FAIR's Rising Generation

Archive for June 7th, 2009

Growing up, primary teachers taught me again and again that Mormons are the happiest people on the earth because they have the Plan of Happiness. I thought that was pretty cool. I liked being one of the happiest people on the earth. In fact, I was one of those happiest people up until sixth grade when I was thrown out of my happy world. What challenged my world so dramatically? A girl (you could have guessed that). Her name was Christine Brauer. She had the most attractive smile I had ever seen. When she smiled, the entire room got lighter. Fortunately, she showed it often. However, what really shook me was that she wasn’t a member of the Church.

Wait. How can she be so happy if she isn’t a member of the Church? How is a non-member that happy and not one of the happiest people in the world? I know I sure didn’t smile that much. That’s when the terrifying self-realization hit: I wasn’t that happy. But even if I wasn’t happy, I was still competitive. I was a member of the Church, and I would be one of the happiest people in the world or else!

So I went home from school one day, ran to the bathroom and grinned where a big mirror hung. I scrutinized my smile, moving it around into every position I could. Not impressive. So I smiled harder, tried to control it, left the bathroom and kept smiling. I became a smiler, and with it, I became happier.

The sixth grade became a lot of fun for me. When other students hated life, I was happy. People came to enjoy my smile, and I got many compliments for it–despite being a little shy. At the end of the year, our class did a big award ceremony. Everyone in the class put down a name for a guy and girl who they voted top in each of the categories. For example, we had the bookworm award and, students would think of which guy and girl seemed to read the most books. The person with the most votes won.

Shy though I was, I was happy and won a fair few awards–I guess because people liked me for just being the kid that was happy with life. One award stood out above the rest. I won the best smile award for the guys, and with little competition, Christine won it for the girls. To be honored next to Christine Brauer for smiling was perhaps the greatest honor I could have dreamed of. Now the award isn’t a big deal to me. What is a big deal is that I’m happy, and I owe it to the Gospel, being determined and Christine Brauer.

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