Light and Truth

From the earliest of years, I have had a deep interest in mathematics and astronomy. Although I have a very limited memory of my life before the age of 12, I believe that my math interest originated in elementary school. My best assumption is that this was at least in part brought about by some internal frustration with some problems on assignments in other subjects getting marked wrong without any explanation of why they were wrong. For example, some teachers would simply mark an answer of mine to a question on a reading assignment wrong without any reason of why it was incorrect. Other times they would provide an explanation, but not one that was convincing enough of why their personal interpretation was right instead of mine. On math assignments, however, there was always a way to show why my answer was wrong and why the correct answer was truly the only one. This aspect of mathematics where everything is provable and completely void of opinion was, and has remained to this day, the...

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 ...

Everyone who knows me eventually finds out that I've had a deep interest in astronomy for most of my life. Consequently, the following verse in The Book of Mormon fascinated me when I first read it in my early teenage years: "And thus, according to [God's] word the earth goeth back, and it appeareth unto man that the sun standeth still; yea, and behold, this is so; for surely it is the earth that moveth and not the sun."     ~ Helaman 12:15 Nowadays we all know that the Earth orbits around the Sun, and  Nicolaus Copernicus  is often credited for initializing this theory in place of the, then widely accepted, Ptolemaic Universe where the Sun (and everything else in the universe) orbits around the Earth. But according to this scripture, the Nephites understood this concept of a heliocentric universe over 1400 years prior to Copernicus! So naturally I was deeply interested in this verse for that reason. But deep down I knew that there must be a more spiritual rea...

When I was about the age of 23 years old, married to my wonderful wife Bethany and attending the University of Utah as an undergraduate student, there came a window of time that I remember quite well. Having bought my first car a year or so earlier, the day came when an oncoming driver ran a stop sign and my car was totaled. Thankfully nobody was hurt. But now I no longer had a car, which was certainly something that took time to get used to. Then only a couple weeks later, my phone began having problems and began losing many of its capabilities. And during all of this, my laptop had many problems, specifically related to the built-in wifi card. It seemed as if many of the valuable items I possessed were fading away into the past. At the same time I had a couple friends who chose to disassociate themselves from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the church that we together had been a part of for many previous years. It was heart-breaking for me to see individuals, who I...