Hello my Brothers and Sisters
Posted: June 3rd, 2011, 1:18 am
Well I've just recently been reading some conversations here after very recently "waking up" to a sense of our awful situation, if you will. I've been doing research and trying to soak in as much information as I possibly can about just how corrupt our government's become and how far down we've gone down this "secret combination's " agenda. I have become very aware and even frightened of our awful situation. But my problem is a very unique problem, I think. Below is a short summary of what I'm going through right now, and I encourage any comments. So here's my story.
I'm currently 20 years old and, up to a few months ago, had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I hated my life because I didn't know what I was supposed to do, or even could do with myself. I was not keeping all of the commandments and knew that a mission was out of the question at the time. Every time I got a job I would quit after no more than 6 months because I hated it and the constant redundancy of work that held no importance to myself. Quit college because I couldn't afford it, and didn't even know what I wanted from it anyway. So here I am, 20 years old and living with my parents and younger siblings with no job, no school, getting VERY depressed, with a complete lack of direction in my life. And here's 1 thing that has always been in the back of my mind since I was about 17-18. Roughly 2 years ago, my father( who is now in the bishopric here) told me about a dream that he had about me that scared him. In the dream I was a little older than when he told me about it, he said, and had made some choices that would seem right to me. Eventually he would kick me out and I would become homeless. In the dream I was destitute and close to death when he and my mother would find me on a sidewalk and help me up and into the house. He said the end of the dream pictured me years later, in a church building with my future family, and that I was happy, that others wanted to be around me, and basically completely transformed.
Well, here's my current situation now. Because of that dream, I wanted to avoid any possibility of being kicked out and becoming a street-bum that would be on the verge of death, I just didn't know how. Then it hit me, I could join the military! The more I thought about it, the better a feeling I would get about it, but not completely. I always had some mixed feelings about enlisting, but I just assumed that was a feeling that every soldier gets, so I eventually enlisted in the Army for a 6-year active duty contract. After taking the oath I felt VERY good about it. In fact, I have felt much closer to God than ever after doing it. That was about 2 months ago. Now, I'm 45 days away from shipping out to basic training and I'm just now waking up to the evil that plagues this country and government, and I KNOW it's the spirit that's been opening my eyes to it. I've been asking God "Why? Why now?", and I keep getting this feeling every time: That I was supposed to take that oath to "defend this country against all enemies of the constitution, both foreign AND domestic, and that I would bear true faith and allegiance to the same". But I also keep getting the feeling that I was never supposed to serve in our government's military. I was to take that oath to defend the constitution, and taking that oath has opened my eyes to the truth. I feel that was the purpose of it, because I don't think my eyes would have been opened any other way.
I now know that the military is under the control of corrupt men in the government. I also know that if I choose to serve them and follow their orders that I will have to pay the consequences of my actions, not just temporal but eternal. But going back is hard. Even though I have signed a contract and taken the oath I can still request a DEP (Delayed Entry Program) discharge and they have to give it to me because I am not officially a U.S. soldier yet. I strongly feel that the right thing for me to do is to get a DEP discharge, and prepare to serve a mission. That is what feels right to me right now. The hard part about it is this, I don't know what my father will do. He hates quitters, tends to have a very short temper and one-sided, and probably doesn't agree with me on how evil our government has become. I could tell him that I feel like it's the right thing to do and that I want to serve a mission instead, but he could get so angry with the notion of me dropping the military that he could just kick me out and never listen to me again, in which case I would become homeless with no way of surviving. Also, I don't know where this path would take me. Before, I had a very clear idea of how my future was gonna be set in the military. Now, I have no idea and that scares me, a lot. And there's very little in this world that scares me. Death doesn't scare me at all. I knew full well when I enlisted that I could easily die from bullets, an explosion, or any other method in war. I was, still am, and will always be willing to do die for my country, the constitution, our liberties, and my faith. What scares me is the sudden uncertainty of my life if I choose the path I described, but what scares me even more is the eternal consequences of my actions if I choose to serve what I now know to be evil.
It's a very strange predicament that I've gotten myself into, and I don't know if I could have avoided it or not. Needless to say, this is the most difficult choice I've had to make in my 20-year life. I also know that by quitting I would basically be forfeiting any credibility I have with MANY people that I know. Only the ones that really know me would understand this decision, and maybe not even all of them. I know that, in the end, I have to find the strength to do what I know to be right. I have to stop worrying about the consequences in this life and know that all righteous acts will be rewarded in the next, and it will be far more glorious than I could imagine. But still, it scares me to death....
I'm currently 20 years old and, up to a few months ago, had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I hated my life because I didn't know what I was supposed to do, or even could do with myself. I was not keeping all of the commandments and knew that a mission was out of the question at the time. Every time I got a job I would quit after no more than 6 months because I hated it and the constant redundancy of work that held no importance to myself. Quit college because I couldn't afford it, and didn't even know what I wanted from it anyway. So here I am, 20 years old and living with my parents and younger siblings with no job, no school, getting VERY depressed, with a complete lack of direction in my life. And here's 1 thing that has always been in the back of my mind since I was about 17-18. Roughly 2 years ago, my father( who is now in the bishopric here) told me about a dream that he had about me that scared him. In the dream I was a little older than when he told me about it, he said, and had made some choices that would seem right to me. Eventually he would kick me out and I would become homeless. In the dream I was destitute and close to death when he and my mother would find me on a sidewalk and help me up and into the house. He said the end of the dream pictured me years later, in a church building with my future family, and that I was happy, that others wanted to be around me, and basically completely transformed.
Well, here's my current situation now. Because of that dream, I wanted to avoid any possibility of being kicked out and becoming a street-bum that would be on the verge of death, I just didn't know how. Then it hit me, I could join the military! The more I thought about it, the better a feeling I would get about it, but not completely. I always had some mixed feelings about enlisting, but I just assumed that was a feeling that every soldier gets, so I eventually enlisted in the Army for a 6-year active duty contract. After taking the oath I felt VERY good about it. In fact, I have felt much closer to God than ever after doing it. That was about 2 months ago. Now, I'm 45 days away from shipping out to basic training and I'm just now waking up to the evil that plagues this country and government, and I KNOW it's the spirit that's been opening my eyes to it. I've been asking God "Why? Why now?", and I keep getting this feeling every time: That I was supposed to take that oath to "defend this country against all enemies of the constitution, both foreign AND domestic, and that I would bear true faith and allegiance to the same". But I also keep getting the feeling that I was never supposed to serve in our government's military. I was to take that oath to defend the constitution, and taking that oath has opened my eyes to the truth. I feel that was the purpose of it, because I don't think my eyes would have been opened any other way.
I now know that the military is under the control of corrupt men in the government. I also know that if I choose to serve them and follow their orders that I will have to pay the consequences of my actions, not just temporal but eternal. But going back is hard. Even though I have signed a contract and taken the oath I can still request a DEP (Delayed Entry Program) discharge and they have to give it to me because I am not officially a U.S. soldier yet. I strongly feel that the right thing for me to do is to get a DEP discharge, and prepare to serve a mission. That is what feels right to me right now. The hard part about it is this, I don't know what my father will do. He hates quitters, tends to have a very short temper and one-sided, and probably doesn't agree with me on how evil our government has become. I could tell him that I feel like it's the right thing to do and that I want to serve a mission instead, but he could get so angry with the notion of me dropping the military that he could just kick me out and never listen to me again, in which case I would become homeless with no way of surviving. Also, I don't know where this path would take me. Before, I had a very clear idea of how my future was gonna be set in the military. Now, I have no idea and that scares me, a lot. And there's very little in this world that scares me. Death doesn't scare me at all. I knew full well when I enlisted that I could easily die from bullets, an explosion, or any other method in war. I was, still am, and will always be willing to do die for my country, the constitution, our liberties, and my faith. What scares me is the sudden uncertainty of my life if I choose the path I described, but what scares me even more is the eternal consequences of my actions if I choose to serve what I now know to be evil.
It's a very strange predicament that I've gotten myself into, and I don't know if I could have avoided it or not. Needless to say, this is the most difficult choice I've had to make in my 20-year life. I also know that by quitting I would basically be forfeiting any credibility I have with MANY people that I know. Only the ones that really know me would understand this decision, and maybe not even all of them. I know that, in the end, I have to find the strength to do what I know to be right. I have to stop worrying about the consequences in this life and know that all righteous acts will be rewarded in the next, and it will be far more glorious than I could imagine. But still, it scares me to death....
I still haven't received a clear-cut answer on what I should do. But I've been praying about it and asking what He would have me do so that I may do it, so I'm sure that I'll get the answer when I need it. Again, thank you for all of your kind words and welcomes 