Experiences We Don't Want to End

Recently Elder Christofferson visited southern Africa, and I was touched as I read the account of his visits to countries such as South Africa, Congo, Botswana, and Cameroon.  I was impressed mostly because I knew people from this area on my mission, and in particular I taught and baptized a man from Brazzaville, Congo.  This was one of the places that Elder Christofferson visited and where he held a young single adult devotional.  He said of the meeting, “[It] was one of the best of that kind that I’ve ever participated in.  There was a wonderful spirit.  I hated to end that meeting—it was a very special experience.”  This idea that he didn’t want to end the meeting caught my attention and got me thinking about whether I have those kind of experiences—the ones that I don’t want to end.  Life gets so busy and my to do list gets so full that I find myself rushing from one activity to the next, trying to “get things done” and I know that I don’t appreciate the individual experiences with the people I love as much as I should.  One of the admirable qualities of African culture, as much as I’ve been able to observe, is that life for them moves slower—they simply aren’t as caught up in the hustle so common to Western culture. 

President Uchtdorf made this observation—one that I need to frequently remind myself of— about being busy: “Isn’t it true that we often get so busy? And, sad to say, we even wear our busyness as a badge of honor, as though being busy, by itself, was an accomplishment or sign of a superior life.  Is it?  I think of our Lord and Exemplar, Jesus Christ, and His short life among the people of Galilee and Jerusalem. I have tried to imagine Him bustling between meetings or multitasking to get a list of urgent things accomplished.  I can’t see it.  Instead I see the compassionate and caring Son of God purposefully living each day. When He interacted with those around Him, they felt important and loved. He knew the infinite value of the people He met. He blessed them, ministered to them. He lifted them up, healed them. He gave them the precious gift of His time.”  We see this attitude of the Savior especially in the experience with the Nephites when He stayed longer than expected even though He needed to “go unto the Father, and also to show [himself] unto the lost tribes of Israel” (3 Nephi 17:4).  He not only stayed to bless, heal, and teach the people in a miraculous way as 3 Nephi 17 describes, He also stayed longer to administer the Sacrament and continue His teachings as 3 Nephi 18 records before He finally left.  He did not rush out because He needed to be somewhere else but rather took the time to simply love the people and be with them.  We live in a world that runs on time and certainly we must keep appointments and be places at certain times and get things accomplished according to schedules, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t find times to live outside the clock and simply enjoy the moments God gives to us as this video encourages us to do.  As the Book of Mormon teaches us, “All is as one day with God, and time only is measured unto men” (Alma 40:8).  Perhaps we need to learn to focus less on how much we can get done in a certain amount of time and more on simply having the kind of experiences with the ones we love that, as for Elder Christofferson, we don’t want to end.