 Being
Positive In All Things
On missions or in everyday
life it is a key to enjoying life.
by
Ed J. Pinegar Maintaining a positive
attitude is the magic key to motivation. You can be no better than
your attitude, because attitude is part of your perception. Perception
comes through your past experience, values, and attitude. I recall
the story I once told to a group of people about a little girl in
the fifth grade. It is picture day at school, and she is so excited.
Her mother says, “Let’s put on your white dress; it’s
such a beautiful March spring day. The snow is almost melted. You
will look so pretty in your white dress for the school picture.”
Once she is dressed in her finery, the little girl runs up quickly
to the bus stop and she’s first in line. Along comes a car,
and splot, splat—mud all over her dress; oh it was horrible.
She runs back home crying, “Mommy, Mommy, my dress is ruined,
my dress is ruined.”
Then she goes in the
house and her mother says, “Well let’s put on your second-best
dress.” So she puts on her second-best dress and she runs
back to the bus stop. Just as she gets to the bus stop she reaches
up to grab the bus handle, but the bus driver didn’t see her
and he inadvertently closes the door and hits her right on the nose—boom.
Hemoglobin is everywhere. She takes her little hanky and tries to
stop her nosebleed. She finally gets to school. She has a little
scabby nose, but she has her second-best dress on, so it’s
not too bad of a day. Well, she goes to morning recess on the north
side of the building. There are a few little parcels of snow still
left, and some young, future missionary boys in the fifth grade
are making snowballs. They decide to throw one that goes the wrong
way, and lo and behold, it hits her right in the eye—kaboom!
Her eye begins to swell up, and she runs to the teacher. “Teacher,
teacher, look at my eye.”
“Yes, it’s
swollen shut. Well Sweety Pie, you go on the south side of the building
for recess next time. It’s warm there and those snowballs
won’t hit you anymore.”
“OK teacher, I
will.” Next recess, in the afternoon, she climbs up on the
tricky bars (the monkey bars), all the way to the top. There she
is sitting at the top when she sees her friend Sally. She goes to
wave and loses her grip and—khkh khkh khkh—falls all
the way down and lands on her elbow. She screams, but as she screams,
she notices something shiny on the ground and clutches it in her
hand. She cries her way into the teacher and says, “My arm
hurts.” The teacher thinks, “Oh dear, it’s probably
broken.” Then the school nurse comes and agrees that the arm
is probably broken. “Let’s put it in a sling and call
her mother so she can take her to the doctor.” So, they put
the arm in the sling and her mother comes to pick her up. And there’s
her daughter, swollen eye, scabby nose, second-best dress on, sling
on her arm, and a smile on her face. And she says, “Sweetheart,
how can you smile on a day like this?”
And the little girl
says, “Oh Mommy, it was my lucky day—I found a nickel.”
Now that’s what I call a positive attitude.
There are going to be
days you get all the doors slammed, but to stay motivated, your
attitude must be positive. “Blessed are all they who are persecuted
for my name’s sake (3 Ne. 12:10). So every time you're persecuted,
you are getting a blessing. The next time you go down the street,
and no one lets you in, and people say unkind things, you are getting
blessings. That’s the kind of attitude we have to have. It
doesn’t matter where we are; that positive attitude can save
lives, because if we always feel good about ourselves and the work,
then we’ll keep plugging along.
In our mission we had
an attitude of “always one more door.” So we would knock
on all the doors and one more. Well, one day we were having a zone
meeting and one of the sisters stood up to speak. The sister said,
“Oh President, it was a hard day. It was raining and we’d
forgotten our brawleys (that’s umbrellas in England). Things
weren’t going well, and all I could remember you saying was
‘one more door, one more door.’ We were now sopping
wet and you know what? I could just hear that little voice of yours,
President, saying ‘one more door, one more door.’ I
felt so good inside and I kept saying, ‘I’ve got a good
attitude and I’m sopping wet, and I don’t care.’
And then we knocked on that one more door and this lady looked at
us like, ‘You poor little wet things, you’ll turn into
a fish if you stay out much longer.’ And sure enough she invited
us in and we gave a first discussion.”
You must recognize the
purpose of opposition in all things. It’s here to stay. You
must needs be tempted to know the good from the evil. You have opposition
so you can grow, and you have the right to choose. You have moral
agency, which is a gift from God. You can decide when you wake up
in the morning—it’s a great day or it’s not. You
are the decision maker. Realize that you have the power to choose
to react or to act. If your attitude is one of doubt, guess what
just left your very being—faith. For where doubt dwells, faith
cannot exist. Yes, when we draw on the powers of heaven, and strengthen
our spirituality through prayer and study and personal righteousness,
we will gain confidence and our attitude will be positive.
Make reachable, measurable
goals, with logical and systematic plans. Implement the plans by
the Spirit with dates of accomplishment to do your work. And when
you do that, you’ll start to have a little more success. Success
begets success, and then you’ll want to keep working hard
because you are motivated.
REALIZING
YOUR DIVINE POTENTIAL
If I could talk to you
like you were just sitting right next to me, one on one, I would
tell you that you are fulfillment of prophecy. As in Jacob 5:70–71,
you are the one who is pruning the vineyard for the last time. You
are among those of whom the Lord spoke in the D&C 138:53–57.
He talks about the temple and proclaiming the gospel to the vineyard
again. Yes, you are one of the noble and great ones saved for this
day. Don’t you realize how special you are? Because when you
realize how special you are, you will keep working. Realize that
because of your exceeding good works in the premortal existence;
you are now here doing that great work of bringing souls unto Christ
by building up the kingdom of God (see Alma 13:3–7). So I
praise you; I honor you. You are held in high esteem. You must be
instructed in the ways of the Lord at your zone meetings, at your
district meetings, and from your beloved president who loves you
with all of his heart. And then remember, you can do it. There’s
nothing you cannot do.
The Lord motivates us.
He motivates us because He has our respect. We trust Him and we
love Him, and He blesses our lives. He motivates us because we recognize
our weaknesses and imperfections and trust Him to give us the help
we need. He motivates us by showing us our divine potential. “You
are my sons, you are my daughters, you can come and be with me.”
He motivates us by giving us a new value system, the plan of exaltation,
the plan of happiness. And, He motivates us by requiring us to make
and keep commitments that He calls covenants. As your commitment
to your covenants deepen, your motivation increases. Remember that
God has covenanted with us to give us all things. Is this not motivation
enough: exaltation and happiness?
We can be
motivated in all things, but the key comes down to this: how converted
are we to Christ and His gospel? How deep is our gratitude for His
atoning sacrifice? Then you can be like the missionary who stood
up and said, “It’s the least I could do to be a good
missionary after all my Savior has done for me.”
Bringing souls to Christ
is the goal and the reward. Nothing could make us happier. A missionary
I taught in missionary preparation class just wrote me. He’s
serving in Germany. He wrote, “Oh Brother Ed, it’s so
great. A sister is committed for February 8 to be baptized. It’s
like you said, I’ve never been so happy.” And then he
said some beautiful words, “I am continually being strengthened
by the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are elders and
sisters who understand why we do what we do. And when we think of
a baptismal goal, or any other worthy goals, it’s because
we love Heavenly Father’s children.” Surely this love
will be our motive in missionary work. Love is the motive for Heavenly
Father and our Savior in all that they do (see John 3:16; 2 Ne.
26:24).
Staying motivated
in life or on our mission will give us hope to carry on. Hope gives
rise to a positive attitude in all things. Missionary work is hard
work. Life is hard...but the blessings are indescribably delicious.
(Adapted from “The Ultimate Missionary Companion”, Ed
J. Pinegar, Covenant Books)
You can send
missionary books and tapes to your missionaries or help them prepare
to serve a mission by going to ldsleadership.com for books and tapes
by Ed J. Pinegar.For books and tapes on missionary work go to
www.ldsleadership.com.
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