End of my Second Semester

Well, my second semester at college is about to end, and I have to say, it went way better and way worse than last semester. My grades suffered comparatively, but my social life blossomed as well. Overall I have to say I am profoundly grateful that I had the opportunity to be at college. Still, this semester was full of challenges I have never faced before, and there were some trying parts throughout the months I was studying before my (eventual) mission. Honestly, I feel college his has some parallels to Jesus's plan as said in Revelations 2:11. For both college and Life, those who overcome will be greatly rewarded. College offers an education and a chance to start off life with open doors in areas where without the knowledge there could be no entry. But to pass college, work must be put in and trials must be overcome due to the difficulty and nature of how the educations are earned. This is incredibly similar to our spiritual lives. Choosing to come to earth (of which the LDS church and I believe that everyone currently on earth has chosen) is a chance to earn greater gifts and to access higher states of being than were ever possible without coming to earth. But we also have to work and to try to get by in the greatest challenge any of us have had to go through, which is the challenge of life. So in a sense, by going through college we are going through a mock version of the Celestial plan while actively going through that very plan. Not just is this  astounding (and a bit trippy), but it is also incredibly interesting. To think that we are going through a mock of the plan of salvation to better help us to get by in the plan of salvation is incredible. Frankly, I would feel it to be an astounding way of preparing me for later life, if it wasn't for the fact that grades are hard. But at least the parallels are incredible.

As Christ Reaches Out

For this post, I felt that I should change it up from taking some scripture in the New Testament and instead talk about my interpretation of one of the talks from April 2015 General Conference, which just finished. Namely, my interpretation of the story from Elder Holland's talk in the Sunday Morning session. The story he gave, in short, is about how two brother went to climb a cliff without equipment, and they got stuck near the top. The elder boy bolstered his younger brother up, but was stuck himself. After trying to get his younger brother to search for a stick, the older boy tried to jump up. He made it to the ledge, but lacked the ability to pull himself up. However, the younger brother stayed and saved his brother from falling by grabbing him and pulling him up. I interpret the story very similarly to Holland, who talks of how Jesus is like the younger brother, and he will not leave you, but will instead wait to save you from the mistakes and hardships of life as long as you are willing to trust in him. I personally found this talk extremely heartwarming as it talks about how we can get through our challenges  through faith and trust. As difficult as it is to make a leap of faith, oftentimes that leap is what we need to be able to get through many challenges. It is the idea that despite the difficulty of many of our trials, the ability to find Christ waiting to help us in our lives is not just comforting but also incredibly helpful when braving through the challenges of life. If you were unable to see General Conference or are not part of the LDS church, I highly recommend looking up Elder Holland's talk.

The Festival of Colors and the Love of God.

This week was an exciting week for me, as I got to attend the Festival of Colors! It was certainly fun, throwing colored powders at each other until the point of which we were all tie-dyed. eventually we were all a mess of rainbows in a crowd, and there was very little to distinguish someone from someone else. The festival of colors is a festival originating from India in which colors are thrown. It is to symbolize that despite our many differences (such as skin, height, home country, etc.) we are all still people and we should all love one another and be united. In this goal, it was incredibly successful, as I couldn't so much as see someone who wasn't a rainbow. I felt this to be a resounding thought and a great way to celebrate love, peace and all of that.
In a way, I felt it connected closely to how Jesus has given his life for us, to help us reach salvation. He loved us and cared for us so much that he was willing to sacrifice everything he had, including his life and his freedom from the torments of sin (something he had because he was perfect. Though he suffered for our sins he never sinned himself, only he sacrificed himself as said in Hebrews 10:12), in order to help us. This shows the everlasting and incredible love he had for us. In a way, celebrating peace, love, equality and the likes are all ways of showing Christ-like love in respect and admiration of the love Jesus shows us, even if the celebration is not a "Christian" religion. Honestly, the origin of the celebration of love doesn't matter as much as the celebration of love and peace itself. For this, I am grateful that I was able to participate in the Festival of Colors, one such festival in which peace, equality and love were celebrated.

Birthday Post and such.

WOOO! It's my birthday, and I am at the glorious age of lukewarm. A.K.A., I am 19. 19 is an interesting and bull crap age because we are (in the U.S.) considered adults and such, but we are still considered teenagers until we are 20. 19 and 18 tend to be lukewarm, but 19 more so because you are closer to 20 and have been an "adult" for a year. So yay for the beginning of a fun chapter in my derpy little life.

Anyway, some adventures have happened recently, as I have started playing Star Wars the Old Republic. This is the first MMORPG I have played in years. So, to commemorate myself and to fit the gap my friends have in their characters, I decided to be a healer. As far as I know, the hardest role in an MMORPG is not a class, but actually a role in fights, mainly focusing either on the tank or the healer being the hardest. Combine difficulty leveling up with unknown controls and mechanics and I am in for a glorious adventures of blunders and mess-ups. Yay fun times.

But anyway, one thing I would like to talk about is 1st Timothy 2:1, which is saying how we need to pray for all men. Now, I know I have very few readers (I mean, who wants to listen to a barely out of puberty teen talk Mormonism on a blog with a planet as the background, though I will admit the planet is flipping cool), but I still feel that I should say this message. What this verse is saying is that we need to pray in every way for all men, basically meaning we need to show gratitude and wish for blessings on everyone we meet, men, women, babies, old people, that guy in the tree playing Pokemon (I slightly wish I had a Pokemon tree). But what really matters is that no matter how stupid, arrogant, selfish, annoying, or pretentious someone is, we still need to pray for them with gratitude and kindness in our hearts. This scripture is one of the few scriptures I read and feel are completely absolute, another similar absolute example is John 13:34-35 (the "Love One Another" passage). This means, or at least I believe it means, that we don't really have any exception to the rule. In order to be Christ-like, we have to be loving and grateful for every person we meet no matter how much we don't want to be, or how much they irk or hurt us. However, praying for and being grateful for everyone is what Jesus meant when he was talking about praying for your enemies. By showing that gratitude and love towards them, we will become absolutely more like Christ and will definitely become closer to being perfect, celestial beings. So as simple but undeniably difficult this is, I challenge people who read this to pray for everyone they know and don't know, that they may be blessed and that the person offering the prayer can show gratitude to their loved one.

Quickened by Love

Something I would like to talk about this Sunday is Ephesians 2: 4-5, which talks about how through God's love for us we are saved. What I feel this means is that, assuming we don't do the great taboo of meeting God face to face and then saying to his face he doesn't exist, we will all be saved in some degree. This is the term quickened by love. What it means is that somehow we will be saved, even if the degrees in which we are saved are different. This relates to how we are guaranteed to go to a manifestation of glory, assuming we don't deny God to his face. In my religion (LDS), this makes sense as we believe in three manifestations of glory, or three kingdoms in heaven. Unless you do the taboo this I talked about earlier (which is impossible without being a prophet), everyone is guaranteed to be saved in some way by the love of the lord, and the level of glory we receive depends on the choices we make in our lives. The three levels in order of lowest to highest in terms of glory are Telestial, Terrestrial, and Celestial. What I am going to focus on is the Telestial, the lowest kingdom, since it relates the most to the scriptures I cited. As I and many others in my faith believe, everyone on Earth chose to come here and have a body. This choice is what permits us to have Grace. Because we have chosen to try ourselves in this period we call Life, we are able to be resurrected through God's grace. Even if we don't remember, we made the choice to be tried here on earth and as such are guaranteed to at least go to the Telestial kingdom, which is described to have glory beyond our imagination despite still being the lowest of the three kingdoms. This is something I personally find comforting, as I know that everyone I have met wont instantly go to hell as others believe, but will be able to live in glory. Does that mean its good to sin? Not at all, as you will still be accountable for your sins. But I can testify that we will feel God's love and grace, no matter who we are. This is what I feel it means to be quickened by love. It means to be loved and guaranteed at least somewhere to go.

Simple Faith

Among the bible stories, one of my favorite is the simple story of Paul and the ship he was on, namely the one in Acts 27. I particularly enjoy this story because of its great showing of the good that can come of simple faith and willingness to listen to the words of God. During this sailing journey of Paul's, which ends by Shipwreck, a lot happens around him. However, I would like to focus on the people he speaks to and how they have shown faith by following and believing in him. For instance, in verses 31-32 Paul warns some soldiers that as long as the sailors do no leave the ship they all will live, but if they leave no one will. What is important about this is that the soldiers act in faith and prevent the sailors from leaving the ship, trusting that what Paul had said earlier about them all living would be true. This shows faith, even if only a small amount. Faith is again shown by the people on the boat when in verses 33-36 Paul broke bread and and declared that everyone who had fasted should eat for they would be healthy and live (at this point they were in the process of lightening their ship so they could survive). Obviously people would be happy to eat, but what was truly showing of their faith was when the people of the ship cast cast out the wheat out, believing fully that when Paul said they would all live they would and thus they didn't need to keep the food on the ship anymore. I find it incredible that through the simple faith that what this prophet before them said would e true, these people continued to act the way they did. I feel they ultimately lived through the shipwreck because of their faith. What I would challenge is to follow Jesus in a simple but strong faith similar to how these people on the ship followed Paul, for I feel it will help you reach the Celestial Kingdom greatly.

Christ's Grace

Only a short post today, so I would like to talk about Romans 1:7, which is saying how grace and peace will be unto the saints. Basically, if we are Christ-like saints then we will be saved by grace, but I feel that the meaning of that scripture is greater than that. I feel that by saints it more accurately means all who are with Christ in heart, might, mind, and spirit.  By being Christ-like I feel we are eligible to receive his grace more fully than if we were just saints by name. Now, how do we be Christ-like to be these saints? I feel that what Paul is saying is that we need to act like Christ, which in and of itself is pretty easy. Basically, all we need to do is follow a few rules that Jesus and the apostles taught. First, we need to love one another. Second, as said in Romans 1:9 we need to be gracious and thankful to all, especially God. Third, we need to serve our peers, and fourth follow the commandments. Lastly, though I already said it, we need to love one another. This means showing respect and caring even for our enemies and those who have wronged us. I feel that this is what it means to be a "saint" because I have seen people who have not been Christian and have done great good and I have seen people who were Christian who did nothing to help or love others. So I challenge anyone who reads this, of any religion or view point (even atheism, which is technically a religion) to try to be Christ-like in the ways I described as I honestly believe in faith that this is what Paul meant by how we receive grace. I testify of this in my belief of Jesus Christ.