Video Testimony

These are two videos I made to express how I feel about the Savior and His life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N80_9Aw0wuc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYfNVO8lgyg&feature=plcp
Thanks for watching, please feel free to share and post, they are meant to uplift those who need it!

Evil Queen Vs. Wicked Witch

My new obsession, for anyone who cares, is called Once Upon a Time. It's a TV show that takes all the fairy tales and turns them on their heads, albeit a little unDisneylike. One of the things it endeavors to answer is why does the evil queen hate Snow White so much? The play Wicked attempts to answer the same question about the Wicked Witch. Dumbledore in Harry Potter makes a point to educate Harry about his enemy, what made him the way that he was. On my mission I had an interesting conversation with an elder, during which we disagreed on whether it matters how someone like the Wicked Witch got to be so wicked. For him, the bottom line was that she is, in fact, wicked, and it does not matter how she got that way. For me, it goes beyond that. Understanding why someone is evil doesn't make them any less evil, it simply makes them, well, more understandable. It means that they are not simply evil for the sake of being evil. There is more to them than meets the eye. It changes me, not them.

We all have bits of evil in us. The natural man, sinful self, enemy to God. Whatever you call it, all it means is that we are all, more or less, just like the villains we love to hate. The difference between us and them is that they have embraced their sins, and let them define them. The more we let jealousy, fear and pessimism rule our lives, the more like them we become. So, does it really matter why? Yes, and I'll tell you why. Because we learn to be that way. We learn how to sin. Early in life, our imperfect minds and bodies give our spirits a run for their money and we learn how to sin. It's just that simple. The ever-present good news is that if we can learn how to be a certain way, we can certainly unlearn the same thing. It takes time, but we can go from being the Evil Queen to Snow White, lovely and loving and pure. Because if the Evil Queen has a back story, so does Snow White, which means Snow learned how to be good, just as the Queen learned how to be evil. We get to choose. So, who will you choose to be?

Knowing

Pornography is not intimacy. Pornography is a distortion of reality. Intimacy between a man and a woman celebrates their love for one another and brings them closer together. It is mind, body and spirit melding together. The scriptures refer to intimacy using the word "know". To know something is to be familiar with, perceive, understand. It requires experience. Which is exactly the way the Lord intended intimacy to be in the first place. If you do not know someone in a personal sense, you cannot know them in the Lord's sense. Which is how pornography distorts the true meaning of what it means to love someone. To love someone for the physical pleasure they give you is to view them as an object, something to be discarded when it no longer suits you. The truth is, you can always be pleased physically, but emotionally, spiritually, those take someone special. Someone willing to know you as you would know them. Someone to hold you when the tears come unbidden, someone to serve and protect you. Someone to love you. That is why we guard intimacy like a precious jewel, because it is the only jewel worth giving to someone else.

And the Winner is...

We as a society speak in terms of winners and losers. If I were to ask you to describe to me what a loser is, certain people would come to your mind. Maybe even yourself. Words associated with losers are criminal, team, misfit, failure or bad. A loser is someone who consistently proves they are not worthy of respect. But when you think to yourself, "I'm such a loser," what you're really saying is that you have somehow failed at life. You are consistently proving to yourself your ineptitude at this game we call Being Human. 

Ok, so you are a loser. What does that mean? Even the loser gets to play. But that's not really what you want to hear, is it? What you want to hear is, "No! You're not a loser!" Ok, so you're not a loser. Do you feel better? No? Why not? I told you what you wanted to hear. In that case, let's try something else.

What does it mean to Be Human? In order to figure that out we have to go back a little bit. Rewind to before we were born. We all lived with Heavenly Father together. Chances are we've met before. Hello again. Anyways, we were presented with a choice. Heavenly Father's plan involved coming to earth, learning how to be like Him and one day return to Him to receive of the glory which we choose. Lucifer (who, by the way, was every bit our brother as Christ was) decided he didn't like that plan. He didn't want to see any of us perish because of bad choices. And he also wanted all the glory to himself. Maybe more so the latter. In any case, Lucifer proposed his plan, and maybe it sounded pretty good. None of us would be lost, what did we care who the glory went to? There was just one flaw in Lucifer's plan. You can't take glory away from the Father. It can only be given. So when he demanded the glory go to him, he set his will in defiance with the Father's. We took sides, and the mere fact that you are sitting in that chair with that rather stunned look on your face means that you chose not to follow Satan's plan. Congratulations, you won a free body! Unfortunately, bodies come with all sorts of things that Spirits don't. Like livers and pancreases. And hearts and brains. And hearts and brains develop very differently than our Spirit versions do. They are susceptible to decay, disease and malformation. And our emotions, which are tied to pretty much everything we do, came right along with this wonderful body. Isn't it great? Now, raise your hand if you have complete control over your emotions. Put your hand down. Even the "best" of us are prone to emotional hijackings. Some of you are wondering what "best" means. Well, that depends on you. So, think about that for a minute. Got the idea in your head? Great, now throw it out the window. Because who in the world are you to decide what's "best" as far as people go? Now I admit that the Avengers are the best at what they do. But they have superpowers. If you haven't got superpowers, forget it. Given the chance, we could all come up with a list of the "best" people we know of, historical or otherwise. Names like Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King would crop up quite a bit, probably. But they were only the best at being Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. Some of you are laughing right about now, shaking your heads and saying, "Well duh!" But if they could only be the best at themselves, why do you have to be better than everyone you know, and even some people you don't? Because that's what being a loser means. It is a word that implies competition. Because if you're are a loser, somewhere out there is a winner. Which, as you can hopefully now see, is preposterous. The only way you can lose at being an imperfect human is if you stopped being human. And barring any zombie apocalypse, that ain't going to happen. So just be yourself. You, my friend (and I do not use that term lightly) are NOT a loser. You wish you were different? Change. Not tomorrow, not next Friday. Right now. That doesn't mean that everyone else will see the change tomorrow. But you will know, and so will God. Change takes practice. But if I can learn how to do multivariable calculus and quantum mechanics, you can do this. You can learn to not think of yourself as a loser. And that is the most important change you can possibly make, because it is the most self-fulfilling prophecy on the planet. In other words, if you think you're a loser, you will be. If you think you're a child of a loving Heavenly Father who expects nothing more than His imperfect human child can offer, then you will feel that, too. You'll feel love. Perfect love.

Ready? Go!

Sacrament Prayers Part 6

And now we come to the promise that is made to us if we promise to remember Him and keep His commandments. When I was a kid, I used to think this was a raw deal. We have to do all that and then all we get is one thing back? But what my underdeveloped sense of God's love could not comprehend was the import of the promise that we will always have His Spirit to be with us.

Other names for the Spirit are Comforter, Holy Ghost, Conscience and Spirit of Truth. Christ Himself said that the Holy Ghost would "teach [us] all things." The Holy Ghost was promised to His followers shortly before His death, because He wanted to assure them that He would still be with them, if not in body. I think about what that must have been like for His disciples, to have Jesus there with them to teach them and wrap them in His arms, and then to have Him tell them He would not always be there. How devastating that must have been! But what a comfort the Holy Ghost must truly have been, to fill the void left by Christ's departure. The Holy Ghost comforts as Christ did, teaches as Christ taught, guides as Christ guided. It is not in God's plan to have Christ on the earth right now, so He gave us Someone to help us feel His love for us now. In essence, the Holy Ghost is our access to God. It is through Him that inspiration is received, love is felt, sins are forgiven, direction perceived and a relationship with God is cultivated. The Holy Ghost is a member of the Godhead, along with our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. God wants to grant us the companionship of a member of the Godhead. Think about what that means for you.

Our relationship with God is based on positive feedback. When we keep the commandments, we receive the Holy Ghost, who helps us make correct choices and continue keeping the commandments. After which, we receive greater witness of our good standing with God and we feel His presence more strongly, through the Holy Ghost. And I testify that the more we feel the influence of the Holy Ghost, the happier we are and the less we feel inclined to berate ourselves or others. We want to be happy, we want to repent of our sins, we want to feel love and the clearer we see the world around us. God directs us in all aspects of our lives. Socially, emotionally, spiritually, physically, academically. When we allow the Holy Ghost to direct our lives, there is not a moment that He cannot help us, not a sadness He does not experience with us and no triumph He does not celebrate on our behalf. That is what it means to have the Holy Ghost with you. It means everything.

Sacrament Prayers Part 5

The next part differs from the bread to the water. They both start out with the phrase "that they may witness unto thee." To witness is to observe or experience personally. When one serves as a witness in a trial, they are giving account of something they were present for, or saw, or heard. You cannot witness to something that you don't have first-hand experience with. So when we partake of the Sacrament, we are witnessing, or giving personal testimony, that we will do the things that follow.

This is where they differ slightly. The only difference is that in the prayer over the bread, we witness that we are willing to take upon ourselves the name of Christ, in addition to other things. To take upon ourselves someone else's name is to identify with them, to take their creed upon ourselves, and to accept the consequences. When we take upon ourselves the name of Christ, we cannot do it lightly, because He did not do it lightly. Those who would criticize Him, will criticize us, and those who revile against Him will revile against us.

The rest of the promises on our end are the same in both prayers. We also witness to always remember Him. Here again is that all-important word, remember. If we would remember Him always, we would treat people differently, pray more fervently and act with more faith. That doesn't mean that other things aren't going to hold our attention, because that would defeat the purpose of this life; we came here to live and learn. But God isn't just in His Gospel; He is all around us, in all the beauty and creative minds that give us things to read and listen to. When we always keep in mind whether something is bringing us closer to the Spirit, then we are keeping Him in mind. And when we think of our fellow men as brothers and sisters, we remember Him.

Last of all, we witness to keep His commandments. I like to think that if we can keep the greatest commandment, then all others will follow. Christ Himself gave this commandment during His ministry. It is to love God with all thy heart, might, mind and strength. When we can truly do that, all others will fall into place, because when we love God, we want to show that love by following His commandments. When we love God, we can feel that those commandments are not to restrict or punish us but to bless and protect us. When we love God, we trust Him, fully and without any reservations. And that is true happiness.

Sacrament Prayers Part 4

The next phrase differs a little in each prayer, but only in minor verb usage. The emblems are being blessed to our souls, in order that we might perform this ordinance in remembrance of Him. Spencer W Kimball has said that the most important word in the English language is remember. The word appears 505 times in the Standard Works of the LDS Church, with 162 coming from the Old and New Testaments. Some of our favorite phrases that we shout at our kids as they run out the door contain this word: Remember who you are! Remember your lunch money! Remember I love you! Dictionary.com defines the word remember has "retain in the memory" or "recall to the mind". So we perform this act in remembrance of Him. By taking the Sacrament, if we do it properly, we remember Him, and His Sacrifice. We once again recall to our minds this wonderful gift. The Sacrament is the one time in the week that we can sit and think, specifically about the Savior. What a wonderful gift! Naturally, those of you who have children are thinking to yourselves that I haven't a clue what I'm talking about because the Sacrament is simply one more quiet moment in which the shrieks of your children become deafeningly obvious. But the Lord can make it a wonderful time for you, too. Just ask Him. He will answer because He loves you.