The Understudy

Herman took this lovely picture of me. :)

Ah Girls Camp. I have such a sweet spot in my heart for girls camp. I feel like girls camp is my rising-like-the-phoenix-from-the-ashes experience of church membership. From my first camp experience as a ward camp director that was an unmitigated disaster to my years serving as our St. Robert Stake camp director, I have a whole parcel of memories dedicated to my years attending this great program. I haven't attended for the last several years as others have grabbed the baton and charged forward to direct this program, but I've loved coming to up to visit whenever Herman has spoken to the girls. It's been lovely.

The stake asked Herman to speak to the girls last night. I have been asking him for the past several days what he was going to talk about, and he was never quite sure. This didn't bother me too much. He often spends a good portion of time thinking about his talks before he nails down a final topic. I just knew that, whatever it was, it was going to be a great talk. He is such a gifted speaker. Well, tonight it was getting down to the wire. Herman had had to run down to Springfield to drop off a refrigerator at our rental house there, so he was gone for a good portion of the day. He ended up getting home around 5:30 as I was fixing dinner when he came into the kitchen and proudly proclaimed, "I know what I'm going to talk about tonight." ...

"You are going to talk!"

What??!? I am going to talk? But it was 5:30. He was supposed to start speaking at 8 pm. I hadn't given one second of thought to any sort of hour long talk to give. I was going to have to speak in front of 100 girls and leaders. Yikes! I've talked a bunch of times for girls camp, but normally I have some time to work up to it. This was nerve wracking.

But I agreed. Because I love Herman. And I trust him.

I immediately headed outside to our back deck where it is peaceful and quiet, and I pondered what I needed to talk about. I got an impression right off the bat. I knew what I wanted to talk about. I was ready.

Hopefully.

I have a had a talk ready to go for a long time this year. While I was teaching one day in seminary I had been planning on teaching a particular lesson when the class discussion pushed us down another path. As we learned together I got a powerful insight that stuck with me after that day. I knew that I wanted to give a talk on this someday. If I was ever asked to talk in General Conference (never gonna happen!!! As if!) this was the talk I would give. But more likely I thought it might be a cool talk to give in our ward someday because I thought it was a lesson that all of us could use.

I felt a little bad for the girls. I know that the people in the stake love to hear Herman speak. He is so good at it. They were expecting a talk from their stake president ... not his wife. I felt like it was similar to how people must feel when they go to a Broadway show, expecting to see the famous leads in the play, only to find out that you have to watch the understudies. Sure, it's the same show, but you can't help but be a little disappointed. That was me last night ... the understudy.

Well, it went splendidly. I think. I feel like I said exactly what the Lord needed me to say. I started by telling everyone about the struggles I have always had with prayer. I have always felt like there was some sort of disconnect when I was talking to my Heavenly Father. I never grew up learning how to pray, and I've just never felt comfortable doing it. That's always bothered me a bit. But I shared with them what I learned about prayer in my seminary lesson that day last year.

We had been studying Alma 31, which was when Alma went to teach the Zoramites. The Zoramites were a giant piece of work. They built the Rameumpton for their recited prayers, and those prayers were terrible. They were such a mess. Alma hung out with them for a bit and noticed their spiritual craziness, and he was a bit put out with his role having to deal with such people, so he said a prayer which is found in that chapter of the Book of Mormon. I read the definition of prayer which is found in the Bible Dictionary, and in that definition it explains that

Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant but that are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of work and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings.(Read the whole definition HERE).

I explained that Heavenly Father isn't moving. It's up to us to move to get in a place spiritually and emotionally where we can hear Him.

Alma's prayer in Alma 31 is a perfect example of what this looks like. I love how he begins the prayer by complaining about his assignment. He gripes and gripes and gripes about the ridiculousness of the Zoramites and wonders how long he is going to continue to have to deal with people like this. I love it because I feel like Alma was open and honest and REAL.  There's nothing wrong with letting Heavenly Father know what we are struggling with. I think it's okay to complain a little bit ... as long as our prayer doesn't stop there. Alma starts this way, but then he begins to pray for HIMSELF. He asks for comfort and strength and patience so that he can do what Heavenly Father needs him to do. I think that Alma recognized that his will was not in line with Heavenly Father's and this part of the prayer was his attempt to get the tools he needed so that he could get in line. The next part of his prayer was for HIS FAMILY AND COMPANIONS. Now his prayer begins to turn outward. He is no longer worried only about himself. He is praying for those he loves so that they can have success. Another excellent example of what we need to do as we pray and work to get our wills in line with Heavenly Father. Finally, Alma ends his prayer by praying for the ZORAMITES. He says that they are 'precious,' remarkable considering the mini-rant he had just gone on regarding their ridiculous practices in the previous column.

What had happened in Alma's prayer was that he had WORKED and gone through a process so that he could put himself in a place spiritually, mentally, and emotionally so that he was ready to HEAR what the Lord had to tell him. And that's where I tied it into the camp theme for the day which was 'Listen to His Words." I talked about how Heavenly Father is standing ready to bless our lives with countless blessings.. He is ready to teach us and guide us and help us through our trials. But sometimes we can't receive those blessings or hear those words because we are not willing to listen. We are not in a place where we are prepared to do what it takes to get in the right place. Alma was able to be richly blessed immediately after that prayer, but he had to do the work of the prayer so that he could get those blessings. If  he had just given up after his complaint he would have missed seeing the hand of the Lord in his life. If he had only focused his prayer on himself or his friends he also would have missed out. He had to go through the whole process in order to get to the right place.

Then I pivoted a bit to talk about dating, simply because that is the easiest way to see how we might create stumbling blocks for ourselves at this age. I talked about how often youth immediately get defensive when teachers/leaders bring up the standards in the For the Strength of Youth manual. They get upset to have to hear yet another lesson about dating. They aren't willing to stop dating in ways that are in opposition to that counsel, and they don't want to hear about it. I just showed the youth how the same pattern that Alma used in his prayer was the same pattern that we need to use in our own prayers, whether it is about dating or if it is some other favorite sin that we like to hold onto. We cannot receive all the blessings the Lord has in store for us if we are unable to move from our spot. If we are unable to change, we lose those blessings.

Anyway, that was the gist of the talk. Typing it out isn't quite as satisfying as it was giving it to the youth in person. I felt super guided in what I said. I knew that it was just what they needed to hear. It was just what I needed to hear. After I finished a few girls came up to thank me for my words. That meant a lot. I hope that I made a difference. Herman said I did a good job. I know he's contractually obligated to say such things, but I felt like he really did enjoy my words.

Sometimes it's okay to be the understudy. The Lord needs understudies to help build the kingdom too. I'm just happy that I felt His guiding influence yesterday, especially speaking to the great youth of the Church.