Chapter 3
What Are You Carrying
in Your Backpack?
John G. Bytheway
“I can’t go another step!” The words echoed loudly through the trees, and we all turned around to see who said them. I guess someone was finally willing to admit that the hike was anything but fun. He was sick and would pass out at any moment if we didn’t stop.
The Scoutmaster decided to take him back down the trail and drive him home. He told us to keep going and that he would catch up with us as soon as he could. The fun of having a new blue-light special K-Mart backpack had long since passed, and I wondered how much longer it would be before we’d arrive at the lake. It wasn’t that bad at first. The trail was straight and smooth and easy. But after about an hour of walking, we got to the point where there was nowhere to go but up, and the trail became increasingly rocky and difficult.
The Scoutmaster asked me to assume command (I was the ranking Senior Patrol Leader–what we call SPL in official Scouting circles), and we continued our death march up Mount Everest. We continued, right foot, left foot, right, left, slowly making progress.
Another half-hour had not gone by when another Scout complained in almost the same words: “I can’t go another step.” I guess it was contagious.
It was time for a troop meeting. The eight of us remaining decided the only way we could beat the mountain was if we took it on a little bit at a time. We’d take a hundred steps, then rest for a minute, then take another hundred, then rest for a minute, and so on. What a dumb idea. It takes a long time to go five miles a hundred baby steps at a time. It was like playing “Mother May I” for three hours. Why couldn’t the Forest Service just install escalators?
We trudged on. The sun set, and it began to get dark. I remember using the flashlights around me to help light my way. We’d hike, then we’d rest, then we’d hike, then we’d rest. The trail was rocky and steep, and we all began to wonder, “Is this the right trail? Where’s the lake? Maybe we’re lost.”
Another couple of hours went by, and I remember coming across something very strange. I saw stars, but they were on the ground. Not being real intelligent, I just stared at them for a minute trying to figure out what was going on. Finally a ripple rolled through the stars, and I realized I was standing a foot away from the shallow northern bay of the lake! I had almost led my Scout troop right into the water. Can you imagine the headlines? “Eight Scouts Drown While Trying to Build Fire Underwater–Investigators Wonder: Were They Brain Dead or Teenage Mutants?”
As we started to unload our packs, we quickly learned why our tired Scout had had such a hard time. He opened up his flap, and the first thing he took out was a large can of Dinty Moore beef chunk stew. He set it down, and we felt the earth shake as it hit the ground. Then he took out an industrial-size can of Nalley’s chili con carne, and another can of Dinty Moore beef chunk stew, made to serve about fortyfive people. The rest of the troop were standing together in awe as this Scout unloaded his personal two-year food-storage program in the dirt. He had also packed three different flashlights (each with heavy batteries) and three canteens full of water, not to mention the essentials like tent and sleeping bag.
Backpacking is hard. Tom loaded his pack with many items that were too heavy, that he didn’t need, that weighed him down and made the hike a lot harder than it needed to be.
Life is often hard. Each morning we face the mirror and begin to load up. We toss in heavy, unnecessary baggage, worthless things that are good for nothing–like bricks and rocks and tree stumps. We say to ourselves, “My nose is too big, my hair’s too thin,” or “I’m not popular–people don’t like me.” We tell ourselves we’re unworthy or unlovable. Then we ask why life has to be so difficult as we drag this worthless cargo of junk off to school. The trail is rough–we cannot change the trail. But we can make the hike so much easier if we will change what’s in our pack. What are you carrying in your backpack?
Let me suggest three things to help us find the rocks and bricks in our packs and throw them out! The first is simply to understand who we are. This is nothing new. We sing songs about it, we read scriptures about it, we talk about it in seminary. But we must, at some time, understand what it really means.
When I was on my mission in the Philippines, my companion and I were given a referral. The man’s name was Johnny Sajonas. We were told that he was about seventy-five and was frustrated with religion. He couldn’t find the answers and was bordering on atheism. We approached his home and knocked on the post of his fence just outside the door. A partially bearded old man with a cane in his hand and a frown on his face appeared. He asked what we wanted. We told him that we were missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that we wanted to share a message with him about the Lord.
He stood silently, examining us from head to foot for a moment, and then said, “You’re very young. I doubt you can teach me anything.” I was a bit surprised, but I smiled and responded, “Oh, sir, we have great confidence in our message. Please let us come back and share it with you.” He took a minute to think about it and finally mumbled, without changing his tone or his expression in the least, “You come back tomorrow at ten o’clock.” Then he turned and walked into the house.
The next day when we arrived at Brother Sajonas’s house, he invited us inside and we sat down on a bamboo bench in front of his Nestle’s Quick table (that’s what we call a coffee table in the Church). We started out, as was customary at that time, with the discussion on the Restoration of the Church. As Elder Warren began to teach, we noticed that our investigator was rather anxious and fidgity. He’d look at the floor, then at the ceiling, then off to the side. You had to be a gymnast to keep eye contact! And he didn’t seem to be listening to what we were saying.
After a few moments, he interrupted us in mid-sentence, looked straight at me, and asked in an angry tone, “Who created evil?” We sat there for a moment in shock. Then I cleared my throat and responded like any good senior companion, “Well… uh… you see, it’s uh… uh… Elder Warren, you wanna take that one?” Just then, I understood his real question–did God create evil. I picked up my Bible and said, “Sir, it has to do with a place called the pre-mortal existence,” and I began to explain. I doubt he’d ever heard anything like it before, since the belief in a pre-earth life is rather unique to our church. I referred to the book of Isaiah and told him about Lucifer, the son of the morning, who, by his own choice, rebelled against God and fell from heaven, becoming the father of lies and the father of evil. Our investigator just sat for a second, then nodded slowly as if to say, “Okay… I’ll buy that for now.” I hoped I had answered him correctly, and I felt relieved that he was satisfied with our response.
We tried to continue where we left off in the Restoration discussion, but again our investigator was off in another world. He stopped us in mid-sentence again and loudly demanded, “Why are there so many wars?” “Uh… well, you see, it’s uh… uh… Elder Warren, you wanna …” The answer came again, “You see, sir, it has to do with something we received in the pre-mortal existence. It’s called free agency.” I explained how people have a hard time getting along with one another, and that this was true about the leaders of our countries as well. Sometimes we don’t do a very good job of running this world, and we get in fights and in wars. But if God came down and solved all our problems, we wouldn’t be able to learn and grow, and that’s what life is for. This answer seemed to get him thinking, and we continued with our discussion.
He waited a minute and then stopped us a third time and asked, “Why do so many children starve?” What a good question! Elder Warren and I had seen things in the Philippines that we’d never seen before. Malnutrition and poverty were almost everywhere we looked. Little kids, really little, some not even old enough to walk, would crawl and play around open sewers. Some would get parasites that would stunt their growth. Others had patchy rashes on their heads that would make their hair fall out. Some had open cuts and wounds that weren’t properly cleaned and dressed and never seemed to heal. I had asked myself the same question. I had heard it explained once in Sunday School, and I tried to explain it to Brother Sajonas. “Heavenly Father has a different perspective than we do. When we see a child die, that’s how we see it–a child dying. Heavenly Father, on the other hand, sees one of his own spirit children being set free and coming home to him after being away for only a short time.”
It was at this point I had one of those “Aha!” experiences. It dawned on us that we were teaching the wrong lesson. For every question he asked, the answer came from the plan of salvation. We should have been teaching the Purpose of Life discussion! The introductory visual aid for that discussion listed three questions. I turned to it and began to explain. A change of expression came over his face, and I watched him in silence as he read and reread each question:
Why am I here?
Where will I go when I die?
His eyes moistened, and tears fell from his face. I had never had this reaction with this picture or any other in my flip chart, and I didn’t know what was going on. I looked at the picture myself to make sure Elder Warren hadn’t stuck a picture of me in there. I looked at Elder Warren and looked back at Brother Sajonas, and just then the Spirit said, “Elder, testify.” I sat up on the edge of the bench, looked in Brother Sajonas’s eyes, and testified to him that we knew where we came from, why we were here, and where we were going. He sat silent for a moment. Then he stood up, motioned for us to wait, and walked slowly into the back of the room. He picked a little red book from the shelf and made his way back to where we were sitting. Then he opened up the book to the back inside cover, held it up in front of my face, and said tearfully, “You are so young!” He had written some things on the back inside cover. In his shaky old handwriting, it said:
My Eternal Questions
1. Where did I come from?
2. Why am I here?
3. What do I need to accomplish?
4. Where will I go when I die?
After I read the words, I looked up into this sweet old man’s tear-filled eyes as he said, “You are so young. And you’ve come from so far to teach me these things.”
The next day we laid the entire plan of salvation out on the table for him with cardboard visual aids. I remember watching Brother Sajonas bow his head, cover his face with his hands, and sob, “I have been looking for this for forty years.” This sweet old man, an educated man, wanted so desperately to know who he was, where he was from, and what God expected him to do. And a couple of nineteen-yearolds walked in and told him all about it.
You are so young. And yet you know where you come from, why you’re here, and where you’re going. Why do you know? Why have you been given the privilege when there are millions, perhaps billions of people in this world who don’t know? Many of them are miserable and frustrated like Brother Sajonas, who are “only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it.” (D&C 123:12.)
Perhaps you have earned this privilege because of who you are. President Ezra Taft Benson, speaking to seminary and institute teachers said: “I am sure you appreciate the fact that you have been given custody of some of the choicest spirits of all time. I emphasize that. These are not just ordinary spirits, but among them are some of the choicest spirits that have come from heaven. These are they who were reserved to come forth in this time to bear off the kingdom triumphant.” (“The Gospel Teacher and His Message,” from Charge to Religious Educators, p. 48.)
I remember as a teenager sitting in firesides and hearing speaker after speaker say, “You’re a child of God,” and I thought, “Big deal, isn’t everyone? Why should that make me feel so good?” What, then, does it mean to be a child of God? Why is it talked about so much? Being a child of God means that God is intensely interested in us and in our progress. He wants us back. His work is to bring to pass our immortality and eternal life. And there’s more: Not only are you a child of God, but you are also a valiant child of God saved for the last days. You are the best of the best. Do you believe it? Someone who truly knows who he or she is would never think of doing things like drinking, taking drugs, or being immoral. I think every time our knees hit the floor, we should ask Heavenly Father to help us understand who we are.
Sometimes in this hike of life, we have to help each other a step at a time. A second step in lightening our load as we trudge onward and upward is to decide to be a “builder” instead of a “wrecker.” Anyone can tear a building down–all it takes is a big hammer. But it takes knowledge and skill to put up a building.
We can choose whether to be either a builder or a wrecker. We can sit in our Sunday School, MIA, or school classes and say, “boooorrrrring.” Or we can say, “What can I do to make this a better class?” We have free agency. We can criticize, complain, and cut people down, or we can build, bolster, and brighten the lives of those around us.
A few years ago, I taught at a youth conference at San Diego State University. On the afternoon of the first Monday, the participants were coming into the cafeteria for lunch. Three young men, each about the size of a vending machine, entered the cafeteria. Once they had loaded their trays with food (and I mean loaded–they should’ve brought a U-Haul trailer), they turned and looked around the cafeteria for a place to sit. They could’ve sat just about anywhere they wanted because no one would dare complain, but they spotted a table in the back occupied by one young man who was barely old enough to attend the conference. The three of them turned and headed in that direction.
Now what would you think? Here are these three tough guys heading toward the table of a little kid. The counselors at the table thought the gruesome threesome were going to give this kid a bad time, and they were preparing to come to his defense. Imagine our surprise when one of these large young men, seventeen-year-old Jerry, put his hand on the shoulder of the boy at the table and politely asked if they could eat with him. The boy nodded his head that they could join him (as if he would have said no), and these three wonderful young men sat down, ate their lunch, and made friends with him. I believe that angels in the room were doing highfives. (I don’t know exactly how angels rejoice, maybe they just look down and exclaim, “Thou art cool,” but I’m sure they were pleased.) I don’t believe Jerry himself understood what a Christian thing he had just done. Why was he able to do that? What made him able to reach out when many of us are too fearful to try? I believe it was because Jerry had worked on point number one–he knew who he was. He knew that he didn’t have to talk only to the people who looked like him, or dressed like him, or who played the same sports that he did, or who could bench press a Toyota like him, but he could talk to anyone, be their friend, and bring them in. He knew that it was nice to be important, but more important to be nice. Jerry was a builder. President Spencer W. Kimball once said: “God does love us, and he watches over us, but it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom.”
Jerry was that “other person” Heavenly Father used to help meet the needs of another. There’s a great scripture that talks about loving not only the people that love us, but even those who don’t: “If ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even publicans the same? and if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:46–48.)
Even the devil has friends. It’s easy to love those who love us. The challenge is to love those who are hard to love. You will be amazed at how much lighter your own load will become when you seek to help others lighten their loads. Throughout your life, you will be given opportunities to decide whether you will build or destroy. At work, at school, in the family, even at church. Will we gossip or will we build? Will we notice the person walking next to the lockers at school with his head down and his hands in his pockets and say to ourselves, “He’s a loser,” or will we walk up and say, “Hi”? Will we look for things to complain about, or will we look for ways to help? Will we talk about the faults of our leaders, or will we sustain them in their callings? We are allowed to decide whether we will be a part of the solution to this world’s problems, or whether we will be a part of the problem. We can be on the Lord’s side, or we can be on the other side. It is up to us.
The third thing we can do to lighten our load is best explained by an experience I had once at a youth conference. Some young women had disappeared during an activity and failed to show up that night at the curfew hour. When they finally did return, we could tell that they had been drinking. One of the rules of the conference was that participants must follow the standards of the Church or they would be sent home.
I sat down with one of these young women at about one o’clock in the morning, and we began to talk. She was embarrassed about what had happened and kept her head down and her eyes on the floor. We talked for quite a while about her interests and background, and when I felt that she knew I wasn’t going to give her a big lecture, I began to ask her some questions.
“Could I be your big brother for a minute?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Aimee, do you want to be good?” (I think that’s a great question because the seventh chapter of Moroni tells us that we all have the light of Christ and a tendency toward the right.)
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Aimee, do you pray?”
“No.”
“When was the last time you prayed?”
“Well, I give opening prayers in seminary or I bless the food, but I don’t mean anything by it.”
“Why not?”
The next thing she said was the classic brick in the backpack that is most common among youth I’ve worked with. She said: “Well, I’ve made some mistakes, and I don’t feel comfortable praying. I don’t see why Heavenly Father would listen to me because I’ve done so many dumb things.”
This belief is the most common but often the most difficult of problems to overcome. Every time I’ve shared this story, I’ve had young people tell me that they’ve felt just like Aimee. Once Satan convinces us that there’s no turning back, we may stop praying or reading our scriptures or doing the things that bring happiness and the Spirit of the Lord into our lives.
Often we don’t understand that the times we feel least like praying are when we need to pray the most. We can come up with a million excuses, but none of them are very good. Saying that you don’t want to pray because you feel unworthy is like saying that you don’t want to see a doctor because you don’t feel well.
Nephi said, “If ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a man to pray ye would know that ye must pray; for the evil spirit teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray.” (2 Nephi 32:8.) If you’ve felt like you shouldn’t pray, you’ve listened to the instructions of the wrong spirit! Heavenly Father always wants you to pray.
Prayer is a powerful tool for solving problems. Elder Thomas S. Monson once said: “Prayer can solve more problems, alleviate more suffering, prevent more transgression, and bring about greater peace and contentment in the human soul than can be obtained in any other way.”
As uncomfortable as we may sometimes feel, as unworthy as we may feel, even when we know we’ve done wrong, we can be assured that there is someone who will always be there, and who will always be willing to listen.
Bishop H. Burke Peterson has said: “I want you to know that I know that whenever one of Heavenly Father’s children kneels and talks to him, he listens. I know this as well as I know anything in this world–that Heavenly Father listens to every prayer from his children. I know our prayers ascend to heaven. No matter what we may have done wrong, he listens to us.” (“Prayer–Try Again,” Ensign, June 1981, p. 73.)
I spent a couple of hours trying to convince Aimee that although she felt uncomfortable, she needed to pray. Aimee did pray that night, a simple prayer, but it was a start. I remember feeling that Aimee had made quite a turnaround that night.
Later on I started having doubts and lacking faith. How could one prayer on one night change a life around–especially when this had been going on for months? The next morning Aimee went home, and we continued with the youth conference. More than six months passed, and I received a letter from Aimee. She wrote: “Hey, buddy, how are things going? Everything seems to be just fine with me. I have come to realize how important it is to obey the commandments. I have been praying and reading scriptures–my life has totally changed. I don’t even hang around the so-called cool people that drink. It’s not worth it–they are not true friends. Guess what, I got my patriarchal blessing. That also helps me to be good. It encourages me a lot. I now know that life isn’t just one big party. I love ya! Aimee.” Aimee learned to pray, and she and her Heavenly Father turned her life around.
We have learned that man is that he might have joy, and yet many of us seem to insist on keeping the rocks in our backpacks by refusing to partake of the love of God and the forgiveness that he offers to all.
If we are to lighten our load, we must understand who we are. We must understand the identity of those around us and build them up. And, as Aimee discovered, we must strive to be worthy.
Yes, life is hard, and the trail does not get much easier. We can make the hike easier by emptying our backpacks of self-defeating attitudes, by building and serving one another, and by praying and repenting of our sins and striving to keep our lives clean along the way.
Let the Light of the World help you lighten your load. When things get really heavy, and you’re tired and weary, remember the tender words of the Savior: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28.)
John G. Bytheway coordinates BYU Outreach Youth Conferences. He recently graduated from Brigham Young University in marketing. Now he spends his leisure time running, reading, playing the guitar, and eating Twix candy bars (caramel, not peanut butter).