Music and Lyrics

Dear Reader, I loved today. It's an event that doesn't happen very often in the lives of our families. After long planning and lots of hard work on the part of my parents and siblings, we were able to achieve a day in the temple as a family. The WHOLE family. My little brother, Bryce, turned 12 years old. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one can enter the temple to perform baptisms on behalf deceased persons for the remission of sins as part of the plan of Salvation. Since he is the youngest of the Lundstrom Children, this marked the first time that all of the children can enter the temple together and perform the baptisms mentioned above. It was a little taste of heaven, literally. I imagine that is similar to what the Celestial Kingdom will be like when we live with our Heavenly Father and live by those celestial laws that Gods live by. Needlessness to say, Mom cried. :)

Dear Reader, You know a really great way to brighten your day? Work with little kids. It's quite marvelous when you feel their spirit. After all, they are 'an heritage unto the Lord' (Family Proclamation). I'll tell you a little about some kids I know. I recently started volunteering at an elementary school, tutoring kids with math. Right now we're working on division. Long division. It's amazing to me to see how different each kid is. Some just do their homework without bothering anyone and finish very fast because they understand it. Others understand it but just don't want to do it. Still others just don't understand it. It's funny to see how each child bids for attention. The first and last try not to attract my attention while working on the problems. The second tends to want every bit of my attention and doesn't want to do the the work. Yes, children can be quite frustrating too... My nieces and nephews are just about the cutest littl

Dear Reader, Here's to looking for a job. My roommate and I are both in search of jobs. Job searching is fun, but very frustrating at the same time. He's a college graduate, so it's even better for him. While looking for jobs, one would think it's easy to find one by being willing to work in anything. That's not the case with Dale. Oh well...if you happen to hear of anything you think Dale can do, give him a call. He would love to look into it. However, I write this post to talk about the purpose of a job. When I first starting searching this semester, I was looking for pretty much anything because I just wanted an income and more financial security in my life. However, upon more reflection and some serious talks with my roommates(who are awesome, by the way. I didn't realize how great we get along and how much we can depend on each other), I came to realize that being employed also has a spiritual and an emotional side to it. I realized another reason for w

Dear Reader,  This week has been one of ups and downs. However, it's going to end on high note because there are a few songs that are going to be stuck in my head for the next few months. One of those is the title of today's post, "I'm still Alive." Why on earth would that be a song that Dale would listen to over and over again to get it stuck in his head? Well, it so happens that it's one of the songs that "The 7 Deadly Sins" are going to be singing. That is the name of an a cappella group I just became part of here at BYU. I'll explain a little more.  On Tuesday night, the BYU a cappella group had auditions for each of the several groups here. I heard about it on Monday and decided to run over after my Doctrine and Covenants class. I was unusually confident that night and I sang a rendition of "Save the Last Dance for Me" by Michael Buble. After showing a little beat-boxing afterward, they said they would let us know how it wen

Hey Y'all, This week has been bad. Not because it was a bad week, just because Dale was in a bad mood. There is absolutely no reason to be in a bad mood. Life is pretty grand, actually. This week Dale's been lacking sleep, which is a very important aspect of his life. However, other than that his life is pretty good. His classes are going alright, he hasn't failed a test yet (We hope that continues with a test he has to take today), his roommates are the bomb, he's in a great ward, etc. The funny thing about all of this is, sometimes when someone is unhappy, they don't like/want to be around people. It could be because they don't feel like talking a whole lot or it could be because they don't want people to be seen by others in their state of unhappiness. It's funny when you seem to run into/see people you know even more when you are feeling down and not very complacent. It's even funnier when these people tend to disappear when you're at you

Hey y'all, There's a song by voice male thay sings about not having words for singing. It makes me think of ways that you can communicate without words: music, physical touch, body language, hidden meanings, etc. What's even more interesting is how different people perceive said non-verbal communication. I've been taking a psychology class and it's notable how similar most human beings are. It makes sense if you think about the fact that we are all children of the same Heavenly Father.We perceive things in very similar ways that many people do not realize. However, we think about these happenings in different ways and that's where we get variety. It's changed dramatically over the past few years as we've grown more accustomed to technology. Let me shed a little light on the subject. First of all, Facebook. How many of you have ever seen someone post something on Facebook and wondered why on earth they posted it? Or "liked it." I have seen (