Mormon Bloggers

My oldest daughter (and fourth child) graduated from BYU today. She’s the second of our kids to graduate college, and the first to graduate from BYU. It was hard not to think of our own graduation (my wife and I received our bachelor’s degrees together in 1983) and make comparisons. Her graduation was much larger than ours (hers in April, ours in August). Her commencement speaker was Richard G. Scott (delightful!); ours was Hugh Nibley (also delightful, but in quite different ways). Our daughter is quite nervous leaving the safety of BYU, though she will also tell you she is ready. She has no job, yet, but has a few leads, including a big interview next week that we hope will go well. And she has a backup plan or two in case that doesn’t pan out. If all else fails, she can spend a while at our house and sort out options for the future. As I look with her toward her future, I also look toward my own. I’m coming ever closer to the time when I said I’d go back and certify... Read the rest of this entry »

“Sure!  I can do that for you!  No problem!”  I have frequently found myself saying things of this sort to pretty much everyone that comes to ask me to do something, but in reality, is it not a problem?  I can’t number all of the times that I have been tempted to tell someone “No, I’m afraid that I won’t be able to help you with that right now,” but I always ended up saying yes and trying to help everyone.  Have you ever faced something similar?  Do you find yourself wanting to say tell someone no, but you end up telling them yes anyway?  Now, I really don’t think this is such a terrible thing.  In fact, I want to help everyone that comes to ask me for it, but the stark reality is that I probably can’t help everyone that asks me.  I’m really not perfect, and I’m unable to do everything that I really want. This idea of perfect is one that permeates our society quite heavily, but I think it is found even more so among members... Read the rest of this entry »

So I haven’t written a post for about a week now, and it has been largely because quite a number of changes filled this past week up so that I was quite busy.  We had transfers here in the Referral Center mission this past weekend since Elder Edmons went home on Monday and Elder Baird is heading home this upcoming Friday, so that was one of our changes.   I am now serving with a new companion Elder Sabin, and with this companionship change, I am now one of the co-district leaders for my mission.  The typical mission has various districts with 4-6 missionaries, and then there is a zone with usually 2-3 districts.  To go along with these different groups of missionaries that receive different types of training from various leaders, there are usually two missionaries that are assistants to the President and help oversee the other zones and districts.  So since our mission only consists of 10 missionaries right now, we only have one district with two co-district... Read the rest of this entry »

About one year ago, I was preparing to fly out to Canada in a couple of days.  I was very excited be able to continue serving my mission after I had to return home from the Ivory Coast.  I had served there for four months, and upon getting sick and not being able to determine what was wrong with me, I had to return home for several tests before I was reassigned to serve in the Canada Halifax Mission.  However, just one short week in Canada, I got sick again and had to be sent home from the mission field for a second time.  Needless to say, I was quite disparaging about my situation, and I thought that would be the end of my mission.  However, Heavenly Father had something else planned for my life.  My name is Elder Andrew Howden, and I am a 20-year old missionary that serves in the Provo MTC Referral Center mission. Serving in the Referral Center (RC) was something that I never expected since I had never heard of such a thing before I returned from the Ivory... Read the rest of this entry »

Today, I wanted to express my gratitude for this world we have to live on and the different things that happen here.  By that, I mean I am grateful for nature and all of the different seasons that we have.  And this is a funny thing for me to be grateful for today because here in Utah there is a warning that has been going on for quite some time about a winter storm that is supposed to be pretty bad.  Several major places here in just Provo have been closed down and people were sent home early from school and work.  The storm is not very bad here yet, but I don’t think that it will make my gratitude lessen any if it gets a bit worse. I grew up in Utah, so I grew accustomed to having four seasons each year-spring, summer, fall, and winter.  I really love all of these seasons, and sometimes I am quite surprised when people don’t even though I know that the whole world doesn’t have four seasons like we do here.  When I was in the Ivory Coast, we had hot,... Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, I have to apologize for being late with this post.  We had a Zone Conference this morning, so I was working on putting a bunch of things together for that yesterday and I didn’t get a chance to get this written up.  However, I couldn’t let another day go by without talking about the importance and my gratefulness for my mission.  The experience I have had over the past year and a half has been such an incredible one that I’m not sure exactly where to start.  I wanted to talk about several aspects of my mission that have helped and blessed my life very much and how the past 18 months and the next 6 months will have a lasting impact on the rest of my life. When I started my mission in June of 2009, I really had no idea what was in store for me over the next 24 months, and I have found surprises around every corner that I take.  However, with all of this, I still have learned and grown more than I have ever done before in my life.  I honestly am... Read the rest of this entry »

The saying goes that all good things come to an end, and then, of course, we have the saying that this too shall pass when we encounter bad things in our lives.  So if we have sayings that indicate that all things come to an end at one point or another, it must mean that change is constant in our lives.  This is certainly something I have come to realize over my lifetime, but it has especially become real for me since high school as life has changed quite a bit for me.  Even during the past year of my mission, things have changed in many indescribable ways.  There have been big things such as my leaving the Ivory Coast (almost a year ago now, see My Exodus from the Ivory Coast), going to Canada, and coming here to the Referral Center.  But at the same time, there have been so many small little things that have helped me to learn and grow in ways that I cannot accurately describe.  My experiences over the past 17 months have been incredible, and change continues... Read the rest of this entry »

To continue on with my posts about the talks from this past, most recent General Conference, I have chosen another talk to continue to apply to myself, and I hope that you will all be able to get something out of it as well!  The talk that I have chosen today to reflect on is by Elder Patrick Kearon from the Priesthood Session of General Conference.  I got to hear this talk in person since I had the chance to go and sing in a choir from the MTC for this session, and it was also an amazing experience to be there and sing as well as listen to the talks of men called by God in person.  If you would like to read more about this experience, just take a look at High School Musical 4: Prophets and Apostles! Elder Kearon’s main message was about how we will make mistakes throughout our lives, but we can always be cleansed and become pure through the sacrifice of our Savior Jesus Christ.  He started off by telling a story about one time when he was young, and he didn’t... Read the rest of this entry »

Spell-chequers beware:  Mark Twain ahead.   Mark Twain, widely known as American literature’s greatest humorist.  His humor was effective, not merely because of its author’s wit, but also because of the depth of his thought.  Most have heard of Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, wherein Twain presents the escapades of the young Missourian boy Huck Finn in his Mississippi bank vernacular.  What interested me, when I read the book, and, in reality, what makes it the great piece of literature that it is, were the universal and thought-provoking issues delved into by an “unsivilized” Huck.  How many of us have experienced something like this? “It made me shiver.  And i about made up my mind to pray, and see if I couldn’t try to quit being the kind of boy I was and be better.  So I kneeled down.  But the words wouldn’t come, why wouldn’t they?  It warn’t no use to try and hide... Read the rest of this entry »

Today I have the opportunity to share with you the story of a wonderful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and how she came to find the Church.  Her name is Carole-Ann Witham, and she has been an example to me of faith in Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ.  I was first able to start talking with Carole over the phone at the beginning of this year in about February, and since that time, I have been able to work with her and help her come to know more about the gospel until she was baptized. Carole’s story really helps to illustrate the importance of having the Spirit in our lives and following the prompting and feelings that we receive from Him.  I am reminded of a talk given by Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles.  He said: Impressions of the Spirit can come in response to urgent prayer or unsolicited when needed. Sometimes the Lord reveals truth to you when you are not actively seeking it, such as when you... Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes I just don’t understand how I can be so blessed in my life.  Over the past week, I have come to realize how much I really do have.  A couple of weeks ago now, I was going through a difficult time.  There were several things that didn’t seem to be going the way that I particularly wanted them to, so I was getting discouraged as sometimes happens to us all even missionaries.  I started to get into a slight stupor where it was difficult to continue working each day.  After a day or so like this, I decided that something needed to change so I went to talk to a good friend and confidant that I have been blessed to gain here on my mission.  He counseled a bit with me, and we started talking about things that needed to happen for me to get back to my regular, positive self concerning missionary work.  We discussed several things that I could change around me that might help since we thought that being in one place for so long might be part of the... Read the rest of this entry »

Sorry about not keeping up with my blogging.  We had several months of packing and preparing to move along with helping my parents move, getting us moved (twice in fact) and now trying to settle.  The kids are in school and/or doing on-line classes and I am trying to rectify some problems with the home in which we now live.  So, it’s been a busy time and I’ve been pondering about how to manage my blogs along with raising a family.  They (the family) have taken top priority but now may be the time that I can get started again. I suppose (no…I know) that life is filled with changes.  Some items are out of our control so we do the best that we can when changes come.  That’s a lesson that I have hopefully learned over the past few months.  Read More →