Speed Limit 10

Can anyone drive 10 miles per hour?  I challenge you to try to drive 10 miles per hour for one minute today and then look me in the eye and tell me it doesn't render you mentally incapacitated and emotionally wrecked.  Speed limits and I have a troubled relationship with a rocky history and what appears to be a bleak future.  I take my fair share of flack from those who matter most with regard to my (completely safe) aggressive driving habits.  Let's just say I've historically viewed these signs as good recommendations that apply mostly to the average defensive driver and not so much to me.  Funny how life happens.  Had I seen this sign 10 years ago, I would have blown past it at 50 mph and laughed to myself.  When I saw it today, I still laughed to myself, but I got out of the car and took a picture.  As I was walking back to the car, many of the Speed Limit 10 signs I've seen in my life went through my mind...except they didn't say "Speed Limit 10."  Instead, some read "Be kind to your children."  "Adore your wife." "Put in an honest day's work." "Hold Family Home Evening regularly." "Honor your Priesthood."  "Keep a journal."  And I was forced, thanks to that lovely introspective gene I share with President Eyring, to ask myself how often I've blown past those Speed Limit 10 signs - and many others like them - at 50 mph.  The reality is that most of us can drive a little faster and we'll be fine.  We can ignore the Speed Limit 10 signs and drive 15, 20, even 25, and nothing terrible will happen.  The reality is that it's up to us to decide.  No one is there to force me to follow the speed limit every mile I drive (much to Jeri's chagrin), just like no one is there to force me to keep a journal or honor my covenants.  It's up to each of us to decide who we want to be and to show the Lord where we stand.

When he was visiting our Stake in Newbury Park, Elder Spencer J. Condie of the Quorum of the Seventy shared an amazing story of a member of the church from Fiji, Taniela Wakolo.  Brother Wakolo was Stake President at the time and Elder Condie was assigned to fly to Fiji and call Brother Wakolo as a new Area Authority.  Here's the rest of the story, which was also published in the Ensign magazine: 

After discussing with him the nature and duties of his new calling, I observed the tattoo on Brother Wakolo’s large right hand.  Now, tattoos are very common throughout the South Pacific, and long before he joined the Church, Taniela Wakolo had the back of his hand tattooed with a large, garish design.  I said: "Brother Wakolo, in your new calling as an Area Seventy, you are going to be speaking to the youth on many occasions.  I would suggest before such meetings that you put a large Band-Aid on the back of your hand to cover your tattoo.  It’s hard to discourage our youth from getting tattoos when the speaker has one himself."  He smiled a broad smile, and with a radiant expression he said, "I’ll take care of it. I want to be a good example."  A few weeks passed, and the next time we met, his hand was heavily bandaged as if he were preparing for a boxing match.  I asked, "What in the world happened to you?"  He smiled with glistening eyes and said, "I followed your counsel and had the tattoo removed."  "Was it laser surgery?" I asked.  "No," he replied with a big smile, "they don’t remove tattoos with lasers in Fiji. I had it surgically cut out."  A month later Elder Wakolo and I were assigned together to reorganize a stake presidency in American Samoa.  As we met at the airport, I immediately noticed an unsightly scar on the back of his hand where the surgeon had removed several square inches of skin and then very crudely sutured the gaping wound closed.  This had not been performed by a plastic surgeon.  I apologized for having been the cause of the large scar on the back of his hand.  He responded with a radiant Christlike countenance: "Not to worry, President Condie; this is my CTR ring. Now the Lord knows where I stand! I’ll do anything the Lord asks of me."

 Speed Limit 10.