Rainmaker Mountain

* Rainmaker Mountain in American Samoa, photo courtesy of wikipedia.org

I've been wanting to share some of the details of our Memorial and Graveside services. But, it's been hard to know where to start. So, for now, maybe I'll just share things in parts or pieces.

To begin, I thought it'd be appropriate to continue with this topic of perspective. In my talk at the Memorial service for Elliana and Emmaline, I shared a story that was shared with me by my brother-in-law. I LOVE the message of this story and I have appreciated how much it has helped me see the events of the last few weeks in a different way.

The story is attributed to Randy Bott, who was actually my Mission Prep. teacher at BYU:

The next time you're through American Samoa I'd like you to note that there's a mountain down there called the Mapusaga rainmaker, and it's like some angry giant underneath the crust of the earth has taken his fist and thrust it skyward for 1,500 feet straight in the air, including the tabletop. Well, two teenage boys, Christmas vacation, not heavily endowed intellectually, either one of us. We decided that we would climb the mountain. 

I'm not going to tell you about the climbing the mountain, but I will tell you that before that time when I lived in American Samoa years ago, there was one road that went from one end of the island to the other. It was the most miserable thing I had ever traversed in my entire life. It was designed by the devil himself and constructed by his engineers. It was just one jig and jog after another and where there wasn't a jig or a jog there was a big pothole. 

Well, on top of the mountain, because there is no pollution in Samoa, on a clear day you can see forever. And for the first time in my life, I received one of the great revelations in my life--there was no 5,000 watt light bulb. No voice; no vision. But from 1,500 feet in the air I could see what I could not see from down there on the road, that there was purpose in the jigs and the jogs. The bush in Samoa is so thick you can't see a dozen feet off the road, and so you couldn't see that there was a huge boulder that the road had to weave around, or there was a bog hole over here that would have swallowed up the bus, or there was a village, or there was an ocean, and it just made perfect sense from 1,500 feet in the air. And brothers and sisters, from 1,500 feet in the air you couldn't see the potholes.  

I am convinced that just as sure as God lives the day will come when each of us, individually, will have the chance to stand atop the Mapusaga Rainmaker of our lives and with the Savior, be able to review all of the jigs and the jogs all the way through. And then, if not before, you will be constrained to admit that he has done admirably well your test of mortality and exaltation. Nothing is frivolous. God does not do things serendipitously.