Part 3: Our Technology...

My first computer was an IBM 286 running some version of DOS. It had WordPerfect 5.1 and Lotus 123. It didn’t have a mouse or even a hard drive.

Some time later we got Macintosh Classic computers with 20 megabyte hard drives (that’s megabytes not gigabytes). We thought we had died and gone to heaven. The Mac back in 1990 had MS Word and Excel. It was the bomb!! Today, I have an original Mac Classic in my office at home. It still boots. I’m tempted to sell it on e-bay or turn it into a fish tank – I can’t decide...

Today, I have a top of the line (at least it was when I bought it last summer) Dell XPS system. I have 1.75 terabytes of hard drive storage that I use for pictures, music, ripped DVDs, spreadsheets, lesson plans, financial records back to 1994, scanned stuff (I scan everything – I hate paper) and even the occasional word document. I have a Wi-Fi network that runs my wife’s laptop, my Linux machine (I really like Linux – watch out Microsoft & Apple), a laser printer, and my photo printer. We have three iPods, two digital cameras, a scanner, several external hard drives, three DVD burners and a network attached storage drive to back everything up. My internet is the fastest available in my area. I can download a 2 gigabyte movie from iTunes in less than 15 minutes. I’m getting exited just talking about it!!

You may ask why I choose to write about our technology in relation to Our World and Our Worth. For me to answer this I need to refer back to scripture.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Jesus gave his disciples two commandments in these verses. The first was for them to teach all nations the gospel and the second was to teach them to keep his commandments. The members of the church back then had two missions:

• Proclaim the gospel (aka. teach all nations)
• Perfect the saints (aka. keep his commandments)

Jesus was talking to 11 guys who had no special abilities or talents. These 11 guys had no idea how to teach everyone in the world. How would you accomplish this?

Back then there was no way to really do this. Paul would get a letter from Corinth that took months to deliver; he would write a letter back, that letter would take months to deliver. The early members of the church didn’t have scriptures as we know them today. There was no bible as we know it. A member in Corinth would have been lucky to have a hand-me-down copy of the book of Mark (Mark is considered the first written gospel). Ultimately, Mormons believe the early church was lost to the world and we were left to the dark ages. Why this falling away occurred is the subject of another blog...

In the early 1800s Joseph Smith was given another commandment in addition to the other two I mentioned before – he was commanded to redeem the dead. Now we have three commandments:

• Proclaim the gospel
• Prefect the saints
• Redeem the dead

Mormons are responsible for teaching everyone who’s living right now, perfecting themselves, and now they have redeem everyone who has ever lived. I won’t get into the process of redeeming the dead other than it occurs in our temples. Back then there was literally no way to accomplish this.

Today, this can be done. We have computers that can track generations of genealogy. We can communicate instantly with anyone in the world. I can download all of conference and listen to it on my iPod from LDS.org. The scriptures have been indexed electronically to teachings of modern prophets. I can check my own ward’s calendar so I know when the next Cub Scout meeting is. It’s amazing.

Today, computers and databases can keep track of billions of records. In fact, most modern home computers could... Today, we can keep the whole church together with LDS.org. If someone in Africa wants to find out about the church they could google Mormons and they would get everything they need.

All of this wonderful technology was inspired and created for the express purpose of us fulfilling the commandments of the Lord to proclaim the gospel, perfect the saints and redeem the dead.

I think it’s just amazing!

I think it’s important to put our technology in its proper place. We have the internet and powerful computers to further the work of the Lord. iTunes is just a nice offshoot of this.

Part 2: Our Worth...

It is often asked what is the worth of a soul is to God. We don’t obey His will all the time. We sin. We are messy and carnal. So, why does God care so much? Why would God love us so much that he would send His son to save us?

First, let me preface my answer to these questions with a few things in mind. I am writing this blog for people who are not Mormon. I am trying to write to people who are Christians who have an open understanding of the nature of God and His relationship with us. We Mormon’s already have a clear understanding of our worth to our Father in Heaven. We are God’s children, we are God’s greatest creation and we have the potential to become like God. God’s job is to exalt us.

For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

For my non-Mormon friends, let me talk about the worth of our souls to God in three ways.

First, we are eternal just as God is eternal. The earth will someday be just a memory to us. Our solar system, galaxy and even our universe will someday be just a memory to each of us. One soul is more important to Our Father in Heaven than all the gold and diamonds in the whole earth. One soul is worth more than the entire world to God. We are eternal, everything else isn’t. Christ gave his life to bring souls back to God so we could dwell eternally with Him. Hopefully we take advantage of Christ sacrifice. Christ wants every soul to dwell with Him and his Father eternally.

Let me try to quote C.S. Lewis – ”you have never met a mere mortal”.

Second, we are created in His image. Not only are we eternal just like God is eternal we also can be an image of Him in everyway. If we let Him, we can be polished to reflect God’s light perfectly. A diamond can only shine so much. We can shine with a light beyond the sun if we allow Christ to change us into beings like Him.

Third, we are agents unto ourselves. When Adam and Eve fell we became like God in another way:

And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil...

This may sound strange God knows the difference between good and evil and He could choose evil. God always chooses the good. When Jesus was on the earth he was tempted but he never yielded. God has a choice and he always chooses good.

We are just like God in this way also. We are faced with good and evil choices everyday God wants us to choose the good but often we choose evil. We call this Sin. God will never take away our right to choose between good and evil. God made us agents unto ourselves. We are free to act. We may not like the consequences of our actions but we always have the right to act.

This agency or knowledge of good and evil sets us humans apart from all of God’s other creatures. A bird, as fish or a dog doesn’t know any thing about being good or being evil. Therefore, all other creatures created by God are less than humans because they have no agency. You can have a well trained dog or a tame cat but the animal itself is neither good nor evil.

We are just like God these three ways: we are eternal, we are in His image and we have agency. Because we are like God and God is like us we are of great worth to God. God loves us because we have the potential to have all of God’s attributes. This is our worth to God. This should be our worth to each other.

Another topic for a future blog: What the deal with agency? Why are we free to choose? Why does God let us choose evil?

Part 1: Our World...

Thanks for all of your thoughts. I would like to thank everyone who commented about my last “my opinion” blog or e-mailed me. I think many of us are silently frustrated and weary of what seems to be a losing fight in politics, social changes, sin, finances, and the noise that is our world.

Often it is so easy to dwell on the negative. It is so easy to get weary of fighting with the opposing influences in our country and our own personal lives. Over the next few days I want to point out the more positive aspects of our world, our worth, and our technology.

The first thing I want to talk about is our world...

I’m not talking about our society. I’m talking about the beautiful world our Heavenly Father has given his children. We don’t belong to the earth as our green friends would say. The earth belongs to us. The earth is ours to use as we see fit. The earth is our stewardship. We will be held accountable someday for our stewardship over the world.

And God blessed [Adam and Eve], and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Pretend you had a daughter who was moving to Phoenix. If you live in Phoenix you really need a car to make it around town. So you buy your daughter a car to use in Phoenix. Some time later you came to visit her and you found the car you bought for her trashed. The oil wasn’t changed, there where pizza boxes in the back seat, the car was dented and scratched, and there was a Hillary ’08 sticker on the back window. How would you feel about your daughter?

Pretend you gave a car to your other child who was moving to Phoenix. Some time later you went to visit him and you found out he was taking the bus or the taxi. He was broke because couldn’t keep a job. He was having a hard time making it to work because he was taking the bus or paying for a taxi. He didn’t want to drive the car because he wanted to keep it clean. He was a good driver; he just didn’t want to lose that new car smell. Maybe he thought his ’01 Ford Focus would be a classic someday and he didn’t want to put the miles on it. How would you feel about your son?

Which child would you be most disappointed in?

I would be disappointed in both kids – my daughter for not taking care of her car and my son for not using the car in the first place. Believe it or not, I would be more concerned about my son. He didn’t even use the car. I would think that he didn’t appreciate the car I gave him. I would think he was kinda dumb for just letting the car sit in his driveway. Is the car more important than my child? No! My son is far more important to me than the car. I gave him the car so he could be successful in Phoenix. My daughter may have trashed her car but she had a job and she wasn’t broke. I could always buy another car – the Hillary ’08 sticker is a whole other matter.

Our Heavenly Father looks at us in much the same way. He has given his children this world and he wants us to be happy. He doesn’t want us to trash the earth and he doesn’t want us to think the earth is more important than we are. In fact, we are far more important to him than the whole earth. We have been created in His image. God can always create another earth...

My opinion...

It has been a hectic time. Church stuff, family, work, babysitting, the list goes on and on. It is for all these reasons that I haven't really spent any time writing on my blog.

It's not that I haven't wanted to write or that I don't have anything to write about. There are so many things going on in the world that have bothered and interested me: The current political state of our nation, my thoughts on my relationship to my Savior, and my frustrations with life and work. I truly wish I had the gift of just writing without getting distracted or interrupted. I suppose I should make time to write stuff every day.

All this being said, I actually have time to write something. Currently, I'm in the clerk's office at the church bored out of my mind. I'm here to watch the Deseret Industries donation trailer from 3 to 7. Basically, nothing’s going on. There's nothing in the trailer worth stealing and if someone did steal something then they could consider it a donation to themselves.

So, here are some of my thoughts in case you are interested:

I am so weary of the state of our nation. I am so weary of politics and the media. To me it seams like the fabric of what makes this nation is eroding away. We are a nation that lacks any will. Many of our nation’s challenges could be easily solved if we just had the will to solve them. We'd rather play our video games and watch The Biggest Loser, before we would think outside of ourselves. Marx said “religion is the opium of the masses.” That may have been true with most people back then but today TV and the internet are our mind numbing opiates.

Many people spend countless hours "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" surfing the Internet. Many people seek out the pleasure of toys, food, and immorality. Many people find their whole week is gone and they have nothing to show for it. Many people are going to find they have lived their whole lives with nothing lasting to show for it. They don't care about their own kids or their own families. They only care about themselves. All of this and many other social ills you could name have sucked away our will as a people.

I must include myself in all of this. I am the chief computer potato.

We get upset about the price of gas. We make a lot of noise at the pump and around the water cooler at work, then we get back into our SUV turn on the radio where we are quietly numbed back into submission. Talk radio does this also. We listen, we get incensed, but we don't do anything. In some ways we think by merely listening we are actually doing something. When, in all actuality, we're continuing our numb existence. We are truly lukewarm. We are truly lulled away into carnal security.

I’m not advocating riots or protest. It would be nice, however, to see more verbal and angry protests coming from the conservative right. It seems like the “children” on the liberal left are always noisier than we “adults” are on the right. My 4 year old son is noisier than my wife.

What can we do? Honestly, I really don't know.

I do know the opposite of numb is feeling. Maybe, America needs to feel a little pain. Believe it or not in some cases pain is good once in a while. When I was young I touched the stove and burnt my hand. It hurt! But, I can tell you I never touched the stove again. It would be nice to eliminate all the negative consequences in the world but in doing so we would eliminate peoples ability to learn and grow. We need to quit looking for the easy way out, or for someone to just take our pain away. We need to face our challenges and not look towards government to fix everything.

Just a few generations ago you were faced with two choices: you where free to achieve anything you wanted or you were free to starve. It was your choice - success or starvation. Given these two choices most people would choose success. They really had no alternative. They were forced to make things work. If they failed at something, they tried again until they succeeded. They continued to do this for their entire lives because they had to.

No one was going to bail out my great great great grandfather if his crops didn’t grow. There was no government agency standing in the background with prepaid Visa cards waiting to rebuild his house if it was destroyed by a hurricane. My great great great grandfather had to ultimately rely on himself.

Back then the choice between success or starvation created another positive side effect in addition to self reliance: Charity. When you know the government is just going to make things better for the less fortunate you can easily put aside the Lord’s commandment to be charitable. When you know everyone is faced with the scary choice between succeeding or starving, then you are more likely to want to help out people who haven't succeeded. You don't want to succeed for them, you want to help them to succeed themselves.

When faced with the choice between succeeding or starving people were more likely seek out God’s blessings. People in generations past prayed with all their hearts for God's blessings on themselves, their families, their fortunes, and their fellow man.

I am an ultra conservative. My conservative philosophy teaches the value of a limited government is in giving people the opportunity to achieve their greatest potential. Power rests with the people. Government is limited to the protection of its citizen’s rights. That’s it. There are all kinds of arguments back and forth on the role of government but they should ask themselves what kind of people do you want to make of your citizens. Do you want a nation of “children” who whine and complain if they aren’t getting bailed out of their own bad choices? Do you want a nation of responsible “adults” who rely on themselves and help out their neighbor?

Odiously, you want a nation of adults. How do government policies help create more “adult” citizens? What government policies create more whiny children citizens?

I’ll leave you, the reader, to answer these questions for yourself. I just have one thing to say: If you put a safety net under everyone, then eventually everyone will have a very expensive trampoline to jump on or worst, a hammock to sleep in.

Easter 2008

My brain is tickling me mom...

Jaedyn's 2nd Birthday

I know these images are late. Jaedyn's birthday was almost a month ago. I thought I'd post some pictures for those who didn't attend... Oh, by the way, it is so hard to be humble when you have such cute kids!!!

A to Z Tag...

A- Attached or single: Very Very Attached
B- Best Friends: Mela without a doubt
C- Cake or Pie: cake
D- Day of choice: Every other Friday – Naked Friday!!
E- Essential Item: iPod, Cell Phone, Keys, Pocket knife
F- Favorite Color: Blue
G- Gummi Bears or Worms: Gummi Worms
H- Hometown: Tempe, AZ
I- Indulgence(s): listening to my iPod really loud while watching TV (yes I know I can’t hear the TV – that’s the point)
J- January or July: January
K- Kids: Andrew (the boy) and Jaedyn (the girl)
L- Life is Incomplete Without: My Wife and kids and my computer
M- Marriage Date: September 5th
N- Number of Siblings: 1 brother and 1 sister
O- Oranges or Apples: Apples
P- Phobias or Fears: none that I can think of…
Q- Quotes: 1 Kyle 1:1 “Nice guys get screwed”
R- Reason To Smile: The Boy and The Girl giving me kisses
S- Season: Fall & Winter
T- Tag Three: I don’t know…
U- Unknown Fact About Me: I’m an open book
W- Worst Habit: When I get frustrated or angry I have the potential of swearing like a sailor – I’m really working to correct this, my job isn’t helping.
X- X-Rays or Ultrasounds: Ultrasounds
Y- Your Favorite Food: Italian
Z- Zodiac: Libra

What Happens at Grammy's Stays at Grammy's

Santa is real...

GramC & The Girls

GramC & The Girls 1
Originally uploaded by kyle_123kyle

Stone Bridge