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.

Starvation?

How long does the average person last when they go without any food or water? Not very long. Our physical bodies require frequent, consistent nourishment in order to function properly. When these basic needs are not satisfied, the resulting malnutrition has devastating effects. Indeed, if we go too long without any form of substance to sustain ourselves, we would starve to death. So, in order to keep ourselves from dying, we do certain things every single day. We eat food. We drink water. We sleep at night. They are very simple things, but they are things we must do in order to stay alive.

Our spiritual selves are the same way. There are certain things we must do in order to keep are Spirituality safe from starvation. Things like reading the scriptures, saying your prayers, and going to church are the basics we must adhere to if we want our spirits to survive. It is no wonder that Jesus Christ Himself is given names such as "the Bread of Life (John 6:33-48" or "Living Water (John 4:10-13)" in the New Testament. If we do the small things every day that bring us closer to Christ, we can be assured of the promise found in the sixth chapter of John, verse thirty five: "And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."

Cicadas!!

So here I am in Lebanon, TN and it turns out that this year is the year where all of the 13-year-cycle cicadas come out of the ground and swarm everywhere. In the trees. On the fences. Squished bug corpses covering the sidewalk. Its kind of nasty. Oh, and they make lots and lots of noise. One by itself isnt too loud, but when you've got 8000+ bugs in a single tree and you walk under it, your ears start hurting. Like you just spent 3 hours at a rock concert. The only good thing is that they are harmless, don't carry any diseases, and they are edible. (Note: Just because something is edible does not mean that eating it is a good idea.)

So I guess I am fortunate to be able to see these incredible bugs, seeing as they only come out every 13 years. A mission only lasts for 2 years, and one of them happens to be the same year that the cicadas come out. Lucky me! This earth has so many interesting things in it that you never really think about too often. I will always be grateful to my Heavely Father for giving me the opportunity to spend some time here. The Earth really is a beautiful place. One of my favorite shows to watch back home was Planet Earth. I am continually amazed at some of the creatures, scenes, and phenomena that are portrayed in it. Sometimes I wonder if we as humans will ever be able to discover it all. The Creation of this planet only gives us a small inkling of how smart God really is.

Music

So here is a picture of me and my little bro (the skinny one) with our guitars sitting on top of a hill in our backyard some time ago. I figured a nice way to get my thought process going for this blog thing is to find a cool picture, stick it on here, and then write some paragraphs underneath it to tell you why its important. Anyways, there are several reasons why I decided to put this picture up here. Firstly, I love playing my guitar, and since I had to leave my guitar back home when I left on a mission, this picture makes me happy when I look at it. Secondly, it reminds me of the wonderful acoustic music that I used to listen to all the time. Lastly, it has a picture of me with my little brother, who I love very much.

Today I would like to focus on the music aspect of this picture. Music has had a very powerful effect on my life. Wether I am listening to Classical, Jazz, Acoustic, Indie, Bluegrass, Rock, or Techno, it all just puts me in a good mood. I have a habit of only listening to music that makes me feel good and presents a message that I agree with. A lot of the newer more popular music is full of garbage that I dont like, so I usually didn't listen to the radio back home. Several of my friends and peers think I am wierd because I dont like a lot of the stuff people listen to nowadays, but I could care less. I've noticed the difference in my life between when I would conform or when I would listen to uplifting music and decided that the latter option is much more prefferable. When I listen to music that isn't vulgar or immoral, it puts me in a better mood and I am more likely to do the things I am supposed to do as a disciple of Jesus Christ.

God likes music, too. Consider the 150th Psalm from the Old testament, which reads:

 "1) Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his ^asanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.

 2) Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness.

 3) Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.

 4) Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and ^aorgans.

 5) Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.

 6) Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord."

Obviously, music is something that God has given us, not only to praise him, but to make ourselves happy as well. When we use music the way it was supposed to be used, we will become closer to God and have happier lives in general. We can be inspired to be good Christians and be more inclined to do good in the world, rather than be one of those people who listen to hateful tunes and sulk around all the time because it makes them depressed. So next time you plug something in, no matter what genre it comes from, make sure you listen to something that makes you want to be good.

Smile!

So here is a picture of me at my 19th birthday party. I'm the kid in the green shirt who has a bunch of balloon strings behind him. Don't I look happy? You do not need to answer that question. Its very obvious to see that I am hating my life at the moment this picture was taken. At least, thats what it looks like. The reality of this picture is that my 19th birthday party was one of the best, happiest birthdays I have ever had! I loved it! It was only a couple of months before I left on my mission so my whole family was there! I was so happy! So what is with the picture? I was plenty happy, but nobody else could see it because I was keeping it all to myself.

The moral of the story is this: Just because we are happy doesn't mean that we look happy. If we don't look happy, then nobody else will be able to share the happiness with you because they will just figure that you are having a bad day. So if we want to share our happiness with others, we have to let everybody else see it! Smile a little bit if you have to. All of your words and behaviors should provide evidence that you are in a good mood, and that will allow others to absorb some of the good energy that you are outwardly expressing. Its kinda like the scripture in Matthew 5: 16 which says "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." You never know how much joy you can bring into the life of someone who is having a bad day, so make sure your "happy light" is shining.

Awareness

So a strange thing happened to me the other day. I was sitting on the couch, very tired, when all of a sudden I fell into a wierd trance. It was almost like 'Self-Hypnosis'. I think it happened because my body tried to fall asleep but my mind was fighting too hard to stay awake, so I fell into a sort of half-sleep mental state. It was super trippy. I was having a bunch of dreams that felt like they were real, more than any other dream I have ever had. Also, it lasted a whole hour, but it only felt like a few minutes. I don't really know the psychology or the brain chemistry but needless to say, it was an interesting experience.

So, what does this have to do with the Gospel? Well, let me tell you. The hour I spent wigging out over who-knows-what was a complete waste of time. It is an hour that I wish I could have back. I suppose life can be like that sometimes. How often do we miss things because we are too busy being distracted by our own little world? True, a Psycho-Hypnotic experience is an extreme example, but being 'zoned out' causes us to miss a lot of things. Do I know what happened during that hour? Not a chance. So, how can we get more out of life? We follow the advice of the Psalmist, who said: "Be still and know that I am God." Everyone knows the old saying, 'stop and smell the roses.' With those two thoughts in mind, we can conclude that the secret to living a fuller life is this: Pay Attention!

Try, Try Again

Here's what I'm thinking: Everyone knows the age old quote "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." I don't remember who said it but he was a pretty smart guy. I think of all the inspiring people from history who have applied this to their efforts and made awesome things happen. Thomas Edison tried over a thousand times before he got the lightbulb to work properly. Handell wrote several operas and things that nobody thought was very impressive until he came around with The Messiah, which is now considered to be one of the greatest musical works of all time. Abraham Lincoln ran for office many times until eventually he was elected President of the United States.

So what do all of these cool people have in common? I've noticed in my life that there have been some big things that I wanted to do, and even though I tried over and over again, I never succeeded. At least, not yet. However, I think I've figured out the method that helped all of those people in history who have accomplished their dreams. Its not the fact that they tried over and over until something happened. It's the fact that they tried DIFFERENT THINGS over and over until the end result was what they wanted. The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again, and expecting to get a different result. How many times in my life have I been frustrated because I kept on trying the same thing and nothing ever happened? Sometimes I think that we as humans assume that our solution is the one that will work as long as we try it enough times, or do it the same way only try even harder this time. I think that when we get over our fear of trying different things, we can really start to make things happen.

Here is an example from the Book of Mormon. Nephi and his brothers were commanded to go and obtain a scriptural record from a bad dude named Laban back in Jerusalem. The first time they tried, Nephi's older brother simply went and asked if he could have the record. Laban threatened to kill him. The second time they tried to buy the record by presenting all of their wealth to the bad guy and ask for an exchange. Laban ended up stealing all of their property and actually tried to kill all of them. The third time Nephi tried, he relied on God to show him the way, and he was successful in obtaining the record from Laban. So the moral of this story is that as long as you keep on trying, eventually you will get it right. Don't get stuck on doing the exact same thing. 1 plus 1 will always equal 2, no matter how many times you solve the equation. If you want the end result to be a 3 or a 4, you have to change things.

And that's all I've got for now.