Love It!

I love the prophet Nephi's simplicity. I mentioned in an earlier post (July 8) about how hard and yet simple it is to be obedient and do what we are supposed to do. I wanted to post this as a follow up to that, a scriptural follow-up.

"And we did observe to keep the judgments, and the statutes, and the commandments of the Lord in all things, according to the law of Moses." 2 Nephi 5:10

Does he say they were perfect? No. Does he say they never made mistakes, never sinned, never committed a transgression? No. He just says they "did observe to keep" all the commandments. Did they make mistakes? Yes, I'm sure they did. But at this time in my life, the point of the verse, to me, is that they simply did it. They were focused on keeping the commandments; they tried to live how they were supposed to live; they wanted to be righteous and so did what it took to be righteous. It's all about choice! We choose whether we turn that corner and run towards the light, towards the Savior, or whether we turn the other way and go into darkness. Think about that as you re-read Elder Bednar's talk about the Parable of the Pickle. Also re-read Elder Porter's talk about A Broken Heart and a Contrite Spirit.

And what was the end result? Verse 11: "And the Lord was with us; and we did prosper exceedingly;"

The Weekend

So, this was an up and down weekend. I helped Christina clean out her grandmother's garage, clean it out and organize it. It looks great now and I'll try to put a picture at the end of the post so you can see. Unfortunately we don't have a before picture, so you can't see how it was before, but it was a lot of stuff. So yesterday I was sore and that continues today a little bit. It still feels good to not only get a good workout but to, in the process, help someone do something that they couldn't do for themselves. Service! It's great.

In football this weekend there was a lot of up and down. Two of my top three teams won, so I'm happy about that, but my number one team, BYU, lost badly. They got spanked by TCU. I think they should have at least been able to make it a good game if not even win, but it seems like they didn't show up to play. I know TCU's defense is good and very fast, but BYU always seemed to make some stupid mistake that resulted in a turnover and points, a sack, a three and out series, a punt, etc. They are better than that! But Texas won and even FSU won on Thursday (not quite the weekend, but close (to the weekend and a very close game)).

Anyway, I'm left with waiting, again, this week to see if I get any job offers. I have two jobs that I interviewed for last week. One, with Capelouto (the pest control company) was a 2nd round interview, so when they call at the end of this week it will be with a job offer. The second, with Target, will call and offer me a 2nd round interview. I hope I will then be able to have two great jobs to have to chose between. That's what Christina and I keep praying for and we would appreciate any prayers from you all. Prayer really works.

Doesn't that garage look beautiful!??! Before you could barely walk through the middle. Yes, we took a truck load of stuff to the dump too.

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I would highly recommend this to everyone. It goes along nicely with my last post and I just love the way Elder Maxwell would write/speak.

Notwithstanding My Weakness Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Nov. 1976

Truth & Lies

I read an interesting article in the Ensign yesterday and so have named this post after the title of said article, Truth & Lies. If you haven't read it, I recommend you do so, mostly because I think it will speak to you as it spoke to me. It focuses on the lies that Satan tries to tell us in order to separate our hearts and minds from focusing on the truth. The prophet and president Ezra Taft Benson taught that in the latter days Satan would specifically use "despair, discouragement, despondency, and depression" to overcome the Saints. How true that is!!

Now, you may say that this particularly struck a cord with me because, after 6 months of trying to find a job in today's economy it is natural to be despaired or get discouraged. I'll admit, that is true to a degree. It has been really hard for me (for whatever reason, most likely our culture, your self-worth seems to hinge, however incorrectly, on your ability to work/find a job). However I found that reading the article focused on so many other things that I thought it worthwhile to mention to everyone who may read my blog. I did not realize how insidious Satan is in the lies he tells. He has slowly pulled the whole world down towards hell, and therefore we see examples all around us of those lies. I promise that the Lord's love and mercy is so much greater than we realize! His divine love is not putting us on a rating scale; we are all loved as His children even though we have made mistakes and He does not love nor accept our sins.

The article fulfilled it's purpose. It reminded me of our Heavenly Father's and our Savior's divine love for me! It provided me hope and joy and peace by reminding me of the Lord's mercy and redemption.

A Reminder

I was reminded today of one of the miracle's in my life. I love how our Heavenly Father provides opportunities for us to remember the good things in our life. I have been involved in a couple car accidents (both as driver and passenger) and of course there was the major head trauma/accident that I went through (see my very first posts) so my neck has to occasionally be adjusted by a chiropractor. With our recent move to Tallahassee I had to find a new chiropractor, and luckily my sister-in-law knew someone. I met with him last week and told him a little of what had happened to me, not going much in depth about everything, but just how it happened and being momentarily paralyzed the first few days after I woke up. The doctor did a bunch of tests on me and we met again today to analyze the results and look at the x-rays and discuss the exercises I should do. What struck me, and drove me to blog after such a long time of not posting, was how amazed this doctor was with me. Everything he showed me proves that I am completely fine after my accident. Not just that I am ok with residual effects of my accident, nor that I am ok with signs that I had the accident, but that I am completely fine. His tests show that my bones are fine, my muscles are fine, my neurological tests came back fine, my reflexes are fine, etc. He repeated a couple of times how blessed I am. That is why I wanted to post. I am reminded of how blessed I am. The Lord shows us His tender mercies all the time. We need to have open eyes and a humble heart to see them, but when we do how grateful we become. I am grateful for the Lord's power that healed me and that today reminded me of it!

Back in Florida

Well, as everyone probably knows already (either by talking with us or reading my wife's blog) we have moved back to Florida. This time, however, we are in Tallahassee and living in a doctor's office below my sister-in-law's family.

Despite my love for my last job I was let go. I put a lot of hard work into getting the home health company off the ground from nothing to treating and caring for a lot of patients. It was a good learning experience and I had tons of help from lots of people, but I guess I wasn't the right person on the bus (for anyone who has read "Good to Great"). I left with good feelings towards the company and with a lot of good friends at Advanced Health Care and AHC Home Care. Christina and I talked and prayed about what to do next.

Everything seemed to be pointing us to moving to Tallahassee. I have wanted for years to get my MBA and FSU has a very good program that is cheaper than most. We would be able to live with family and therefore receive a break on rent (versus paying a lot for our apartment in CO). We also would be able to help my sister-in-law's go back to church. Given the current state of the economy we figured it would be just as hard for me to get a job in Florida as in Colorado. Then, one night while serving in the temple, I read the Ensign (I think it was the April issue), and discovered that the first 20 some odd pages were all about getting a quality education to further your chances in the world. The more I read the more it seemed to fit, moving to Tallahassee and going to school. I was the first one to suggest moving and when I specifically said Tallahassee I think Christina almost fell out of her chair! She of course moved with alacrity on that decision and hence she has a job already and I don't.

We have enjoyed our time here, even though we literally live in a doctor's office and only have one room and bathroom for our stuff. We spend most of our time upstairs with family anyway. I continue to look for a job so we can figure out what is going on with our lives and maybe even get a house sooner rather than later. I guess if anyone knows of something please let me know. We've been going pretty regularly to the gym we joined (I need to lose some weight and get back in shape) and being home more during the day has allowed me to start a new project with the help of my cousin Robbie. We are still working on it, but will reveal it in all it's glory as soon as we have it ready, so be looking forward for it! ;)

Simple, Yet Seemingly Difficult, Yet Simple

What on earth could I be talking about? I was continuing my reading the other day in Mosiah and I noticed something interesting. Just a verse or two after talking about mankind's nothingness and God's greatness (see previous post) King Benjamin tells us how we can receive salvation. What the prophet Nephi calls the doctrine of Christ and then uses very similar words to describe what we need to do to be saved.

King Benjamin says that we receive salvation through the Atonement (Christ's sacrifice in Gethsemane and on the cross for our sins) and it is available to those who do three (simple) things. The first, put our trust in the Lord; in other words have faith. Second, be diligent in keeping the commandments, which is to say be obedient. Third and finally, continue in this faith and believe until the end of our lives. Simple, right?! Until we think and realize that we have to be obedient to ALL the commandments, even the ones we "don't like." We also have to do it for ALL of our lives, the whole endure to the end principle we hear preached. When you sit and look at it that way, it suddenly seems very difficult, but yet, it really isn't that hard.

We choose what we want to do everyday, so we just need to choose the commandments, the Lord's will. Nephi commands us to feast upon the words of Christ in order to have the Holy Ghost accompany us during the day/life, and that the words of Christ and the Holy Ghost will tell us everything we need to do. This, he says, is the doctrine of Christ. So no matter how seemingly difficult it is to have faith, be obedient in all commandments, and do that for the rest of our lives, it really isn't. We just need to make sure that in our drive to keep the commandments we are feasting upon the words of Christ, therefore we will have the Holy Ghost and we will gain, through His help, the desire to keep all the other commandments for the rest of our lives. Let's be honest, when you feel the Spirit you quickly realize that you want to feel it always and you know that keeping the commandments is not only the only way to have that feeling all the time but also the way you WANT to live (because you know it is just the right, correct thing).

Awakened [me] to a Sense of [my] Nothingness

I was reading this morning in the 4th chapter of Mosiah. I have recently (and by recently I mean for the past few months) been reading from my facsimile of the first Book of Mormon. It's divided into chapters like a novel type book would be, not versus and short chapters like our current edition. It reads more like a story book, and that means you sometimes find yourself going back to read a paragraph or two more often so you can pick out the nugget of gospel knowledge that Heavenly Father wants you to know (aka what stood out to you as you read under the influence of the Spirit). And without the division into versus, sometimes the paragraphs you reread are long, almost as long as chapters in the new edition.

But back to what I wanted to share. The fourth chapter of Mosiah starts out with the King Benjamin's people just having heard the first part of his sermon from the tower at the temple. In that part of the sermon we have such jewels as Mosiah 3:19, a brief overview of the whole plan of salvation, Mosiah 2:17, how the Lord blesses us for everything we do and so we are constantly in His debt, and so many more gospel doctrines/principles/truths that I can't mention them all here (nor do I probably know them all yet, I'm still learning as we all are). But in chapter 4 verse 5-6 I was struck by a sense of my own nothingness and the greatness of God.

It seems to me that the Book of Mormon prophets often want to impress upon us the fact that we are as low as the dust of the earth. That in fact we are nothing and are so because of our fallen state, our inclination to sin and be wicked and not obey the commandments of our God. But as I was reading in verse 6 I realized that almost always, after telling us how we should understand that we are nothing, the prophets offer us the hope and the knowledge of a perfect Savior. We get a taste and a feeling of (especially if we are reading with the Spirit) His goodness, and grace, and mercy, and love. We don't have to wallow in our nothingness; the prophets don't testify of the fallen nature of man just so we will have a pity party. We are almost always immediately given, after being awakened to our human state, the upward look and the sweet taste of the heavenly state.

I imagine our Savior and our Heavenly Father talking about it before every revelation they give to the prophets past, present, and future. The love that emanates from them clearly tells us that they wouldn't have the prophets revel something that just talked about how we are nothing. They would make sure to tell the prophet, whomever it was, to tell us that we have a Savior who is full of mercy and goodness and light and righteousness. That there is a way for us to rejoice in this life because we can look up with hope and know, not just think or wish or dream but really know, that we can overcome our fallen nature and our wicked generation and our sinful inclinations. There is no other way nor means nor name that we can accomplish this and be saved, only in and through the name of Jesus Christ. How thankful I am to Him. I started off today reading about the nothingness of man and the sense of being lower than the dust of the earth. But I finish my scripture study and start this Sabbath day with hope in, joy because of, love for, and a re-dedication to the Savior. What a beautiful Sunday morning it is.

Technology!

Well, technology advances and I have finally joined the wave. I'm actually making this quick post from my phone. I will try to make a real post soon that explains what is going on in my life. But for now, suffice it to say I'm enjoying joining the mobile-internet world.