​I grew up in a small town in Ohio. The nearest Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was in Columbus, a twenty-minute drive from our home. My father was a member of the Stake Presidency and attended early morning meetings every Sunday. Because my mother didn’t drive, dad would have to hurry home after his meetings to pick us all up for church, a forty-minute round trip for him. He would joking tell us, “I want you waiting on the curb with one leg in the air when I get there.” In other words, be ready.
 
As he pulled up to the curb, we would pile in the car and dad would rush us all to the church house. 

​One usual Sunday morning, we were hurrying into Columbus to attend our meetings when my mother noticed a car had broken down on the highway. Another car had already stopped to help the stranded motorist and, as my father sped on past, mother recognized the person who had stopped.
 
“Did you see who that was?” she asked my father. “That was Bishop Bailey.”
 
Dad didn’t make a comment, but I did. I was a little surprised because I knew we had very little time to get to our meetings and not be late.
 
“Why is he stopping?” I asked. “He’s going to be late for church.”
 
“Because, son,” my father answered, “Bishop Bailey has already learned what the rest of us are going to church to learn.”
​

​Bishop Bailey was focused on living the Gospel, helping those in need, and rendering kindness regardless of his own personal agenda. Attending a church meeting to learn how to perform those Christ-like acts was only secondary to him. 
 
That morning I recognized for the first time that going to church isn’t what makes us worthy disciples of Jesus Christ; it is actually living those principles of service and charity that, hopefully, we learn when do we attend our meetings. 
​

​When I was a young boy, I loved riding horses. My best friend Danny Brocca and I would catch a bus on Saturdays and ride about an hour out of town to the little village of Mendiolasa in the hills of Córdoba where we would rent horses for the day and ride through the countryside until evening. (Before I even owned my first home, I owned a couple of horses.)
​
Perhaps it was this love of horses that prompted my father to ask me one evening after Danny and I had returned from riding if I knew what Roman horseback racing was.

“I’m not sure,” was my reply, not wishing to sound completely ignorant with a blatant “Nope.”
​
“Well,” my father explained, “Roman horse racing is one of the older forms of racing. In Roman horse racing, the rider stands on top of two horses, with one foot on each horse and races in circles around a large arena.”
“Sounds scary,” I commented.

​“The real danger of riding two horses at once,” my father continued, “is when the horses start to move apart from each other. The rider must be very skilled at keeping the horses together and the horses must be controlled, and comfortable running alongside each other. If the horses move apart, the rider must jump onto the back of one horse or the other. Otherwise, he risks falling and being trampled by the horses coming up behind him.”

And then my father taught me this lesson:
​
“Right now, the Church of Jesus Christ and the world are like two horses racing side-by-side. For the most part, the world is following a course similar in many respects to the Church. The world's values, in part at least, mirror the values of the Church. This is going to change. In the years to come, you are going to witness the world as a whole begin a massive movement away from the principles of righteousness. The Church will not deviate from its course and consequently these two ‘horses’ will continue to distance themselves from each other. 

When I was about ten years old, my father came home from work and announced that he had a gift for me. As he reached into his front pocket, I imagined him pulling out a Matchbox or a Hot Wheels racecar. Instead, he handed me a triangular piece of glass about an inch high and three inches long.
"What's this?" I asked.
"It's a prism, son. It can bend light."
"Oh. You mean like in Pollyanna."
"That's right. Let me show you how it works."
He took the prism between his thumb and forefinger and held it up to the light so I could look through it. 
"You can see the full spectrum of the rainbow just by looking through this prism."
A part of me was impressed but a larger part of me was disappointed it wasn't a Matchbox. Eventually, the prism ended up on my windowsill gathering dust next to the barometer my father had given to me the year before.

One afternoon, several months later, I was playing in my room (probably with my Hot Wheels) when my father came in and noticed the prism on the windowsill. He called me over and put his arm around my shoulder.
"Do you realize that the light coming through your window has traveled for 92,955,828 miles in a relatively straight line from the sun and then, it hits this little prism and in less than a nano-second it is bent and sent off in a completely different direction?"
"I guess so," was my typical ten-year-old response.
"Imagine that, son!" he went on. "92,955,828 miles and then, almost instantly, its direction is changed forever. But do you know something?"
"No," -- again, a typical ten-year-old's response.
"When that ray of sunlight enters this prism, it has to pass by millions of tiny atoms and molecules before it reaches the opposite side. The light must find its way around each individual atom. It might move to the right or to the left to get around them. It might go over the top or it might go underneath but somehow, it has got to get around that atom! It might even be thinking, 'Boy, I'll be glad when this is over and I can get on with my life.' But guess what, as soon as it works its way around that first atom, there's another atom, maybe even a bigger atom, that it has to move around. And after that...another, then another, millions of atoms and it has to go around each one of them before it comes out on the other side headed in its new direction.

"Now, son, here's the thing I want you to remember. The way the light moves around each of those individual atoms will ultimately determine which direction it is moving when it comes through on the other side.
"You see, your life is like that beam of sunlight. You lived and traveled through time in the pre-existence, like the sunbeam traveling over 92 million miles toward this prism. And do you what the prism represents?"
"My life now? My earth-life?"
"Exactly! And compared to eternity, your 'earth-life' is going to be just a brief moment, a flash of light passing through this world. It won't seem like that to you now because now you only see the individual atoms--the experiences you need to go through to reach the other side.
"And just like that light, struggling to get around each atom, you're going to have to face your own experiences. Some you'll get through easy, others might be more challenging and you'll wonder if you'll ever get through them and be able to just get on with your life. But remember, the decisions you make here on earth, the way you get through your personal trials and experiences, will ultimately determine the direction you are heading when you reach the other side."

Dad set the prism down on the windowsill and quietly walked out of the room. I picked up the tiny triangular piece of glass with renewed interest. I looked at the sunlight beaming in through the window, hitting the little one-inch prism, then gazed at the brilliant spectrum of light it displayed against my bedroom wall.

"My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;
And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high...."
​D&C 121:7,8.