Another Athlete Serves a Mission

[Bernard Gui]

https://www.deseret.com/sports/2019/9/15/20750826/stanford-football-quarterback-tanner-mckee-mormon-lds-missionary

A great story, but one gets the impression from Utah papers that only star athletes make sacrifices to serve a mission. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

3 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

One gets the impression from Utah papers that only star athletes make sacrifices to serve a mission. 

I will be forever grateful when one of our nation's celebrity sportsmen/missionaries visited our stake for a fireside and insisted that he was giving up far less than the average missionary who serves.

[The Nehor]

9 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I will be forever grateful when one of our nation's celebrity sportsmen/missionaries visited our stake for a fireside and insisted that he was giving up far less than the average missionary who serves.

Why less? I could see even with others but why specifically less?

[CV75]

10 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

https://www.deseret.com/sports/2019/9/15/20750826/stanford-football-quarterback-tanner-mckee-mormon-lds-missionary

A great story, but one gets the impression from Utah papers that only star athletes make sacrifices to serve a mission. 

If one can read that entire article, he should also be able to read the Book of Mormon cover-to-cover.

[Bernard Gui]

What would be the headlines for Alma and the Sons of Mosiah leaving for their missions?

Ammon had to be somewhat buffed to be able to cut off all those arms and carry them back to the King Lamoni.....

Would they even have wanted headlines?

[CV75]

1 hour ago, Bernard Gui said:

What would be the headlines for Alma and the Sons of Mosiah leaving for their missions?

Ammon had to be somewhat buffed to be able to cut off all those arms and carry them back to the King Lamoni.....

Would they even have wanted headlines?

The Pitz Finals: The Nephite Arrows vs the Mulekite Aris in the Zarahemla League

[Damien the Leper]

Who took the pictures in order to illustrate the story? Was a media outlet given permission to photograph? If the photographer was an outsider were they just sitting in another room or in the same room waiting for the alarm to go off? Did the elders tell them what time the alarm was to go off so they could be ready for the photo to be taken? Seems creepy and stalkerish to me.

[Hamba Tuhan]

8 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Why less? I could see even with others but why specifically less?

Because he had already been paid a large sum of money for his performance pre-mission. Because he had been told he would be re-signed post-mission if he could still perform. Because he had the complete support of his family and had already achieved fame in the national press and because he had the adulation of the Latter-day Saints here.

Many of our boys leave on missions wearing clothes ward members have donated or bought for them. Some of our boys leave without the blessings of their families. Almost none of them know what they'll be returning to. They are nobodies despite all these sacrifices.

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Because he had already been paid a large sum of money for his performance pre-mission. Because he had been told he would be re-signed post-mission if he could still perform. Because he had the complete support of his family and had already achieved fame in the national press and because he had the adulation of the Latter-day Saints here.

Many of our boys leave on missions wearing clothes ward members have donated or bought for them. Some of our boys leave without the blessings of their families. Almost none of them know what they'll be returning to. They are nobodies despite all these sacrifices.

Makes sense.

[Bernard Gui]

13 hours ago, CV75 said:

The Pitz Finals: The Nephite Arrows vs the Mulekite Aris in the Zarahemla League

Pelota’s been berry, berry good to me, man.

Losing this game could be the ultimate athlete sacrifice.

Edited September 17, 2019 by Bernard Gui

[CV75]

13 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Because he had already been paid a large sum of money for his performance pre-mission. Because he had been told he would be re-signed post-mission if he could still perform. Because he had the complete support of his family and had already achieved fame in the national press and because he had the adulation of the Latter-day Saints here.

Many of our boys leave on missions wearing clothes ward members have donated or bought for them. Some of our boys leave without the blessings of their families. Almost none of them know what they'll be returning to. They are nobodies despite all these sacrifices.

Thank you, I can certainly relate to that second one... but only just now realized how my case might be considered a sacrifice. Never seemed that way to me, but I get it now.

[Bernard Gui]

On 9/16/2019 at 4:23 PM, Valentinus said:

Who took the pictures in order to illustrate the story? Was a media outlet given permission to photograph? If the photographer was an outsider were they just sitting in another room or in the same room waiting for the alarm to go off? Did the elders tell them what time the alarm was to go off so they could be ready for the photo to be taken? Seems creepy and stalkerish to me.

The article says his companion is a photographer, but I didn’t see any attribution to him. A fellow named  Spenser Heaps has the photo credits. 

“Separated by more than 6,000 miles from home, and from the game that he loves, one of the top quarterback prospects in college football wakes up, kneels down on his bed, bows his head on a pillow and prays. The sun is rising in this coastal town in southern Brazil and after Elder Tanner McKee finishes his prayer, he begins another day as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

 

Elder Tanner McKee prays while his companion, Elder Pedro Cabral, shuts off the alarm on their shared cellphone as they awake at their home in Paranaguá, Brazil, on Sunday, June 2, 2019. Elders McKee and Cabral awoke early, at 6:30 a.m., to walk a family to church while Elder Felipe Araujo and Elder Jeffrey Eidem, left, continue to sleep.  Spenser Heaps, Deseret News

“The 6-foot-6 McKee jumps off the top bunk, throws on a Cardinal red Stanford T-shirt and basketball shorts, bounds down the stairs into the dingy kitchen and fixes himself a breakfast of eggs, bread and juice. A little later, in the entryway of the two-story apartment with barred windows that he shares with three other missionaries, the 2017 Elite 11 finalist and four-star recruit picks up a makeshift barbell — two cylindrical slabs of concrete held together with a metal pole — and starts his daily 30-minute workout.”

I don’t get this kind of opulent coverage. What’s the point? Maybe to attract young men who are into sports to missionary service? Seems to me to be hero worship and celebrity blinging.   

I was a music major. When I inquired if I could practice my violin on my mission, I was told to leave it at home.  Two years away from the instrument at that critical age can be very very detrimental. I know LDS musicians whose non-member teachers warned it would be a career ender and who lost scholarships, but one could hope the Lord will compensate. Eventually, I bought a cheap fiddle to play only for occasional church events with the permission of my MP, but regular practice was out. Granted, I was not a scholarship winner at Julliard nor did I have a contract with the New York Philharmonic. 😉

Edited September 18, 2019 by Bernard Gui

[Stargazer]

On 9/17/2019 at 7:09 AM, CV75 said:

Thank you, I can certainly relate to that second one... but only just now realized how my case might be considered a sacrifice. Never seemed that way to me, but I get it now.

That's the interesting thing about this. From a worldly perspective, I sacrificed a lot to serve my mission. My father would have paid for my education AND my mission if I had done them in that order; but because I knew if I did it that way I would never serve the mission (because of marriage or something else), I chose to accept his other offer, which was to be sent home to the USA (we were in England at the time) and have to fund everything myself.  Was it a sacrifice?  Some might say it was, but I still don't see it.  I was doing what I needed to do, the way it needed to be done.  And the personal growth and eternal rewards to myself were incomparable.

It's the same thing when you consider someone setting forth to become a medical doctor or astrophysicist. There will be years of expensive education, training, and self-denial before the goal is reached.  Is it truly a sacrifice?  NO, because there is a reward at the end that makes it all worth it.  You get what you paid for. 

The only true sacrifice, in my humble opinion, is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  He was already God.  He wasn't being forced to suffer, he volunteered.  Of course he had a reward, but that reward not for Him -- His reward was getting a large fraction of the Father's children out of the clutches of sin, and the eternal progression for a decent fraction of that fraction.  And resurrection for all.  But not for Himself, because he didn't need it.  Thus his sacrifice was the only true sacrifice.