The Parable of the Chocolate Chip Cookie

Ingredients:

1 cup faith     

1 cup hope

1 cup charity

2 trials of faith

2 teaspoons tribulations

3 cups all-purpose prayer

1 teaspoon weaknesses

2 teaspoons Atonement power 

½ teaspoon strengthened testimony

2 cups semisweet repentance

1 cup chopped pride

Directions:

1.      Preheat refiner’s fire to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2.      Cream together the faith, hope, and charity until smooth. Beat in the trials of faith one at a time, and then stir in the tribulations. Dissolve weaknesses in Atonement power. Add to batter along with strengthened testimony. Stir in prayer, repentance, and chopped pride. Drop by large spoonfuls into one’s life.

3.      Bake for about 10 minutes in the preheated refiners fire, or until ‘natural man’ is completely ‘put off’.

I grabbed the recipe book and anxiously flipped through until my eyes took in the words, Chocolate Chip Cookie.  “I found the recipe!” I shouted to my mom.  “Great!” she replied, “let’s get started!”  I had been counting down the days to the appointed time when we would make these delectable treats, and now I just wanted to get those warm chocolaty cookies in my mouth!  I looked over at my mother and watched as she organized the ingredients on the counter.  Next, she pulled out some measuring cups and carefully measured the various ingredients before putting them into the bowl.  She seemed to take great pride and care in each step.  “Why did she have to be so precise,” I thought.  “And why does it have to be such a drawn out process?  The best part is eating the cookie!  The faster we get to eating, the better!”  My mother looked up from her work and tipped the bowl up for me to see.  “Doesn’t this batter look delicious!” she exclaimed excitedly.  I stared disappointedly into the bowl.  I couldn’t see anything delicious.  What I saw was a clump of brownish goop.  “This isn’t a cookie,” I remarked with frustration, “I wanted a chocolate chip cookie, not brown goop!”  My mother smiled as she placed the bowl back down and picked up the bag of chocolate chips, “yes,” she replied, “but a chocolate chip cookie can never become a chocolate chip cookie without first being brown goop.” 

Lesson #1: Our Heavenly Father knows who we can become.

Our Heavenly Father knows our divine potential and who we can become.  The process of reaching our divine potential cannot happen with minimal effort or time.  Just as a chocolate chip cookie must go through various steps; mixing, rolling, baking, and cooling; we also must pass through various ‘steps’ in our own lives to reach our divine potential.   Sometimes these ‘steps’ come in the form of trials and tribulations.  Often, in such moments we may wonder if our Heavenly Father truly knows what He is doing because we surely cannot see how the current ‘brown goop’ of our life can ever become a delicious chocolate chip cookie.  Yet, our loving Heavenly Father patiently reminds us,  “Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation.  For after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore the day cometh that ye shall be crowned with much glory.” (D&C 58:3-4)  The Lord knows our true potential, and He knows what we must experience to become like Him.  If we trust in Him and never give up, even when we cannot ‘see’ how our present circumstance will ever be beneficial to us, we will one day look back and recognize how we were shaped and molded into an exquisite son or daughter of God.

Lesson #2: Find joy in the journey!

President Dieter F Uchtodorf has stated, “my dear brothers and sisters, we would do well to slow down a little, proceed at the optimum speed for our circumstances, focus on the significant, lift up our eyes, and truly see the things that matter most.”  In the parable of the chocolate chip cookie, what mattered most to the child was the end product, eating the chocolate chip cookie.  However, what mattered most to the mother was the process, the ‘journey’ of making the chocolate chip cookie.  The child completely disregarded the simple joys of mixing, eating raw dough, and spooning the dough onto a cookie sheet; while the mother took great pride and precision in completing each small step.  Our lives are very similar to making chocolate chip cookies; they are a process, a journey, and while we all know that the end product will give us great happiness, we must not fail to remember to find joy in the journey.  President Thomas S. Monson states, “Stresses in our lives come regardless of our circumstances. We must deal with them the best we can. But we should not let them get in the way of what is most important—and what is most important almost always involves the people around us. Often we assume that they must know how much we love them. But we should never assume; we should let them know. Wrote William Shakespeare, “They do not love that do not show their love.”  We will never regret the kind words spoken or the affection shown. Rather, our regrets will come if such things are omitted from our relationships with those who mean the most to us…Let us relish life as we live it, find joy in the journey, and share our love with friends and family.”  And so, as the mother took great pride and care in each small step of the cookie making process, we too should slow down, love more freely, appreciate the little things in life, and find joy in the journey!

Elevation Excitement

Just for fun, I did some quick research this week and found out that for my entire mission in Brazil I never went above 1,000 feet in elevation.  For the last five months of my mission I served in Joao Pessoa, which is only at 149 feet (46 meters) elevation.  You might be wondering what sparked this interesting research…well, it all began when I decided to venture out into the Rexburg climate and start running again.  I got about halfway up the huge hill heading up to the temple and felt as though my lungs were the size of a ping pong ball!  I could not breathe!  I guess that is what happens when you go from 149 feet elevation to 4859 feet (1481 meters); the air gets a bit thinner! 

Since I’ve been back from my mission, I’ve been trying to catch up on some of the movies that came out while I was gone.  This week I watched “The Croods”!  There was one part in the movie that made me smile.  The Croods, a family of cavemen, find another young man who has an animal friend.  At some point, the Croods get hungry and attempt to eat this animal friend.  The young man kindly informs them that his animal friend is not food, but that it is a pet.  The Croods then ask the young man what a pet is.  He answers, “A pet is an animal you don’t eat.”  The Croods reply, “Oh, we call those children!” hahahaha  A pretty fairly accurate definition if you ask me! haha 

On a mission, life is pretty basic; study, preach the Gospel, serve others, eat, and sleep.  While choices are still present, the categories of choices are minimal.  All the ‘frills’, worries, and complications of a normal life are shaved away and all of your energy is focused on one goal.  Coming home, I have felt the slightly overwhelming wave of choices and options again.  There are so many different ways to spend my time, so many good choices!  Yet, while the world we live in offers innumerable quality activities and pursuits, we need to be careful to not fill our time with good and better, neglecting the best!  As Neal A. Maxwell wisely stated,

“If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead!” 

So, what are we choosing?  Do our choices regarding church attendance, prayer, scripture study, temple attendance, tithing, visiting teaching, home teaching, etc reflect our desires to choose the Kingdom of God first?  I testify that this is a true principle.  When we stand before our Heavenly Father at the last day, it won’t matter how beautiful our house was, how many exquisite vacations we went on, how many trophies we won, how many concerts we played in, who won last year’s Super Bowl, how up you are on your pop culture, or if you know the plot lines of the New York Times Best Sellers.  All that will matter will be if we have chosen the Kingdom of God!  Life isn’t complicated, just put the Lord and His Gospel first! 

Sleep, a Learning Tool?...

My recently began pattern of posting once a week was thrown off a baby bit this past weekend when I went down to Salt Lake City to attend General Conference.  Sorry for the inconvenience, but WOW! What a great experience to listen to the Prophet and Apostles in person.  As my siblings and I were walking to the Conference Center, I couldn't help but exclaim, "I feel like the people of King Benjamin gathering to hear his words in front of the temple!"  What a blessing it is to live in a time when we can be guided by a living Prophet and Apostles!

In my Psychology class, we have been addressing the fascinating subject of Memory.  This week, we learned the causes behind ‘memory forgetting’.  One of these causes is called ‘Interference’, which simply means that something you learned in the past interferes with new learning, or new learning interferes with something you learned in the past.  Consequently, our professor informed us that studying various subject topics one right after another will decrease our capability to retain and recall learned information.  Naturally, as college students with various subject matters and very little time, we wanted to know how we could avoid such a dilemma.  We were all a bit surprised by our teacher’s response.  “If you want to avoid interference in the learning process,” he said, “you should take a short nap in between studying different subjects!”  YES!!  So, now you all know; the next time you see me crashed out somewhere, I’m just avoiding interference and allowing my brain to absorb newly learned information! hahahaha  

This week as I was at the temple, I witnessed an interesting scene that got me thinking.  As we were waiting in the chapel, an elderly temple worker in a wheelchair entered the room and made her way over to the organ.  Another Sister helped her to get out of her wheelchair and move carefully over onto the organ bench.  As I watched, the thought struck me “In the Lord’s kingdom there is a need and purpose for everyone!  There is neither ‘great’ nor ‘small’, ‘important’, nor ‘meaningless;’ everything and everyone has divine purpose and value.”  During this past General Conference, Elder Edward Dube said,

“The Lord through His servants calls us to serve in various callings, which we accept with total commitment. When a release has been extended and a call in a different assignment has been issued, we joyfully accept it, knowing, as our forebearers knew, that “in the service of the Lord, it is not where you serve but how”…As I travel throughout the Church I marvel at all the positive things that are occurring. Yet I never feel that we, as a people, are living up to our real potential. My sense is that we do not always work together, that we are still too much interested in aspirations for personal honors and success, and show too little interest in the common goal of building the kingdom of God.  May we all unite in a common objective “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man!” 

I love these remarks by Elder Edward Dube!  Truly, every one of us has a divinely important role in the Lord’s service.  The Lord doesn’t care if we are Stake President, First counselor in the YW, nursery leader, Camp Director, or the Gospel Principles teacher.  “In the sight of the Lord, it is not so much what we have done or where we have been, but much more where we are willing to go.”  Let us be willing to go with Lord wherever He calls, and to serve with all our heart, might, mind, and strength in unity with our fellow brothers and sisters!