Light and Truth

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...

From the earliest of years in my life, I've been a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This membership has brought so many blessings into my life, particularly a knowledge of the fatherhood of God, that my life has a purpose, that there is life after death, and that decisions truly do determine our destiny. So many priceless treasures! But, like many church members, I came to learn rather quickly that there were some aspects of being actively involved in The Church that were not what I classified as obviously positive. In my young youthful years, I was involved in the young men's organization. And, seemingly unlike everyone else, I did not have any close friends in that organization besides my older brother Tayson. As a matter of fact, the large majority of the other young men with whom I was compelled to associate were, in my eyes, justifiably classified as enemies! They treated me with anything but respect. Why was this? Looking back with now-adult ey...

One of the greatest, yet hardest, times of my life was a number of years ago while serving as a full-time missionary in the state of New York. This concoction, of course, provided for many learning moments orchestrated through divine design. One of the things I learned almost immediately upon entering the mission field was the important and irreplaceable role of the ward mission leader. It was rather obvious from the perspective of a full-time missionary that there was very little we could do to help strengthen each church unit if there wasn't a local member whose primary role was to serve as a connection between us and the rest of the church members there. As I served in Middletown, the Bronx, Manhattan, and the West Point military academy I was richly blessed to always have very kind and diligent ward mission leaders who helped in man y uncountable ways. Having rarely even heard of this role prior to being a missionary, I got very good first examples of fulfilling such a calling...

From before the time of my earliest memories in life, my family has been actively involved in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Of course, one of the (very positive) consequences of this is that many of the teachings and commandments became normal to me relatively quickly. But even with the religious beliefs and way of life being rather normal, I still needed to gain a personal testimony of everything through experience before I knew it to be true. Often times these learning experiences were initiated by simply living according to the commandments without requiring a knowledge of why. For some of the beliefs and commandments, my testimony process was relatively short term. Others took a much longer, extended time. An example of one such commandment that took many years for me to learn the "why" behind it was the Lord's law of tithing. From the day of my baptism until now, I have always been 100% obedient to this law and payed one-tenth of my income back t...