Having Lived to Fulfill the Commandments of God

Not sure what to blog about this morning. I don't have any good ideas, and I'm having trouble finding or thinking of any. I keep getting distracted. Having guests over is fun, but it can really mess with your morning routine. Let's try a random verse from the Book of Mormon.

Mosiah 29: 45 And now it came to pass that his father died, being eighty and two years old, having lived to fulfill the commandments of God.

I'm not sure who we're talking about, but he left a good example for us to follow: "having lived to fulfill the commandments of God." Yesterday, I blogged about finding one's calling in life, and fulfilling the commandments played a large role in my plan to find my calling, or to fulfill it, but now I'm wondering if fulfilling the commandments might actually BE one's calling, or at least a really good thing for a person to make their life about. If, when a person dies, it can be said that they lived to fulfill the commandments of God, then I would say that they had a successful life. It's an example worth following, even if I don't know whose it is.

What Is Your Calling?

I just took a What is Your Calling internet personality quiz. Fist of all, I just want to point out how pointless it is to ask the internet what your purpose in life is. The internet doesn't know who you really are, and it can't find out just by asking you 10 multiple choice questions. It can't guess you calling in life, so why even let it try? There's one person who knows, without any question, what your calling is, and if you ask Him, He'll probably be willing to tell you.

Having said that, the result I got from the personality quiz says:

Your calling is: Saint
You are a spiritual person. You find the true meaning of your life to be in your faith and connection with God. You're going to be reaching some new and challenging spiritual heights, but you will be succeeding to reach your calling! Keep it up!

Some might say that that's semi-accurate. Some might say it was a lucky guess, while others may say that the internet is way off and that my real calling lies elsewhere. I believe that only one person and those whom He has told know for sure. If I had to take a guess right now, I'd say that the internet quiz came pretty close. I'm sure that God wants me to do something spiritual with my life, and come to think of it, blogging is probably a part of it. He wants me to make spiritual progress and then help others to progress as well. Then again, it could be that He wants that for everyone. Perhaps I'll reread my Patriarchal Blessing. Those tend to give some insight as to what one's calling is.

And of course, in our church, the term "calling" means something different than what it means in the personality quiz. In our church, "calling" means something like "church job," which, in my case, is that I'm a leader of the 11-Year-Old Scouts. That's probably not my life calling, but I'm reasonably certain that it's what God wants me to do right now.

As for my life calling, I'm less certain, but I'm sure that as I strive to keep the commandments and follow the Spirit, God will direct me to do what He wants me to do and fulfill whatever purpose He wants me to fulfill. In a sense, we don't need to know what our callings are, and we certainly don't need a personality quiz to tell us, just as long as God knows what our callings are, and we're willing to follow His directions.

Chatting With God

Most days, I already know, or can quickly find, something I want to blog about. Today is not one of those days. But I've been thinking that I should pray more... conversationally. Often, when I pray, it's really just a formality. I pray, but I don't really talk to God. I'd like to change that - to once again develop a relationship with God, and by relationship, I mean friendship. And why not? It's true that God is so high above us that He deserves our respect, but I highly doubt that He's so proud that He's not willing to shoot the breeze with us. He chats with me sometimes, when I let Him, and it's during those times that I feel I develop a greater closeness with Him. I don't know if it's doctrinally acceptable or socially appropriate, but I think I'm going to try to talk with God more often, but casually and respectfully. If/when He feels that there's a problem with that, I'm pretty sure He'll tell me. Heck, maybe I'll go ask right now. I get the feeling that any kind of prayer is better than no prayer at all. If, for any reason, you don't feel fully comfortable addressing the Creator and Lord of the universe, you can always just look up toward the heavens and start a conversation with a Friend. Either way, I'm sure He just wants to talk with you.

The Responsibility to Follow and Set Good Examples

Last night, I participated in a ceremony in which four young men, boys really, bridged over from Cub Scouts into Boy Scouts, with me as their new Boy Scout leader. (Actually, one of the boys who bridged that night is actually part of a different group, but there was a fourth boy who should have bridged into our group, but he couldn't make it that night, so the total numbers of boys bridging and boys joining our patrol are the same.) Owing to the fact that the patrol I was in charge of had no members until that point, I had already been working with those boys for a month or two (it might have been longer, but it hasn't felt very long), and a parent of one of those young men came up to me after the ceremony and told me that the boys look up to me. When I was called to this position, I had been warned that they would, but it was at that point that I received confirmation that it had already begun.

In the Priesthood session of this last General Conference, President Eyring gave a talk about examples. He spoke of how he follows the examples of Priesthood leaders that helped him as a child, and how we all need to follow - and be - good examples now. He said:

Each of you will be a model of a priesthood man whether you want to be or not. You became a lighted candle when you accepted the priesthood. The Lord put you on the candlestick to light the way for everyone who surrounds you. That is especially true for those in your priesthood quorum. You can be a great model, an average one, or a bad model. You may think it doesn’t matter to you, but it does to the Lord.

I have become, whether I ever wanted to be one or not, an example of a Priesthood-holding, Boy Scouting young man to those four boys in our new patrol. This is an awe-inspiring responsibility, but one that I, as a Paladin, must become used to shouldering. Paladins in fantasy stories are often portrayed as living examples of righteousness to those who are around them. They inspire others to be brave and true. If I want to be a Paladin, or at least a person who's very much like a Paladin in many ways, I need to set a good example to all those in my sphere of influence, including those young men. They already look up to me, or so I've been told, so it is my responsibility to be someone they can look up to.

President Eyring suggested that some people in his audience might not have taken their responsibility to be good examples very seriously, but that's not true of me. I know the importance of being a good example to my scouts, and it almost scares me. I'm not yet the kind of person that I want to be - that I know I should be. I have yet to become as righteous or as perfect as a Paladin, to say nothing of hoping to become like Jesus Christ! I am an example to my scouts, but I'm not a perfect one.

I can, however, still be a good example to my patrol, despite not being perfect. One does not need to be perfect to set an example that's worth following. Paladins aren't perfect. They're probably much too violent and judgmental for Jesus' taste, as well as being so caught up in the strict rules of their unbreakable code of honor that they don't recognize moments when the rules need to be bent or changed or simply ignored to serve the greater good. When Jesus was presented with the woman who had been taken in adultery, He showed mercy to her, whereas a Paladin might have had her stoned. I don't want to be a Paladin in that sense, just as there are a few traits that I have that I hope not to pass on to my scouts or future kids, but Paladins are good enough that most of the example they set is worth following, and I hope that will be true for me as well.

We each set examples for our fellow beings to follow, whether we want to or not. Whether our examples are good ones or not is completely up to us and how we act around others. I want to set a good example, so I want to be a good role model, especially to those recently-bridged Boy Scouts. It's a responsibility I never asked for (or maybe I did, without realizing it), but one that I'll bear nonetheless. And actually, I'm glad I'm being set as an example to those boys. Hopefully, it'll help motivate me to be the kind of person whose example I'd want them to follow. It makes me want to follow good examples, knowing that those boys may follow mine.

We're On An Adventure... With Monsters.

If I know one thing about the classic Fantasy/Adventure RPG it's that you're going to have to fight a bunch of monsters, or solve a bunch of puzzles, or overcome at least some adversity of some other kind to achieve your goal. In my blog post, We're On An Adventure!!, I said that:

The great thing about adventurers in some stories and most role-playing games is that they grow stronger and more skilled through the challenges they face, and the same is true for us. As we face difficult challenges, we gain or unlock power, skills, and abilities that we didn't have before, or at least didn't know we had. The harder our challenges are, the more we grow. In that sense, the tougher our obstacles are, the better they'll be for us in the long run.

I had an "adventure" yesterday in which I faced some opposition and notably lacked the optimism that I usually have. The challenge I face now is learning how to maintain that "I'm-on-an-adventure!!" optimism while the going is rough. And the solution I came up with off the top of my head was to treat adversity the same way fantasy games treat monsters.

In my blog post, Prerequisites, I made fun of Fantasy RPGs for requiring characters to fight monsters in order to gain experience (XP) in any skill, whether that skill relates to fighting monsters or not. But now I think they may be on to something. If we use the term "monster" to refer to any sort of challenge we may face in this mortal adventure of ours, then fighting those monsters, or facing those challenges, is a necessary part of practicing our skills and gaining real-world experience. Yes, those monsters can be tough to fight, but that's how it's supposed to be. The tougher the monsters you defeat in Fantasy RPGs are, the more XP you gain from them. The tougher challenges we overcome in real life, the more we learn and grow.

As I have just started playing an official Fantasy Role-Playing Game, I've loved watching my character develop his own personality and can't wait for him to improve on his skills. That means he needs more XP, which needs he needs to fight more monsters, and I'm excited for him to do that. Some athletes probably feel the same way about themselves. They're eager to see progress in their own improvement, so they look forward to opportunities to test and train their skills. Exercise is hard work, and so is fighting monsters, or facing any other challenges, but the harder they are, the more XP we gain from them, and the more XP we earn, the stronger we become. Our challenges aren't just obstacles. They're opportunities to grow.

Seeing our challenges in this light, gaining opportunities to face them can become exciting, and not just in the sense that fighting monsters tends to be exciting - and frightening. If facing challenges is the best, and in fact, the only way to improve ourselves, then all of the positive emotion we have for self-improvement could justly be put into facing challenges. If we like becoming more capable, we should be excited about opportunities to become more capable.

This is easy enough to say while I'm sitting at my computer, not being required to do anything too difficult, and I'm sure my perspective and my attitude will be much worse when I face challenges than it is now, just like it was yesterday. It will take a conscious effort for me to get excited about facing challenges, but at least now I know I have a good reason to be. Challenges ≈ Monsters, Monsters -> XP, XP -> Leveling up, and Leveling up ≈ Becoming Awesome. And I'm really looking forward to becoming awesome. If facing challenges in mortality is the only, or best, way to eventually become awesome (and it must be, or God would have come up with a better plan), so be it. This Armor of God isn't just something we wear because it's shiny. We wear it so it can help us get through tough fights. So bring them on, and I'll try to stay optimistic as I face them.

Why America is Great

Yesterday, a man in my ward gave a talk about family history, with the theme of his talk being that we are the sum of our parts. While I'm not sure how true it is that who our ancestors were determine who we are, I agree that we have many inherited traits which make up large portions of who we are, so I'm not going to argue with it. Instead, I'm going to take that idea and run with it, applying it to our country rather than to any individual.

This continent has a history that goes back farther than the pilgrims or even the native americans supposed. (Though, I must warn you now that my 'History' of this continent will not be comprehensive.) Through modern revelation, we've learned that the garden of Eden was on this continent. It all started here. From the very beginning, North America developed a tradition for choice and accountability, followed by hard work.

Following the days of Adam and Eve came the days of Noah, in which the people of this continent, and everywhere else (if there were people anywhere else), were so wicked that they needed to be wiped out. Thus, this continent set the precedent that wickedness led to destruction.

Later, led by the Lord, at least three separate groups of people were brought here, to what the Lord told them was a promised land. As long as they served God, they prospered and triumphed over all their enemies, but when they were wicked, God allowed them to be destroyed. When the Jaredites grew wicked, they fought among themselves until they were all destroyed except for one man, who died some months later. When the Nephites grew wicked, they were wiped out by the Lamanites, all except for the Nephites who dissented and became Lamanites. And the Lamanites were wicked more often than not, and they were eventually nearly destroyed by the coming of the pilgrims and cowboys.

Though unrighteousness carries heavy penalties here, righteousness yields incredible blessings, mostly in the form of victory over more powerful foes. The Lamanites often outnumbered the Nephites two to one, but as long as the Nephites were righteous, they succeeded, despite the odds.

At the time of the American Revolution, the colonists made a hard choice, which was followed by a great deal of hard work. They now faced a powerful opponent, but because they had put their trust in God, they won the revolutionary war and won us our freedom. Their victory was miraculous, but such victories come rarely without cost. In war, hundreds and thousands of people die, many of whom were as righteous and devout as any of us could hope to be. We lost a great deal of good men in that war and those that followed, and today is a day we've set apart to honor those men. Today, I'd like to also set aside some time to honor what they fought and died for.

Mostly, they fought for freedom - freedom of religion, freedom from oppression and slavery, and freedom of choice. Those are a few of the many things that make America what it is today. Here, we have more freedom than can be found in most other places of the world (as far as I understand it. I haven't actually been to most other places in the world to check). But with our freedom comes responsibility and accountability. Given the freedom to choose, we must choose wisely, or face the heavy consequences that the previous inhabitants of this continent have faced. Remember that those who lived here only prospered when they obeyed the word of the Lord.

Because our founding fathers were as strongly Christian as they were, America has very strong roots. Sometimes I worry that its branches aren't quite as strong. Given freedom, some have chosen poorly, and others now worry about the future of this great continent, or at least our place on it.

Today is a good day to remember those who died in the wars America has won, to thank God that we've won every war we've taken part in, and to remember what quality has allowed us, and every other victorious people on this continent, to win despite any odds - righteousness (or, in the case of the Lamanites who destroyed the Nephites, lesser unrighteousness).

Most of America's blessings have been given as a result of righteousness. America is great because she has been righteous. If we want to continue to be great and to prosper, we must continue to be righteous as well.

The Toy Lightsaber, or How Communism is Supposed to Work

Yesterday, Mom and I went to Deseret Industries, a thrift store that is owned by, or at least friendly toward, our church. While I was there, I bought a pair of khakis, a pair of cargo pants, a pair of athletic shorts, and a T-shirt. The total price came to $9. What I did not buy (but was seriously tempted to buy) was a toy lightsaber.

Whenever I visit DI, I check out the toy section, mostly looking for Nerf guns (not much luck this time around), but this time, I found a lightsaber toy that's basically a bunch of plastic tubes that nest inside one another and latch in place when they're fully nested. By pushing a button and simultaneously swinging the lightsaber, you can extend the "blade" and start slashing your way through imaginary robots and aliens. It even has a clip that attaches to your belt for when you're not using it. I totally should have bought it. But I decided that someone else - someone probably much younger than myself - would probably enjoy it much more than I would have.

That's how thrift stores work. People say "I don't need this anymore, but someone else might," and they give it away. Thrift store employees sort the items, clean them up, and shelve them, usually charging customers just enough to keep themselves afloat. And people go there to find things that had been used by others but could now be useful to them.

In Sir Thomas Moore's Utopia, there's a description of something much like a thrift store, except that no one charges anyone anything. Everyone brings what they don't need, whether they made it themselves, or grew it on their farm, or whatever they have excess of, and they offer it freely to whomever may need it. At the same time, they browse the stalls to pick up whatever food, clothing, tools, or other useful items they may need. I've heard of "swap meets" where people do about the same thing, and I've always wondered "What's to stop a person from showing up with nothing and walking away with everything?" I got my answer yesterday. They just don't need it.

Yeah, I could have gotten that lightsaber. I had more than enough cash for it (It was only $1.50), and I probably would have enjoyed playing with it. I definitely enjoyed playing with it at the store. But I didn't need it, and I knew that someone else would enjoy it more than I would. Come to think of it, I have a drawer full of T-shirts that I never wear that I could probably donate to DI, to be sold (probably for only $1 or $2 each) to people who actually would where them, and the proceeds would go toward supporting the store where I buy most of my clothes and Nerf guns. A bunch of people get "new" shirts, like the new shirt I got yesterday, DI gets a few bucks for each of the shirts, and I get continued access to cheap clothes and Nerf guns. Everybody wins.

I hear bad stuff about communism, but I mostly think that it's because people don't know how to do it right. They have the mentality that I had when I thought about swap meets. People tend to want more than they need. I wanted that lightsaber, but I didn't need it. I could have gotten it, but I didn't. I left it for someone else because I knew it'd be of more use to them than it'd be to me. If everyone could learn to do that with everything, then communism (or the Law of Consecration, which I think is somewhat similar) might actually work. Until then, we have thrift stores and swap meets, which work out well enough for me.

A Good Start

Most mornings, I start off by spending a good deal of time on the internet (mostly, Facebook) looking for something to blog about. This morning, I started my day by helping my mom with some yard work and doing some dishes (and THEN, Facebook). It didn't take up any more time, and it was MUCH more productive. Plus, it gave me something to blog about.

On Saturdays, the normal thing is to sleep in or be lazy, just because, for the first and perhaps only time that week, you can. But not this Saturday. Today, I started to do my normal, morning checking of Facebook, but I heard my Mom doing yard work outside, so I went out to help her. If it wasn't for her diligence, I would have been lazy today, but because she set a good example, my day got off to a good start.

I'm grateful that my Mom was, as she always is, a good example to me. I'm glad we got going earlier in the day than normal and that we got some good work done. I'm glad that today is already shaping out to be a terrific day, and the rest of it looks like it'll be pretty good, too. But now I need to wrap up this blog post so I can straighten up some of the messes I've made around the house. This is a really lame blog post. And it had so much potential, too. Maybe I'll come back to this concept later. I'm sure there's something blogworthy in it.

"Don't Even Think About It"

Another thing I got for my birthday, beside the good feeling that I had been at least somewhat productive that day, was a pair of bicycle goggles to keep wind, dust, and debris out of my eyes when I'm biking, which is really helpful, because I ride my bike a lot. Thanks, Mom!

This morning, I read a small part of President Deiter F. Uchtdorf's talk, Are You Sleeping Through the Restoration?, because I felt that I had barely scratched the surface when I blogged about it and the Doctrine and Covenants a few days ago. During this rereading, my attention was caught by a story that President Uchtdorf had shared about a tour of Air Force One that he and President Monson had been given.

Several years ago, President Thomas S. Monson and I were offered an opportunity to tour Air Force One—the magnificent aircraft that transports the president of the United States. 

There were painstaking security checks by the Secret Service, and I smiled a little as agents searched our dear prophet prior to boarding. 

Then the pilot in command invited me to take the captain’s seat. It was a remarkable experience to again sit at the helm of a wonderful flying machine like the kind I had flown for so many years. Memories of flights across oceans and continents filled my heart and mind. I envisioned exciting takeoffs and landings at airports all over the world. 

Almost unconsciously, I placed my hands on the four throttles of the 747. Just then, a beloved and unmistakable voice came from behind—the voice of Thomas S. Monson. 

“Dieter,” he said, “don’t even think about it.”

This story speaks to me because it illustrates (from the eyes of a Prophet, no less) how temptations can slip into our minds without our even realizing it. As Elder Holland said in April 2010, "Like thieves in the night, unwelcome thoughts can and do seek entrance to our minds." And, being as sneaky as thieves, those thoughts often get inside our heads long before we're conscious of them being there, but Elder Holland also gave us clear instructions on what to do with evil thoughts, once we've detected them: "Throw the rascals out!"

Whether we want them in our heads or not, tempting thoughts are going to worm their way in there. We have little, if any, control over that. What we can and must control is what we do once we've noticed those thoughts are there. Will we "throw open the door, serve them tea and crumpets, and then tell them where the silverware is kept," or will we follow the advice of our Prophet: "Don't even think about it."

While we may not be able to stop tempting thoughts from entering our minds, we can drive them out simply by thinking about anything else. Replace evil thoughts with good ones, negative with positive, tempting thoughts with uplifting ones. It is well within our power to control what we are thinking about when we make a direct effort to concentrate on something, and if we choose to think on things of righteousness, all unrighteous thoughts will be forced out of our minds. That is what we must do when we find ourselves faced with temptation. We must learn to control our thoughts, but if we can master our thoughts, we will find that we have mastered ourselves, and self-mastery is definitely one of the purposes of life.

It can be difficult to be on guard all the time - It may even be impossible. Tempting thoughts are going to get in now and again. President Uchtdorf and even Christ Himself were tempted. But when we find such thoughts in our minds, it's important that we don't let them linger there. Rather, we should follow the counsel of the Prophet, and "don't even think about [them]."

Chores for my Birthday

With today being my birthday, I've been trying to think of how I might make this day a good one. I could go for a bike ride, but I have a reason to stay home today. I could watch movies or play games, but I do too much of that already. So, I've decided that I'm going to do a few things that my future self will be glad I did. I'm going to do some chores. Today, I'm going to sweep the floors, do some dishes, maybe work out in the yard (unless I chicken out because it's warm outside), and maybe do a few other things that I'll later be glad I did. I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy them while I'm doing them, too. One of my best qualities is that I usually have a pretty good attitude. Today's a good day for that. I'm feeling pretty happy today.

Be of Good Cheer - A Commandment?

I found this on Facebook this morning. I'm sure I've seen this quote before, but I'm not sure I've shared it yet.

I never thought of the Savior's words, "Be of good cheer," as a commandment. It always seemed like just a thing a person tells their friend when their friend is upset. It's not an order; it's just words of encouragement. I've never thought of it as something that we're supposed to do because God commanded it, but rather as something that God has asked us to do just because He wants us to be happy. That amounts to the same thing, doesn't it?

God gives us commandments because He wants us to be happy, and He knows that following His commandments is the best way to achieve happiness. Telling us, essentially, to "be happy," is right in line with the purpose of all of the other commandments. Yet, I think there's still a difference.

Most of the commandments come with a set of blessings and punishments. If you obey the commandment, you get blessings. If you break the commandment, you get punished (perhaps by the natural laws of the universe, in the same sense that getting your hand burned is the "punishment" for touching something very hot). Being of good cheer doesn't seem to fit this mold. There are no blessings attached to being happy besides, well, being happy. And the only downside of being miserable that I can think of is being miserable. The reason I hardly think of this as a commandment is that the only blessing or punishment that comes with being happy or not is that either you'll be happy or you won't. Keeping this commandment is its own reward, and breaking it is its own punishment.

But why should a commandment need an external set of barely-related punishments and rewards to be a proper commandment? Perhaps it's because I think of the commandments as a bunch of rules that God asks us to keep "because I said so" or because He'll bless or punish us depending on whether we listen or not. Since there's no punishment attached to not being of good cheer, it doesn't seem like a real commandment. But that's ridiculous. There are better reasons to keep commandments than because of blessings or punishments or because God said so, and you can bet that God has other reasons for giving us all those commandments besides giving Himself excuses to bless or punish us, or to just boss us around (though any excuse to bless His children is probably a good enough excuse for Him).

God's primary motivation is love. Because He loves us, He wants us to be happy. So He gives us a set of instructions that will lead us to happiness, and because our motivations are not always sufficient to get us to follow those instructions, He often bribes us with blessings and threatens us with punishments until we eventually do what He wants us to do, and find out that it has made us pretty happy.

With the commandment to be of good cheer, there are no blessings or punishments attached because this commandment really doesn't need them. It's almost a no-brainer. If you want to be happy, be happy. If you choose not to be happy, then you won't be happy. It's painfully simple, and I almost feel stupid for thinking that I have to explain it.

There is, however, one downside that is irremovable from breaking any commandment, even without any other punishments attached. The breaking of commandments is sin. God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. Sin makes us unclean. No unclean thing can dwell in the presence of God. If being of good cheer is a commandment, then being of poor cheer could keep us out of heaven.

In a way, that doesn't sound fair. Hearing that, even though you've kept all the other commandments, you still can't enter heaven because you're miserable, is enough to make a person terribly upset! On the flip-side, hearing that all you need to do to finish qualifying for heaven is to be happy is enough to bring a smile to anyone's face.

There may be another reason we have to be of good cheer to qualify for heaven. I don't know if this is doctrinally true or not, but I get the feeling that the people in heaven will bump into one another on occasion. And, whether it's confirmed in doctrine or not, I know that people's attitudes are contagious. If there was a miserable person moping around in heaven, it'd affect the happiness of everyone else up there. Then again, if one person in heaven has a bad day (assuming that a person can have a bad day in heaven), being surrounded by cheerful, optimistic people might lift their spirits. Being happy can help other people be happy. And the more people are happy, the happier people will be. (And now I feel stupid again.)

So, to achieve the maximum amount of happiness for the maximum amount of people, God has asked that each of us at least make an attempt to be happy at least some of the time, in hopes that our happiness will help make others, or at least ourselves, more happy, and there will just be more happiness in general. I've heard it said that "happiness is the object and design of our existence." If that's true, then being of good cheer isn't just something you can do to cheer yourself up; It may be the meaning of life.

I may be taking this idea a little bit too far here, so let me tone it down a bit. At the very least, being of good cheer is an invitation to be happy, and who wouldn't want to do that? Even if it's not the purpose of life or an essential characteristic of those who may enter heaven, it's still worth doing, just for the short-term effects. So, be of good cheer. It may or may not be a vital commandment, but it's certainly a good idea.

The Ongoing Restoration

Last night, in family scripture study, we started reading from the Doctrine and Covenants, having just finished the New Testament the previous night. What struck me most about last night's reading was how exciting it must have been for those early saints (the positive parts, anyway). There was new scripture, new revelations, newly restored Priesthood power, and a newly restored and reorganized church. It seemed to me that the church must have been more "alive" 200 years ago than it is now, but Mom pointed out that there's no reason why the church shouldn't be just as alive and exciting today as it was back then. We're still getting new scripture and new revelations. The Priesthood is just as powerful now as it was then, and the church is just as true now as it ever was. All the excitement I think I might have had at the time of the Restoration could be fully applied to the time we live in right now.

In his Priesthood Session talk, President Deiter F. Uchtdorf said:

Sometimes we think of the Restoration of the gospel as something that is complete, already behind us—Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, he received priesthood keys, the Church was organized. In reality, the Restoration is an ongoing process; we are living in it right now. It includes “all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal,” and the “many great and important things” that “He will yet reveal.”

Sometimes I think of the Restoration as an event of almost two centuries ago, as "old news," but in the grand scheme of things, 200 years isn't really very long. The Restoration is still "new news," and some people still haven't heard it yet, partly because we're frequently getting new stuff to hear. With fresh revelations that are directly relevant to our time period coming out every six months, it can be difficult to stay current with all the new revelations we receive, and I'm sure God will give us more teachings as quickly as we're ready to receive them.

Though we haven't added anything to our scriptural cannon in a while, and most of our new revelations seem just to be adding greater detail and emphasis to stuff we already knew, a lot of what this church teaches is relatively new, and there's no reason for it to be any less exciting as it was when we were first told about it. In addition, I'm sure there's at least some "new news" in our future, waiting for us, and the rest of the world, to be ready to hear it. God isn't done restoring and revealing everything He wants us to have, know, and do. I'd guess that there will continue to be more and greater revelations up to beyond what we might call the end of the world. The Restoration isn't an exciting thing that happened 200 years ago. It's an exciting thing that's happening right now.

We're On An Adventure!!

When Elan the Bard and his follow adventurers were arrested by Miko the Paladin and were to be taken to Azure City to answer the charge of "weakening the fabric of the universe" (of which they were guilty, by the way), he tried to convince Haley the Rogue to go along with it (rather than disappearing into the night) because, and I quote "It'll be an adventure!" Haley responded by saying, "Elan, we're adventurers. Technically, anything we EVER DO officially counts as an 'adventure.'" Elan ponders this for a moment and is later seen half-covered in grape jam, doing a handstand with a lantern hanging from one foot and a squirrel sitting on the other, playing paddleball with his free hand while a roller skate dangles in front of his face, hanging from a stick tied to the top of his head, excitedly declaring, "I'm on an adventure!!"

While Elan's wisdom and intelligence are questionable, I love his optimism. No matter what happens in our lives, whether good or bed, it'll certainly be an adventure. I had such an adventure the other night, when I spent two hours searching for a camp site that I must have biked right passed at least twice. At first, I was excited about the adventure I was on, hauling a cart full of camping gear to a site I was sure I'd find easily. When the campsite proved more difficult to find than I had anticipated, my excitement lessened, but I still must admit that it was an experience, an adventure, that I am glad to have had.

I had some desire to apply such optimism and enthusiasm to my experiences of yesterday. Not much happened - just a bunch of meetings and assignments - and I was feeling pretty down when I thought about how much I was expected to do and how little energy I had left after my previous adventure. I just basically wasn't having any fun. But I knew that was my choice. I could still make it sort of fun. Rather than seeing my assignments as work, I could choose to see them as a challenge. Rather than seeing them as responsibilities, I could see them as opportunities. Rather than seeing life as a lot of work, which I admit that it is, I could see it as an adventure, which it also is.

God gave us this life so we could have experiences. With all the ups and downs in life, some of the experiences are positive and exciting, while some of them are negative and discouraging. But when this life is over, we're going to look back at it with the same perspective that a hiker has when he reaches the top of a mountain and looks back at the trail he just climbed. Some stretches of the trail were rough, and some of them were easier. Sometimes, you had a great view, and sometimes, all you could see is the steep climb ahead of you. In some moments, the adventure was exciting. In other moments, climbing the mountain seemed like more trouble than it was worth. But in the end, it's an experience, and you can choose whether to see it in a positive light or a negative one.

And if you need a little help seeing negative experiences in a positive light, consider this: before this weekend, I didn't think I could bike for five hours straight (taking 5-10 minute breaks every now and again, drinking plenty of water and eating trail mix to keep my energy up) while hauling a heavy load up and down hills and back and forth across bridges, but I did it. Either I had that power already within me, or I gained that power through the experience, but either way, by the end of the day, I had shown to have more power than I had thought I had the day before. I don't know whether the experience brought out some hidden strength that I already had, or whether it gave me more strength than I had had before. Probably both. But now I have that strength, and I know that I have it, and if we can apply that to the other challenges of life, who knows what kind of potential we can unlock?

The great thing about adventurers in some stories and most role-playing games is that they grow stronger and more skilled through the challenges they face, and the same is true for us. As we face difficult challenges, we gain or unlock power, skills, and abilities that we didn't have before, or at least didn't know we had. The harder our challenges are, the more we grow. In that sense, the tougher our obstacles are, the better they'll be for us in the long run. I still feel kind of tired from biking so far and sleeping on the ground that weekend, but my arms and legs have never felt stronger. While a certain stretch of that adventure was more of a challenge than I'd have liked it to have been, it was still a good experience, and I'm glad I had it.

There will probably be a few more "adventures" in my future - some more challenging than others - but I'm going to try to face them with a positive perspective and focus on how much they're helping me grow, and what great stories (and blog posts) they'll be when I get through them. So the next time a challenge hits me, I'm going to remind myself that "I'm on an adventure!!" and I'll try to make it a good one. We're all on an adventure of sorts, and it is, quite literally, the adventure of a lifetime. And that's worth getting excited about.

How to Get a Free Haircut

On Friday morning, I found myself in a barber shop, but I wasn't there to get a haircut. I didn't really need one. I was just waiting for someone else. While I was waiting, I couldn't help noticing that there was a mini freezer sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, thawing, and leaking water all over the floor. Several of the barbers we're cleaning the last few bits of ice and water out of the freezer and mopping the water off of the floor with rags. Because I had nothing better to do (and after a moment's hesitation because of how awkward it might be), I volunteered to help.

At first, the haircutters said I really didn't need to help, but I insisted. I helped them mop up the water, put the freshly thawed freezer back into its place, and finish drying the floor. When the work was done, the barbers offered to show their gratitude for my help by giving me a free haircut. I turned them down at first, but they insisted, and in the end, I got a nice trim. I offered them a small amount of money, but they refused it, so I offered them a smaller amount of money and insisted that they take it. Then we parted ways, each thinking that the other had done more for us than we had done for them.

Offering service and being kind is good for everyone. It was good for me because I felt good inside (the free trim was just an extra bonus). It was good for the barbers because they had help with a semi-challenging task, and then made and took an opportunity to show their thanks. I showed a small amount of thanks for their showing of thanks, and we each left thinking that we hadn't thanked the other enough. This is why I love service - not because I got a free haircut, but because it makes people happy. I was happy to serve and they were glad for the help. I was glad to get a good trim, and they were happy to give it to me. We each did service for the other, and everybody's happiness improved as a result. It was probably the best experience I had that day, and definitely at least the second best.

The title of this blog post is a little misleading because you shouldn't give service expecting some gift or favor in return. That's not how it works. Service only provides the happiness I love it for if it is given out of the goodness of one's heart. My service was genuine because I wasn't expecting anything in return for helping with the freezer, and their service was genuine because they weren't expecting any payment for the haircut (and, honestly, the amount of money I made them take wasn't even enough to be a half-decent tip for a haircut. I should have given them more). Since we each did what we did just to be nice, those acts of service had the miraculous results of lifting our hearts and getting our days off to a good start.

The Right Guide

Today has been a full day, but yesterday was even better. There are at least two things I could blog about concerning yesterday, one of which you might know about from following my Mom on Facebook, and the other, I haven't told anyone yet. Decisions, decisions.

I left the house at 4pm, planning to arrive at the campsite at 6. Realistically, carrying a heavy load of camping equipment, I probably should have expected to arrive at about 7. I don't know what time it was when I got close to my destination the first time. Having felt that I should have seen some signs by now, I asked someone for directions, and was told that my destination was across the river and back down the way I came a ways. So, I made my way to a bridge to cross to the other side of the river, unknowingly biking right by our camp site. I went back the way the man had told me quite a long way,  all the while asking for directions, and no one could agree on what side of the river my destination was. By this time, the sun was beginning to set - about 7:30 or so. Eventually, I ended up at a point where I KNEW I was going the wrong way, so I pulled over, checked my maps (I kind of knew I was off the edge of my usual maps, but I checked anyway), and once again asked for directions. This time, I was told that the campsite was pretty much directly under a massive bridge - the bridge the first guy had told me to cross. Feeling foolish for having backtracked so far, I turned back toward the bridge (stopping to put my bike lights on, as the sun had set at this point, 8pm, or a little afterward) only to find that the camp site was not under this bridge.

Feeling very tired, very frustrated, and hopelessly lost, I began to vent my feelings to Joe in a text message (he had texted me about something, and I responded by confessing that I was terribly lost). I crossed the bridge again, mostly just because I didn't want to stop moving. I was pretty sure I was close to the camp site, and I needed to keep looking for it. As I crossed the bridge, I saw on the north side of the river a parking lot filled with cars, and I thought that that might be where I needed to go, so I made my way toward it and found a parking lot that was nearly completely empty. Thinking that I was too close to the bridge to be at the parking lot I had seen from it, I began to bike away from the bridge, and, as it turned out, directly away from the camp site I was looking for.

I probably would have gone on being lost for at least another hour if not that, just then, I was passed by a pick up truck that was headed the other direction, and I happened to notice that the truck was being driven by my bishop. I shouted out to him, turned my bike around, and he led me to the camp site. I arrived at my destination three hours after I thought I would, two hours after I could reasonably have expected to have, and five hours after leaving home. According to Google Maps, I biked about 32 miles - a distance they claim that an unburdened cyclist in excellent physical condition could travel in only about three hours.

So, what's the moral of the story? I took directions from I guy who didn't know what he was talking about, or at least didn't know that I was within 50 yards of where I was trying to go, and I went on a wild goose chase that took me at least two hours, exhausted me, caused my Mom and my brother to worry sick about me, and kept me from reaching the destination that I had practically already reached until after dark. When I finally got back to where I had started, I was lucky enough (or rather, blessed enough) to run into my bishop. I followed him and got where I wanted to go within five minutes.

In life, there are lots of people who think they know the best way to get to where you're trying to go, and if you follow the wrong people, you could end up biking around in circles for two hours. It's not that the people who mislead us are always bad people. The man who misled me was a very kind (but very wrong) person who gave me directions that he thought would get me where I wanted to go. Perhaps, in life, the people who get us lost are people who are lost themselves, and perhaps just haven't realized it yet. I hope he knew where HE was going, at least.

In contrast, when we follow the right people, such as the Prophet, the Apostles, and others who are inspired by the Spirit, we can find the peace and direction we're looking for that we won't find anywhere else. It'll probably still take more than five minutes to get where you're going, but you'll get there infinitely faster by following the prophets than you will by following those other guys, and some of the blessings of following the prophets, such as peace, can be felt right away. I knew, when I was following my bishop, that I wasn't lost anymore. I knew that he knew where we were going, and that I was finally going the right way. I didn't care if it took me another 30 minutes to get to the camp site. I was just glad that I knew I was going to get there, because I knew I was following the right guide.

I'm probably preaching to the choir here, since most of my audience is already LDS, but I think we could each stand to reflect on what we do on a daily and weekly basis, and ask ourselves whether it's bringing us closer to the Celestial Kingdom, whether it's taking us farther away, or whether it's causing us to just bike around in huge, two hour circles. Only by consistently following true prophets can we make real progress toward our eternal goals, whereas following others might lead us terribly far off track.

I Love That Clean Feeling

Yesterday, I did a lot of biking. I got home just before bedtime tired and sweaty, feeling sticky and gross. Then I took a shower. It felt so good to be clean again, and I was able to sleep comfortably through the night.

Repentance feels good too. To have our consciences wiped clean and to feel pure and worthy to stand before the Lord is probably the greatest feeling in the world. In life, we get dirty sometimes. We make bad choices and mistakes. We get sweaty and gross (especially when it's 100 degrees outside and your main form of transportation is biking). Through frequent repentance, we can wash away the sins of the day and go to bed feeling clean.

God knows that we're all human. He knows that we'll all keep making mistakes. And though He asks us to try to avoid sin as much as we can, He knows that we'll fall short of perfection on a daily basis. He asks that we keep trying, and promises that as long as we're trying to improve, He'll remain patient with us and He'll forgive our sins as often as we ask Him too.

I'm very grateful for God's love and patience. I'm grateful for the blessings we have of being about the repent and bathe frequently. I'm grateful for that feeling I get when I become fresh and clean again, physically or spiritually.

From tonight to tomorrow morning, I'll be camping. (Tomorrow's blog post will be late, by the way.) I'll probably get dirty. I'll definitely get sweaty. And I fully intend on taking another shower when I get home. I'm pretty sure Mom expects me to take showers as frequently as I need to, just as God expects me to repent as often as I need to. And I know that I feel a whole lot better when I do.

Plug In to the Source of Power

In his talk, The Choice Generation, Elder Randall L. Ridd created a link between spirituality and the use of cell phones. Of course, he wasn't the first one to do this. There's an image floating around Facebook that asks the questions:

What if we began to treat our Bibles the way we treat our cell phones?
What if we...
...carried it with us everywhere?
...turned back to get it if we forgot it?
...checked it for messages throughout the day?
...used it in case of emergency?
...spent on hour or more using it each day?

While I think that last one is a bit extreme, I think the rest of those ideas are fairly reasonable, especially since many of us have phones that can hold the words of the scriptures on them. Elder Ridd took this idea a step further when he related plugging our cell phones in to keep them charged to "plugging in" to the source of spiritual power through prayer and scripture study to keep ourselves spiritually charged.

Right in the palm of your hand you have the wisdom of the ages—more importantly, the words of the prophets, from Old Testament days to President Thomas S. Monson. But if you don’t regularly recharge your cell phone, it is useless, and you feel lost and out of touch. You wouldn’t think of going a single day without charging your battery. 

As important as it is to leave home every day with a full charge on your cell phone, it is far more important to be fully charged spiritually. Every time you plug in your phone, use it as a reminder to ask yourself if you have plugged in to the most important source of spiritual power—prayer and scripture study, which will charge you with inspiration through the Holy Ghost. It will help you know the mind and will of the Lord to make the small but important daily choices that determine your direction. Many of us immediately stop whatever we are doing to read a text message—should we not place even more importance on messages from the Lord? Neglecting to connect to this power should be unthinkable to us.

 I don't often go far without my cell phone. It's my calendar, my calculator, my timepiece, and the way I keep in touch with everyone else, especially while I'm on the go. With my cell phone in my pocket, I'm not afraid to bike long distances, because I know I can call for help if I need to.

While we're here on Earth, we've gone an awfully long distance from God, physically, and sometimes spiritually. We can talk to God through prayer, and He can talk to us through the scriptures, but only if we read them. As with charging our cell phones, it takes a bit of time to keep the channel of communication open, and we have to put in the effort every day in order to keep ourselves fully charged. But as Elder Ridd said, "It will help you know the mind and will of the Lord to make the small but important daily choices that determine your direction." When we're spiritually charged, God can send us "instant messages" to give us counsel and guidance and to warn us of danger. These messages can give us vital assistance as we face the trials and temptations of mortality. It's a good idea to put in the effort to keep our spirits fully charged and frequently check for messages from God.

Same Team

Just a little disclaimer - I'm pretty sure what I'm about to post is going to clash horribly with the style and colors of this blog.

Yep. That looks terrible. Seriously, that is an abysmal shade of orange.

But the message is okay. Last Saturday, I played a game where all of the players were on the same team, trying to accomplish the same basic goal. There were times when one player was more helpful than another, and other times when the reverse was true, but we didn't really worry about that. The individual scores didn't matter. We were all working together and, together, we did pretty well.

Contrast that to professional sports. Yes, everyone on a given team is on the same team, but in professional sports, the individual points matter a good deal. The stats of the individual player help that player push for better contracts, land themselves on better teams, and thus make more money. To illustrate, I'm going to prove that I know absolutely nothing about sports.

Let's say that Kobe Bryant and Jamal Johnson both play on the same basketball team, the Oakland Dodgers. Their affiliated team, the Miami Heat, is looking to take on another player - just one. It's a valuable contract, and it'd be a big career step for either Kobe Bryant or Jamal Johnson. All of their stats are tied right now, and there's only one game left before the Heat have to decide who to offer the contract too, Kobe or Jamal.

Kobe has the ball. He tries to make his way to the hoop, but there are too many defenders in the way. He sees that Jamal is open and has a clear shot at the hoop. Right now, Kobe could pass the ball to Jamal, Jamal would score the game winning points, and the - what did I call them? - Oakland Dodgers would win the game. BUT! That would mean that Jamal's individual points would go up rather than Kobe's, and he would probably get the Heat contract. Alternatively, Kobe could try to make a shot from where he was. Odds are, he'd miss, and his team would lose the game, but if he managed to score, then not only would his team win, but more importantly, his individual score would go up and he would likely go on to play for the Miami Heat.

This kind of competition within teams can lead to teams working less effectively. Apply that scenario to a family, or to the workplace, and you're going to have the same problems. As long as people are more concerned with how they're doing as individuals (compared to other individuals in their group) than how their team is doing collectively, there's going to be friction in the group, causing the team to not work so well together, which will be bad for everyone on it.

We need to understand that we're all on the same team here. We're all trying to have a happy family, or to sell a lot of vacuum cleaners (or whatever your company does), or take the Oakland Dodgers to the Playoffs. It doesn't matter who scores more points, who sells more vacuums, or who adds more to the general happiness of the family. As long as the team wins, the whole team wins, and that includes everyone on it. Everyone on the winning team is a winner, no matter who scored the winning points. So we don't need to get compete against each other; we need to help each other. We need to pass the ball to each other, build each other up, and teach each other better vacuum cleaner selling techniques. The better we work together, the better our team will do, and that'll be better for everyone, including ourselves.

The Choice Generation

Right in the middle of the Priesthood Session of Conference, Elder Randall L. Ridd gave a terrific talk about technology and how we choose to use it. He said that "with the click of a button, you can access whatever your heart desires. That’s the key—what does your heart desire? What do you gravitate toward? Where will your desires lead?"

In the age of the internet, we can access nearly any information or entertainment we want. You can pick from dozens of news sites to get up-to-date information and social and political commentary. Online dictionaries and encyclopedias give free access to information on any subject you could want to study. On youtube alone, your options are virtually limitless. There are funny animal clips, science videos, how-to videos, Let's-Play videos, music videos by both professional and amateur artists, and even some TV show episodes. I recently watched a youtube video of a man "carving" pumpkins with a machete (by chopping them to pieces). On the internet, you can find almost anything you want. So what do you want?

That's a question you need to answer for yourself, because if you don't answer it, the world, and more especially Satan, will try to answer that question for you. For all of the good things there are on the internet, there are also a lot of bad things, including things that have some positive aspects, but that take up too much of our time.

There is more to life, and this message, than the internet. The internet is a great vehicle for delivering us whatever we want to read or watch, but there are other things we spend our time on. There are things that we buy and things that we do. I think Elder Ridd was on the right track when he said that "never before in history have individuals been blessed with so many choices." If you want a fresh banana, you can go to the store and get yourself a fresh banana. That's not an option many people had one or two centuries ago. Many people today still don't have that option. We are very richly blessed.

But with those blessings come responsibilities - namely the responsibility to make good choices. Elder Ridd asked us to consider where our desires will lead us. "Remember that God 'granteth unto men according to their desire' and that He 'will judge all men according to their works, according to the desire of their hearts.' " God has given us the ability to get virtually whatever we want, but we will be held accountable for what we do with our many choices. 

More choices mean more opportunities; more opportunities mean more potential to do good and, unfortunately, evil. I believe that God sent you here at this time because He trusts you to successfully discern among the mind-boggling choices available.

It's a lot of responsibility. A lot of trust. We must frequently evaluate ourselves to make sure that we remain worthy of that trust and that we use our time, our talents, and our blessings, including the internet, wisely. There is a lot at stake here, including each of our own souls. Let us be careful to make sure that we are making wise choices, as we certainly have many choices to make and many options from which to choose.

An Inch Underground

Carrying on with the two-day-old theme of things we don't notice, yesterday, Mom, Joe and I set out to find a cleanout pipe we could use to clear out a block in our sewer line. They had searched the grounds extensively the day before, but found nothing. Now, armed with a borrowed metal detector, we searched again, and found a cleanout pipe buried only one or two inches underground.

Though the pipe was so close to the surface that it took hardly any digging to find it, it was completely undetectable without the metal detector's help. So it probably is with a great many things. Perhaps the insight that we need to answer our life's most pressing question is in the scriptures, right under our noses, waiting for us to read the right verse. Maybe the spiritual strength and wisdom we need to overcome the trials in our lives are already within us, and we just need a small dose of adversity to bring that power to the surface. Whatever you're looking for in your life, it may sometimes feel like it's hopelessly beyond your reach, but maybe it's right at your fingertips, if you know where to look.

I don't want to pin this analogy down with anything too specific, but I'd bet that whatever it is you feel you're missing, God can help you find it, and it may not be as inaccessible as it feels. There are a few things I've been working on, and it often feels like what I want must be buried miles underground, but it could be that it's just an inch or two beneath the surface, and all I need to do is borrow a metal detector and find out where it is.

The metal detector in this analogy might be the scriptures, a Conference talk (which I should really get back to pretty soon), your Patriarchal Blessing, or any other form of guidance or inspiration from God. Divine inspiration can come from many sources and it can help us with any kind of problem we face, even the problems that seem to be unsolvable. We may not be able to find the solutions to our problems on our own, but God knows all the answers, and with His help, we can find them. We might be surprised to learn how close to the surface the solutions to our problems really are.

Update: The crummy thing is that the pipe we found wasn't the one that we needed after all, and the plumbing problem we have is going to require a costly procedure to solve. I don't know who thought it was a good idea to make sewer lines out of tar-coated paper or to plant an orange tree directly above that line, but whoever they were I think they were mistaken. The good news is that our leaky sewer line has fed and watered our orange trees for decades, which might explain why our orange trees are so huge and why their oranges taste so good. There's probably an analogy in there somewhere, too, but I'll save that for another day.

I wonder if it would be possible/a good idea to drill small holes into the new pipe so we could keep watering and fertilizing our orange trees every time we use the restroom. Then again, that sounds like it might be exactly the same kind of "good idea" that the other guy had when he planted these orange trees in the first place. I think I'd better get a second opinion before I search our garage for a power drill.

No Blog Post on Mother's Day Morning

Almost forgot to blog today. Spent my morning washing dishes and making orange juice for Mom. Good use of a Mother's Day morning, but it didn't leave any time for blogging. Sorry everyone.

Maybe I'll blog this afternoon, after church. I should have time then.

The Sourdough Sandwich Experience

Yesterday, I ate a sandwich that someone else had made for me. It was a really good sandwich - peanut butter and honey - one of my favorites. But there was something different about this sandwich, though I didn't notice anything odd about it until I was half way into the sandwich. It was made using sourdough bread.

Peanut butter and honey on sourdough sounds like a strange combination, but it actually tasted pretty normal. With the sweetness of the honey overpowering the sourness of the bread, I didn't even notice that the bread was sourdough until after I had taken several bites. (By the way, the person who had made the sandwich wasn't trying to pull a prank on me. It was the only kind of bread they had.)

Thinking about the sandwich and how long it took me to realize it was made with sourdough, I thought of a few spiritual applications we could take from my experience.

1) Perspective Influences Your Experience.

As I started eating the sandwich, I already knew that the sandwich was peanut butter and honey, one of my favorites. As I took my first few bites, I was expecting to taste honey and peanut butter, and I did, and it tasted great. When I realized that the sandwich was made with sourdough bread, and that I hadn't noticed it before, I tasted the sandwich carefully, trying to notice the sourdough bread, and that time, I did, and it tasted kind of weird.

I think it's true that people with positive attitudes see more good in the world than those with negative attitudes. If you look for the good in the world, you'll see it. If you look for the bad, ditto. Whether I was expecting to taste peanut butter and honey or sourdough bread, that was the part of the sandwich that stood out to me, and it affected the way I thought the sandwich itself tasted. The sandwich itself hadn't changed, but my perspective and expectations had.

Practical application: Look for the good in the world. Keep a positive attitude, and your view of life will improve. Your life may not change at all, but the aspects of your life that stand out most to you might.

2) Satan Will Often "Sweeten the Deal."

I normally don't like sourdough bread. It tastes funny to me, so under normal circumstances, I don't consider myself likely to eat a sourdough sandwich. But when I ate that sandwich yesterday, I didn't notice the sourdough bread at first, because the sweet taste of the honey distracted me from the strange taste of the sourdough.

Satan often "sweetens" temptations so we won't see them for what they are. He makes temptations seem harmless and desirable, so we sometimes partake of them without even realizing that we're being tempted, and sometimes, even when we know that what we're doing is against God's commandments, we justify it by saying, "It isn't really that bad. When you think about the honey, you hardly notice the sourdough at all." That's how he gets us sometimes - by offering us something we want badly enough that we're willing to accept a "barely noticeable" amount of sin to get it.

Practical application: Pay attention to what you're doing. If any part of it feels wrong, it probably is. Make sure that you only do things that are 100% approved by God. Of course, that's much easier said than done, and we often end up partaking of small amounts of sin by mistake. When that happens, our job is to realize our mistake and start repenting as soon as possible, then to find out how we were fooled  in the first place so we can avoid being fooled in the future.

3) God Does the Same Thing.

Just as the fact that I didn't notice the sourness of the bread because of the sweetness of the honey could be applied to not noticing the bitterness of a sin because of the sweetness of the temptation, the same principle could be applied to living the gospel. There are some occasional difficulties to keeping the commandments. There are parties we can't go to, movies we can't watch, beverages we can't drink, and other things that it might be fun to do, but we know we can't, or at least shouldn't. At the same time, we're also asked to do some things that we may not want to do, such as giving service, teaching lessons and giving talks in church, and fulfilling other church callings. These things can seem bitter (or perhaps sour), but they yield the sweet blessings of the gospel.

The practical application to this principle is much the same as the first: Focus on the good. While it may not be fun or convenient to give service, the blessings you receive make the experience worth it in the same way that the sourdough bread certainly wouldn't have tasted good on its own, but with the honey, it actually tasted pretty good. If we focus on feeling the spirit and developing Christ-like love as we serve in the gospel, any sourness we experience in the process will be "swallowed up in the joy of Christ" (Alma 31: 38).

There is some good and bad in almost everything. Sometimes we have to endure the bad to enjoy the good, and sometimes we have to see through the good to avoid the bad. As always, it's best to have heaven's guidance as we choose what to partake of and what to focus on. For example, I could have focussed on the unique culinary experience and seen it as a gateway to trying new and different foods and food combinations, but instead, I reflected on the potential spiritual meanings that could be found in a peanut butter, honey, and sourdough sandwich, and I ended up with at few spiritual principles that may bless my life and will hopefully also bless yours.

I wonder what other good, valuable, spiritual lessons may be hiding in seemingly ordinary items and experiences. Since starting this blog, I've developed a "taste" for those kinds of lessons, and I've been picking up on them much more frequently. I'm coming to learn that it's true that "all things bear record of [Christ]" (Moses 6: 63), even something as simple or as strange as a peanut butter, honey, and sourdough sandwich.

From "Just The Way I Am" to "Even As I Am"

I've skipped over a few General Conference talks already, but I really want to skip over another one. It's not that Elder Dalin H. Oaks' talk, The Keys and Authority of the Priesthood isn't blogworthy. It really is! It's just that I'm not sure I understand it and I'm not sure what to say about it. And the talk after it, Elder Donald L Hallstrom's What Manner of Men? looks very interesting and much, much easier to blog about. I guess there's a difference between blogworthiness and blogability, so something can be very blogworthy while not being very blogable. Elder Hallstrom's talk looks like it's both.

In his talk, he talked about our ability and need to change our characters to better match the character of Jesus Christ. He spoke of a conversation with a man who had a vice and concluded "That's just the way I am."

Once this man decided—once any of us conclude—“That’s just the way I am,” we give up our ability to change. We might as well raise the white flag, put down our weapons, concede the battle, and just surrender—any prospect of winning is lost. ...

Well, we meet in this priesthood meeting because who we are is not who we can become. We meet here tonight in the name of Jesus Christ. We meet with the confidence that His Atonement gives every one of us—no matter our weaknesses, our frailties, our addictions—the ability to change. We meet with the hope that our future, no matter our history, can be better.

I know God has the ability to help us change our hearts, but I'm not sure how fully I've extended that belief so that it includes His ability to help us change our natures. Right now,  I have a host of flaws and vices I'd love to be rid of, and that's just the way I am, but in the future, I know I can be rid of those vices. I can become more like Jesus Christ.

Elder Hallstrom said "who we are is not who we can become," and I believe that. I know that I can become better than I am now. When that happens, I'll be able to say "I am free from the sins of my past. I am a righteous, virtuous, and wholly good son of God, and that's just the way I am." Many points of my very nature will have changed.

We all struggle with various vices. Some of us have struggled with ours for a long time. Some of us may have come to believe that those vices are irremovable aspects of our natures - that "that's just the way I am," - but God knows better. He can change us. He can give us the power to change ourselves. With His help, we can remove any aspects of our natures that we'd be better off without, and add Christ-like attributes to our hearts until being righteous, Christian people is "just the way we are," even as He is.

Discipline VS Get-It-Now Temptations

I'm having trouble thinking of how to blog about the next Conference talk, and I want to get to school early today so I can take care of some stuff before class. As a result, I decided to just pull something off of Facebook again.

Some of Satan's most convincing temptations involve giving us something we want right then. Smokers and drinkers consume such products to gain quick relief from stress, and ironically add to the stress in their life in the process. When we're fasting, we're tempted to break our fast early to immediately satisfy our hunger rather than waiting to fully fulfill the purpose of our fast. And through peer pressure, young people are tempted to do exceptionally foolish things to gain instant popularity or romance or even just attention. People don't like having to wait for things or do without things they want, and Satan plays on that part of the human condition by offering us things that we want in the moment.

God, however, teaches us patience. Of all the blessings He promises us, the best of them only come long after we've qualified for them. Blessings like eternal families and eternal life have their roots in mortality (that is, we have to work for them here and now), but their richest blessings are only realized long after this life is over.

One aspect of the temptation to get what we want right now is that we don't really know what the future holds. We take it on faith that if we live righteously, the afterlife will be better for us than if we don't. Actually, we take it on faith that there even is an afterlife at all, and many of the people who live for the moment claim that there isn't one. They live for the moment because this moment is all we really have. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die," and that'll be the end of it. We know that this world is real because we're experiencing it. The next world isn't as readily apparent.

Yet, for those of us who believe, the next world can seem real enough to look forward to (or fear, for us sinners), and most of all, to prepare for. Earth life has lots of get-it-now temptations that can prevent us from reaching the point where we get something even better later on. Eternal life and eternal families depend on living righteously while we're still living. While other people are "enjoying life" and "having fun," we have to maintain higher standards. It's often not what we feel like doing in the moment of temptation, but we know that it's worth it to resist temptations and choose the more (but later) rewarding path. Discipline is the ability to choose what you'll want later over what you want now, and it's the hallmark of a disciple of Christ.

To Help Us Become Like Him

Now that I've gotten passed the distractions of feminism on Facebook and grounding rods with Dad, here's what I originally planned on blogging about concerning the primary song I shared two days ago (and will share again right now in case it's too inconvenient for you to go back to the blog post of two days ago to listen to it again).





I especially love the refrain, "God gave us families to help us become what He wants us to be." In families, we can learn to develop Christlike attributes, like patience, love, service, and wisdom. Also, as we become better children for our parents and better parents for our kids, we learn ways to become better children of our Heavenly Father, and parents learn skills that'll make them better Heavenly Parents as well. Families seem to be all about education for eternity. Our interactions with our kids and parents help us understand God's interactions with us.

God ultimately wants us to become like He is, but that can be a difficult concept for a lot of people because we're not too sure what God is like. Very few people have ever seen Him, and of those, even fewer are alive on the Earth today. The scriptures show Him both as a merciless god of justice and a freely-forgiving god of mercy. Our own attempts to describe Him don't make understanding Him any easier, claiming that He's large enough to fill the expanse of the universe, but also small enough to dwell within our hearts. The best way to describe Him, not surprisingly, comes from the title He chose for Himself: Father.

We may not see God very often (though some of us have conversations with Him on a frequent basis), so it's sometimes hard to understand who He is and what He's like, but we frequently see other fathers - some of us even become fathers or mothers - so we can begin to understand His love for us, how His love interacts with His justice and mercy, how He feels when we do things that are right or wrong, and other aspects of His character that stem out of His paternal love for us.

As our Father, God loves us and wants what's best for us. He also wants us to grow to become more like Him. Sometimes, He comforts us (fathers can be tender at times), and sometimes, He has to correct us (which is usually the father's job). Just about all that God ever does, He does out of His love for us and His desire to watch us grow, and those two things are better understood when we understand His relationship to us as our Father.

It's hard for me to convey the feelings I had as I heard this song in Primary last Sunday. Mostly, I felt my Father's love for me and His desire for me to grow into just as strong and good of a man as He is. Thinking about how perfect He is and how imperfect I am, I see that I have a long way to go, but that's the feeling any young boy has when he looks up to his father as the ideal man. It's true that I have a lot of learning and growing to do, but God knows that the potential is in me, and that, in time, I can become like Him - a feat which seems impossible to me now.

And I know that the feelings He has for me are the same feelings that He has for everyone. We are all His children, and He wants each one of us to become more like Him, and since we can understand that "like Him" roughly means "like an ideal parent," it gives us a better understanding of what kinds of attributes and traits we should try to develop, and in our own families is the perfect place to develop those traits. I'm going to try to be a good child to my Heavenly Father by trying to be a good child to my parents, and I'm going to try to be like my Heavenly Father when I become a father myself. It's not going to be easy, no worthwhile endeavor ever is, but it's something I can shoot for, and since I can understand this goal, I'm more likely to achieve it.

The Grounding Rod

Yesterday, Dad and I went to Home Depot to get a grounding rod. We were going to use it to ground some wires that needed to be grounded in order to comply with some city code or some company's policy. Honestly, I wasn't sure why we had to drive the rod into the ground, but Dad seemed to know what he was doing, so I didn't question it.

I started hammering the rod in, which wasn't too difficult since the ground was pretty soft, but after a few feet, the rod wouldn't go any deeper. We thought maybe we had hit a pipe, so we moved the rod and tried again. It got stuck again, at about the same level. Trying a third spot, we decided that we had probably hit hardpan, which Dad said meant that there was a layer of clay to get through, so I kept hammering at the rod (making absolutely no progress) while Dad went inside to find out whether we were actually doing this right.

We weren't. It turns out that you can't just hammer in your own grounding rod. The city, or some professional-type people, have to do it. So instead, we're going to run a wire from one side of the house to the other to connect the grounding rod we already have to the wire that needs to be grounded. In the meantime, the grounding rod we got at the Home Depot was useless to us, so I tried to pull it out.

It wouldn't budge. The same difficulty that I had trying to get it to go any deeper also prevented me from pulling the rod back out. I tried jiggling it. We tried getting the ground wet. I put all of my strength into pulling the rod back up, but it just wouldn't move.

So now Dad has a grounding rod stuck fast in his yard, which we never really needed in the first place.

The moral of the story is to make sure you know what you're doing before you do anything stupid, or at least make sure the person you're listening to actually knows what they're talking about. There are lots of people that give advice, and some of them have their own TV or radio shows, like Dr Phil, Dr Oz, or Dr Laura, but just because they're popular and widely-believed, that doesn't mean that they actually know what's best.

My dad knows a good deal about electricity. At least, he knows a lot more about it than I do. So I was pretty sure he knew what he was talking about when he said we needed to drive a grounding rod into the ground - but he didn't. I followed his lead because I figured that he knew what we were doing, but we were both wrong, and it ended up costing us the better part of a day and a lot of frustration. So try to make sure that the people whose counsel you take are actually dispensing good counsel.

In our church, we listen to our teachers and our Bishops, our Apostles, and our Prophets, and almost all of them are inspired people giving heaven-sent advice, but we don't have to take their word for it, as I had taken Dad's word about the grounding rod. We can (and should) go directly to the Source. In our church, we're encouraged to not just take our leaders' word that what they're saying is true. We're encouraged to pray about it and ask God if it's true.

I'm often guilty of not doing that. I follow my leaders' and my own advice often without stopping to ask God if that's really what I should be doing. I followed my dad's directions yesterday without questioning them, and all we have to show for it is a metal stick stuck deep in some mud. I want to get more than that out of my eternal progression, so maybe I ought to take a moment every once in a while and make sure I'm actually headed where God wants me to go.

I trust the Prophets and Apostles. I trust my Bishop. I trust the teachers in my ward. They all seem like wise, intelligent people. Then again, I trusted my dad, too. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to ask God if the advice we're getting is actually good advice, just to double-check. It might save us the trouble of trying to pull a rod out later on.

Feminism and the Family

So, feminism is on my mind right now, partly because of a mini-rant I had on Facebook just now, and partly because of the song I was planning on blogging about this morning and because of one individual's opinion of that song. This is the song that I mentioned.




When I listen to this song, I tear up a little bit because it teaches me how love in families is a reflection of God's love, and how our roles in families help us understand and fill our roles in Heavenly Father's family. I'd like to blog more about that later, by the way. It's beautiful. Yet, as strange as it seems to me, some people don't like this song because it too simplistically states the gender-based stereotypes of the roles of fathers and mothers in families.

I want those people to understand that this is just the ideal. I know this isn't how it works for many families, and all God asks of us is to do the best we can with what we have. For example, my Dad never took the lead in family prayer, as he probably should have, so my Mom stepped up to the plate and made sure we had family prayer and scripture study every day. She still does. It may not be the way an ideal family should work, but it works. And how often does anyone or anything live up to the "ideal" anyway? Seriously, just do whatever works best for you and your family.

That said, this is the ideal. God knows what's best for His children, and through His servants, He has stated that:

By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners.

While He admits that "disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation," He also tells us that "happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ." That is, if we follow His teachings, including what He taught about the roles of parents in families, we're more likely to have happiness in our families than if we don't. (These quotes were taken from The Family: A Proclamation to the World.)

The roles of men and women are different. Men and women were meant, "by divine design," to do different things. Men were made to be bread-winners and women were made to be home-makers, and the only reason why anyone would be offended by that - actually, the only two reasons, as I've just remembered another one - are if one job was seen as more important than the other, or if we want to make it clear that there are some people and circumstances that break the mold.

Without repeating my mini-rant, I want to make it clear that, in my mind, neither men's jobs nor women's jobs are more important than the other. The work men do in society isn't any more valuable than the work women do in it, or vice versa. They're both pretty much vital. Asking whether it's more important to breathe air or to drink water is silly, because if you neglect either of them, you're dead, no matter which one you thought you could live without. Sure, you might die faster if you stop breathing than if you stop drinking, but it's only a matter of time either way. It's the same thing with families. We need bread-winners and we need home-makers. You won't find a good family that doesn't have both of them. Both fathers and mothers are important.

About the mold-breakers, I think I've said before that all people have some masculine traits and some feminine traits. Granted that men tend to have more masculine traits and women tend to have more feminine traits (which is how we came to identify those traits as being masculine or feminine), but we each have at least a little bit of both. Women can be bread-winners and men can be home-makers. It's been done before and there's nothing wrong with it. Versatility is great, and some situations require a little bit of versatility and mold-breaking.

I'm just thinking that if a person has a choice between acting in a traditional role for their gender or defying gender stereotypes, they should play to their strengths and not be ashamed of being who they are. Some roles are more masculine, requiring masculine traits, and some roles are more feminine, requiring feminine traits, and, as a rule of thumb, men tend to be more masculine and women tend to be more feminine. So am I saying that some roles are better suited for men and others are better suited for women? Yes, because men and women are different. We each have different sets of strengths and weaknesses. Most people have traits that cross gender lines, and that helps make each of us unique, but by and large, men are more manly and women are more womanly. It's not sexist. It's just the way it is.

Echoing a little bit of my mini-rant, I know that there are some women who think society sees masculine traits as being more desirable than feminine traits, so they attempt to develop and display more masculine traits than feminine ones. Usually, those women succeed in making themselves more masculine, while inadvertently under appreciating the value of being feminine. They show the world that they, despite being women, think that it's more desirable to possess traits that are traditionally held by men. They're so sick of women being undervalued that they begin to undervalue womanhood themselves. It's one of the most backward things I've ever heard of, and it's why I don't think modern feminism makes any sense.

In contrast, if feminists identified and embraced feminine traits (that is, traits held by more women than men) and celebrated those traits instead of neglecting them in favor of developing masculine traits, then womanhood would probably get a lot more respect, at least from other women. Most men think that it's a good thing to be masculine. Do as many women think that it's a good thing to be feminine? If they did, then there might be more women who love themselves for who they are, more women who appreciate their divine traits and God-given virtues, and less women who think that they need to be more masculine in order to have value.

I'm not sure what feminists are trying to accomplish. Do they want to make men and women the same? They're not. It's a biological and psychological fact, and no amount of social pressure can change that. Do they want women to be equal to men? They already are! Do they want women to be seen as being equal to men? Then why do they undervalue everything about themselves that makes them more like women while overvaluing the traits that make people more like men? You don't have to be manly to have as much value as a good man has, and you'd think a proud woman would know that. Heck, I know that, and I don't have a woman's clear insight and personal intuition (and if I do, it's one of my more feminine traits). There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a woman, and I have no idea why so many feminists seem to think there is.

A Courageous and Painful Sacrifice

I just checked my notes from Elder W. Craig Zwick's talk, and was reminded that I had had a much better insight than "you should ask for other people's opinions," and now that I've been reminded of that insight, I'd like to share it.

At the start of Elder Zwick's talk, he related an experience he had had while driving a big rig down a mountain road. Suddenly, the truck's engine started emitting a great deal of smoke, and Elder Zwick worked frantically to safely stop the truck. His wife, thinking that the truck's engine was on fire and likely to explode, held their infant son closely and jumped out of the truck. She risked her life and suffered personal injury, but fortunately both she and her child survived the incident. When she was later asked "What in the world were you thinking? Do you know how dangerous that was? You could have been killed,” her response showed what her motivations were. “I was just trying to save our son.”

I would relate this mother's courageous and painful sacrifice, as well as the pure love that motivated it, to that of the Savior, who courageously suffered great pain and even death to save us. Both acts were very heroic, and both were inspired by the deepest level of love any human being can feel.

We are rarely called upon to do anything as perilous and painful as that, but God frequently asks us to make sacrifices of a different nature - sacrifices that, while not life-threatening, can still be painful in their own ways. Will we have the courage to make the sacrifices God asks us to make? We can, if we have the proper motivation.

We can keep the commandments and abandon sin out of a love for God and a desire to please Him. We can forsake our sins out of a love for Jesus and a desire to not add any more suffering to the sacrifice He had to make for us. If nothing else, we can keep the commandments out of a love for ourselves and a desire to land our souls in heaven rather than hell. With a sufficient amount of love motivating our actions, we can have the courage to do whatever God asks us to do, however painful it may be.

"Fill Your Life With Service..."

This morning, I'm going to volunteer at Girl's Camp. Not sure exactly what I'll be doing there, but they asked for helpers, and I signed up. Knowing that I wouldn't have much time to blog this morning, I looked around last night for something I should blog about this morning (looking for something is usually the part that takes the most time) and I found this.

We could all use a little help resisting temptation, and we're each given many opportunities to serve others. Elder Richard G. Scott, in this quote of his, has suggested that those things are connected - that "as you lose you life in the service of Heavenly Father's children, Satan's temptations lose power in your life." That makes sense to me. The more you fill a container with anything, the less room there will be in the container for anything else.

This is especially true with spiritual matters. Consider my recent blog post The Shadows Flee. The more we fill our souls and our lives with good things, the less room there will be in them for bad things. Satan knows he's not welcome in the hearts of those who are doing service to God and His children, and he won't be able to linger in them long.

I'm grateful for the opportunity I have to do service today. I hesitated to sign up, but now I'm glad I did. Today is going to be a good day - A day filled with service to God and others.

Thanks For Telling Me What You're Thinking

First, a quick update. Thank you for your positive thoughts and opinions. I plan on going ahead and making that other blog, but I won't be doing it just yet. I have more than three full sessions of General Conference talks to blog about, and I'm sure I'll gain other blog-worthy insights along the way. I have a list of potential posts for the other blog, when I make it, but they can wait a few days (most of them already have). Plus, I didn't want to leave you with the impression that I would be cutting loose from this blog immediately and permanently. I have more work to do here first.

Now for the official blog post. There's not much to blog about from Elder W. Craig Zwick's talk, What Are You Thinking? (at least, not that I picked up on), except that we should try to consider other people's thoughts and perspectives before we get into arguments with them. I did that when I asked for your opinion on my thought about creating a second blog, and I'm glad your response was positive. If it hadn't been, I would have had to consider that, and taken the matter to the Lord. Actually, I should probably do that anyway.

I suppose, if the Lord encourages me to make a separate blog, your opinion, or even mine, wouldn't really matter very much, but if your response to the idea had been a negative one, I would have tried to spend as many days as possible blogging here rather than on the other blog. It might have been only a slight difference, but I think there would have been a difference in how I thought about where I'd be blogging on any given day. And I'd probably only blog on the second blog when I had something that truly had to be shared and could only have been shared there. Now, if I think a particular blog idea would be better put in a more specific context, I'll probably share it there, even if it might have worked on this blog instead. It all depends on the specific blog post idea, and where I think that blog post would be more effective. My goal is to do good in the world, and if a particular thought would do more good on one blog than on the other, that's where it'll go.

Granted, this blog still has a lot going for it in terms of how much good it can do. There many be certain topics that I wouldn't go into in as great detail here as I would on the other blog, but the other blog won't be shared on my or my mother's Facebook pages. This blog has already gotten a fair amount of publicity and a few followers. In essence, it reaches more people than the other blog will reach, and with it taking all the general blog posts, it's more likely to do good for more people, whereas the other blog would mostly only be helpful to people in a certain niche.

I need to be careful about how much I say about the other blog. I don't want to give too much away.

Anyhow, I'm glad I asked for your opinion, and I'm especially glad that you (at least, those who commented) are okay with me doing what I think I ought to do. It's going to be weird not blogging here every day anymore. Plus, I'll need to think of a layout and color scheme for the new blog. I like this one, but I don't want them to be too similar. I want them to be different blogs, you know? Anyhow, I'll work on it later. I have other productive things to get done today. Thanks for reading my blog and for giving me your opinions. I'll talk to you all later.