My Testimony of the Book of Mormon

Today we had a great lesson in Elders quorum. The lesson was on Elder Holland's talk from the past general conference in October of 2009 titled "Safety for the Soul". The instructor had us read a couple of quotes and then read Elder Holland's testimony. When we were finished reading his testimony I looked at the clock and saw that we still had 25 minutes left.

I then started thinking about what we were going to do for the next 25 minutes, and then my question was answered. The teacher bore his own testimony about the Book of Mormon and then turned the time over to us to be able to bear our testimonies.

As I took the time to think about the Book of Mormon I thought of how much it had blessed my life. From being raised in a family who read the Book of Mormon together, to now having an extended family who is focused on living its principles. As I pondered, I had an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for the blessings that this one book had brought upon me from living it teachings.

I then thought about the peace that I feel in my heart when I read from it at night with Taylor and when I read it by myself. I also thought about the desire I have to be a better husband, priesthood holder, and son of Heavenly Father when I read the Book of Mormon. It has truly blessed my life.

I am so grateful for the examples I have around me of those living its teachings, and who have taught me by example of how I should live and govern my life. I love the Book of Mormon and everything that it teaches and I hope that I can continually progress to be the my best for Heavenly Father, and for my family.

As I concluded pondering about the Book of Mormon I again found my testimony of it. I then realized of how I knew the Book of Mormon was true. There was no voice, no vision, or any other modern miracle, except that I felt the Spirit whisper to my soul and every other fiber of my body that it is true.

Like Elder Holland I was not there when Christ visited the people of Nephi, nor was I at the trail of Abinadi but I know the Book of Mormon is true, and I know that it came from God. I know that "the Book of Mormon will bring men closer to God than any other book." I know that it is given to us today to learn of the things that are most important for us to be able to return to live with Heavenly Father and I am so grateful for this knowledge. I cannot express my level of gratefulness but it is my prayer that I will be able to reflect the examples of those faithful family members and others that I have had in my life. That like them I may also be a faithful child of our Father in Heaven.

The fun experience with Conjunctivitis

Who ever thought that "pink eye" could be such a irritating bacteria. To fill all of you in, I came down with conjunctivitis or "pink eye" about three weeks ago in my left eye. With a nice long visit to B.Y.U.'s health clinic I received the medication that I need to fight this dreaded bacteria.
All went well as I religiously used the eye drops to make sure that the irritation left, and it did go away in about three days use of the medication. Thinking I was out and clear I stopped using the medication until today!
I woke up this morning to get ready to go to work and while I was putting my right contact in it felt as if something was between the contact and my eye. Thinking that my eye would flush it out I left. the drive to work was not fun at all either because the light bothered me and I had blurred vision even with my contacts. Knowing the signs and having just gone through with having "pink eye" I knew that it was back.
Moving a little farther ahead I made it to work and was beginning to start taking phone calls, when my manager started to ask me to do something. He then noticed my right eye and asked about it. I then went ahead and informed him of the trouble that I was having with my right eye. My manager then went ahead and let me go home for the day. Which I thought would be a great blessing until I had to deal with light, blurred vision, and school work and this began my second battle with conjunctivitis.

The Notebook Recognition lie

For the past couple of nights I have been prayerfully asking Heavenly Father in which ways I can improve my studying for exams. This has lead to a lot of thought the past couple of days on how I can improve. As I was sitting in my humanities classroom about 15 minutes before the class started I was thinking about ways that I can improve my studying. The normal ideas came into my mind, flash cards, reading over lecture notes, meeting with T.A.s, and lecture review sheets. I then tried to think of new ideas that I can improve my studying habits and "break the mold" of traditional studying habits. Then my Professor walked into the classroom.

Just like every class we start out with a review. Instead of jumping right into the review my Professor wanted to bring up an important point when it comes to preparing for the next exam. Her first subject on the matter of studying was "The Notebook Recognition Lie". "The notebook Recognition Lie" is where you do not truly know the material but you can recall where it is in your notes. You notebook could look like this...

but as long as you know where it is on the page you will be able to recall it. This she reminded us is not knowing the martial but just memorizing where it is in our notebooks. When I heard this it reminded me of how I can do this with my scripture, and how I can do it with all my notes and text books, and how she is right that it is not truly knowing the material but knowing how to find it within my notes.

Then came her main point of just using repetition to remember what is taught and the principles that need to be applied. I thought of my mission and how President Ellsworth would always say "Don't fix something if it is not broken!". And there was my answer to the prayer that I have been asking for the past week. "Don't fix something if it is not broken!".

I now understand that learning is nothing more then repetition and applying the things taught into everyday situations. Will it take a lot of repeating, hopefully with only understanding the principle and not applying it. I am grateful thought for how the Lord understands me and is willing to answer my prays to let me know how to become a better son in every aspect of my life.

Choose-This-Day

Choose-This-Day

Some Day I Will...

As I was thinking about what I should post this week, I received the thought that I should skip this week and just post something next week. I then decided to visit the Church's web site and see what was new on there. i did not get very far until something caught my eye and I started to watch the videos that they have posted.
One of the videos caught me off guard about its message and made me think about what I am doing to progress in the gospel. The video is titled "Choose this day" By President Erying, (The video is posted underneath this blog entry). As I watched the video I was pondering about what I am doing to choose to serve the Lord this day. I began to think about the goals that I set after my mission and where I was in accomplishing them. I also thought the same thing concerning my life goals and the goals that Taylor and I have set together. I then came to the conclusion that I need to do as President Erying was teaching and choose this day to accomplish those things that I have committed to.
This experience has lead to a great sense of gratitude for living Prophets. I am so grateful for those men called of God to lead us and help us to know what we should do to return to live with our Father again with our eternal families. I now know that I need to continually be choosing today to serve Heavenly Father and his children. I am grateful for this opportunity and the blessings that it will bring. I am also grateful for the wonderful examples that are around me. Heavenly Father has truly blessed me in many ways and it is time that I showed some gratitude back.

Does Life Ever Slow Down?

I can not begin to tell you the changes that have happened to our family is the last 3 weeks. From the holidays being over nothing has slowed down but things have become more chaotic. These changes that I have referred to are the same ones my wife wrote about in her blog.
Yes it is true that I am now a financial clerk with the ward, and that Taylor is the primary president. Which means that I now get to stay an hour to an hour and a half after church is finished to ensure my membership. I am ensuring my membership by not stealing any money from those sacred funds, because Bishop Meredith informed me that I have a calling that I can become excommunicated from and go to jail. What a nice thought, it also kinda gave me a little nightmare when I found out about it. YIKES!
Anyway things are moving and this semester is going by really fast. I am currently taking Anatomy, and learning from human cadavers. I must admit it was weird seeing one for the first time, but after becoming immune to the smell of formaldehyde I did not have any problems.
Ok quick story. In Anatomy we have a cadaver who was a convict. I personally thought it was great that he would donate his body so that we could learn off of it, and I thought it showed a great sense of repaying society. Anyway compared to the other cadavers his muscles are huge! It was funny hearing the T.A.'s tell us about how every other cadaver that they have seen have not even come close to the size that this man is. That brought me to the conclusion that if I am going to donate my body to science I want to have the biggest muscles of anyone in that school where I am being examined. That way everyone will always remember me and I will be infamous even though it is only my body that is left.
Well that should do it for now as were are gearing up for another week of classes and quizzes. Hope everything is going well for everyone else. Just remember who you are, and your potential.

The Update!

I will admit that I have been slacking as it comes to updating this blog. But within the couple of weeks that it has been since the last update much has happened. Taylor and I are finding ourselves in some new situations since we have been married and are loving the opportunity that we have to face them together as a team.Also we are finding that we are getting old, not a fun feeling but I am learning the meaning of the saying "time flies by when you're having fun". As not only has it flown by but we are aging in the process and becoming older adults, AHHHHH!

The new situations that we are seeing is the opportunity to wake up to snow on the ground. Not as fun as it was when I was about 7-12 years old but still a beautiful sight to see. I have to admit that the mountains are one of the most amazing sights when there is snow on them. With the discovery of snow we have found it to not be as warm as we would like it and we are finding ourselves bundling up. Taylor made a great discovery last night as she put on her winter jacket and found her MP3/video player in the coat pocket. As a side not she has been looking for it the past 10 months but do not tell her that I told you. We are also finding ourselves in the midst of commercial Christmas, with nothing but Christmas decorations and cookies and other short of treats in every store that we go into. I do love Christmas and am so grateful that I get to spend it with my wife this year, but I am not looking forward to all the commercialism that it has tied along with it. The bottom line is new things are happening in our marriage and we are loving every minute of it.

With being old, I know that there are some and just some of you that are as old as the both of us, but we are learning that there is an amazing trend in Provo of getting married. With newly weds moving into the ward and moving out and new families popping up all over town, Taylor and I are now becoming the old couple. The move ins and move outs has to be one of those "great and dreadful" things that the Lord talks about in the scriptures. "Great" as I love to meet new people and to get to know them but "dreadful" to find out that there is someone who is moving out so that the new people have a room to live in. It is a lot of fun being able to serve with people who are going through the same situations that we are facing and being as poor as we are so that we can have fun with simple activities. I hope that is something that I will not forget that you can have fun with simple and cheap activities as it has brought joy into our marriage.

Well that should do it for an update for the next 4 months! Haha just kidding I will be better at keeping this updated, but let us know if you have any questions so that we can put them up on here and answer them!