at peace with my restless heart

This week my visiting teacher came over, and shared the following scripture with me:

D&C 53:93

And, verily, I say unto you, that it is my will that you should hasten to translate my scriptures, and to obtain a knowledge of history, and of countries, and of kingdoms, of laws of God and man, and all this for the salvation of Zion. Amen.

Do you love this as much as I do? I have never had this scripture stand out to me before (and maybe I’ve never read it). It’s so full of meaning and the applications to my life are limitless. Here is encouragement for world travel, for continuous learning about all cultures. This verse has really been on my mind since she shared it with me.

My first thoughts relate to the benefits I receive when I travel:

· I find different cultures are filled with people who are not, in fact, so different from myself. While cultural norms may vary greatly, human nature really doesn’t.
· I learn to appreciate the different ways people live, and the different ways they view the world. And I hope this appreciation leads me to a more clear view of the world, and a more effective approach to the challenges I face in my life and in my community.
· I put my problems into perspective. It’s so refreshing to go some place where no one knows about your problems, and no one cares. Not because you aren’t individually important, but because the challenges you face aren’t important, and aren’t unique or worse than the problems other people face. Sometimes, I even come to the realization that I’ve created the problems in my head, and they aren’t actually real.
· I have increased confidence in my capacity to figure things out and get stuff done.
· I am more comfortable in my own head, more comfortable being alone, and more comfortable with silence.

Some of the lessons learned while traveling are hard, and there are some dark moments, but the memories of trips tend to be wonderful. I have long believed that people are at their worst at airports, and I think that’s largely because travel pushes us out of our comfort zones, where our best learning can then occur. When I wait too long between trips to new places, I begin to feel restless. Maybe this isn't a a reflection of my inability to be happy in the moment, maybe it's just my soul telling me I'm ready to learn something new.

The last thoughts I have are related to a recent blog post by my friend Jon. In fact, I’m just going to quote him, and leave it at that. He said it better than I could have. Go read his whole post, but here is an excerpt of what he had to say:

What if our salvation is an all or nothing deal? Not in a you-have-to-be-perfect-in-order-to-be-saved kind of way. More like either we're all saved together or none of us is saved. And not because we're all perfect, but because we learn how to love and accept everyone in all our necessary differences. What if we can't be saved without those with whom we vehemently disagree? What if the tension that exists between two opposing points of view is completely necessary and the solution is to simply listen to each other and seek to understand what it means to be in another's shoes. Who are we to decide that what we perceive as another person's sins are any worse or better than our own? Maybe it's more about loving unconditionally instead of categorizing and ranking sins.

Yes, yes, and yes!