mission accomplished.

It is the 31 of March.

I finished reading the Book of Mormon today.

I did it! I read the entire Book of Mormon in one month!

We were encouraged to choose a specific topic to focus on while read…

I originally chose the theme of obedience/disobedience — but then I decided to also look at how the righteous behave while surrounded by wickedness.

I chose the topic because of everything going on with my sister. I wanted to know how to deal with all of the crap going on around this place.

Mormon shed some light on things for me towards the end of the book…

“Behold, I had led them, notwithstanding their wickedness I had led them many times to battle, and had loved them, according to the love of God which was in me, with all my heart; and my soul had been poured out in prayer unto my God all the day long for them; nevertheless, it was without faith, because of the hardness of their hearts.” (Mormon 3:12)

Ok, so the Nephites are pretty wicked at this point in time… and have been for awhile now.

Here’s how Mormon handled them:

Led them into battle

LOVED them with all his heart

Poured out his heart in prayer for them

Got it.

I’m feeling good right now. I’m gonna take a page out of the Mormon book of how to treat others.

Thanks Mormon.

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travel.

With an unlimited supply of money I would travel. Everywhere!

I went to the bookstore with Leah tonight and we were talking about all the places we want to travel. There’s too many to count.

Some couples decide to wait to travel till they are more established and financially secure. Others are a little more adventurous.

I’d say we fit into the middle. We would like to take a couple trips before having kids… (oh man, did I just mention kids?)

As I perused the travel books in Borders I thought about the people in the scriptures…

Did any of them think about traveling?
Did they want to get away to experience new cultures?

It seems that when people traveled back then there was specific reasons (that did not involve sightseeing)

Here’s the top 2 reasons for travel in the scriptures:
Survival.
Missionary work.

Survival

“And it came to pass that we did travel for the space of many days…” (1 Nephi — actually there’s like 7 different verses that say this)

Nephi left Jerusalem. Went back to Jerusalem. Left Jerusalem. Went back to Jerusalem. Built boats and came to Promised land. Left his brethren and went into the wilderness.

Missionary Work
“…notwithstanding my many travels round about the land to declare the word of God unto my people.” (Alma 30:32)

Alma and the sons of Mosiah pretty much traveled for years… But they were always preaching the Gospel.

Leah and I want to serve missions together someday — but we’d also like to be able to just do some recreational traveling. We narrowed things down to our top 3 trips (she chose 2, I chose 1):

Italy
Thailand
Australia

24.

My roommate while I was living in CA loved the tv show 24. I had never seen it (even though it was in its 7th season). I watched some episodes with him and loved it.

I was a big fan of MacGuyver as a kid and the lead character in 24, Jack Bauer, reminded me of him.

I finally watched an entire season of 24. Season 6 to be exact.

Loved it!

I watched several episodes with my dad who was at home at the time. He came in midway through the season. For anyone who has watched 24, you know that coming in midway through a season is challenging because you have no idea who is good or bad.

I mentioned this to my dad and his first thought was the ‘secret combinations’ of the Book of Mormon. (My parents are amazing at likening the scriptures)

It’s a pretty great comparison.

Do we have secret combinations in our country?
Do other countries have secret combinations?

“And whatsoever nation shall uphold such secret combinations, to get power and gain…behold, they shall be destroyed.” (Ether 8:22)

I know 24 is just a show. But those kind of shows always get me wondering about the reality of these organizations as well as the effect they will have on the country as a whole and myself.

If they are out there (which I believe they are) then the only way to come out on top is to be a Jack Bauer…

Or…

Just make sure you’re following the prophet so that no matter what comes, you are at least on the right path.

favorite food.

Living at home has some HUGE perks.
One of the best has to be the great food.

Mom is an amazing cook. She never messes up.

My diet during my time in college consisted of several basic staples:

Ramen
Corn Dogs
Chips
Cranberry Juice
Candy
Cereal
Frozen Pizza

That’s pretty much all I bought every time I went to Smith’s. And I actually really liked it. Corn Dogs are delicious.

But they don’t compare to mom’s chicken fajitas, shrimp tacos, smoked salmon, navajo tacos and the list goes on and on.

It will be a sad day when I move back out and have to resume the all corn dog all the time diet.

I feel like we have a much better variety of food than our ancestors did.

John the Baptist ate locusts and honey. Not exactly much selection.

Bread and fish seem to be the other big staples of the time.

“And he took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.” (Matthew 15:36)

I’d love to see this story retold with smoked salmon and corn dogs.

holi.

I’ve been going to the Holi celebration for about 5 years. Well, to be totally accurate I actually celebrated Holi while living in Singapore.

What is Holi?

Holi (aka Festival of Colors) It’s an Indian celebration. Basically everybody just throws a bunch of colors on each other.

I was back in Utah to celebrate it down in Spanish Fork at the Hare Krishna temple. Every year I have been the turnout has grown considerably. There were thousands of people there this year and things were crazier than ever.

People were being thrown and then sent crowd surfing. It was all fun and games till … you guessed it … somebody got hurt — bad. This girl was tossed up in the air but not caught. She hit the ground awkwardly and then got trampled for a couple minutes before people cleared out, the ambulance was brought in and she was carried out on a stretcher.

As we celebrated this awesome Indian holiday (which I feel we should adopt into our culture) I thought about the holidays people in the scriptures might have celebrated.

I searched ‘holiday’ in the topical guide and got — ‘holy day’.

Hhmmm.

Did all holidays start as holy days?

The only holiday/holy day I can think of is the Passover…

“Now, the feast of the unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover.” (Luke 22:1)

Now we have dozens of holidays… (but I’m not complaining, I like the vacation time)

himym.

How I Met Your Mother.

Yep. Another TV show I’m all about.

Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris – Doogie Howser, for those of you who are children of the early 90’s) is easily my favorite character on this show.

The show is in it’s 5th season and the whole premise is that each episode the main character, Ted Mosby, tells his kids another story about some event that led him to meeting their mother.

We still haven’t met the mother yet.

I’m waiting anxiously.

Even if the show isn’t up your alley, the premise is great. I love the idea of telling the story of how Leah and I came together.

I LOVE our story.

Every couple has a story and each one is special because it is unique to that couple.

Think about all of the events that transpired that ultimately led you to your significant other.

I bet it’s a great story…

You should probably record it.
No, but seriously.
Go do that now.

“And I also command you that ye keep a record…” (Alma 37:2)

idle.

Confession : I have not done very much since coming out to Utah.

My evenings are always pretty full — but the day time is filled with… well, not much.

“…thou shalt not idle away thy time…” (D&C 60:13)

Today I have spent a couple (or more) hours playing my favorite game. FIFA 2010. I played online so I felt like it was somewhat better than just playing random games. But still — not exactly productive.

I need a job.