Last week I wrote about our choice to come to earth and that by coming to earth we experience opposition.  I said that we chose this life. Why would we do that? Why would we want to experience pain, sorrow, sickness, heartache, disasters? Again, I don't know if we knew that we would experience bad things, but we did want to have the ability to choose.

Since we need, crave, and desire choice, it is a universal theme in stories. Let's look at three examples:

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. The Capitol requires each district to provide two tributes to fight to the death. Their justification is that there was civil war and in order to preserve life for the good of the people, the districts are told what goods and resources to produce and must participate in the Hunger Games. If the people do not comply, they will suffer punishment. Choice is taken away. Katniss is a hero because she chooses to enter the Hunger Games to save her sister and then she chooses to not die or be the last one alive at the end by pretending to eat the berries with Peeta.

The Giver by Lois Lowry. The setting for The Giver is a futuristic society where in order for the people to "be happy" and prosper, all opposition is taken away. The people do not see color, experience pain or joy, or even birth their own children. The people are assigned a job. One of those is for young women to birth babies which are then given to couples. Jonas, an eleven-year-old boy, is given the job of  Receiver of Memory. He visits with the Giver who shares memories with him. These memories contain joy and pain, color, love, and other feelings and emotions Jonas has not experienced. Once he has these memories, he becomes discontent with his society and escapes. Jonas chooses pain so he can experience joy. He chooses hardship and trials so he can feel.

Both of these are dystopian fiction or stories set in societies that are controlled to make people happy. But people cannot be happy without choice. I think all of us and especially writers wonder how we can make the world a better place. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone was kind, if no one went hungry, if it was safe for our children to play outside and wander the neighborhoods and make friends with strangers? Sure, so let's make people be nice. Let's make a system where everyone does their part so no one goes hungry. Let's take away the desire to do evil by taking away all feeling. Let's take away choice.

Let's look at the most universal story about choice, Adam and Eve. God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He told them that they could partake of any of the fruits in the garden except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because then they would die. Death is bad, right? Knowledge of good and evil is bad, right? That's why our loving Heavenly Father told them not to partake of the fruit. No. Our Heavenly Father had a plan. And that plan depended on the ability of Adam and Eve to choose. As Mormons, we do not believe that Adam and Eve were wrong to partake of the forbidden fruit. If they had not, they would still be living there without children and without the experience of choice. None of the rest of us would have been born. Adam and Eve had to make that first choice so they could have children, so that they could experience good and evil and have the knowledge to be able to choose. Because Adam and Eve made that choice, we were able to come to earth and gain a body and then learn to choose for ourselves between good and evil.

So even when my children do not choose to pick up their clothes or I sleep in and don't exercise or I eat more dessert than I should, I'm grateful for choice. When I'm tempted to force my children to obey because I know what's good for them, I remember that taking away choice is Satan's plan. But if I give them a choice, they might choose wrong. In fact, they probably will choose wrong. What is a parent to do? What did a loving Heavenly Father do? He sent us to earth to gain a body. He sent a Savior, Jesus Christ, to be an example of love and charity and then to atone for our sins. He put us on this earth with pain and joy, light and dark, good and evil, healthy food and junk food, uplifting literature and pornography, sunny days and storms, stability and destruction, health and sickness. Now we get to choose again and again and again. Will we choose the path of happiness: clean living, keeping God's commandments, loving and serving others, and teaching by example and with patience? Or will we turn our back on God? When life gives us trials we did not choose like mental illness, cancer, earthquakes, suicide,  rudeness, how will we react? Will we turn to God?

You choose.

Why doesn't my son pick up his clothes when I ask? Why do I sleep a little longer when the alarm rings? Why do I eat two cinnamon rolls when one would satisfy me?
Why is there suicide? Murder? Rape? Divorce? Drugs? Lost jobs? Estranged families? Abandonment? Greed? Lust?
Why did my mother have breast cancer? Why did 10,000 die in the Philippines from a typhoon? Why did my daughter's friend's dad die of a heart attack?
Because of choice. Free agency. The ability to choose.
In the premortal world, we were all spirits living with our Heavenly parents and each other. Our Heavenly Father presented a plan called the Plan of Happiness. We could come to earth and obtain a body. Our Heavenly Father wanted us all to return to him. Our older brother Jesus Christ said that he would atone for our sins and be our Savior, so that when we did not keep the commandments, we could repent and return to live with our Heavenly Father. Satan said in order for us all to return to our Heavenly Father, he would force us to make good choices. But our Heavenly Father wanted us to be free to choose, to have the ability to choose between good and evil. We would prove through our choices that we wanted to live with our Heavenly Father again. Satan rebelled and one-third of the spirits of heaven followed Satan. The rest of us chose to come to earth and gain bodies.

Did we know that life would be so hard? That we would be tempted to cheat, lie, rebel? Or that we would experience the great joy of riding a bicycle down hill or finishing a half marathon or swimming in the ocean or hiking to a waterfall or taking in the many colors of fall leaves or birthing a baby or witnessing that child being married? I don't know. But we did choose. And because of that people are allowed to make choices that we don't agree with or that hurt us. And this world is fraught--yes, I said fraught--with bad things that happen because it is a telestial world--a world that has natural disasters and that can make us sick.

But because Christ atoned for our sins and was resurrected, we will all be resurrected. Our bodies and spirits will be reunited. And if we've kept our Heavenly Father's commandments, then we will live with Him again.

Opposition in all things. Good and evil. Light and dark. Health and sickness. We chose this.

Last week my youngest child announced that he will be baptized next year. What? I thought. No that can't be. But he just turned seven so he's right that next year he'll be baptized. The reason our children are baptized at the age of 8 is that Joseph Smith received a revelation from God that 8 is the age of accountability (Doctrine and Covenants 68:27). At that age, children know right from wrong and can make decisions for themselves. Therefore they can be held accountable for their decisions. We do not believe in infant baptism. Having studied some child development in college, I know that John Piaget (I actually looked this up just now to confirm it) named four stages of Cognitive Development in children. The third stage is Concrete Operational and develops between ages 7-11. Children are able to think logically. That seems to fit well with an age of accountability at 8.
If you are older than 8 and choose to be baptized, great! You repent of your sins and put your life in order so that you are ready to keep the commandments of God. Then when you are baptized, you are washed clean through the atonement of Jesus Christ. Jesus was baptized as an example to us that baptism is necessary to enter the kingdom of God. Because we make mistakes and are not perfect, we can repent and through the atonement of Jesus Christ, we can be forgiven. This is a continual process. We learn and grow throughout this life.
Now I have less than a year to teach my son everything he needs to know about the gospel. Not really. But we will have lessons as a family on what it means to be baptized so that he will be aware of the decision he is making. And then when his dad says the baptismal prayer and immerses him under the water, I will feel warm and happy inside knowing that my child has made a good choice.