Going Back for the Bag

After Mom and I left the Roser's house, but before we left their town, We stopped to gas up the car for our return trip. Since we have a habit of recording our odometer readings on our gas receipts to track our gas milage, after gassing up, we looked for a pen. Mom knew she had a pen in her bag, but she realized now that she didn't have her bag. We quickly went back for it, then proceeded on our journey home as planned.

Having forgotten the bag and having needed to go back for it took a little bit of time out of our day and delayed our arrival at home by a few minutes, but in a way, we had been very lucky. What if we had chosen to get gas at a town a few miles away from the Rosers? We could have driven for several minutes and then had to drive back to get the bag. Even worse, what if we had had another pen handy and hadn't noticed that the bag was missing until we were already half-way home? At that point, getting the bag back would have become much more difficult, costly, and time-consuming.

This reminds me of repentance. The sooner we notice something about ourselves that we need to repent of, the easier that repentance is. The longer we go without noticing our faults, or the longer we go without acknowledging them, the harder our repentance becomes. That may be why Elder Allen F. Packer said "Frequent small corrections are less painful and disruptive than large course corrections."

Thankfully (or not), we cannot be ignorant of our faults forever. Just as the Rosers would have eventually found Mom's bag, our friends and relatives will eventually point out (hopefully gently) the faults we have and need to work on, but by that time, repenting of the fault that had grown so bad as to become noticeable will probably be much more difficult than quickly repenting of a fault so small that nobody noticed it but us.

In life, we will have many faults to repent of, and all repentance requires some sacrifice, but the sooner we notice our faults and repent of them, the smaller that sacrifice will be. So, "watch yourselves" (Mosiah 4:30), take notice of your faults and repent of them quickly. It'll be much easier that way than waiting to repent after you've gone farther down the road.

On the Palms of His Hands

The main reason Mom and I visited the Rosers this weekend was that this was the weekend when their Stake was holding their annual Life of Christ celebration. In addition to heart-moving musical numbers, there were live actors describing scenes from Jesus' life, as well as many still pictures and paintings that depicted Jesus. Of the still images, the one that affected me most looked something like this:

See! I will not forget you... I have carved you on the palm of my hand. -Isaiah 49:15-16

When I think of what Jesus went through when He got those scars and His deliberate decision to keep them after His resurrection, I feel a very sure knowledge that He won't forget me now. When life is challenging, I know that He has felt that struggle and that He's continually working with me to help me overcome them. Because He lives and loves me, I will never be forsaken or alone.

Helpful Hints

Yesterday, I took part in a small Easter egg hunt with some of my family. The role I played in this even was mostly giving the youngest clues to where she could find her eggs, but I could only help her find her eggs after I spotted them first.

Later that day, my brother-in-law and I went out to play some disc golf, and we almost lost one of the discs. We searched for it for about half an hour, thinking that it might have fallen into a stream and become wedged under some rocks. After some time, other disc golfers suggested that we look further downstream and, sure enough, we found the disc much farther downstream than we had expected.

In each case, those who helped others find what they were looking for were only able to do so because they had a better idea, or at least a better guess, of where to look.

Many people in the world are searching for the happiness and peace that comes from the gospel. Those of us who were lucky enough to have found or been raised in the gospel would be kind to let others know what we found and where we found it.

In Easter egg hunts, the challenge of searching is half the fun, but when it comes to the gospel, we shouldn't leave others to find it on their own. We should be more like the other disc golfers and give others guidance as soon as they're ready to receive it.

We're all trying to find happiness in life. If you've found some, it'd be good of you to tell others where.

Minecraft - Stay Out of Caves or Bring Torches

Last night, I had the opportunity to introduce my mom to Minecraft. I wanted to show Mom that Minecraft is a clean game, one that she could approve of, and one that I would be totally comfortable playing in front of her, which I was. I'd even be comfortable playing it on Sunday, even though I wouldn't be comfortable playing a game as violent as Mario on Sunday, and Minecraft has monsters in it. The reason for the difference is that the monsters in Minecraft are easy to avoid - you just need to stay in the light.

In Minecraft, monsters only spawn in dark places. During the day, you're safe from monsters as long as you don't go into caves or linger near them. But during the game's night cycle, monsters can appear almost everywhere. To protect yourself then, you need to have a shelter - a place where the monsters can't get in, and fill that area with light.

Similarly, there are certain places in the world where evil thrives. You can avoid much of the world's evil by staying away from those places, but there are also times or seasons when evil is more abundant. During such times as these, we need to create shelters and stay in places of light. Like temples, other church buildings, or our own homes.

But we can't stay inside forever. In Minecraft, you need resources that can only be found underground, so you frequently need to risk exposure to monsters. And in life, we need to leave our houses in order to go to school and work and to fulfil our other obligations. However hard you try, you do have to encounter monsters, both virtual ones and spiritual ones, though preferably not on Sunday.

The good news is that we can turn dark places into places of light. You can bring light with you in the form of torches or a strong testimony, to defend yourself even when dark places are unavoidable. In Minecraft, and in some cases in real life, you can permanently change dark places into light places, changing them from from dangerous places into places of safety. It's not as easy in real life as it is in Minecraft, but it's often possible.

One of the greatest things about Minecraft is that you can change your surroundings. You can do that in reality, too. You can improve the world around you and bring light with you wherever you go. You can't always avoid facing darkness, but by bringing light with you, you can always dispel the darkness around you.

Gathering vs Gathering

Today, Planeswalkers from across the Multiverse are getting together at their favorite Gathering places to summon and battle armies of dragons on the battlefields of Tarkir, and I won't be joining them. But that's okay, partly because I don't want to spend any much more money on Magic right now, and partly because I'm doing to be doing something better. I'm going on an adventure with someone I love, and we'll be attending a different kind of gathering. I'm looking forward to it.

How Belief May Work and When it Doesn't

I little bit of a disclaimer from last nights blog post: Sometimes, even often, the power of belief isn't enough. For example, I could believe that there was an invisible platform that I'd land on safely if I hopped off a cliff, but merely believing it wouldn't make it true, even if I believed in it with all my heart.

I have no idea how sugar pills work. I don't know how an illness or condition could be cured just by believing you took medicine that could cure it. It seems illogical that taking a pill with no medicinal properties could have any medicinal benefit. Yet, it does work - sometimes. I wonder why.

Maybe some illnesses are partly (mostly? entirely?) mental, meaning that we feel sick because we think we're sick. That makes sense to me. I've heard that confirmation bias can be pretty strong. If a person thinks they're sick, then they may see or feel symptoms of the sickness they think they have. On the flip-side, confirmation bias can fuel sugar pills as well. If you took something you thought was medicine, you may start to see the benefits of the medicine you thought you had taken.

Can belief, either in a false sickness or a fake cure, affect a person's actual physical health? Perhaps. In ways that I don't fully understand, the mind is connected to the body, and the mind and the body affect each other. I wish I were more qualified to talk about this. I wish I knew more about how belief affects health. Maybe I'll do some research later. More likely, I'll just drop the topic and forget about it for now, even though understanding how sugar pills work could help me answer my next question.

How is it that mere belief can affect the real world, like a person's actual state of wellness, at some times and in some ways, but not in others? If sugar pills can cure some illnesses, why can't they cure all of them? I suppose the answer lies somewhere in medical science. But if there needs to be a scientific explanation why a certain drug or treatment works, how is it that sugar pills have any affect on a person at all?

Unfortunately, I have more questions than answers. However, I know that some things are absolutely true, no matter what anyone believes. There is no invisible platform, no matter how strongly I believe it's there. Similarly, God's existence and His power and authority are not dependent on whether or not anyone believes in Him. The scriptures are true, and, by extension, the commandments, promised blessings, and prophecies therein are all true as well, even if nobody believes in them. I also know that some things are absolutely not true, no matter how many people believe in them. Some things don't exist, no matter what a person thinks they've seen or felt, and some things don't work, no matter what a person has seen or experienced or what they think it means. Sometimes, belief just doesn't cut it. I just wish I better understood why, sometimes, it does.

The Power of Belief

A young woman in one of my English classes was wearing a light blue crystal that was wrapped in a metallic spiral and that hung from a necklace. When I asked her about the unique piece of jewelry, she told me that it was an aqua aura crystal. When I googled the term, I learned that it's a psychic energy crystal, used to enhance a person's clairvoyance and telepathy, as well as to ward off psychic or telepathic attacks. I, like many people, find myself skeptical about the effectiveness of such things. I don't really believe in auras or psychic energy. There may be more to it than I suspect there is, but the real power behind those crystals is, in my opinion, the power of belief.

I almost said "the power of faith," but that wouldn't quite be accurate. Faith is a belief in things that are not seen that are true (Alma 32:21). The power of belief works even if the thing believed in isn't true. The power of belief is responsible for the healing power of sugar pills. A while back, I blogged about Dove's Beauty Patches, and commented that I wouldn't mind getting some "Awesome Patches," even though none of those patches did or would do anything beyond giving the wearer something to believe in. The women who participated in the beauty patch trial experiment said that they could feel the beauty patches working. Perhaps aqua aura crystals work the same way.

Still, I think that the power of belief is less potent than the power of faith, with the difference being that the power of faith is derived from the belief in something that is actually true. A belief in God is going to help you more than a belief in psychic energy, and a belief in your identity as a daughter or son of God will do more to improve your self-image than a beauty patch would.

Yet, how arrogant must I be to say that? How arrogant is it to say that psychic energy only works (if/when it actually works) because people believe that it works, while faith in God works miracles because God is real? How arrogant is it to say that the things that I believe in are true while things others believe in are false? I don't want to be arrogant. And, to be honest, I can't really say that psychic energy doesn't work. Maybe it does. Maybe it works just because people believe that it does, or maybe it works because of scientific or mystical reasons I don't yet understand, or maybe it doesn't work at all. I have little experience with it, so I can't really say.

But what I can say is that faith works. My belief in God has helped me in ways that I can't describe. Maybe that was just the power of belief, but I don't think so. I think that God actually exists and that He actually does work miracles in the lives of those who have faith in Him. It could be that God also created psychic energy crystals and that people really do have chakras and auras in addition to spirits and souls. Our beliefs aren't mutually exclusive. Maybe we're both right. And even if there's nothing real behind mystic energy, that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with wearing an aqua aura pendant. It may not be magical, but it could still have positive effects on you if you believe that it will. Dove's Beauty Patches worked, despite Dove admitting that there was nothing special about them. I believe that the power of belief can be a strong thing, even if the thing you believe in isn't entirely true.

Share the Joy

In Elder Bednar's talk, Come and See, he spoke about a few of the reasons why we do missionary work. To illustrate one of the reasons, he shared an experience he and his wife had had watching two of their boys. When the younger brother received a slight injury, the older brother gave the small wound an excessive amount of treatment. Having been thus healed, the younger brother wanted to heal others, so he went around putting medicated ointment and bandages on everyone. Commenting on the younger boy's action, Elder Bednar said:

Please note that he immediately and intuitively wanted to give to his friends the very thing that had helped him when he was hurt. That little boy did not have to be urged, challenged, prompted, or goaded to act. His desire to share was the natural consequence of a most helpful and beneficial personal experience.

When we find something that helps us or makes our lives better in any way, there is a natural desire to share it. Out of genuine love for others, we want them to also have the things that bring happiness into our lives. This is part of the reason we do missionary work, and it's part of the reason I blog about games and fantasy. I enjoy those things and they inspire me. My hope is that they'll give you some happiness and inspiration, too.

Then again, I know that games and fantasy aren't for everyone. The children who weren't injured probably didn't get as much benefit from the ointment and bandages as the injured boy had. On them, the bandages were just big stickers. Fun, perhaps, but not really helpful. I knew that not everyone would be inspired by thinking of life as an open-world, massively multiplayer, role-playing, sandbox, choose-your-own-adventure game, but I was, and I hoped that some of you would be as well.

Yet, even though bandages are more useful at some times than at others, and fantasy does more good for some people than for others, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is for everyone. We all need to hear messages that increase our faith and strengthen our testimonies. We all need the strength that comes from the Gospel and the peace that comes from living it. We all need occasional reminders to repent and encouragement to press forward, despite our troubles, trials, and weaknesses. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a message of hope and salvation. It is of benefit to everyone who hears of it and applies its message. That's why we want everyone to hear of it, and that's why we share the gospel.

Of course, there's more to the story than that. You should check out Elder Bednar's talk for a more complete explanation. I mostly just wanted to make the point that I share my love of games and fantasy for one of the same reasons as I share the gospel. They make me happy. They bring fun and/or joy into my life. You may already have as much fun in your life as you would like to have, or maybe you get your fun in other ways, but games and fantasy are where I get a good deal of my fun and even some inspiration, so as often as I find something inspiring in some game or fantasy story, I plan on sharing it here. I'm not trying to push my hobbies on you any more than I'm trying to push my religion on you. I'm just trying to share the joy.

The Ultimate Role-Playing Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Game

I was going to use an idea like this for a conclusion to an essay I was writing for Pathway, but since I completely changed what I was going to write about, I'll share this thought here instead: Life is the ultimate role-playing adventure game. This thought came to me as I considered that I was raised with traits that made me a natural Paladin. My mom raised me to be helpful and chivalrous, Scouting fostered my spirit of adventure, and the Church helped me become a soldier of God.

As I was writing about how I had been born to be a Paladin, I had to acknowledge that not all people are born into as fortunate circumstances as I was. For them, I included that, no matter what their background, they could choose their own path. I had been thinking that life was a role-playing game, because of the many roles people play in life, but it's also a game in which you can choose your own adventure. You choose what paths you take, what skills you develop, and what you ultimately become. You can even, to a certain extent, choose what the object of the game is by choosing what goals to pursue.

Life is an open-world sandbox game. We can explore, pick up objects, move things, and change the world. We can interact with everyone and everything. There are no limits, no invisible walls holding us back. This world and our own lives are what we make of them. It's incredible how much freedom and potential we have.

Thinking about the world this way makes me feel excited to be alive. I think I've blogged before about Gamification, a concept by which you make something more fun and interesting by thinking of it like a game. Mary Poppins gamified the cleaning of Jane and Micheal Banks' room. I just gamified life itself, and it puts a very interesting perspective on how I live my life. If life is an adventure game, with role-playing, character-building, and an ultimate quest to complete, I don't want to spend all my time in this world playing mini-games that don't help me make progress toward my ultimate goal. I want to spend my time in activities that help me fulfill the purpose of life, that make me a better and a more prosperous person. Mini-games are fun, but there's a much bigger game to play right now, and I'm really excited to be a part of it.

Don't Just Go with the Flow

Last Friday, I was doing homework at the school library, and I overheard a conversation in which one person encouraged his friend not to just "go with the flow." "Fish go with the flow," he said. "Don't be a fish." However, fish do not always "go with the flow." I'm reminded of an episode of the Magic School Bus in which the class followed the migration of a school of trout, swimming far upstream to their breeding grounds. Because reaching their destination was of great importance to them, those fish fought the current and many other hardships, proving that fish do not always just go with the flow.

Despite the inaccuracy of this person's assessment of the locomotive habits of fish, I could see the wisdom of his advice, especially in light of Elder Larry S. Kacher's talk, Trifle Not with Sacred Things. In that talk, Elder Kacher spoke of a time when he and his family went to the beach. His daughter asked if she could swim out to a sandbar, but Elder Kacher decided that he should probably swim out there first, just to make sure it was safe. It wasn't. Before he realized it, Elder Kacher was caught in a riptide that was pulling him farther and farther out to sea. After a long struggle, he finally managed to make his way back to shore, and so did his wife, who had followed him into the water and into the current.

Elder Kacher used this story to illustrate a point President Spencer W. Kimball had made in November, 1974.

There are many currents in this earthly life—some safe and others not. President Spencer W. Kimball taught that there are powerful forces in our own lives much like the unseen currents of the ocean. These forces are real. We should never ignore them.

Elder Kacher and President Kimball spoke of both positive and negative currents and how we can take avoid the harmful ones and take advantage of the helpful ones, but I want to focus on what President Kimball called our "motive power" that allows us to resist dangerous currents and seek out safer ones. Despite whatever undercurrents there are in our lives, we have the responsibility to propel ourselves in the direction of our Eternal Salvation. Some currents may slow us down, so we have to swim against them. Other currents may help us along, but they won't be enough on their own. We need to swim forward rather than letting the currents carry us where they will. We cannot afford to simply "go with the flow."

God gave us our agency so we could chose our own destiny. God will help us, but never choose for us. Satan will try to choose for us, but we shouldn't let him. The currents of the world are constantly pulling us either toward or away from God. We have the responsibility to find out what currents we're in, judge whether those currents are taking us where we want to go, and then swim in our chosen direction, whether that means following a current or fighting one.

Trust in God's Plan

For school, I'm currently writing a paper about a time when I trusted in God's plan even though it didn't seem to be going well. In fact, it seemed to be going terribly, partly because of a terrible mistake I had made, but I had faith that God knew what was happening and that He knew how to fix it, and He did. Trust God. Follow the promptings He gives you. And even when things seem to go wrong, keep trusting in God. I have a personal testimony that God is watching over us and that He has a hand in our lives. He wants us to be happy. I promise that as we strive to follow Him, everything will work out.

Ordinary People, Extraordinary Results

I don't have much time to blog this morning, and I won't really get another chance later, so I'll just pull some inspirational photo or meme off of Facebook. Maybe I should make an album of photos like that, so I can pull one out quickly when I need one, rather than hunting through the other stuff on Facebook.

This quote is inspiring in that it says that even ordinary people can do great things. However, it's a little discouraging when you consider the method by which Elder Bednar said "Ordinary people... will bring forth extraordinary results." I think we can all manage to "do simple things that are right before God," but it's sometimes difficult to do those things "faithfully, diligently, and consistently." It's not that the Lord's path is horribly difficult, it's that we have a hard time staying on it. And once we've stepped off of it, we have a hard time getting back on.

Still, perhaps it's not quite as difficult as I sometimes think it is. God isn't asking us to be perfect right now; He's asking us to strive toward perfection, and to keep trying whenever we fall short. Yes, God wants us to follow Him consistently, and we should certainly try, but He knows that we're only human. We're going to fall short from time to time, even in the simple things. I can personally testify that God is patient with those who strive to follow Him, no matter how many times they fail.

So if you feel imperfect and ordinary, don't beat yourself up over it. God frequently uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things. Perhaps you're one of them.

Hardships - Opportunities to Reap the Blessings of Service

Elder Hugo E. Martinez's talk, Our Personal Ministries, focussed on service, and how we, as servants of God, ought to serve one another. Service is, in my opinion, one of the more inspired principles of the gospel. When people serve one another with all their hearts, both those who receive service and those who give the service are blessed. Thus, one person's misfortune can become a blessing to both them and to those who help alleviate their suffering. When we experience trials, we can develop patience and exercise faith in God. When He sends His servants to come to our aid, we can express gratitude to both them and Him, and grow in spirituality. When we see others who are in need, we can practice empathy and charity. We can show kindness, and possibly get some physical exercise as well. Then we can express humility by giving the credit for our service to God, and express gratitude to God for the opportunity to give service and grow in spirituality.

It's slightly ironic that one of the best things in life, coming together to serve one another, is brought about by the tragedies and hardships of life, but that's what makes God's plan so perfect and beautiful. He knew we would have to face hardships on Earth in order to gain the experience we need to become like Him, but the real stroke of genius was turning those hardships into opportunities to distribute blessings among many people. The prophecies of the Second Coming list many natural and man-made disasters that will befall the land. In fact, they've already begun. I'm not looking forward to facing the hardships that I know will come, but I do hope that when those hardships come, I will be able to roll up my sleeves and get to work in helping to alleviate the suffering of others.

Thankfully, we don't have to wait for some great disaster to happen to get involved in the glorious work of service. There are already, unfortunately, hardships aplenty. We just need to open our eyes, look beyond ourselves, and seek out opportunities to serve. If we search prayerfully, God will help us find those that we can help.

I'm thankful for my mother, who raised me with a desire to help others. It isn't always pleasant or convenient, but it always brings me the blessings I need to overcome the discouragement and challenges of life. Because I give service, I know that I'm a good person, and as I may have said once or twice before on this blog, I need that reminder every once in a while. I'm thankful to have gotten another reminder today. But this reminder also comes with a call to serve. There are things that I should do today, people I should help, and service I should give, so I should probably wrap up this blog post and get to work.

Frequent Small Corrections

Shortly after sharing the hatchet anecdote and getting into the subject of his talk, Elder Allen F. Packer shared this gem of wisdom; "Frequent small corrections are less painful and disruptive than large course corrections."

When going through life, we humans have a tendency to drift off course. This tendency is partly due to Satan's temptations. He knows that he can't get God's righteous children to break serious commandments just like that. Instead, he tempts us to commit minor infractions, gradually lowering our standards until we're no longer as righteous as we ought to be. If we're not careful, Satan can lead us into situations that require serious repenting to escape from.

However, if we are vigilant and continually hold ourselves to high standards, we can notice when we are beginning to slip up. When that happens, we can either make the small, needed corrections right then, or we can wait for the problem to grow and for the solution to become more strenuous. The sooner we change ourselves for the better, the less difficult, painful, and disruptive that change will be.

We are always changing. If we are not changing for the better, we are changing for the worse. Let us each put in the small, frequent corrections that will gradually make us more like God, so we don't end up having to make large, painful corrections later down the road.

The Hatchet Anecdote

At the beginning of Elder Allen F. Packer's talk, The Book, he shared this amusing anecdote:

As a young 12-year-old Scout, I received a gift of a much-desired addition to my Scouting equipment. It was a hatchet with a heavy leather cover! On the next overnight hike, we arrived in camp after dark, wet and cold from the heavy snow on the trail. All I could think about was building a big roaring fire. I immediately went to work chopping a fallen tree with my new hatchet. As I chopped, I was frustrated because it didn’t seem to be cutting very well. In my frustration, I worked harder. Disappointed, I returned to camp with only a few pieces of wood. By the light of someone else’s fire, I discovered the problem. I hadn’t taken the cover off the hatchet. I can report, however, the cover was chopped to shreds. The lesson: I became distracted with other things.

How often do we do that? How often do we become so intent on getting something we want, like a roaring fire, that we go about getting it the wrong way, or sacrifice something else we want, like the cover for our hatchet, to get it? How often do we let the fulfillment of short-term desires lead to long-term consequences?

There's an oft-repeated saying that "Patience is a Virtue." It's also a Christlike attribute. When Jesus Christ was tempted to turn stoned into bread, He refused. Though He had been fasting for over a month at that point, He chose to go hungry for a little while longer rather than to abuse His divine power. He could have gotten bread, or meat, or anything else He wanted, but He exercised patience, and later He got bread, several baskets full, with God's blessing.

Most of the time, we don't want to be as patient as Jesus was. Sometimes, we let our immediate needs and wants distract us from what lies down the road. As a boy, Elder Packer's desire to build a campfire distracted him from the fact that his hatchet's leather cover was still on. Had he realized the problem, he could have spared the hatchet's cover from destruction and have gotten wood more quickly at the same time. God's ways are better than our ways. When we follow God's plan rather than our own desires, we can save ourselves a lot of trouble later, and often get our righteous desires fulfilled in the process. God won't withhold any good thing from His righteous children (Ps 34:10). If what we want is really something that would be good for us, God will let us have it as we follow Him and trust in His ways and timing.

Another lesson we can learn from this story is that sometimes we substitute effort for grace. When things go badly, we sometimes try harder rather than seeking God's wisdom to find out why things are going wrong. Elder Packer was 12 years old and, I assume, a Member of the Church at the time. He would have been baptized and would have received the Gift of the Holy Ghost. And even if he hadn't, anyone can receive answers to prayers. When he found that his hatchet wasn't being very effective, he could have sought guidance and possibly have been inspired to check to make sure the cover was off. When things go wrong in our lives, how do we handle those situations? Do we always seek the Lord's guidance and directions for how to overcome our challenges and achieve our goals, or do we sometimes rely on our own wisdom and strength, often exercising more strength than wisdom?

Another principle this anecdote touches on is the contrast between light and darkness. It was dark in the area where the boy was working, so he couldn't see the problem clearly. Not only did this make the challenge more difficult, it also made the situation more dangerous. Imagine a 12-year-old Scout trying to chop firewood with a hatchet in the dark and try to count the ways in which things could go wrong. That young man was lucky that the hatchet's cover was the only thing that got destroyed. He could have been seriously hurt trying to cut firewood in the dark, even with the hatchet's cover still on. Trying to get through life without the light of the gospel is just as dangerous to our souls, if not more so.

Later, in the light of someone else's fire, the young Elder Packer was able to see what had been wrong. This reminds me of the beam and mote scenario. Most of the time, the parable of the beam and the mote is used to explain that we shouldn't judge others when we have problems of our own to work out, but the Master Teacher also said that once we had gotten our own acts together, we could then be empowered to help others (Matt 7:5). I'm paraphrasing pretty terribly, but the fact remains that the more light we have, the better we can share that light with others.

I don't feel like I have a heck of a lot of light, but I do have some, and I'm more than happy to share what light I have with anyone who reads my blog, partly because sharing light helps our spiritual light to grow. Sharing the first few insights I gained from this story helped me to see other lessons that could be learned from it, and I think I'll remember these lessons better than I remember what I blog about casually or what I passively hear at church.

Elder Packer didn't say whether receiving light from the other Scout's fire made that fire bigger or brighter, but it could have. With the light from the other Scout's campfire, Elder Packer saw the problem with his hatchet, and might have removed the hatchet's shredded cover. With the cover removed, he could have more easily collected more firewood and added it to the other Scout's fire, making a larger fire for both of them to enjoy. That may not be what happened that night, but I know that when I share light on my blog, I get more light in return.

I'm thankful for the ability God has given me to see spiritual meanings in the stories and events of life. I'm glad for the light that He shares with me when I follow Him and for the light that comes into my life as I share that light with others. I'm grateful for the insights I gained today and for the opportunity I had to share those insights with you. I should blog like this more often.

Too Late to Think of a Creative Title

I don't mind having classes in the mornings, except that it sometimes prevents me from blogging in the mornings, and then I often don't get around to blogging until late at night. That, in itself, wouldn't be too bad, except that I get tired at night, so I have a hard time focussing on writing good blog posts, and I know that if I had computer trouble one evening, it might prevent me from blogging before midnight that day, and that's totally unacceptable. Thankfully, I should be able to blog tomorrow morning. On Wednesday, if I can't blog in the morning, I can at least blog in the afternoon, from the school's computers. Maybe I should make that the norm for my Monday/Wednesday/Friday blogging. For this semester, at least.

I can't think of anything to blog about tonight. None of my schoolwork today has been blogworthy. At least, I can't draw any blogworthy analogies from them right now. I've looked at the next General Conference talk that I need to blog about, and I know that there's something really good in the story that's shared in the beginning - I just can't think of an application for it. There's probably something blogworthy about not being able to think well in the evening, but what? Maybe I could blog about the importance of not procrastinating, specifically focussing on the idea that we should do what we can while we still can, because we might not get another change later.

That reminds me. Earlier, I saw a quote from President Monson, "Never, never, never postpone a prompting." God often gives us instructions pertaining to where we should go, what we should do, and what we should say. When we get those promptings, we should act on them right away because we don't know how long we'll have the opportunity to do what God is prompting us to do. Usually, I have the ability to think creatively enough to come up with a blogworthy analogy for just about anything (still working on those toucans, though), but when it's late, I sometimes just lose the ability to think. Perhaps I should have blogged earlier, while I still could, rather than doing math homework that isn't due until Friday. But I didn't want to procrastinate that, either. Procrastination is a bad habit, and it's terrible how often I have to remind myself of that.

Reading Instead of Writing

Elder David A. Bednar and Elder Lynn G. Robbins spoke about scripture study in their special YSA Fireside last night, and Scriptures was the topic in Gospel Essentials class this week. When God hits me with a certain topic more than once within a 24-hour period, I tend to assume He's trying to tell me something. In this case, He's trying to tell me to study the scriptures. Since it's pretty late and I'm already kinda tired, I think it would make more sense for me to go study the scriptures right now rather than staying up blogging about how much and why God wants me to study the scriptures. To make a long blog post short, multiple General Authorities have counseled us to study the scriptures every day. If you haven't already spent some time with the scriptures in the day in which you read this blog post, I'd advise you to make time to study the scriptures today, even if it means taking time away from doing something else.

Shining Armor

One of the defining characteristics of a knight in shining armor is that their armor shines. This implies that they spend a good deal of time keeping their armor (and presumably their other equipment as well) clean, polished, and in good repair. I've thought of several reasons for why they would want to spend so much time diligently maintaining their equipment, and since I've just blogged about the importance of doing the things that will maintain my spiritual armor, I think that now would be a good time to share my thoughts.

When you trust your life to the armor you wear and to the weapons you carry, you'll want to make sure it's all in good condition. If your armor is rusty, if your chain mail is missing a few links, or if your sword is dull, they may fail you when you need them most. Though it takes time that you might rather spend doing other things, maintaining your equipment may save your life. Similarly, maintaining your spiritual equipment may save your spiritual life. It takes time and effort to pray genuinely and to really study the scriptures, but if it helps you resist temptation, it's worth the time it takes.

Also, a sharp sword is more effective than a dull sword. The more time you spend studying the scriptures and attuning yourself to the voice of the Spirit, the more you'll be able to help God's other children, by following the Spirit's promptings to help them and by knowing just the right scriptural message to share with them. The better we maintain our spiritual equipment, the more good we can do.

Part of making sure your armor and weapons are in good repair is making sure you keep them clean. Bloody weapons and armor are likely to rust and become useless, so keeping your equipment clean is essential to keeping them useful. It isn't hard to draw a spiritual parallel from there. When we have anything we need to repent of, we should repent as quickly as possible, before any lasting damage is done to our spiritual equipment. We need to keep our souls, our hearts, minds, and actions, and our spiritual armor clean.

All of this cleaning, repairing, and sharpening has a distinctive side-effect. Equipment that has been well-maintained shines. I don't know if the polish used on metal weapons and armor has any defensive properties to it in that it helps prevent the equipment from becoming stained or damaged, or whether the purpose is entirely to make it shiny, but even if it only makes your gear shiny, having polished equipment may be worth the cost of the polish. Polished equipment sends a message - mainly that you are formidable and dedicated. A sharpened, polished sword is deadlier than a dull one, and if a person's armor is scratched and dented, they're probably not that great of a fighter. Using unpolished equipment may be a less-terrible idea if you want your enemies to underestimate you, but if you want your enemies to fear you, if your want your weapons and armor to work well against them, and if you want to inspire your comrades, making sure your armor is shiny is a good way to accomplish that.

Jesus set us as a standard to the nations. If we want them to follow our example, we had better set a good example for them to follow, and that means diligently maintaining our spiritual armor until it shines. Diligence is not one of my strong suits, but it's a trait I would do well to develop. A knight who isn't diligent enough to keep their gear in good condition probably isn't disciplined enough to be a good soldier. Developing the habit of diligently maintaining my spiritual armor may help me become more diligent in general, and according to Preach My Gospel, diligence is one of the Christlike attributes we're meant to develop.

Yes, it takes time and effort, but for both physical equipment and for spiritual traits, maintaining them is a good investment of time and energy. It makes us more powerful, more inspiring, and more capable of resisting Satan's attacks. In essence, it makes us better people and better soldiers of God. Let us maintain our spiritual equipment well, so when we stand before God for inspection and judgment, our consciences and our armor will shine brightly.

Don't Lose the Habit

It's crazy that I could almost break a two-year blogging streak by simply forgetting to blog. I mean, I know that humans have an incredible capacity for forgetting things, but you'd have thought that blogging would have become an automatic habit by now. I've heard that it only takes 30 (or was it 60?) days to develop a habit. How long does it take to lose a habit? Is it really a "habit" if it's so easily lost?

Of course, the purpose of this blog has never been just to blog. I'm supposed to study the scriptures, ponder insights, and share unique analogies, and I do that pretty often, but I'm not sure it's having as strong of an affect as it was meant to have had. Yes, I blog every day, even when I almost forget some days, but I don't study the scriptures every day. I read them occasionally, but I rarely study them. I haven't been doing so well at praying frequently, either. There are many gospel-related habits that I haven't developed, or that I've developed and lost.

I think that habits, even after becoming habits, still require a certain amount of effort to maintain. If we become casual in our praying, scripture studying, and in my case, blogging, we won't get as much out of them, and we may eventually stop doing them altogether. I don't want to stop blogging. I don't want to stop reading my scriptures and saying my prayers, either. I know that those habits help me make progress toward my eternal goal. If I lose those habits, I'm going to lose a good part of myself, one of the parts that help me be good.

I'd probably be surprised and depressed at how frequently I have to recommit myself to doing what I know I should do, but tonight, I'm recommitting myself anyway. I'm going to put more effort into my scripture study and more heart into my prayers. Hopefully, I'll put more insight into my blog as well, but I won't hold myself to that. In order to write insightful blog posts, I need to have an insight to share, and sometimes I don't feel very insightful. Tonight, for instance. But as I work harder to regain and maintain my other daily gospel habits, I expect that more insights will come to me, so I hope to have more that I can share. And when I regularly find insights that I want to blog about, maybe that'll help me to remember to blog every day.

The Best and Worst Parts of my Least Favorite Mormon Painting

Arnold Friberg was an excellent artist. He has created many wonderful paintings, including The Prayer at Valley Forge, Two Thousand Young Warriors, and Peace, Be Still. However, Brother Friberg has also created a painting that I've never been fully comfortable with, Alma Baptizes in the Waters of Mormon.

Most of the painting is great. The subject matter is fine, and the scenery is beautiful. There's just one thing that I don't like about this painting, one thing that stands out to me far more than I want it to. I'm referring to the young woman on the left. That young woman, though beautifully painted, is my least favorite part of this painting. In fact, it's partly because she's so beautiful that I wish she wasn't in the image at all. Because she, a pretty, young woman in attire that, while wet, doesn't quite meet our standards of modesty, is in the image, I wonder whether it's appropriate to have it hanging on the wall in our church. I don't think we should be displaying images like that, and we certainly shouldn't spend too much time looking at them.

Yet, in my mind, this painting has one redeeming quality, and it's not the mountains in the background, though those are really nice. Look at the guy holding the spear. Look at where he's looking. Or rather, notice where he's not looking. That guy is one of my heroes, not just because he's doing his duty by keeping an eye out for the wicked king's guards, but also because he's resisting temptation by keeping his eyes off of the attractive young woman. That man is trying to keep his heart and mind pure, and that's an important example for us to learn from.

We can't expect the world to live up to our standards of modesty. There are going to be people who choose to wear revealing attire, and we can't always avoid coming into contact with them. When that happens, we can follow the spear guy's example by not looking. And if we can't help looking at them, such as when we're having a conversation with them, we can try to focus on something else. Look at their eyes. Concentrate on what they're saying rather than what they're wearing. Don't let your eyes or mind wander. The spear guy is clearly making a concentrated effort on taking his job as a lookout as seriously as possible. Contrast that against his buddy with the bow and arrows. Sure, he might just be watching Alma baptizing people, but from the angle of his vision, he could hardly help noticing a few other things out of the corner of his eye. Don't be that guy. When temptation reveals itself, in whatever form it takes, don't let it into your mind. Don't look at it. Don't think about it. Be the guy with the spear.

An Acceptable Offer From the Adversary

In Alma 55, a Nephite named Laman approaches the Lamanites who were guarding Nephite prisoners in the city of Gid. Laman tells them that he had escaped from the Nephites and had brought some Nephite wine with him. When the Lamanite guards express a desire to drink the wine, Laman gives them the same deceptive offer that Satan gives each of us: "You may do according to your desires." (Alma 55:12)

The funny thing is that we've already been made that offer by someone else, and we accepted it, much to the displeasure of Satan who, at that time, was offering an alternate plan. Through our God-given moral agency, we already have the power to "do according to our desires," to essentially do whatever we want to do. That's the level of freedom God gave us when He sent us here.

The implied and untrue undertone of the offer of Laman and Satan is that we may do according to our desires without fear of any consequences. While God gave us the freedom of choice, He also instated consequences for those choices, and frequently warns us of the consequences we'll face if we just do whatever we want. God may not stop us for doing according to our desires, but He won't also protect us from the results of our choices unless we sincerely repent of them.

May favorite part about the offer is that we can accept it without breaking God's commandments. If you have desires to do good, God would want you to act according to those desires. We all have some desires that are good and some desires that are evil, so we may have to be selective in which desires we "do according to," but as long as we choose our better desires to act on, God doesn't have a problem with that.

Satan tries to offer us the kind of freedom that would let us do whatever we want, but the joke's on him. I've already accepted that offer, with God's blessing. Even now, I'm still accepting it. What I want is to be a Paladin. I desire to do good. And I "do according to [those] desires" almost every day.

"Just Keep Trying"

Is it strange how inspiring I found this?

God knows that life is difficult and that it's sometimes hard to keep His commandments. Thankfully, God doesn't expect us to be perfect. He just expects us to try to do what He asks. He knows we'll fail a thousand times as we strive to follow Him and keep His commandments, but He wants us to know that there is always hope for progress and improvement, as long as we keep trying. So, when you feel discouraged and frustrated, remember that God is still pulling for you and standing with you, and as your loving Father in Heaven who sees the good in you and what you can become, He wants you to keep trying.

Prisoner Exchange - What Am I Missing?

In Alma 54, Ammoron, the leader of the Lamanite armies, sent an epistle to Moroni, the leader of the Nephite armies, requesting an exchange of prisoners of war. Moroni liked this idea:

And it came to pass that Moroni felt to rejoice exceedingly at this request, for he desired the provisions which were imparted for the support of the Lamanite prisoners for the support of his own people; and he also desired his own people for the strengthening of his army. (Alma 54:2)

So, Moroni sent a letter back to Ammoron, saying (among many other, less tactful things):

. . . I will close my epistle by telling you that I will not exchange prisoners, save it be on conditions that ye will deliver up a man and his wife and his children, for one prisoner; if this be the case that ye will do it, I will exchange. (Alma 54:11)

Ammoron wasn't pleased with Moroni's letter, but he agreed to Moroni's exchange terms anyway.

Nevertheless, I will grant to exchange prisoners according to your request, gladly, that I may preserve my food for my men of war; . . . (Alma 54:20)

Both sides wanted the exchange to happen. Both sides agreed to the same terms. This could very easily have been a successful and mutually-beneficial exchange of prisoners (and threats and insults).

But then Moroni called off the deal:

And he said: Behold, I will not exchange prisoners with Ammoron save he will withdraw his purpose, as I have stated in my epistle; for I will not grant unto him that he shall have any more power than what he hath got. (Alma 55:2)

But that wasn't what he had stated in his epistle. He had asked for one family for each prisoner he exchanged, which was what Ammoron had agreed to. It was a really good deal for each of them - a deal that Ammoron had initiated and Moroni had proposed. Moroni had "felt to rejoice exceedingly" at the idea of exchanging prisoners. Why did he call of the deal after Ammoron agreed to his original terms? There had been no haggling and no compromising. Moroni was getting what he had asked for -what he wanted. Why, at the last minute, did he call off the exchange?

One school of thought is that with all of the threatening and insulting going on between the two hard-headed war-captains, Moroni's pride got the better of him. He always did seem to have a short temper. Perhaps Moroni simply got fed up with Ammoron for stubbornly perpetuating the war they were in, despite how agreeable he was being about the exchange of prisoners. Perhaps Moroni was experiencing the same kind of doubts I started to have when I realized that anyone who suggests a deal thinks they're getting the better end of it. Perhaps Moroni suspected Ammoron of having some treacherous trick up his sleeve, though there's no mention of that in the scriptures.

Without a clear reason given in the text, Moroni called off what certainly seemed to be a deal that both sides wanted. Ammoron would no longer have so many mouths to feed, and Moroni would have secured the release of innocent women and children. Both sides would have traded prisoners they had to devote men to guarding for men who would fight for them. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe Moroni didn't want to release any Lamanite soldiers, even if he got one Nephite soldier for each of them, even though the Nephites had historically proven themselves to be twice as strong as the Lamanites, man to man, when the Lord was on their side.

This was a deal Moroni had proposed, and should have readily accepted. So why didn't he? What am I missing here? What reason for not exchanging did he see that I'm not seeing? If any of you know more about this story than I do, please fill me in, because from where I stand, Moroni's decision doesn't seem to make any sense.

Returning to Mulek

Last night, I blogged about the defensive strategy in Alma 52, with the Lamanites wisely retreating to their stronghold when things started going badly. This morning, I'd like to blog about the offensive strategy, how Teancum took back the city of Mulek.

After Teancum's assassination of Amalickiah, the Lamanites sealed themselves up in Mulek and their other strongholds, and Teancum recognized that it wouldn't be wise for him to attack the Lamanites while they had such as strong advantage, so he played defense, too. Later, he received a command to take the city of Mulek, if possible, so he got ready to attack the city, but the Lamanites still had a strong advantage, so he decided not to attack yet. A little later, Moroni came over with an army of his own, and they made plans to take Mulek, but the Lamanites still had such a strong defensive advantage that a direct assault was a still bad idea, even with the extra strength. They counseled together and eventually came up with a plan where Teancum and his men would draw the Lamanites out of Mulek and lead them on a chase to Bountiful, where Lehi and his men were waiting. And when the Lamanites retreated from Lehi and his men, they were met by Moroni and his. And so it was that with superior tactics, and probably superior numbers, the Nephites were able to retake the city of Mulek.

Drawing comparisons with our spiritual battles, taking the city of Mulek might represent keeping some difficult commandment, like "be ye therefore perfect," or accomplishing some great goal, like overcoming a personal vice. We know we want to do it, and we may even be commanded to do it, but we may not actually be able to do it - at least not on our own. But whenever God gives us a commandment, He also gives us the power and ability to keep the commandment, here represented by Moroni's army. However, even with the strength of the Lord on our side, doing things our way may not work. Between them, Moroni and Teancum came up with a plan that was less dangerous than attacking Mulek head on. The funny thing about this plan was that it didn't require Teancum to do any actual fighting. It was his battle, but he didn't fight in it. I wonder how often that's true for us.

God always makes it possible for us to keep His commandments and escape temptation, and He grants us additional power to strengthen us as often as we need it, but He usually requires us to join the fray ourselves. He always requires at least some effort on our part, but it usually requires more from us than going for a long, fast jog. Sometimes, however, that's all it takes. God, with His knowledge and wisdom, can see ways of making things that would normally be impossible relatively easy. Teancum could never have taken Mulek without help, but he and his men did have the strength to outrun the Lamanites until they could get to Bountiful, so that's what they did. We may not be able to overcome our challenges, but there are some things we can do, so God finds ways to make that work.

God sometimes asks us to do the impossible, but when He does, He makes a way for us to make it happen. It may not happen in a way that we expect, but when we seek God's help in keeping His commandments, and when we follow His directions for how to fulfill His plans, He always makes it work out somehow. By following the counsel of his heaven-sent aid, Teancum was able to accomplish the impossible without even fighting for it. It won't always be that easy for us, but I know that even when God commands us to do the impossible, we can have the faith to follow His plan, knowing that nothing is impossible for Him.

Retreating to Mulek

Out of the following four items, which is both the lowest priority and the action I've been taking for the last hour or so? Is it A) Blogging, B) Studying the Scriptures, C) Sleeping, or D) Reading Scientific Explanations of Hypothetical (and Usually Cataclysmic) Situations?

Clearly, humans are not the wisest of creatures. I should be sleeping right now. I should have blogged hours ago. I should wrap up this blog post, quickly read a scripture or two, and then go to bed. Actually, maybe I change the order of a pair of those.

We've gotten to the war chapters in our family scripture study, which is good news for me because I tend to see a lot of good strategies in these chapters. Sometimes, the strategies detail what Satan tries to do against us, and sometimes, they explain what we can do to counter him. For the chapter we read tonight, Alma 52, I can't tell clearly whose strategy we're looking at.

In Alma 52, Captain Moroni has Teancum and his men decoy an army of the Lamanites out of the city of Mulek, a stronghold they had taken, and lead them on a wild goose chase toward the Nephite city, Bountiful, where Lehi and his army were secretly waiting. When the Lamanite army saw a fresh and strong army of the Nephites, they started to retreat, but were blocked by Moroni and his army, who had followed them all that way. With the Lamanites outwitted into leaving their stronghold and allowing themselves to become surrounded, they were easily defeated.

Of course, I could use this to illustrate the importance of not leaving your stronghold (not lowering your standards, not leaving the church, etc.) no matter what opportunities present themselves, but that'd be too easy. Besides, while skimming through the chapter, I found something else.

At the start of the chapter, this same Lamanitish army woke up to discover that their king and commander, Amalickiah, had been assassinated, and that Teancum and his men were ready to attack them. Rather than fighting, the Lamanites retreated to their stronghold in Mulek, where they might have been safe, had they stayed.

In life, sometimes we face hardships and challenges we didn't expect to face, and may well be too much for us to handle. In those times, we may do well to fall back onto something solid, something we can depend on, something like the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Like a stronghold, the Gospel and our personal testimonies of God's existence and His love for us can give us the strength we need to carry on through our trials. My faith in the existence, omnipotence, and compassion of God helped me see past a particularly difficult experience that I once had, and it gave me hope that everything would work out, which, according to God's wisdom, it always will.

Unfortunately, God's wisdom isn't the only controlling factor in our lives. There's also our foolishness to consider. God provided us with a stronghold, but we sometimes allow ourselves to be tricked into leaving it. We sometimes abandon the safety of keeping the commandments, or neglect the protection of doing the daily and weekly things that maintain our faith. Sometimes, we forget the core principles of the gospel, and when we do, we frequently find ourselves facing tougher challenges than we can handle.

Of course, as soon as we find ourselves facing unexpected difficulties, we should return to our places of strength, but by the time the challenges arise, we may already be too late. It was too late for the Lamanites to return to Mulek when they saw the army of Lehi because the army of Moroni had shut off their way of retreat. Rather, we should return to our strongholds as soon as we realize we've left them. We should start praying and studying the scriptures regularly and fervently as soon as we realize we've stopped. We shouldn't wait to be surrounded by our enemies before we decide that we'd rather be surrounded by the walls of our forts.

Then again, I'm not sure it can ever really be said that it's "too late" for us to repent and to turn onto Christ. His arms of mercy are always open, and while it's true that we should never leave the safety of His Gospel, it's equally true that we frequently do, and that what's important then is that we return to Him as soon as possible. We will get coaxed out of our strongholds from time to time, but when we do, we should return to them as soon as we can, and I believe that if we always try to return to the gospel as soon as we learn that we've strayed from it, that God will always make it possible for us to do so. We can always retreat to Mulek, even though it's infinitely better that we never leave it.

The Future You Picked

The other day, while doing homework, I listened to the Wall-E soundtrack on Youtube. The last song on that soundtrack is called "Down to Earth," and it includes the line "Did you feel you'd been tricked by the future you picked?" According to my interpretation, the line was aimed at the people who went to live in a spaceship called the Axiom, and subsequently missed out on many of the experiences we have on earth, but I think it could also apply to those of us who chose to leave heaven to experience life on earth, and those of us who give up the prospect of returning to heaven to more fully enjoy life on earth.

First, we chose to come here. There weren't many other options, but still, we made the choice, but I don't think we fully understood the ramifications of our choice. We had no experience with pain or difficulty. We knew that earth life would be unpleasant, but I'm not sure we understood the meaning of the word. We agreed to go before we fully understood what our decision meant and what the consequences would be. Of course, we had the advice of our Father and we trusted His judgement that, while unpleasant, this was an experience we needed to have, so we signed up for God-only-knew-what, and here we are.

Do you feel that you had been tricked? Sometimes I think about how hard life is, and I wonder if I really knew what I was getting myself into, or if I still would have gone along with God's plan, had I known all that it would entail. If I knew then how much pain and struggling I would experience on earth, would I have still agreed to go? Maybe not. Maybe I had been tricked. But still, if what God said was true (and what He says always is), this is an experience that I need to have, and when it's over, I'll be grateful it happened. Perhaps I had been tricked, but if not now, at least someday, I'll be glad I was.

However, there are others who are being tricked who aren't going to be so glad when they find out what's really going on. In life, we make countless decisions between good and evil, and Satan always tries to convince us to make evil choices. Usually, his attempts involve a good deal of trickery, trying to convince us that what he wants us to do isn't really a sin and that there won't be any consequences. But of course, there will be. There are consequences to all of our choices, including our sins, and the consequence of sin is suffering, if not now, at least in the future.

Have you been tricked by Satan into choosing a future that takes you away from God? That was a rhetorical question, but the answer is yes. We all have. We've all sinned at least once in our lives, and odds are that we'll be tricked or at least persuaded to commit sin several more times in the future.

The good news is that there's hope. The future we've chosen for ourselves doesn't have to be permanent. We won't be stuck on Earth forever, and we don't have to stay stuck in a life of sin. Through Christ's Atonement, we can still be cleansed from sin and return to live with God. We can choose a new future for ourselves, an eternity of life in heaven with our Heavenly Father, if we're willing to be righteous enough to be worthy to live there. At the end of Wall-E, the captain of the Axiom chose a new future for himself and his ship's passengers, and they returned to the place where they had been and where they again wanted to be. Through the power of the Atonement and the mercy of Jesus Christ, we can do the same.

Are We Willing to Pay the Price?

It's time to revisit Elder Carlos A. Godoy's talk, The Lord Has a Plan for Us! Something I noticed in rereading this talk was a pair of pointed questions Elder Godoy asks in the second section of his talk: "Are we willing to pay the price for our decisions? Are we prepared to leave our comfort zones to reach a better place?"

Every act, every choice, has a consequence or a price. Are we willing to pay the prices our decisions entail? Yesterday, I told you that I want to be more righteous. Am I willing to consistently put in the effort to proceed with the almost always difficult and sometimes seemingly hopeless endeavor to improve? Alternatively, I could give up on myself and stop trying to improve, but that choice comes with a price, too. Am I willing to live with the consequence of having to live with a version of myself that's no better than I am now? Every action or inaction has a price. Do we fully consider the consequences of decisions as we decide which choice to make?

Part of our problem is that we tend to be rather short-sighted. We sometimes don't consider the consequences we'll face later if we don't make the right choices now. The other night, it would have been easy to stay in bed and not read my scriptures, and the consequences of that choice would have been too far down the road to realize the connection between the choice and the result. The reverse is sometimes also true. We see the difficulty of making righteous decisions, but we don't always see the blessings that'll eventually come from it.

Or, we may hear of and desire the blessings, but not want to have to go through the trouble of being righteous to get them. We know that heaven is a wonderful place - one that we want to be worthy to live in. We also know of the blessings God grants to the righteous and the joy we feel from doing what's right and having the Spirit with us. Doing good has good results. But first, doing good requires sacrifice. Are we willing to make those sacrifices to get those blessings? "Are we prepared to leave our comfort zones to reach a better place?"

Whether we choose to do things the hard way or the easy way, there are going to be consequences. To be wise, we have to consider not only the immediate results of our choices, but their long-term results as well. Then we need to decide, are we willing to suffer short-term discomfort now to gain long-term peace later, or are we willing to accept long-term consequences later to enjoy short-term comforts now?Both choices come with a price. Which price are we willing to pay?

Choosing to Change Now

Last night, after blogging, I really wanted to go to sleep, but then I remembered one thing that a prophet said was more important than sleep. With my head on my pillow and my eyes closed, I reasoned to myself that I had already done a little bit of scripture study, in a sense. I had just read and blogged about one or two verses of scripture, hadn't I? Wasn't that enough? In response, the Spirit asked me whether that I wanted that spirit - the spirit of weariness, of "I've already done enough" - to continue to control me in the afterlife.

Last night, I blogged about Captain Moroni still being Captain Moroni after he died, and how that was pretty cool. The flip-side of that message is that when I die, I'm still going to be the same person I am now. If that's not something I'm okay with, I had better change myself now.

I know that, in the afterlife, there will be opportunities for growth and improvement, but I'm not sure how easily that change will come. And why wait? If the way you are now isn't the way you would like to remain forever, why not start making the desired changes today?

Last night, I had the opportunity to be lazy or to put in a little bit of extra effort to study the scriptures, and I'm glad to say that I made the right choice. I can't remember hardly anything that I had read, but I remember that I chose to read it. It takes far more than one act to overcome a habit of procrastination and laziness, but that one act was a step in the right direction, and the more frequently we make decisions based on how we'd like to be, the sooner we'll become our ideal selves. It's not going to happen overnight, and not even dying is going to bring about the changes we want to see in ourselves, but every time we make a good decision, especially when it's difficult, we change ourselves for the better.

There are many things that I'd like to change about myself, but to be brief and vague, I'd like to be more righteous. It isn't always easy to choose the right, but the more I do it, the more I'll become the person I want to be, and that makes it worth the extra effort.

Present Tense

In my old, paper version of the Book of Mormon, the chapter heading of Alma Chapter 48 says that Captain Moroni "rejoiced in liberty and freedom and was a mighty man of God." When I read this in our family scripture study this evening, my mom informed me that the digital version says that he "rejoices in liberty and freedom and is a mighty man of God" (emphasis added). When I thought about this, I was struck with this truth - Yes, Captain Moroni was "a mighty man of God," and he still is. (Never mind that the rest of the chapter heading, including the part about Amalickiah inciting the Lamanites against the Nephites, is also written in present tense. That's not important right now.)

This thought reminds me of Alma 34:34 and of the concept of eternal progression. Alma 34:34 says that "that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world." That is, when we die, we'll still be the same person that we were at the time of our death. Captain Moroni was a strong follower of God during his life. I assume that he remained a strong follower of God up to the time of his death. And, judging by the chapter heading of Alma 48, I would suppose that he remained a strong follower of God even after his death, and remains so to this day. It's not that he was a good man, but isn't anymore, it's that he was a good man, and still is.

It's hard to imagine Captain Moroni still being "around" today, but if a soul is immortal, I guess he must be. Still, it's hard to imagine him as still being Captain Moroni. I would have thought that death was the quintessential life-changing experience. Surely, we would change during our crossing over, but maybe we change less than I thought. Maybe we don't change at all. Do you think Captain Moroni still gets angry as much as he used to? It's hard to say. Maybe as part of our eternal progression, we can lose the negative aspects of our personalities without losing the positive ones, thus becoming better people while still being us.

I think a part of why I think this is a strange concept is that I don't understand how death wouldn't change us, when people in mortality change every day. Maybe change is more difficult in the afterlife? Or maybe, in the afterlife, we see more clearly what parts of ourselves do and do not need to change. I'll have to look into this later.

In the meantime, the moral I want to take from this message is to endure to the end, to keep on keeping on, and to keep all of my good attributes as well as I can. Being a mighty man of God is part of what made Captain Moroni a good role-model. It's good to hear that he hasn't lost that attribute, even after all these years. He is still a mighty man of God, as he once had been. I hope that I become a mighty man of God and that I can keep that attribute literally forever.

Prepare for Your Miracle

As many of you know, my home State of California is currently experiencing a drought. As such, we've been preying for rain regularly for several weeks, and this morning, it looked as though we might get some. I was doubtful, however, so I almost went out in my usual, light, non-rain-resistant jacket, expecting the clouds to clear without much rainfall (which is ultimately what happened, but that's beside the point). As I was getting ready to leave in my non-rain-resistant jacket, the thought came to my mind that I should wear my less comfortable, rain-resistant jacket, for multiple reasons.

First, just in case. It looked like it might rain, and it couldn't hurt to be prepared in case it did. But more than that, if you pray for a miracle, you shouldn't put yourself into a position where it would be a bad thing for you if God answered your prayer. God is good at turning misfortune into miracles, but only a human would be foolish enough to turn a miracle into misfortune. If you pray for rain, don't put yourself into a position where it would become a bad thing if you got some.

Also, leaving the house unprepared for rain after having prayed for rain shows a certain lack of faith. Yes, it's completely up to God whether He answers our prayers affirmatively, and what we ask for may not ultimately be in our best interest, so God does sometimes withhold they blessings for which we pray. Yet, God is also a generous and loving God, so we shouldn't be too terribly surprised if He gives us the blessings we ask for. If we pray for rain, and then look up and see clouds, we shouldn't be too awfully shocked if it rained that day. It didn't, but I shouldn't have been surprised if it did.

In the end, I chose to wear my rain jacket, and it did sprinkle a little bit in the morning. It wasn't quite the rain that we needed, but it was enough to make me glad that I had heeded the prompting to grab my jacket. I plan to wear, or at least carry, my rain jacket tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, so just in case God decides to surprise us with the rain we've been praying for, I'll be prepared to be out in it.

Scripture Study - More Important Than...

Continuing on with Elder Scott's talk, I'd like to share something he said about studying the scriptures.

Don’t yield to Satan’s lie that you don’t have time to study the scriptures. Choose to take time to study them. Feasting on the word of God each day is more important than sleep, school, work, television shows, video games, or social media. You may need to reorganize your priorities to provide time for the study of the word of God. If so, do it!

We are all busy - some of us more so than others. We all have a terrible number of things to get done. And sometimes, it seems that scripture study ends up pretty low on our list of things to do. It's not that we don't think scripture study is important. It's that there are other things that we need to do first. We need to get a project done for work, or we need to write an essay for school, or we need to get some sleep before we collapse. It's not that we consider scripture study to be a low priority; we just have other priorities that are higher.

But Elder Scott reminded us that if we don't have time to study the scriptures, it's because we're spending too much time doing for other things. I think we can all agree that TV, video games, and social media are less important than scripture study, but that hypothetical belief in relative levels of priorities isn't always reflected in how we spend our time. And we know that scripture study is important, but so are school, work, and sleep. Is Elder Scott really saying that we should put school, work, and sleep on the back burner for a few minutes (probably even longer than a few minutes), to read the scriptures?

Well, yes. The scriptures are one of the best sources for messages from God. He communicates with us through the scriptures. If He has a message for us, it's probably in there somewhere. Certainly His Spirit is in the scriptures, and gaining the Spirit can help us with everything else. We may need to sacrifice some time, and even some sleep, to study the scriptures, but according to prophetic counsel, if that's what it takes, we should do it. It's not always going to be convenient. It may sometimes be unpleasant, or even risky, to put scripture study above work, sleep, and school, but a prophet of God has counseled us that that's what we should do.

Apparently, scripture study is pretty important - at least more important than a lot of other things we could be doing instead.