Life

19 JAN 15

Alma remembers the Savior. (Alma 36:17-18)

I have found chiasmus interesting interesting to learn about in the past. I always find it fun to see people’s eyes light up when I tell them about this poetic form in the scriptures. In this case the center of the chiasmus is remembering the Redeemer. I like this Chiasmus in particular because we should also remember to keep the Savior in the center of our lives.

 

Alma forgiven of sins (Alma 36:19-20)

It’s a good reminder that people can turn their lives around any day of the week. Sometimes people have the mistaken belief that they are too far gone. The examples of Alma, Saul/Paul and a few others are good reminders that the hand of the Lord is extended to us all. In the Lords eyes we all need to be saved through accepting the Savior and showing this through repentance and baptism. Church isn’t just a place for people who don’t really need it.

 

20 JAN 15

By small and simple things are great things brought to pass (Alma 37:6)

It’s the small things that we do every day that build who we are, what we represent and what we accomplish. It’s rarely just one big thing.

 

It still seems like a strange word to me “omniscient” but I can’t think of a better way to describe how the Lord foresees the needs of us. In (Alma 37:9) we are told of how Ammon used the words in the brass plates to convince thousands of Lamanites of their incorrect traditions. So if we step back a bit we realize that this had been part of the Lord’s plan for a little over 500 years. The Lord had sent Nephi back for the brass records and then had had Nephi keep two records of the events after that.

 

Then later Alma entrusts the records to Helaman to “preserve for a wise purpose in him, that he may show forth his power unto future generations.” (Alma 37:14) Those future generations of course are referring to those in our time. How many millions of souls have accepted the Gospel since the restoration and these records were part of that. A plan that started over 2,500 years ago. It’s amazing to see how the Lords plan has come to pass over this time.

 

21 JAN 15

Secret oaths and covenants of Jaredites kept out of scriptures. (Alma 37:27)

I think the avoiding of details was to avoid accidentally romanticizing the subject by having more details to draw on. I figure the actual signs and symbols would be similar to the gang signs, colors, ect. we see today. We can even look at modern secret combinations as an example of what they may have been trying to avoid. If you do a quick Google search of “best gangster movies” you will run across multiple lists of movies that make crime look glamorous and interesting. All of these movies are based on modern crime and what could be called secret combinations of people who make oaths to rob and murder. Now imagine if there were more details on the Gadianton robbers or other secret groups. Would their stories have morphed and drew people in to them? I think that may have been the potential worry.

 

Corianton chased after the harlot Isabel. (Alma 39:3)

This is some daytime soap opera material here. So Corianton (the prophets son) is sent on a mission but he fails because he goes after a harlot so infamous that even the prophet knows of her. The church’s reputation is so ruined by Corianton that they are unable to teach there. I can’t imagine a prophet’s son doing that now days but then again I have seen many Bishop’s sons and daughters that have been huge trouble makers. I guess it’s a bit of the pride cycle where the church leader was blessed and the children became prideful and rebellious and fell away. Now that I think about it more the harlot story is familiar in a way. A woman’s home in my mission was banned from contact after she kept trying to get missionaries in bed. I had a single mother try to sit down close to me when we were teaching her nine year old daughter. She had changed into a nice dress before we stopped by which I thought was odd. When she sat down close to me my immediate reaction was to move over a cushion on the couch. My companion (Elder Burns – my trainer) got a good laugh about that later. He said he was proud of his “greenie”. Maybe Corianton should have noticed the temptation and moved over or do whatever he needed to do to avoid that temptation.

 

22 JAN 15

In (Alma 40:23) we are told that the “soul shall be restored to the body” and that “every limb and joint” will be restored to the body. I often wonder how that will appear for people that I know that have lost limbs. I imagine that will be a joyful experience for them. It goes on to say that “all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame”. (Emphasis mine.) I have often wondered what the perfect frame will look like. If we looked to the world for the example of what that would look like, I think we would have a vision of people mostly in impossible proportions and looking like they have been photoshopped heavily. I also wonder at what age people will appear. Really the details don’t matter. I’m just glad for the gift of restoring limbs, eyesight and removing malady’s from body’s in the resurrection. I can imagine that when I am older I will be glad for the removal of just the pains of regular aging. I talked about this with another student in class and he described how he would love to sit down with a genetic engineer to iron out the details. Which brought up another thought of how many of those details will matter to us? It’s all really insignificant in the eternities. Maybe we will have different concepts of beauty then. Maybe our current bodies in good health will good enough or maybe we will all look like super models… who knows. Copy/Pasting some of those conversations here because I will keep this journal but those conversations disappear at the end of the semester.

 

23 JAN 15

Restored from good to good and evil to evil. (Alma 41:4-5)

There is a certain symmetry to the principle described in this scripture. Evil cannot be restored to good if it was not good in the first place. The restoration isn’t a fresh start, it’s restoring us each to the same way we were before death.

 

Wickedness never was happiness. (Alma 41:10)

This ends up being a continuation of the scripture I was speaking of before. We cannot be restored to a different state than what we were previously. It would both upset the bounds of justice and not be the best thing for us. I like to describe to people the judgment. as us being the worst judges of ourselves. We will know the state of our souls and like a guilty child we will either be able to be in the presence of our Father without shame or we will not.

 

Atonement had to be made for mercy to appease justice. (Alma 42:15)

This is another scripture of symmetry and balance. To balance the scales of justice someone had to pay and there is only one person capable of that. I am grateful for the savior and his sacrifice.

12 JAN 15

All things denote there is a God. (Alma 30:44)

Every time I get out and have a chance to see the night sky outside of a city I think of this scripture. One of my missionary companions drew a very nice picture inspired by this scripture. I’m going to attach it to this journal entry to share with my instructor. The picture features the Denver Temple with the World as globe (the earth), the sun and the savior as part of the clouds bringing our minds to him.

Korihor came to believe his own lies. (Alma 30:53)

As I was reading Alma 30:53 I was struck by the confession of Korihor and the change he went through. I was thinking to myself of what type of experience it would be to have an “angel” appear and tell him the things that the devil told him. Deep down he must have known what he was saying were lies. He didn’t say he believed the words until he had so much success. It’s like a modern day scam artist starting to believe his con after selling it for a while.

13 JAN 15

We can worship in places other than houses of worship and more than once a week. (Alma 32:10-11)

When reading this scripture I thought of all the interesting places I worshipped while deployed. We used old building of Saddam Hussein, tents and  steel warehouse buildings. If we waited for a nice church building I would have never had sacrament. It was also interesting to have times when we blessed crackers, tortillas or “bread” from MRE’s for the sacrament. This scripture reminds me to open to worshiping in many unconventional locations and to also remember to worship in the home.

It is better to be humble without being humbled. (Alma 32:16)

Alma first describes those who are humbled by circumstances in the world. He then goes on to describe those who “humble themselves because of the word” (Alma 32:14). I think the second group are those who find the Gospel and choose to be humble due the Holy Ghost and Gospel teachings.

If you have proof, you can’t have faith. (Alma 32:18,21)

People seem to want to try to say the Gospel isn’t true due to a lack of evidence. While there is some supporting evidence, it really all comes down to faith. The Lord isn’t going to take away everyones opportunity to have faith in something.

14 JAN 15

The words of the Lord are given to men, women and children. (Alma 32:23)

As I was reading the assignment this week I came across Alma 32:23 and it made me think of how much more this scripture means to me now. I previously had marked this many years ago but that was before I was a father. I have a three year old son and we have been blessed with how well he has taken to praying and his love to pray with us. We started by including him in prayers pretty early and we have had prayers over meals and family prayers every night. The things he picks up and remembers to pray for astound me sometimes. As I read the scripture and it said that “little children do have many words given unto them many times, which confound the wise and the learned” I thought of my sons words and how confounding it is that he can pick up when a family member needs to be remembered in a prayer. I know that each of us may receive promptings and revelation like this, even little children.

15 JAN 15

Pray in all places and all times. (Alma 34:17-27)

In Alma 34:17-27 Amulek is given an opportunity to testify to us. Midway in his words he exhorts us to pray. Not only does he tell us to pray but he goes into detail of many times and places to pray both publicly and on our own. As he went into detail of some of the various places to pray, I thought of some of the stranger places I took the opportunity to pray. One regular opportunity was while I was deployed in Iraq. My Detachment Sergeant often had to have me help him with things and he was not very good at some of the job. It was pretty frustrating to clean up some of the messes he made. When ever I became too overwhelmed with things, I would take a quick break by jumping in my Humvee and reading a scripture from my pocket Book of Mormon and saying a prayer. While the vehicle was hot and dusty and the time taken was only a few minutes, I always felt more peaceful afterwards. It gave me the peace I needed to carry on. I know that if we pray for assistance, we will receive it no matter where we are.

16 JAN 15

The Zoramites stir up the Lamanites and prepare for war against the people of Ammon. (Alma 35:10-11)

This makes me think of this as a historical parallel to some things in the Church’s past. During the 1850’s there was the Utah war which was brought about by anti-Mormon groups and the false testimony of those opposed to the Church. I can’t help to see this as a warning to the Saints. Could this be applied to us today? A literal war would be very unlikely but there are wars that go on in public debate and the courts that concern the Church. I think it would be still wise to watch for those that would stir up the forces of the devil against the Saints.

The tomatoes were drying up pretty badly at the end of summer but now that San Antonio has decided that it’s finally fall, they are coming back like crazy. Today I had to build some new supports for the vines. They were growing to the ground over the old trellis and the weight of the fruit was tough on the vines. I improvised some supports with some scrap wood. I picked all the ripe fruit before taking these pictures, so all that you will see is a whole lot of green fruit.

So yesterday I made sure to be all set up to leave work right on time. As I got out to the parking lot, I saw a coworker trying desperately to get her car to work. There was another coworker using her phone, trying to read over some directions to fix things. I decided to help out also. Apparently the gear shifter was stuck. After checking a few things we ended up deciding it was the brake shift interlock that was the problem. Luckily I like to be prepared. In my trunk I had a flat head screw driver that made it easy to depress the manual release for the  brake shift interlock. I let her borrow my screw driver in case she needed it driving home. Today she returned the screw driver with a thank you note and gift card. The gift card was actually unnecessary but appreciated. I was just glad to help out.