Connection Reestablished

Being without access to the internet from home for a while has caused me to think about the Zoramies who "were cast out of the synagogues because of the coarseness of their apparel," and believed that, because they weren't allowed to enter the synagogues, they could not worship God. Alma and Amulek went to talk to those people, and one of the things they taught them was that the could worship God anywhere, whether they were at home, in their fields, or out on the streets. While we had lost our connection to the internet at home, we could still access the internet at a number of places, including the school's library and Starbucks and McDonalds, if we brought our own devices. Mom was the best-prepared of all of us. She has a smartphone, so she was able to connect to the internet from anywhere, even from home.

We each have our own spiritual smartphones. We can connect to God, no matter where we are. We have unlimited access to the greatest source of information the world has ever known, and sometimes, it takes a brief disconnection to a lesser, but still amazing, source of information to remind us of that. I'm thankful that we can always reach God when we need Him. Let us try to make sure that He can always reach us. Try to maintain your connection to heaven so you don't miss any important messages. If you feel like you've lost your connection, repent and reestablish it. It's very important. Even through this outage, I haven't gone a day without connecting with the internet. We should never let a day go by in which we don't connect with God.

"Good Times"

I serve my church as a leader of the 11-Year-Old Boy Scouts in our Troop. Usually, we don't meet up with the older Scouts often, but two nights ago, we sat with them as they recalled several bicycle trips they've gone on, most of which involved flats tires, bike wrecks, and some injuries. After most of their stories, there was much laughter and the comment, "good times." One of the Scouts noticed this, remarking that most of the times they said "good times," they were referring to a time when things went wrong and someone either did get or almost got injured. These events could not have been pleasant or humorous at the time of experiencing them, but now they were good memories, and since that night, I've thought a little bit about how that could be.

Part of the answer is in chronological distance. The longer ago our past pain was, the less we remember it, so the memory hurts less, though we may still remember the funny parts about the experience and the lessons we learned from it. We keep some of the good, but over time, we lose the bad.

I wonder if the afterlife will be like that. In life, there are many experiences that go badly for us. These events are unpleasant and sometimes painful while we're experiencing them, but afterwards, we can look back on them and say "those were good times. They didn't feel like good times in the moment, but I can see that they were good times now." When we cross over, I wonder how much of our lives will match that description. How many trials and hardships, or even just mortal inconveniences, do we go through that we'll eventually look back and say "that was fun," or "wow, I learned a lot from that experience." It reminds me of camping. When we go camping, we purposefully go without modern conveniences and endure some discomfort, mostly just to experience it, and to spend some time in a beautiful place. When we think back on our camping trips, we might remember colds nights and mosquito bites, but partly just to laugh at the experiences. And most of us who have gone camping have willingly chosen to go camping again, so, with some perspective, the experiences really couldn't have been all that bad.

In life, we go through a lot of "bad times." We experience trials, pain, and inconveniences. But after those trials are over, we can look back on them and think of how much we learned from them, and even laugh at our own misfortune. After the "bad times" are over, we may look back and decide that they were "good times." So try not to be too miserable when you're going through a hard time. It may end up to be like a camp out or a cycling trip. Life may be full of "bad times" now, but I'm sure that many of them will look like "good times" later.

Doors and Windows and Bread

When Maria was asked to leave the abbey where she was learning to be a nun, to go be a governess for the Von Trapp family, she said, "When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window." A few days ago, the Lord "closed the door" on our internet connection. This has proved to be an inconvenience for my family and me, given our online classes and desire to keep in touch with others. It turns out that we just can't do the things we need and want to do without the internet. Thankfully, we have we have portable, web-enabled devices that can take advantage of the free wi-fi offered at various locations, and we have access to the internet through computers at libraries. It's less convenient than using the internet at home, but it's still doable. We can still meet our commitments, and even enjoy some more recreational uses of the internet, even though our own internet connection is down.

God is never going to confront us with an impossible task. If He gives us something to do, He will give us the tools we need to do it. If those tools break, He'll give us other tools. They may not work as well or as easily, but they'll get the job done.

Today, I was trying to figure out how I was going to blog and do my math homework, despite having limited time in which I could access the school's library's computers. I wanted to attend an Institute class (partly because I was counting on the Institute's bread to serve as my lunch today), but it looked like I'd have to choose either staying at Institute and having lunch or blogging, and I had to blog. Just then, my brother arrived at the Institute and allowed me to use the laptop on which I'm writing this blog post. This allowed me to stay for a devotional message and a class on Proverbs, and a delicious slice of warm bread, while still managing to blog today. As far as I'm concerned, that's  something of a miracle.

I'm grateful for experiences that allow us to learn from hardships and inconveniences. I'll probably blog about learning from hardships tomorrow, or some other time soon. In the meantime, I'm going to get a slice of bread, and thank God and my brother for making it possible for me to stay and enjoy it.

What We Were Born As or Born to Be

Yesterday, I watched a BYU Devotional talk in which one General Authority (I already forgot which one) spoke of our Identity and Destiny as children of God. Afterward, I had a conversation with a young woman who considers herself a young man. Toward the end of the conversation, we began talking about my stance on the tolerance of those with differing gender identities, and I eventually concluded that I believe that people should strive to be what they were born to be, not necessarily what they were born as.

I should probably apologize to that person for being intentionally vague. They took me to mean that I believed that if a person was born to be male, then they should be, or at least act, male, even if they were born female, but that's not what I actually believe. I believe that our genders are an essential part of our identities, and if we were born as a particular gender, then we were most likely born to be, and remain, that gender for all eternity. A woman may have many masculine traits, perhaps more masculine traits than they have feminine traits, but that doesn't change that they were born as, and born to be, a woman.

What I actually meant is that we were all born human - flawed, imperfect people, with the occasional evil inclination - but that's not what we were born to be. We were born to become Gods and Goddesses, pure and perfect. Rather than embracing our flawed, human nature (what we were born as), we should each strive to become our perfected selves (what we were born to be).

In terms of transgender/homosexual issues, I believe that people were generally born to be the gender they were born as, though we are certainly not meant to keep all of the inclinations we were born with. It may be "natural" for a certain person to be attracted to people of their own gender or for them to feel like they're a member of the other gender, but those are among the feelings that I think we were meant to overcome. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I see homosexuality or transgenderism (is that the right word for it?) as a trial or a vice, whom the individual will become stronger and more god-like by overcoming. Similar to other vices, like avarice or lust, it may be something that you feel like you were born with, and that may or may not be the case - I'm not sure, but it's not the kind of attribute a God or Goddess should have, and it is a part of our nature that we should strive to overcome.

I don't mean to sound intolerant of homosexuals or transgender people. We each have to make our own decisions and choose our own paths, and I'm not going to stone anyone for choosing a different path than the one I've chosen. I believe in fair and equal treatment for all. What that means in terms of marriage licenses and the alteration of birth certificates, I'm not sure. I don't want to stand in the way of other people's choices, but at the same time, I can't, in good conscience, support them. I'm reminded of a blog post I once wrote in which I explained my opinion that everyone ought to act according to their beliefs. If you feel that you ought to support gay marriage, it's certainly your right, and perhaps even your responsibility to do so, but I feel morally obligated to oppose it. It's not personal. It's just what I believe.

On a lighter note, the GA's message on Identity and Destiny reminds me that we do not need to permanently remain the way that we are now. We can all change. No matter what we were born as or what traits we were born with, we can all become what we were born to be and develop the traits that we were born to have. We can even overcome and remove from ourselves traits that we were born with that we were not meant to have permanently, which is good news for any and all of us who were born with a few flaws. I am in the process of becoming what I believe God intended me to become. That has meant overcoming flaws and resisting inclinations. It's been hard, but the struggle has been worth it. God is turning me into something much greater than what I was born as, and that's something that I can hope for everyone.

Pondering Paths

Previously, I blogged about considering your ways, thinking about what you're doing, and using that contemplation to help you make wise choices. At first, I thought that President Thomas S. Monson's talk, Ponder the Path of Thy Feet, would be another message along those same lines, but it wasn't. It had much more to do with following the Savior's example than with - Wow. Was I really about to say that?

I was about to say that President Monson's talk had more to do with following the Savior's example than with making wise choices, but seriously, what wiser choice could we possibly make? Jesus is our exemplar, our perfect example. He marked the path that leads to salvation and exaltation. For me to imply that following Him isn't a wise choice would be insane. I must have gone temporarily insane a few moments ago.

Being given the gift of agency, each of us want to make our own choices and decisions, and certainly we're each entitled to do that. But if we want to make wise choices, we should look to people who are more wise than we are for examples and advice. Deeper wisdom is found in acknowledging that some people's wisdom is deeper than our own. Sure, we could choose our own path and walk our own way, but that may not go so well for us as it would if we followed a trustworthy guide. Making our own choices, we're bound to make mistakes, but I know that we'll make fewer mistakes and wrong turns if we follow the guidance of the One who never once stepped off of the path of righteousness.

It's true that there's wisdom in considering our choices and thinking carefully about them before we make decisions, but when it comes time to make the decision, how will we choose? Will we do what we think is best, or will we do what we think the Savior would do? Hopefully, those two things will lead you to the same choice, but if they don't, which choice will you make?

Going back to that Tea or Poison question, I know that Jesus would never commit any sin, no matter how small, even if His life depended on it. If drinking tea really is a sin, Jesus would have taken the poison, if there really was no other choice. Knowing that, if I were now faced with the choice of adding one more sin to my permanent record or going back home to face my Eternal Judge without having fully repented of my other sins, I think I'd just have to take my chances with the mercy of the Almighty. Now that I think about it, every sin ever committed puts more weight on Jesus' back as He bore our sins through the Atonement. I should rather die than add to that burden, even if that means being judged before I feel fully ready.

Thankfully, we all have better options than dying or sinning. We can live and do good. We can live and not sin. Jesus did it, and as we follow His example, with His help, so can we. I'd be very surprised if any of us were forced to choose between drinking tea or poison. Very few people in history were ever faced with the choice of committing sin or being put to death (and most of them probably would have been put to death anyway). We can choose righteousness. Even if there are dire consequences, choosing the right will always be the right choice, and it will always mean following the Savior.

When we "consider our ways," we should consider Isaiah 55: 8-9.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. 

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

As we choose our path, may we take the higher road by following the path marked by the Savior.

Tea or Poison?

Last night, I played The Question Game with a few members of my family. For those of you who don't know, to play The Question Game, each person writes a question on a slip of paper, and then everyone gets a random question and writes an answer on another slip of paper. The questions and answers are once again shuffled (separately), and everyone gets a question and an answer. The players then take turns reading questions and answers that don't go together, usually with humorous results.

One of the questions I wrote was "Delicious Tea or Deadly Poison?" This was a reference to Uncle Iroh, a character in Avatar: The Last Airbender, who finds a plant that either makes delectable tea, or is poisonous. Having a great lover of tea, he struggles with the choice of whether or not to make tea out of the plant and potentially poison himself. He chose to make the tea and it did turn out to be poisonous. However, he quickly found another plant which would either cure the poison or make him blind. His nephew and traveling companion, Zuko, took the second plant from him, declaring "We're not taking any more chances with these plants!" resolving to take him to an actual herbalist. My brother used the line about not taking chances to answer my tea or poison question last night, but since then, I've thought more about that question and about the moral implications of choosing either. Suppose you had to choose between drinking delicious tea or deadly poison. Which would you choose?

For most of the world, this question would be a no-brainer, but for those of us who are commanded to live the Word of Wisdom, which involves complete abstinence from some drinks, including tea, the question is much harder to answer. The question for us becomes "would you rather die or do something you believe to be a sin?" Phrased that way, the question again appears obvious, but now with a different answer. It is better to die than to sin. It's better to lose your life (which you're going to get back through the resurrection) than to lose your soul.

Then again, this is tea we're talking about. Tea is, by most modern and ancient studies, harmless. Drinking tea is my go-to example for a sin that we have no idea why God has condemned it as a sin. In terms of how serious a sin it is, it's probably on par with other violations of the Word of Wisdom, like eating too much meat or eating fruit out of season. Potentially, it's as bad as drinking coffee or alcohol, or smoking or doing drugs, but none of those sins measure up to a far more serious sin: taking a human life. If no one were forcing you to drink either tea or poison, but you still had to choose to drink one or the other, I'm pretty sure most people, including God, would prefer that you drank the tea.

But in my hypothetical situation, I kind of took it as a given that you were being forced to choose one or the other, that those were the only two options, and  basically, if you didn't drink the tea, you would die. In that case, it still might be better to drink the tea because if you die right now, you won't live long enough to do any more good for the world. You have lives to bless and hearts to touch. If you died, you wouldn't be able to fulfill your purpose as a human being. Drinking the tea may be a sin, but it's a sin by which you might enable yourself to do a lot of good. Then again, it's still a sin. And knowing that it's a sin to drink it makes it that much worse of a choice to make. You can repent of sins, of course, but repenting of a choice that you willingly made, despite knowing that it's a sin, is a lot harder than repenting from a slip-up.

Unfortunately, I'm out of time to continue discussing this with you. I have to get to class. Maybe we'll pick the discussion up again later, but probably not. If I had to choose now, I think I'd drink the tea. Yes, I know it's a sin. Just add it to the pile. I have worse sins than that to repent of, and I'd rather face my Maker having drunken tea once than still carrying the sins that trouble me now. If there's still hope for me to repent of those sins in this life, I would rather drink tea than poison.

I Believe That Paladins Make Good Role-Models

I'm in a rather unique English writing class, in which our writing prompts have been a bit out of the ordinary. Over the last two weeks, we've been writing "love letters," not to people we know and/or admire, but to things. Some of us wrote essays declaring our love for peanut butter, steak, our bikes, and other things we like. I wrote my "love  letter" to the genre of Fantasy, explaining how much I enjoy its freedom and how much I appreciate how fantasy inspires me to be more like a paladin.

This week, we're going to be writing papers expressing one of our beliefs. Right now, I'm feeling a bit tempted to write about my belief that paladins make good role-models, highlighting the Christlike attributes that paladins possess and their undying commitment to the cause of good. I might not end up writing about that, though, because I already mentioned paladins in my previous writing assignment. I don't want the others to think that paladins are the only thing I think about. Then again, I do think about paladins fairly often, and I certainly should think about them more.

Without really deciding whether I'm ultimately going to write about paladins again or not, I think I'll write about them this morning, either to get it out of my system or to organize my thoughts for the paper I'm about to write.

The first reason I consider paladins to be good role-models is that they are undeniably good. They do the right thing for the right reason, even if it's dangerous. They uphold high standards of conduct, and they try to encourage others to choose the right as well. Paladins are good role-models because they are good, and they often try to act as role-models to others.

Another thing that makes paladins worth emulating is that they're honorable. Their high standards include a commitment to honesty and integrity. They're very honest. They respect authority figures, just as we our counselled to honor our parents, respect church leadership, and obey the laws of the land.

Finally, paladins are inspiring for their vigor in the fight against evil. They battle evil whenever it appears, not letting it linger to tempt or harm them or others. This is the manner in which paladins have been most helpful to me. While the phrase "What would a paladin do?" has helped me to be more good and honorable, thinking of my battles against temptation as literal battles and gaining strength from the idea of fighting evil like a paladin has helped me to win more of those battles than I might have won with some other tactic.

The sad part is that I already wrote about how following the examples of paladins has helped me win spiritual battles, so I don't want to write about it again. Not so soon afterwards. Instead, I'll probably write about why I believe commas are important in the English language, since the other part of this week's lesson is a grammar lesson on the usage of commas, and I'm the lead student for this week. Being able to talk about commas at the same time I read my paper on something that I believe in would kill two birds with one stone and help add some coherence to the lesson I'm supposed to lead.

Still, just for the record, I think that paladins make great role-models, which is why I've chosen to follow their example. Paladins inspire me. They help me be a better person than I might otherwise have been. Despite their being mostly fictional and a bit too aggressive and judgemental at times, I think that most aspects of paladins are aspects worth having, and that it's a good idea for me to keep following their example. Eventually, I hope to one day be an example for others to follow, and to inspire others the same way paladins currently inspire me. In short, I hope to one day be a paladin, at least in many ways. Paladins are my role-models, and that seems to be working out pretty well for me.

Changing and Changing Back

You know you've got something the way you want it when you change it, and then decide that you liked it better the way it was. For Christmas, my brother got my a red dragon lego set, and I've had endless fun modifying my dragon from its original design. Originally, it could only stand on its hind legs. Its arms or front legs were too short, and its hind legs put its hindquarters too high off the ground. When I changed its hind legs so that my dragon could stand on all four legs, its hind legs proved too weak to support the dragon standing up. After a great deal more tweaking, I've managed to modify its hind legs to the point where it can stand on its hind legs or all fours, or even leaning very far forward - it's that well-balanced.

I also made some wonderful improvements to its wings. Originally, it had a few plates on it that were too unsightly to be worth their minimal functionality, so I removed them. In their place, I added a pair of spikes, and put some plates for stability on the underside of the wings for a bright accent of color that doesn't draw too much attention to itself. The spikes I added to the wings mostly came from spikes I removed from the dragon's back. It was a tough decision to make my dragon have fewer spikes on its back, but its wings and tail look much better for it, and now there's a spot on the dragon's back where a lego man can sit to ride the dragon.

The part of the dragon I'm working on now is its head. The dragon's head has always seemed a little big, but since its the most complex part of the dragon, I've found it difficult to modify. After a careful study of the construction of the dragon's head, I found a way to remove a few plates from it, making the head slightly smaller. This has also had the effect of changing the way the dragon's mouth closes. Rather than having the teeth come together when the dragon's mouth is closed, so the closed-mouthed dragon always looks like it's snarling (and has no option of breathing fire through its teeth, but I don't care about that), its lower jaw now comes up behind its upper jaw, so the closed-mouthed dragon looks like its upper teeth protrude over its lower lip, like that of an alligator or a crocodile (I forget which is which).

This, at first, was not appealing to me, but there's a reason I think I may keep it. Whenever I made the sound of my dragon roaring, it's always been the same sound, "FRAWR!" with a definite "F" sound before the classic "RAWR." I was never sure why my dragon made that sound, and I'm still not completely sure, but I think that the fact that my dragon makes that sound will ensure that I keep the version of its head that makes it look like its upper teeth rest on or over its lower lip. When you make the "F" sound, it starts by putting your upper teeth on your lower lip and breathing out through them, exactly as my dragon would if it started roaring when its mouth was closed. I'm not sure if this is a coincidence, mostly because I have no idea why it wouldn't be, but it certainly seems that my dragon was almost destined to have the kind of mouth it has now.

Through all of these modifications, I have gone through a process of constantly tweaking its form, trying out new shapes for its appendages and placements for its pieces. Some of its limbs have gone through several versions, always returning to the form in which they are now. It's too early to say whether I'll keep the current form of the head, or change it back to its original form, but I might keep changing it back and forth until I decide which form I like better.

In life, we too can change and change back, but for us, change comes less quickly and with more difficulty. It's harder to change a habit or a human heart than to change the shape of a lego dragon. However, when a change is made, and a comparison can be made between the two forms, a decision can be made between the two versions, and you can usually tell which version of yourself you like better. Sometimes, the new you is an improvement. In fact, that's pretty much the whole idea of changing - to change for the better. But sometimes, you pick up a habit or attitude, or even something easier to change, like a hobby or a preferred style of clothing, and ultimately find that you liked yourself better the way you were before. That's okay. Except in the case of sinful behavior, it's perfectly alright to try new things, experiment with new styles and forms of yourself, and then decide which version of you you like better. Making a small change for the sake of experiment, and then deciding to change back to the way you were before, may be a sign that you like yourself just the way you are (of course, that's not always a good thing, but that's a lesson for another time).

In life, we're meant to change. We were born imperfect, and we're expected to be a little bit less imperfect by the time we leave. The only way to accomplish that is by changing. Sometimes, we change for the better; sometimes we change for the worse. It's important, when we change for the worse, that we recognize that fact and make the effort to change ourselves back. When I change something about my dragon, and then decide that it made for a change for the worse, I'm not usually too stubborn to admit that I was wrong, to acknowledge that my "improvement" didn't really improve the dragon, and to change it back. I hope that's even more true for myself. I make changes to myself sometimes, and I hope that most of them are changes for the better, but if one of my self-improvement projects backfires, I hope I won't be too stubborn to abandon the project and change back to the way I was. Making changes and evaluating the results are part of life. I frequently evaluate the state of my lego dragon to see how I might improve it. I should do at least as much for myself. And when a change turns South, for either me or my dragon, I hope that I'll be wise enough to change it back.

Resurrection and Redemption

Enough tangents! Let's get back to Elder Hamula's talk and General Conference talks in general.

The sequence of bread first and water second is not inconsequential. In partaking of the bread, we are reminded of our own inevitable personal resurrection, which consists of more than just the restoration of body and spirit. By the power of the Resurrection, all of us will be restored to the presence of God. That reality presents to us the fundamental question of our lives. The fundamental question facing all of us is not whether we will live but with whom we will live after we die. While every one of us will return to the presence of God, not every one of us will remain with Him. 

Through mortality, every one of us becomes soiled with sin and transgression. We will have had thoughts, words, and works that will have been less than virtuous. In short, we will be unclean. And the consequence of uncleanliness in the presence of God, Jesus made perfectly clear: “No unclean thing can dwell … in his presence.” That reality was brought home to Alma the Younger, who, when confronted by a holy angel, was so racked, harrowed, and tormented by his uncleanliness that he desired to become “extinct both soul and body, that [he] might not be brought to stand in the presence of … God.”

One of the most sobering facts about the gospel is that heaven won't feel like heaven for all of us. Some of us just won't feel comfortable there. I've heard it described as being like going to a fancy dinner party wearing grubby clothes. Even if everyone there is accepting of us being there, we won't feel like we belong.

The Resurrection of Christ's body ensures that all of us will be resurrected and will stand once again in the presence of God. The Atonement of Christ's blood can cleanse us from sin to the point that we'll feel comfortable staying there. Resurrection is guaranteed. Redemption is not. Our being cleansed from sin is dependent on our obedience to the laws, principles, and ordinances of the Gospel, including the Sacrament, which reminds us to obey the commandments and always remember Jesus Christ.

More than anything else, it seems, the Sacrament is a reminder. It reminds us of Christ. It reminds us of the commandments He has given us, our covenants to obey those commandments, as well as all other covenants we have made with Him. Now I know that the Sacrament also reminds us of our inevitable death and resurrection, and that we will all stand before God to be judged according to our works, but something I already knew is that, possibly more than anything else, the Sacrament reminds us of the Atonement of Christ, by which power we can be made clean. We will stand before God again someday. May the Sacrament remind us to keep ourselves clean so that we may be worthy to stay there.

Consider Your Ways

As I mentioned last night, I want to talk this morning about considering our actions, or more specifically, considering our ways. The last part of the caption of the photo I shared two days ago said "Think about what you are doing." This reminded me about a series of youtube videos that talked about agency in video games (among many other video game related topics). One of those videos highlighted a video game that forces the player to make tough choices - not the choices most video games have you make, like should I wield the longsword or the broadsword, should I go for the risky short cut in the racing game, or stay on the relatively safe main road, or should I play aggressively, possibly alienating other players to get an in-game edge, or should I play nice and possibly lose because I "wasn't trying hard enough"?

The game in question puts you into the role of a sci-fi hero whom a race of sentient robotic aliens believe God wants them to kill. At a certain point, you have to choose between reprogramming them into fighting for you rather than against you, or wiping them out completely. A question like this forces us to consider our core beliefs and make a moral decision. Would it be more humane to reprogram the robots rather than killing them, or would it be more Christian to destroy the robots rather than taking away their freedom to believe and act as they choose? Would either choice be immoral? Both choices sound really bad, but the targets of your actions are just machines. Sure, they're sentient; they have individuality and freedom of thought (for now), but at the same time, they're not really human. Then again neither are the many other alien races you encounter over the course of the game. If either or both decisions are evil, which one is less so? Which one would you choose?

This is the unique power of video games as a medium: They ask us to live our decisions. In this medium, we cannot be spectators. We are forced to confront our own actions, and that forces upon us a level of introspection.
- Dan, Extra Credits, Enriching Lives

 As Dan says this, there's an image of a video game box, representing the video game itself, telling the player to "LOOK AT WHAT YOU'RE DOING. NOW LOOK AT YOURSELF." The "look at what you're doing" line is what made me think about this video series following a discussion on the Sacrament and the Atonement, and I wasn't going to bring any of this up at all, except that later in the day that I blogged about that Conference talk, my Institute teacher shared Haggai 1: 2-7 in which the Lord of Hosts says, more than once "Consider Your Ways."

We are constantly making decisions. Many of them are mostly inconsequential, but each of them tells us something about ourselves. What would we choose to do if we were in that situation? If an race of alien robots was trying to kill you, and you had the power to choose either of the following options, would you reprogram the robots, or destroy them? If a friend of yours was kidnapped, and the kidnapper left a bunch of minions behind to cause trouble for you and everyone else in the countryside, would you fight through the minions to rescue your kidnapped friend, would you go out of your way to avoid harming the minions unnecessarily because they're just following orders, or would you delay your friend's rescue to crush as many minions as possible so as to protect everyone else? Super Mario Bros. doesn't seem like a game with tough moral decisions in it, but that may be because we just don't always think about the decisions we make and what those actions say about us. When I play Mario, I usually don't think twice about stomping on Goonbas on my way to save Princess Peach. Maybe I should. Maybe I should avoid harming the Goonbas when I don't have to, or maybe I should actively pursue and destroy them so as to preserve the peace of the Mushroom Kingdom. If I were actually put in that position, I'm not sure what I would do. I'd want to protect the citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom, but I'd rather not kill the Goonbas unless I had to. I'd also feel the moral responsibility to go rescue Princess Peach, but that would mean leaving the Toadstools behind to fend for themselves. The next time I play Mario, I'm going to try to think about what I'm doing.

I'm probably looking too much into this. After all, it's just a video game. But if every action we make tells us something about ourselves, then that includes every action we make in video games, and that means that it's something I, as a player of video games, should think about. What do my actions, in or out of the game, say about me? Am I making the right decisions? How do I determine what the right decisions are? Some of these questions aren't going to be easy to answer, but they're certainly questions that I should be asking myself; especially if I'm going to try to follow the Lord's counsel to "Consider [my] ways."

Busy Building Prisons

I was reading in the Book of Mormon earlier this evening, and a particular passage caught my attention. Alma 53:5

And this city became an exceeding stronghold ever after; and in this city they did guard the prisoners of the Lamanites; yea, even within a wall which they had caused them to build with their own hands. Now Moroni was compelled to cause the Lamanites to labor, because it was easy to guard them while at their labor; and he desired all his forces when he should make an attack upon the Lamanites.

Some of the stories in the war chapters refer to tactics Satan uses against us. I believe this on one of them. The devil can't really force us to do anything, so he tries to get us to trap ourselves by force of habit. And once he has succeeded at that, he tries to keep us busy so we don't have time to focus on overcoming our faults. Like Moroni, Satan finds it easier to guard his prisoners when they're too busy to try to escape. And if he can get us to habitually do things that make it harder to escape, all the better for him.

I haven't figured out the part of the analogy where Moroni desired all his forces to attack the Lamanites. Maybe it's that Satan only has so many fallen angels, and the fewer devils it takes to keep the sinners busy, the more devils he has for tempting everyone else? I don't know how much that's really a factor in this war, so maybe not.

Anyhow, the rest of the analogy is pretty good, so I thought I'd pass it along. It's important to keep an eye on our actions, they're helping us resist Satan's influence or whether they're putting us deeper into bondage to him. Considering our actions is what I had planned on blogging about this morning, and what I plan on blogging about tomorrow, so this scripture goes along pretty well with that. Consider your actions, and particularly evaluate whether you're building your heavenly mansion or whether Satan's got you busy building your own prison.

Take It Personally

Those talks about prophets are going to have to wait. The next talk after Elder Robert D. Hales' talk about the Godhead is a talk by Elder James J. Hamula about The Sacrament and the Atonement. This is a really good talk, and I definitely need to blog about it at least once. From just my first skimming through of the talk, two paragraphs strongly stood out to me. They're about the Sacramental bread and water, respectively, and they talk about what the bread and water represent and what it means when we partake of them.

With torn and broken bread, we signify that we remember the physical body of Jesus Christ—a body that was buffeted with pains, afflictions, and temptations of every kind, a body that bore a burden of anguish sufficient to bleed at every pore, a body whose flesh was torn and whose heart was broken in crucifixion. We signify our belief that while that same body was laid to rest in death, it was raised again to life from the grave, never again to know disease, decay, or death. And in taking the bread to ourselves, we acknowledge that, like Christ’s mortal body, our bodies will be released from the bonds of death, rise triumphantly from the grave, and be restored to our eternal spirits.

With a small cup of water, we signify that we remember the blood Jesus spilled and the spiritual suffering He endured for all mankind. We remember the agony that caused great drops of blood to fall in Gethsemane. We remember the bruising and scourging He endured at the hands of His captors. We remember the blood He spilled from His hands, feet, and side while at Calvary. And we remember His personal reflection on His suffering: “How sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.” In taking the water to ourselves, we acknowledge that His blood and suffering atoned for our sins and that He will remit our sins as we embrace and accept the principles and ordinances of His gospel.

 The caption of the photo I shared above, in case it's too small to read, says "Think about what the Savior did. Think about what you are doing. (See D&C 19: 16-17.)" The scripture that they reference reads:

For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent;

But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I;

 Without going into too much detail about the kind of suffering we'll experience if we don't repent (this blog post isn't really about us), I want us to recall what suffering the Lord went through for us, each of us personally, and what we have to do now to make sure His suffering doesn't go to waste. He endured ultimate agony for us. He took our sins upon Himself and suffered the pains of hell for them. In doing so, He experienced pain so severe that I'm sure it would have killed a mortal man. He suffered all that pain for us, expressly so that we wouldn't have to suffer it ourselves.

Now, we have a choice, thousands of choices, really, and when we think about what Jesus did and why He did it, those choices become a whole lot easier. I used to not want to sing the chorus of I Stand All Amazed, because I didn't think it was "Wonderful that He should cared for me enough to die for me." I thought it was terrible that He had to. What would be even more terrible, though, would be for Him to have suffered so much for me, just for me to let that suffering go to waste.

Jesus experienced terrible pain for us in Gethsemane, but He also feels great emotional pain for us when we don't repent. I once thought that I could keep Jesus from having experienced the pain of my sins by not repenting of them, so I could take that burden off of Him and carry it myself, but it doesn't work like that. He suffered for every sin I've ever committed, and will ever commit, whether I repent of them or not. What I can do reduce His suffering is refrain from committing more sins. His Atonement makes it possible for us to repent, to change, to become better people. As we take the Sacrament, we should think about what Jesus did for us and what we should do (or refrain from doing) to thank Him, to take advantage of the Atonement, and to not make it worse. Taking the Sacrament isn't just to help us remember and be thankful for the Atonement. It also reminds us of what we can and have to do to show our thanks.

Separate Individuals United as One

The first Article of the LDS Faith is that "We believe in God, the Eternal Father, in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost." This is somewhat different than what other Christians may believe, and it have even caused a few Christians to wonder whether we Mormons are Christians at all, but my belief in, faith in, and worship of Jesus Christ are not lessened by my belief that He is not the Father to whom He prayed those many times in the New Testament. Nor was He the source of the voice that spoke from heaven when He was baptized. Nor was He literally standing beside Himself when Stephen had a vision of Him and His Father as he was being stoned. The distinction between God and Jesus in the New Testament is, in my opinion, very clear.

To quote Elder Robert D. Hales:

Can we see a pattern in these scriptures that testifies of the Father and the Son as distinct individuals and beings? How, then, are They one? Not because They are the same person but because They are unified in purpose, equally dedicated to “bring[ing] to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”

The references Jesus makes to being "one" with the Father are confusing to some people. Taking their oneness as being literal, a person would have to find some way to explain how God and Jesus are the same person despite talking to each other and about each other and being both seen separately in Stephen's vision. This may be what gave birth to the "mystery of the trinity," in which God the Father, Christ the Savior, and the Holy Ghost, are seen as simultaneously being the same being and three separate beings, or perhaps three distinct manifestations of the same being, which refer(s) to itself/each other in perplexing ways.

However, when we consider that their oneness is figurative, signifying a oneness in purpose, their identity appears more clear. Now, I'm not saying that the simplest explanation is always the truest one, but I would say that the truest explanation is likely to be the one that doesn't contradict what's written in the scriptures. If they were the same being, they would hardly have had a need to talk to each other, especially when alone, and when they talked about each other, they could have done it in the first person, saying "I" and "me" instead of "my Father" and "my Son." However, with them being separate beings, it makes sense for them to talk to and about each other in that way. Their oneness is that they have the same purpose, the same goal, and the same plan. That way, they can be separate beings, but one God, just as the Patriots can be separate players, but one team, or just as various cogs and gears can be separate parts of one machine.

God and Jesus work together, and I'm pretty sure they are together, in heaven, most of the time, but they're not the same person. They are individuals who work together to achieve the same aims. As their followers, I hope that we, as Christians of various faiths, can follow their example. We may have distinct and separate beliefs about the Godhead, just as the members of the Godhead have distinct and separate attributes, but we can work together, just as They do. By acknowledging our similar purposes, we can look past our differences and develop the same kind of oneness that They have, remaining various sects of Christianity, but becoming one unified force for good in the world. We, as different Christian religions, do disagree on some topics, but we all agree on several. We all believe in encouraging each other and others to be good. We all agree on the basic tenants of morality, including, at the very least, keeping the Ten Commandments. If we look more at our similarities and try to work together rather than focussing on our differences and trying to tear each other down, I think we'd accomplish much more good together than any of us could have on our own. If God and Jesus Christ are one, as we all believe They are, I think that we, as Christians, should try to be one, too.

Zoning Out

In Sacrament Meeting, one of the speakers shared an example of something that one child learned from his father. Coming out of a boring Sacrament Meeting, the father commented on how wonderful that Sacrament Meeting was. The child ask how that Sacrament Meeting could have been so wonderful when the talks were so boring, and the father said that when he was listening to a boring talk, he would simply close his eyes and, in his mind, give himself a talk on that topic.

I was given an opportunity to do that later today. In Elder's Quorum, our teacher shared an old General Conference talk. The whole talk. On video. That, in itself, wouldn't have been too bad. Lazy on the part of the instructor, but not terrible. But the speaker of the talk had a voice that, quite literally, put me to sleep. There is, according to the child's father, a correct way to zone out in church, but falling asleep isn't it.

What I should have done, rather than letting the droning voice dull my consciousness, was think about the topic of the lesson, Pray Always, and have a discussion with myself about it, perhaps starting the conversation by asking the "wh" questions. Why should we pray always? Where and how can we? Asking when we should pray always is silly, but asking what it means to pray always might have led to some interesting thoughts.

I zoned out in Elder's Quorum today, and not in the way that I should have. I'll try to do better next time.

Trusting the Prophet

What are the odds that two speakers in General Conference would give back-to-back talks on the same topic? Toward the beginning of the Sunday Morning Session of the October 2014 General Conference, Elder Russell M. Nelson and Sister Carol F. McConkie spoke about prophets and the importance of sustaining them. Come to think of it, President Eyring's talk about modern-day revelation, which preceded the talks of Elder Nelson and Sister McConkie, probably had a good deal to say about prophets, too. I got so caught up in the concept of continual, personal revelation that I didn't notice what President Eyring said about prophets. I should read that talk again, and compare the other two talks side-by-side, to see what their combined message was and what insights we can gain by looking at those two or three talks together.

But this morning, I want to get my blogging done quickly so I can help my family with housework and yardwork, so I'll just share some thoughts from my notes.

Elder Nelson's talk was about Sustaining the Prophets. In my notes, I wrote down that to sustain the prophets means, at least in part, to trust and obey them. In her talk, Live According to the Words of the Prophets, Sister McConkie shared the story of a widow who lived in Zarephath (apparently, we don't know her name). She was very poor. She and her son were starving, and she was about to prepare what would be her and her son's final meal. But then the prophet Elijah came to her, and, acting on inspiration, asked her to give him the food instead, promising that if she did, the food would last. It was a tough decision, as you might imagine, but the widow acted on faith and gave the prophet what might have been their final meal. Then, miraculously, there was more food, enough to keep the widow and her son alive not only for their next meal, but also the next few meals after that, just as Elijah had promised.

In my notes, I made the comment: "God asks things of us. When we yield to Him, He blesses us proportionate to the sacrifice He asks of us." I'm not sure how accurate that is. Usually, we find that the blessings of God far outweigh the sacrifices He asks of us. The widow gave up one meal, and was rewarded with several. She gave up something that would keep her and her son alive for a few more days, and was rewarded with something that would keep alive until her life was no longer in jeopardy. I bet there were plenty of spiritual blessings, too.

God, sometimes through His prophets, often asks hard things of us. When we have the faith to follow His (and His prophet's) counsel, blessings follow. May we have the faith to trust and obey the prophets, so we may reap the blessings promised to those that do.

Why High Priorities Get Priority

There's a certain amount of wisdom to doing something first thing in the morning in order to make sure that they get done at all. I normally blog first thing in the morning, and on the days that I don't, I find that things keep coming up until it's rather late at night and I still haven't blogged yet. Tomorrow, I plan not to make that mistake again, especially since we have work to do tomorrow. And when school starts up again next week, I'll have to get my blogging done by 8am in order to prevent my blogging from cutting into time that I've set aside for schoolwork.

Essentially, I need to get better about blogging in the morning, and since this is a spiritual blog, I'll try to find a spiritual application for that.

I mentioned that things come up on days that I don't put blogging first. That happens on days when we don't put God first, too. Actually, things come up every day. In fact, some many things come up that we sometimes don't have time to get to them all. When that happens, it's important to do things of high priority first.

I used to think that it didn't matter if a high-priority to-do list item was put off until later in the day. As long as it got done by the time it needed to get done, will it really matter how early we did it? Well, no, probably not, but doing things early is sometimes essential to doing them at all.

An illustration: Let's say that you've got a few hours to run a few errands. Since you're a poor, but athletic young man, you ride your bike rather than taking a car. Before running the errands you need to run, you decide to check out another store first. You spend some time there, but you leave yourself enough time to still get the important things done. You head out again, but on your way to run your important errands, you get a flat tire. Since you're also a prepared young man, you happen to be carrying all the tools you need to fix the flat, so you're not stranded, but the repair still takes time - time which you no longer have. At the end of the day, you managed to get a few of your errands done, but not all of them, because you simply ran out of time, whereas you might have gotten all of your errands done, if you had decided to do them first.

So it is with everything. Sometimes, things come up, and all we're able to get done on a given day are the things we did before things came up and maybe a few quick things afterwards. As long as we're putting our highest priorities first, that's not too much of a problem, but if I put off a spiritual obligation until "later," and end up having to stay up late to fulfil it, that is a problem - a problem I intend not to have tomorrow.

Continuing Guidance

I skipped over President Eyring's Priesthood Session talk, but I won't skip his Sunday Morning talk, Continuing Revelation. Looking over this talk, one paragraph toward the beginning of the talk stands out from the others. It's quoted from in large letters above the talk itself, and it, and the two paragraphs that follow it, are used for the brief video highlight of the talk. It must be important.

We all know that human judgement and logical thinking will not be enough to get answers to the questions that matter most in life. We need revelation from God. And we will need not just one revelation in a time of stress, but we need a constantly renewed stream. We need not just one flash of light and comfort, but we need the continuing blessing of communication with God.

The very existence of the Church stems from a young boy knowing that was true. Young Joseph Smith knew that he could not of himself know which church to join. So he asked of God, as the book of James told him he could. God the Father and His Beloved Son appeared in a grove of trees. They answered the question that was beyond Joseph’s power to resolve.

Not only was he then called of God to establish the true Church of Jesus Christ, but with it was restored the power to invoke the Holy Ghost so that revelation from God could be continuous.

A frequent theme of this blog is a reminder of how much we need God's help, especially for guidance. God is the man with the plan, and we, who would do well to follow that plan, often have no idea what that plan is. To learn God's plan and specifically, our place in it, we need revelation. Many revelations containing general instructions have been written in the holy scriptures, and our current prophet receives revelation that's especially applicable for the church today. Patriarchs can give us special blessings that can shed some light on God's main purpose for our lives, but for specific direction, we have to get it ourselves.

Personal Revelation comes through the Spirit, and it often comes when we study the words of ancient and modern prophets and our patriarchal blessings and as we pray and fast for personal guidance. The revelations that come in those times are usually given in answer to big, important questions, but just as important is the guidance we can get from the Spirit every day. We frequently make decisions that have a small impact on our lives. Over time, the impact of those decisions get bigger and bigger. To make the majority of them correctly, we often need continual guidance, which means that we need to have the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.

It can be hard to always be worthy to have the Spirit with you to guide you. It takes regular effort to read the scriptures and pray to God, and it takes a continual effort to listen to the Spirit and to avoid the things that offend Him. In comparison, it's much easier to just listen to the Prophets in General Conference than to listen to the Spirit all the time, but to get the continual, personal guidance we need to follow God's path, we need to put forth the effort. We can have a "constantly renewed stream" of revelation to guide us, and that's fortunate, because in order to make the right decisions in our daily lives, we could really use that kind of guidance.

A Lucky Hit

The quote I used in yesterday's blog post came from President Thomas S. Monson's Priesthood Session talk, Guided Safely Home. In that talk, President Monson shared the story of a great battleship, Bismarck, which was virtually indestructible until its rudder was disabled. Then, it became an easy target for its enemies. I blogged about this in my October 8, 2014 blog post, In Case Anyone Asks, but something that I had only just skimmed over is what might have happened if the rudder had been repaired.

President Monson related the battleship to us. Each of us are strong, valiant spirit sons and daughters of God. We are unstoppable - as long as we're on the right course. In the story, "shell after shell inflicted only superficial damage on the Bismarck," until "a torpedo scored a lucky hit, which jammed the Bismarck’s rudder." In our case, we're able to resist most of Satan's influences without much of a struggle. Have you ever felt like saying something mean, but held your tongue anyway? If you have, you resisted the influence of Satan, and it probably wasn't even very hard. That's because many of us are stronger than we think we are. We probably face, and successfully resist, more temptations than we realize, because, like the Bismarck we are virtually indestructible.

But every once in a while, our adversary lands a lucky hit. No matter how strong we are, each of us slip up at least once in our lives. It's usually not anything instantly critical, like a major hull breach or a complete destruction of the engine, but it's enough to get us spinning in circles, making us an easier target for our foe. In the story of the Bismarck, the damaged rudder could not be repaired, but that's not true in our case. Through the power of the Atonement, even serious damage can be repaired. So when our rudders do take damage, we don't need to let it stop us. We just need to get it fixed and keep sailing.

Satan can't stop us unless we let him. He may attack us again and again, but we can withstand him. And when, occasionally, he does manage to successfully tempt us, we don't have to let the story end there. One sin is enough to keep us out of the Celestial Kingdom, but only if we don't repent of it. So if and when you do take a little damage, if you ever give in and sin, don't let that stop you. Confess the sin to God, ask Him to remove it from you, and keep going. Like I said a few months ago, as long as we strive to follow the Savior, and repent whenever we fall short, Satan won't be able to stop us, not even with a lucky hit to our rudders.

The Greatest Force

If you had asked me before I read this, I would have said that the greatest force in the world is probably the force that holds atoms together and turns spinning balls of protons, neutrons, and electrons into solid objects. If you had specifically asked what the greatest force in the world today was, I might have said the media. I'm not sure how many wrong guesses I would have gone through before I landed on the answer that the prophet gave.

I know that God is all-powerful, but sometimes, His influence on the earth seems pretty small. Sure, He could have an enormous impact on the earth, but it seems like He chooses not to. Rather, He usually just lets nature take its course. His teachings have a strong affect on millions of individuals, and the good they do in His name has a profound impact on the world, but they do it mostly with their own power, and as individuals, their power is weak.

Then, there's the Priesthood. The talk this quote came from was given in the Priesthood Session of last Conference, so it's logical to assume that President Monson was thinking of the Priesthood when he said this, and certainly the Priesthood is very powerful, but I'm not sure if I'd consider it the most powerful force in the world today. Part of the reason I underestimate the power of the Priesthood is that I haven't really seen much evidence of its power. I haven't witnessed any miracles or miraculous healings. At least, not that I recall. Most of what I see done by the power of the Priesthood involves evoking blessings that are subtle, or that won't be fully realized until the afterlife. Mostly, what I see of the power of the Priesthood is a bunch of guys wearing suits and saying prayers.

Yet, those prayers carry an enormous amount of power. Those prayers and that power have the ability to affect the eternities. They can bind families together forever and enable people to pass through the gates into the Celestial Kingdom. Even just on earth, the power of the Priesthood can bring about incredible miracles, mostly healing, but also such miracles as Jesus and the ancient prophets performed. Yet, we don't see many miracles like that these days, so the Priesthood doesn't seem to be quite as powerful as it used to be.

But how foolish of a thought is that? The Priesthood power is just as strong now as it has always been. We just don't use it much. At least, not in any flashy ways. We don't need Moses to part the Red Sea or smite a rock with his staff because there is no army behind us and we can get water by turning a faucet. There are many people who still need miracles, and many of them still get them, but for those of us who are doing okay, fewer dramatic miracles are needed.

However, we all still need the power of God in our lives, and that's where the greatest force in the world comes into play. I think I blogged once about spiritual inertia, which basically states that the faster we're headed in a particular direction (toward heaven or toward hell, for example), the harder it is to slow us down or turn us around. Also, the faster an object is moving in a given direction, the harder it is to speed them up. Yet, turning us around when our lives are going downhill, and speeding us up when we're going in the right direction, is exactly what the Atonement does. It defies the concept of spiritual inertia by turning people's lives around over the course of only a few days, or even a few moments.

Now, given that, President Monson's quote may seem not to make much sense. Yes, the Atonement is very powerful, but you don't have to go through men to get it. That is both true and untrue. Yes, you can repent and draw closer to God on your own, but to pull off the kind of turnaround we've described usually requires the help of an inspired servant of God. Those who are seeking to turn their lives around often go to their spiritual leaders to do it, and wisely so. Those servants of God are often inspired to know what to say and how to help. Those servants frequently play a pivotal role in overcoming strong spiritual inertia, and that's only the beginning. Add a few quiet but extremely powerful Priesthood blessings and it becomes plain to see that the power of God as it works through man is a great force for good in the world, perhaps the greatest.

In the midst of everyday life, with everyday problems and everyday solutions to those problems, we sometimes forget that there are greater forces at work than the ones we can see with our eyes. There is a war going on for our souls, and both sides of this war are giving it all they've got. When I think that all the powers of heaven and hell are fighting over my soul, and that a battle of that caliber can be decided by a kind word from someone who loves God and loves me, it lends an incredible amount of strength to the inspiring power of God as it works through the men and women living today.

A Question of Self-Perception

Another lesson I picked up from "Lord, Is It I?" is that we're sometimes not exactly as morally strong as we think we are. When Jesus told His disciples that one of them would betray Him, He was talking to the twelve people closest to Him - the twelve people that we might have expected to be the most loyal to Him. Yet, each of them felt the need to ask if they were the one that was going to betray Him.

At first thought, this seems like a silly question. The Lord's prophetic remark referred to a future action that one of them would take. In order to ensure that they were not the one who would take that action, any of them could have resolved, right then and there, not to do it. When Jesus said "one of you will betray me," any of them could have said, "well, it's not going to be me!" and then made the conscious choice not to betray Jesus.

That seems simple, but maybe it's not. It's possible to betray somebody by accident, as Pippin did when he told everyone in the Prancing Pony that he was traveling with Frodo Baggins. Also, even if you resolve not to do something, it can be tragically easy to find yourself doing it anyway, as we can see in the case of Peter denying that he knew Jesus, any addict who relapsed after a vow of abstinence, or anyone who has ever made a New Year's Resolution. It would have been possible that one of the twelve were going to betray Jesus without knowing beforehand that they were going to.

That leads me back to the point of not knowing exactly how strong we are. Peter thought that he was strong enough not to turn his back on Jesus, but then he did, three times, after being warned that he was going to. It seems that he wasn't quite as strong as he thought he was. On the other hand, I'm sure that some of the other disciples thought they were weaker than they were. A few of them, I'm sure, would have died before they betrayed Jesus, yet they must not have seen that strength within themselves because they all asked "Lord, is it I?"

I've said many times before that God knows us better than we know ourselves. The flip-side of that statement is that we don't know ourselves as well as God does. Maybe we are spiritually weak, but we don't see, or don't want to see, that weakness inside of us. Maybe we have enormous spiritual strength, but we see ourselves as being weak. Only God knows how strong we really are, how much temptation we can really resist, and which temptations would make us buckle. As we strive to evaluate our strengths and weaknesses, we should bear in mind that we're probably not the ones who are best qualified to judge us. God is. He can see through the biases and preconceptions we have about ourselves and truly see us as we really are. If we seek His guidance as we examine ourselves, He can help us see the truth. We may not know what we would or wouldn't do, but He does.

Frequent self-evaluation is important, but it's also important to remember that the measurements we make of ourselves may not be completely accurate. Instead of relying solely on our own observations and perceptions, we should look to God for answers to important questions, including the questions we may have about ourselves.

Faults - Admit Them and Overcome Them

Over the last two days, I've been looking at President Deiter F. Uchtdorf's talk, "Lord, is it I?", trying to think of a good message to share from it. There are so many good ideas in the talk,  I had a hard time choosing which one to emphasize. But my experience last night taught me not only that I should try harder to keep up with my homework assignments but also that I'm not ashamed to admit my faults. At least, not some of them.

President Uchtdorf said:

Brethren, none of us likes to admit when we are drifting off the right course. Often we try to avoid looking deeply into our souls and confronting our weaknesses, limitations, and fears. Consequently, when we do examine our lives, we look through the filter of biases, excuses, and stories we tell ourselves in order to justify unworthy thoughts and actions. 

But being able to see ourselves clearly is essential to our spiritual growth and well-being. If our weaknesses and shortcomings remain obscured in the shadows, then the redeeming power of the Savior cannot heal them and make them strengths.

In short, in order to change for the better, we have to admit that we could stand to change, and we don't always feel like doing that. It is, as many spiritual problems are, a pride issue. I don't want to see myself as being weak, foolish, or incompetent. Yet, it's only by honestly admitting and evaluating our faults that we can begin to overcome them. I could have blamed the Pathway program for having too many assignments due too soon, or I could have blamed the website for having problems (which cleared up in time for me to get all my homework done, thankfully), but instead, I admitted my fault and resolved to learn from it and overcome it. I'm still a chronic procrastinator, and I still forget things far too easily, but admitting that I have those faults enables me to take steps to overcome them.

We all have faults, whether we want to admit them or not. We can all stand to improve in some areas. We each have to honestly evaluate our faults and work to overcome them. But while we do that, we shouldn't get discouraged. God knows that we're not perfect and that we're not going to become perfect any time soon. He is patient with us, and we should try to be patient with ourselves. That's not to say that we should get comfortable with being the way we are, but we shouldn't feel miserable for not being better than we are. We are where we are. We should learn from our past, make peace with our present, and move forward into the future. My favorite aspect of Eternal Progression is that we don't have to become perfect overnight. It'll take a lot more time than that, but I believe that God will give each of us all the time we need. We just need to keep moving forward. As long as we're moving forward, we don't need to worry about how far we still have to go.

And there's one more thing that I want to touch on. It's sometimes said that as long as we're making progress each day, we're okay, but what about the days when we don't make any progress? What about the days when we regress a little bit, or suffer a setback? I personally think that that's alright every once in a while. Some days are better than others. Setbacks happen. You don't need to beat yourself up over it if you don't make any progress on a particular day. What we need to do is try again, to learn from our mistakes and setbacks and keep trying to move forward. I think that as long as our ups and downs average out to making an upward trends, progress is being made. And even when we make mistakes and suffer setbacks, as long as we strive to learn from them, they can help us improve ourselves as well. They can teach us about ourselves and our faults so we can better understand them and overcome them.

Being imperfect and making mistakes aren't bad things. They are part of the human experience, and they give us opportunities to grow. The only time when being imperfect is a problem is when we decide that it's so little of a problem that we don't have to try to change. We do need to change. We all have faults to overcome, but we also have a Father who's willing to work with us and be patient with us as we strive to overcome them. I'm not perfect, and I don't have to be perfect yet. What I have to do is keep learning from my mistakes and keep making progress. And in order to do that, I need to acknowledge my faults so I can strive to understand and overcome them.

Learning From Forgetting

So often, I see an event from my life as a learning experience, not because I did something right, it went really well, and I want to do it again, but because I did something poorly and it had some serious consequences. In this case, I forgot I had homework.

As far as my internal calendar is concerned, it's a bit too early to be thinking about homework. Classes at Sac City haven't even started yet, and I usually don't expect to get any assignments there until at least after the first week of class. I just had the first day of Pathway class last Thursday, and though I remembered that there's a Due Wednesday, Due Saturday system that had been established last semester, I had completely forgotten that that meant that I should have been doing homework either yesterday or today, if not earlier.

I don't blame myself for forgetting. People forget things sometimes. Things slip through the cracks. I had gotten used to the Winter Break routine of not really having to worry about what day of the week it was, so it hadn't quite clicked in my mind that Friday and Saturday are homework days. In fact, last Friday didn't even feel like a Friday because my normal Monday-Thursday classes haven't started yet.

what I blame myself for is not having been in the right frame of mind to get a reminder. Usually, when something's really important and you're trying to live righteously, you can count on a prompting from the Spirit to help you remember that important thing that slipped your mind. But I've been too caught up in interesting, but not very useful Youtube videos, and I've been treating my blog, a spiritual obligation of mine, like a lesser priority. It's my fault I forgot, and it's my fault I didn't get a reminder. Moving forward, I'm going to try to pay attention to things like homework assignments and upcoming due dates, and I'm going to repent of my inattentiveness and try to listen more to the spirit than to the guys who make Extra Credits videos.

But what does this mean for me now? It means I have about three and a half hours to do some homework that I should have done over the last two or three days. And the website is having problems. Again, this is all my fault. I have no control over the technical issues that are going on right now, but if I had done my homework earlier, like I was supposed to, this issue wouldn't be a problem now, and if I had encountered this problem back when I should have done my homework, I would have had time to talk to someone to get the problem resolved.

Hopefully, the website will start working again soon, and I'll be able to rush through the quizzes and assignments. Otherwise, this'll put a negative mark on my eventual grade for this class. But you know what? That's okay. My average grade will still be pretty good - I mean, this is an ENGLISH class! And having some nice, long-term consequences will help the lesson I've learned tonight sink in. It'll remind me of the mistake I made and what I need to do to avoid making that mistake in the future. I'll try to do my homework tonight, but if I can't, and I get marked 0% for these assignments, at least I'll know why, and it'll be an experience that I can learn from.

Guidance For Your Journey

In his talk, The Law of the Fast: a Personal Responsibility to Care for the Poor and Needy, Bishop Davies quoted from Isaiah 58: 8-11, speaking of the blessings we can get from fasting. I'd like to share the whole verses, plus verse 12 because it talks about the promised blessings of Fasting also. Some of the promised blessings require some interpretation, but there are many that are more straight-forward, and they all sound really good.

Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward. 

Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; 

And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: 

And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. 

And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. 

Isaiah 58: 8-12

My favorites of these promises are "Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. ...And the Lord shall guide thee continually." Yesterday, I watched a Let's Play of a game called Journey, in which you uncover the history of a fallen civilization. Your journey through their ruins is long and sometimes dangerous. It takes you through some desolate places, and the way forward isn't always clear. But one of the most interesting thing about this game is that you don't play it alone. The game often automatically links you up with another player, so you can help each other. If you're lost, they can guide you. If you know the way, you can guide them. You can help each other find secret areas and uncover more clues. Through the game, you experience how comforting it can be to have a companion and how lonely it can be without one.

There are a number of commandments that we can keep to receive the promise that we don't have to be alone. Many of us have heard that if we "always remember [Christ], the [we] may have His Spirit to be with [us]." Apparently, fasting is another way to ensure that we will always have divine companionship. Though the world sometimes feels like a cold and lonely place, you can have the warmth and companionship of the Holy Spirit. Though it's sometimes dark and hard to find your way, you can have the continual light and guidance of Christ. Mortality is, in many ways, an amazing journey, and thankfully, it's one that we never have to travel alone.

Bounteous Blessings of the Fast

As I listened to Bishop Dean M. Davies talk, The Law of the Fast: A Personal Responsibility to Care for the Poor and Needy, it struck me how many people are blessed by this program. Fasting itself can have great physical and spiritual benefits, even if all you do is go hungry for a short period of time. Couple that with prayer, followed by a contribution for the poor, and the spiritual blessings of fasting are added to and multiplied. The money then passes through the hands of Bishops and workers appointed by Bishops, most if not all of whom donate their time as volunteers, who use that money to produce food and other needed items for the poor. Industry has many benefits, and that's especially true of volunteer work. The ones who receive the most obvious blessings are those who are poor, but they receive less-obvious blessings as well. They are made aware that they're loved enough to make sacrifices for, and they're frequently brought to places where they can feel the spirit.

Everyone involved in the church welfare program receives great blessings, from the beneficiaries to the contributors and everyone who helps to keep the program running. I wouldn't have thought that a group of people going temporarily hungry to give money to the poor could bring so many blessings to so many people, but it works. I'm reluctant to say that it's an inspired program because I've heard that phrase used a few too many times, but I think that in this case it applies. At the very least, it's an excellent program that sheds numerous blessings on everyone involved. I look forward to volunteering more at the Bishop's Storehouse this semester, partly because I look forward to receiving the blessings that I know will come from doing so.

Testimonies as Trees - Sharing Strength

In Elder Craig C. Christensen's talk, I Know These Things of Myself, he relates our testimonies to trees. Even the largest, strongest trees started as tiny seeds and frail saplings. So it is with our testimonies. They start small, but as we nourish them, they begin to grow. But though Elder Christensen encouraged constant nourishment of our testimonies, I thought to myself that isn't it true that trees eventually grow strong enough to take care of themselves? Perhaps there's not enough time in one lifetime for our testimonies to grow so strong that we no longer have need to improve them, but I think of trees as sturdy, towering, strong things. I'm probably thinking too much into this analogy, but I think that considering the strength of a fully-grown tree can help us as we perceive our testimonies.

When saplings are planted, they're often given stakes, vertical sticks about as tall as they are, to which they're tied for stability, but I think that once a tree has grown tall and strong, with deep roots and a sturdy trunk, if it were somehow still tethered to the stake, that would do more good for the stake's stability than the tree's. Perhaps that's how it can be with our testimonies. We need to strengthen our testimonies, but once they're sufficiently strong, they can also strengthen us. We may never reach the point where we no longer have to keep strengthening our testimonies, but we can, in this life, reach the point where we could safely lean on them.

Another awesome thing about trees is that some trees have roots that interlock with each other, allowing every tree to effectively lean on each other, receiving strength from each other. Elder Christensen said that we can't lean on others' testimonies forever - every tree needs its own roots - but if we interlock our roots, if we use our testimonies to strengthen each other, we will each be strengthened individually, and we'll all be strengthened as a whole.

Many people in our circle, possibly including ourselves, may have sapling testimonies right now, and certainly all of our testimonies could be stronger, but we can each lean on each other and hold each other up when we need to, and even once our testimonies are strong enough to stand up on their own, we can continue to strengthen and be strengthened by each other. Each tree is individual, but few trees stand alone. We can strengthen our testimonies to the point where they can strengthen us, and we can gain strength from others' testimonies and let them gain strength from ours. We're all one green, growing thicket of testimony, and we're growing stronger together.

New Year's Resolutions - Better Late Than Never

I haven't set any New Year's Resolutions. I have a goal that I've been working on for years, but beside that, there's nothing specific that I'd like to accomplish this year. I have no major plans, no real goals. I'm lined up for this semester's classes, and I'll be taking classes in future semesters, too. Of course, I want to learn new things, develop new skills and hone existing ones, and I naturally want to get good grades, but I haven't set that as a goal or resolution. I don't want to say "this year, I want to get straight A's," even though I do want to get straight A's and I'm sure going to try, even if it isn't a New Year's resolution of mine. As I see it, goals need to be special, something above and beyond what you normally attempt to do. Something realistic, but something that'll make you stretch. Something that will make you behave differently than you normally do.

I don't have many goals like that, and actually, I think that's a good thing. I'm already very much like the way I'd like to be (with one or two notable exceptions). I'm already fairly intelligent, reasonably athletic, and somewhat talented. What more could I want from myself? I could always ask for more righteousness, but I already do. Can I make a New Year's Resolution to "keep up the good work"? No. Even if it was practical to set a special goal to maintain the status quo, it would be highly presumptuous. There are another few areas in which I could stand to improve, beyond that which I'm already trying to improve. To be specific, I'm too lazy.

(I just realized - with the Z and Y in the word I used just now, and with the Q and the X's I used earlier, I've used every letter in the English alphabet in this blog post. I wasn't even going for that.)

Right now it's 10:15 am. I've been blogging for at least 15 minutes - let's say I started at 10. I got up at about 6. It took me about an hour to roll out of bed, have family prayer and breakfast, to feed the bird, boot up the computer, and have a conversation with Mom, taking me to 7 am. What happened to the time between 7 and 10, three whole hours? Well, I read and answered a few emails, and got caught up on my Facebook notifications, but mostly, I just watched Youtube videos by myself and with my brother. For three hours. Three hours is a lot of time. I could have watched a movie and a half, maybe two movies, in that amount of time, and I just wasted it. The worst part is that that kind of waste is fairly normal for me. I get caught up in something on the internet, and the next thing I know, the day is half-over. I have things to do today, too. I was hoping to get my blogging done quickly (by 8 or so) so I could get an "early" start. So much for that!

But this leads me perfectly into the quote from Elder Cook's talk, Choose Wisely, that got me started on this topic.

I encourage everyone, young and old, to review goals and objectives and strive to exercise greater discipline. Our daily conduct and choices should be consistent with our goals. We need to rise above rationalizations and distractions. It is especially important to make choices consistent with our covenants to serve Jesus Christ in righteousness. We must not take our eyes off or drop that ball for any reason.

Discipline, daily conduct, distractions. I've never met Elder Cook, but he seems to know me pretty well. I'm not good at discipline, which is why I wouldn't last long at actually trying to be a paladin. My daily conduct depends on the day, and is usually rife with distractions. Sometimes, I have a hard time focussing on what I need to do (unless there's an approaching deadline) because it would be so easy to do something else instead.

So, there's a nice little character flaw I could improve on. How can I turn it into a specific goal, and more importantly, how can I motivate myself to make progress toward that goal? I could start keeping track of how I spend my time. I was once encouraged to write down how I spent all my time for a few days, down to the half-hour. Maybe I should get myself a little notebook and start keeping track again. Just seeing how much time I waste might encourage me to start wasting less time. That sounds like a good idea. I'm going to Office Depot today anyway. I can pick up some notebooks while I'm there. I'll also need to find a small writing implement, or make some kind of pencil cap, so I can carry something I can write with without it marking up the insides of my pockets. I'll see what I can find.

There's another New Year's Resolution I'm setting for myself, but I won't give any details about it lest I embarrass myself and disappoint a certain family member who's closely related to someone who reads this blog. And there's another little thing I'm working on, but it's supposed to be a surprise.

So, now that I have a few New Year's Resolutions, I don't feel bad encouraging you to think up one or two as well. It's not too late. Self-improvement is a quest of a lifetime. It's a large part of the reason we're here. Find up some way you could be better, and set a small goal for how you could improve in that area. Our resolutions don't have to be monumental - they just have to help us grow. I hope to grow a little bit better this year than I was last year, and if a 50 cent notebook can help me do that, terrific.

Two Good Phrases

Because it was the next Conference talk down the line and because I, for some reason, thought that it was going to be the topic of our Elder's Quorum lesson, I watched and read Choose Wisely by Elder Quentin L. Cook yesterday morning, but I didn't blog about it then because I was excited about sharing my "Burn the Tares" insight, and I was hoping to gain another insight for Choose Wisely in Elder's Quorum. But we didn't cover Choose Wisely in Elder's Quorum. Instead, Brother Turpin shared a simple phrase which, if we develop the habit of saying and meaning it, will help us endure trials and follow inspiration. The phrase is "I trust you, Jesus." When bad things happen, we can trust that God will make it alright in the end. When we receive guidance from God, we can trust that it's the right way to go. Reminding us to trust God will help us follow Him to the glorious future He has planned for us.

In Choose Wisely, Elder Cook shared a phrase which, if frequently repeated and considered, will help us make wise choices. This phrase is "Will this make me a better person?" Becoming better people is a large part of the meaning of life, yet so much of life completely fails to contribute toward that goal. The internet is full of things that only occupy our time without helping us in any way, and the world is full of things that drag us down. Many of these things are fairly tempting, but most of those temptations seem less appealing if we honestly evaluate them against the question "Will this make me a better person?"

These two phrases aren't foolproof. We can still be misled into trusting "inspiration" that was merely a random thought from our own heads, and some time-wasting activities can be justified by saying that they make us better in some small way. Still, these two phrases can help us cut out a lot of misery from our lives. They won't solve all our problems, or even all of the problems that they try to solve, but they can help. They can make our lives better and help make us better people. For that reason, by their own standards, it's worth giving them a try.

Burn the Tares

During Elder Perry's talk, he quoted the parable of the wheat and the tares. Normally, this parable is about good and evil being allowed to exist simultaneously on the Earth until the final judgement, when the wicked will be burned, like the tares were, but as I listened to that parable this time, I thought of the farmer whose vineyard it was, and of the enemy who sowed tares in his field, and I though of how foolish a thing it was that the enemy did.

When the enemy sowed tares in the man's field, he unintentionally justified his target in retaliating in kind, while simultaneously giving him the power to do so. Once the tares were grown, the Lord of the vineyard found himself in the possession of a good quantity of tare seeds. He could have easily sown those seeds in the field of his enemy. He could even have left a note saying "You reap what you sow - in your field or in another's," which also would have but a message worth blogging about.

But he didn't do that. He burned the tares instead. It could have been that he didn't know which enemy sowed tares in his field, or that the enemy didn't have a field to sow the tare seeds in, or that he didn't want to continue an endless cycle of revenge, but I prefer to think that (despite some of the more threatening verses in scripture) vengeance was the last thing on the Lord of the vineyard's mind. When his enemy gave him a weapon he could use against him, he chose to destroy the weapon instead.

So it should be with us. Life is full of hardship and challenges. Some of those are of our own making, and some of them are just a part of life, but some of our hardships come through others, sometimes intentionally. What do we do when someone does something mean to us? When someone sows tares in our fields and makes life more difficult for us? Do we reap the tares and sow them in their fields? Do we go and burn their fields, not even waiting for the harvest? Getting revenge is a natural desire to have, but it's one of the many natural desires we are to learn to overcome.

We don't need to get even with our enemies. If it's any consolation, God is already planning to do that for us. What we need to do is forgive, to bury the hatchet, burn the tares, and just reap whatever wheat managed to grow despite the tares. Getting even with an enemy isn't going to put more wheat in our barns, and it's not going to be healthy for our souls or for our personal relationships, either. You've heard about the concept of "killing" your enemies with kindness - with being so nice to a person that they can no longer bring themselves to remaining your enemy. That tactic is incompatible with getting revenge.

There may have been tares sown in your field, and you may be tempted to return them to the person who gave them to you, but try to rise above that temptation. If you're still very angry and bitter about the experience, remember, if you have to, that God will exact justice for every ill deed that has been done against you, but also bear in mind that He'll exact justice for every ill deed that you do as well, whether you felt that they were justified or not. God doesn't want us to go out seeking justice. That's His department. What He wants us to do is forgive.

Admiration and Emulation

My favorite part about Elder L. Tom Perry's talk, Finding Lasting Peace and Building Eternal Families is something he shared in the first few paragraphs.

Men and women are shaped partly by those among whom they choose to live. Those to whom they look up and try to emulate also shape them. Jesus is the great Exemplar. The only way to find lasting peace is to look to Him and live.

 It reminded me of a quote I saw on Facebook a long time ago:

Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of a man you are. It shows me what your ideal of manhood is, and what kind of a man you long to be.
-Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle and L. Tom Perry aren't the only people to suggest the idea of becoming like those whom you admire. The link between admiration and emulation is a strong one, and it reveals the great importance of admiring only those who are truly admirable. Thankfully, there are many good people in history that match that description. But no man in history is more admirable than Jesus Christ, which leads me to another good quote from Elder Perry's talk:

To be a Christian is to admire Jesus so sincerely and so fervently that the whole life goes out to him in an aspiration to be like him.
-Charles Edward Jefferson

Whether such emulation happens naturally or by conscious choice, we tend to become like the people we admire. Those we look up to have a great impact on who we become. We should be very selective in who we give that kind of power. Jesus is worthy of it, as are many others, but there are several more people who aren't worth copying. Those people aren't worth idolizing either, or even spending time with. If those whom we admire and those with whom we spend time have such a strong influence on who we become as people, we should be careful to only admire and spend time with those like whom we'd like to be.

We Are All Beggars

Took me a little bit longer than I expected to get started this morning, partly because I was tired, but partly because I had let my mind wander. I'll keep working of this 8 am thing, and see if I can get the hang of it.

The most emotionally charged part of Elder Holland's October 2014 talk, Are We Not All Beggars? is when he quoted King Benjamin as asking that question, and then listed a few circumstances under which we have all begged something of God.

We can, as King Benjamin taught, cease withholding our means because we see the poor as having brought their misery upon themselves. Perhaps some have created their own difficulties, but don’t the rest of us do exactly the same thing? Isn’t that why this compassionate ruler asks, “Are we not all beggars?” Don’t we all cry out for help and hope and answers to prayers? Don’t we all beg for forgiveness for mistakes we have made and troubles we have caused? Don’t we all implore that grace will compensate for our weaknesses, that mercy will triumph over justice at least in our case? Little wonder that King Benjamin says we obtain a remission of our sins by pleading to God, who compassionately responds, but we retain a remission of our sins by compassionately responding to the poor who plead to us.

It's a lot more moving when he says it than when I copy it.

In answer to his and King Benjamin's question, yes, we are all beggars. All of us have sinned and beg for mercy. I'm reminded of the parable of the two debtors, or was it the unjust servant? Anyhow, one person was forgiven of an enormous amount of debt, but then refused to forgive a much smaller debt that was owed to him. His cries for mercy were heard and answered, but he ignored the cries of another, and his original debt was reinstated.

Elder Holland quoted Proverbs 21: 13, "Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard." Let's not let that happen to us. Let us be compassionate and do what we can to serve and bless and give to others. If you need any more incentive, I've heard that God is very generous to those who are generous to others. Surely, you could use a blessing or two. Perhaps God will grant it to you if you make yourself a blessing to others.