This may be a strange title for a letter, but you will see later how the title applies. As a preamble to this little essay I will state something that Elder Neil A. Maxwell once stated. ‘The commandments of God are given to us to help us from hurting others and ourselves.’
As you know, I have been associated with missionaries in one capacity or another for fifteen years. I have taken care of them, screened their applications and followed some of their problems. I have great respect for the servants of the Lord and their missions. What I am about to relate is to illustrate the consequences of behavior.
We do not always have to learn from our own experience. We can learn from the experiences of others.
Not every time that someone does something that is contrary to good common sense will the consequences be severe. The scenes here depicted indicate physical harm, but not having common sense has spiritual consequences as well. These spiritual consequences are not as blatantly obvious, but the results are just as damaging.
I read in the paper the other day of a young man who scaled a wall at a zoo. He was agile and had prided himself at wall climbing. He did not do this in the front of the viewing area, but behind the animal cages so that the employees could not see him. There was a door in the wall that was barred, where the employees could go to feed the animals. Through that opening the animals expected to receive their food. This was the lion cage. On top of the wall were the bars of the cage housing the lions. He backed up against the bars so that he could take a picture of himself next to the lions. He wanted his friends to take his picture as well. He stood against the bars and the lions came at him. One clawed his leg and before he could respond the other lion bit his arm.
He was severely injured and was taken to the hospital. After eight surgeries he had his arm amputated, because the damage caused by the bite and the infection could not be repaired sufficiently to let him have full use of his arm. He will carry the physical and emotional scars with him for the rest of his life.
This illustrates the first two words of the title of my essay: walls and bars. Walls are there for a purpose, as are bars. If we remember that they are there for our protection, we will stay a safe distance from them and we will not be injured.
While we were in Germany there were some missionaries in a mission that was not under my jurisdiction. One elder decided that he wanted to visit a scenic attraction by the sea. He asked his mission president if he could rent a car and go to the area. The mission president said that the mission rule would not allow him out of his area.
The disobedient elder disregarded the president’s advice. He along with his companion and another set of elders and a set of sisters went to the scenic area in a rented car. There was a sign at the place near the water, which gave warning not to pass beyond.
The missionaries went out to stand on the rocks overlooking the ocean. A huge wave came and swept two of the missionaries off into the ocean. One was the disobedient missionary. The current took them in different directions. The waves then brought the disobedient missionary back to the rock where he was caught by his companion and pulled to safety, but his rescuer slipped and was swept out to sea. The result was that two people drowned.
This illustrates the principle of rules and signs. They are not to hinder us or keep us from enjoying ourselves; they are there for our protection. How would you feel if you were the disobedient missionary and had to carry the thought that you were responsible for two deaths for the rest of your life?
We now come to the last word in our title: Tradition. There are good traditions and what the Book of Mormon calls vain traditions. Let us explore a couple of examples:
In one mission, in the northern part of Europe, a missionary had a brother who had served before him in another mission. The missionaries in his brother’s mission would gather and burn one of their shirts on hump day. Hump day was the day in which the missionary had completed one half of his mission.
Our missionary knew about the tradition and wanted to better his brother and any other missionary in the mission. He decided to set his pants on fire while they were still on his body. He carefully put on a pair of jeans and then put on the suit pants. He then poured lighter fluid on the suit pants and struck a match. The pants burned all right, and also in the process he burned his legs quite badly.
He was so ashamed of what he had done that he would not confess the deed to his mission president. When he was in a zone conference he was uncomfortable and unable to sit down. The mission president asked the reason and he had to confess. He was so badly burned that he required extensive skin grafts.
In the Ukraine mission there is a rock that looks like a slippery slide. It was common for the missionaries to go to this place and slide down. It seemed like great fun. One missionary was an avid snowboarder. He told the other missionaries that he could go down the slide on his feet, just like snowboarding down a slope. He got part of the way down the slide, lost his footing and fell to the ground on his head. He was taken to the hospital and we tried in vain to transport him to Germany for care. He died in a hospital there in the Ukraine and the last thing that I did before I came home from Frankfurt was to make sure that his body was safely on the plane to his home in the United States.
Righteous traditions such as family prayer, family home evening and scripture reading will bring us closer to the Lord. Vain traditions bring us far from him and result in pain and death, both physical and spiritual.
Remember walls, bars, rules, signs and righteous traditions (keeping the commandments of God) help us from hurting others and ourselves.
Your grandmother thought that this little essay only pointed out the negative. As I noted in the preamble, not every one has untoward consequences as the result of his behavior. Perhaps I can relate a few examples of positive behavior and it’s consequences. There are many we can site from the scriptures: Joseph in Egypt, Daniel in the Lion’s den, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nigo and the fiery furnace. What follows is a story about one of your ancestors, Alexander Scoby Standley, as told by his great grandson George Burton Stanley, November 8th, 1931:
"In the spring of 1847, the family went to Pottawatomie County, Iowa, and with the help of the boys, great-grandfather put up a log house, plowed several acres of ground and planted a field of corn. He let his only horse team go to help take properties and records of the Church to Salt Lake Valley.
There was a long, dry spell in the spring and summer of 1848 and the crops were drying up. In a conference at Kanesville, the Saints united in prayer for rain and one of the presiding brethren promised if they would make a fast for the poor people among them, the Lord would send rain, and before an hour had passed a heavy rain fell which saved their crops from drying up.
Soon after conference, Ezra T. Benson and George A. Smith were making preparations to go to Salt Lake, but they lacked one animal of having sufficient teams. Great-grandfather owned two cows. He gave them one to hitch in their team. Brother Smith said: "Bother Standley, I fear you are robbing your family, but the Lord will bless you ten fold." The next spring the gold fever was on and many people were going to California. This caused a great demand for corn for food. Great-grandfather got a good price for his corn. He took the money and purchased twenty cows and as many calves. Thus Apostle Smith's promise was fulfilled in less than a year.
It was considerable work to care for the cows, milk them, make cheese and butter and get it (the cheese and butter) ready for market. Early in 1852, the company began making preparations to go to the Great Salt Lake Valley, making yokes and bows for the cattle and training them to travel when hitched together. They fitted up three wagons with three or more yoke of cattle to each wagon and, having only one yoke of cattle and three yokes of steers, they had to use several cows. At Council Bluffs, Iowa, a company of 50 families were organized with Joseph Howell as captain. They started for Utah the first week in May, 1852.
Night and morning the cows had to be milked and the milk taken care of, but it added greatly to the food supply. Any milk or cream that was not used was put in a churn and carried in one of the wagons and, when they stopped for camp at night, there would be a nice lump of butter for their supper and breakfast next morning."
I can promise you that if you keep the commandments of the Lord and watch for the walls, bars, rules, and signs and keep the righteous traditions in your life, you will be blessed with blessings that will overflow your cup. You may not be able to recognize them as blessings for keeping the commandments at the time, but they will be there nevertheless and in the quite moments of reflection, you will recognize them as blessings from the Lord.
Love,
Grandpa
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