Character

CHARACTER is "the ability to carry out a worthwhile decision after the emotion of making that decision has passed.”
An Emotional Decision Has been Made to Serve. They raise their hand in a Mini-MTC to serve full time missions – the test of character is whether they will carry out that good decision once the emotion of making the decision has passed. Character is demonstrated by coming back to the MTC to serve their mission. This is a symbolic picture of true Character as those who made the commitment to serve – months and years before – are arriving in Bus Loads to fulfill their Commitment – that’s CHARACTER!

Our quest for Eternal Life began with a character challenging Commitment. We ‘Promised’, “Committed”, “Covenanted” to come to earth, to obey every word of Command, to perform the essential ordinances, to serve faithfully, to practice living a God like life in a Telestial environment and to endure to the end. Many will fail in their quest but, thankfully many will also succeed. The common attribute of the success stories will be those who developed CHARACTER - the ability to carry out those emotional pre-mortal decisions while we practice ‘Christian living’ in this mortal proving ground.

The mission field is a perfectly designed obstacle course where we can teach, develop, practice, discover, observe, succeed and also, unfortunately, we are also allowed to fail in our quest for Character development. Whichever road we choose will probably determine our final destination regardless of our ambitious and emotional outbursts of commitment to excellence and our promises to endure to the end. WE have ALSO found by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all ‘men’ to violate even their strongest commitments when the sledding gets tough...UNLESS they have developed true CHARACTER or the ability to continue striving for the goal even when the crowds are gone and no one is watching...those ‘few’ will be the inheritors of Eternal Life.

Two terrific examples of people with Character are my mom and dad. My dad died in his 90th year and almost to his death he was still delivering 1,000 newspapers every morning – early EVERY morning - for nearly seven decades. Take off time for two missions, a handful of vacations and some Lions Club conventions and a day or two when the body couldn’t stand vertical and you have the story of this Icon of Character. For many years - the span of two full time ‘normal’ careers – three hundred and sixty five days per year, ‘rain or shine’ this man ‘delivered’. My mother is like unto him. Their word was their bond and their lives were examples of second mile performance. That’s Character.

As I try to ‘remember’ the Council in Heaven, I imagine all of us listening intently and as I ‘recall’ right after God said, “And we will prove them...to see if they will do all things...”, He added, ‘and if they will not only DO IT, but DO IT consistently, they will develop good habits and those good habits will mold their character to become God Like ... and if they develop God Like Character they can come home”. I REALLY want to go home...

THAT’S HOW I REMEMBER IT...