Music and Lyrics

Dear Reader, Family ties are great. They are hard to maintain sometimes, but they are well worth the effort. God gave us families for a reason. I have seen it time and time again that being part of a family can help you come back from any setback or go forward to accomplish any goal. It must be said that my family is perfect for me. Heavenly Father knew what He was doing when He helped Lauren and I come together to form our own family and bring together our extended families. My in-laws are very generous and my parents are very loving. My siblings (in-laws included) are all fun to be with and they each teaches me in little ways. This past year with new family and lots of grand experiences has shown me how it important it is to be part of a family. This time last year, Lauren and I were preparing for our wedding and thinking about where she would be applying to grad school. Last fall we worked hard to finish as much school as we could and we planned to wait on have kids until she...

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 Readers, Bryan Adams wrote the lyrics for today's title in 1991. I don't think he thought about the above lyrics in the way that I am interpreting them for this blog. These lyrics are being interpreted as they would be used in the mafia. Or by assassins. Yes, I am writing about the game "Assassin" today. To give a brief overview, the game "Assassin" consists of a group of people who each draw the name of somebody else in the group whom they will have to kill during the game. For example, our ward started playing this past week with a group of 55 players. The goal is kill as many people as possible. A "kill" is tagging your target with a plastic spoon. The short story is this: If person A kills person B, person A is now after the player that person B was targeting. Eventually, everyone but one will be dead. After participating in this game, I have learned a few things. 1. If you want to kill someone, you can't trust anyone else . L...

Dear Reader, A wise man once said, "Strangers are just friends that you haven't met yet." Don't ask me who that wise man was, because I have no idea. It could have been a woman. The important thing is the wisdom of these words. There is an interesting translation between Spanish and English. The verb 'conocer' is usually translated as 'to meet' or 'to know.' However, it is more accurate translate 'conocer' as 'to be familiar with' due to confusion with another verb ('saber') in some cases. I think my relationship with my family is very closely depicted by the differences in this translation. You see, I "met" my family when I was born, right? However, due to age differences and my constant attention to friends and extracurricular activities during jr. high and high school, I 'was not familiar' with my family. I 'knew' my family, yes. That is the difference. Fast forward to a time when I ...

Dear Reader, Imagine driving down the freeway in fog that limits your vision to about 200 feet in front of you. Despite how many times you have flown down this part of the interstate highway, it is difficult to determine exactly where you are especially because the signs glance by right as you pass them. This was a reality for me this morning as my friends and I organized a caravan to a ward in Salt Lake City to listen to a talk given by another of our friends. The 10 of us jumped into to two cars and took off from Provo into the thickest fog I have ever seen in the valley.  Being the optimist, I found excitement in the new experience despite how potentially dangerous the journey could be. As I drove, it was kind of weird the different Gospel parallels that came to mind as we went through the hazy lack of vision. First came the comparison between the lead car and prophets. Obviously this is the Gospel according to Dale, but I imagine that the prophets often times know where...

Dear Reader, After talking with a friend of mine, I suddenly remembered some statistic I heard years ago that friendships lasting 7 years or more will be friendships for life. After researching and trying to find where the statistic came from, it seems that I slightly misinterpreted the idea. Of the articles about the subject, the Huffington Post  says that friendships have a high rate of decay which occurs around 7 years of friendship and Live Science  cites the same research that talks about a person's circle of friends being replaced every 7 years. These ideas seem slightly pessimistic to me, so I want to tell you that being friends for 7 years or more is really a blessing, rather than dwelling on how friendships don't last. Another article that popped up during the search for this 7-year statistic was an article about nurturing the friendships that already exist. The friendships that I have had for a long time are so great because we have seen each other grow and eve...

Dear Reader, Today I walked past a couple people and acknowledged them because I knew them. Luckily for me I also remembered their names, but not everyone is blessed with my mother's gift of remembering everyone she has ever met. She seriously has this gift with people. Here's an example to illustrate:  Imagine you meet my mom and talk to her for 5 minutes. Due to her nature, the conversation will probably focus on family and emotional state, but imagine talking with her about anything. She will give you a hug before you part ways. She does that. No matter who you are. Take note of the shirt you are wearing when you talk to her, too.  Now, imagine yourself walking down the street or into a store 20 years from now. You haven't seen my mom during those 20 years. My mom, if she sees you, will not only recognize you and remember your name, but she will remember what shirt you were wearing the first time you met. Not only that, she will somehow remember to congra...

Dear Reader, I went hiking again. Hence the repeat of song title. You might get jealous by the pictures here, but they are much better in person. So you can be even more jealous. The best part is you get to hear me philosophize this time. You missed it so much in the last post, I know. This hike was done by Megan, Hannah, Jeremy and myself. It was a great time and I want to do it again...just with a little more preparation. First off, let me tell you how scared I was for my life this time. We went up Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon again, but this time we went as far up as we could. This meant that at few points were literally scaling rock faces and it was almost a sheer drop down the mountain side. I'm glad there were four of us together, two of which have experience mountaineering/exploring. It has been a long time since my adrenaline has pumped so much. I have pictures of the boulders we climbed up, but the pictures do not portray the correct sense of terror I felt g...

Dear Reader, I will try not to be all philosophical today and just tell you about an amazing hike I went on with some friends this morning. We saw some pretty good views and I had a good time just getting out of the house. So, without further procrastination from yours truly, here are the pictures of the day.

Dear Reader, I ran into Cosmo on the first day of classes. Yes, it's Saturday. Sue me. It just seems like a good idea today to give a quick little update on my life, especially since we are concluding the first week of classes at Brigham Young University. It has been a fun-filled week and it may be on the list of most productive weeks in my life. Whether or not it is actually on that list, I feel fulfilled this week. The Lord has definitely helped get everything done and keep up with my schedule. So, without further delay, here is a summary of the week in no particular order. Classes started! Yay for being back on campus all the time! One of the biggest changes is going from seeing only people in my ward to seeing basically everyone I know on BYU campus. I kid you not: I ran into dozens of people I had not seen for 5 months or more this week. Some had come back from missions, others had transferred to BYU from other schools and still others popped out of the woodwork to ha...

Dear Reader, For those of you who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, participating in music is probably at least a weekly occurrence, if not more often. For those of you who are not members of the Church, you probably already know that every week during church meetings, there are always hymns and music being produced by the members. We sing hymns in sacrament meeting, sometimes in other Sunday meetings and put together special musical numbers for special events like ward parties. With all this live/untouched music, a question came to mind: why does the church not switch to using recordings of all the hymns in sacrament meeting or other common church events? One of my favorite songs when I was growing up Considering the secular side of music, why is it that we long to hear our favorite bands in person? Why do we jam stadiums, crowd clubs and book live wedding music? The answer, my friend, is divine. Music is a source of creativity. Music re...

Dear Reader, Temples are amazing. They are the only place where a man and a woman can be sealed together forever by the power of the priesthood. I was able to witness this firsthand on Saturday when my roommate and his wife knelt across the alter in the Timpanogos Temple as they were sealed for eternity. There was so much happiness in that sealing room during the ceremony. As the couple walked in, there was a huge smile on both their faces. Jacob (My roommate) and I have known each other for a long time. I was actually on his first date with McKay (his wife). Don't worry; it was a double date. That night as we were talking about dating and what we liked about the date that day I told him, "I like you two. There is a good feeling about her." Sure enough, just over 5 months later they are now sealed for all eternity through and by the power of the priesthood. Of course we also enjoyed their reception later that night, but I was enjoying the fact that they are perf...

Dear Reader, This is a rare post when I can tell you about music one of my friends wrote. Taylor Miranda, a friend and coworker of mine, got together with her friends and wrote this great song called " Live or Survive " for their song-writing class at Brigham Young University. The thing is, the song is really, REALLY good. So, they decided to make a goal to put said song into the upcoming Hunger Games film, "Mockingjay, Part 2." A phenomenon started. People on Youtube have already started using the song for their video montages of the "Hunger Games" films. They have had their song played on different sites and the group, TREN, has been interviewed by KSL News and highlighted by LDS Living . As of late, they have also made a spot in the Deseret News ! If you don't know a whole lot about the "Hunger Games," the series is a story about a society with a terrible infrastructure and corrupt government that rules with fear. The story de...

Dear Reader, The great singing duo Simon and Garfunkel wrote a song about having old friends and what that relationship is like. I had a small experience with some old friends this weekend when the group of us that studied in Spain together went out to dinner together at Wingers . Yes, we are pretty good friends still. There was talk of the classic marriage list that we made, arguing about TV and Movies, giving each other help on Spanish homework and even the couple of questions about my love life...oh brother. I'm always so happy to see these guys. Unfortunately not quite all of us where able to make it, but 11/13 isn't too shabby!  With that being said, I want to put a challenge out there for the next little while: if there is someone you feel like you should talk to but feel like it would be awkward because of how long it has been since you've talked, talk to them anyway! It is amazing what you can feel with a person when you bond, even if it is just over s...

Dear Reader, This past week I noticed a dramatic change on the "People you may know" feature of Facebook. There were suddenly several people from work and dozens of people from the classes I am taking this semester. I have always been fascinated by the inner-workings of social media websites and the internet in general, especially when websites try to guess logically what is most interesting and pertinent to one's life. With this being said, today we can chat a little bit about how smart phones play into these features on Facebook and other sites. You see, as I was trying to figure out how Facebook suddenly would systematically figure out my class and work schedule, I realized that last week I had added several different phone numbers to my phone because of classwork with classmates and getting people to cover shifts at work. You see, if you have a smart phone with the Facebook application, especially the Facebook Messenger application, the programs that run those ap...

Dear Reader, In the Brigham Young University Chorale, we are singing a song entitled "Precious Lord, Take My Hand." It is a really cool a Capella arrangement that encompasses a plea to the Lord to help us through life. The line "When the Darkness Appears" took on a new light when I was thinking about an aspect of getting to know people. When the darkness appears, there are two things that happen: people open up about themselves more and they are more prone to do irrational things. I'll give a few examples to demonstrate (as always). I'll say again that people tend to open up more after dark. Take, for example, a girl that I took on a few dates a while back. We went out and did activities during the day. The dates were fun and we enjoyed talking to each other. However, I always felt there was something missing. My roommate suggested one evening that I take her out to something after dark. That was the first time the idea popped into my head that people w...

Dear Reader, Please have snow and mistletoe. Emphasis on the snow. There is certainly a special feeling being around loved ones for the holidays. Today my family and I had an early Christmas Eve party. It is a little difficult to plan logistics when two siblings are married with kids while two others are living away from home. Thus, we have started a new tradition. Cool story, right? The Lundstrom Family, Thanksgiving 2014 My feelings towards the holidays have been pretty different than they have in the past. I hear stories about friends traveling home for Christmas break. Some of them travel to the east coast, others to California, etc. It has come to my attention this year more than others that some college students don't see their families during months because of the distance from home. It has definitely helped me appreciate the time with my family more. I also appreciate my other "family," or the people who are not literally related, but we are very close.  ...

Dear Reader, I just have to say, I like you. Even if I don't know you, you are an awesome person. Just so you know. This week is all about getting to know people better and finding what you like about them, apparently. Let me share more with you about our travels through Andalucia, Spain. It was a blast! La Alhambra in Granada, Spain.  After leaving Sevilla, we made it to Granada, home of the Alhambra . This is a city within a city. According to our wonderful tour guide, Ester, it has more than 8000 visitors every day. Even with that many tickets to sell, it is difficult to get them. We are lucky, indeed. The highlight for me was the Torre de la Vela.  Atop the tower is a bell with a romantic tradition. There is a celebration every year on January 2nd in the Alhambra, during which if a person rings the bell on top of this tower three times, they will fall in love and be married within the next year. Unfortunately it is not January, so none of us could ring the bell....

Dear Reader, Well, all I want for Christmas is to a life-time free of painful dentist visits. In preparation for an international studies program, there have been several dentist visits in my schedule lately. However, I want to share with you that the most significant thing about these visits is the lack of pain I've had. It has been quite surprising. Here is a little history of previous dental visits: vomiting mid-procedure, screaming, and being completely drugged for a week post-procedure. None of these were pleasant experiences. This time is very different. I owe it all to my Heavenly Father. I went in last week for a checkup and I was told that my list of dental tasks included a root canal, a crown and several fillings. That is NOT what I wanted to hear based on my history. A few days later I went in for the root canal. While waiting in the patient chair, I said a quick prayer. The exact uttered words escape me, but they were most likely something like, "Heavenly...

Dear Readers, That title actually has very little significance for this post. I thought you ought to know. Here's just a little update on what is going on in never-ending-music-land. Today we had a rehearsal with The Mountain West Voices . Yes, we are pretty awesome...the whole 8 of us who showed up. Anyway, we had a good long talk about what we want to accomplish with the chorus in this coming year. It was a hard conversation for me to be a part of because I won't be here in the fall, but I gave my opinion when asked. In other news, there will be somekind of barbershop arrangement of 'If I Never Knew You' from Pocahontas  in the future. The identity of the arranger is still in question. So, I guess I'll just share an awesome video with you today. Enjoy!