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...

Hmm....  I'm kind of tired right now, but I figured I needed to read some scriptures... This time around, I realize how being under the rule of a tyrant would be absolutely horrible.  In this case, Alma was under the rule of one (or more) of the Amulonites - which were his wicked peers when they were the king's priests.  Talk about...

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...

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 ...

Lately, I've been feeling a pretty intense lack of the Spirit in my life. I've been unsuccessfully trying to pin it down to something specific and it's driving me kind of crazy. Well, today at church, I decided to try something for one week, hopefully longer, but definitely one week. I'm seriously going to do my best to base all my decisions on ...

Okay, so Jason left yesterday afternoon for a trip to Green Bay.  I have been gearing up for this for a few weeks.  Preparing  myself to be without my beloved for a few days.  I figured this is no big deal, I can get through this no problem.  Well, it looks like the kids had a different idea about that for me.  I t...

 Seems like the first half of this chapter is a gentile rebuke coming from Christ himself, to his Apostles, for not knowing the scriptures well enough.  It seems like he goes on for a bit in the why, though.  I wonder why it's so important to put across the point that things of Christ need to be done in Christ's name...?  Seems ...

While reading this chapter, the first thing that stood out to me was a misconception I've had about Zeniff going back to the land of Nephi. I thought, until about 10 minutes ago, that Zeniff tried to go inhabit the land twice, when in reality, the first time he was by the Lamanites, he was spying on them.  Nothing too earth shattering, just ...

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 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....

With everything going on that has to do with running Art City Sound, and making sure everything is taken care of, it's easy to forget what is really important.  Of course, my family is, and always will be, #1 in my life, but aside from that, the most important thing in this studio is good music.  Having a good time is a definite plus, but...

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...

Wow...  Moroni doesn't mix words, does he...  Reading this through as much of an objective filter as possible, I'd say there's some serious judgements going on.  Moroni blatantly calls Ammoron a "child of hell", and tells him that his brother went to hell.  heh...  Pretty gutsy, if ya ask me.  Going off of wh...

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...

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...

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 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...

So, due to the success we've been having with the studio, we were able to upgrade our two in-studio guitars.  We bought a new black Crafter acoustic guitar, which sounds just awesome.  One of the new Herod The Fink tunes will feature the Crafter, and we're excited to get a final mix to see how it sits within the music. We also bought a ...

So...  Interesting that one of the reasons cited for Heth's righteousness is his remembering what the Lord had done for his people, specirfically, bringing Jared and his kin over the ocean.  There has got to be something behind the whole "remember what the Lord has done for you" thing, and living a righteous life.  Heck.. E...

Ya know...  I really liked this talk.  There were points in it where I found his words coming through my mind's eye of the past. While growing up, I was probably on the extreme of what Elder Zwick was trying to convey.  Instead of being tempted to go along with the crowd, I thought the crowd was stupid, and I didn't need them. ...

It's chapters like these that get me thinking about the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ and the "end of the world".  Reason is, is that this chapter happens just a few years before the 1st coming of Christ.  For some reason I analyze these chapters to death, and each time I do, I find more things that seem to parallel what may (or ma...