At Lime, halfway between Baker and Ontario, there is a giant rock looming over the west side of the freeway.  It is split in half by a great crack.  When your car gets right under the rock, as you're speeding by, for half a second you can see a flash of light through the crack.  The two halves of the rock are separated by a space that just might be enough for a small person to wriggle through.

That flash of light and that thin crack always bring to my mind a terrible story told about the cousin of an acquaintance.  The cousin was a spelunker.  Spelunkers explore underground cave systems.  They crawl through cracks like that hoping to find subterranean rooms never before seen by man.  They are down underground where the quarters are not only tight, but, also, very dark and cold.

Imagine getting yourself stuck way down there in one of those thin little cracks.  That's what happened to the cousin.  He was wedged where he could go neither forward nor back.  He was where others couldn't help him.  He is still there.

There are some places you just shouldn't go.

I will never be a spelunker.  I also cannot stand on the edge of a cliff, and I won't permit my companions to do so, either.  Heights terrify me.

There are some places you just shouldn't go.  You know that they're dangerous.  You might tell yourself that you'll be OK, that you're strong enough, and that just once won't hurt; but you'd be wiser to make up your mind ahead of time to never go there.

Before I ever knew anything about the Church, I told myself that I would never taste a drop of alcohol nor ever go into a bar.

A year after joining the Church, I found myself in Yokosuka, Japan as a sailor in the U.S. Navy.  My third day in Japan was an off-duty day.  A new acquaintance, a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, went out of his way to befriend me.  He offered to take me to Yokohama "to show me the sights."  I accepted his offer.

We went straight to the bar district.  I saw things and people that I didn't want to see.  I refused to enter a bar.  I'm sure he saw my disgust.  After walking around for a while he took me back to the ship, never again to act like he was a friend.  I've forgotten his name.

One year later as I was leaving the ship for the last time a sailor named Armstrong, whom I barely knew, came up to me and extended his hand.  As we shook hands he said, "I want to thank you for helping me win a bet.  When you arrived on the ship a year ago there was a bet made that you could be taken to Yokohama and brought back drunk.  I said you couldn't.  I won.  Thanks!"

Other LDS sailors that I knew, some of them returned missionaries, didn't fare as well.  They hadn't made up their minds beforehand to never go certain places or to do certain things.  They lost their faith, lost their virtue, and lost their way.

Just three days ago I was informed that my own great, great nephew, whom I never met, was found murdered in Colorado.  He was shot through the stomach.  He was 18.  When he was 15 he disappeared for many months.  He was finally located, came home, got off drugs, but went back to them.  I don't know his story, but I can imagine it.  He was befriended by a false person who offered him a pill.  He was soon in a position where he found himself powerless to fend off his inevitable fate.

There are some places you just shouldn't go.  There are some people with whom you just shouldn't associate.  Decide ahead of time where those people and places are, and make up your mind to never go there.