Walking in Circles by Brenden

This is a talk I wrote based of the First Presidency Message for Last June.

“Have you ever heard the old saying that people who get lost tend to walk in circles?

Jan L. Souman, a German psychologist, wanted to determine scientifically if this was true. He took participants of an experiment to a large forest area and to the Sahara desert and used a global positioning system to track where they went. They had no compass or any other device. Instructions to them were simple: walk in a straight line in the direction indicated.

Dr. Souman later described what happened. “[Some] of them walked on a cloudy day, with the sun hidden behind the clouds [and with no reference points in view]. … [They] all walked in circles, with [several] of them repeatedly crossing their own path without noticing it.” Other participants walked while the sun was shining, with faraway reference points in view. “These … followed an almost perfectly straight course.”

This study has been repeated by others with different methodologies. All returned similar results.

Without visible landmarks, human beings tend to walk in circles.”

What were some examples of landmarks or guides in the scriptures?

Liahona, Cloud/Pillar of Fire, Etc.

So what are some landmarks that we can follow today?

Scriptures, Teachers, Presidents of the Church, Etc.

So these landmarks help guide us on what? The yellow brick road?

No, They help guide us on the straight and narrow path back to our Heavenly Father, they are like the iron rod in Nephi’s dream about the tree of life. It is what we need to follow or we will wander around aimlessly in circles just like the people in Dr. Souman’s test. God has given us these landmarks so we can return to Him.

In Family Night last night we identified ‘landmarks’ to help us move towards our vision as a family. Before we did this we we just ‘wandering around aimlessly in circles, repeatedly crossing our own path.’ This crossing of our path is the problems that we keep having again and again as a family. Last family night we created some ‘landmarks’ to help us work towards our family vision.

I Testify that if we want to return to Heavenly Father we need to use these ‘landmarks’ that He has given us, and that if we follow them than we can return to live with him again. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.