A matter of a few degrees (Uchtdorf)

In 1979 a large passenger jet with 257 people on board left New Zealand for a sightseeing flight to Antarctica and back. Unknown to the pilots, however, someone had modified the flight coordinates by a mere two degrees. This error placed the aircraft 28 miles (45 km) to the east of where the pilots assumed they were. As they approached Antarctica, the pilots descended to a lower altitude to give the passengers a better look at the landscape. Although both were experienced pilots, neither had made this particular flight before, and they had no way of knowing that the incorrect coordinates had placed them directly in the path of Mount Erebus, an active volcano that rises from the frozen landscape to a height of more than 12,000 feet (3,700 m).

As the pilots flew onward, the white of the snow and ice covering the volcano blended with the white of the clouds above, making it appear as though they were flying over flat ground. By the time the instruments sounded the warning that the ground was rising fast toward them, it was too late. The airplane crashed into the side of the volcano, killing everyone on board.

It was a terrible tragedy brought on by a minor error—a matter of only a few degrees. ¹

Through years of serving the Lord and in countless interviews, I have learned that the difference between happiness and misery in individuals, in marriages, and families often comes down to an error of only a few degrees.

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, April 2008 General Conference

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/04/a-matter-of-a-few-degrees?lang=eng&query=matter+few+degrees

peace and happiness (Brigham Young)

It is a mistaken idea in the inhabitants of the earth to conclude that it will not do for them to yield obedience to the commandments of heaven, lest it should abridge them in their comforts and in their enjoyments; for there is no real peace, there is no real happiness in anything in heaven or on the earth, except to those who serve the Lord. In His service there is joy, there is happiness; but they are not to be found anywhere else. In it there are peace and comfort; but when the soul is filled with joy, with peace, and with glory, and is perfectly satisfied therewith a person even then has but little idea of that which is in store for all the faithful.

Thrust a man into prison and bind him with chains, and then let him be filled with the comfort and with the glory of eternity, and that prison is a palace to him. Again, let a man be seated upon a throne with power and dominion in this world, ruling his millions and millions, and without that peace which flows from the Lord of Hosts—without that contentment and joy that comes from heaven, his palace is a prison; his life is a burden to him; he lives in fear, in dread, and in sorrow. But when a person is filled with the peace and power of God, all is right with him.

Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 5:1-2

We Are Doing a Great Work and Cannot Come Down (Uchtdorf)

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2009/04/we-are-doing-a-great-work-and-cannot-come-down?lang=eng

We are doing a great work and cannot come down (President Uchtdorf)

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2009/04/we-are-doing-a-great-work-and-cannot-come-down?lang=eng&query=nehemiah#10-PD50015887_000_022

the world’s hold on us (Maxwell)

As Jesus begins to have a real place in our lives, we are much less concerned with losing our places in the world.  When our minds really catch hold of the significance of the Atonement, the world’s hold on us loosens.


Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Ensign, November 1992, p. 67

what we seek determines who we will become

Let us help the youth of the Church learn to love the Lord, for what we love determines what we seek. What we seek determines what we think and do. What we think and do determines who we are—and who we will become.


President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Morituri Salutamus

Morituri Salutamus

…In mediaeval Rome, I know not where, 

There stood an image with its arm in air, 

And on its lifted finger, shining clear, 

A golden ring with the device, “Strike here!” 

Greatly the people wondered, though none guessed 

The meaning that these words but half expressed, 

Until a learned clerk, who at noonday

With downcast eyes was passing on his way, 

Paused, and observed the spot, and marked it well, 

Whereon the shadow of the finger fell; 

And, coming back at midnight, delved, and found 

A secret stairway leading underground. 

Down this he passed into a spacious hall, 

Lit by a flaming jewel on the wall; 

And opposite, in threatening attitude, 

With bow and shaft a brazen statue stood. 

Upon its forehead, like a coronet, 

Were these mysterious words of menace set: 

“That which I am, I am; my fatal aim 

None can escape, not even yon luminous flame!”

Midway the hall was a fair table placed, 

With cloth of gold, and golden cups enchased 

With rubies, and the plates and knives were gold, 

And gold the bread and viands manifold. 

Around it, silent, motionless, and sad, 

Were seated gallant knights in armor clad, 

And ladies beautiful with plume and zone, 

But they were stone, their hearts within were stone; 

And the vast hall was filled in every part 

With silent crowds, stony in face and heart.

Long at the scene, bewildered and amazed 

The trembling clerk in speechless wonder gazed; 

Then from the table, by his greed made bold, 

He seized a goblet and a knife of gold, 

And suddenly from their seats the guests upsprang, 

The vaulted ceiling with loud clamors rang, 

The archer sped his arrow, at their call, Shattering the lambent jewel on the wall, 

And all was dark around and overhead;– 

Stark on the door the luckless clerk lay dead!

The writer of this legend then records 

Its ghostly application in these words: 

The image is the Adversary old, 

Whose beckoning finger points to realms of gold; 

Our lusts and passions are the downward stair

That leads the soul from a diviner air; 

The archer, Death; the flaming jewel, Life; 

Terrestrial goods, the goblet and the knife; 

The knights and ladies, all whose flesh and bone 

By avarice have been hardened into stone; 

The clerk, the scholar whom the love of pelf 

Tempts from his books and from his nobler self.

The scholar and the world! The endless strife, 

The discord in the harmonies of life! 

The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, 

And all the sweet serenity of books;

The market-place, the eager love of gain, 

Whose aim is vanity, and whose end is pain!

But why, you ask me, should this tale be told 

To men grown old, or who are growing old? 

It is too late! Ah, nothing is too late 

Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate… 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

http://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_print.php?pid=275

The cares of the world vs. the eternal things

“The cares of the world that, on occasion, can rob us of cheerfulness are certainly real cares, but they are not lasting cares; they pass with the passing of this world.  Like the pleasures of the world, the cares of this world are fleeting.  Someday, when we look back on mortality, we will see that so many of the things that seemed to have mattered so much at the moment will be seen not to have mattered at all.  And the eternal things will be seen to have mattered even more than the most faithful of Saints imagined.”

Neal A. Maxwell, “Even As I Am“(Deseret Book Company, 1982), page 104