Mormon Bloggers

In my last post I talked about how we obey for different reasons. Lehi was motivated to obey out of gratitude and love for his Father in Heaven, whereas Laman and Lemuel were obedient because of fear. It is interesting to observe the process that Nephi followed to become obedient for the right reasons. Verse 16, in 1 Nephi Chapter 2, explains the process Nephi went through to become more obedient to the Lord: 2:16 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, being exceedingly young, nevertheless being large in stature, and also having great desires to know of the mysteries of God, wherefore, I did cry unto the Lord; and behold he did visit me, and did soften my heart that I did believe all the words which had been spoken by my father; wherefore, I did not rebel against him like unto my brothers. The process Nephi experienced, simply put, is a desire to know, and the willingness to ask. I believe the Lord gives this same instruction when He admonishes us to “seek and ye shall find, knock... Read the rest of this entry »

I believe that Chapter 2 of 1st Nephi is a pivotal chapter in understanding the rest of the Book of Mormon. For me, it is actually more like the “preface” of everything else that will follow. The first thing that I noticed about Chapter 2 is that it is a great illustration of the principle of obedience. It primarily shows the different levels of obedience, or motivating factors there are to prompt one to be obedient. Each of the family members shows a different level of obedience. Why did Lehi obey the Lord? Look for the reason Lehi left Jerusalem: 1 Nephi 2:1 For behold, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto my father, yea, even in a dream, and said unto him: Blessed art thou Lehi, because of the things which thou hast done; and because thou hast been faithful and declared unto this people the things which I commanded thee, behold, they seek to take away thy life. 2 And it came to pass that the Lord commanded my father, even in a dream, that he should take his... Read the rest of this entry »

At church today we learned about the priesthood Heavenly Father has given us on this earth. I had a question about why we needed priesthood blessings for sickness and why faith was not good enough to take care of us (as the title suggests). These are some of the conclusions my priesthood quorum came to in response. For one thing it helps the priesthood holder to give blessings. It requires them to be obedient and faithful at all times because they know they have the ability to work in God’s behalf, with His authority and power, to serve His children. Also, we do need faith, but we need to also act on the faith. It’s like saying that if you believe in Christ then that is enough and you do not need to be baptized. But, actions are just as important as having faith. We must make our covenants with God and we must show our faith through giving and receiving priesthood help. Through giving and receiving priesthood blessings we also learn to respect the authority and power that God... Read the rest of this entry »

Why do we serve? ­Everything in this life, within the gospel, the church, and all the creations of the earth are provided for one reason. And that reason is to have infinite happiness by becoming increasingly like our Heavenly Father. We see this in the scriptures: 2 Ne. 2:25, “Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy,” That’s the infinite happiness part. Moses 1:39, “For behold this is my work and my glory – to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” What does that mean, eternal life of man? John 17:3, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” Eternal life is more than just living forever; it is the kind of life God has and He wants us to have it. He wants us to become like Him, to think as He thinks, to act as He does, to know what He knows, and be able to do many things He can do. We find that eternal life is to live like Heavenly Father. We are to become like... Read the rest of this entry »

With the finale of LOST still fresh in everyone’s mind, we all wonder where we will invest our critical analysis skills next. Luckily, Jer3miah is going to start their second season soon. If you haven’t ever heard of Jer3miah then you should check out their website Jer3miah.com. Watch the trailer for Season 1, and then watch the entire season (the episodes are all under 10 minutes each). It’s pretty awesome what these film students are producing. There has been a TON of praise for it (i.e. The New York Times covered it!). I’m terribly excited for the second season. And today I found the teaser for it was posted online 7 months ago! What’s funny is I ran into Jared, aka “Jeremiah”, on campus very recently and I asked him what he knew about a second season. I thought it was pretty suspicious how he deflected with complete ignorance on the matter and spoke of how complicated it is to coordinate producers, directors, writers and the like. Of course,... Read the rest of this entry »

Ammon. 'Nuff said. This is for all the Japanese returned missionaries out there. There were always rumors circulating in the Sendai Mission about an “Ammon Project” that, through various recounts and exaggeration of facts, was viewed as one of the great tragedies of the Church in Japan. How can the bottom of the hierarchical authority chain (i.e. 19 and 20 year-old missionaries) really understand the events and the reasoning behind them from 15+ years in the past? I am currently reading Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s biography, A Disciple’s Life, by Elder Bruce C. Hafen and I came across this passage concerning the “Ammon” Project: “During his years as first contact for Asia, from 1990 to 1995, Neal had similar concerns about Church growth in Japan, where the number of less-active members had been growing at a faster rate than the number of active members. The Fukuoka Mission President was Cyril Figuerres, a former researcher for the Correlation... Read the rest of this entry »

Thought-case: A stranger walks up to the missionaries, states that he is moving to a place for the rest of his life where the church will never be. He wants to get baptized but doesn’t have a testimony of the church. Do you baptize him or not? If he is baptized what benefits/blessings would he receive for being baptized? What is the intrinsic value of being baptized? Without testimony, without passing D&C 20:37 or batismal interview questions, as if they don’t exist, what effect would being baptized have on a person? They will receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost and (those who are within church contact) get connected to the church. End question: Is it better for a person to be baptized than not? AKPC_IDS += "192052,";Popularity: unranked [?] Read More →

Rep. Gifford's office and other politicians have had death threats With the largest legislation that has passed in the recent many years I feel I need to speak on what I saw here in the nation’s capital this past Sunday. I had the opportunity to go down to the National Mall and the Capitol after watching the North Eastern Regional church conference in the visitor’s center of the Washington D.C. Temple. A group of ten of us interns went down to look at the three massive rally’s that were happening down there, the key one being the health care rally by the conservatives. It was almost like getting excited to go to a state fair or something. I was shocked and amazed at what I experienced. But, I was not surprised. I knew what was coming. That’s why before I left I knew I wanted to keep my emotions in check so that I wouldn’t be spiritually affected by the debate that we were walking into. Let’s hear about what it was like. In the Washington Post there... Read the rest of this entry »

Moral courage: How do we define it? Simply, do what is right, even if it isn’t popular or otherwise easy. AKPC_IDS += "159641,";Popularity: unranked [?] Read More →

Easter is a month away and my thoughts are turning to one of the most sacred events in the history of humanity. While our culture and society today has created a more commercialized version of Easter as that of easter egg hunts, the easter bunny, and an excuse to munch on chocolate (as well as [...] AKPC_IDS += "157951,";Popularity: unranked [?] Read More →

Every day this past week has been good enough to write a solid post about. But, each day has also kept me busy having fun in the Snowpocalypse we’ve been having in the DC area. It hit us while we were at Valley Forge last Friday night. Sure, we were warned it would snow 20 inches, and sure it was the topic of conversation as the government planned on shutting down Friday, but none of us Utah students expected two feet of snow would actually slow anything down. But, we were wrong. It came, it snowed, we got stuck at Valley Forge. That alone was tons of fun, then we had to try and drive home through it. A trip that normally takes 3-4 hours ended up taking 7 hours. We got back to DC to find the place frozen over and silent. And that was the beginning of this past week of no work! Everyday we would find out the next had been cancelled due to increased snow storms or needed clean up from it all. It was great! Sure the government was losing millions of dollars from being closed, but we’re... Read the rest of this entry »

The Final Season . . . Supper (Oh, how I love LOST's symbolism) So I did something tonight that I never thought I would. Anybody who knows me knows how much I love the TV show LOST. I love everything about it and I love hooking people on it as well. Well, tonight was the season premiere of the final season of the show . . . so kinda a big deal for a die-hard fan. I’ve advertised for the past month, and tonight did a huge blitzkrieg in our building to make sure everyone knew about it. The show had a recap from 8 to 9 and then the two episode premiere from 9 to 11. I was planning on going to Institute (since I love our institute here) until 8:45 or so (it can sometimes go until 9:30) and then heading down. In Institute I had the chance to give the opening prayer where I remember asking for the Lord to inspire Elder and Sister Ellsworth with the words that we, the students, needed to hear that night. I then sat down and started counting the minutes until I got to go downstairs... Read the rest of this entry »