Robert writes home #107 10 Jan 1998 Essay on helping children recognize their trajectory even when they don't want to hear it.

10 Jan 1998

Dear Mother,

                I was listening to a symposium tape the other day which talked about he hazards of being a well liked teacher. The hazard being that the kids become converted to the teacher instead of the principles of the gospel. The speaker was decrying “the donut run practice”…sending someone out during seminary time for donuts (trying to buy their esteem by doing what they want  you to do for them). He said, you’re there to teach them the gospel and help them gain faith and testimonies…not make them like you. That made me feel a lot better.

                Heidi Jo is coming back from Kansas tomorrow, where she has been visiting her sister, Laurie, and her family.

                School starts again for Dos Palos. They’ve been off for three weeks.

                I guess they're not going to release me from the high council, like I thought they would when I was called to teach seminary, after all. They issued the new speaking assignments for the year, a week ago, and I was on it. Maybe they are just going to modify my assignments. I speak in LB next Sunday. My topic is,”Marriage and the Family”.

                My life is good. I love working a four hour day. I just go down to the office and visit old friends while I work on them, then come home an take a nap (which I need after getting up at 4 AM to go teach seminary). Then I fill the evenings with church assignments, seminary lesson prep, high council meetings, family home evening, dates, home teaching, etc. it’s a nice life.

                I'm proud of you for serving on that mission.

Love,

Robert, Janet, Sam

Millers

PS..another essay: the first step down the wrong road is more important than the last. Even though the last seems more dramatic.

                I tell my kids a story about a boy who has instructions to follow the road that had the palm trees lining it in order to get home (kind of like Robertson’s blvd. in Chowchilla). He was warned that most of the side roads were dead ends and that one of them led to the city sewer). As he went along there were lots of enticing side roads. At one point in particular, there was a fork in the road where a couple of real cute girls were kind of loitering along the right fork. The palm trees continued on the left fork. The boy really wanted to check out those cuties. He rationalized that he could see palm trees as he walked down the right fork. So he took the right fork and started talking to the girls as they started walking along the road. He thought this road seems a lot like the other road it must be okay. He was so busy with the “moment”…trying impress the girls that he didn’t realize that he could no longer see palm trees. Eventually the road come to a little hill. As he went over the crest it suddenly descended so rapidly that he started to slip and slide down the other side, and couldn’t stop. At the same moment he got a whiff of the sewer. The road ended in one of the settling ponds.

                As it says in the song from the play, Saturdays Warriors,”When you choose the very first step on the road, you also choose the last, so if you don’t like the end of the road you'd better comeback fast.

                The first step seems so insignificant and the last seems so dramatic just as he slipped into the sewer. But actually, the first one determined the course…not the last.

                I know a missionary who came back from a successful mission and immediately got involved in making money and community politics. He was very successful and his missionary training dealing with people paid off. But, his job took him away to a new town for the summer, where he wasn’t given a calling because he was transient. Then when he returned to school to BYU he often went to visit family on weekends. As a result, he wasn’t in his ward often enough to receive a calling. Without even realizing it, he was taking the first steps down the road to inactivity. Every active member needs a calling to stay active.

                It was kind of like taking a Sunday job. At first, you think you have a legitimate excuse…then you subconsciously start to take advantage of the opportunity to not go to church and serve and before you know it your testimony is dimming.

                Being able to recognize first steps down the wrong road is really helpful. As a parent, if you put your emphasis on first steps down the wrong road, you save yourself having to spend all your time trying to bail out of those end of the road disasters.

                Parents most frequently mess up when they are afraid that he kid won't like them if they don’t yield, so they allow them to take the first steps, because they fear the kids wrath, and they rationalize that they are not that important, hoping that they’ll be lucky and not end up where the road is leading. That isn’t love for the kid. That is love for yourself trying to avoid the kid’s disapproval and keep the moment pleasant.