Light and Truth

At the beginning of the year 2013 I was serving as a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in The Bronx of New York City. As most people who serve in the capacity of a full-time missionary soon find out, it can be quite challenging almost all the time. The particular difficulty that my teaching companion and I faced at this time was retaining the religious investigators we found. It seemed as if no matter how much effort we put forth to pray for, stay in contact with, and prepare to teach the people who initially were interested in the restored gospel, it didn't seem to work. Within three weeks after initial contact, most of them would either not respond to phone calls nor texts, tell us they no longer had time to continue investigating, or inform us that they were no longer interested. Of course, this is nothing unusual as a missionary. And fortunately, I had learned at this point how to deal with disappointments like these. At this same time ...

As a young boy, raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by righteous parents who provided a gospel-centered home, I remember coming to a conclusion that certainly reflected my very young mind. This conclusion was that, since I had learned the importance of avoiding addictive substances such as alcohol, smoking, drugs, pornography, and gambling, I would never experience any form of addiction in my life. While I successfully avoided everything I - at that time - thought could become an addiction, I eventually met with disappointment in my later teenage years and early 20's. Through various circumstances and choices that are far too complex for me to recall entirely, I found myself struggling so largely with God's commandment of honesty. While I knew it to be true, this knowledge had not yet grown large enough to translate directly into action. While I knew dishonesty was sin, it seemed as if no matter how oft I repented that I always cycled back around sooner ...

Many years ago I attended Woods Cross High School while living in the city of Bountiful, Utah. As is quite typical for most teenagers, I had many great high school friends together with a few acquaintances who (at least from my then-teenage point of view) rightly earned the title of enemies. When the day of graduation came in the spring of 2011, one of the most relieving aspects of that day was being able to know that I would never see these enemies of mine again. Their offensive presence in my life was finally coming to an end. After attending my first semester at the University of Utah (the U) as an undergraduate student I served two years as a missionary in New York, returning in December 2013. Upon the completion of this full-time mission, having been taught many life-changing lessons by the Lord, I resumed my education in mathematics and physics at the U. Some of these important lessons (detailed in other blog posts linked here) include the importance of  trusting in God's ...