Conference!

This weekend was General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the wikipedia article explaining it can be found here).

As Elder Holland explained in his address, General Conference is divinely inspired and designed to provide insight for anyone who is ready for it. [The videos and transcriptions of today's messages aren't up yet, but eventually I'll link them.] Anyway, I was once again very impressed by it. I definitely heard a bunch of stuff I needed to hear.

One of the big struggles I've been dealing with lately has boiled down to frustration: there are so many things I want to happen in my life right now, and it seems like every time something great comes around the corner, something awful happens just in time to foil everything. Over the past while I've gotten kinda bitter about it, not gonna lie--which is really too bad, and also kind of ridiculous. Several talks this Conference seemed like they were written just for me. The theme: God is the gardener, and sometimes He cuts us down to help us grow the way we need to.

Here, I'm going to tell you some stories.

Carl and I had been married for a few months and graduation was around the corner. We were trying to figure out what to do with ourselves after we graduated, and it seemed to me that grad school might not be a bad idea. There was an opening in the Plant and Wildlife Sciences Department for a masters/PhD student to do some particular research for the state of Utah, and it would have been come with not only a full scholarship, but also a generous stipend that would have covered all of my and Carl's expenses for the entirety of my career there.

So I got everything in order and applied. I felt really good about it.

A few weeks later, my pesticide professor called me into his office to discuss it. This was it! I was thrilled.

Until he told me the truth of why he'd called me in. "I just wanted to tell you that you could get into any program in the country," he told me. "You could study this at Harvard or wherever you wanted. Your grades and accomplishments would guarantee it. But," he said, and my heart dropped through the floor--"we're giving this position to someone else. But I wanted to tell you in person because it came down to the two of you, and you deserve to be here too."

Oh, writing that story is going to make me cry all over again. I was heartbroken. I cried for days and days over that. I just kept thinking--if I could get into any program in the country, THEN WHY DIDN'T I GET IN HERE?!?! It's not like BYU has a freaking amazing environmental sciences program. Why could I get into a better school, but not the only one I wanted to go to?

And so, with only a few more weeks left in the summer, Carl and I decided we would head out to Washington DC, to stay with my family until we found jobs. The night before we made the trek across the country, we got the phone call that my brother had broken his hip. And so we came home just in time to help my family with him, and the many, many, many incredible hardships and struggles that came along with his injury and subsequent surgeries and [nonexistent] recovery.

I've thought about that a lot. There have been so many things in my life that I wanted, and things came up just in time to foil all my dreams. In the case of my budding career as a soil chemist, when that abruptly ended, it was clear why: I needed to be elsewhere. It was not a mistake that I couldn't be allowed to follow that dream. I needed to be there for my family.

But not every situation like that is so clear. And at the same time, I'm very sure that James's struggles were not the only reason why I had to be precluded from devoting years of my life to the study of soils. There are many reasons for everything, and sometimes it just takes patience to see it all.

That's what I got out of Conference this time: that suffering and hardship are necessary because they make us better people. They change us from doing good to being good--if we let them.

One guy, I don't remember who right now, told a story about another guy who found a giant currant bush that was super tall, but not giving any fruit. In order to help the bush achieve its true purpose, the gardener guy cut the currant bush down to a few tiny branches. Little drops of water formed where he'd cut the branches down, and they reminded the gardener of tears. It seemed as though the currant bush were crying--hadn't it been growing so nicely? Wasn't it tall and beautiful?

Yes, the gardener conceded, except for one thing: it was a currant bush, and it should be growing currants. In a few years, it would thank him for the pain. It wasn't meant to be a shade tree, it was meant to bear fruit. The only way to help this plant achieve its true purpose was to cut it down. It would be painful, but that's the price it would have to pay to accomplish its purpose.

You should really watch that talk. It was fantastic. Again, I'll link it when everything comes up (all the conference talks will eventually be found here).

Anyway, sometimes God cuts us down in order to help us grow the way we need to. I know in my life, the most painful things I've had to go through have always turned out to be good for me.

So I'm glad I watched Conference this time around. There were some really beautiful thoughts expressed that really impacted me.

I'll link some videos as soon as they're up.