Their older boy who had not yet left on his mission was there along with his younger brother, and the three of us were hauling hay from out in the meadow up to the stack yard. The oldest boy was out in the field lining up bales and loading us up when we went out to him, and the younger brother and I were driving back and forth and when we would get to the stack yard I would unload us.
Both the younger brother and myself were driving two old 2-ton trucks with flat racks on the backs of them. We could haul eleven big round one ton bales at a time. If you are very familiar with round bales you know that it isn't very easy to get them well balanced on a trailer or truck when you stack them. The oldest boy had many experiences with this throughout his growing up life and so he was the designated stacker and loader.
Now when you are working down in a meadow you have to work around a lot of canals and ditches and there isn't really any rhyme or reason to the paths you must take to navigate your way around and back out to the stack yard. Sometimes you feel like you are in a maze that you are struggling to find your way out of. Part way through the year there begins to be a worn out path along the trail that will lead you out. You progressively add on to the end of that path the further you get from the stack yard.
I am an individual who isn't very patient most days and I try to get things done very effectively and quickly. On occasion this is a quality that doesn't treat me very well.
One day while hauling hay down in the meadow we were in this particular part of the field. This piece was always sort of a pain in my eyes just because in order to get to it you had to take an extra long route and go through a narrow gate. All the while once you get out there and are getting loaded up you are right across a decent size canal/slew from the beaten path that takes you back to the stack yard. Now if you are to go the long way, by the time you get to that same spot on the road you have used 15-20 minutes of your time. If you were to just cross that canal/slew you would save yourself all that time. But as well, to cross right there you had a higher risk of getting stuck and as well a higher risk of rocking some bales off of your load.
This was a certainly dry summer and everything had dried up pretty quick once we shut all the water off. By the time we found ourselves working on this part of the field that canal had dried up quite well. I had hauled almost every load out of there and back to the stack yard when I decided that I was just going to go ahead and cross the now dried up canal. I drove by and checked to make sure that it was pretty dry, and it really was. Once I did that I got back in the truck and went out in the field just a short distance to get a run at it because I knew I would still sink a bit because of the weight of the truck and the load I had on.
When my front tires got to the close side of the canal I was still moving good and I wasn't really in too much trouble, but I quickly began to slow down as the front tires started to sink into the black soot like soil. As I got my front end close to the other side I was in high hopes of making it through without losing any bales. I soon realized that it was only a desire. The back end of the truck had entered the canal just before my front end came out and I was stuck. I was on an angle and both bumpers were on either side of the canal holding me up. On top of that I had lost a couple of bales off of my load. I called the older brother and had to explain myself and why I had made that bad decision. I did so and when he got the chance he drove over in his tractor and helped push me out to the other side and make sure I was all loaded up good again. Once he was done with that he said, "Don't do that again, just take the long way around. It saves a lot of trouble."
It had actually been slightly faster even going through those problems, but we still had a negative experience to get to that point instead of a positive one.
In our lives God has principles and ordinances by which we need to abide. When we try and short cut ourselves in the experiences of life because we think we can get away with it we are always wrong.
We have the option to either learn things from good experiences with obedience or with bad experiences and disobedience. Often times when an individual learns from a negative experience they have scares remaining from the trials along the way, whether they be emotional or physical. When someone is patient and listens to the spirit guiding them they learn because of Faith and persistent obedience. This is a much better way to learn and gain a knowledge or testimony of something. The people who learn this way are more apt to know more pure joy much like Christ. Jesus Christ did All Things with exactness and in obedience.
As we follow his example and we don't take the short cut, across what seems to be a dried up canal, we will be able to experience more enriched blessing in our lives and a constant guidance from the Holy Ghost.
These blessings can be accessed at their fullest in the restored church of Jesus Christ, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, where his authority is alive and revelation from Him guides us as members each and every day. You can gain your own personal revelation that Christ's church is on the earth today through The Book of Mormon. (Always feel free to comment and discuss)
