due to their government’s corruption and incompetence.  On the subject of Africa, think of the genocides happening all across Central Africa from Somalia to Rwanda.  Think of the people being silenced in Chile, and Catalonia as their government tries to suppress democracy.  And think of the people of china, who are essentially waged war against if you happen to be Tibetan, Hong Konger, or Uyghur (way-gore).  And on the subject of the Uyghurs think of the Reeducation camps they are sent to in which similarities can be drawn to the concentration camps that dotted the Europe just 80 years ago.  I give these examples not to make light of the problems you face but to show you just how much the world needs service.  If it is something you are able to give than please give it.  We often say the words “Brother and Sister” the same way the rest of the world would say Mr. or Mrs. but I would like to remind you that whether they are your next-door neighbor or halfway across the world that these are your family, your brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father just like you.

                One thing that you always need to remember whenever you are experiencing something difficult in your life is that you are not alone.  Jesus Christ, in Gethsemane and on Cavalry Hill experienced all sin, but also all hardship and adversity.  So, if you are in your life tempted to ever curse God and say that your life is unfair, and hard, and unbearable, remember that burden was not just afflicted on you, but also his only begotten son.  He is our comforter.  When we experience adversity, we often turn inwards thinking that no one can possibly know what you are going through.  And it is true that no one on earth knows what you are going through, not me, not the bishop, not even president Neilson.  That is why I urge you to pray to the only person that knows with exactness not only what you are going through, but what can be done to relieve you of the pain and hardship and move on.

                When I was a sophomore, I joined the marching band.  That year I had a great time, making new friends with my fellow band members and learning the discipline that is required in order to put on a show.  It is an old joke in the marching band that we spend more time on the football field that actual football players do.  At the end of the session we had an amazing show and a was excited for next year.  The next year began and we began marching band camp, a period of time where you spend 12 hours a day for two and a half weeks learning the basics of the new marching band show.  Those were some of the hardest days of my life.  For those of you who know our family well you may know that all of us but my dad has issues with our feet.  The severity waxes and wanes but I had it really bad that summer.  And standing for hours and hours on end with very little breaks did not help this issue.  There were several times where my legs were on the brink of just giving out.  Prayer is the only way I made it through that camp and the subsequent practices to follow.  That was the year that our marching band won state for our division, and the joy I felt at the end of the long road I had went down made everything worth it.  I later learned that the issue I had was that two of the bones in my foot were fusing together somehow.  Even today I don’t really know how that kind of thing happens.  But that dedication through that kind of difficult adversity is something that has made me into what I am today.

Through the past months whenever I told someone where I am going on my mission, I would get a response somewhere along the lines of, “Uhh, its gonna be hot.”  And is it going to be hot, most definitely, but that is not the point.  When I think of the Phoenix Arizona mission the first thing, I think of is the wonderful people there that want to learn the things that we in this chapel know are true.  I then think of the faithful members of the church in Phoenix that have grown strong in their testimony of the gospel.  I then think of the beautiful city, the mountains, the sunsets, the saguaro cactuses and the all-around beautiful landscape.  Because when you judge a person, or for that matter a place, by the adversities they struggle with, that is all you end up seeing.  I will admit I have struggled with this issue, and will probably struggle with it more in the future, but I urge all of you to treat each other well, to stand strong against adversity, and not let it define what you think of another person.

And in the tongue of the people of Arizona I would like to bear my testimony that God comforts us all, and that if you are struggling with adversity, whether it be a bad day to a devastating loss, to pray to our heavenly father.  I also know that service, the act of forgetting yourself and helping others is paramount in the healing process when it comes to adversity.  I know this church to be true and am glad to be given the opportunity to spread gods church.  I know that missionary work is not simply about conversions, it is reuniting people with their father and their brothers and sisters.  I know that there will be adversity on my mission, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, because I know that it is god helping me in forging a perfect and purified spirit prepared to meet god with open arms.  I urge all of you to be good, treat each other well, and to not burn this place down while I am gone, as I will need a church to go to when I come back.  In the name of Jesus Christ, our redeemer and comforter, amen.