Noah Packard - Consequences of Criticizing Local Leaders

Noah Packard is mentioned in the Doctrine and Covenants as one of the counselors of the first High Priests Quorum in D.C. 124.

136I give unto him Amasa Lyman and Noah Packard for counselors, that they may preside over the quorum of high priests of my church, saith the Lord.

Today in church one of his descendants spoke and told his story. Noah moved to Utah and was asked to live in Springville, Utah, which is just south of Provo. While there he got into a dispute with the local Bishop and criticized him in public. He continued attending church, but his children didn't attend much and only one of his grandchildren ended up attending church. The one who did attend church did so because his mom and dad died, so he was sent to live with his mom's parents in Ogden where he grew up a faithful member of the church. Literally hundreds of descendants from that one boy are faithful church members. So much so that the Ensign had an article on one of those boys' descendants in 1984. http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=180&sourceId=bb0a05481ae6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

Amazingly, this article shows that of 400 descendants of Floyd Packard, only 8 were not active members of the church. Compare that to the hundreds of descendants of Noah who are not.

It is not fair to criticize local leaders or to fail to instill the desire in children to know that the church is true. It takes effort to build a testimony as God does not hand them out cheaply. It was very great to hear about someone mentioned in the D.C. and how his family turned out. Unfortunately, much of the story is a disappointment due to his criticism of a church leader that helped rob his children and grandchildren of their enthusiasm for the church.

Great Sunday again.

Why we Home Teach and Visit Teach

Why do we visit the homes of other members, active or not in the church? It is a great thing to be involved in. It is a blessing for me, the home teacher. I get to know great people better than I otherwise would. For example, this week my wife made me a book with anecdotes and thoughts about me from those I've associated with. One of those was from a couple I home taught who became great friends. It was my pleasure to get to know them. In LA I was friends with a single sister who I really love and admire and an inactive member who was having some hard times and thinking about returning to church. I loved being around them and learning about their lives. I was the one who was blessed by associating with them. I learned a lot, including to care more about others. It is my blessing to home teach.

Here's a story from Barbara Thompson about visiting teaching. It illustrates this point well.

I have experienced some of the most humbling, joyful, and spiritual experiences of my life as I have sat in the homes of women in my own ward and around the world. We have taught one another the gospel. We have cried together, laughed together, solved problems together, and I have been lifted and blessed.

One evening near the end of the month, I was preparing to leave town and still hadn’t visited one of my sisters. It was later in the evening. I had no appointment. I didn’t call. I had no partner. But I decided it was important to visit my friend Julie. Julie’s daughter Ashley was born with a brittle-bone disease. Although Ashley was almost six years old, she was very small and unable to do much of anything besides move her arms and speak. She lay on a sheepskin rug all day, every day. Ashley was a happy, cheerful child, and I loved being around her.

On this particular night when I got to the home, Julie invited me in and Ashley called out that she wanted to show me something. I went in and knelt down on the floor on one side of Ashley, and her mother was on the other side. Ashley said, “Look what I can do!” Then with a little assistance from her mother, Ashley was able to turn on her side and back again. It had taken her almost six years to accomplish this wonderful goal. As we clapped and cheered and laughed and cried together on this special occasion, I thanked Heavenly Father that I had gone visiting teaching and had not missed this great event. Even though that visit was many years ago and sweet Ashley has since passed away, I will be forever grateful that I had that special experience with her.

Why the devil is less successful than God - No love

Satan is much less powerful and less successful than God. There's a few reasons. One is just that God knows everything and is so much more honorable than Satan. One strong reason is that Satan does not care about people and that makes him act less wisely in many circumstances.

For instance, it might make sense for Satan to help give his followers technological advancements. For example, in the Book of Mormon, it's the Nephites that first think of two things: 1) armor and 2) walls and towers around their cities. They were inspired by God to do these two things. The Lamanite armies just copied the Nephites after they had seen it. My question is, why didn't the Lamanites think of it first? They obviously weren't as innovative or thoughtful, but why?

One could argue the following: 1) Satan had definitely seen these innovations such as armor and fortified cities at earlier points in the history of the world. 2) Satan can influence people; he does, he influences them for bad. 3) If Satan let his followers know about the innovations, they could have killed off the Nephites more quickly and then none of their posterity would have been righteous and none of the Lamanites in the future would have been converted to the gospel (which did happen; for a time the Lamanites were more righteous than the Nephites). 4) Therefore, Satan had incentives and the ability to inspire his followers to advance technologically.

So why didn't/doesn't he?

Because he doesn't care about people. He doesn't love. This keeps him from thinking about the long-term. He won't ever help people in the short-term so it will help his cause in the long-term. He just wants people to do bad things, period. His lack of love and concern for people keeps him from being as powerful, long-term, as he could be.

It's a lesson for us. Why do we want to become like God - kind, loving, etc.? Because it is the best way to live. Also, over the long-term it's a much more powerful and effective way to live. Satan is hindered because of who he is, a selfish person. As we become more like Heavenly Father and love more, we'll become more effective in life.

Commandments - Protection for our lives

I was speaking with a good friend about someone he knows. She has stopped going to church after reading some anti-Mormon literature and has become quite critical of the church leaders. Now her husband has stopped going but also has started to experiment with alcohol and pornography just to find out if those things are fine. The reasoning is something like, "those guys were tricking me about this being the true church, they might be tricking me about the commandments/rules they told me to live by." Interesting.

Here's a story by Mervyn Arnold, a member of the 70, on this topic.

Shortly after my sweetheart, Devonna, and I were married, she shared with me a story about how she learned in her youth this important doctrine that we are free to choose but that we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions. With the help of my daughter Shelly, I would like to relate Sister Arnold’s experience:

“When I was 15 years old, I often felt that there were too many rules and commandments. I wasn’t sure that a normal, fun-loving teenager could enjoy life with so many restrictions. Furthermore, the many hours spent working on my father’s ranch were seriously dipping into my time with my friends.

“This particular summer, one of my jobs was to ensure that the cows grazing on the mountain pasture did not break through the fence and get into the wheat field. A cow grazing on the growing wheat can bloat, causing suffocation and death. One cow in particular was always trying to stick her head through the fence. One morning, as I was riding my horse along the fence line checking on the cattle, I found that the cow had broken through the fence and gotten into the wheat field. To my dismay, I realized that she had been eating wheat for quite some time because she was already bloated and looked much like a balloon. I thought, ‘You stupid cow! That fence was there to protect you, yet you broke through it and you have eaten so much wheat that your life is in danger.’

“I raced back to the farmhouse to get my dad. However, when we returned, I found her lying dead on the ground. I was saddened by the loss of that cow. We had provided her with a beautiful mountain pasture to graze in and a fence to keep her away from the dangerous wheat, yet she foolishly broke through the fence and caused her own death.

“As I thought about the role of the fence, I realized that it was a protection, just as the commandments and my parents’ rules were a protection. The commandments and rules were for my own good. I realized that obedience to the commandments could save me from physical and spiritual death. That enlightenment was a pivotal point in my life.”

Sister Arnold learned that our kind, wise, and loving Heavenly Father has given us commandments not to restrict us, as the adversary would have us believe, but to bless our lives and to protect our good name and our legacy for future generations—just as they had for Lehi and Nephi. Just like the cow that received the consequences of her choice, each one of us must learn that the grass is never greener on the other side of the fence—nor will it ever be, for “wickedness never was happiness.” ⁸ Each one of us will receive the consequences of our choices when this life is over. The commandments are clear, they are protective—they are not restrictive—and the wonderful blessings of obedience are numberless!

In general, the decision to leave the church is generally a very arrogant one. (I am speaking of actively leaving rather than slowly falling away; that choice is often made almost by accident.) It presumes that the person leaving knows 1) more than the church leaders, and 2) has studied out the issues carefully and fairly. My experience is that church leaders are the best men and women we find in this world. Also, when the church is looked at in any fair light, it looks very strong and will continue to look better as time goes on.

Concerning commandments - why is it smart to experience everything? Shouldn't we learn from the mistakes of others or the guidance of very wise people? A wise person learns from their own mistakes, but a genius learns from the mistakes of others. Avoiding potential addictions at all costs is a very wise move, and pretty much every commandment exists to help us avoid potential addictions that interfere with our ability to freely choose without the undue influence of actions or thoughts we're too strongly tied to. Even keeping the Sabbath day holy is in part an attempt to separate us from the world so that our thinking won't be continually influenced by only worldly things.

Keep the faith.

Have a great day.

Desire - Power to change us; Elder Oaks

I started the lesson by sharing the following two paragraphs and asking what was the difference between the two people.

The first two lessons, which we learned early in our efforts to be good member missionaries, have made sharing the gospel much easier: We simply can’t predict who will or won’t be interested in the gospel, and building a friendship is not a prerequisite to inviting people to learn about the gospel. We discovered these principles when we were newlyweds and the missionaries in our ward asked us to make a list of people with whom we could share the gospel. We were to start with those at the top of our list and begin “preparing” them through a twelve-step process. First, we were to invite them to our home for dinner and follow that by going to a cultural event together. The sixth, seventh, and eighth steps were to invite them to church, give them a copy of the Book of Mormon, and ask them to take the missionary discussions. The program culminated in the twelfth step—baptism.

We dutifully made this list, placing those we thought most likely to be interested in the gospel at the top. They looked like “ideal Mormons”—people whose values, such as clean living and commitment to family, mirrored our own. We then began building deeper friendships with them, adding additional social events to our already busy lives. One by one, those we thought might be interested in learning about the gospel declined our invitations when we got to steps six through eight. Our invitations didn’t offend them, but in their own way they told us they were happy in their present approach to religion. After much work over many months, we didn’t find anyone who was interested in learning more about the gospel.

New missionaries were then transferred to our ward. Knowing nothing of our history, they came to our home, unfolded an identical chart on our table, and asked us to make a list of people with whom we could cultivate friendships in preparation to teaching them the gospel. We protested, “We’ve tried this. It took a long time and didn’t work.” We explained that we felt we had honestly tried with everyone we thought was a candidate for hearing the discussions.

It turns out that missionary work is an assignment in the church at which we cannot succeed if we don’t have the Spirit with us at all times. And I am so grateful that I came to make that decision to be a missionary again because it has blessed our family in profound ways. The next year, 1984, I was listening to General Conference, and Elder M. Russell Ballard gave a talk at that time where he invited us as members of the church to set a date, a point in the future, as a commitment to our Heavenly Father. He invited us-don’t pick a person that we were going to share the gospel with but to set a date. He promised us that if we would do all that we could to engage in conversations about the gospel, with as many people as we could, that God would bless us by that date, that we would intersect with somebody who would accept our invitation to meet with the missionaries. His talk just sunk into my heart. That night I went home and knelt by my bed and committed to my Heavenly Father that by a date I would find somebody for the missionaries to teach. That was in 1984. That year, by the date, Heavenly Father blessed me to find a man who we could bring into our home to teach with the missionaries. I have set a date once, twice and now three times every year as a commitment to my Heavenly Father that I’m going to be a missionary, and every Sunday I fast that God will help me to intersect with somebody who I can invite to learn of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Every time I pray, I pray that God will put somebody in my path, and I’m grateful to be able to say that God has answered my prayer every time. It’s been 20 years.

Interestingly enough, it's the same person writing both stories (Clayton Christensen). He just became a great member missionary. Why? I think it's because he really wanted to. When we want something and will work for it and think about it and pray for it, we'll become something great. God will help us.

Here's a story that illustrates the idea that when we have a strong enough picture of the future, we'll have a strong enough desire to do even extreme things to help that picture of the future happen.

How do we develop desires? Few will have the kind of crisis that motivated Aron Ralston,³ but his experience provides a valuable lesson about developing desires. While Ralston was hiking in a remote canyon in southern Utah, an 800-pound (360 kg) rock shifted suddenly and trapped his right arm. For five lonely days he struggled to free himself. When he was about to give up and accept death, he had a vision of a three-year-old boy running toward him and being scooped up with his left arm. Understanding this as a vision of his future son and an assurance that he could still live, Ralston summoned the courage and took drastic action to save his life before his strength ran out. He broke the two bones in his trapped right arm and then used the knife in his multitool to cut off that arm. He then summoned the strength to hike five miles (8 km) for help.⁴What an example of the power of an overwhelming desire! When we have a vision of what we can become, our desire and our power to act increase enormously.

Most of us will never face such an extreme crisis, but all of us face potential traps that will prevent progress toward our eternal destiny. If our righteous desires are sufficiently intense, they will motivate us to cut and carve ourselves free from addictions and other sinful pressures and priorities that prevent our eternal progress.

I know we will meet Jesus one day and that it will be a wonderful day if we have tried to follow Him and become better people. May we all desire that to be the case.

Have a great day.

Good and Bad Spoken of Joseph Smith in all the World

Yesterday I was reading the introduction to the Book of Mormon and noticed the following: “He called me by name, and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Moroni; that God had a work for me to do; and that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people.

Then later in the day I noticed that a movie was being made with Ron Howard directing based on a book that talks about a couple polygamous brothers that were murders. He blames doctrine taught by Joseph Smith as causing their actions. The basic weakness in his argument is that if Mormon doctrine was likely to cause violent actions then there should be more murders among the Mormon population than others. Also, the polygamous brothers had already been excommunicated from the church and were no longer members. Unfortunately when most people read the book or watch the movie they'll likely come away with quite a negative impression of the church and the prophet Joseph Smith. That's unfortunate, but because I read the prophesy in the Book of Mormon in the morning, I wasn't upset or surprised by the movie announcement. It looks to me to be the natural course of events.

What's so remarkable about Joseph Smith's prophecy about his name being known for good and evil throughout the world is that he wrote it in 1838. There is no way he could have known what would happen to his name and fame without it being a revelation from God.

It's just another example of his being a prophet.

Here's a link to the announcement: http://www.ksl.com/?sid=16466015&nid=1016

Here's a link to the church's statement on the book when it came out: http://newsroom.lds.org/article/church-response-to-jon-krakauers-under-the-banner-of-heaven

Working on mormon.org profile; will post more soon.....

Showing Strength in Tough Situations - Impacts Others Forever; Power of the Aaronic Priesthood

My mom spoke in Church this week in Sunnyside where I grew up. She told the story of a man who I didn't know, although I know his daughter who is now probably about 70. The man had one son and was a Sunday School teacher at church. One day he went sledding with his son and the son was killed. His sled crossed the road and a car hit him. Tragic.

The next day, one of his students was wondering what would happen at church. Would the Sunday School teacher be there? He was, but just with a "slightly sadder smile". That day he taught about the Atonement (Sacrifice, Suffering, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ) and what it meant to him. The girl never forgot that lesson.

Sometimes the difficult things in life give the opportunity to show others how much we believe the things that we say we believe. While we would never wish for such difficulty, it is nevertheless impactful when we push through with faith and courage. Eventually that faith and courage will be rewarded.

Mom also mentioned that they've been working with a family for over a year to get them back to church. The family is a good one but has had some trials, such as losing a baby (stillborn) a year ago. The kids have been very receptive, but the parents (especially mom) has not been interested. However, the church continued to show interest.

They came to church today, and the mom spoke with my dad (the current Bishop - local congregational leader). She said that even though many ward members have been over to invite them and help them, the one that really touched her was a few weeks ago the deacon's quorum presidency (12 and 13-year old young men; the presidents come from that age group, they aren't adults.) came by to check on her son and invite him to church. She was touched that such young boys cared about her son.

This story means a lot to me because my dad's family didn't go to church much when he was 14. They had just moved to Oregon and were working on their dairy a lot. As a result, they didn't go to church. However, the presidency of the teacher's quorum, other students attending his middle school, came and invited him to church. He has attended church faithfully since that time.

Power exists in Young Men who hold the priesthood and do their duty, exercising the keys they've been given.

Eternal Families - How to build one

Here's an email I sent about the lesson on eternal families today:

Elders,

Hopefully we have a great discussion on eternal families tomorrow. Note that this is not about eternal marriage, which is a lesson for next month.

This is a timely discussion considering Bishop has asked us to deliver a message regarding the family to our home teaching families. Here's the link to Elder Porter's talk that Bishop asked us to present: http://lds.org/ensign/2011/06/defending-the-family-in-a-troubled-world?lang=eng

Pres. Monson has said the following concerning the family: "The family holds its preeminent place in our way of life because it is the only possible base upon which a society of responsible human beings has ever found it practicable to build for the future and maintain the values they cherish in the present." (from his biography)

Also, here's some thoughts from President McKay:

President David O. McKay said, “With all my heart I believe that the best place to prepare for … eternal life is in the home” (“Blueprint for Family Living,” Improvement Era, Apr. 1963, 252). At home, with our families, we can learn self-control, sacrifice, loyalty, and the value of work. We can learn to love, to share, and to serve one another.

Please consider what are the most important things to develop in a family. Also, how exactly on a daily and weekly basis can that happen?

King Benjamin shows that this has always been an important topic for members of the church. Here's Mosiah 4:14,15 -

14And ye will not suffer your ^achildren that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye ^bsuffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and ^cquarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the ^devil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness.

15But ye will ^ateach them to ^bwalk in the ways of truth and^csoberness; ye will teach them to ^dlove one another, and to serve one another.

One quick thought/analogy from the business world. Culture is recognized as a very powerful tool in business and very hard to change for better or for worse once it's established. What we're trying to do in our families is develop a powerful culture of righteousness, love, etc. Just as it's hard to create a great culture in business and business leaders/founders should plan and think about how to develop a great culture, so must families. Below are some thoughts about culture from a talk given by Clayton Christensen, a Mormon Harvard Business School professor:

Create a Culture

There’s an important model in our class called the Tools of Cooperation, which basically says that being a visionary manager isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s one thing to see into the foggy future with acuity and chart the course corrections that the company must make. But it’s quite another to persuade employees who might not see the changes ahead to line up and work cooperatively to take the company in that new direction. Knowing what tools to wield to elicit the needed cooperation is a critical managerial skill.

The theory arrays these tools along two dimensions—the extent to which members of the organization agree on what they want from their participation in the enterprise, and the extent to which they agree on what actions will produce the desired results. When there is little agreement on both axes, you have to use “power tools”—coercion, threats, punishment, and so on—to secure cooperation. Many companies start in this quadrant, which is why the founding executive team must play such an assertive role in defining what must be done and how. If employees’ ways of working together to address those tasks succeed over and over, consensus begins to form. MIT’s Edgar Schein has described this process as the mechanism by which a culture is built. Ultimately, people don’t even think about whether their way of doing things yields success. They embrace priorities and follow procedures by instinct and assumption rather than by explicit decision—which means that they’ve created a culture. Culture, in compelling but unspoken ways, dictates the proven, acceptable methods by which members of the group address recurrent problems. And culture defines the priority given to different types of problems. It can be a powerful management tool.

In using this model to address the question, How can I be sure that my family becomes an enduring source of happiness?, my students quickly see that the simplest tools that parents can wield to elicit cooperation from children are power tools. But there comes a point during the teen years when power tools no longer work. At that point parents start wishing that they had begun working with their children at a very young age to build a culture at home in which children instinctively behave respectfully toward one another, obey their parents, and choose the right thing to do. Families have cultures, just as companies do. Those cultures can be built consciously or evolve inadvertently.

If you want your kids to have strong self-esteem and confidence that they can solve hard problems, those qualities won’t magically materialize in high school. You have to design them into your family’s culture—and you have to think about this very early on. Like employees, children build self-esteem by doing things that are hard and learning what works.

Place to Learn Service

When my brother and sisters and I would fight while growing up, Dad would always read us this scripture from Mosiah 4:

14And ye will not suffer your ^achildren that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye ^bsuffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and ^cquarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the ^devil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness.

15But ye will ^ateach them to ^bwalk in the ways of truth and^csoberness; ye will teach them to ^dlove one another, and to serve one another.

We were certainly aware God didn't want us to fight, although we didn't always follow this scripture. I do think it's important to realize that the home is the place to learn service and love. I have not thought about helping my kids serve one another until reading this verse. Somehow parents should incorporate service in the family into daily living.

I believe it will play great dividends.

God Asks Us to Do Things that Make Sense

Sometimes we have lessons in church in which we say that no matter what God asks us to do, we should do it. That is definitely correct, and I could do better at following impressions of things to do. However, most things, if not all things, God asks us to do end up making perfect sense as we're doing them or sometime thereafter. I think it's important to recognize that God wants us to learn from what we're commanded to do and not just do things "blindly". A few examples from the scriptures illustrate this point:

1) The prophet received the revelation from God to stop practicing polygamy in the 1890s. In communicating the change with the church members we're told the following (Official Declaration 1):

The Lord has told me to ask the Latter-day Saints a question, and He also told me that if they would listen to what I said to them and answer the question put to them, by the Spirit and power of God, they would all answer alike, and they would all believe alike with regard to this matter.

The question is this: Which is the wisest course for the Latter-day Saints to pursue—to continue to attempt to practice plural marriage, with the laws of the nation against it and the opposition of sixty millions of people, and at the cost of the confiscation and loss of all the Temples, and the stopping of all the ordinances therein, both for the living and the dead, and the imprisonment of the First Presidency and Twelve and the heads of families in the Church, and the confiscation of personal property of the people (all of which of themselves would stop the practice); or, after doing and suffering what we have through our adherence to this principle to cease the practice and submit to the law, and through doing so leave the Prophets, Apostles and fathers at home, so that they can instruct the people and attend to the duties of the Church, and also leave the Temples in the hands of the Saints, so that they can attend to the ordinances of the Gospel, both for the living and the dead?

The Lord showed me by vision and revelation exactly what would take place if we did not stop this practice. If we had not stopped it, you would have had no use for … any of the men in this temple at Logan; for all ordinances would be stopped throughout the land of Zion. Confusion would reign throughout Israel, and many men would be made prisoners. This trouble would have come upon the whole Church, and we should have been compelled to stop the practice. Now, the question is, whether it should be stopped in this manner, or in the way the Lord has manifested to us, and leave our Prophets and Apostles and fathers free men, and the temples in the hands of the people, so that the dead may be redeemed. A large number has already been delivered from the prison house in the spirit world by this people, and shall the work go on or stop? This is the question I lay before the Latter-day Saints. You have to judge for yourselves. I want you to answer it for yourselves. I shall not answer it; but I say to you that that is exactly the condition we as a people would have been in had we not taken the course we have.

2) When Nephi is commanded to kill Laban, notice that Nephi gives reasons why it makes sense to do it, even after God had told him to do it (in other words, he didn't just say - okay, happy to kill him).

1 Nephi 4:

10And it came to pass that I was ^aconstrained by the Spirit that I should kill Laban; but I said in my heart: Never at any time have I shed the blood of man. And I shrunk and would that I might not slay him.

11And the Spirit said unto me again: Behold the ^aLord hath^bdelivered him into thy hands. Yea, and I also knew that he had sought to take away mine own life; yea, and he would not hearken unto the commandments of the Lord; and he also had ^ctaken away our property.

12And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me again: Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands;

13Behold the Lord ^aslayeth the ^bwicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is ^cbetter that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in ^dunbelief.

14And now, when I, Nephi, had heard these words, I remembered the words of the Lord which he spake unto me in the wilderness, saying that: ^aInasmuch as thy seed shall keep my^bcommandments, they shall ^cprosper in the ^dland of promise.

15Yea, and I also thought that they could not keep the commandments of the Lord according to the ^alaw of Moses, save they should have the law.

16And I also knew that the ^alaw was engraven upon the plates of brass.

17And again, I knew that the Lord had delivered Laban into my hands for this cause—that I might obtain the records according to his commandments.

18Therefore I did obey the voice of the Spirit, and took Laban by the hair of the head, and I smote off his head with his own ^asword.

Hopefully you notice that this is a pattern. The Lord rarely asks us to do things that make no sense. When he does ask for things that are very different, he is willing to help us think through the issues/reasons. In my life, the few times I have had things I felt I should do, in time, all of them have made a lot of sense.

Blind obedience therefore is not something we generally do. Certainly not in the way most people think of the term "blind" obedience (i.e., doing whatever you're told with no idea why).

Have a good day.