Don't Mute the Music

Everyone loves to listen to music right? It's a great past time. People gather in large groups to listen to music. It brings people together.

I always found it annoying when someone would come in and hit the mute button. It stopped the music! I didn't want the music to stop. I was thinking recently of how many times do we in our lives hit the "mute" button on the Lord. How many times is he trying to speak to us and we mute him. Just as I was annoyed with others muting my music, I'm sure the Lord is sad when we mute him out of our lives. He is trying to bless us and guide us through this life and if we mute the music he is playing for us, we won't know where to go or what to do. Let us all un-mute the radios of our lives and listen to the sweet music the Lord can give us.

The Music Book of our Life

So in the music world the writing of music is very important. It allows others to play your songs. It also helps to remember what was played earlier. I wouldn't know a lot of songs if it wasn't for someone writing the music down so that I could come along later and replay their music.

Music books tell us exactly how to play a song. The speed, the loudness, the notes to play. It is all there. Scriptures also tell us how the song of our life goes. I have found myself time and time again stuck in life with a decision and not knowing where to go. As I turned to the scriptures it helped me to know how my own personal song goes. As we read the scriptures the Lord tells us personally about how fast, how loud and what notes to play in our own lives. If you are stuck with your own song in life, turn to the scriptures, it will help you find what your next note is.

Beautiful Strings Part 2

I love music and playing guitar. There are songs that calm the mind and body and help feel at peace. All this is because the artist playing the song has practiced and played the right strings. When a string is plucked that wasn't meant to be plucked, it adds a sound that doesn't work with the other notes. It sounds very off and almost disgusting and offensive. But on the other hand when a song is played with all the right strings and notes the song sounds beautiful and melodic and pleasing.

Our lives need to be the same way. If we have a part of our life that we are not doing whats right the spirit will not be with us. The things that we do will not match up and God will see and hear the wrong notes we play. But there is repentance and as we try to align ourselves with God and play the right note and string our lives will be wonderful in the ears of God. If anyone is not playing the right strings in their life, I challenge you to find the right strings of the gospel. Read the scriptures and pray. It helps find the right strings that sound beautiful.

Beautiful Strings Part 1

Yep! There is another picture of a guy playing guitar. You'll notice that he has his fingers on the strings. That is really the only way that one can play guitar. Contact has to be made with the strings in order for the note to sound. When I began learning guitar, I struggled with placing my fingers on the right string and pushing down hard enough to make the note sound. As i worked more and more on strengthening my fingers and learning where the strings are I was able to start playing music. Not only did I have to strengthen myself but I also had to play inside the frets. Down below is a picture of frets on a guitar. They are the lines that protrude a bit to allow the string to make different notes. Playing a note requires one to keep their fingers in between two frets.





The gospel of Jesus Christ requires us to keep ourselves within the frets of the gospel. In John 14:15, Christ says "If ye love me, keep my commandments". He then promises in verse 21 of the same chapter "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my father, and I will love him, and manifest myself to him." As we keep the commandments and stay within the frets of the gospel, Christ will love us and bless us beyond measure. We also must make sure that we are pressing down on the strings hard enough or putting our full heart and soul into the gospel of Jesus Christ. I promise as we do this we will play beautiful music in our lives. God will forgive us of all that we ever do wrong. We just need to practice and learn what is required of us.

Singing to God

Recently I have been working with another missionary to write songs. He has been giving me tips and advice on what works best in a song. In a song the most important part is the melody. Without a good melody the song is trash. It makes the song what it is.

Songs take a lot of work and thought put into it to make it a great one. Creating songs that are personal helps me get things off my chest and find peace in a lot of ways. Similar to creating songs to help me, I also pray to God. Prayers are like songs. We can be creative in any way. Sometimes though, I find myself going through the motions. Saying the same things a lot is like creating the same song over and over again. As I have tried praying about different things and really giving thanks to God I have come so much closer to him. So create your own songs to God. He loves to hear them.

The Amazing Priesthood!

Its your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man! With the new Spider-man movie coming soon I thought I would compare the Amazing Spider-man to the priesthood of God.

I remember when the first Spider-man movie came out. As a kid I was so excited to see this awesome super hero movie. I wanted to be just like Spider-man. I remember his Uncle Ben saying to him, "With great power comes great responsibility." How true is that!

God has given the priesthood once again after it was lost for thousands of years due to wickedness. It's our responsibility to use the priesthood to bless the lives of everyone. I am very thankful that we have the priesthood and that this great power is on the Earth. For with this great power, we do have a great responsibility to bless all people. Lets go out there and battle the Doc-ocs and Green Goblins that threaten the home and family. Cause if we don't the city (our homes) will be destroyed by  Satan.

How to defend against Satan

Like fighting a good battle there are always strategies that both opposing sides use. God or Heavenly Father has many tools and weapons that we can use to defend ourselves. These weapons aren't the typical weapons you would find in a battle yet they are very effective. On the opposite side Satan has many weapons also. His luckily are not as effective. But we must understand how he attacks us and with what if we are to fight him off. We find in the Book of Mormon a great example of ways satan attacks us. We read of the Nephites who are under siege from the Lamanites. In Alma 49:22 it says that "they began to dig down their banks of earth that they might obtain a pass to their armies". The Lamanites were trying to tear down the Nephites place of security by tearing down their walls. Satan Works the same way. He tries over and over again to tear our walls down to get to our center, our heart. So how do we defend against such attacks?


First off we need to prepare ahead of time. The Nephites surprised the Lamanites by building a high wall. It reads in Alma 49:4 "how great was their disappointment; for behold, the Nephites had dug up a ridge of earth round about them, which was so high that the Lamanites could not cast their stones and their arrows at them that they might take effect" The most crucial part of defending against Satan is preparing ourselves to withstand the blows that will come. So how do we prepare to defend ourselves ahead of time to defend against that evil one? 

Well we first need to decide. Decide now that we will not give in. Make choices to not partake in the bad things of the world before they come. When they do come, we will have the ability to make the right choice and block the blow Satan is throwing at us. Building up our "ridge of earth" takes time to do. We don't want to be caught off guard before our wall of defense is finished. So start now.


The Nephites also had a key strategy to win the battle. It is recorded that "the Lamanites could not get into their forts of security by any other way save by the entrance, because of the highness of the bank which had been thrown up,... save it were by the entrance."(Alma 49:18). We notice that the only possible way to get into the forts of the Nephites was to enter into the small entrance. Our entrances  can be compared to our heart. Through our feelings of the heart we feel the spirit such as love, peace, joy, etc. Satan knows that the heart is very important and if he can just squeeze in there he can get to the rest of us. But if we follow the example of the Nephites, we can more easily defend ourselves. As the Lamanites attempted to enter into the forts by the entrance, the Nephites would cast stones and arrows and kill them with swords. They had the entrance heavily defended. If we heavily defend our hearts with reading the scriptures, praying for strength, attending church and following the commandments, Satan will not be able to enter into our forts and hearts. Like the Nephites we can be "prepared to destroy all such as should attempt to climb up to enter [our] fort(s) by any other way, by casting over stones and arrows at them."