This morning I decided I'd start the traditional blogging of each general conference talk from the last general conference in October. As President Monson began this talk, a familiar spirit filtered in to my office at work and inevitably, my heart was opened to the inspired words of our wonderful prophet. I'm so grateful for our church.  I...

I had a real good day at church yesterday, I did talk to the Bishop and got things setteled.  My ex left me alone so nothing hapend there, the only thing I did not like about it was that in our seminary class some one came and nocked on the door every few seconds and would run down the hallway. Then all the leaders botherd me about trying to f...

Church tonight was really good. I think every leader asked me tonight is something was wrong, I'm not a people person and they all know that, I did kinda wish that they would stop asking. But I let it go and told them everything was fine, and did the things I was asked and after church I went to sit by the car. And my ex did not bother me :-0 The l...

Our Halloween was pretty low key this year.  I just wanted to stay close to home since I just had Samuel instead of going to Jason's brother's house as we have done the past two years.  Jason and his brother have made it a tradition to scare as many people as possible on Halloween, but they will have to start that up again next year. An...

Okay...  So about a month ago, I sat down at my keyboard and plunked out a few notes.  About 2 weeks later, I gave a rough copy of a mash of music to my friend, Ryan Phillips, and had plunked out some sweet riffs to it. Two weeks later, I add some vocals and effects, and this is what you've got. I hope you like it.  (press the ...

Well... Today was the big day at church with the blessing of the newest addition to the Jones family, Samuel Jones. The blessing went well, even if I did botch the proclamation of the power by which the blessing was given.  I'm glad God is a forgiving God. The spirit of the meeting was wonderful, and it testified quite powerfully of one sp...

Interesting that in verse 7, the example he uses of an unrighteous king pretty much parallels what happened to the Nephites in the Land of Nephi under king Noah.  Couldn't have been many years since the people of Limhi had come to join Zarahemla, anyway.  I've never thought of that before. Verse 13 is always a fun one.  It's great ...

The first thing I thought of when reading this chapter was, "Man, if my teenagers (or young adults) came to me and asked if they could go to a nation bent on destoying ours, and teach them the Gospel.  Man... My initial reaction would definitely be one of incredulity.  No wonder they had to pester Mosiah for so long before he'd even ...

Reading the beginning of this chapter, it's interesting that Mosiah put laws into place which made voicing anything which could be interpreted as "persecutions" against the church, illegal - and it seemed to work.  There was "peace" for a number of years due to that law.  The church even began to grow and prosper more ...

Upon beginning this study session, I found myself quite uninterested in doing pretty much anything.  Maybe it's just because I'm tired....  or maybe it's because I just finished one of my projects at work, thus putting me between projects again.  Who knows... When I got to verse 3, though, I found a gem of a scripture that I had fo...

Interestingly enough, while I was praying last night, I felt prompted to start a fast. While I started it, the words flowed freely as the code from my fingers on a good day. :) I fasted that I might not be so friggin' scared about finding employment. I fasted that I might know what to do to make ends meet while I try to figure out what I want to...

 So, this chapter, I hate to say it, wasn't very inspiring to me. I'm not sure if it's the state I'm in, or the chapter itself, or both, but there wasn't too much inspiration going on. I did, however, 3 years ago, begin the journey of reading and writing about each and every chapter in the Book of Mormon, so I've gotta write something, if I ...

Wow, it's been a long time since I last studied my scriptures. The first thing which caught my attention is the phrase, "if it so be that my people at Jerusalem, they who have seen me and been with me in my ministry, do not ask the Father in my name, that they may receive a knowledge of you by the Holy Ghost".   I guess that...

When I began reading this chapter, I was pretty anxious, internally - for unrelated reasons.  Now, having finished this chapter, I feel very calm and peaceful.  What a great story this chapter tells. While reading, I saw some curious verses, but all of those questions feel relatively meaningless right now.  The thing that matters t...

Well, I thought I had more pictures of Sam, but I don't.  I will have to be better about taking more pictures of him.  There was a really cute one of him smiling, but it is on the other carmera.  Next post will have to be a smiling one of him.  Here is one new one of Sam with Luci and some other cute pictures of the kids. ...

Man... At work, I've got .... well.. I was gonna say dilemma, but... it's not a dilemma because I know of a way out. My dilemma is, I've gotta have a website functional by Friday, which means I've got two days to get it to work. The database we're connecting to (postgres on gentoo, thank heavens) has a table with more than 12 million rows in it....

Once quite awhile ago, my brother came to me and asked me why we go to church, and where is the doctrine concerning church attendance.  In addition to Moroni 6 : 4-6, I also gave him Alma 6 : 6. Other than that, this seems to just be a transition verse from preaching in Zarahemla to preaching in Gideon. It also speaks about membership of t...

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I got down here to my studio tonight, after playing with the kids, putting Sam to bed, and taking care of a few other odds 'n' ends, and I got to feeling like I should write in my journal.  Not entirely sure about what, but it's been months, if not a few years since I have just sat down to write, with nothing in mind beforehand.  Some of ...

 Well...  I'm not quite as frustrated tonight as I was when I tried to do with Ubuntu, that which I am now trying with Fedora 12. I installed Fedora 12 on my laptop from the install DVD, and I've gotta say, Fedora, neither in the installation, nor in running the OS, was as slick as Ubuntu.  Ubuntu was quite a bit more polished, I'...

Ya know...  The first verses of this chapter brought back some well-known stories of Mormon culture.  The most potent one being the experience Joseph Smith had in a Missouri jail surrounded by a mob of people cursing and glorying in their raping, murdering, and wickedness against the Mormon people. Parley P. Pratt said the following in ...

So, the Christmas season is officially here, and I'm feeling more Christmas Spirt than I ever have in my life - by a long shot. I attribute this to two things...  First and foremost, attitude, and making good choices.  To me, Christmas is a spiritual season because it's filled with love, good will, charity, friends, and family.  If...

So, I just got off the phone with my wife, and she was at our new home-to-be this evening, and apparently, almost everything is done.  The carpet isn't in, nor are the toilets, nor are the cement stairs leading down to the basement, but everything else - yeah - it's done.  I'm just beside myself.  We could be moving in as early as la...

Jarom, for some reason, didn't seem all that inspired to me, this time around. The only thing which caused me to question was verse 2. To me, it seems that Jarom didn't want to write "much" for two reasons:  1. Because the plates are small, and 2.  They are being written for the benefit of the Lamanites. I guess I can u...

 So, I was reading this chapter when I came upon the phrase "fulness of joy" in verse 10.  The phrase caught my eye primarily because it was only mentioned for the 3 Nephites who chose to stay.  It was not mentioned for the others.  That caused me to wonder how often the phrase "fulness of joy" is used in scr...

So...  This week has been just one blessing after the other.  I mean, seriously, it's been an amazing week!  I've been recording this great band in my studio, I've been rockin' the code at my day-job, and things are just great. So, to celebrate my happiness, and general good mood, I decided to take myself out to lunch.  I wen...

With as little sleep as I got last night, when I woke up this morning, I was a bit worried about the Aces' session today.  Man alive!  I don't know what I was worried about!  These girls nailed their new song, Fooled Twice, wholeheartedly!  Spot-on timing, vocals, tunes, and had a great time, to boot. You're gonna love it!&nbs...

Man...  I've got to settle on which type of keyboard I'm going to use.   I can't be switching keyboards from work to home and back.  I might have a nervous breakdown. Anyway...  We just got done bathing Samuel, and these pictures were too cute to idly pass by. You can see that the mohawk has been successfully passed on ...

You know those types of musicians...  The ones that just "get it".  They don't worry much about writing the music, but rather, it seems to write itself.  Now, I'm not going to put words in his mouth, but it sure seems like this is the case with Alex Bateman. He came in, knew what he wanted, and the way he wanted his reco...

I noticed in this chapter that even though many threatenings were made to the king of the land of Jershon (most likely an Ammonite), he didn't seem to care at all.  His concentration was on the many poor people of the Zoramites who were coming to his city. Eventually, I believe this action was the tipping point for the wars forthcoming throu...