Ryan Reeder
History 390R
Derr and Esplin
February 1, 2001
Trying to describe the impact that my membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has had on my life is difficult. I was blessed to be raised in a strong LDS home, the oldest of six children, even born of goodly parents, from whom I received a rich LDS heritage-nearly all of my ancestors had joined the Church by the 1850s. I was raised on a dairy farm, where we were taught work, responsibility and other principles of life, though I often participated reluctantly. Frequently my father would teach us about his knowledge of the gospel, which seemed incredibly vast. Influenced by my parents' teachings and training, I always attended Church meetings and actively participated in other Church activities growing up. The membership of my home ward, the Harper Ward, (the geographical as well as ecclesiastical name of the area between Brigham City and Honeyville, Utah) constituted my primary source of community. I followed a lot of the general outlines that were organized for the young people in the Church-I was baptized, involved in the Scouting Program, attended Primary, and later was advanced in the priesthood.
Though I was raised in the familiarity of the programs of the Church, I think some of my earliest real contact with the principles and doctrines began when I read the Book of Mormon for the first time in 5th grade. Admittedly, there was some incentive for that. A year earlier, my father saw me starting to read the Book of Mormon, and commended me for it. For some reason, I felt embarrassed by the praise and put it away. Some months later, my dad offered me $10 if I would read the Book of Mormon, so I took him up on it and completed it. I read it on my own initiative twice during both years of Junior High (7th and 8th grades), yet I didn't start a pattern of regular daily scripture study until my first year of Seminary (1990-91). I think that's where my testimony really started to become my own, rather than a reliance on my parents.
It was probably during this time that the Church started to become something I really valued, rather than simply something that had always been there. Prior to this time, it didn't influence my life in the same way it had before. Certainly, I was growing and proceeding in this direction-by the time I was fifteen, I had read the Book of Mormon four times and the Doctrine and Covenants once. I had served as the Deacon's Quorum President/Senior Patrol Leader for nearly a year. I was a Life Scout, working toward my Eagle (though I began procrastinating and didn't complete the requirements for that until a few days before my eighteenth birthday). I had been to the temple with my ward to do baptisms for the dead three times. I had attended a year of Seminary. Yet, prior to this time, my values and goals were different-more materialistic perhaps. I enjoyed computers and computer games, and wanted a Nintendo-which I finally received Christmas 1989. My grades in school were excellent, and continued to be (at least until I got here), and I was probably achievement oriented. By 1991, my priorities had changed. I valued prayer and scripture study, setting goals to read from all the standard works plus the conference addresses. I sought to repent of some of my weaknesses, and tried to implement principles I'd been lacking thus far in my life (some of which I'm still working on). I was also preparing to receive my patriarchal blessing, which I received on September 27. There were some great promises made there. Though I've seen a degree of fulfillment of some of these, such as being "a good example to those around you," I've wondered about others, like becoming "as the Prophet Joseph." My patriarchal blessing seemed to confirm things that my father had said after giving me a father's blessing at the beginning of each school year. He had frequently commented on feeling something of the potential great mission I had to perform in life. This feeling has guided and influenced me greatly during my life.
There may have been areas, however, in which I didn't excel. My mother especially, I think, was concerned about my social skills. Hearing about a program at BYU from her sister in Provo, she enrolled me in EFY for 1992. The courses on gospel topics appealed to me; the dances did not. However, I figured that I could probably skip out on those like I had during the youth conference at Utah State in 1991. I was wrong. Though I was frightened, I participated, and the experience turned out to be one of the most memorable of my life. Because of the experience, I decided to return the next year, and was strongly influenced to attend BYU after high school. By 1994 when I applied, my grades and test scores were as high or higher than anyone else's in my grade, and I had little trouble getting accepted to BYU and receiving a National Merit scholarship, as well as another major scholarship I had applied for. Apparently, I'd also improved somewhat on my social skills, since I was awarded "Most Likely to Succeed" at the Senior Banquet. That and some of my yearbook comments over the years indicate that I may have been a fairly "good example to those around me" by this time. After graduating from high school and attending a two-stake mission preparation camp (Sons of Helaman), I left for Brigham Young University on June 18, 1994 (which happened to be my oldest brother's 17th and my youngest sister's 1st birthdays).
During my first term here, I was involved in an Honors Program with about forty other students where we took a strenuous schedule of both History of Civilization courses in one term, as well as a Book of Mormon class. During the fall semester, some of my grades began to be less than what I had been used to. One that wasn't was the second honors Book of Mormon class taught by Vern Sommerfeldt. That class affected my scripture study and my life greatly. I had been reading the scriptures daily for several years by then, but I learned new ways to study the scriptures from that class. I had been struggling with some personal problems for much of my life, but through some of those teachings, I was able to repent and overcome them, and begin preparing for a mission. My papers were submitted and I received my mission call on Thanksgiving Day (November 24th), 1994 to the Bolivia Cochabamba Mission.
On January 10th, I received my endowments in the Logan LDS Temple. My parents and grandmother were there. That night, I had a powerful witness of forgiveness for my previous sins. Thinking of the many promises I'd received in my life, mentioned in my patriarchal blessing and elsewhere, I asked that the Lord's will be done in my life. I feel that during the mission many of these blessings were fulfilled on a smaller scale. My mission was a preparatory time for my life.
I entered the MTC on January 25th, 1995. This was a significant experience. To this point, I had developed a strong testimony, but had never really tested it in practical application. I had read through all of the standard works, most several times, including nine times through the Book of Mormon (about this time I stopped counting). But my social skills, while having improved dramatically in the last few years, especially at BYU, were still lacking. This resulted in some conflicts between my MTC companion and me, who was my opposite in some of these ways. The night we confronted and resolved our differences was a remarkable experience-I still count him as a good friend.
Another significant experience here occurred after President Hunter passed away. By this time, I couldn't really point to a particular experience when I had gained a testimony; my testimony had grown with me. However, I felt that it would be important to gain a testimony of the new prophet, since I would shortly be preaching about him. That fast Sunday, I fasted with this purpose in mind. A week later, President Hinckley was set apart as President of the Church, and on Tuesday Elder Richard G. Scott visited the missionaries. At the end of his talk, he testified briefly concerning President Hinckley. That's when it hit me. The Spirit testified to me that President Hinckley was a Prophet of God.
On March 27, 1995 I left the MTC for Bolivia, arriving the next day and in my area the day after. For the first time in my life, I was in an area where the majority of the people around me were not members of the Church. At first, I didn't expect any less results than Ammon and his brethren had with the Lamanites or Heber C. Kimball, Wilford Woodruff and their brethren had in England. Though many did join the Church while I was in Bolivia, not as many stayed with the Church. This was common-I knew of many branches and wards with several hundred members on the rolls-and less than one hundred attending meetings actively. Naturally, because of the language, it took me a few weeks to understand half of what was going on. Though I usually understood my trainer and later companions, I think there may have been an occasional cultural conflict. American missionaries had only recently returned to Bolivia since several missionaries were killed in Bolivia and Peru between 1989 and 1991; my group was the seventh and largest to that time. Perhaps as a result of the absence of regular contact with the organization of the Church in America, some current practices were not doctrinally sound, many of the older missionaries held some prejudices, and there may have been some resentment when, by late 1995, most of the leadership positions were held by Americans (throughout my mission, the ratio of Bolivians to Americans was about two to one, with a significant number from other South American countries). In August 1995, I was paired with my first American companion, still a rarity, but not unknown. He was often sick, and I was challenged by my next companion. The work became more difficult with him by January 1996, and I slowed down. Within a week after leaving him in February, however, I was transferred to Santa Cruz where I would spend the rest of my mission as a zone leader. I really admired my first companion-he had been my zone leader earlier. We were the first companionship of zone leaders of European descent since the Americans had left several years earlier. With him and my next companion, a Chilean, I saw some of the most amazing results, including a high retention rate, that I had seen in my mission-by mid-June, these extended to the rest of the Zone. In July, I was transferred to a neighboring zone-the same zone I had started in as a new missionary-where I spent my last seven months. Though the number of baptisms in our area were significantly less than I had experienced in other areas, the zone did extremely well.
One of the duties I especially enjoyed as a zone leader was teaching a class during the zone meetings every other week. Though my formal preparation time was usually quite limited (often during the district meeting the hour before), I learned a lot about teaching and speaking. Some of the most unforgettable meetings that I've ever been in were here. I especially remember a lesson I gave about prophets and temples a few days before President Hinckley arrived for the groundbreaking of the Cochabamba Bolivia Temple. My final meeting on February 3, 1997, the night that I left, I talked about the mission as a foundation for our lives-building on something that President Jay E. Jensen had mentioned during a conference after the groundbreaking. Another sister-one of the first American sisters-was also leaving that night. It was an extremely powerful meeting.
During the mission, I had the opportunity of seeing and being in many frontline situations firsthand. With this experience, I returned with a determination to accomplish many of the tasks I had left incomplete. I eventually (finally) got a driver's license, for example. Before returning to BYU at the end of April, I worked as a substitute teacher. I enjoyed that experience. The seminary invited me and a few other recently returned missionaries to speak in the various classes in April, and I enjoyed that. A senior-who had been a freshman the last time I was there-thanked me for having been an example and an influence for him earlier. This was similar to something one of the newer missionaries had told me the night I left. Back at school, I started some new aspects of my life. I got my grades back up over the summer, and got a job as a Research Assistant to Victor Ludlow in September. Starting to realize the direction my life was taking with the Church, I began buying the Church News every Saturday. I still hold my job and buy the Church News today. Out of high school, I had thought to major in computer science. After some initial failure, and with a mind for facts and figures, I tried statistics for a while, and later, influenced by having served a foreign mission, I thought I might do something with International Studies. Finally, I decided to major in history at the beginning of 1999, feeling that I could do the greatest good in that department, and that it had a high potential to lead me eventually into some Church-related career. By this time, I had already completed the requirements for a minor in Ancient Near Eastern Studies. I wasn't sure what I would do after graduation-I'm still not, but I would like to go into some Church or Church History related field.
However, other aspects of my life have gone downhill. During the last three years, I've learned something about failure. By Winter semester 1998, I began staying up late, resulting in my getting up late, resulting in my missing classes, resulting in my not going to class, with predictable results. I would often procrastinate assignments and papers. If I finally turned them in, they would be docked severely, if they were accepted at all. Worse still, by April 1998, some of the previous personal problems I had had before the mission returned. I still have had good friends, and have participated actively in my BYU ward (where I've lived now for nearly four years), but I don't feel that I've been "an example to those around [me]," as I had been earlier. It's only been in the last few weeks and days that I've taken the determination to change some of these patterns-once again, it started with the Book of Mormon-and though I feel a lot better, thus far it's only a start. My journey is not yet through. I'm still discovering my identity as a Latter-day Saint.