Light and Truth

 Have you ever had the experience of learning something that seems good at the time, but much later in life takes on increased meaning? Such was an experience I had in October 2024, when a familiar scripture became distinctly relevant. Having learned to play the piano at an early age, taught by my Grandma Holzer, I had kept up the talent throughout my teenage and adult years. In church I had accompanied choirs, primary children, quorums, and entire congregations. On a somewhat rare basis, I was also asked to play musical numbers for meetings. Still, I never considered myself to be particularly skilled nor professional at the ivory keyboard. Yet, I rarely declined when asked to play, primarily because I knew the impact that music can bring in people's lives. Such an ask came in September 2024 while I was in the middle of fixing our cars out in the garage. Usually not inclined to answer incoming calls from unsaved phone numbers, I felt a particular inclination to do so this time rega...

 One of many experiences I've had that confirm Moroni's declaration that faith must precede miracles ( Ether 12:6,12 ) occurred in October, 2022. At the time my family and I were just short of one year living in our newly bought house in Layton, Utah. I had a great job at Spiff and everything was going very well for us. Our daily routine consisted of me working a few hours in my office, taking a lunch break around noon, and then working four more hours before dinner. After my lunch break it was time for Isaac's nap, and my wife Bethany certainly needed a nap as well due to being in the midst of pregnancy. So it was normal for Aaron to get a half hour or so to watch some toddler shows that we checked out from the library (so as to avoid the risk of inappropriate commercials and an unending flow of shows). In the middle of October, we discovered that Aaron was really interested in watching recordings of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. But since that was so old, the library didn'...

 It's always very memorable when I find out that God sent me a prompting to do something that turned out to be in answer to someone else's prayer. But it is absolutely unforgettable when I am the one on the receiving end: having my own prayers answered by other people who are faithful enough to both receive and follow heavenly promptings. One such experience happened very recently, but started almost exactly four years ago in 2018. At the time my wife and I were living in New Haven, having just started my Ph.D. program in statistics & data science at Yale University. While working on the intense homework for a nonparametric estimation course I was in, I got a text from one of our local church friends asking if I would be able to teach the Sunday School lesson in church the upcoming Sunday. Of course, I gladly responded in the affirmative, it being completely out of my personality to say no to such an invitation. It turned out that the lesson for that week was on the Old Tes...

Ever since I became a father of young children, my wife and I have put a good amount of effort into making the most of holidays by establishing traditions centered on the meaning of those holidays. One of our intentions was to at least highlight the meaning of the day instead of just letting it be a day off of work or school. Naturally, this lead me to study in depth before each holiday about the meaning. Recently, as the month of June 2021 came to a close, I began looking forward to the next upcoming holiday that we enthusiastically celebrate as a family: July 4th, which is also called Independence Day. As I asked myself what the meaning behind this holiday is, I came to the rather quick conclusion that it is the American values of freedom and liberty that we celebrate, among others. And yet, something about this didn't seem to sit well with me. For nearly my whole life I had heard in the news, on social media, and in personal conversations a heavy focus on one, and only one, part...

 Throughout my life I have found that often times the most memorable revelation from God comes during the most trying times. The three months marking the turn of the year 2020 to 2021 were certainly such a time for me, and likely everyone in the world. The United States of America particularly was in the midst of multiple memorable difficulties. The COVID-19 pandemic, and all of its associated social and political chaos, was at a rising height throughout November, December, and January. The presidential election had resulted in so much contention and misinformation from both sides that it was nearly impossible to discern the truth of the matter. Despite the prophetic call for greater unity and cooperation in October 2020, divisions only deepened in almost every possible way throughout society. And mobs had ransacked entire cities earlier in the summer, and the U.S. capitol building at the beginning of January. It did not take much thinking to know that all of these were paths towar...

 As the very challenging year of 2020 finally began to come to a close, the wonderful day of my birthday at the end of November came around. Along with many other wonderful gifts, I received a telescope from the Stewart family who lived a few blocks away and were among our best friends in New Haven, Connecticut. Having always been interested in astronomy, which was certainly evident in the research I was doing at Yale in pursuit of my Ph.D., such a gift filled me with excitement. What amplified that excitement was finding out within a couple days that Jupiter and Saturn were going to align closer than they had in over 800 years on December 21st, less than a month away. What a beautiful opportunity to use my very own new telescope! I immediately began preparing for this upcoming opportunity. My wife, Bethany, and my nearly-two year old son, Aaron, helped as I put together the telescope in our very own living room so that I could have a practice at assembling the pieces well in advan...

In the early spring of 2019 I was in the midst of my second year at Yale University pursuing a Ph.D. in Statistics & Data Science. With my wonderful wife, Bethany, and our newborn son, Aaron, things were going very well for us in many aspects. But fatherhood and graduate school can certainly require a large amount of energy and time. Consequently, I attended the local Institute of Religion class on Tuesday evenings for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which I found to help me relax and focus on things that matter most. At one such class the teacher, Randy LaRose, shared a quote from one of his friends who served as secretary to the  First Presidency  of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Paraphrasing the quote, I remember it indicating that the mindset of the members of the First Presidency is much like the advice given by the professional American entrepreneur Jim Rohn: "Focus on the solution, not on the problem." The moment Brother LaRose s...

During the morning of Saturday, February 29, 2020 I woke up rather excited about leap year day! But of course, with no plans of how to celebrate this unusual 'holiday', I proceeded the way I typically do on a normal day. After eating a good breakfast and feeding my young one-year-old son Aaron, we read the scriptures as a family, and I began my own personal study of the scriptures. Feeling the need to learn from the second book of Nephi in The Book of Mormon, I opened up to a chapter that I had long loved: chapter 28. As I read, I came upon a pair of verses that caught my attention in a way that had never previously occurred. "For the kingdom of the devil must shake, and they which belong to it must needs be stirred up unto repentance, or the devil will grasp them with his everlasting chains, and they be stirred up to anger, and perish; For behold, at that day shall he rage in the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which is good."...

No more than a couple months ago was the time of New Year's ringing out 2019 and welcoming the new decade with 2020. In New Haven, Connecticut with my wife and one-year-old son, we were excited about the new future that lay ahead. Yet, through various experiences that had just recently unfolded in the previous months, I had learned that there was at least one very critical piece of knowledge that I absolutely needed to improve upon in order to ensure a truly successful future: how to receive true revelation from God. Throughout the past couple years the Lord's living prophet President Russell M. Nelson, and many other church leaders, had made it clear that, "In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost." He furthermore said, "I urge you to stretch beyond your current spiritual ability to receive personal revelation..."  (Revelation for the Church, Revel...

Ever since I was a young boy, well over a decade ago, I have enjoyed riding a bicycle. As a teenager I would pedal through the hills of Bountiful, Utah to my grandparents' house to mow their lawn, to Bangerter Farms to help in their summer harvest, to my part-time job at Nielsen's Frozen Custard, and many other places. My father and many siblings also greatly enjoy biking, enough so that it almost seems like a family tradition. And the tradition continued on my mission as I rode a bike around the towns just outside of Westpoint, New York, and once even through Manhattan for an activity. Upon returning home from being a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the end of 2013, it was time to start school again. But with minimal amount of money, and no straight-forward way to obtain a scholarship, my educational pursuits at The University of Utah needed to be accompanied by some form of part-time employment. Miraculously enough, my older brot...

About a year ago in the summer of 2018 my wife, Bethany, and I were in the early stages of preparing to be parents. We had just found out a couple months earlier that we were expecting our first child to be born into the world. At this time, we were also in the midst of graduate school at Yale University, living very happily next to campus on Mansfield Street in New Haven, CT. Of course, learning that I would soon reach the milestone of being a father, one that for many years seemed as if it might not be a reality for me, coupled with the privilege of studying at one of the world's best universities made for quite an exciting time of life. However, we also knew very well that this was definitely a time of tight finances for us. New Haven, and Connecticut in general, was much more expensive in every way than the cost of living that we had a year earlier in Utah. Additionally, as every prospective parent eventually learns, pregnancy and childbirth are certainly not the cheapest lif...

After returning home from serving two years as a full-time missionary in New York for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I was a very new 21-year old. It was December 2013 and my life had just been changed through 24-7 service in spreading the news of the restored gospel since December 2011. Of course, stepping off the plane in Salt Lake City was an obvious transition point from one chapter of life to another. But what was the next chapter of life going to entail? What did the future have in store for me? While I didn't know the specifics of what would occur in the upcoming years as my early-20s unfolded, I at least knew some of the things that should be part of the answer to these questions. I would be going to college at the University of Utah as a double-major in mathematics and physics. I needed to find a way to utilize what I'd learned on my mission to make missionary work an everyday lifestyle. And most importantly, I needed to work towards an eternal marria...

Beginning with the Black Friday store rush, each year's Christmas season seems to almost always contain the word 'busy'. This year, 2018, was certainly no exception for me. However, through unexpected and divinely inspired events, the Lord taught me that Christmas is meant to be much more of a time of miracles and wonders than being busy. As Thanksgiving in late November passed, a busy schedule commenced for my wife and I. The due date of our first child's birth was nearly a month away (December 28th). And since this child was an answer to year's worth of sincere prayers, as detailed in  this previous blogpost , we wanted to do everything within our ability to prepare for full success. Anyone who's been through pregnancy knows how much work goes into doctor's appointments and insurance in the last month before delivery. Alongside this, the semester at Yale University was nearing the end. With a graduate-level course on statistical inference, another course...

Most of the people I meet and become friends with eventually learn that it takes a really good book for me to like it enough to finish it. In fact, if the first couple pages don't catch my attention, the probability of me continuing any further is approximately zero. On very rare occasions, however, I am introduced to a book that greatly intrigues me, captures my full attention, and becomes a permanent life-changing literary source of mine. One of these books is  The Book of Mormon  . This book is one that I have read from such a young age, and never ceases to intrigue me with its stories and truthful teachings. Every time I read The Book of Mormon, one of the most memorable characteristics of the stories within is how often the people forget the Lord in times of prosperity. Whenever phrases such as "...and they were blessed beyond measure..." or "...and they began to prosper exceedingly..." appear, a red flag swiftly flies high in my mind with a reminder from...

Like many fellow friends and family, the older I get the clearer it becomes that rarely, if ever, do things in life happen by mere coincidence. Almost always, there is a lesson or reminder that the Lord sees the need to send us through mortal events and experiences which are divinely designed. And this, I've learned, is especially true when an event is unexpected, momentous, and/or unforgettable. One such occurrence unfolded in the evening of Friday, October 12th in 2018 for me. While living in New Haven, CT, my wife, Bethany, and I attended the monthly dinner date night hosted on this evening by the local Institute of Religion for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The theme this month was of course Halloween. So after a great meal of (scary) food, the group of about 15 people played the game Werewolf. As a summary of the game, everyone is secretly assigned to be either a werewolf or a villager. The werewolves win if they can together kill off all the villagers; th...