Dear fellow bloggers,

As it may be for some of you (read: "the boys"), giving birth to my monthly blog article does not come easy for me. Like bearing my testimony at fast meeting, I just can't think of anything very interesting or different to say. I find myself trying to become invisible, hoping your devoted Mother will forget that I have not yet contributed anything this month. But alas, the woman never forgets such things, and she must have inherited from her Mother a natural gift for motivating shirkers (from the German word "schurke" meaning scoundrel) to do their duty, "ahora mismo, no mañana." I told her my mind was as blank as it was the first time I tried to call a girl for a date and that I had nothing to say, so she suggested the following:

Right after I was called, the Temple Department told me to choose two counselors, one to be the Temple Recorder and the other to be the Temple Engineer. When I told them I didn't know anyone in Tampico, let alone anyone qualified for these two positions, they had me call the Temple President for recommendations. He advised me to keep both of his current counselors because they both had a good retirement and no one else was as qualified as they were (He was right) but the Temple Department sent me back to him to get two or three names of alternative candidates. He gave me three names, but said each one had problems: one worked five days a week as an insurance agent, one liked to sleep in and had little money for buses, and one had been released from a stake presidency because he was difficult to work with. After two General Authorities investigated for themselves, I was allowed to keep the old counselors for 3-6 months until I could find replacements, but President Mickelsen instructed me to visit other wards or stake conferences in our temple district every week until we found the right people. I've been doing that for over five months now, but the longer I looked the more I realized that the best candidates were probably already temple workers.

It has not been an easy decision. Ideally, there would be two candidates who would stand out from the rest in terms of their health, age, dependability, free time available, ability to serve as the recorder or the engineer, having a strong wife (to be Mom's assistant), sweet personality, and other factors. But each candidate had shortcomings and it was hard to balance their pro's and con's fairly because a lot of my information was incomplete or it came from people with obvious biases. Chosing the engineer was the hardest because I went back and forth between two very different people for a long time, first favoring one and then the other. It seemed as though the only feeling I was getting consistently was confusion. Fortunately, there was really no absolute deadline so I just took my time and continued to gather more information. One of the things I did was to interview the candidates themselves, without telling them specifically that I was considering them.

I had been thinking and praying about this more intensely for the last several weeks and had begun to feel somewhat positive about someone who was not recommended by the previous temple president (probably because he works most days as a contractor), but last week I took it a step further. After going on an endowment session I decided to remain in the celestial room a little longer to see if the Lord would give me a more definite feeling. This time, rather than trying again to compare this man logically with the other leading candidate for Temple engineer, I just told the Lord that I felt comfortable with the idea of working with this man but I wanted to do what He wanted me to do. I told Him I had tentatively decided to choose this man but if the Lord wanted me to choose the other candidate I needed to feel something that would change my decision. Almost immediately I felt relief and a warm feeling about the man I had chosen. I felt reassured that if he were called he would be able find the time to devote to his calling. I also felt good about other concerns I had had about him earlier. Mom also feels good about this choice.

This was not as life-changing or dramatic as some of my other spiritual experiences I have told you about in the past, but it is one that I will remember because it taught me once again how essential it is to rely on the Lord for guidance rather than to try to depend completely on my own reasoning and logic when I make decisions like this.

Abuelito