Visiting Great Places at Home

Bishop Gerald Causse used to live near Paris. During the 22 years he lived there, he took his family on annual trips to see the "monuments, historic sites, and natural wonders of Europe," but as they were about to move away from Paris, his children pointed out to him how "shameful" it was that they had lived near Paris for 22 years and hadn't gone to see the Eiffel Tower.

Like Bishop Causse, we all have occasional desires to go on trips to visit great places and to see natural wonders, not realizing that we already live in great places and that we are surrounded by natural wonders. I live in Sacramento, the Capitol of California. Here, we have the Capitol Building, Downtown Sacramento, great rivers and bridges, an amazing bike trail, hundreds of parks, and hundreds of thousands of trees. Sure, I could go to a forest if I wanted to see a lot of trees. I could go to the coast if I wanted to go on a great bike trip. Or I could go to a bigger city if I wanted to take a walk downtown. Or I could do all of those things here.

Other places may have different interesting sites and natural wonders, but every place has its own attractions. Instead of going to different countries, or even different states, looking for great places to visit, we can save ourselves a lot of time and transportation money by visiting the great places in our own areas. Of course, there's nothing wrong with traveling the world, seeing the famous monuments, but there's nothing wrong with staying home either. Sometimes I think people get so caught up in visiting the amazing places beyond the horizon that they forget that there are amazing places right in their own backyard.

Three Habits for Better Blog Posts

Elder Jose A. Teixeira does not know I have a blog, nor did he know when he gave his talk, Seeking the Lord, that I would have had a good deal of trouble writing decent blog posts. But inspired as he was, he gave me three pieces of advice that I believe will help me write better blog posts.

Habit Number 1: Visit the Church’s Official Websites for Resources

Often, when I don't know what to blog about, I search around Facebook, looking for inspirational picture quotes. More recently, however, I've been reading and listening to General Conference talks and blogging thoughts inspired by those talks, and I believe that my blog posts have improved as a result.

Habit Number 2: Subscribe to the Church’s Official Social Networks

 When I do check Facebook, I'm about as likely to find political messages, interesting news stories, and mildly amusing jokes and videos as I am to find anything inspiring or uplifting. By subscribing to people and organizations that post good, inspiring, uplifting messages, I'll invite the Spirit into my life more frequently, even while I'm just enjoying and sharing trivial amusement.

Habit Number 3: Make Time to Set Aside Your Mobile Devices

 My "mobile device" is a cell phone that isn't "smart," but I'm sure that that's not what Elder Teixeira was talking about. Given that much of the time I spend online (when I'm not blogging or doing homework) is just spent on entertainment, I can definitely reduce the amount of time I spend online. If I did, I'd have more time to spend actually enriching myself by reading books, doing chores, and playing the piano. Doing this will help me be a more balanced person, which will help me write better blog posts.

In our age, we frequently hear General Authorities counsel us on how we can use technology better, which, in some cases, means using it less. I know that if we use technology in appropriate ways and amounts, it can be a real blessing in our lives and help us feel the Spirit more and grow closer to God, which is probably what God meant for us to do with technology all along.

The "Children's" Songbook

Rosemary M. Wixom is the Primary General President, so it's no surprise that her April 2015 General Conference talk, Returning to Faith, involves a copy of the Children's Songbook. That book, which contains the songs Mormon children learn in Primary, also contains, within those songs, the most precious truths of the Gospel, expressed so simply that even children can learn them and begin to gain a testimony of them. But despite it's name, the Children's Songbook is good for more than just children. The songs in that book can instruct and inspire anyone who wants to gain or regain a testimony of the core principles of the Gospel. No matter what your age is, listening to those songs and paying attention to their lyrics is a good way to invite the Spirit to strengthen your testimony. I might do that myself later today.

An Awkward Prompting

In his April 2015 Sunday Morning Session General Conference talk, Blessings of the Temple, President Thomas S. Monson told the story of a young man named Landon. In the story, Landon had just attended the temple, and while sitting in the Celestial Room, he felt impressed to strike up a conversation with another young man in the room, who appeared to be praying. This was an uncomfortable prompting to follow for a number of reasons. First, talking to a stranger is often awkward enough, even without other factors contributing to the awkwardness. Second, the temple is a quiet place, and the Celestial Room especially so; it's not a great place for holding conversations, unless you're conversing with God. And third, it's not usually polite or appropriate to interrupt someone when they're having a conversation with someone else, especially when the being they're conversing with is God. Considering all the reasons for Landon not to go talk to the other young man, I'm almost surprised that he did, but that conversation turned out to be exactly what the other man needed. In fact, it proved to be the answer to his prayer.

There may betimes in our lives when we feel prompted to do things that are outside of the social norm. We may feel prompted to do things that are awkward or embarrassing or that "just aren't done." In those moments, our wills are being tested. Will we then have the courage to follow a prompting, even when it's something we wouldn't normally do, even when we have no idea why God wants us to do it? Landon did, and it ended up helping a young man who had been struggling with a personal challenge. Being the answer to someone else's prayer is a terrific feeling. It's certainly worth the risk of feeling socially awkward.

The New Plan Is The Old Plan

I keep telling myself that I need to blog earlier, and it keeps not happening. I'm sorry. Part of my trouble is that I never know what to blog about, but at Institute today, I committed to watching one General Conference talk per day. Hopefully, I can kill two birds with one stone, preferably in the morning. It's too late for today, but I can start tomorrow.

It's funny. Watching a General Conference talk and blogging about it before noon had been my plan since I first started blogging. The standards of my blogging have slipped dramatically since then. Maybe it's time to reinstate them.

Staying Up

One thing I don't like about my blog is that my obligation to blog tends to keep me up at night. We've been counseled to go to bed early and rise early, and I really do want to adopt that kind of sleep pattern, but I've made a sacred promise to blog every day, so I can't go to bed until I blog about something. And if I don't have anything on my mind that I want to blog about, I end up staying up late, trying to think of something to blog about, and have the time, the blog post ends up being really lame.

I think I should rethink my blogging. Either I need to do more to come up with blogworthy ideas during the day, or I need to release myself from the commitment to blog every day, because forcing me to stay up late every night is obviously not what God had in mind when He had me commit to blogging every day. But on the subject of "staying up"...

The other day, at school, I ran into a classmate from a previous semester. He asked me if I knew how to get a hold of our previous teacher, and, as a staggering coincidence, I was just about to gain that information. I asked my former classmate to meet me at a given time and place, and there and then I'd be able to give him the information he sought.

The meet-up point was in the hallway on the second story of the building we were in, and the meet-up time was 1:20, and hour and a half after our first conversation took place. This was also the location of our previous conversation, so I thought that the meet-up point was going to be pretty convenient for my former classmate.

Apparently, I was wrong. The agreed-upon time came, and my former classmate wasn't there. I waited ten minutes, but my classmate still hadn't come. I wanted to go about my business, but I felt impressed to stay up there in that second-story hallway anyway. As it turned out, my former classmate never came. However, as I was waiting, I saw a person in a wheelchair who was asking for directions to a particular classroom. Offering to help the person, I learned that the classroom they were looking for was in another building, whose location I knew well.

I led the wheelchair-bound stranger to the elevator (which I had only just then learned where it was), and took them to the desired building, and then to the desired room. If I had felt a little bit badly about having not been able to help my former classmate, I felt a little better after having been able to help someone else, and that was made possible by having follow the impression to keep waiting up in the second-story hallway.

The moral of the story is that God knows where you're needed and what He wants you to do for Him. If you follow the Spirit's promptings and look for opportunities to help, He'll give you some. His plans may not always include what you had in mind, but they'll always work out to something good.

And right now, "something good" is being able to go to bed.

Tailored Opportunities

I opened my copy of The Children's Book of Virtues and it opened up to a story of a knight who went out in search of "work that only a knight could do," and he found it. Now, that may have been because the plot conveniently placed a knightly task in his path, but if you pay close enough attention, that happens in real life, too. If we make ourselves available to following the promptings of the spirit, He can lead us to opportunities that match our abilities. God knows what our talents are, and if we let Him, He can put us into positions where we can use them for good. "Convenient circumstances" aren't only found in fairy tales; They're also found by those who trust in God's ability to lead us where we're needed.

How Not to Use a Book

When President Monson, then just Brother Monson, was given a copy of the Missionary Handbook, he used it to help keep his clothes properly folded and wrinkle-free, but I have no room to talk. I currently own a copy of The Children's Book of Virtues, but the last time I used it, it wasn't to read it and learn from it. I used it to prop up a laptop so the laptop wouldn't overheat. Obviously, being physical objects of convenient size and shape is not the primary function of a book. Books are made to be read so we can learn from them (or at least be entertained by them, in the case of some less informative books). Perhaps I should follow the example that Brother Monson eventually set and read the book instead of just using it the way I'd use a block of wood.

Oh, It Is Wonderful

Several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to share a few thoughts about a favorite hymn in front of the congregation at church. One of the first hymns I thought of was "I Stand All Amazed," but someone else had selected it first, so I chose another hymn, "God Speed the Right." Since I couldn't share my thoughts on "I Stand All Amazed" in Sacrament Meeting some weeks ago, I'd like to share them now.

I learned the hymn in Primary, but at the time, when I thought about the lyrics, I didn't want to sing it. The hymn is about the Atonement and Crucifixion, and the chorus of the hymn goes "Oh, it is wonderful that He should care for me enough to die for me. Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me." But is wasn't "wonderful to me." The Atonement and Crucifixion were not wonderful events. The fact that Jesus Christ, the most righteous and pure person who ever lived, had to suffer and die for the sins of those who were less righteous and pure, is not wonderful. The fact that my sins caused Him pain is not wonderful. It didn't feel wonderful when I was in Primary, and it doesn't feel wonderful now.

But that's not really what the hymn is saying. The hymn says "it is wonderful that He should care for me enough to die for me." Not that it's wonderful that He had to die for me, but that it's wonderful that He loved me enough to do it since He had to. But I'm still not fully satisfied with that. Yes, it's wonderful that Jesus loves me, but I really, really wish that there had been another way. Sometimes, I wish that Jesus hadn't suffered for my sins. Sometimes, I would rather that I could suffer for my own sins so He wouldn't have had to. But I can't. (Well, I could, but it wouldn't do any good.) Because Jesus loved me, He already paid for my sins. All I can do now is gratefully accept His marvelous gift, and try not to add any more to my share of His burden.

The word "wonderful" doesn't always mean what we think it means. According to Dictionary.reference.com, wonderful could mean "excellent; great; marvelous" as in "We all had a wonderful weekend," or it could mean "of a sort that causes or arouses wonder," as in "The storm was wonderful to behold."Like "marvelous" and "amazing," wonderful sometimes means "awe-inspiring" rather than "good."

And Jesus' love certainly inspires wonder and awe. When Enos' sins were forgiven, Enos asked "Lord, how is it done?" I don't think he was wondering how the Atonement works. I think he was in wonder at how the Atonement could work on him. I've certainly felt like I couldn't be forgiven, but I've also felt that God forgave me anyway. It is marvelous and amazing that Jesus loves us enough to take our sins upon Himself. In that sense, I suppose it is wonderful.

It's not the word I might have chosen, but I guess it works, depending on your definition of "wonderful" and your feelings about Jesus' love. For me, I am certainly filled with wonder at the scope and depth of Jesus' love, and though I don't consider it an especially good thing that His love had to be manifest in such a painful way, I'm very grateful that it was. Jesus' love truly is wonderful, in both senses of the word.

Blogging for the Sake of Blogging

Some nights, I think "It's really late, and I don't have anything really blogworthy on my mind right now. Can't I just skip the blog post, just for tonight?" But i know that, if I did that, if I made a conscious decision not to blog one night, it wouldn't just be that one night. With many things, once they've been done once, it's easy to do it again, and 'nothing' is one of those things. So, I'm blogging tonight, not because I have anything blogworthy to say (though this is pretty blogworthy, if I may say so myself), or even so I can say that I am successfully maintaining a daily/nightly blog. I'm blogging tonight so it'll be that much easier to blog tomorrow, and to keep blogging every day until God tells me to stop. The idea of not blogging is sometimes frighteningly tempting. I don't want to make that any easier for myself by setting a precedent.

Walking Songs

Yesterday's walk home from the bus stop wasn't actually all that bad. Sure, the first half wasn't very much fun, but after about the first 15 to 20 minutes of walking, I decided to do something that made the rest of the walk rather enjoyable. I started singing. Though I was out of water and I probably should have saved my breath and energy for walking, I found that singing lifted my spirit, and that improved attitude helped me a lot more than I think the extra breath would have.

I believe that it's a good habit to sing when things aren't going well. Singing can improve your mood, and we've already learned that attitudes are important. Plus, the songs helped me keep my rhythm while walking, or perhaps it was the walking that helped me keep my rhythm while singing. However it worked, singing while I walked really helped the second half of the trip go quickly and easily, and that trick might work for you, too.

Singing uplifting songs invites the Spirit and can help us with a good deal of challenges. If you're feeling down right now, or if you're having a hard time for whatever reason, try singing or humming a song you like. It might help.

The Wisdom of a "Dead Weight" Water Bottle

Sometimes, when I bike home from my dad's house, I don't refill my water bottle first. I never pull out my water bottle when I'm biking, unless I'm going on a really long trip and have to take a water break, so refilling my water bottle before I head home from Dad's house just adds extra weight to my backpack.

But today, I got a flat tire, which meant that I had to catch a bus to get me part-way home, and then walk the rest of the way. When that happened, I wished I had refilled my water bottle.

So the next time I go anywhere on my bike or on foot, I'm going to bring a full water bottle with me, no matter how short the trip is, not because I think I might want it, but because I know I might need it.

Voices in Our Heads

I have voices in my head. We all do. One of them is our conscience. One of them is the Holy Ghost. At least one of the voices is our own thoughts. And at least one of the voices is a tempter. We can hold conversations with these voices. We can give them our opinions and ask them what they think. We can even form friendships with them, if we want to. The voices in our heads can guide us, inspire us, comfort us, and keep us company.

As with all relationships, we have to choose our inner friends wisely. With all the voices in our heads trying to lead us, we should be cautious which ones we listen to. But just as with other friendships, choosing good friends from among the voices in our heads can help to keep us out of trouble. Some of the voices in our heads are wise, intelligent, and even inspired. Some of those voices want what's best for us, and will help us, if we let them. A few of our inner voices are less wise or less helpful. These are the ones we worry about when people say that they hear voices. But I get the feeling that we all hear inner voices from time to time. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing depends on which voices you listen to.

If we choose our inner friends wisely, they can be our constant companions and advisors. They can help us make good decisions and bring us closer to God. Hearing voices may sound frightening, or at least discomforting, and it certainly is at times, but if you listen to the right voices and take the time to get to know them, they can become good friends in every sense of the term.

Sequels

I knew they were making a sequel to Finding Nemo, and it's about time. Marlin seemed to have lightened up about adventures by the end of the movie, but I'd like to see him and Nemo tackle an adventure as father and son. Plus, the two of them have a lot of bonding to do, which I'm also excited to see. With a little luck, Finding Dory could be a great movie.

A few movies I'm less optimistic about that I just learned Disney is making are The Incredibles 2, Cars 3, and Toy Story 4. Disney has picked up a bad habit of producing sequels that seldom live up to their predecessors. The Toy Story trilogy breaks that mold, with each installment being even better than the last. But still, I worry that Toy Story 4 and the other planned sequels are just going to be used to cash in on their characters' popularity one more time.

On the other hand, as frustrating as it is to see great movies be given terrible sequels (eg Lion King), I can't help thinking that it may be necessary.

A while back, I saw a Youtube video about why Nintendo keeps making Mario games rather than making more new games with new characters and ideas. The short answer is that Mario sells games. In order for Nintendo to keep making great video games, they have to keep paying their writers, programmers, and animators. In order to do that consistently, they need to have a reliable source of income. Thus, they keep making Mario games , which they know will sell by the millions, so they can generate the cash they need to try out their new ideas without having to bet the farm on the new ideas' success.

Cars 2 was considered by many to be a terrible movie, having lost the old charm of the original Cars, and having created no new charm of its own. Still, millions of people paid to see it. Millions of Cars 2 toys were sold. Cars 2 generated an awful lot of money for Disney, and I'm sure that much of that money went into making other, better movies.

I have faith in Disney's intentions and ability to make stellar movies with creative, well-thought-out story lines, and heart-wrenching emotions. But doing that takes time and money. World-class writers and animators don't grow on trees, and neither does the money Disney needs to pay those people to take the time they need to make amazing movies. Enduring the popularity of terrible sequels is a small price to pay if it lets Disney keep making movies like Big Hero 6.

I'm pretty sure that Cars 3 is just going to be a cash grab, and I'm okay with that. I hope that The Incredibles 2 won't be just another lame sequel, but I'd forgive Disney if it were. Toy Story 4 had better be good. I'm sure Finding Dory will be, or Disney will have Ellen Degeneres to answer to. Disney has made hundreds of good movies, including a handful of great sequels. If they have to make a few dozen lame movies to keep the good movies coming, so be it.

PS. I know this topic wasn't anywhere near being blogworthy, but it's what was on my mind. If it makes you feel like reading this wasn't a waste of time, you can imagine that I drew an analogy between what Disney is doing and the struggle between practicality and living your dreams. There are lots of things we'd like to do, but to make those things happen, there are things we have to do first. Dull jobs finance fun hobbies. Big payoffs only come after hard work. I'm sure that no one at Disney really feels excited about cashing in on movies' popularity by making cheap sequels, but if that's what it takes to make the movies that they're actually excited about making, maybe they can learn to be okay with that. Life isn't always glamorous and exciting, or even fulfilling, but it's the lousy parts of life make the good parts possible, so we all just have to deal with that, just like we have to deal with the lame sequels that pay for the movies we can actually enjoy.

It's a terrible analogy, and it's a little depressing, but it's almost midnight and that's the best I've got right now. Like I said, I know this isn't blogworthy. It's just what's on my mind.

Warn and Protect

August is more than half over. When August ends, I will have only a month left until early October. If I want to finish blogging about last General Conference's talks before the next General Conference happens, I had better get a move on.

In his April 2105 Priesthood Session talk, Priesthood and Personal Prayer, President Henry B. Eyring counseled us to "always pray that God will warn and protect you from evil." Warning someone and protecting them are two different things. When you warn someone, you make them aware that they are in danger. When you protect someone, you face the danger for them or with them, or at least make them more capable of facing the danger.

One of God's most common methods of protecting us from evil is by warning us about it. Evil is sneaky. By warning us of the temptations we face, by pointing them out to us, God makes it so we are better able to resist the temptations that we otherwise might not have fallen prey to. Thus, God protects us from evil by warning us of it, but President Eyring's quote suggests that that's not all He does.

We are encouraged to pray that God will both warn us of evil and protect us from it, so there must be more to God's protection than just warning. I believe that God also offers us protection so effective that we may not even know it happened. When I blogged about Prince Philip's rescue from Maleficent's Forbidden Mountain, I mostly wrote about a set of obstacles that might have thwarted Prince Philip had the three good fairies not protected him, and that he might not have noticed had he not been paying attention. It's possible that God protects us from obstacles that we might not know we might have had to face. If God were to remove an obstacle from our lives before we became aware of it, we might never have learned that that obstacle was ever there. In short, God might be giving us more protection than we realize.

There is a lot of evil in the world, and as Christians, we have to withstand it. Thankfully, we don't have to resist all the world's evils alone. I believe that God is willing to protect us from the evils we're not ready to face and warn us of the evils that might have slipped through our defenses. We just have to pray and ask for His help, and then to heed His warnings and use the tools He gives us to win. With God's help, we can overcome evil, so we should always pray that God will warn and protect us from it.

All Lives Matter

I heard somewhere recently that black lives matter. More recently, I've heard that white lives matter, too. Many believe that the lives of children, including children too young to have experienced their first ray of sunlight, matter. I believe that ALL human lives matter, and I'm not alone in that belief.

We've all heard the phrase "no man is an island." Until recently, I thought that that phrase meant that no one achieves success without help, but since I found out where that phrase came from, I now interpret it differently. The thought comes from John Donne's Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation 17, and the full sentence, including clauses linked by semicolons, is this:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

We are all involved in mankind. What we do affects everyone, and what happens to anyone also affects us. The death of any person, no matter whether you ever have or would have met them or not, has an impact on humanity and thus has an impact on you. Every human life should matter to everyone, no matter what our differences are.

Luck and Love

Players of many dice-based role-playing games occasionally personify the dice. For example, when we get lucky rolls, we sometimes say that the dice are in a good mood, or that they like us. Experiencing a streak of especially good luck in real life, I commented that "the dice must love us," and then explained to Mom that that means that we were lucky. She then reminded me that "lucky" is another way of saying "blessed," so I corrected myself. We weren't lucky because the dice loved us; we were blessed because God loves us.

Interestingly, though, God's love for us never changes, even though our luck does. Sometimes, we are given more blessings, sometimes less, but that doesn't mean that God doesn't love us any less when we're blessed less. Jesus Christ temporarily had to go without the blessings of peace and comfort, but that wasn't because God loved Him less then than He had before.

Sometimes, God withholds blessings from us so we can grow from negative experiences because He loves us enough to want us to reach our full potential. Sometimes, God withholds blessings from us so He can grant us even better blessings later because He loves us enough to want to give us the very best. When what seems like misfortune causes us to miss out on some of the blessings we had hoped for, we must remember that that doesn't mean that God doesn't love us. It means that God loves us enough to give us something even better than what we wanted.

God's love is not fickle. Nor is it's manifestations determined by anything as random as a throw of the dice. God's love for us is infinite and eternal. It is constant and unchangeable. And it's effects are manifested in a perfect plan set for our ultimate happiness. I am coming to believe that there is no such thing as luck, but rather that everything that seems random is all part of God's plan.

Now, I don't know how exactly God's plan affects the roll of the dice at a D&D table. Those rolls seem to be completely random. Honestly, I'm not sure God cares about those die rolls enough to influence their fates one way or the other. Maybe they are complete random. Or maybe God does care, for reasons that are beyond me, and influences the die rolls in ways that I don't understand.

One thing I do understand is that the dice do not truly have emotions or preferences or any will of their own. The dice do not determine their numbers based on how they "feel" about me because they have no feelings at all. My dice do not love me. My God does.

Back Into the Habits

This evening, in family scripture study, we read a verse that reminded us to pray daily. I'm afraid I've fallen out of that habit. I should make a conscious effort to say a personal prayer every morning and evening, like I used to. I think I wrote better blog posts then. At least, they were a lot better than this one. Tonight, I'm going to pray, write a few words in my journal, and maybe even read a few verses of scripture. Those are all good habits. I need to get back into them.

Auto-Saving

I've blogged about life being an open-world choose-your-own-adventure game, but there's an element of this "game" that I haven't mentioned yet. It auto-saves.

Most video games allow you to save the game at certain points, so if you have to quit, or if the game crashes, you don't lose the progress you've made up to that point. For example, in the Mario Bros. games, you have to beat each level in order to move on to the next one. If you beat a particularly difficult level, so can save the game so that the game will remember that you've beaten the level, so you don't have to try to beat it again.

Saving the game generally means saving your progress, which is a good thing, but saving the game can also be a bad idea, depending on the circumstances. Let's say that, in that Mario game, you manage to beat the difficult level, but it took you many tries and cost you many lives to do it. Instead of saving the game now, you might reload the game from your previous save and try to beat the level again - without losing so many lives this time.

Some games don't give you that option. Some games auto-save every so often, which is helpful in that you're never at risk of losing much progress, but it's also harmful in that it prevents you from going back to change the past.

Life is a game that auto-saves constantly. Because of this, you will never have to go back and relive any part of your life. This also means that you will never get to go back and relive any part of your life, even if there are things you wish you had done differently. What's past is permanent.

I find this slightly terrifying. Any choice I make now, any action I take, becomes a permanent part of history the instant I've done it. If I spend five seconds tying my shoelaces, those are five seconds that I'll never be able to have spent any other way. If I eat a tuna sandwich for lunch, I will never be able to go back and have eaten a chicken sandwich instead. Once an action has been performed, it's done, and there are no checkpoints I could go back to to make a different decision.

But while this aspect of life is frightening, it's also liberating. I know I can't change the past, so there's no point in wishing I could. If I can never replay a level to try to get a better score, I don't have to worry about my past scores being less than perfect. There's nothing I can do about that now, except to learn from my experiences. I can't change the past, so I might as well make peace with it and use what I've learned to create a better future. In Mario games, the levels tend to get harder as you go, but you also become a better player. You can use tricks you've learned and experiences you've had in the earlier levels to help you play better in the later levels. There's no point in being stuck in the past.  Where our minds really ought to focus is on the present and the future.

Because the choices we make become permanent as soon as we make them, we must be careful which choices we make now and which ones we plan to make in the future. We can't go back to change our decisions later, so it's important that we try to make wise decisions the first time. Granted, it's impossible to make perfectly wise decisions all the time, but the better decisions we make now, the happier we'll be in the future, and the less regrets there'll be in a past that we can't change.

The Quickest 180 in Scripture

At the end of Mosiah chapter 2, there's a strong contrast between the results of wickedness and righteousness.

Therefore if that man repenteth not, and remaineth and dieth an enemy to God, the demands of divine justice do awaken his immortal soul to a lively sense of his own guilt, which doth cause him to shrink from the presence of the Lord, and doth fill his breast with guilt, and pain, and anguish, which is like an unquenchable fire, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever.

 And now I say unto you, that mercy hath no claim on that man; therefore his final doom is to endure a never-ending torment.

 O, all ye old men, and also ye young men, and you little children who can understand my words, for I have spoken plainly unto you that ye might understand, I pray that ye should awake to a remembrance of the awful situation of those that have fallen into transgression.

 And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it.

Mosiah 2: 38-41

I find it odd how quickly King Benjamin could shift from talking about "final doom" and "never-ending torment" to "the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments," but it makes sense that he should talk about both. There are consequences for our actions. If we do good, we're blessed. If we do evil, God revokes some of His blessings, leaving us on our own.

Still, the question remains why he spoke of both sets of consequences almost in the same breath. My first thought was motivation. Some people are more motivated by threats of punishment, and others are more motivated by promises of rewards. By speaking about both at the same time, King Benjamin could convince persuade a greater percentage of his audience to heed his admonishments. But I think there's more to it than that.

The verses about wickedness and the consequences thereof start well before verse 38, and before that, King Benjamin spoke about how, even if we were to serve God as well as we could, we "would [still] be unprofitable servants." Any people in King Benjamin's audience who had any feelings of guilt or low self-esteem would probably feel pretty badly about themselves by the end of Mosiah 2. I think that that final verse was given to us as sort of a pick-me-up. I think that it was meant to give us something to hold on to and look forward to. I think it was meant to give us hope.

There may be other reasons King Benjamin said what he did when he did. Unfortunately, we don't know exactly why King Benjamin shifted from talking about never-ending torment to never-ending happiness so quickly. But I do know that we can change our lives as quickly as he could change the subject. Through the power of the Atonement and repentance, we can change our future from leading us to our "final doom" to preparing us for a state of eternal happiness. We can turn our lives around completely, if we have to, and we can do it as quickly as we decide to.

The Faith to Stay in the Second-Rightmost Lane

The other day, as I was driving on unfamiliar roads, my guide informed me that we'd be getting on the freeway and that we could either merge into the rightmost lane, or stay in the second-rightmost lane, which we were already in and which would work just as well. Though I trusted my guide, or at least I thought I did, I had the idea in my mind that some freeway entrances were only one lane wide, so I decided to merge into the rightmost lane, just to be sure. As I came to the freeway entrance and saw that the second-rightmost lane would, indeed, have worked out just as well, I mentally kicked myself for not having had the faith to stay in the second-rightmost lane.

The reason I had given myself for merging was "just to be sure," but if my guide was trustworthy and if I fully trusted my guide, as I should have, I would already have felt sure that I was in a good lane when they said that the second-rightmost lane would have been fine. I could have taken their word and trusted that there were two acceptable lanes, even when my own doubts made me worry that there might only have been one. If I had had enough faith to trust my guide completely, I wouldn't have felt the need to merge out of the lane that they had assured me would be fine.

We all sometimes get spiritual impressions that defy conventional wisdom. Sometimes, we're impressed to take what seems like a risk we otherwise wouldn't have taken. For example, we may feel compelled to speak with more boldness than we normally would, or to give someone the benefit of a doubt when we doubt that they deserve it. Such impressions may feel slightly dangerous to follow, but if we trust the one who gave us those impressions, we can follow those impressions with faith that it'll work out.

The other day, I doubted whether the second-rightmost lane was truly as adequate as my guide had told me it was. When it seemed to me that the path I was on might not take me where both my guide and I wanted me to go, I trusted in my own wisdom, lost though I was, rather than the knowledge and experience of my guide. I pray that I'll have the wisdom and the faith to not make that mistake again.

I Missed the Tutorial

So, this "early to bed" thing hasn't been working out too well lately, mostly because I'm better at finding things to do to keep myself busy while I try to think of things to blog about than I am at thinking of things to blog about. On the bright side, that was a really long sentence and, despite being kinda tired, I was able to type it in only a few seconds. I'm getting faster. It must be all the practice I get from blogging.

Usually, at this point, I turn to Facebook, find a picture or quote that's vaguely blogworthy, and put together a handful of paragraphs about it. Instead of doing that, I think tonight I'd like to muse (and perhaps rant) about how life doesn't always come with clear directions.

Disclaimer: I know about personal revelation, the scriptures, patriarchal blessings, priesthood leaders, advisors, instructors, counselors, and career aptitude tests. It's just that their guidance isn't always as perfect or as clear as I would like them to be. For example, I wish my patriarchal blessing had told me what field(s) of knowledge to study or what career path to follow. I wish schools taught people how to get into and excel in college (especially when the school in question has reason to believe that many of its students plan to attend a specific college which (supposedly) works together with the school).

I recently saw a picture quote on Facebook that said that being in your 20s is like playing a video game where you skipped the tutorial so you have no idea how anything works. A difference between this analogy and reality is that, in videos games, nothing is incredibly important, and quitting the game is an option. In life, it seems like almost everything is important, and quitting is just another way to lose.

Crud, I just did the thing I said I wasn't going to do, didn't I?

Well, I think that's enough complaining and self-pity for one night. I've often heard that one of the most important things you can have in life is a good attitude, and I recently spoke about a hymn that encourages people to stay faithful, despite difficulties and failures. So, yes, life is difficult and confusing, but that doesn't mean life can't also be good. My life may be sub-optimal, and that may be mostly because I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm choosing not to worry about that. Instead of stressing out about the parts of life I don't understand or that aren't going perfectly, I'm going to focus on making the best life I can make for myself with my limited understanding. Will my life end up as nice as it might have if I knew what kind of career and education I should be pursuing? No. But thankfully, I don't need to have an optimal life to be happy. I don't need to have an exciting career that was tailor-made to match my personality and talents. I don't need to know everything. I don't need a tutorial. I just need to keep playing. I'll learn and level-up as I go.

The Many Kinds of Pride

For this blog post, I just want to acknowledge that my commenters are right. You can purposefully put you best foot forward without being deceitful. I personally thing that (in my case, at least) the line between trying to impress people and trying to deceive people into having an inflated opinion of me is razor thin, but it's possible not to cross it. I admit that it's possible for me to make myself look good without being dishonest. But more importantly than that, I want to talk about the definition of pride.

I'm familiar with President Ezra Taft Benson's legendary talk, "Beware of Pride." I believe quoted from it recently. In that talk, President Benson said that there is a difference between how the world uses that term and how the scriptures use it, and it's important to know the difference so we can better understand the scriptures and learn from them.

In addition to the scriptural definition of pride, there are at least two common definitions of pride - one negative and one positive. The common negative definition of pride is practically synonymous with arrogance. Both the common "arrogance" pride and the scriptural "enmity" pride should be avoided. However, there is a positive kind of pride that's referred to when we say that we're proud of something or someone.

It's alright to be proud of things. We can be proud of others, or even ourselves. We can be proud of our accomplishments and of our qualities. I can even be proud of my red hair and how sharp I look in a nice suit and my favorite tie. There's nothing wrong with that.

I suppose the confusion comes in when there are so many different definitions of a word. If a person isn't careful, they could use a word one way, giving the impression that the word couldn't be used in any other way. Understanding the potential of miscommunication, I try to make myself as clear as possible, but sometimes, especially when I end up blogging late in the evening, I don't choose my words as carefully as I should. One element of arrogant pride is a reluctance to admit that one is wrong or that one might have made a mistake. I'm suffering from that sort of pride right now, but I'm not too proud to overcome it.

I probably misspoke in a few of my recent blog posts. Considering how many blog posts I've churned out over the last two-and-a-half years, I've definitely misspoken in dozens of blog posts. I try to be truthful and accurate, but I make mistakes as frequently as anyone. When I do, I try to apologize and correct my mistakes. I guess I've done that now. I'm sorry for choosing my words poorly and for implying things I didn't really mean. I'll continue to try avoiding those kinds of mistakes in the future.

Normal is Normal

A friend of mine shared part of this quote with me the other day, then another friend, my mom, shared the rest of it on Facebook.

Most of life isn't wonderful or extraordinary. A lot of the time, life is as uninteresting as a train going down a track. Its speed is steady, its course, predictable, and it can easily become monotonous and dull. Life does have its exiting moments, but most of life isn't composed of moments like that; and that's okay. Life isn't going to always be either wonderful or terrible. Most of the time, life just is what it is, and that's okay. Today, for example, nothing really interesting happened. I didn't have any really interesting experiences, nothing blogworthy, but there's nothing wrong with that. Today was a normal, decent day, and I'm okay with that. Today was a good day. It wasn't awesome, but it was alright. If most of my life turned out average, like today did, I think I could live with that.

Un-Corrupting

We often hear about Satan corrupting something good so that it becomes evil. The useful application of the desire to impress others is an example of using an evil desire to accomplish something good. Then again, it's possible that the desire to impress others was good to begin with, but corrupted, and now un-corrupted. It makes me wonder how many other "evil" traits we have could be used for good purposes. If pride can be turned toward self-improvement, could some good also be made of feelings like anger or lust?

This may be a dangerous puzzle to try and riddle out. If I try to think of good things to do with negative emotions, I might end up with more negativity in the long run. So far, my strategy has been to drive out such negative feelings. However, that course of action would cause me to try and squelch my desire to impress others and instead to accept my faults honestly and openly. It may be the more genuine thing to do, but it won't get me any closer to achieving my eternal goals. God gave us those feelings and emotions for a purpose. Satan may have twisted them, but I believe that we can still untwist them and realize the purpose God had planned. And since there are some negative feelings that I just haven't been able to drive out anyway, perhaps it would be wise to try to turn them toward something good.

On the other hand, I have to concede that the purpose God may have planned for a few of our emotions is to give us vices to overcome. I'm not sure how, or even if, anger could be turned into something positive. Lust can be un-corrupted, if you use your "interest" in another person to develop a genuine interest in who they are as a person. I suppose anger could be used to empower productive physical labor, but unless you're a blacksmith or a lumberjack, you may have a hard time finding something you can do for which aggressive actions would help.

I still think that some things can be un-corrupted, but it would take a lot of creativity to find out how. Maybe, if you have a problem with a particular vice, you could pray for guidance for how to use the vice to do good. It may be possible, or it may not be. But I say that if it's possible for pride to be used in a good way, it may be possible for other vices to be un-corrupted as well.

The "Useful" Desire to Impress

In his Priesthood Session, April 2015 General Conference talk, President Deiter F. Uchtdorf said:

It is part of human nature to want to look our best. It is why many of us work so hard on the exterior of our homes and why our young Aaronic Priesthood brethren make sure every hair is in place, just in case they run into that special someone. There is nothing wrong with shining our shoes, smelling our best, or even hiding the dirty dishes before the home teachers arrive. However, when taken to extremes, this desire to impress can shift from useful to deceitful.

When I read that paragraph, that last sentence of the paragraph stood out to me. He noted that the "desire to impress" others could shift "from useful to deceitful," implying that, before it was "taken to extremes," the desire to impress others was "useful." How could such a desire be useful? If all it does is encourage us to appear to be better than we are, then isn't the desire already deceitful?

Perhaps this desire was meant to do more than get us to put our best foot forward. Perhaps it can do more than fuel our pride  or put on a show. After all,  appearing good in front of others isn't deceitful if we actually are that good. But if we really are that good, then we'd be that good whether we're trying to impress anyone or not. If we already are as good as we'd like to appear to be, then how would the desire to impress come into play? And if we're not as good as we would like to appear to be, how would the desire to appear better help?

If we're already as good as we'd like to be and as we'd like others to think we are, I'm not sure how a desire to impress others would help us, but I'm not sure I know anyone that's already that good. If we're not as good as we'd like to appear to be, then our desire to impress others can motivate us, not just to appear better, but to actually become better. Our desire to impress can encourage us not just to cover our faults, but to actually correct them.

Thus, surprisingly, our ego, a manifestation of pride, which President Benson described as "the universal sin, the great vice," can actually help us to fulfill one of the main purposes of life by helping us to improve ourselves. We can become better people by letting our desire to impress others persuade us to actually become impressive. Such progress may be born out of a desire to look good, but if that desire truly helps us become better than we were, then I'd say that the desire is probably good, too.

How Much Is It Worth?

A person of my acquaintance had recently been asked to guard an item of value. The guardian, whom I know to be trustworthy, jokingly asked how much the item was worth, pretending to be tempted by the idea of stealing the item and selling it.

The appraisal of the item could have been based on many factors. The owner of the item told the guardian how much the item had cost him to obtain - a significant amount. However, it was generally known that the item would not fetch nearly as much money for anyone who might steal it.

Thinking about the cost and value of things, I later supposed that an item might be worth more to one person than to another. An apple has much greater value to a man who is starving than to a man who had just eaten his fill. Similarly, the item had much greater value to its owner than it would have had to the guardian. I imagine that the guardian could possibly have found someone who would value the item very highly, but I think that the one person who would place the greatest value on that item was the one who already owned it.

But the most important criteria of appraisal for this particular item is how much it would have cost the guardian to obtain it. There would have been no financial cost for the theft (unless, of course, he was caught and forced to pay reparations), but the more taxing cost of the theft would have been as immeasurable as it would have been intangible. If the guardian had chosen to steal the item, which I know he did not nor ever would have, he would have lost his honor and his personal righteousness. His sense of self-esteem would also have been lost, as would his .... . Terrible reparations would have to be paid, both to the item's owner and to the Lord. In short, stealing the item would have cost the guardian far more than the item could possibly have been worth.

At this point, it seems unthinkable that anyone would pay such a price for any reason, but we may pay that price far more frequently than we care to think about, and for far less than the value of the item. We pay such a price as that whenever we break any of God's commandments. Whenever we transgress or sin, we incur a terrible debt to our Savior, and according to President Boyd K. Packer's parable of the debtor and the mediator, we will eventually have to pay off that debt. Every sin we commit comes at the price increasing the debt we already owe to Jesus.

Is it worth it? Is yielding to temptation really so satisfying that it's worth increasing our spiritual debt? Was the item really so valuable that the guardian would sell his soul to get it? Of course not. The answer to the question "How much is it worth?" is "Not enough." It could never be worth enough. Sin is never worth its price. Never.

Interesting New Revelations

When I first saw the seer stone in a photo on Facebook, I was skeptical. I didn't expect the Church to have actually published a picture of the stone. As I looked into this matter further, I found information that was even more surprising.

According to an article on MormonNewsroom.org, "the official resource for news media, opinion leaders, and the public," which can currently be reached via a link on the main page of lds.org, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ have been working together to preserve historic artifacts important to both churches, including an early manuscript of the Book of Mormon. Why is this surprising? Because the Community of Christ was formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or RLDS church. I don't know much about that church or the history of its formation, but until today, I had thought that we were rivals, if not enemies, with the Community of Christ. That our people are working together with their people was a revelation to me.

Another interesting piece of news is this Ensign article, which reveals a picture of one of the seer stones. One thing I found especially interesting about the article is its date of publication. Apparently, the article won't be published in an actual Ensign magazine until October, even though the article is already posted online. I don't know why the article isn't going to be printed in the August or September Ensigns, and I also don't know why it has been published online already if it's not going to be published in print until October. I'm sure they have their reasons, but I find this whole situation unusual.

It's surprising to me that the Church is making the manuscript publicly available, that our church is working together with the Community of Christ (and vice versa), and that the seer stone is brown, striped, and oval-shapped, rather than clear and circular, as I had imagined. Yet, this news is coming from official sources, so it must be true. I'm not sure how much this will impact our future - probably not much - but after finding out that these news stories were true, I felt like I should pass the news along. All this news may or may not change anything, but it certainly is interesting.

Right vs Easy

I've been meaning to blog about this since I saw it on Facebook a couple of days ago, and now's as good a time as any.

I don't know if this quote is verbatim (I've seen another version of this quote that was slightly different), but it's close enough to get the point across.

Doing what's right isn't always easy. In fact, it seldom is. It was President Henry B. Eyring that said "If you are on the right path, it will always be uphill." I believe that God doesn't make life too easy for us because He wants us to grow. Facing and overcoming challenges gives us a kind of strength that taking the easy path could never provide. Unfortunately, since choosing the right is so difficult, it makes choosing the wrong all the more tempting.

One of the adversary's tools is to make temptations and vice as accessible as possible. While spirituality is difficult to obtain and maintain, falling into a life of sin is as easy as doing nothing or as following the crowd. Thus, a great deal of will-power is needed in order to choose the right path over the easier ones.

The good news is that when we exercise that kind of will-power, our strength of will increases. One of the aspects of the natural man is the desire to take the path of least resistance, but as we strive to choose the right, even when it's difficult to do so, our spirits grow stronger than our natural inclinations, giving us the power to resist temptation.

We frequently have to choose between doing what's right and doing what's easy, and because making the wrong choice is easy, making the right choice rarely is. But with God's help and a little bit of will-power, we can make the difficult right choices, and the more we do so, the easier it becomes. I believe that, if we make good choices frequently enough, it can become easier for us to continue to do so than to fall into temptation from there. Unfortunately, I haven't reached that point, so I can't tell you for certain, but I can tell you that when we do muster up the will-power to make the right choice, doing so again becomes a little less difficult.

Mature Love

I'm not sure I understand this.

In response to my blog post last night, my mother assured me that the love two people have for each other can grow over time, and that makes a certain amount of sense, but I also think that love can weaken over time. Perhaps it all depends on the people involved and how they deal with the problems that come up.

In his April 2015 General Conference talk, The Plan of Happiness, President Boyd K. Packer said:

And if you suppose that the full-blown rapture of young romantic love is the sum total of the possibilities which spring from the fountains of life, you have not yet lived to see the devotion and the comfort of longtime married love. Married couples are tried by temptation, misunderstandings, financial problems, family crises, and illness, and all the while love grows stronger. Mature love has a bliss not even imagined by newlyweds.

This seems somewhat contradictory to me. I don't understand how "temptation, misunderstandings, financial problems, family crises, and illness" can lead to "bliss." I'm sure you'd feel something like bliss after such trials are over, but can experiencing such trials actually improve a couple's relationship?

Perhaps it can, if they face such challenges together. Working together to overcome problems, even relationship problems, can bring two people closer together. Almost of necessity, they develop greater teamwork and a deeper appreciation for each other's strengths.

I think I've been thinking about love the wrong way. Perhaps the difference between the relationships of those who've been together for shorter or longer periods of time isn't how much they love each other, but why. Newlyweds haven't always known each other long enough to have become acquainted with all of each other's faults, and they undoubtedly learn about each others faults over time. But newlyweds also don't always see all the virtues in each other either, which they also begin to see after they've been together a while. A younger couple may be attracted to each other because they haven't seen each other's dark sides, but an older couple knows each other's dark sides as well as their light sides. Their love isn't innocent and naive, but experienced and understanding. I can clearly understand how such love as that can be much deeper and stronger than that of those who have only spent a small number of months or years together.

It's hard for me to imagine my brother and his wife loving each other more than they do now, but I'm sure that, as they get to know each other better, they will also learn to love each other better, if not more, than they already do.

Can a Marriage Last Forever?

Today was a long day, but a good one. Today, my brother got married. Now, I don't know a whole lot about traditional wedding ceremonies apart from what I've seen on TV and in movies, and this was the first LDS wedding I remember going to, so I'm not truly familiar with either kind of ceremony, but I know them both well enough to recognize a few major differences, including the use of the phrase "for time and all eternity" instead of "as long as you both shall live" or "until death do you part."

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, marriages are meant to last forever. Not just for the rest of our lives. Not just for a couple of decades, if we stay in love that long. Forever. Cynically, I wonder how many relationships could actually last that long. When people spend to much time together, they tend to get on each other's nerves. In a relationship between any two people, no matter how perfect those people may seem, they are each bound to find things about each other that annoy them.

Granted, it takes a lot more than annoyance to cause a relationship to break up, but if those minor grievances aren't dealt with, they can become major problems. Given an eternity to discover and endure each of a person's faults, I almost wonder how any relationship could survive that long.

Fortunately, there are ways to prevent pet peeves from driving you and your partner apart. Most importantly, you have to communicate. If something about your spouse bothers you, you have to let them know. It's possible that they don't even know they're doing it. Also, you have to be willing to change your habits and to be patient with your partner as they try to change theirs. For a relationship to survive one lifetime, let alone an eternity, both partners have to be trying to make it work.

Theoretically, if two people love each other enough to talk honestly with each other and to each make changes in their lives to make their spouse happy, I imagine that it is possible for a marriage to last forever. The trick is that both partners have to be willing to work to overcome bad habits and to exercise patience and tolerance, which (thankfully) many true Christians already do. Actually, the more I think about it, the more possible it looks. It won't be easy. The best things in life are rarely easy. But it's doable. And if two people love each other enough to be patient with their spouse's faults and try to overcome their own, I truly think they could have a happy marriage that lasts forever.