"WELCOME HOME ELDER MAJOR!!" came the overwhelming scream from the bottom of the escalator. Tears welled up in my eyes, "I'm home" was the thought in my mind, but at the same time I had just left home. As I embraced my mom my thoughts were swimming with images of Hawaii, my friends in Orem, family, doubts, and desperate attempts to remember what "normal" life was like. After a blurry 45 minute ride home, I walked through the door of my house of 15 years, yet now it seemed so foreign. "Do I even remember where my own room is?" There in the family room was a card from my friends. Again the same phrase "WELCOME HOME ELDER MAJOR!" Looking back I wish it had the subtitle 'now real life begins, prepare for a roller-coaster' because after the initial shock of arriving home my life of adjustment began. Little did I know how difficult it would be and how much closer I would need to come to my Savior and my Heavenly Father.
My purpose in writing this blog is to share with you one of the great lessons I have learned since that day almost one year ago. I'm hoping that it may serve to aid anyone who is searching for direction in life, regardless of whether or not they are really struggling or just experiencing normal life's ups and downs. It is for both groups of people. It all comes down to finding solutions vs. soul-lutions
So many challenges have arisen since coming home. One of the first things I realized was that I needed a job. I'm very blessed because my parents offer all of us boys a beginning job here at the house when we first come back. It is a great job. I'm learning a lot of handman skills, financial skills, and other things that are preparing me for future fatherhood. However, I quickly learned the difficulty of working at home. I became the center of many less-than-cordial conversations concerning who I work for more, my mom or my dad. Also, I realized that I had quickly lost my independence, financial and emotional, that I had gained on the mission because I had everything provided for by my parents. My self-discipline waned. Over the course of this year I've searched and searched for solutions, including trying to create a strict schedule of my time or leaving the house while things cooled down. But it seemed no matter what I did I just couldn't find a permanent solution.
I also found myself lost in the big sea of dating once I arrived home. I'll be honest, I was excited because now dating was "for real" I had never dated anyone in High School or even attempted to (though I did wish for it sometimes). Just to let you know, dating isn't like what it was in High School. That is what I quickly learned. I have been averaging about 2 dates a month since coming home, with maybe 1 or 2 months with none at all. I met a lot of wonderful girls and had great experiences, but it just seemed that a first date was all I could get. Again I started looking for solutions. I trained myself to be better at small talk, I constantly evaluated my date "performance" and tried to change who I was to be more "appealing", at least that is what I thought in my mind. But the solutions just didn't fix it.
Similar stories of searching for solutions were part of all other aspects of my life. School, friendships, and even church. And I think that is so often what all of us are looking for. We want solutions to life's challenges. We look to ourselves, professionals, friends, and family often to find ways to fix our problems or to make life just a little bit better. Often solutions work with many temporal things. An accountant can be very helpful in filing taxes, or therapists help many many people learn tactics to deal with the everyday stresses of life. I'm not trying to discredit solutions at all, but the often difficult thing is that they only last for a little while, and we can become so reliant upon them that we forget about the higher power watching over us. Over time, I eventually gave up on finding solutions to my problems, and it was when I humbled myself that I was reminded that I needed to begin looking for soul-lutions. I remembered how in the mission, it was never my own merits that would solve things, but the Lord. No matter how hard the days were, I knew that the Lord was in charge.
It was once I stopped asking myself for guidance (ie what can I do to be better, how can I be a better date, how can I make my family better) and turned to the Lord that I began to see the light. The fog began to lift. I started receiving soul-lutions to my problems. The spirit would come to me and reveal things to me that would be perfect for every situation, and more often than not it was something completely different than the solution I had come up with. I soon learned that I was working for my parents because my mom needed support because of her waning health. In return, she became a mouthpiece for the spirit to teach me and fill me with wisdom. Even more so, the spirit brought peace to my soul concerning my job. In dating, the spirit taught me to be calm and realize that I needed to slow down and just be me. It isn't a race to finish (that isn't what Elder Scott meant!), but a journey to find someone with whom I can spend eternity with. Instead of me searching out for people to answer my questions, the Lord sent them to me. Life began to make sense.
Soul-lutions quite often, at least for me, aren't specific directions as to what to do in life. Rather they are feelings of hope, peace, and love from an all wise Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ. They make the impossible seem possible. They make us better instead of change who we are. They make us feel worth something instead of make us search for flaws. They open our eyes to truth about situations and problems. Soul-lutions are the Lord's fixes to the world. Sometimes they don't make sense or they don't take away the problem at hand. And sometimes the Lord doesn't say anything at all but entrusts us to make decisions on our own, but at the same time he supports us all the way through. I compare soul-lutions to the manna fed to Israel in the wilderness. The BD describes it as a substance that cannot be found anywhere in this mortal world, and Israel even asked "what is it?" But it filled them and was provided by heaven. So too soul-lutions cannot be provided by the mortal, but are heaven sent. They feed us in ways that the solutions cannot.
Solutions are the worldly ways to fix things. In the end, the question is if we are willing to swallow our pride and accept the soul-lutions the Lord gives us, or are we going to try and do it on our own? We are children of God! He wants to help us! We need to humble ourselves, recognize that, and be willing to accept the soul-lutions that He gives us. They aren't always what we want, but they are always what we need! So I invite any who read this, including myself, to ask "am I looking for soul-lutions or solutions?" and really evaluate yourself. Soul-lutions will bring peace to your soul. I know that from my experience. It is a lesson that I've relearned since being home, and it was a precious lesson that helped me make it through two years in Hawaii. The Lord does care. I hope we can all learn to listen to and trust Him.
