My Hobby

One of my favorite hobbies is building models. As a kid, it seems that I always had something to work on. Simple plastic models of airplanes were my favorite when I was a little boy. As time moved on, I grew older and my fingers became more dexterous, enabling me to create many more things. Complicated wooden planes, tanks, cars, figurines, buildings, and scenery, to name a few. Building materials include plastic, clay, balsa wood, insulation foam, hardboard, sculpting putty, styrofoam, wires, and on rare occasions, even pewter. In my room you can always be guaranteed to find any number of those things, as well as paint, brushes, prettymuch any kind of glue ever (plastic glue, wood glue, super glue, Elmer's, epoxy, rubber-infused black tire glue, est.), that wierd powdery grass stuff, sandpaper, exacto knives, and a huge mess.

Creating tangible things is a passion of mine. I am a terrible artist and my songwriting skills are very basic, so the need to create has been fulfilled via models. There is nothing better than to see something that is simple and boring slowly change and come together until it is a beautiful masterpiece (or at least much more interesting than when it started).

God feels the same way about us when we change and improve ourselves. He is our Creator, and as such He is always working on us, improving us, making us better little by little. A typical model will take me several days to complete. Some may take me a few weeks before the final product is attained. God has a lifetime to work on us, and what is the end result? What is our potential? God has the ability to sculpt and mold us little by little until we become something extraordinary, if we allow Him to do so. When we trust His refining hand in our lives, we will eventually become someone who can return to His presence, and partake of Eternal life with Him.

Procrastination

I'll be the first to admit that I am a big time procrastinator. Perhaps you have seen one of those t-shirts that has a logo such as "I put the PRO in Procrastinate!" Well, that's me. For a while, one of my favorite slogans was this: If you wait until the last minute, then it only takes a minute to do! But then, like always, reality decides to set in. Procrastination has always led me to stress, anxiety, and lack of productivity that could have easily been avoided if I had simply started getting things done while I still had the time. Idleness keeps us from accomplishing our full potential. The Lord has stated that "Thou shalt not be idle; for he that is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer. (D&C 42:42)"

Here is a Sloth. He likes to Procrastinate.

We all know that procrastinating never got us anywhere. Let's see what the Scriptures have to say about it.

Alma 34:32-35 says thus:

"32  For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors.

33  And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.

34  Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.

35  For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked."

Let us all learn to use our time wisely, for we will never get it back. Benjamin Franklin once said, "You may delay, but time will not." Our time is a precious resource, and when we spend it correctly we can accomplish great things, but if we swindle it away, we can look back at our lives and realize that not much has happened.

Life is like a Zombie Apocalypse...

Life can be hard sometimes. Especially when you are out of food, out of water, out of places to run, and there are hordes of brain-eating animated corpses coming after you. Oh, and you are also out of bullets to shoot them with. Death is almost certain. What could be done to get ourselves out of this seemingly hopeless situation? For starters, we could have avoided it in the first place if we had prepared our defenses a little better. Another thing that might help is if we always keep a little food, water and ammo on hand. Most importantly, you need a friend who can bail you out of a tough situation whenever you need him.


We live in a world where we have countless masses of "spiritual zombies" coming after us. Examples include unclean media, addictive habits, peer pressure, persecution, and for a religious person it may just be society in general. Temptation exists all around us, and for our spiritual selves they are every bit as dangerous as real zombies. Look out! What do we need to do when we see a zombie coming at us? The answer is simple: You shoot it in the face!

So how exactly do we shoot temptation in the face? There are many things we can do. We can have the courage to stand up for our beliefs in situations that would otherwise cause us to damage our spirit. A memorized scripture or hymn can be recalled from memory when a bad thought decides to try and sneak into our minds. Most of all, we can receive help from our friend, Jesus Christ, who can save us when the zombies have backed us into a corner with no way out. 


Using our resources wisely is an excellent way to promote survival. Things we can do include putting on the "whole armor of God"(Ephesians 6: 11-18) and making sure we have plenty of "living water"(John 4:14) and "bread of life"(John 6: 48-51). If we pray and read our scriptures daily, as well as attend church regularly, we can be sure that we will not run out of strength when we need it most.

Like it or not, the zombies are coming! Are you ready for them?

The Honest Woodsman

Today I was thinking about one of my favorite classic stories, the tale of the Honest Woodsman. The Greek version of the fable goes like this:

Once upon a time there was a woodsman who was out to work cutting trees to support his family. While cutting a certain tree, he loses his grip on his axe, which causes it to go flying into the river. The man is much grieved by this, seeing as the axe was the only tool with which he could provide the means to feed his wife and children. Depressed and despairing, the man consigns himself to sit on the bank of the river and mourn his loss. He had hardly been seated for five minutes when, to his suprise, Hermes suddenly appears to him and asks what is wrong. The man explains his situation to the messenger of the gods, and Hermes offers to dive into the river and retrieve the axe for the poor woodcutter. The man gladly agrees. Hermes enters the water for a few moments, then returns holding an axe that is made of pure gold. The god presents it to the man, but the man refuses to take the valuable tool, saying that it does not belong to him. The kind Hermes sets the axe of gold on the bank and dives into the river again. This time, he returns with an ax made of pure silver, but the woodcutter refuses to take it for the same reason as with the golden axe: It did not belong to him. The man explains to Hermes that his axe is just a regular one with a wooden handle. So, Hermes dives in a third time and returns with the axe that the man recognizes as his own. Overcome with joy, the woodsman repeatedly expresses gratitude to his benefactor. Hermes is impressed with the honesty of this man, and tells him that he has passed his test. As a reward, Hermes tells him that he gets to keep all three axes as a gift, then disappears. The woodsman goes home a very wealthy man.

Meanwhile, a jealous neighbor watches this event take place. As soon as nobody is watching, he hurredly goes to the river and tosses his own axe in, then pretends to be in sorrow. Hermes appears to him as well, and asks him what the matter is. The second man lies and says he accidentally lost his axe, and Hermes dives into the river and returns with another axe made of gold. The neigbor greedily clames it as his own. Displeased with the neighbors' lack of honesty, Hermes delivers a blow to the man's head with the blunt end of the axe, and as a punishment leaves the other man's axe at the bottom of the river before disappearing.

So, the moral of this story is that honesty is the best policy. Being honest may be hard at first, especially if there are immediate consequences, but the blessings we recieve in the end far outweigh the instant gratification of being dishonest. Being dishonest only postpones inevitable grief. It is far better to be honest in our dealings with others and with ourselves.

The Accordion

One fine Sunday afternoon I was sitting at someones house when the corner of my eye caught something that intrigued me. There, sitting under a birdcage, was an old accordion. Since I love music, and as I had never in my life actually seen a real live accordion before, naturally the first thing I wanted to do was go play with it. So, after having a marvelous dinner, I did exactly that. My excited hands carefully lifted the hand-held organ out of its storage place, placed my fingers in what seemed to be the correct areas, and began to mess around with it. The ancient instrument sounded like it was still in tune (although I have absolutely no idea how a properly tuned accordion is supposed to sound). I could already see it in my minds eye: People dancing with joy as I performed vibrant melodies on that accordion. However,despite its good condition, it took no longer than 5 seconds for me to realize that accordions are complex and challenging instruments. There was a keyboard on one side, and a whole lot of little black buttons that do who-knows-what on the other. It proved to be a little more than my simple brain could handle. My efforts were noble, but the sound quality of my performance could be considered dismal at best. Eventually I was able to work out a coherent rendition of "Scarborough Fair", but only just barely, and it came after several failed attempts. Needless to say, I was considerably less optimistic about my career as an accordionist as I returned it to its spot on the shelf.

I think my main problem with the art of accordion playing was that I didn't know the basics. In order to become an expert, I would have to learn some simple things first. Things like how to hold the instrument, what the little buttons do, the names of the notes on the keyboard, ect. Once you have the basics down, you can begin to handle more complicated things, such as playing a song or practicing your technique.

Learning the Gospel is like learning how to play an accordion. Sometimes we get excited about something that we don't fully understand. We might dive ourselves into a 'deep' doctrine with expectations of how that knowledge will affect us. However, if we don't know 'the Basics', we may quickly find confusion and frustration with something because we don't really know how to apply it.

Simple lesson learned: When learning the Gospel, start with the Basics. Faith in Jesus Christ, Scriptures, Prophets, ect. The deeper knowledge and understanding will only come after we have got the simple things down.

Jeremiah

My favorite prophet in the Old Testament is Jeremiah. I have recently been studying the book of Jeremiah in the Bible, and there are many things that we can learn from the life of this great man. He lived in a time when the people of Jerusalem were very wicked. Many of the people had already been carried captive into Babylon, and yet they would not listen to Jeremiah's warnings that the city would be destroyed if they would not repent. Jeremiah faced opposition from a multitude of false prophets. These liars told the people that they were righteous, that they could keep doing whatever they wanted, and that Jerusalem was safe. The persecution of true prophets became so intense that Jeremiah was cast into prison several times, and many of Jeremiah's fellow prophets were killed. It was during this time that the prophet Lehi and his family were instructed to leave Jerusalem for a land of promise. Jeremiah was not so lucky. It was his lot to stay and do everything he could to save a doomed people. Eventually, he had to endure watching the destruction of Jerusalem by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon.

The thing that impresses me most about Jeremiah is that he never gave up. Despite all of the persecution that he was subjected to, he continued to to his best to preach salvation unto his people. Even after the destruction of Jerusalem, he still did his best to help the people by fulfilling his role as a prophet. Let us all have the same endurance that Jeremiah had. Because we have the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives, we can endure to the end, even if things seem like they are never going to get better. We can always have hope. So lets never give up.

Vision

Vision is an interesting thing. It is the sense that allows our brains to take waves of light reflecting off of everything and interpret them into a distinct perception of our world. In High School Psychology Class, I once learned that vision is the most overpowering of the five senses. It has the ability to hold our attention and distract us from any sound, smell, taste, or feeling. For example, you are reading a book and your mom has been trying to get your attention for the past five minutes, but you have no idea what she said the whole time you were distracted by your book. The sound of her voice certainly entered into your ears, but since your eyes and mind were so busy, your brain simply chose to ignore the sound signals. They might as well not have existed.

Spiritual vision is a lot like physical vision. Without any sort of spiritual vision, we become spiritually blind. We don't have any idea who we are, where we came from, or where we are going. We simply exist, wandering around in the metaphoric darkness. It is very difficult to get anywhere in life if you can't see where you are going. This is why gaining knowledge about the gospel as well as a personal testimony is so important.  When we have a firm vision of what we can accomplish, we can then exercise faith and begin moving in that direction. Like physical vision, we will not easily be distracted when we have an intese focus on our spiritual goal.