AWFUL CHAINS

AWFUL CHAINS

For thus [the devil] whispereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains ... 2 Nephi 28:22

LDS transplants from the Mountain West typically send their children to BYU for college. Not so native Oklahomans; their children are generally educated in-state. Carrie (not her real name) was raised by wonderful convert parents on a farm outside a small southern Oklahoma town that was big enough for a small but virtually youth-barren branch. She lived at home and attended a local junior college her first two years. Enthusiastic, optimistic, and gregarious, she was elected student body president her sophomore year.

Bishop Rick Henderson experienced a surge of enthusiasm when he learned that Carrie would be coming to the University on scholarship the next school year. Since he would be in the vicinity soon on a job-related trip, he called, introduced himself, and made arrangements to meet her at her home.

She was warm, open, and instantly comfortable to be around. She was anxious to get started on this new phase of her life, to be with an LDS peer group for the first time, and to have an LDS room-mate. The Bishop responded to the prompting to call her to be the LDS Student Association president for the upcoming school year. She graciously accepted, her eyes sparkling.

Carrie loved Institute, she loved her calling. She loved the camaraderie with other LDS students. Alas, she didn’t love her room-mate. They could pretty well avoid each other during the week but it got so bad that each would go home on alternate week-ends, so they wouldn’t have to be in each others' presence over the long week-ends.

Early Spring semester the good bishop picked up something from a passing conversation, just a little ripple, nothing even close to a wave of concern. He called her in. His slight suspicion was confirmed; she had begun to make exceptions to the For the Strength of Youth counsel concerning her circle of friends. He again responded to a prompting, this time to call her on a mission, reasoning that by so doing she would leave forever behind that tendency to not be as careful as advised with regard to choosing her friends.

There was a long pause. “Well,” she began, “If that is going to happen there is something I need to take care of. You know about my roommate’s and my challenges, don’t you?”

He did.

“Well, last fall, on one of those week-ends when I was here by myself, things got really bad, I mean REALLY bad. I was screaming in my mind, “Will somebody – anybody – PLEASE acknowledge that I’m alive!” I called a friend from my junior college days, who is up here too. He came over. We got to talking, and then to dancing. Then things got out of hand. We didn’t do “everything,” but more than we should have.”

“Carrie! I’m so sorry. You could have called your bishop, you know.”

I thought about it. But you’re so busy! I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Not that busy. Not when someone is in crisis. How about your home or visiting teachers – could you have called one of them?”

“I’m not even sure I know who they are, Bishop. No one has ever visited me since I got here.”

Carrie and the bishop visited weekly for the remainder of the semester. Tiny miracles began happening, and continued until she personally experienced the Atonement of the Savior working on her behalf.

Her mission call to Sweden came during the summer.

It was Bishop Henderson’s practice to write monthly to the missionaries serving from his ward. Carrie, like most, would respond, not every time, but regularly. Sweden was known for not being very productive, but Carrie, to the bishop’s surprise and delight, seemed to be talking regularly about people coming into the waters of baptism.

She filled an honorable mission, and came back to the University to finish her degree. Bishop Henderson had been released and was serving elsewhere. He no longer enjoyed regular, close contact with her. Oh, they greeted each other and chatted when their paths crossed, but he was no longer aware of what was going on in her daily life.

However, not long after her mission a multi-stake conference was held in the capital city, featuring Elder M. Russell Ballard, newly called to the Quorum of the Twelve at the time. The theme was missionary work. He had recently toured Europe, interviewing missionaries along the way. He was evidently impressed when he interviewed Carrie: during his address he called her up to the podium. As he introduced her he indicated that more people had responded to her invitation to come to Christ than any other missionary in all of Europe during the previous year. He asked her what the key had been. She bore a beautiful testimony, in the process indicating that the members had responded to her pleas to do their part as member missionaries. Bro. Henderson’s feelings were thus confirmed, that she had enjoyed an unusually successful mission.

And that is precisely why, when he got her wedding announcement a year or so after she had graduated and moved on, he felt profound sadness instead of elation. She was marrying a guy not of her faith – her junior college friend whom she had called that long-ago lonely night.

Last he heard, Carrie was living and working in the eastern part of the State, struggling to maintain her Church activity, but facing increasing resistance on the home front.