Never Be Ashamed

       Today I feel like a should share an experience that I had as a teenager. Have you ever been in a situation where you had feelings that you should not do what your friends were doing? Especially when you know what they are doing is wrong
      In my last blog post I talked about how important it is to follow your spiritual compass. It is also important to never be ashamed of the guide that you have in your life. In other words, to stay true to what you know and feel is right rather then giving in to the temptations that are all around you. 
     When I was about 16 years old, I went on a hike in the Grand Canyon. It was probably one of my favorite hikes ever. To get down into the canyon you have to proceed down several switch backs until you finally get to the floor of the canyon. From there you follow the canyon about 7 to 8 miles until you get to your final destination which is beautiful water falls and rivers all around. It is definitely worth it. At the time I had just received a brand new Global Positioning System (GPS) that I can use while I hike.It tells me how far I have hiked and much farther I have until my destination and provides a basic digital compass to keep you on the path. In addition I can use these same paths to get me out of the canyon. As I was hiking, I was with several good friends. They all gave me a real hard time about my GPS saying such things as, "Mike, we are in a canyon there is no way we can get lost", or "Mike, do you really think that thing is going to help you much"? I looked past these comments and still used my handy GPS to navigate to our final destination.
      On our way out of the canyon however, there was a huge rain storm and so we carefully proceeded to hike out of the canyon. I stayed in the middle of the group just hiking along, and referring to my GPS as often as I felt. At one point I realized that we had gone past the place in which we had to turn off to go up the switchbacks. The rain had washed out the trail that was originally there. I informed everyone that we were not headed in the right direction but that we needed to turn back but very few listened to me. I finally got them to look at my GPS so they could see how far off we were and so we all turned back and with everyone gathered around to follow what the GPS said, we safely got out of the canyon and away from the danger of flash floods and the sort.
      The reason that I bring this up is because the spirit is always there to guide us, just like my GPS was there to guide me. I could have felt dumb or felt ashamed for using the GPS on such an easily navigated canyon but if I had deserted this GPS during the rainstorm, who knows how long we would have hiked and gone off course. In the end everyone was using my GPS to get home. Likewise, we all need to use the spirit to help us get back to our Heavenly home. Never be ashamed of the guidance your Heavenly Father gives to you to help lead you through the storms of life.
If you feel like want to learn more about how you can follow the spirit more and to increase your faith in Christ visit http://mormon.org/  to learn more about it!