17 June 2007: My notes on Sondra's lesson

Sondra told us that she has been asked to teach more than one lesson on integrity. Each time, she has told the following story. Her dad has had periods of activity and inactivity in the church. Because he is so capable, during his periods of activity, he has had many church duties. One of those was to staff the church welfare farm for their area. He made a lot of phone calls. In time, he discovered that many active members of the church would readily agree to work at the farm, but then not show up. Less active members, however, would say yes or no, but if they said yes, they always followed through. Someone mentioned the scripture that says let your yea be yea and your nay, nay (James 5:12).

Sondra directed our attention to the board, where she had written a definition of integrity taken from the words of President Kimball (see handout in previous post). She underlined the phrase "unadulterated genuineness", saying that she just loves this part. We need to ask ourselves, what is right for me in the situation, not what are others thinking. Julie shared an experience with her son's preschool in which she acted with integrity and others reacted badly. Because many of the parents at the school were poor, they decided that for a group trip to the zoo, they would organize themselves into false family groups, in order to make use of the available zoo passes. Because Julie didn't want to teach her son that it is acceptable to deceive others, she quietly went to the school and told them that she would prefer to pay her own way. This made people very angry, and they stopped talking to her for the rest of the year. Sondra pointed out that how we deal with seemingly small issues really affects children. She remembered how as a young person she was quite small, and her family would say that she was 12 so that she could get into the movies at a reduced price. This never felt right to her, it made her feel confused and uneasy, because it didn't match what she was learning at church.

President Kimball teaches that integrity gives us confidence, peace, and security. Michelle G. told the story of a recent Sunday when they came home from church to find the neighbor kids jumping on their trampoline. Her boys, knowing about their own rule of not using the tramp on Sundays, asked if it was alright for other people to use it. Michelle felt that with her children watching, she needed to stand firm, so she went out and kindly explained to the neighbors that the trampoline is closed on Sundays. Sondra said that both Julie's experience and Michelle's sounded scary to her, but important.

I (Andrea) talked about my experience as a 17 year old exchange student in Japan. At the end of the year, after living with 4 different host families, I attended a dinner with all of my families. The mothers had never met each other, and we all sat at a table together. The first thing they asked each other was, "when Andy lived with you, did she go to church every Sunday?" And then, "when Andy lived with you, did she skip two meals on the first Sunday of every month?" Those were the very first things they wanted to know from each other. I was so glad that I had been consistent.

Natalie told a story about how she was always very modest as a teenager because her parents taught them how important that was. The one time she decided to not be modest was when her cross country team ran a race in only their sports bras. This was a tradition, and she decided to join in, thinking that no one would know. But lots of her leaders ended up coming to the race, and then her picture ended up in in the newspaper. She was so humiliated. Sondra responded by saying that two times in her life, she spent her tithing money, and both times her car was wrecked the same day.

Sondra asked, what do we most want to hide from those we love and respect? We need to look for and acknowledge our well-hidden hypocricies. We read Moses 4: 14-16 and Sondra pointed out that it was Satan who suggested that Adam and Even hide from God. Hiding is his principle. It is because we don't trust the Lord enough that we hold on to things that we don't want to know about ourselves or don't want others to know about us. President Kimball says that we all have the tendency to justify our behavior. How do we do this, what do we say to ourselves? Julie says that when she catches herself justifying she know she needs to step back and see what she is doing. Lea said that often we don't want to hurt others' feelings, and we use that as a justification.

Michelle R. talked about a really hard week she had, and how in the end she realized that one of the problems getting in the way of receiving the Lord's blessings and gifts is hiding from past mistakes. It is hard to open up and see the truth about ourselves. Sondra said that people are so complex, it is very hard to sort through all of our layers. Kathy said that if we don't feel good about ourselves we give up on ourselves. The adversary uses discouragement. Sondra: we deny God's love for us and what he wants to do for us.

Paula: how do we go back and make up for times when we've not acted with integrity? What can we do to make things right? Sondra: I really think that is what the repentance process is for. A friend of hers joined the church as an adult, and she had had an abortion. Her Bishop wanted to help her make restitution for this. She was very poor, and he asked her to donate money to Save the Children for one year. This helped her. Lisa J.: we can use our past mistakes to help us teach and relate to others, especially our children or the youth. And we need to be careful that when we learn of others' past mistakes, that we let them grow past those mistakes.

Sondra ended by sharing the story of Arthur Kane from the documentary New York Doll. She was especially touched by the prayer he offered backstage before going out for his reunion concert with his band in London. Integrity takes courage, determination, and practice.