They made me take off my nametag...

A part of my heart is in NY; therefore returning to ID has caused it to be broken. My mission was definitely the best 18 months for my life. I will miss a lot of things about my mission. I will miss New York. It is the most beautiful green state with gorgeous skies and rolling hills. I will miss the people. I will miss the people I love: the members, the missionaries, and the people I taught…I love them all. I will miss the crazy people of NY; the old man walking the streets in a lime-green Speedo, the homeless man with one HUGE dreadlock to his toes in Buffalo, the crack heads and drug deals in Rochester city, the NY citizen’s obsession with their in home animals, and the senile old ladies with their repeated stories. I will miss the sacred places there: The Sacred Grove, The Joseph Smith Farm, The Hill Cumorah, The Book of Mormon Publication Site, and The Whitmer Farm. I love these things and I love NY because of it and the experiences I had there. But most of all I will miss representing my Savior and His gospel. I will miss wearing his name on my heart and have every minute of my life focused on His purpose, to bring God’s children back to Him. But the other day…they made me take off my nametag. I am heartbroken that my mission is over but I know that it really isn’t. I trust in the Lord that I’m supposed to be home now and he has more in store for me. I am so thankful for my mission; it’s the hardest but greatest thing I’ve ever done.

So I am sad to say that this blog is finished for now but I will keep posting on my home blog. You can check it out here: mjstoker.blogspot.com

What is you bowl of soup?

Several months back we had a meeting where our mission president taught us about the tribes of Israel. Now this is a subject that I have a really hard time wrapping my head around, but I learned a great lesson from it.

There once was a prophet in the Bible named Abraham. Abraham had a son named Isaac who had twin boys, Esau and Jacob. Esau and Jacob were rivals. Esau was oldest, his father’s favorite, and a hunter. Jacob was younger, liked staying in the tent, and his mother’s preference. Because Esau was the oldest he was entitled to the family birthright. What this meant was he was to inherit the tribe and the blessings that the Lord had promised Abraham’s posterity.

One day Esau went out to hunt. He came back exhausted and needed food fast. His brother, Jacob, was cooking some “pottage” on the hot fire (I looked it up, I think it’s some kind of soup???). Esau asked Jacob for some and he replied that he’d give him a bowl for his birthright. Esau pondered this exchange, decided that a bowl of soup and survival would be worth the birthright, “and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.”

Now when I first heard this I thought, “What an idiot! Who would give up their entire inheritance for a bowl of soup? He could have had WAY better food if he would have just waited a little bit.” But then it dawned on me…we do the same thing every day.

As children of God we are entitled to the birthright of our Father in Heaven. He has promised us that we can have all that he has and eternal life if we follow His commandments. We’ve been asked to have faith, repent, be baptized by the right authority, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and continue this cycle until the end of our lives. He wants us to have his inheritance. He wants us to have his entire kingdom and promised blessings. And if we do these things and follow His commandments, we can have it all.

So what do we do? We give up this birthright for a bowl of soup. We’ve been promised blessings untold but sometimes we choose to give it up for that instant gratification of a warm bowl of soup. These dishes come in many styles; I guess they are our “favorite sins.” Maybe your bowl of soup is alcohol or drugs. Maybe it’s something like dishonesty. Maybe it’s inappropriate media or the internet. Maybe it has to do with relationships with others. Whatever our “soup of the day” may be, we choose it instead of the gourmet meal we could have if we’d just wait.

Giving up these things can seem like a huge deal for us in the now, but in the eternal perspective these things are just little compared to what we can have. But just like Esau, we sometimes can’t see our birthright clearly enough to see past the instant gratification of our favorite soup.

So I like to remember this at times in my life where I am tempted to be comfortable in my sins. I try to remember Esau who gave up his birthright for a bowl of soup. Am I going to give up the feast of eternal life with my family, Father in Heaven, and Jesus Christ for such a little thing as instant gratification…a bowl of measly soup? “What an idiot,” right? So let us endure through temptation and give up those things that are holding us back, I know we will be glad we did.

1 John 2:25 “And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.”

The faith to act...

In my house in Idaho we have a set of stairs. The top stair comes from our hard wood floor in the kitchen. Thirteen carpeted stairs follow. The bottom three steps only have a wall on one side and are open on the other. There is a long wooden railing that runs down these steps and a wall just a few feet from the bottom. How do I know this staircase so well? Because my whole life I have used these stairs. I have walked up, fell down, been chased up, and even slid down these stairs in slicky sleeping bags.

On the weekends as a teenager I would come home from socializing with friends, tiptoe into my parents room to say goodnight, and then sneak down these stairs in the dark to my bedroom. At first going down the stairs in the dark was risky. I would slide my foot of the first step and take that risky step to the next one. After a few bumps and bruises though, you get acquainted with the surroundings. You learn to hold to the railing and count the steps so you know when you’ve safely reached the bottom. Then you get quicker and quicker till there is no challenge at all.

I think that this unlit staircase can be really similar to us excercising our faith in Jesus Christ. We first have to take that first step into the dark. There are a lot of fears that go into this step. First of all sometimes we can’t see where we are going clearly. We might not know that there is a railing that can give us support. Usually we are unsure that there is a solid foundation waiting for us to stand on. It’s scary to imagine that even if we step we could miss and fall. And even that childish fear that we all have, there might just be something scary down there to get us (come on…I can’t be the only one).

But what is interesting about this concept is that it takes that first blind step to learn all of these things. It takes that step to learn that there is another one waiting. It takes that first risk to realize how much of a step to take. It takes that first effort to realize that there are supports. It takes that first effort to realize that it is the same sure foundation that you are already familiar with. After we are willing to act on what we already know, we can go forward and we see that there is so much more ahead of us that will actually take us somewhere.

In the book of Ether chapter 12 verse six it reads:

“…faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.”

We have to take that first blind step in following Christ too. We might not know exactly how to follow certain commandments at first. We might not know that we have supports in following him. We might be scared that we’ll fall or we’ll fail if we try. We might not even quite know that Christ will be always give us that sure foundation to stand on. But we learn these things by excercising faith in Him. At first it might be scary to go into the unknown, but with experience we learn the steps by heart. We learn the steps to eternal life. We see the supports to guide us all the way. We learn to keep taking the steps closer even if it’s hard and even if it’s dark at times.

To get there, we have to take that first step to follow Him. And though the journey is hard it’s worth it.

Expressions of love...

I adore this video. A celestial marraige or family is not something that can come from just being married in the temple, it's something that is created. We create eternal relationships as we build our family on principles of the Savior's gospel teachings, such as:

John 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

So why do I love my family so much and want to be with them forever? Because they love me and serve me. They help me get through this life and they make me want to be a better person. This life is a team sport. We all work together to live worthy of having eternal life.We must follow Jesus Christ together as a family unit which leads to happiness, peace, and relationships that we want to last forever. So give it a try, put the Savior in your family relationships and watch what it can do for you.

Together forever...

My family consists of my favorite people on this planet. I love to be with them more than all else. Some of my favorite things to do with them is playing slow motion kung fu fighting, around the world ping pong, sailing on summer days, snowboarding, playing card games, just talking and laughing. Unfortunately this year we couldn’t do much of this together. In 2010 I left on my mission to NY, later Chris left to serve in Iraq, Kait was in UT, and Brandon in FL, which left the rents, Jane, and Grace in ID. We were all so far apart! Of course it’s hard not to be with the people you love, but what gets us through these times? We can be together forever.

I know this sounds like a cliché catchy phrase, but it’s one of our deepest doctrines. We believe that through the restored priesthood power from God, families can be sealed together forever. This happens only in the Temple. “When a man and woman enter one of [the] holy temples to be married, they covenant (or promise) they will stay together forever—on earth and in heaven after they die, if they are faithful to each other and their promises to the Lord. A temple marriage doesn’t include phrases like, ‘Till death do you part’ or ‘So long as you both shall live.’ If we keep these promises…children also become part of this heavenly promise—sealed…forever.” This can happen to every family with God’s proper Priesthood Authority.

This is the hope that my brother had while he was fighting for our country away from his wife and new baby. This is what gave one of my companions hope when her mother was getting chemo treatments while she was on her mission. This is what gives my sister in law and brother hope after the loss of her father a few years ago. This promise from the Lord is what gives me hope while I am across the country from my favorite people. Even though I miss them every day, I know that we can be together forever if we keep our promises to our Heavenly Father. This message of hope for eternal families is because God loves us enough to restore this power on earth. I know families are forever.

Matt 16:19 And I will agive unto thee the bkeys of the ckingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt dbind on earth shall be bound in heaven…

The freedom to choose...

a•gen•cy [ey-juh n-see]: 1) the ability and privilege to choose and to act for ourselves. 2) essential in God’s plan for all of us. 3) The way we learn or progress or follow the Savior.

Because sister missionaries tend to gain weight in our mission, it is termed “The 30 lb. Mission”. Typically in the last 6 months of every sister’s mission they make an attempt to lose this extra weight. Unfortunately my companion and I are participating in this tradition and have started a diet. Ugh, I know. This morning I sat down to eat some breakfast and while I was eating my English muffin I starred at my yogurt and thought, “I could eat that yogurt…or I could eat a York Peppermint Patty.” Naturally because I had the choice, I chose the latter. We have the freedom to choose, and then we have to live with the consequences. This is called, agency.

Agency in this context means the ability to choose and to act for ourselves. Agency is a gift that God will always give us. It is essential to his plan because with our agency we make our own choices and this is how we progress and learn in life. We can come closer to or farther away from our Heavenly Father and our Savior through our choices.

Our choices to follow God’s commandments lead to peace and happiness in this life because we feel the spirit more and we are content with our actions. Often times we will make choices that are contrary to these commandments. These choices may give us temporal happiness, but this type of happiness is not lasting. Often making these choices will lead to heart ache.

I have found that this principle can be likened to the dreaded “D word”…dieting. We have the freedom to choose for ourselves if we’ll eat the salad or the delicious Frosty. Of course the Frosty sounds best. When we eat unhealthy things it is instant gratification, but this happiness cannot last…especially when it goes straight to your thighs. When we make a better choice, for example the salad, it is able to satisfy that hunger that we have that instant and it helps our body stay healthy and strong in the future. This is the same with keeping Gods commandments. Usually we are happier in the now, and it also leads to eternal happiness.

We are responsible for our actions and the consequences. We may be fooled into thinking that we miss out in the here and now by keeping the commandments, but the reward for following our Savior Jesus Christ is eternal and everlasting happiness. Let us use our agency and choose to be good.

2 Nephi 2:27 Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.

A life centered in Jesus Christ

Stephanie is such and inspiration to me. What a strong woman who has used her trials to come closer to God and His Son and has inspired thousands of people to do the same. I hope all of us can center our lives on our Savior Jesus Christ so when life gives us hardships that shake us up, we can have a firm foundation to stand on.