Patriarchal Blessings

                I remember reading my patriarchal blessing before leaving on my mission. I was going to a country where war and gang violence has been a life style for years. Although things have gotten better in the country it didn’t help ease the anxiety of my Mom. She was sending her baby boy to a place that was everything but Wyoming. We read the blessing and it clearly stated that I would be moved from harm’s way throughout my mission and that nothing would happen to me to keep me from being able to preach the gospel.

                While in the MTC we were playing basketball on our gym hour and during the game I hurt my thumb. The middle joint got hurt somehow, but to this day my finger still gets stuck when I try to bend it sometimes. Weird I know, but the point is after this happened I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that I was supposed to be protected while on my mission that no harm was supposed to fall on me, yet here I was just a few weeks into the mission and my thumb is broken. You wouldn’t believe the other doubts that started to flood into my mind. If my patriarchal blessing wasn’t real then what was? It wasn’t for a few days that I realized my stupidity and was able to get it out of my head. It would be another 16 months until I would understand the true meaning of that line my mom and I had read.

                While in an area called Juayua, I was going to find a referral that we had been given for a younger kid that was interested in learning more about the church.  We knocked on the door and no one was home we started to leave when I was asked by a group of kids in the street what we were doing knocking on that door. I proceeded to tell them that we were looking for a teenager that was interested in the gospel. The guy told us that he was his cousin and as his cousin we could never come back again. I said ok and we started to leave, but before I could he said “but hey gringo, if you want to leave you need to give me a quarter.” (El Salvador uses US currency) Sarcastically I replied that all I had was a few dollars but no quarters. He then pulled out a gun and asked me again for a quarter. I again replied that I would be happy to give him a dollar but I had no quarter and turned around and started to walk away. Even angrier now he shouted “Gringo, if you don’t stop and give me a quarter I will shoot you in the back of the head!” As I continued to walk away I replied “ok!” I’m sure the member was scared out of his mind by this point but we kept walking and nothing happened.

                I don’t know why he never shot. He may have been bluffing the whole time, the gun could have misfired, and maybe it was a fake or didn’t have any bullets. What I do know is that my patriarchal blessing promised me protection to the point that it would not get in the way of the work. I then realized that I was never promised protection from hurt thumbs because I could still teach the gospel with a broken thumb, I couldn’t however teach the gospel with a bullet in my head.

                Satan always tries to get us to jump to conclusions about or faith or even life in general when something goes wrong, it is important not to lose sight of the big picture, the long term, the eternal prospective of things. The even better part of all that is that Heavenly Father gives us a unique tool to help us not lose that sight, your patriarchal blessing.