Loving One Another.

Hello again to anyone who reads this. How was your week? I hope it was swell. Short post for today, so I am going to go with a spiritual message. This Sunday I would like to talk about 2nd Corinthians 2:7-8. As many people know, one of Jesus's big teachings is to love one another despite who they are. However, despite the simplicity of this commandment, many people (myself included) have had problems with loving one another unconditionally. As a result, Paul felt he should write about it in his second epistle to Corinth. In his epistle he speaks about how Saints (referring to the early Christians) should care and love each other, doing what they can to help each other. I feel that this is an excellent strategy by Paul to say this because having the saints begin by helping and loving each other is a good stepping stone into loving everyone, which is the full commandment. I feel this goes along with the doctrine of "line upon line, precept upon precept" because what God is having done is he is having his missionaries teach the law of love slowly so that it is easier to follow. I would also like to challenge all of you is to love another, and if you have problems doing that, for whatever reason, then take it line upon line and slowly work your way up to the level expected of us by Christ. Even if you are not a religious person, loving and being kind to others will only do good for the world as people will be able to help others. So whoever you are that reads this, i challenge you to strive to be kinder and more loving to anyone and everyone around you as a fellow human and Child of God. For this I bare my testimony, that what Christ wants us to do is love and forgive one another, and that doing so will make us more like him.

Teaching by Example; Valentines; Frog Shenanigans and Cthulhu

This post is a little late, I know, but busy weekend. For my religious commentary of the week, I would like to relate the actions of the apostles to two separate scriptures in the Book of Mormon. For synopsis, As the apostles go around on their several missions after Christ's death, they strive to do the work of the Lord and to teach people of Christ. For those relatively knowledgeable of the Latter Day Saint church (Mormons), this is basically what many of our youth do. We become missionaries that strive to serve the Lord and the people we teach. However, I have noticed that missionaries tend to vary in success, and sometimes its because of attitude. Looking at the Apostles of Christ during their respective ministries, they can be described as striving to do what God commands with utter faith, similar to Nephi in 1st Nephi 3:7. These people are hard working and striving for what is right. This, I believe wholeheartedly, is how a missionary should serve. They should be humble to the lord and have mind only for God's will. They should seek to serve those they teach as if they were lesser, and I am glad to say most missionaries I have met act like this. This is an ideal way to serve, as both Nephi and the Apostles at the time after Jesus served in this way. However, it is not always the way people act. Fun little thing. Don't get 1st Nephi 3:7 and 3rd Nephi 3:7 mixed up, especially on how you act. 3rd Nephi 3:7 is Giddianhi inviting the Nephites to join him in sin and as robbers. Giddianhi in this is prideful, boastful, tyrannical and overall a jerk. What I would really like to talk about is that I have met and heard of missionaries who have served like Nephi and the Apostles from Jerusalem, and I have met missionaries who have served like Giddianhi was acting then. And I testify to you, no matter what you are doing, whether you are serving a mission as a Mormon, or trying to make a business deal or anything, acting like Giddianhi will cause you to fail. If you want to teach or convince anyone of whatever you are doing, you must set and if necessary teach by example. Teach like how Nephi and the Apostles would teach. Do not be lost in pridefulness, especially if you plan to serve a mission, I have seen people fall away from the Gospel, people in my family included, because people have been prideful like Giddianhi as opposed to loving and understanding. I testify that if you should be Christlike, whether Mormon or not, when interacting with people, you will find more respect and success in your actions than if you should follow the alternative.

Anyway, serious message now being given, time for some more lighthearted news! I hope you all had a wonderful Valentines Day, or a quiet and chocolate filled Singles-Awareness Day. My valentines day was significantly more eventful than any other in my life. As in, I actually did a thing :D woo! Went on a nice date with a gorgeous girl and it was amazing. We gave gifts, and I am amazed by what she gave me. She made me a crochet Walrus. Now for those who know me personally, I love Walruses, and have 3 stuffed animal ones (make excellent teddy bears and neck pillows). But she made me a walrus. He is small and adorable, and ready for battle. Thus, Walter the Battle Walrus will join me on adventures if I should do another thing, and hopefully stories will be posted on the blog.

In other news, my submersion into DnD is only becoming more and more serious, as now I am in 3 campaigns. 2 are pathfinder campaigns (one I am a Walrus-humanoid fighter with a *bad* Russian accent) and one where I am a frog rogue. Needless to say I love being a frog :D. We had frog shenanigans in our past meeting for the Frog Campaign, which tend to go along the lines of "Hey Froggy make a stealth check" *Rolls Obscenely high since 13 base stealth* "Alright you are not invisible and on your party members back, go adventure around to route out a gang." Fun times.
However, my last campaign isn't exactly DnD, but actually another Table Top called "Call of Cthulhu," where you adventure and investigate to do something related to the Lovecraftian mythos. Combat in this game is highly unadvised not because it isn't easily possible, but because you will get destroyed by the monsters. However, my fun in that campaign comes in when the Keeper (person running the thing) introduces the "cannon sock", a peice of a sock that can change a joking and sarcastic comment like "I will attack the monster.... Joking not going to" into "Wait, I HAVE to now? oh crap." Thus far, we have made my friend's male character fall in love secretly with my character (also male). The catch is that I had a bad role, and thus have the exact minimum you can have in a stat in appearance, meaning I am the ugliest living thing ever. So ugly I have become exotic and thus have a secret admirer. Fun times.

To Learn to Give

Short blog post today, this time I am going to be talking about giving. We have all heard the stories of Christmas being a holiday of giving, and how giving is the true spirit of Christmas. Considering the holiday is supposedly to be remembering Christ (along with the token consumerism) I feel this is very appropriate, mainly because of Acts 20:35, in which Paul remarks that one of Jesus's teachings is that it is better "to give than to receive." I honestly feel that this is very much so true. Giving, in a sense, is a way in which we can rejuvenate ourselves. Many religions, Mormons included, say that we should try to be in the world but not of it (basically don't lose yourself in the "secular things of gambling, whoring, money, etc.). However, I personally have always found it vague on how we are supposed to avoid being so "worldly". Queue the traditional lesson of Christmas. I find giving to others through service and any means we have is a very good way of refreshing oneself. Helping others has recently become a way in which I can calm myself down from anxiety. The gift of giving is a way in which we are able to pull ourselves closer to the spirit and push ourselves away from the secular desires around us. We no longer become swamped in our desire to better oneself when we are focused on helping someone else. Doing so also encourages others to give, thus causing a chain reaction of spiritual help and warm fuzzy feelings from being a good person. I feel that being able to give is giving just as much to us as we are giving to those we help, namely through blessings and a rejuvenation of the spirit. I would like to challenge everyone to give something to someone over the next week, such as give a small sad kid a cookie, or help with service or volunteer work. I plan to.

Interesting Idea about the Early Church of Christ and Some DnD Fun!

So, as tradition at this rate, Sunday is the day in which I do my religious talking, but I'll save that for the end. Why? Because DnD and very poorly made priorities. So I have started another campaign for DnD (and am debating maybe hosting a campaign but I'll think about that one more before I commit). So in this campaign, we are dropped into a world with nothing, and we are completely amnesiac save for our abilities and personalities and names (all else is gone). This is a Pathfinder campaign, and a few of my friends are playing for the first time, while the only experienced people are me (with a few campaigns), my friend Zac (who made a bard into a lich cause he was reaaaaally good) and the DM. However, I have now discovered my new favorite species for a tabletop. The species is called a Gripplis. They are small sized (2 feet tall) sentient frog humanoids. Now, I love this idea, mainly because I played Chrono Trigger for a while and my favorite character in the game was Frog (a hero who was cursed and became a Frog-man for trying to escape his duty and give it to his friend). However, I am also a rogue with an extreme will to survive... and I nearly died the first encounter we had. So now I have my plans. Since I am amnesiac (but with really high stats since I rolled very well) frog, in order to role play my character, I plan on having a hidden agenda that is basically searching for immortality. At the same time (should my party become my friends) I am a more loyal friend and won't want to harm them in my plot for not dying. But for now, I need to plan on how to gain information on what I should do.

And now, for the religious stuff.

So what I want to talk about this time is some interesting things that my professor mentioned in class for New Testament. This has to do with Acts again, specifically with the conversion of Lydia the Seller of Purple. Brother Griffin talked about several things that caught my attention about this person. The first was that Lydia was, most likely, one of the richer people in the city and, despite being a woman, had her own household of servants and such and had the money. The next, more interesting one was how Luke (the author of acts and at the time there) and his companions found her. Brother Griffin described it as basically the missionaries going like "Hey, we are having no success among the men, so lets say hi to the women." The next thing he mentioned was that if the head of the household (Lydia in this case) was converted then the whole household normally would follow. But what really struck me about his lesson was that he mentioned how, with callings in the early church, the servants and slaves could potentially have religious authority over their masters. and despite this, the people in the church made it work. Even if the religious leader in one specific area was a slave, he was still able to do his calling. In God's eyes, being a slave or a head of a household was unimportant to his church. What was important was your ability to fulfill his calling and serve him in faith. And that somehow, despite social norms at the time, he was able to communicate this to his early church and have them work together and worship and serve in faith was amazing. I am thankful for that lesson I learned that day from Professor Griffin, and am thankful for what it has shown me.