Following my return home from California in 2011, I enrolled in school to begin my undergraduate education.
This was hard for me—much harder than the drastic, stressful changes that had turned me into a missionary. I went from doing the most important work occurring on the earth today, to thinking about only myself much of the time.
Setting up bank accounts, finding a job, managing a student schedule, and the other mundane tasks of my daily living seemed like a terrible waste of time when compared to the endlessly exciting, mentally stimulating, spiritually refining experiences I had enjoyed while a full-time missionary.
A sermon by Dieter F. Uchtdorf offered some help, as he described his experience of restoring and flying a Piper Cub—a small, slow, light aircraft.
This was contrasted with the exhilaration of flying in an F/A-18 Hornet at many hundreds of miles per hour. The Joy of the Priesthood (churchofjesuschrist.org)
I worked to adjust to the idea that I was still serving the Lord, though it was much like being restricted to a Cub after being accustomed to a Hornet. After all, both could fly. I decided I was still flying, no matter how slowly or lowly.
I longed to recapture the sense of being on the Lord’s errand, anxiously engaged in bringing to pass His work among His children. I had come to know the gathering of Israel to be the most important work occurring on the earth today.
I indulged in some moments of self-pity. I remember the feeling of hopelessness I entertained, and the surprising event that followed.
I was sitting in my apartment, wondering what to do with my life.
Words came into my mind, as clear and direct as those when I had prayed about the Book of Mormon. Read The Book (bgg.fyi)
The words were, “Gather premortal Israel into your own family.”
Immediately, my mind flashed to Deuteronomy 32: 8.
"When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel."
Before any of our births, the Lord chose who would be born within the house of Israel. In fact, this is true of all of us regardless the nation into which we are born, even outside the house of Israel. (See Acts 17: 26)
This inspiration refocused my attention away from the stagnation of self-loathing, and refreshed my enthusiasm for continuing on in bringing to pass the Lord’s work. I came to understand more clearly how I could partner with God in bringing to pass the immortality of man through establishing a family, in addition to their eternal life through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Building families reaches all the way across the veil; from premortality, through this life, into the spirit world and beyond.
Be an agent in working to "maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society," both here and now, and for the future.
See also: