M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

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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