Music and Lyrics

Dear Reader, Today I simply want to share a story that has strengthened my testimony of the Book of Mormon over the years. Professor Felix Mynhardt was fluent in many languages, including English, Afrikaans, Hebrew and Egyptian, as well as many others. He was employed as a language professor when he had been praying that the Lord would give him some divinely important task that would justify his having this gift of language from God. In 1970 he visited with a group of Mormon leaders, who sought to commission him to translate the Book of Mormon from English into Afrikaans. He said that he knew of the Book of Mormon from his religions studies, and his initial reaction was that he did not want to be involved in translating it. However, that evening, as he prayed upon his knees, as was his habit, he said the Spirit of the Lord convinced him. The message was something on the order of, "You asked me for a great, divinely inspired task of translation, I sent it to you in the form o...

Dear Reader, A man was sleeping at night in his cabin when suddenly his room filled with light and the Savior appeared. The Lord told the man he had work for him to do, and showed him a large rock in front of his cabin. The Lord explained that the man was to push against the rock with all his might. This the man did, day after day. For many years he toiled from sun up to sun down, his shoulders set squarely against the cold, massive surface of the unmoving rock, pushing with all his might. Each night the man returned to his cabin sore, and worn out, feeling that his whole day had been spent in vain.  Seeing that the man was showing signs of discouragement, the devil decided to enter the picture by placing thoughts into the man's weary mind "You have been pushing against that rock for a long time, and it hasn't budged. Why kill yourself over this? You are never going to move it." This gave the man the impression that the task was impossible and that he was a ...

Dear Reader, Heavenly Father answers prayers. I have seen it so many times and I still forget what that statement means. Today, I want to share five stories with you that illustrate how Heavenly Father is always listening. When I was young lad, I lost one of my favorite toys. At this point in my life I honestly have no idea what toy it was, but I loved it immensely. It was simple thing, but as I was tearing my room apart looking for it, my mom asked me if I had prayed to ask Heavenly Father for help. I was a stubborn child and didn't want to ask for help, so I kept searching before I finally gave in and knelt next to my bed. The prayer probably wasn't very long, but it was enough to let Heavenly Father show me His love. I kid you not, the toy was next to my knee when I opened my eyes. A similar thing happened to a young boy that I taught as a full-time missionary in Chile. His name was Matias and he loved to play ping pong. Actually, that was one of the reason my compa...

Dear Reader, Recently a friend of mine who works at the Missionary Training Center uploaded a picture to Facebook of all the name tags she has. Her tags were all related to work at the MTC whether as a missionary or as an employee in several different departments. I had to laugh because I have worked with her on several of the jobs or seen her while working those jobs. I also laughed because I have just as many name tags from the MTC. My affinity toward missionary culture started while I was really young, according to my parents. My dad was ward mission leader in the church congregation we attended while living in Boston. Due to his calling, we had regular contact with the elders. My mom fed them dinner regularly and as a result, I was constantly surrounded by missionaries who would wrestle with me, tease me and teach me. This connection with these young men was apparently a very important part of my life. According to my mother there was a dramatic change in my attitude when we...

Dear Reader, I apologize for the hiatus from writing. 'Tis an unhealthy relationship which doth not have at least a weekly contact (Actually, according to Preach My Gospel , you should have daily contact with important people). But alas, I digress. Our purpose today is to explore the question that came to mind while watching the 186th General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this past weekend. I'll have to look at my notes to see exactly when this question came to mind, "What is the difference between authority and power ?" Image via  ldsmissionaries.com  (Original Source: www.missiongeek.net ) Through many years of teaching about the restoration of God's priesthood, I have used those two words almost interchangeably. However, my ways have been erroneous. You see, power and authority are used all the time within the church. It is taught that the authority of God is given through his priesthood power. Kind of ambiguous, right?...

Dear Reader, Yes, this blog is not very popular. Yes, this is a political post. Yes, I know nothing about politics. However, I have been watching several of the political debates (In an attempt to be an informed citizen) and the most preoccupying aspect of the 2016 presidential race is the countenance of the candidates. Again, my knowledge of politics is very limited and it is most likely that I am missing something, but my thoughts must be put out there. At this point I do not formally endorse nor belittle any of the current candidates. Rather than a description of his/her policies, this is a description of what I believe a president should be like in character. Truth be told, I didn't know how to put my thoughts into words until our Family Home Evening activity tonight. Every Monday our apartment gets together with another apartment in the ward for some kind of activity. To start the activity, there is always a spiritual thought given, based on what a person has read in the ...

Dear Reader, You have heard the song, "Last Christmas," right? Well, today I want to use that song, a chapter from Alma in the Book of Mormon and my insights to address the topic of dating/marriage. I want men to pay special attention, because I feel that women hear stuff like this much more than we do. To start off, let's see the lyrics to the chorus of the song I'm for today: Last Christmas, I gave you my heart And the very next day, you gave it away This year, to save me from tear,  I'll give it to someone special I thought of this song because of a few sayings that some of my friends have posted on social media, my favorite of which is, "Dance with God; He will let the right man cut in." Between the song and that phrase, the idea came to mind that as men, we don't really have that mentality. We (I speak for men, but obviously there are exceptions) don't feel the need to be close to God in order to be a good boyfriend/husband. ...

Dear Reader, 3.141592...These are the numbers that begin pi. Here is one of the most random things you will ever learn about Dale. I love numbers. The title for today's post actually comes from a song when I heard when I was in third grade. You may be able to find a recording of it somewhere online, but it would be a arduous search, because the song I heard was sung by a guy who came to our elementary school to teach us about math during an assembly. The song used the numbers to create a melody based on the corresponding intervals. For example, in a C Major scale, pi would correlate as follows: 3=E . 1=C 4=F 1=C 5=G 9=D 2=D Anyway, that is just a small sample of weird things that numbers do in my head. The real purpose of today's post is to record one of my favorite conversations with my Dad. He and I began to argue one day about the numbers 2 and 3 . We quickly decided that 3 is by far the more significant number. We decided that because there are many occurrences of t...

Dear Reader, I've always had a problem with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It simply didn't occur to me until today. It has always been there, but for some reason it became clear. "What? Dale, what are you talking about?!"  Calm down. I am not going to start shouting out blasphemy or come out wanting to leave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Quite the contrary, actually. Notice how I said, " I've always had a problem with the Gospel of Jesus Christ"? The Gospel doesn't present problems, it provides solutions. Christ teaches us and gives us answers. No, the problem is my personality. I like to do things well. When singing or performing with a group, I do it to the best of my ability. When working, I give my hardest efforts. However, when I don't do things well, I don't do them. As I stated at the beginning, I want it all or I want nothing at all. When it comes to the Gospel, that is where I encounter my problem. Living g...

Dear Reader, There is a song that I love called "Hand in Hand Together." It is a song written by Janice Kapp Perry back in 2001 about how the Book of Mormon and Bible work together to testify of the Savior and the gospel. I wanted to go into detail about something that I actually know about. Well, at least I knew a lot about it at one point in time. I have lost sight of it a little bit in recent days. That topic is the validity of the Book of Mormon. For those of you who don't already know the story, the Book of Mormon has roots in Jerusalem, dating back to 600 b.c. It is the record kept by people who left Jerusalem and traveled to America. The Book goes through about a millennium of wars, prophecies and other events. After being buried, the record found its way into the hands of Joseph Smith, Jr, a boy living in New York during the 19th century. Most of this is explained in the introduction of the Book of Mormon . There are a couple of paragraphs that I want to focu...