Matter of a Few Degrees

In the April Conference in 2008 President Uchtdorf shared the following story to us. "In 1979 a large passenger jet with 257 people on board left New Zealand for a sightseeing flight to Antarctica and back. Unknown to the pilots, however, someone had modified the flight coordinates by a mere two degrees. This error placed the aircraft 28 miles (45 km) to the east of where the pilots assumed they were. As they approached Antarctica, the pilots descended to a lower altitude to give the passengers a better look at the landscape. Although both were experienced pilots, neither had made this particular flight before, and they had no way of knowing that the incorrect coordinates had placed them directly in the path of Mount Erebus, an active volcano that rises from the frozen landscape to a height of more than 12,000 feet (3,700 m).

As the pilots flew onward, the white of the snow and ice covering the volcano blended with the white of the clouds above, making it appear as though they were flying over flat ground. By the time the instruments sounded the warning that the ground was rising fast toward them, it was too late. The airplane crashed into the side of the volcano, killing everyone on board.

It was a terrible tragedy brought on by a minor error—a matter of only a few degrees. ¹

Through years of serving the Lord and in countless interviews, I have learned that the difference between happiness and misery in individuals, in marriages, and families often comes down to an error of only a few degrees." http://lds.org/general-conference/2008/04/a-matter-of-a-few-degrees?lang=eng&query=president+uchtdorf

In our life we do things that causes us to change our course be merely a few degrees. The change at first is very small and unnoticeble. But with time it plays a great role as a consequence. See what happened. It (the plane) ended up 28 miles off course. We ahve to be able to see those mistakes and correct ourselves and/or our courses. We need to be able to detect that things are not right so that we dont have a fatality. We too are experienced pilots somtimes coming to points where we think the snow capped mountain is the clouds. But if we are ablt to respond to the warnign signals and lights we can try to corect our course and not end in a fatality. President Uchtdorf also shares this thought with us "No one wants his life to end in tragedy. But all too often, like the pilots and passengers of the sightseeing flight, we set out on what we hope will be an exciting journey only to realize too late that an error of a few degrees has set us on a course for spiritual disaster." Through Jesus Christ we can have course corrections through the process of repentence. That way we dont end in spiritual disaster. May we all remember to keep making those course corrections so we dont end with a fatality.