Music and Lyrics

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, An epiphany in Church the other day. While pondering what makes good leaders and what they do, it suddenly became clear that the most successful leaders all have something in common in their speech. All good leaders tend to say "we" and "us" instead of "I" and "me." This concept first came to my attention years ago while I was reading a book of leadership quotes. The quotes were principally centered around the fact that a leader doesn't tell people what to do without actually trying himself. Thinking about teachers, we ask them for their help because they have done the thing they are expert in, right? Well, this epiphany from Sunday put a new spin on that idea: good leaders say "we" and "us" not only because they are relying on the efforts of the team, but because they know they are not alone. I believe that the majority of good leaders know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are with them. When tho...

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,  Courtesy of alphacoders.com Anger, fear, sadness and joy are the core of human emotion. You may have seen one of Disney's animated films entitled "Inside Out," which tells a unique story of how these emotions affect a young girl going experiencing a change of home, school and friends as her family moves across country. They play a pivotal role in how we act as human beings and as children of a Heavenly Father.  I recently went to an event where we participated in several activities to explore how important emotions are. One of the exercises was exploring how the core emotions are essential and helpful, but can also lead us to feel other emotions that are not essential nor helpful.  For example, fear is a core emotion because it can keep us safe from danger. Anxiety, although related to fear and similar in nature, is not the same. Anxiety weighs us down and keeps us from doing things that would be good for us or experiences that help us feel joy....

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, A good portion of my female friends and acquaintances love country music. It is something perplexing to me, but it has never been a problem. Two of my closest friends at the moment listen to country music almost daily, especially Keith Urban and Toby Keith. This fascination with cowboys became apparent to me when my best friend and I were cowboys for a day back in 2007. Here is an article that recently came to my attention: " One girl gets exactly what she asks for. " Read the story. It is pretty entertaining. Now, let me share our side of the story. Mike and I grew up together and we had just become part of the same priest's quorum in 2007. We were always being told to be our best selves and serve others. Little did we know that would include a random cowboy day on Christmas Eve. Our young men's leader asked us one day if we wanted to help out in giving a Christmas present. We of course agreed, allowing him to explain the situation. He told us a...