Why Do We Do This?

My brother-in-law describes vacations with my family as the McConkie School of Survival. He came up with this term shortly after marrying my sister when my family decided to take a trip to the Grand Canyon. During the few days we were down at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon my brother-in-law was subjected to a nine mile hike along the rim on a Sunday. The next day was a 17 mile hike to Ribbon Falls in the canyon and then back to the rim. In total 26 miles of hiking in two days in a place where temperatures in the shade can reach into the hundreds. 

Ribbon Falls

As my brother-in-law can attest to this first hike is only one of many crazy hikes that my family has done. While I was in middle school my family went camping in the Teton National Park and planned on doing an eight mile hike. After nearly seventeen miles we found ourselves finishing our hike. I've been to the bottom of the Grand Canyon three times with my family. One time was at a place called Toroweap which is basically a near vertical mile and a half trail from the bottom of the canyon to the top. Hiking Toroweap is so dangerous that the National Parks Service discourages people from hiking this trail. The other two times were rim-to-rim-to-rim hikes each of which my family accomplished in two separate four day periods.

So this President's Day's weekend when my mom and dad asked me to accompany them to Bryce Canyon National Park I figured that there would be sometime type of hike involved. Little did I know that my dad hadn't decided where we would go hiking in the canyon. At the Visitor's Center to the park my dad asked a Parks' Employee about hiking. The employee's answer wasn't to tell us what type of hikes to enjoy, but that we should buy $25 crampons to place on the bottom of our hiking boots. My dad wasn't very happy with this response and wasn't willing to shell out $75 on three sets of crampons that we would use only once. So instead he decided to go on his hike without the crampons.

After spending the night in a cabin in Tropic, Utah the three of us (my dad, my mom, and I) arrived at the rim of the canyon to begin our hike into an area known as Fairyland. As we started down the trail into the Bryce Canyon Amphitheater we quickly found that crampons wouldn't have been very good for hiking. Temperatures in the high 40's and low 50's had melted the ice and snow in the canyon and we found ourselves trudging through mostly slush. Other than getting my shoes extremely wet I didn't mind this slush too much as it made for a fun way to descend from the rim.

My Dad in the Grand Canyon.

When the trail finally leveled out we found ourselves winding through the distinctive hoodoos that make Bryce Canyon so famous. As we walked through the hoodoos we found ourselves slogging through clay that stuck to the bottom of our boots in two inch thick increments. This provided wonderful resistance training and made us cheer up a little bit whenever we encountered snow because the snow allowed us to get all the clay off of our feet. Eventually after several hours we found ourselves ascending back up to the rim. Once on the rim we thought that our hike would be easy as we would be on a well traveled trail that would make our journey easier.

We quickly found that our wishes of an easy trip along the rim back to our car wouldn't come true. The trail that we found was a set of cross country ski tracks, a pair of snowshoes, and a few footprints that led through snow over a foot deep. Because it was a shorter distance to follow this trail than going back the way we had come my family set off along this path. I did my best to try and stay on top of the snow, but found myself often sinking up to my knees in snow as I would break the hardened crust of the snow. All of this made our hike difficult and it was only made worse when we realized that the trail we were following wandered aimlessly through the woods and wasn't even connected to the trail that ran along the rim. Eventually we found our way back to the real trail and arrived back at our car. 

The hike made the annals of the McConkie School of Survival with a distance of nine miles and a time of almost six hours. It left us feeling exhausted and for the rest of the day we didn't do anything except for watch TV.

Despite experiences like this hike in Bryce Canyon and so many others that have left me tired and battered I still love hiking. I often find myself looking at distant mountain tops and wondering what it would be like at the summit. Several hours later I often find myself at the top of these mountains looking down at where I came from, thinking to myself, "Boy am I tired, but isn't the view even better than I imagined!" That's the reason why my family and I subject ourselves to these hikes is so we can see all the amazing things that we would miss if we didn't go.

The McConkie School of Survival.

Small Growth

Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.

Alma 37:6

My favorite place in the world is the Grand Canyon. It is a place that I love to visit and hike. I have vivid memories of the many trips I have made to the canyon. From the rims I have seen miles of side canyons and the mighty Colorado. Within the walls of the canyon I have dipped my feet into the water of falls and creeks that run through the desert environment. But the most impressive thing to me was standing on the edge of the Colorado River and staring up at the South Rim and realizing how far down I was, the entire thing was amazing.

On that day when I stood and stared up at the horizon I remembered a principle that I had been taught in every geology class that I had ever taken, that principle was erosion. Erosion is the process of wearing away the landscape by forces of nature such as wind or water. It was through the process of erosion that the Grand Canyon was formed. For millions and millions and millions of years the Colorado River made its course through Northern Arizona and cut through the landscape. As the years passed the river had carried away bits and pieces of the rocks that it flowed through. At first the sediment that was carried away wasn't all that impressive, but as the years went by the Canyon was slowly formed, until it became the most impressive canyon on the planet.

In my life I have had experiences that have changed me dramatically, but those changes have sometimes taken months and even years before I have seen the end result. A lot of those changes have taken place here on my mission. But the interesting thing about most of those changes is that it has taken me a long time to even notice that they have happened. But looking back on where I've come from to where I am now I am better able to put into perspective the changes that have been made in my life. All of those changes have resulted in me being a better person than when I left on my mission.

Me at the beginning of my mission.

For instance when I left on my mission I felt pretty confident about the challenges that laid ahead of me. I had just finished a year of college and felt as if I could handle anything that came at me. Within one week of being at the Missionary Training Center I realized just how wrong I was. I found myself incompetent at studying. Not very observant of those around me. And most importantly I shrunk from social interactions. I honestly felt that there was no way that I could survive a mission at all at that point in my life. If I didn't know the Gospel very well, couldn't listen to people very well, and couldn't even get the courage to talk to people how was I expected to go and be a missionary?

When I got into the mission field none of those things were resolved. I still felt like I was a bad missionary, but I decided to trek onward. So for eight months I trudged through my mission just trying to make it from one day to the next. At the end of each day I would comeback to my apartment and review what had happened that day. Most days felt about the same and at the end of most days I really didn't feel all that different from the way I had felt before.  

The interesting thing to me was that the longer I stayed out on my mission the more I was able to get a better perspective of myself. Though at the end of each day I still felt like the same person and still felt like nothing had changed there was a large change happening inside of me. By the time that I had been out for eight months I wasn't as depressed about my prospects of the mission, I felt confident and I felt like I was finally able to listen to people and help them. Then by the time I hit my yearmark I felt a lot more confident in my knowledge of the Gospel and I felt as if every time I studied something from the Scriptures that I was learning something new and uplifting. Then at around eighteen months I thought back on my mission and realized that I now wasn't too afraid to talk to people anymore. 

All of these changes that have happened to me have been amazing to me. But the most amazing thing about these changes is how they came about. I didn't become a good listener during one lesson, it took many lessons and many times of talking to people. Being confident in my Gospel knowledge didn't come from one major study session in the MTC or one morning on my mission, it came from constant study of the scriptures. Being able to talk to people didn't come from just one conversation, but from many awkward conversations, that eventually weren't as awkward as they had been before. All of these changes had come through time lots of time and lots of practice.

When it comes to seeing changes in our lives the principle is the same as it was for me. Oftentimes we get discouraged when it seems that we are not changing, if we don't have the testimony we want, or aren't the person we want to be. All of those things are understandable, but they shouldn't get us down. Building a testimony and changing into a better person takes time. So let us press forward, let us study the scriptures, let us try every day to be a little bit better and let us all rely on our Savior. Eventually we will be able to look back on our lives and see changes that are just as visible as the Grand Canyon.

Me now.