RESURRECTION!!!

I HEREBY COMMAND THIS BLOG TO RISE FROM THE DEAD!!!!
Sorry a little dramatic, but it needed to happen. After a solid 6 or 7 months of non-activity, it's time to make another attempt at blogging.
   Now the reason for the change? Well for all of you reading this post with out reference to its counterpart, I'm proud to proclaim the beginnings of a progressive blog!
   A progressive blog  is kinda like a relay race. One person begins the blog by posting an initial post. At the end of that first post, they direct the readers to another person's blog for the next leg in the progressive blog. This progressive blog began with the post called "What the Book of Mormon means to us!" on Sister Tausha Powell's blog. Now she has so graciously passed it on to me, so I'll post a little something then pass it right along!
   As hopefully some of you may have read in the previous post of the progressive blog, the Book of Mormon is true. Thank you for establishing that Sister Powell! I thought now though I'd like to write a little something about why the Book of Mormon is important to me and how it has helped me personally.
   When I was a freshman in high school, I had an unexpected challenge come my way. I was diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy, which means I am susceptible to having a specific type of seizure at random times. I don't fall to the ground and shake and lose consciousness. Mostly the seizures effect my mind, and leave me afterwards feeling very scattered, disorganized, and distracted. After a couple years of struggling against inadequate treatments, I found the right medication, which has been one of the greatest blessings I've experiences in my life. That medication brought my mental state almost back to where it was before I started having all the seizures, and it continues to prevent my seizures today.
   Now how does this apply to the Book of Mormon? Well like I said my mental state is almost completely back to normal. However I sometimes I still feel the effects of all the seizures I had in the past. There are times when my mind still feels a little like this...

scattered and disoriented, which makes it hard to think and remember things. Elder Ricks is doing an excellent job demonstrating the principle! When this picture was taken he was looking for a specific paper he'd written a couple weeks ago. He knew it was there, but getting to it....well it took a while. My mind feels just like a messy room at times and like with Elder Ricks and his paper it takes my mind longer to work.

   One of the few things that remedies this problem for me is the Book of Mormon! The Book of Mormon is different from other books because it was written by ancient prophets like the Bible. Past prophets all wrote down the things that Heavenly Father told them to write, which means that the writings are really direction to us from our Father in Heaven. When I read from the Book of Mormon I can feel myself drawing nearer to God. I find answers to otherwise unanswerable questions, and I can feel things straighten out in my mind. Before even getting through a chapter in the Book of Mormon, my mind will suddenly be like this...

Tidy and organized! I can find everything I need quickly and effeciently! My thoughts feels clear and precise, and I feel enlightened. Clarity and enlightenment, at least to that degree, are results of having the Holy Ghost with you. Nothing else that I've ever experienced has been able to completely heal my mind. I know that the Book of Mormon is truly the word of God. I've felt the Holy Ghost confirm that to me in my mind and in my heart, and I invite all who feel like your desk needs a bit of tidying to pick up the Book of Mormon and give it a try!

NEXT UP ON THE PROGRESSIVE BLOG:: Sister Rupp!! Follow this link to see her blog post: http://hermanarupp.blogspot.com/ 

Repentance post...

As many of you all have been reminding me so far, it's been a couple days since my last blog post. I was thinking about that and realized that I'm coming up on 1.5 months of having a stale blog. Kinda sad, but true nevertheless. Anyways, this is my post of repentance.
So a couple days ago Elder Hobson and I were knocking on doors in a neighborhood. We came up to this guy named Jerry who was working in his garage. Right as we were about to start talking to him his dog walks out from behind a table. Now when a missionary encounters a dog there are generally only a few different outcomes:
1) The dog is friendly and we get to learn a lot about it from it's owner.
2) The dog gets ticked off and starts growling, at which point we just back away slowly and try not to make any sudden movements.
3) The dog gets really ticked off and starts chasing us. Not much you can do at that point besides run and hope that either a chain you didn't notice holds the dog back, or the owner tells the dog to heel.
Well as soon as I saw the dog I prepared myself to respond according to those procedures. However something unprecedented occurred--the dog did absolutely nothing. A split second later I realized why. See if you can figure it out yourself from the picture.


Where are his eyes? Well I'm sure Bruno (the dog) could smell us, but he was definitely not looking at us at first. He did 2 complete circuits of the garage before he noticed us and left patrol duty to check us out. At that point he was looking right at us, but then Bruno's owner, who was right next to him, went to pet him and he jumped from surprise. I thought, "Wow it would be hard to only see what's right in front of you!"

Well you'll all be surprised to know that this thought made me remember of a couple scriptures! First off a scripture from the Book of Mormon:
Mosiah 11:29
This part of the Book of Mormon is about a prophet named Abinadi and a wicked group of people under the rule of a king named Noah (no relation to the Old Testament prophet).
Abinadi is directed by the Lord to command the people of king Noah to repent for the evils that were taking place among them. Well generally speaking people don't like to be told they need to repent. The people were so angry with Abinadi and his words that they bound him and took him to king Noah. This scripture describes their attitude.
29 "Now the eyes of the people were blinded; therefore they hardened their hearts against the words of Abinadi, and they sought from that time forward to take him. And king Noah hardened his heart against the word of the Lord, and he did not repent of his evil doings."
Were they literally blind? No I suppose at least most of them had fully functioning eyes. But they did have hearts that were 'hardened,' or in other words they were not humble enough to listen to the word of God. All the people could see was the shallow things and the pleasures right in front of them. In a spiritual sense they were all blind, especially king Noah who, "did commit whoredoms and all manner of wickedness...and he laid a tax of one fifth part of all they possessed...to support himself, and his wives and his concubines." The blind leading the blind!!
Now we contrast this to a scripture from the Bible:
Luke 4:18
This verse is Christ reading a prophecy about himself from a book written by the prophet Esaias.
18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised"
Jesus Christ brought sight back to the eyes of many people during his ministry. That was one of His trademark miracles. However I feel like there is meaning to the phrase 'recovering the sight of the blind' beyond that of the physical miracle. The scripture says that Christ was anointed to preach the gospel, and so He did. In doing so he opened the eyes of His followers. He showed them things as they really are and told them about things as the really would be in the future. His teachings helped them to find greater peace in this life and to prepare for eternal happiness in the life to come. By opening their eyes to the miracles of God and the blessings of obedience, Christ was able to put lost souls back on the path that leads to our Heavenly Father.
I am grateful for the perspective I've gained from knowing and living the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm thankful for the love He showed to us in the way He lived His life and in the reason He gave it up. I promise all who read this that by following Christ and letting Him open your eyes, you will find the greatest form of peace and security that exists.

Miracles and God's Power in Healing

Our Heavenly Father is truly a God of miracles. That is one fact that has become blatantly clear to me in the past couple weeks.
One of the references that we use in the LDS church is called the Bible dictionary. It explains/clarifies many of the terms and ideas that are used in the Bible, along with some terms the way they are used in the church. I really like the way that the Bible dictionary describes miracles. The first little bit:
"Miracles:
An important element in the work of Jesus Christ, being not only divine acts, but forming also a part of the divine teaching. Christianity is founded on the greatest of all miracles, the resurrection of our Lord. If that be admitted, other miracles cease to be improbable."
True statement. The Savior's sacrifice to save us from our sins coupled with His resurrection is an event that we call the Atonement. The Atonement is the most crucial part of God plan for us because it makes it possible for us to return to Him. What a miracle!! The idea that one individual could provide us with forgiveness and salvation mind boggling; it's something that I think we may never fully understand.
However when we come to believe that amazing miracle, then indeed "other miracles cease to be improbable." Recently I have seen miracles, such as one amazing instance of healing.
I have a very close friend who suffered from a condition called OCD. Anyone ever watch the show Monk? Yeah they joke around about him having OCD, but when it's in real life it's not so funny. To this friend of mine, things would become inexplicably dirty. It was like a contamination that spread everywhere from object to object. Someones pen might be dirty, then they'd set it on the desk, which would become dirty, then in their backpack, which became dirty and so on. He could clean things when he had the chance, but it got out of control to the point that most places near his home were, in his mind, filthy. He couldn't get away!
Well he and I and others who knew had been praying for him for a while. We had faith that the Lord could cure him. Have you read the Bible? Have you read the Book of Mormon? How many people did Jesus heal? My friend and I both have faith in miracles.
One morning he was looking at a picture of the Savior. Quietly the question came to his mind, "do I really believe in the Atonement?" Right away he responded, "yes."
Boom. It was done. That was it. This condition that had been plaguing him for so long was gone in one instance of the Saviors healing.
Miracles are real and happen more now than ever before.