It's Official

If you haven't heard by now, here it is...We're moving to Washington! woohoo we're excited but also sad to leave having family here. More details to come soon...

Engagement Pictures

Dani has been posting a lot of the pictures, but here are some new pictures that she has just finished editing. I love them and her! We're trying to decide which picture to use for the invitations, so check out her blog here and let us know which you like best.

New Year's Resolution!

This Christmas, Santa Claus was nice enough to give me one of the presents I had asked for: a collection of audio talks by Truman G. Madsen titled The Presidents of the Church. I enjoyed listening to these recorded talks once on my mission, and wanted to go over them again. Madsen takes about an hour or so and recalls the lives of each prophet up to Gordon B. Hinckley. He offers insights on each president that helps you become acquainted with their characters and attributes.

Anyway, there is particular excerpt on the life of Heber J. Grant that I thought was well worded by Truman G. Madsen. I enjoyed the clarity in which he described the importance of keeping the commandments, and offered an explanation as to why so many times we choose to disregard the most basic but important commandments only because they do not seem to jibe with worldly traditions or because we are afraid of others opinions. He mentioned something B.H. Roberts had said about Heber J. Grant, that “What you expect [from him] is straight forward one-liners: Keep the commandments.” Truman G. Madsen continued by stating “That is the law and the prophets. That’s exactly what needed to be said and still needs to be said. He believed that intellectual reasons either for refusing to investigate or for leaving the church are after the fact, and the fact is behavior. One has to find rationale when his life is out of harmony with the truth. There is enough of the light that he is trying to suppress it and invents plausible reasons why he doesn’t have to obey. But the truth is that we all know that our conscience does voice protest at our lives and our sins, and also kisses us as it were when we honor the core of our hearts which is truth.”

I am glad this was stated the way it was because it plainly described the course we naturally take when we REALLY don’t want to follow a commandment. I believe the major reason why this happens in our lives at one point or another is because of the lack of gospel knowledge AND the lack of desire to obtain gospel knowledge, because if we would search out the proper way of keeping with doctrine and commandments, we would stay on the correct course.

One of my resolutions this year is to gain a deeper understanding of the Gospel and the commandments so that I can not only continue on the right course, and also understand WHY I am on the right course.

This CD collection is really insightful and I highly recommend it, if you would like to borrow mine, just let me know!