Growth Patterns

In my first area of the mission field, we had our elders quorum meeting first and sacrament meeting last. Since I arrived in early March, it was my first Church meeting out of the Provo MTC when the quorum president made an amazing announcement: in approximately two weeks, contractors would be installing a satellite dish behind our rented meetinghouse so that our ward would be able to watch the upcoming, and all future, General Conferences live via satellite, instead of waiting for videotapes to be snail-mailed in a couple of weeks. The excitement in our little quorum was palpable, including among the missionaries who had thus far spent their entire missions without seeing General Conference at all—a significant sacrifice for those who had been serving for a while.

As the initial commotion died down, the president continued with a second announcement: since we’d be viewing General Conference live on 2 April, Fast Sunday would be postponed until the next Sunday, 9 April. The response was equally immediate: several quorum members starting shouting in protest, stating that Fast Sunday is the first Sunday of the month and cannot be changed. One yelled that it was anti-doctrinal. The quorum president tried to calm everyone down, but to no avail. Several people (including a few of the missionaries) tried to explain that that’s standard procedure for Conference weekend, but the mini-mob would not be placated. Finally, an elder who happened to be visiting from Utah suggested that perhaps those concerned could fast both Sundays, to be sure. For some reason, they found this to be a great compromise, and the contention was halted as immediately as it began. We missionaries later laughed about this unexpected turn of events, amazed that anyone would react in what was, from our point of view, such an irrational manner.

A year later, I was back in the same stake for General Conference. While I wasn’t in the same ward as the earlier debacle, we traveled to the same building for the broadcasts and I saw a great many of my friends from that ward. There may have been a select few people who were still concerned about rescheduling Fast Sunday, but it certainly wasn’t significant enough for me to hear anything about it—and believe me, the missionaries would have discussed something like that. The quorum had apparently embraced the new normal and were all the better for it.

It’s been almost twenty years since I had this experience, but it’s obviously stayed with me. These people were elders of the Church of Jesus Christ. In theory, it should have been easy to get them to exchange something as insignificant as fasting on a particular date for the blessing of hearing God’s prophets and Apostles address them. They should have known better, but they didn’t.

How often am I as misguided as they? How often does God offer me an incredible blessing, but I’m too afraid to give up some lesser thing for the opportunity to receive it? How often could I have learned and grown, but I’ve preferred to stagnate and remain where I am because that’s what I’m used to?