Temptation

As I was reading through the story of Amalickiah and Lehonti in Alma chapter 47, I came to a realization that this chapter is the perfect insight into the tactics of the devil in trying to entice you.  In this chapter, Amalickiah sends a message to Lehonti asking him to come down off the mount to talk.  Lehonti is not fooled and he refused Amalickiah’s offer.  To this, Amalickiah came almost all the way up to the camp of Lehonti and requested that he bring his guards to talk to him.  Feeling like he had security in his guards, he agreed to go talk to Amalickiah.  Because Lehonti gave in to the request of Amalickiah, he eventually was poisoned by degrees until the day that he died.  I think that Satan’s power and influence is revealed to us by Lehonti and Amalickiah’s example.  When Satan makes a blatant attempt to direct our lives down unrighteous paths it is obvious to us that it is wrong and to stay away.  However, just as Amalickiah made it easy for Lehonti to come talk to him, sin and temptation will make itself easily available in our own lives.  In addition, we might be invited to bring our guards to surround us so that we feel secure when we are lured in.  Giving heed to these kinds of temptation will eventually drag us down until it destroys us just as Lehonti was poisoned by degrees until he died.  One thought that always brings comfort to me when I feel that I am tempted is the scripture mastery verse in Corinthians 10:13 that says “There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man but God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it.”  This comforting to me and reminds me that I always have power to escape temptation.

Tips to Install Car Subwoofer

If you are planning on installing a sub woofer and an amp into your car there are a few important things to remember.  First, depending on what kind of head unit you have, you may need to get a converter box that will allow you to splice into your speaker wires and plug in RCA cables.  As a general rule, if you have a stock head unit, you will probably need to buy a converter.  Second, make sure that you splice your remote wire into the power line for your head unit.  If you fail to get a good connection for your remote wire, the amp and sub woofers will never turn off, essentially killing your car battery over and over again.  Next, run your power wire and your RCA cables down opposite sides of the car.  If they are too close you can get a lot of interference which results in poor sound quality.  Lastly, don’t forget to install your ground wire before your power wire.  Pay close attention and make sure there is a good ground for your amp before you insert the power wire.  This will hopefully minimize damage to your equipment and reduce the risk of personal injury.  

Frontrunner

During the Christmas holiday, it was my pleasure to take a beautiful date with me up to see the lights at temple square.  Because of the long distance drive to temple square and back we decided that it would be a good idea to ride on the newly designed Frontrunner.  The cost to ride Frontrunner from Provo to Temple Square cost approximately twelve dollars per person.  That’s twenty four dollars for two passengers round trip.  Now if I were to put twenty four dollars’ worth of fuel into my car, I would be able to drive just over 300 miles.  Since it is only about 100 miles to drive a round trip to Salt Lake City and back, Front Runner was not a cost effective way for me to travel to Temple Square and back.  In addition, it was about thirty minutes slower than if would be to drive.

On the flip side of the coin, the Frontrunner is a very luxurious.  It was a smooth ride and it eliminates having to drive on the same road as morons.  Another convenient thing was that we did not have to find parking or pay to park in some garage.  After all things considered, I do not think it was a good idea if you are taking a group of people or if you plan on spending time in an area where you would have to pay for parking. 

The Dirty Dishes

For most of us we share our living space with others.  Not all living partners share the same standard of living cleanliness as the people they live with.  I never realized that I was indeed raised with a clean paranoia until I began living with other boys my age.  In a dorm with five other boys, we have a wide range of standard of “clean”.  One roommate never has dirty dishes as he washes his dishes and puts them away immediately following his meal.  Another roommate will leave his dished until Sunday and do them all at the same time.  As a precaution, I only brought one bowl and one plate so that I am not able to continue eating without washing my dishes.  This is helpful for me because it never allows me to have more than two dirty dishes.  There are times that I walk into only to be sabotaged by an unsightly sink filled to its capacity with dirty dishes.  This is frustrating because having that many dishes in the sink makes it hard to clean your own dishes.  In addition, when occationally a female enters the dorm, I like to exhibit a sense of my cleanliness.  More than once I have had a girl tell me that she was “grossed out” by the filthiness of my dorm. 

The Blue Van

There is a blue van across the street from me of curious workmanship. It would appear that the van most probably journeyed down the assembly line long before the time of my birth.  To add to the style of the van, there are no hub caps as that would detract from the visual appeal.  Luckily there is at least one headlight that appears that it could possibly be functional.  This is always the better than having no headlights because that would inhibit driving in the dark.  The tail lights are all present but not necessarily where they should be.  Some of the lights are in pieces on the ground by the rear tires but they are all here.  Unlike many of the old cars that plague hoarders backyards, this beautiful blue van has all four tires inflated.  Whether this van can turn its engine is entirely a mystery that I do not intent to explore.  It is not because I am lazy, but rather because I have no desire to every come near to the blue van.  Perhaps its true beauty comes from observing from a distance.  I believe this blue van was once a mighty van that ventured out for miles at a time but no longer has the power to move.

On campus printers student POV

It is the last minute and you have to get your paper printed and get to class in twenty minutes.   Luckily your class is in the MARB so you can use the printers in the lobby of the Clyde Building.  There is no line for the printer and you have 18 minutes until class.  Your pace slackens and you stroll up to the printing station.  Smiling, you slide your card through the reader.  Stupid card reader, better slide your card again.  Frozen? Was the system overloaded because you swiped your card twice?  Maybe if you fiddle around with the components it will fix itself.  No luck? No matter, just walk over to the SWKT there is a printer there too.  Classes are already getting out? That’s ok you can speed things up a bit and still be on time to class.  Alright no one is using this printer either, perfect.  Call Maintenance? You do not have time for that you have to be sitting in your seat in five minutes! Can you think of another printer that is close by?  There is always the library and you have not spotted another printer that you can think of.  But the line there is always massive.  Well you best not spend time thinking about it; you can do that while you wait in line.  You will probably be a few minutes late but if you tell your teacher the printers were not working for you, they will probably understand because the printers on campus have always been subpar.  Come on girl don’t you know how the printer works? Just print your paper so that others can get to class.  Inconsiderate people everywhere!  Oh the printer is out of paper? That is what happens when you have to print 5 billion fliers for your club that no one cares about.  Ok go ahead and fill every paper tray because no one else wants to print their stuff.  Gosh, you are going to be really late to class.  Alright you have your paper printed but what are you going to do about a stapler? Hurry up class ends in 25 minutes!  Come on library you don’t have a single stapler! Fine I am sure your professor will be nice enough to take your paper without a staple and not dock you too many points.  Gee whiz, alright 17 minutes left of class just act cool like you were trying to be late.  “I know the essays were due at the beginning of class but I had troubles with the campus printers.  50%?!? But I was only a few minutes late! I don’t care about the real world I busted my butt to get here on time!”  You got a solid 45% on your paper because it was well written and 40 minutes late. You wrote the entire essay and left yourself enough time to print it and get to class on time but you did not plan for the poor quality of the campus printers.  As a result, your well written essay received a failing grade.  Congratulations, you now understand what using a BYU campus printer is like.

Book of Mormon Reflection

As a part of the class discussion in Book of Mormon, we talked quite a bit on Alma 36. This chapter is an example of Chiastic writing. It is designed to point toward a main topic in the middle of the text and fade back to the points at the beginning as the text goes on. This is quite an advanced form of writing and could definitely not be done by a boy who has a 3^rd grade education level such as Joseph Smith. This goes to show that Joseph Smith merely translated the plates and could not have conjured them given his education level. 
I wanted to share a story of a friend that is dear to me. For animosity, I will refer to my friend as Bill. Bill is perhaps the best person I know. He is extremely kind and very generous. There are many occasions where I think to myself that I should aspire to be more like Bill and less like myself. Bill is not perfect though. It pains me to see my friend Bill suffer with the consequences of his sins. Without going into details, I would like to share that my good friend Bill rests in the back of my mind while I read through Alma 36. I have heard Bill tell stories that pull at the fibers of my heart and to see the pain he goes through makes me want to weep. I want so badly to help and do everything I can to help Bill. What makes me happy about Bill’s experience is that he meets with the bishop often and works every day to become a better person. I am excited for Bill to progress and have happiness as Alma did when he exclaimed “My soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain” I love Bill and want nothing more than to see the happiness he could have from following Alma’s path and actively seeks to become a better person.

Oatmeal makes the best breakfast

Oatmeal is definitely the best food that you can have for breakfast because it is quick, nutritional, cost efficient, and it keeps you warm in this cold weather.  For a breakfast food, it is nice to have a meal that is quick in the mornings because it allows for more to make sure that I look as good as I do.  In addition, oatmeal is packed full of nutrients to keep the body healthy.  As a college student it is always a priority to be nice to my wallet, which is why I choose to eat oatmeal for breakfast.  At five dollars for a pound of oatmeal, the price cannot be beat.  If you get cold walking to class, you should try a healthy bowl of oatmeal in the mornings.  You will feel the difference immediately because the oatmeal feels like an internal furnace.  One might argue that oatmeal might be good and all but it does not really taste that good.  What they did not consider is that you can add all sorts of delicious foods to your oatmeal.  Brown sugar, apples, blueberries, cranberries, bananas, and many other things can be added to make your oatmeal the most delicious of the day.  With all these advantages to eating oatmeal, why would you choose anything else?

Winter Wonderland

It is quite amusing to see the variety in the student body as students flood back to campus.  Every day I observe students to whom I would grant the "Excessively bundled for how cold it really is outside" award.  To my amusement, there are multitudes of contestants, thousands of honorable mentions, and hundreds of grand prize winners.  Some students look as though they are prepared to spend an extended visit in the arctic tundra, and they probably could.  I have a personal testimony of the cold weather nipping at my nose and ears but find it is much more endurable if one adapts to the cold weather instead of trying to fight a constant battle with it.  I thoroughly enjoy the cold weather and find that I rather enjoy taking time to “chill out” after a long day in a classroom seat that has residual heat from whoever has a rear end that radiates heat like a brick oven and sat in my seat right before me.  I particularly enjoy that the crisp air outside keeps my body cool throughout the day.  This way, I don’t get sticky with sweat and feel smelly by the end of a long day. 

Don't let college unplug my future?

It is quite apparent in Dear Students: Don’t Let College Unplug Your Future that the writer is trying to appeal to a younger audience.  I think it is a possible but not plausible claim to say that “The time will come when a college degree will be suspect if not complemented by an admirable online record.”  It seems quite far-fetched to imply that a college degree will become inferior to a blog or online social media.  To draw an analogy that sits a little closer to home; email has become an incredible way to communicate but it did not put the postal service out of business.  While online presence may, and probably will become more influential on one’s personal reputation, it will never become paramount to a college education degree. 

It is also interesting to note that Gideon Burton, the author of the article, mentions that we do not need to follow the system.  His verbiage belittles college professors and paints them as what Jerry Rubin might have referred to as the ‘Creeping Meatball’.  Why not cater to the wants of your college professors?  It would be unwise to disregard their years of studying, for it is true that a smart man learns from his mistakes, but a wise man learns from the mistakes of others.

About Myself

As the oldest son and the youngest of three children, I drew my first breath in the comfort of a hospital in homely Provo, Utah.  When I turned three years of age, I became a Native American, howling at anything as I carried a wooden spear that greatly resembled a fallen oak branch.  My life as a Native American drew to an end around my sixth year when I took rule as the mighty King Sterling.  My reign extended over all of the creatures who fell under my mighty wrath.  I resigned from my rule over three cats, a dog, and a meager collection of fish when I was old enough for baptism.  I could no longer live a civil life but felt as though the woods yearned for me.  That is when I became a courageous explorer that traveled the o’er hill and vale, through the forest to discover lands untouched by mankind.  This fantastic forest through which I ventured encapsulates the small neighborhood of Woodland Hills and keeps a watchful eye on the commotion of Utah Valley.  Around the time that I began to notice a girl about my age, sporting commitments, social obligations, and increasing school work, snatched my curious soul and bound it mercilessly with the bands of responsibility.  I was doomed to be subject to this new power, never to return to the life I once lived. 

Being forced to forsake my former interests, I focused my athletic talents to the area of ice hockey.  A feeling of freedom filled my countenance as raced around the rink despite the eight foot boards that encircled me.  When I play hockey, I am free to skate and feel the wind on my face until my heart is content.  The freedom I feel is not freedom to do anything I want, but rather a freedom from the responsibilities that pulled me from the haven of childhood.  The happiness I feel while playing ice hockey is relieving to me and relatable to the happiness I felt as a child running through the trees around my home. 

As life rushed at me with intimidating speed, I joined a faction commonly known as the Timpview Thunderbirds.  With my athletic skillset, members of the soccer team succeeded in sparking an interest in representing the team as a left midfielder.  As the seasons passed, I played with less soccer players and began to play on a field of brothers.  Finding comfort in the security of the soccer team, I was once again wrenched from my cozy state to attend Brigham Young University.  BYU only appeared to be hostile once I journeyed to the front gate.  I soon found refuge among members of the ice hockey team.  Even with the guard of the hockey team, I was not sheltered from the brutal blow of freshman year; but I rise from the fall, ready to weather the wintry storm.  I stand determined.  I am determined to fight.  I fight to conquer.