Better to Not Shrink Than to Survive

Yesterday I was reading an Elder Bednar talk titled, "Accepting the Lords Will and Timing". I had heard the talk before and I remember parts of it but I didn't remember the part about not shrinking. Elder Bednar tells a story about a conversation he had with Elder Maxwell who was struggling with leukemia.

"I asked Elder Maxwell what lessons he had learned through his illness. I will remember always the precise and penetrating answer he gave. 'Dave,' he said, 'I have learned that not shrinking is more important than surviving.'"

Then he continues with Elder Maxwell's own words, "As we confront our own … trials and tribulations, we too can plead with the Father, just as Jesus did, that we ‘might not … shrink'—meaning to retreat or to recoil (D&C 19:18). Not shrinking is much more important than surviving! Moreover, partaking of a bitter cup without becoming bitter is likewise part of the emulation of Jesus."

These are the words of Christ from his struggle,  "For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I; Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink— Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men." (D&C 19:16-19)

Certainly Christ's mission on earth would be incomplete if he had shrunk from the weight of the atonement and not laid down his life. Our salvation would be lost and our faith would have been in vain. Our natural instinct is to think that if we just survive this life we will have made the right choice but that wasn't true for Christ and neither is it true for us. We all have a mission to fulfill here on earth. For some of us it is spelled out in our patriarchal blessings and for others we need to seek out that mission through faith. If we live to be 100 and fail to complete our life's mission, our lives will not be considered total failures but we will still have many regrets. If we die trying to accomplish our mission, it will have been a success. Some things are out of our control but our responsibility is to make sure we are doing our best. 

The Savior calls to us to give him our struggles. He also tells is that weak things can become strong unto us. He never says that it will be easy or that the path will be clear or that our lives will be without pain or sorrow. He only tells us that we will be made strong and that we can overcome if we allow him to work in our lives. 

I have a few friends who are wondering if it is time to give up on certain struggles happening in their lives or if they should continue to fight through. They may think that they will be lucky if they are able to just survive the trials they are facing. Giving up is often the easiest thing to do and sometimes the least painful, they think. 

It is so easy for us to offer our advice when people have problems and we want to fix them right away. Sometimes it is harder for us to hold our tongues and remind them to seek answers from God through prayer, fasting and attending the temple. Everyone's life is different and they need to do what is best for them, not just do what we would have done in a similar situation.

It can bring relief  when we remember that life is a test and we just need to focus on making the right decisions when problems occur or decisions need to be made. Just like a multiple choice test. We have one problem and a few options to choose from. Someday the test will be over. The heartache and pain will be done and we will earn our reward. 

I have recently taken comfort in D&C 58:2-5, " For verily I say unto you, blessed is he that keepeth my commandments, whether in life or in death; and he that is faithful in tribulation, the reward of the same is greater in the kingdom of heaven. Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation. For after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore the day cometh that ye shall be crowned with much glory; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand."

We are told in the Doctrine and Covenants that we need to "waste and wear out our lives". I guess I need to keep that in mind as I have just accepted a second calling while I am working full time, in school full time and I believe I will get a promotion at work in the next little while. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!

Freedom and Righteousness

I remember when the twin towers came down. It was a terrifying time for all of us. There was a lot of shock, uncertainty and fear. I remember that I wanted to know what the prophet was going to say in the wake of this terrible tragedy. I was listening very closely to President Hinckley's words at the October 2001 General Conference. Thankfully he addressed the topic directly and told us all exactly what we needed to know. He gave a talk titled "The Times in Which We Live".

The part of his talk that I will never forget and I often recall is when he said, "Our safety lies in repentance. Our strength comes of obedience to the commandments of God." It reminded me that I only need to worry about the things I have control over and leave the rest to God. He also reminds us that we are a blessed nation, and we need to pay our tithing for protection.

I remember around this same time reading in the Book of Mormon and I came to Ether 8:23-26. I thought to myself, "This is referring to the terrorists." Of course they hate our freedom, because they have been inspired by the evil one who has sought from the beginning to take it away from us.

I really liked this Prager U video that gives us a better understanding of what it means to take the name of God in vain. As we take upon ourselves the name of Christ, we need to be very careful that we don't do anything to soil that name or damage his church. It blows my mind that some people can be so deceived that they can truly believe that they are performing these acts of terror in the name of God. They will surely suffer terrible consequences.

If this wickedness has come upon us, then I have to believe that it is because of our need to repent as a nation. This was a principal that Lincoln seemed to have understood. He makes reference to this understanding in his second inaugural address. There is even some speculation that he may have been influenced in this understanding by the Book of Mormon, but surely with his understanding of the Bible.

The thought I had on this subject that has been playing through my mind each time there is an attack is the need for us to stand in holy places. This isn't to say that innocent and good people have not or will not be killed in these evil attacks but when I look at some of the deadliest attacks that have happened, they have been in some very unholy places where the spirit of God cannot be present.

On a side note, what does it mean to stand? To answer that you might want to check out Deuteronomy 11:25, Psalms 1:5, Psalms 24:3, Proverbs 12:7, Isaiah 28:18, Isaiah 40:8, 3 Nephi 24:2, Luke 21:36, Alma 58:40, and Ephesians 6:13.  There are many more but I am sure you can figure out what I am trying to get at.

One of the attacks was in the Bataclan Theater. The name in French literally means junk or trash, but the most eye opening part to me was the lyrics of the song Eagles of Death Metal sang when the bullets started to fly. I will not list them here because they make me sick, but they do connote devil worship. The other attack with huge casualties was at the pulse night club. I don't think I need to go into any specifics on why that was an unholy place to my readers.

On the flip side I think of the Brussels Airport attack where four missionaries were helping a sister missionary get off to her mission in Ohio. This one was personal for me because I used to work indirectly with Elder Richard Norby who was the senior missionary involved in that attack and who suffered the worst injuries from it. When they could have been killed, they all survived and thanked God all along the way. This horrible tragedy turned into a missionary opportunity in the end.

I am grateful for the men and women who love and fight for our freedom every day in the military and in law enforcement. I am grateful for those in the past who have died for it. I am also very grateful for those who teach us how to live righteously and raise up righteous children. If we lived in a righteous world these problems would be less abundant around us I am sure.

Lastly we have been told by modern prophets that we should pray for the Lord's Coming. Although there will be great destruction and a whole lot of  sorrow before he comes, everything will be made right at his coming. It will be a glorious moment that I hope I get to witness and I also really hope I am prepared for. Do I think he will come soon? I can't say for sure but I do know that we are due for some serious cleansing. Our founding fathers would be ashamed of what we have done with the freedoms they fought and died for.

CES Finance Conference

I couple weeks ago I was invited to attend the CES Finance Conference at BYU Hawaii. This only happens once every 10 years in Hawaii because they don't want to pay to fly all the finance people out from the Commissioner's Office, BYU Provo, BYU Idaho, LDSBC and Seminaries and Institutes any more than that. When I worked for S&I I was never invited with my peon position so this was a nice treat for me and I got to see several of my old coworkers from Salt Lake.

The biggest news that came out of the conference was that the LDS Church has decided that they have set a goal to educate members of the church around the world.  They will offer low cost degrees to all the countries that they can get priesthood support in. They will need to start by teaching them all English and then using the Pathway program from BYUI to get them the skills they need to be leaders in their own countries. It is obviously going to be a huge project and I am surprised how few staff they have dedicated to the project at this point. In some countries they will just be working to stop the kids from dropping out of school at age nine. They will have after school programs to help keep them going.

I am guessing the church feels like this is important for a few reasons but the biggest ones are likely similar to the goals of BYUH where they want to educate many students of the pacific areas and then have these students return to their countries and be leaders back home. They should have the funds to support a family and gain the respect of their associates. The English language is very important in the business world so the students get very good immersion at BYUH. The other reason that comes to mind is that the church subsidizes its schools with tithing funds to a great degree and there are many students that can't get into or afford these schools. They favor students in North America but we are a global church.

To introduce this we had Elder Kim Clark come speak to us. He said a few things that I thought were interesting. He said that "Education is the struggle for perfection". He also said that this was one of the steps the church needed to take to prepare for the Second Coming. That theme came up a few times during the conference.

We had a few economists come and talk to us but I thought that the statistician Ronald Miller was the most interesting one. He gave us several examples of how we have been lied to with bad statistics that seem to put the church in a bad light or make it's prophetic counsel seem like foolishness. These statistics are later refuted but the truth never gets the same coverage. I will give examples of a few statistics he shared in his presentation.

Brother Miller talked about the man that said that a glass of wine a day made you healthier had his stats all messed up. To get the benefits from wine you would need to drink 100-1000 glasses a day which would also kill you. He also failed to mention that these benefits can also be obtained from drinking grape juice.

Many of us have heard the story that says one in ten people are homosexual. These stats were based on a study a man did on prison inmates. He spoke about a lesbian professor that taught at the University of Utah and how she was all riled up about this statistic because the truth was that only .3% are actually really are. and she seemed to think that she was a part of this elite class of people.

He shared that Mormons have the highest intensity of belief and the highest intensity of practice. Most of the churches that had the highest participation rates had a more frightening view of hell. They could not understand the Mormons because we have the highest participation rates but our view of hell isn't as bad. We also believe in a loving God and not an angry God.

Their was one study that said that Catholics had better sex because there was certain criteria that led to more satisfying sex but if you really looked at the reasons Catholics had more satisfying sex the article should have said that Mormons have the most satisfying sex. Yes, it was strange talking about this at a CES Finance Conference.

There is the stat that Mormons give the most service in their communities and many would say that this is because it counts time in callings, home and visiting teaching, and us just serving each other. The truth is that if you take all of that service away, Latter Day Saints STILL give the most service in their communities.

He talked about the song, "If You Could Hie to Kolob" and how it talks about space time travel and how this song helped a Physicist know that the church was true.

Anyway it was all a great experience and it was also nice to feel like my education has really gotten me out of the peon position I was in earlier. It was nice to feel like I was getting some respect for all of my hard work. My boss also revealed a couple of days ago that he has a plan to promote me this summer. I am not sure if that will translate to more money. I assume it will because I will be moving from a supervisor position to a manager position. It wouldn't be a big deal but I know that this new position is going to carry a lot more stress and every penny here in Hawaii counts. :)

Battle of the Roaches

I had not seen a roach in this place in the first few months I had been here. My landlady left roach traps around the house, so it was good for a while but then I started to see a roach here and there. I ordered roach bait and then I started seeing more of them. I think I was seeing more of them because the roach bait was weakening them. I would kill 3 a day. I am getting a little less squeamish but if they are over an inch long I don't think I could deal with guts flying. I have had to cut them with scissors and then they are still alive. SO GROSS!!!

I have been extra clean and I have decided that I need to keep my toaster in the fridge because I am sure that the roaches LOVE my bread crumbs and I can't completely clean out the toaster every time I use it.

I heard that you could catch roaches by baiting them with a banana peal and then slathering the jar with vaseline so they couldn't climb out. Well, I left the jar out for days and I guess my bait wasn't too enticing but I didn't get a single roach. I thought I could get it in the jar and then vacuum seal it and kill the roach in the 40 minutes they can live without oxygen.

Then last week there was a 1 inch roach on my curtains and I didn't want to kill it on the curtains, so I grabbed a jar and found out that this roach had wings. It flew away from me once and I was surprised I was able to catch it.

 I vacuum sealed it and I thought it would be dead in an hour or so but it is still kicking 6 days later. Roaches aren't supposed to be able to live more than 40 minutes without oxygen or more than a week without water. What is going on with these mutant roaches?

Then later I spotted a roach on the wall in the kitchen below a hole in the ceiling. I didn't think that the hole was very deep but I wanted to see if the roach ran into it so I slapped my hand on the wall a foot from the roach and sure enough it ran into this hole. I realized this is probably one of their favorite points of entry. I taped some roach bait over the hole.

I was going to remove the tape because a maintenance man was supposed to come and patch the hole today but I saw this antenna moving around behind the bait. I decided to leave the tape on. You can see the roach droppings stuck to the tape. Then later that day I saw that the roach had made it's way around the bait but was stuck on the tape. I got some more packaging tape to keep it from getting away. This one had wings too!  GROSS!!

I gotta get these guys under control soon because I have friends coming to visit! I am so glad I live on the 5th floor and that I live in a cinder-block apartment. Otherwise I am sure it would be MUCH worse.

For the Love of Minerals

I just wanted to do a follow up on my last post about minerals and say that the benefits are even better than I expected. I am going to be singing their praises for a long time. Hopefully my friends don't get too sick of me talking about them. I figure that I must have been deficient for a long time if the results I am seeing are so dramatic. Here are a few of the benefits I have noticed.

My posture is better. When you are low in magnesium your muscles will tighten and cramp up. Since I have been taking the Solaray Mega Multi Mineral my muscles have relaxed and I feel myself standing and sitting up taller. I used to try to work on stretching my back muscles out but it always seemed fruitless. I take my minerals and it is like voila!

My skin feels better and my nails are growing long and strong. I should probably go trim them right now. They are starting to get in my way. I also don't seem to be as hungry as I used to be.

My energy levels have gone way up. You know those mornings when you can barely roll out of bed and then you are a walking zombie for a few minutes. Well I haven't felt that way for a while. Sometimes I don't want to get up and I wish that my body could just lay there longer, but my mind gets going and sleeping longer seems fruitless because I really am not tired anymore.

Exercise recovery time is shorter. I haven't been doing much with exercise for quite a while. I hate to admit that fact. Over the past few months when I would try to exercise I would get very short of breath and it would wipe me out for days. My stamina was pathetic and I just felt like there wasn't anything I could do to change that. The last few days I have done the stairs in my building danced all over my house and ran on the beach and the next day I can't even really tell that I had such intense workouts.

My digestion has improved. I had no idea how important minerals were to the production of enzymes. Magnesium is also extremely important to keeping things moving and that is extremely important to a squeaky clean system. I can't say that my diet will change drastically and I will start eating junk food again but it is so nice to not have my digestion standing in the way of me having a good time.

My mood is better. I don't think that my mood was generally too bad but it is easy to be in a better mood when your body is not cramped up with pain, void of energy and otherwise behaving badly.

In the past it was frustrating for me to see other's who were not having some of the issues I had of indigestion, fatigue and everything else when I ate better than all of them. By better than them I mean the most nutrient dense foods. It was an equation that I could not solve. It was frustrating for me to see and have all the doctors tell me I was fine. Now a lot of that make sense. I have read that our bodies can't produce minerals like they can some vitamins and that it can take up to two years to remineralize our bodies when they have been deficient.

With all of these benefits and with the widespread mineral deficiency we have in this country, I can't seem to wrap my head around why more doctors don't test for it. I understand that some minerals are just too hard to test because they are found in the tissues of the body and not the blood, but I just feel that a great deal more needs to be done about this. In the mean time I will just be telling all of my friends that they need to take minerals because their food and water have been robbed of them.

There have also been other benefits that I will not go into here but lets just say that the results have been so dramatic that I ordered two more bottles of these pills. I think I have about a 200 day supply now. :)

R.E.S.P.E.C.T

The topic on my brain today is respect. It seems to me our culture has lost this value to a great degree. I have been made aware of three different cases in the last month where this was a problem and has caused serious contention. One of these experiences I was a part of and I realized how important respect can be for all of us.

My experience happenened when I loaned a family member thousands of dollars to buy a car. I was talking to this person and trying to get the details of the cars she was looking to buy. I wanted to make sure she was going to be making a good investment and that the car she ended up purchasing would last her at least until she could pay me back. During our conversation I could tell that she was getting uncomfortable and her voice trailed off before she hung up on me. Well I hate to admit it but I was livid. I was especially animated when she didn't return any of my 10 or so phone calls or 20 text messages. I demanded that she send me the money back right away. I couldn't allow myself to be treated that way after the large sacrifice I had made for her. Did I not deserve her respect?

We seemed to work through things eventually but I realized that this person is pretty unsuccessful in her life because she never learned the value of respecting authority or people who are giving her much needed opportunities. She has been let go from countless jobs because she doesn't respect her employers enough to show up on time. It seems that eventually if you don't show that you can have respect for others you will never get anywhere in life because everyone who helps you will expect respect in some form or another. If they can't get respect from you then they will turn their attention to others who will give it to them. I just can't see a way around that.

The second instance happened with a friend of mine. Her father volunteers at BYUH and has lead a very successful entrepreneurial program there. For many years he has given his time freely. In past years they have always flown him out for international competitions. Well this year they have a new guy in charge of the budget and he has decided that they will no longer be paying for his flight. This is a person that may be over the program but has scarcely lifted a finger for the programs success. Obviously this also shows a huge lack of respect and has caused a big rift in their relationship.

The last example is at church of all places. It has to do with the young women's president and the camp director. If you ask me the whole thing was set up wrong to begin with. The camp director is a very accomplished person who has several masters degrees in education. She has never been given an official calling which is the first mistake I think they made. She was never set apart or given much of any authority. This from a woman who has been highly respected in most recent years. She would try to get camp planned but she didn't get much cooperation from the president so she planned the camp herself. When she would make plans the president would change her mind last minute and the camp director would have to start from scratch again.

Well after she had put a ton of work into the planning, the president decided that her plans needed to be changed again and my guess is that she didn't thank her for all the hard work she had put into the plan. There was nothing wrong with her theme or plans. Her goal was to bring the young women to Christ through their camping and service activities. Well the camp director blew a fuse, chewed out the young women's leader and refused to continue to help. She has walked away from girls camp all together and refused to give the president any of the contact information for any of the plans she had previously set up. Now the president has to plan and attend the entire camp herself while juggling her four kids and pull in help from other women who just don't have the time to really put in all the work that needs to be done. All because this process lacked respect for others.

I am not going to say that either woman was completely in the right. They both disrespected each other but if the initial respect had been there, none of this would have happened. Girls camp would have gone off without a hitch and the young women would have had a wonderful experience.

I remember talking to my girlfriends one night and I made an anti-Obama comment. I forgot about her strong liberal leanings and she went off on me. She said that he is the president of the United States and as such he deserves my respect. Well after getting snapped at I kept my mouth shut even though I had just been publicly disrespected but I can never agree with the point she made. Give me a leader like King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon and I will give him all the respect he deserves. I don't respect names or titles. I respect truth, honesty, integrity, obedience, service, hard work and goodness.

So then if we were going to look at the principal of respect with our spiritual eyes, we might want to turn to Luke 7:36-50. If we think about the fact that our Father in Heaven has given us everything than we should also realize that he deserves all of our respect. He also teaches us not only to respect each other with his commandments but he constantly tells us to go beyond that and love one another. We are taught in Acts 10:34 that God is no respecter of persons, but this does not mean that we shouldn't respect him above all else. Do you think that God is angry when we disrespect him? Well I don't know if anger is the right word but I have proven that I get angry when I am disrespected and I have not given my only begotten son to pay for the sins of the world.

Our culture is oozing with disrespect for God. People want to take "In God We Trust" off of our money which was a good reminder and a sign of respect. We have taken God out of everything. Our culture has become good at harassing people who chose to honor God. I keep thinking that we are ripening for severe chastisement. God deserves our respect and it seems that he will get it one way or another and I prefer to give it to him than him demanding it from me later.

Maybe Its the Water

A week or two ago I was waking up in the middle of the night with anxiety and tight muscles. I would try to stretch my muscles and breath deep but it didn't help me much and I couldn't get much air in or out of my lungs. I would resort to taking a over the counter muscle relaxer and after an hour or two I would finally fall back to sleep.

I got to thinking about my sister Cate telling me about her daughter who was waking up with restless legs and how she read that magnesium really helps with that. In the past I have taken magnesium on and off, but when I moved to Hawaii I just had to toss what I had because there was no space. I went to the drug store that night and got some with 125% daily value. I haven't had the problem since.

I have been doing a bit of online research and I see that I have a lot of the symptoms of a magnesium and potassium deficiency. This article has been particularly interesting to me. It all totally makes sense in my accountant mind. We used to get a lot more calcium, magnesium and potassium in our water and foods and now it has been pulled out all over the place and we wonder why American's struggle with anxiety and heart disease. Blows my mind that I never knew this stuff before.

Potassium is an interesting one. It is so important to the bodies function but when you go to the store and get a supplement, the pills you get will only give you 3% daily value. Come on, what is that really going to do for you? You going to take 30 pills in a day to get what you need? I am trying to figure that out. The only thing I can see at this point is that it has a pH of 12 and if you take a lot of it all at once it can throw off the acid in your stomach. I ordered some potassium gluconate powder and now I just have to experiment with it.

I am sure I am at a higher risk for these deficiencies because I think tap water generally tastes nasty and I do not like fact that it has chlorine in it.  I have been using a zero water pitcher which takes out every mineral and contaminate you can think of. Now I just have to learn to supplement in the right ratios to get what I need because even if I could stomach tap water it is already too depleted to give me the nutrients I need. I can now see why my body craved so many of the foods it did like avocados, leafy greens, potatoes, whole grains and squash.

Just a whole list of things I wish my doctors could have told me many years ago.  Let the experiments begin!