I was also preparing to serve a mission. I'd wanted to serve as long as I could remember and my boyfriend had promised to wait for me. He'd already served two years, and I'd written to him the entire time. Though we'd talked about getting married quite a bit, I'd prayed a lot about my decision to wait and serve a mission, and that felt right.
I remember hanging out with a mutual friend of ours one night before I left. He'd been a close friend of ours for years, and had always been willing to give advice to me and my boyfriend since the beginning of our romantic relationship three years before.
During our conversation, my friend said, "Do you really think he'll wait for you? What happens if you come home and he's not around anymore?"
The thought had crossed my mind briefly before, but I was convinced that after the three years in which we'd gone through so much together, we were sure to be able to make it through 18 more months. I assured my friend of this, to which he responded,
"But 18 months is a long time and people change."
Well, we did change. At least he did. I wasn't 3 months into my mission before my boyfriend had gotten another girlfriend.
I've been reflecting a lot on that conversation I had with my friend all those years ago since I read a blog by Matt Walsh called, "My wife is not the same woman that I married," where he addresses divorce, marriage, and people changing.
On my mission to Honduras the biggest obstacle that most adults faced when wanting to get baptized was the fact that they were living in fornication or adultery. They weren't married to the person they were living with. They would introduce each other as, "This is my husband," or "This is my wife," but the actual marriage had never been performed. They just hooked up one day and then decided to live together. They were lacking a very significant promise.
A lot of them would ask me what the big deal was. They were just like a married couple. Many of them had children. Some told me that marriage just ruined things, and that living together was the best.
They failed to recognize the significance of promises, covenants, and ordinances.
Yesterday I was able to teach a class to the Young Women about ordinances and covenants.
An ordinance is a sacred, formal act performed by the authority of the priesthood. It initiates a solemn covenant.
On May 25, 2012, around 11am, my sweetheart and I covenanted with the Lord and with each other that we would love and take care of each other and spend the rest of eternity together. The ordinance was performed by a sealer in the temple who has the priesthood authority.
The hollow promise my boyfriend made to wait for me years earlier pales in comparison to this covenant and ordinance. Because now, though we may change (and we most assuredly will, because all people do!) we have that specific, sacred covenant to anchor us when times get tough. We made a promise that trumps all change. It was done in the right way, in the right place, and with the right authority. That is what all those couples in Honduras were lacking. There was no formal commitment; either one could leave at anytime.
Making covenants and receiving ordinances doesn't mean we're set and everything is taken care of; now life is going to be a piece of cake. In yesterday's class, one of the girls pointed that out. People do break solemn covenants all the time. It doesn't mean they are unbreakable. It doesn't mean that people lose faith, and fail to draw on the strength that is offered by those ordinances.
Everyone has their agency. But those specific ordinances are there to give us strength and power to resist temptation and cling dearly to our covenants. Those precise moments in time serve as potent reminders when all the forces in the universe seem to want to rip you apart.
God's plan of happiness for His children is molded around ordinances. I'm grateful for the specific, power-invested ordinances and covenants that are so much more than mere circumstantial promises.
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