Lifeguard

     After I got my call, and since missions don't pay for themselves, my need and desire to go to work every day increased. Well, maybe not so much my desire, but it did get me to work every day and even pick up a lot of shifts that I probably normally wouldn't have under any other circumstance. I worked as a lifeguard for one of the pools in the city. I know, I know; working as a lifeguard is sooo hard. All you do is sit in the sun with your shirt off and tan and watch people swim. I have heard it all, but you have to think it is still a job and it is still not the most exciting thing. Well, it gets pretty exciting when you have to get in and save some little kid from going into a spot that you told them 3 minutes earlier not to go in, and when you do save them the parent comes running over at you yelling at you that their kid was fine and didn't need help. That gets old fast. Plus, where I worked the exciting stuff only happens once in a blue moon.
     I bet you all are wondering why the heck I included this in my experiences. Well there were a couple reasons. First, like I already said, because of the money so that I could afford to go. The second reason is that I rode my bike to work almost every day. As many people know and have seen, us missionaries ride our bikes quite a bit so I had to get some practice to make sure I was in shape enough to be able to do it on my mission. As good of a reason as that might have sounded that in shapeness that I might have had when I left is all gone now so all that work was in vain. The real reason I included this is actually because this is where I technically started my mission. Every day at work I would be overwhelmed with hundreds of questions about what I can and can't do as a missionary and what I believed and all sorts of other questions. As annoying as they got some days, I look back now and realize how fun it was and how much I was able to help those people I worked with understand a little better about what it was that I was going to be doing. Let me tell you, some of those questions were pretty dang out there, but I am glad that I was able to experience all of that back home before I came here to the good ol' Bible Belt.

Diligence

     The next Attribute of Christ is Diligence. Life is very busy and there are very many things in this world that we can do with our time. A lot of things may seem good to be doing, but there are always better things that we can occupy our time with. An important part of being diligent is focusing our efforts on the things that are most important. For example, should we attend the soccer game on Sunday, or go to church? Some decisions are a little less obvious; should I get my work done this evening, or spend time with my family? Whatever the case may be with our busy lives, to be diligent we must focus on the things that bring us closer to God and strengthen ourselves and our family relationships.
     Another important part of being diligent is setting goals and following through with them. How often do we make plans to accomplish a task, only to have those same plans evaporate into the heat of our busy days? When we do not set goals, our plans are without any sort of vision. We head off into the dark, and who knows if our tasks will ever actually be completed during the time we spent wandering around. We will continue to procrastinate and wait for a better time only to find that it will never actually come. Goals are the light at the end of the tunnel, the measuring stick used to evaluate our effectiveness.

     You can tell a lot about a person by how they work when they think no one is watching. How would you like to find out that your "hardest working" employees didn't actually do anything while you were out to lunch? We need to have that same attitude in all of our actions. If we are truly diligent it won't matter if anyone is watching us because we will work hard at all times. Another part of this is working till you have successfully completed the task at hand. At no point should you ever give up. "You have not failed until you have quit trying." -Gordon B. Hinckley (Nov. 1983 Ensign, Live Up to Your Inheritance.)