Kindergarten Decisions

1. What is a kindergarten decision? One that is simple, easy to make not necessarily easy to keep.

2. They constitute the foundation for a successful mission, marriage, and life.

3. Only make them once and then spend the rest of your time and efforts in keeping your commitment.

4. What are some of the kindergarten decisions which contribute to a successful mission:
a. Keep all mission rules
b. Get up on time and out on time
c. Don’t stay longer than 20 minutes at a members house when getting a referral or a drink of water; not longer than 1 2 hours for a dinner appointment with an investigator.
d. Write President’s letters and letters home every week.
e. Don’t develop a false allegiance to companions.
f. Keep focused on mission.

The list could and should be enlarged according to your mission and your knowledge about what is necessary to hedge up Satan’s most effectively used tactics against you.

5. So you get the drift, let’s list some kindergarten decisions which would contribute to a successful marriage:
a. Don’t flirt with anyone other than your husband/wife after marriage.
b. Think before you speak-- don’t say things that will weaken your relationship even if they are true.
c. Don’t discuss private relationships of your marriage with others.
d. Always begin and end the day with couple prayer
e. Center your lives around Christ and His gospel.
f. Identify problems while they are small and use the gospel to solve them.

You can see that the list can and should be longer and more specific to your relationship. One of the great lessons of life that I have learned is that we don’t fight over things we agree upon. We just don’t know we disagree. Talk to understanding (i.e. talk-a-thon).

6. List a few kindergarten decisions which will make for Celestial living in a Telestial world.
a. Treat everyone with respect and as Christlike as you know how.
b. Don’t let others determine how you act or react.
c. Use the question What would Jesus do? as a measuring stick for your actions.
d. Do everything with eternity in mind.
e. Follow the counsel of the living prophets and the scriptures.
f. Spend some time every day in meditation and pondering to keep life in eternal perspective.
g. Be totally involved in the Church, using repentance daily to stay on the straight and narrow path.
Again, your success in life will depend to a large degree on how seriously you take the idea of making kindergarten decisions and how much energy you spend in following through on them.

7. Satan would have you believe that you can’t control your life--that is why he is called a A liar from the very beginning. (D&C 93:25).

8. Pick on the Goliath’s in your life first. Something you know you must change before you are welcome in the Celestial kingdom. Work on it consciously, asking for Divine assistance (see Ether 12:27).
a. Make a game of overcoming problems (i.e. short temper, sulking, being obnoxious, etc).
b. Recognize and reward mini-successes. (i.e. the Lord called every step good in the creation although none were complete until the very end when He called it Avery good).
c. Refuse to get discouraged when you suffer setbacks. (i.e. masturbation by a missionary-- how long since the last problem? A year. How long had you gone before your mission? Max was a week. Look at the progress. Let’s see if you can duplicate your last record and extend it!)
d. Keep an eternally optimistic outlook-- Satan can’t tolerate optimism.
e. Aim for perfection-- the top of the Spiritual mountain. If you fall short, you are infinitely higher than if you had refused to climb at all.
f. Remember D&C 76:60- speaking of those in the Celestial Kingdom-- They shall overcome all things.
---Randy Bott, BYU Religion Professor