Choice and Consequence

This weekend I had the opportunity to visit Palmyra. I went to the temple there and also saw a few of the sights including the Smith family homes and the Sacred Grove. I had a thought which started while I was in the temple and that continued as I walked through the Sacred Grove. The thought came from two examples one was mother Eve and the other Joseph Smith. What these two have in common besides the obvious is that they were both faced with very big, world changing, choices (I would argue two of the three most important choices in the history of this earth) and both were left to the consequences of those choices both good and bad.
Mother Eve was presented with the choice whether or not to partake of the forbidden fruit. She new that by so doing she was going contrary to what she had been told but she also in her "counter intuitive way", as Elder Maxwell put it, saw that this was what was necessary to bring about Gods plan. And so they where thereby kicked out of the Garden of Eden and here enters death and pain and sin and sorrow and so forth. Her consequence? This story being passed down through the ages. She has been looked at as both gullible and naive for listening to the serpent and manipulative for getting Adam to join her. Furthermore I believe that the way women have been treated throughout the ages is at least in part a direct consequence of this. What most of the human race does not understand is what Lehi teaches us in 2 Nephi 2:23; "...they would have had no children...having no joy...doing no good..." In other words Gods plan would have been void. So she made the choice and partook perhaps knowing all the while both sides of the consequences of her decision but forgetting herself she chose the higher road.
Joseph Smith was given ten years between the First Vision and the organization of the church to contemplate the consequences of his choice. But in paraphrasing his words he had actually seen God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ and they had spoken to him. He knew it and he knew that God knew it and he could not deny it. Well his consequence for this was years of persecution and eventually his "untimely" death and his name is still being mocked by much of the world. But like Eve he saw the bigger picture and because he was also willing to forget himself, through him came the restoration of all things.
We all face choices every day that carry with them consequences. Although we are free to make our own choices we are not free to chose the consequences. Some of the consequences for choosing what is right are often very hard to bear. But I testify that the choice to forget ourselves and consecrate our will to our Heavenly Father carries with it the ultimate consequence of eternal happiness in the presence of our Father.
-Travis