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 simply must blog about this - quickly. When I arrived home from a trip through some pretty insane snow tonight, I simply had to test a theory I had about my 2007 Mustang GT's headlights vs. fog-lights.  (Apart from the chance to drive like a maniac in the snow, which I absolutely love) So, I get my car going about 25 down a very lowly-li...

 Wow...  When I wrote this in March of 2009, "During this year, I both think and feel (logically and spiritually) I will be stretched more than I've been stretched in years.  This one's gonna be a toughy.  As for now, I feel anxiously optimistic.  Yup..  That about hits it on the head."  I had n...

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 ...

Okay...  So Advanced Budget Studios had the opportunity last weekend to record a group which came from the Springville's Art City Music Fest, and due to time constraints, we really didn't get a very good tracking session.  We got some of Bethany's vocals, JT's acoustic guitar, Jake's bass, Dan's shredding guitar solo, and a very rough scr...

 Today, I woke up at 6:00am, after getting a maximum of 4 hours of sleep (and it would only be 4 hours if I wasn't woken up in the middle of the night multiple times, which I was, so it was actually less) I prayed before I went to bed that I would be able to survive the day and get everything done that needed doing. Anyway, I woke up at 6,...

I upgraded all of my boxen yesterday, including my main server (which now has successfully become my slowest machine).  As you probably know, I run gentoo on everything. When I built my mythtv-based home-theater in my basement about 2 years ago, I spent about 2 months configuring my server to handle everything I needed it to.  I didn't d...

So, we've been considering how to best improve the studio in recent weeks, and have decided that our complete lack of guitar amplification needs to be taken care of.  We looked at all sorts of amps and decided that one which could possibly provide the most diverse sounds would be a wise choice.  We've recorded pretty much everything here ...

First off, today was much better than yesterday as far as basing my decisions to strengthen my family. I spent the morning with Luci, and most of the afternoon and evening with Luci and Sarah. At noon, I went in to get all the paperwork taken care of for my new job, and I must say... I'm impressed, excited and anxious all in one emotion. I'm sur...

About a month ago, our bishop told us that the fast offering fund for the poor people in our ward is running low, and that we should consider giving a generous offering. I thought we should definitely consider doing so, but in the end, I forgot all about it. Today, however, our Bishop dedicated the entire sacrament meeting to the topic of sacri...

So... I apologize for not having kept up-to-date with what's recently been going on, but I honestly haven't had the time!  If I have to choose between recording music, or writing about recording music, I'll take the former, thank you very much. So, this last week was booked solid - again.  We saw a few regulars come in and a few new on...

I love mythtv. Thank heavens for the wonderful, altruistic people who created such a fantastic program. I also love transcode and mplayer. Equally fantastic programs. Put em' all together and what do you get? An encoded library of your DVDs ready for viewing straight from your hard drive. Here's some tips I've found out. (actually, I'm w...

Man...  It's been months since I wrote about the Book of Mormon.  I will finish it, though, and I will write about each and every chapter therein. So, about this chapter. Nothing really jumped out at me as being extraordinary, and I didn't expect it to be so short.  It seemed like this chapter was just a wrap-up chapter for the a...

I've only got 5 minutes to write, but I've simply got to say something about our baby Samuel... With Collin and Luci, I didn't feel a real connection until the actual birth.  Well..  Walking around today in the house, I looked at Sarah's big belly, and I felt a warm feeling in my chest which can only be described as a connection with t...

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 just got done watching, listening, and reading the last talk of the morning conference session of Sunday this year, and President Monson is indeed our prophet. Nothing in particular spoke anything specific to me.... Well... That's not true.  The following paragraph hit home a bit, "Mortality is a period of testing, a time to prove o...

Okay... I forgot that Alma had 63 chapters. This chapter has always just kind of made me raise an eyebrow while reading it.  I must say, I felt the Spirit while reading it, and I know it's true, but I wonder why it was written. Why did Mormon dedicate half a chapter to people "going northward"?  And what about the ships?&nbs...

Hehe.... According to this verse, I guess even Lamanites can learn! "Stand fast in the liberty wherewith God has made us free!" Yeah... I think I'm gonna have that made into a poster, and hang it on my wall or something. The big message of this chapter, and the few preceeding it, for me, would have to be "Rely on The Lord for y...

Hmm....  Another war started by another group of dissenters.  Man alive...  Seems like the story is all the same.  People who want to rule another nation end up being sparked and fed by dissenters of the nation they want to rule (think of Amalickiah)...  *sigh* The latter half of this chapter is a great reminder of what h...

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'm not in the mood to write much, but since it's a goal, I'll keep it. One thing I noticed and had a question about was why Nephi, Sariah, and Sam didn't know where to go in Lehi's dream.  Verse 14 lays it out quite plainly. The first thing that came to mind was Lehi was the leader of the family.  He was the director and it was his d...