A 2-minute video on how to trap a monkey. You can compare this to people who grasp hold of material possessions and won’t let go until it is too late. Includes a similar story by President Kimball, a true story by Hugh Nibley, and a quote on why we are sometimes like paupers. 

Trapping a Monkey in Colonial Times. This video is 2 minutes long and has no sound. When showing this video, you may want to pause when there are words on the screen, making sure everyone has a chance to read it all.  

This video is very similar to the example President Kimball gives in his story below. The video helps to see and understand what President Kimball is talking about. 

THEY WOULD NOT LET GO OF THE NUT

Story told by President Kimball (for the full article, click HERE)

        I am reminded of an article I read some years ago about a group of men who had gone to the jungles to capture monkeys. They tried a number of different things to catch the monkeys, including nets. But finding that the nets could injure such small creatures, they finally came upon an ingenious solution. They built a large number of small boxes, and in the top of each, they bored a hole just large enough for a monkey to get his hand into.
       They then set these boxes out under the trees and in each one they put a nut that the monkeys were particularly fond of. When the men left, the monkeys began to come down from the trees and examine the boxes. Finding that there were nuts to be had, they reached into the boxes to get them. But when a monkey would try to withdraw his hand with the nut, he could not get his hand out of the box because his little fist, with the nut inside, was now too large.
        At about this time, the men would come out of the underbrush and converge on the monkeys. And here is the curious thing: When the monkeys saw the men coming, they would shriek and scramble about with the thought of escaping; but as easy as it would have been, they would not let go of the nut so that they could withdraw their hands from the boxes and thus escape. The men captured them easily.

THE RICH YOUNG MAN

Much like these monkeys, people sometimes obtain temporal possessions that they are not willing to let go of. They hang onto them even if it means being captured by Satan and losing something far better such as eternal life.

In the parable of the rich young man, the young man asks Jesus what he can do to inherit eternal life. The young man tells Jesus that he is keeping all of the commandments but then Jesus tells him there is more required. 

Mark 10: 21-22  

21 Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou

lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou

shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

22 And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.

President Kimball said: 

And so it often seems to be with people, having such a firm grasp on things of the world—that which is telestial—that no amount of urging and no degree of emergency can persuade them to let go in favor of that which is celestial. Satan gets them in his grip easily. If we insist on spending all our time and resources building up for ourselves a worldly kingdom, that is exactly what we will inherit.

AFTER TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS, POOF

Hugh Nibley once told this true story: 

I think of Hisham, the mightiest palace an Arab ever built, just outside of Jericho . . . the prince took twenty-seven years to build it, and it was going to be the finest palace in the world. It was the finest palace; it was magnificent . . . The night he was to enter it for the housewarming, there came a great earthquake. He had a heart attack and died, and the palace was completely destroyed. They were to have this big housewarming, and everybody was to come. After twenty-seven years, poof, that’s what happened. (Hugh Nibley, Teachings of the Book of Mormon, Semester 2, Lecture 41, pp. 5,6)

WE ARE LIKE PAUPERS

The Lord has warned us that it is hard “for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:24) But there is a difference in having riches and trusting in riches.

Ted L. Gibbons once said: 

We are sometimes like paupers picking up pennies on the way to the gold mine where we have been invited to become joint heirs with the owners.

We need to put our riches in perspective and trust in God that regardless of what riches we possess in this life, we will one day be joint heirs to all that our Father has in the world to come. By looking forward to that day and by working towards that day, we will find true happiness in this life and in the life to come. 

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Yours Truly,

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