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...

I've been watching "So You Think You Can Dance" now for about 3 years.  For me, I think it's better than American Idol.  These young people are .... amazing. Well, a couple of weeks ago, there was a dance done which had the theme of "addiction".  It was done by Mia Michaels and the two dancers who danced were fa...

 So I wasn't really interested in getting yet another member of my little growing studio family, but I couldn't help but get this one after playing it at the local music store.  Found it on a killer sale at samash, so I pulled the trigger. Available to all studio clients for recording. Isn't she gorgeous? She sounds awesome, too....

So two days ago, I found myself on the same stage with the same band I've been with for the past 5 (or so) years, playing pretty much the same songs. Except, this time, something was different.  As I walked around looking at all of the awesome vehicles on the grounds, there was just something wonderful.  I have no idea how to describe i...

Okay...  So, this isn't gonna be the rant that you thought it was by the title.  With the little time I have, I couldn't come up with a better one... So, the story is - I had just eaten a delicious burger at Coney's, when on my way home, I happened to turn on Rush Limbaugh.  He was talking about this new "cloud" technolog...

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...

 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...

Last night, I watched a recording of American Idol, and since I have the myth system set to record 10 minutes previous to the beginning of the show, I had recorded the last 10 minutes of a show called "Moment Of Truth". The whole premise of this show is to take a polygraph (lie-detector) test previous to the show, and then go on live TV...

I had forgotten that in this chapter, Nephi sees the Lord descend from heaven to the people who would be born from Nephi. I put myself in his situation, and quite honestly , I have no idea how I would react.  It would be so supremely surreal - seeing your kids' kids' kids' kids, and then seeing the Savior of the world show himself unto them....

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...

So, we've been busy at the studio lately.   So much so, I've neglected to update the site's samples.   We've got a few new ones up, and so I thought I'd let everyone know a bit about em'. ScramJet : Tread Softly  -  ScramJet is a band out of Salt Lake City, dead-set on bringing their musical vision to life.  They kn...

It feels quite refreshing to be able to understand more than just a couple of verses again.  As I was reading tonight, I realized how much could be written about this chapter.  It's quite full of good doctrine. Here's what I noticed tonight: From verse 1 until 6, Nephi seems to be trying to explain the "hard to understand" n...

 Another very short one.  If I understand it correctly, the prayer states that by partaking of the water, we are covenanting (or "witnessing") unto God that we will always remember Christ.  I believe a few chapters ago, I wrote quite an entry on the importance of remembering.  As evidenced by the inclusion of it in a w...

Surprisingly... I'm not sure if it's because of my attitude or what, but I believe I got a bit more out of this chapter than I have for the rest of the Isaiah stuff. I'm not 100% sure what the branch is that comes out of the root of Jesse, but I've been told that is refers to the prophet Joseph Smith (D&C 113). I also believe that when it s...

 What a horrible end to this story.  Poor Coriantumr.  Saw his situation with vivid clarity after it was too late, and rather than give up his life, he watched (which what must have been a horror show) everything Ether had told him come to life:  The complete destruction of his people, leaving him alone.  I can't imagine th...

I love Moroni's strategy.  With God on his side, he seems almost unstoppable. So Ammoron decides to be a jerk about the letter-sending, and what-not, so Moroni's like, "Dude...  You did NOT just say that!  A'ight, then, we'll see who gets to keep prisoners around here!!" Let's see what could have gone wrong with this st...

 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 ...

When I sit and think about what I just read, the 14th chapter of 1st Nephi is pretty crazy. Just a few points... The majority of the chapter is all about the "mother of abominations" and the "whore of all the earth". I believe it's written here to clarify the impact this (these) church(es) has (have) had upon the plain and...

I was just looking at the timestamp on these chapters, and realized that Amalickiah went from being a Nephite citizen, to the king over the entire Lamanite nation in approximately 1.5 years.  How freaking crazy is that? Also, one thing I failed to mention about chapter 47 is the last verse.  A very interesting verse, that is.  Once...

Ya know... I've now read this chapter twice, and I cannot remember a single thing I read.  I started journaling about the chapters of the Book of Mormon January 1, 2008 - as a resolution to write about each and every chapter of the book.  I'm not sure if I can make it through this chapter one more time!  I have no idea what's going o...