President Sandburg's Spiritual Prescriptions (The Best Two Years)

I have watched the move The Best Two Years a few times recently; it is a very good portrayal of life in the mission field.  Each of the four elders in the movie represent types of missionaries one might encounter in the field.  There are elders who lack motivation for whatever reason; there are elders who feel the need to correct their companions about little things, or at least stress silently over those things, and there are elders who are eager yet not ready for prime time.

One of the challenges on a mission is dealing with different types of people.  Some elders can get under your skin and try your patience.  You may have to try hard to continue exercising patience, and there may be times when you lose control as happened to one elder in the movie.  In the film, the mission president arrived just after one elder had hogtied another.  "Something is missing here," the mission president said before asking a third elder to recite Doctrine and Covenants 42:14:

"And the Spirit shall be given unto you by the prayer of faith; and if ye receive not the Spirit ye shall not teach."

The mission president, who was a doctor, then handed out some spiritual prescriptions, to be read each day or even multiple times a day.  To the elder who lost control he prescribed Matthew 5:38-39:

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn unto him the other also."

When I was set apart as a missionary, my stake president gave a prescription of his own when he suggested that I read the Sermon on the Mount on every P-Day.  I didn't manage to read it that often, but I did do so many times on my mission and it had a large impact on my perspective.  I would recommend this prescription for missionaries and members everywhere.

A few years ago I listened as a caller to the Dr. Laura radio show said that she (the caller) needed to turn the other cheek.  Dr. Laura Schlesinger, a practicing member of the Jewish faith, asked what it meant to "turn the other cheek," does it literally mean that we should allow someone to keep hurting us, and the caller could not answer.  I thought about this question for a few days and I came to the conclusion that while we may not need to give others additional opportunities to cause us harm, we should not strike back against those who hurt us.

I had a companion who could be very sarcastic, and I felt sometimes that his sarcasm would cut me off at the knees.  One week I decided to give him a little taste of his own medicine by being a little sarcastic myself.  My companion objected rather strongly to my sarcasm, but I don't think he realized that I might be having a problem with his sarcasm as he continued to act as he had before.  Clearly, my decision to give him a taste of his own medicine was ineffective, neither was it the best way to handle the situation.

Quite some time after this, another of my companions brought me up short when he said that my sarcasm really bothered him.  I hadn't even realized that I was being sarcastic, but because my companion had raised the issue I reexamined my behavior and then worked to change it.  Missionaries have the opportunity each week to have what is called a companionship inventory, in which they can discuss challenges facing their companionship.  Here it is appropriate to discuss behaviors that might be a problem.

After my mission I learned something that might have been helpful in companionship inventories, the concept of "I" messages vs "you" messages.  Instead of saying "you really bug me when you do this," it would be better to say "I feel bad when you do this."  The motivational speaker Hyrum Smith once said that charity means separating behavior from the individual and that this allows us to say "I love you, but I have a problem with this behavior."  Instead of striking back, or just trying to endure a companion's behavior, a missionary should take the opportunity to address a behavior with "I" messages.

Some behaviors, however, are small enough -- such as saying "Book of Mormons" instead of "Books of Mormon," or saying "flip" or "fetch" with some frequency -- that they need not be addressed.  This leads us to the prescription given to the elder in the movie who tried his companion's patience, 2 Nephi 9:42:

"And whoso knocketh, to him will he open; and the wise, and the learned, and they that are rich, who are puffed up because of their learning, and their wisdom, and their riches -- yea, they are they whom he despiseth; and save they shall cast these things away, and consider themselves fools before God, and come down in the depths of humility, he will not open unto them."

This seems like strong medicine, but it is important that missionaries do not persist in thinking that they are smarter or better than their companions.  Missionaries need to remember that they, too, are human, and that they have their own weaknesses.  Even some of my best companions had little things that could bother me if I let them -- my sarcastic companion was one of my best, by the way.  I was more than aware of my own weaknesses as I worked hard to overcome them.

One final note, the motivational speaker Hyrum Smith, in discussing girlfriends back home, said "Only one in a hundred wait -- It's a useless statistic, but it's interesting."  Two of the elders in the movie received "Dear John" letters (tapes) at one point and both struggled to get over them.  Here's a tip: if this ever happens to you, pack up her photos and her letters and send them home.  Do not continue to look at the photos or read the letters, do not torture yourself, do not marinate in your feelings of sadness.  As Gordon B. Hinckley's dad wrote to him, "Forget yourself and go to work."  The first elder to get dumped wrote a note on the back of a photo he gave to the second elder: "It's all about the work."