Sorry I didn't write you last week. I had a few tests, and then I went to down to Moab to do some mountain biking over the weekend, and I never found the time. I did include a paper I wrote for my Christ and the Everlasting Gospel class at the end of this letter to make up for it.
So I heard that in your mission, new missionaries have to pass some sort of evaluation in order to terminate their training after twelve weeks. If missionaries do not pass the evaluation, and from what I heard most do not, their training is extended. It's an interesting idea, and I'm interested to know how you will be evaluated, but I am concerned about one thing. If you rule out my time serving as secretary in the mission office, the most stressful times in my mission were as I was being trained and as I trained other missionaries. I think that's probably true, and I hope it's true in a way, for most missionaries because the call to train another missionary is the most sacred assignment one can hold during his missionary service, and treating that responsibility with the weight it deserves often causes stress. My concern is that stress is often accompanied by contention.
I will share with you a strategy to deal with contention with your companions through what I will call the parable of the fire scars.
This picture shows several fire scars in a cross section of a douglas fir:
Using dendrochronology (that's just a fancy word for counting rings), you can identify the exact years that fires occurred. In the case of the photo above, we learn that many fires occurred between the years 1820 and 1896, and no fires occurred between 1896 and 1994. The pattern is not unique to this tree. Broad scale studies have shown that the frequency of fires in the west dramatically decreased around the year 1900. We can infer that the frequent fires before 1900 were low intensity based on the fact that the trees survived.
The other two causes include overgrazing, which led to less fuel for fires to spread, and the virtual extirpation of Native Americans. Native Americans frequently and intentionally set fires for a variety of reasons. In fact, Elder S. F. Atwood wrote to Elder Ezra Taft Benson, "The Indians here seem to be possessed with the spirit of burning, for there is scarcely a day but what we can see fires both on the mountains and in the valleys. We have talked to them about burning up the grass, and they seem willing to spare it, and do set their fires among the sage brush, but it often gets into the grass, and they have already burned much of it, but they try to clear themselves by saying that it will be very good when the rains come in the fall."
The Native Americans were right. The small, frequent fires were good for the ecological health of the sage steppe ecosystem. The lack of fires since 1900 has had many detrimental impacts. Fires are useful to keep trees, most notably pinyon pines and junipers, from encroaching the sage-grass and grassland ecosystems. Without the fires, pinyons and junipers, which were once isolated to the steep, rocky mountainsides, were allowed to out-compete the sage brush and grasses which used to dominate the landscape.
Pinyon-juniper encroachment carries with it several detrimental impacts. For example, some species which were once threatened, or are still threatened, such as bighorn sheep and sage grouse, do not live in woodland habitats. Pinyons and junipers destroy their habitats. Pinyons and junipers also have very deep and extensive roots. They are capable of absolutely out-competing all other shrubs, forbs and grasses by sequestering all available water. This causes erosion of the bare topsoil between the trees. Complete lack of annual and perennial plants, which make up important functional groups within the ecosystem, bare ground, erosion of the topsoil, and other effects of erosion, such as runoff and formation of gullies, constitute several of the indicators of poor rangeland health according to the Bureau of Land Management.
Here are a couple photos to illustrate the health relative health of the ecosystem with pinyons and junipers and after they have been removed.
There is at least one other great impact of fire suppression. It is the evolution of the megafire. After years of suppressing fire, fuel gradually accumulates. When it finally catches fire, it is virtually unstoppable. Hundreds of thousands of acres burn at a time. Nothing survives. Neither plant nor animal escapes alive. They are all consumed without remnant except a blackened sky and an ash-covered earth. Megafires are truly devastating. They are the result of procrastination. By suppressing the less intense, more frequent, and even beneficial fires, instead of allowing them to burn, we set up the ecosystem for total destruction.
You have probably figured out the application by now. The health of the ecosystem represents the health of your relationship with your companions. The small, frequent fires are small issues or conflicts you have with each other. Addressing these conflicts allows the fires to run their course, prevent indicators of poor health in your relationship, and prevent the accumulation of issues which could eventually lead to a devastating fight, a megafire. It is usually best to address issues as soon as is appropriate. You don't have to put it off until your weekly companionship inventory. Address issues during nightly planning or companionship study. The frequent discussion of issues may be annoying at times, but it is better for the health of your relationship than the devastating fights that result from procrastination and suppression.
As you discuss issues, be humble, and always remember the proverb, "A soft answer turneth away wrath," (Proverbs 15:1).
I love you Luke! I hope you pass your training!
