Music and Lyrics

Dear Reader,  I did. A couple of weeks ago I popped the big question to the lovely, talented and lovable Lauren Busath. The day was not as eventful as most engagements, but I thought it was perfect for us. We are very excited to be getting sealed in the Bountiful Temple in August! In celebration of the recent events, here the story. However, we wanted to get both sides. Everything in bold is Lauren's writing. Everything else is me.  Now, Lauren and I have dated twice...once back in 2012-2013 for a few months before she left on a full-time mission and now. We went on our "first date" in February of this year and had such a great time. I felt as though we hadn't skipped a beat since the last time we had been out. So, come the beginning of May, I was head over heels for her already. We had already been to my sister's wedding together and we were doing pretty much everything together. Thus, the engagement was not a foreign concept.  After dating only three shor...

Dear Reader, Last weekend I had the great opportunity to fly out to Pennsylvania and spend quality time with Lauren's family and their ward. Having spend most of my time in the Utah bubble, it had slipped my mind how different another place can be, even if it is in the same country. It was a lovely experience because of these differences. I wanted to note a couple of the biggest differences that made me analyze my life a bit. First off, I noticed that everything in the area we were in was "far away" from the next thing because of the difference in roads. Here in Utah it is custom to drive quickly on the freeway from place to  place and go fast with speeds upwards of 80 mph (Note that the speed limit is only 70 mph in most places...just talking about the culture). Of all the driving we did last weekend, I never saw a road that had a speed limit more than 55 mph. Everything is so far apart because the speeds are slower. If something is 20 minutes away in Utah, it's...

Dear Reader, I have resisted posting something so direct because my faith in the political process had not yet disappeared completely. However, based on recent events, I can no longer stay silent. For those of who know me, I don't like to involve myself heavily in political debates. Today's writing goes against that normalcy; the arguments made herein are researched and I will debate the subject.  My friend Kevin Burningham posted the following essay online. Although I cannot fully agree with the assumptions made in the first paragraph, everything else is exactly what has been going through my mind about the 2016 presidential election. I fully agree that Donald J. Trump is not fit to be President of the United States of America. I have put in bold several key points. " To my beloved LDS friends and family, Though our church emphatically defends its political neutrality, I know that most of you are conservative, due to most of you being from the Mountain West, and th...

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, 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...