This chapter, to me, is all about following the Spirit. Verses 3 and 5 are among the most potent in all of scripture. "Feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do." "...the Holy Ghost ... will show unto you all things what ye should do." Doesn't get any clear...

All the other times I've read this chapter, it's been mostly about the whole baptism thing.  Now, I don't discredit the sermon given about Christ being baptised, and the necessity for our being baptized to make it to heaven... ...But this time, something else struck me. Ya know...  I love having chats with people about the Gospel.&nbs...

The beginning verses of this scripture were the ones of focus today. For the past 2 chapters (or more), the Lord has been chastising the Gentiles, should they fall into the pride cycle and not repent. The beginning 2 verses of this chapter basically says, "even though the Gentiles were bad, don't get on your high-horse, thinking you're any...

I know a lot of the posts this year have been on the spiritual topic, but, I write about the events of my life, and so I guess this is what ya get. Today was awesome. If you've read my previous posts, you'll know that today I sang in the choir, gave a talk in sacrament meeting, and taught the 15-16 year old doctrine class. It was wonderful. ...

Wow...  What a testimony of the Book of Mormon, and of the prophets who wrote it. This whole chapter is a rebuke against people who don't accept the Book of Mormon.  Reading chapters like this strengthens my testimony concerning the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.  I mean, what are the chances, if the Book of Mormon were false,...

Well....  From the first eight verses of this chapter, I could write pages.  The first verse itself is a great testament to the veracity of Jacob 4:13, which states that the Holy Ghost "speaketh the truth and lieth not". Because we all can be under the influence of the Holy Ghost (and worthy members have the opportunity to ha...

Imagine for a moment you had no idea about the atonement of Christ. Now imagine you sitting there and listening to what I have to say. And the first thing you hear are the words, "God demands perfection for salvation." Not sure about you, but for me, that creates a sort of sinking feeling inside...  I put "perfection an...

About a week ago, I began thinking I needed another project.  I really was getting to thinking about how I spend my time, and how I can better use the time I have. Nothing popped out at me, until yesterday. Yesterday, I got a call from one of the people in my ward, and he asked me if I would teach the 15-16 year olds in their gospel doctri...

In the beginning of this chapter, I didn't realize that the book to which the verses were referring was the Book of Mormon. I guess this chapter answers the question, "What is in the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon?".  The answer is quite simply found in verse 10:  "...for behold, they reveal all things from the foun...

Ya know, I sure am glad that Nephi wrote verse 22 of this chapter.  In all of scripture, this is the only chapter which uses the word "flaxen" to describe the way Satan tempts us. Flax is a fiber from a plant which is used to make linen.  Linen isn't known for its strength. Satan indeed does "lead us" with very ent...

This entire week, so far, has been spent mixing, mastering, and nit-picking The Blue Aces' 4-song demo debut.  I'm not at liberty to give many details (yet), but let me just say that this group has some of the most rocking tunes I've ever heard come out of a group like this. More to come later!  The demo should be finished by this weeke...

I've recently become part of a cover band and we're getting to the point now where we need to choose a name.  None of us can agree, so we need your help.  We currently have a pool of about 100 possible names, and you can vote on any or all of them by clicking here. So far, our set list is the following: With or without you ...

 So, I used to use the -dumpaudio switch in mplayer to get audio extracted from random videos, but now that seems to do not much of anything.  I found this site which had a great explanation of how to get it done a different way, but was a bit out of date.  The newer version is found below: mplayer -vo null -ao pcm:file=audio_file_...

Man alive... Girls can become a problem in one's life. I'm feeling a bit of stress in that well... Heck... I don't know how to explain it. There are girls coming at me from every angle. I've talked on the phone with Charlene now about 5 times and I enjoy talking with her quite a bit. Indeed, I do... Today I asked for a girl's phone number...

Well I never thought it would a big Christmas because our family has never really had a big one any ways. I started off trying my best to bring the Christmas cheer to others ( something I never do) but I upset and just couldn't make anybody happy. All my family really wanted was snow, we've not seen snow in so long. My two little brothers have neve...

Sorry for the long haitus I've taken from blogging, guys.  I guess it doesn't really matter since nobody reads my blog, anyway.. Man...  This new job is really taking me for a loop.  Right now, the only way I can survive without seriously considering other alternatives is to take it a day at a time.  This in no way should sugg...

This talk really got me thinking about where my heart is. As I've grown older, my pet sins are still doing their best to have their portion of my heart dedicated to them.  I'm still doing my best to assure they don't. Often, I wonder how my life will differ in this aspect 5 or 10 years from now.  Will I still struggle with the same si...

Confrontation and contention has always been an interesting thing for me.  For one, I hate it and I don't know how to deal with it.  I'm a passionate person in every sense of the word.  The moment I feel like I'm being attacked, it's everything I have to do to keep my head level and my blood from boiling.  Unfortunately, this ke...

At the beginning of this year, one of the things I wanted to accomplish by next year was to write enough songs to create an album.  So far I have 3 songs I reallly like, and one which I think should be destroyed by fire.  Not too shabby, considering it's only the beginning of February. When I was 26, 1 day after I had broken up with my...

Since I recently have switched to XFCE on my work computer (all home computers are still running Gnome), I've noticed a strange behavior with window focusing.  I'm trying to decide whether this is a feature, or a bug. What happens, happens once-in-a-while and I can't get it to do the same thing consistently.  Whether it's because this i...

Ya know, I sure am glad that Nephi wrote verse 22 of this chapter.  In all of scripture, this is the only chapter which uses the word "flaxen" to describe the way Satan tempts us. Flax is a fiber from a plant which is used to make linen.  Linen isn't known for its strength. Satan indeed does "lead us" with very ent...

 So...  Sometimes I feel like I write things here that could get me into trouble, but I figure, if this is what I really think, and I'm sincere about it, then right or wrong, the truth will eventually come out.  Many times, I've thought one thing, and then upon further studying and prayer, have found out I was wrong ... and I'm okay ...

I was just up holding you, Collin.  You awoke for some reason after we put you to bed, and I decided to be the one to go see what was the matter. As I picked up your stiff body, muscles taught by some uknown fear, I sensed a connection between you and I which I haven't felt before. You put your little head on my shoulder and continued to rid...

 So, on last chapter's post, someone left a wonderful comment.  Thank you, whoever you are.  That is precisely why I do this. Now... Ether 4.   This chapter starts out with an interesting verse.  I guess Mosiah would have had several channels whereby he could have known he should not let the book of Ether out of the bag u...

Yesterday at church, I had a couple of thoughts which I neglected to write down.  I think I'll write them down now. Something I might have written down in my previous scripture studies is my question as to why Lehi's family didn't think about getting the plates of brass / Ishmael's family before they left for the wilderness?  I would th...

I don't think that ever you will find any words of righteousness associated with Laman and Lemuel, not once, but twice, within 4 verses more than in this chapter alone. Not sure why that stood out at me this time, but once in verse 1 and again in verse 4, Nephi said that Laman and Lemuel were on good behavior.  I thought I'd take time to suc...

I'm always pleased and grateful that the Spirit comes so quickly when I read the Book of Mormon.  Sometimes I forget how much I love how the Spirit of God makes me feel and think and act. Anyway...  Great chapter this was.... Of all of the stories in the Book of Mormon, I think I like the one of the 2000 Stripling Warriors the best.&n...

I find it interesting how Satan is described throughout scripture. In this chapter, through verses 13 - 20, Satan is seemingly exposed as the weak fraudster he really is.  Verse 16 is quite potent, written from the standpoint of people who were tempted by him, when shown his actual person, are amazed at the frailness of Satan.  They say...

Well... I figured I'd better write about this because I didn't have the sense to take any video of the actual party. I recorded myself going TO the party, but nothing more.  Crud. It was a good LAN party, too.  We played last Friday and Saturday.  We had the usuals there, Me, Shane and Shaun, but there were two people who never had...

I just got home from Jovi's baby blessing (Brandon and Chloe's first baby) and it was a pretty cool experience. Today was a good day because I thought that it was gonna be .... not good. Yesterday night, I stayed out a bit too late, and thus didn't get a whole lot of sleep last night.  In fact, on my way home, my good friend Steve bought me ...