Ether 6

This post is a bit delayed. And it's long. I apologize. It's good though. At least I think it is. Plus, I'm working in some of my friends blog posts again. :) Also, don't forget to check out the guest blog I just posted. I don't want anyone to miss that just because I couldn't wait anymore to post this monster of writing.

Also, this is a very LDS post. If you have questions, ask. If you're not interested, don't worry about it. I'm not here to push anything on you. You can just read my next post.

So at church, everything focused on challenges and trials, even speakers in Sacrament Meeting. First they talked about the Holy Ghost and how he can help you make choices in your life and know how to deal with challenges, and how He can help you recognize patterns in yourself, the good ones that help you deal with challenges and the bad ones that cause even more challenges that you have to manage.

Now for my first blog reference: turn to Andee once again. She says, "It seems I always have to experience something horrible in order for me to understand anything. I can't ever just learn from others' experiences...it has to personally happen to me," (Andee Leigh, 2009, "The Ugly Truth," http://anabananandee.blogspot.com/).

How many of us agree with her? I do.

Church people also talked about pride, and how we receive trials to pull us back to the gospel sometimes, so it's for our own good. This is something I had a hard time understanding, but it all comes down to the same thing: we lean on God more when we really need him. When life is going swell and dandy, we tend to forget. It's natural. Not ideal, but it's natural. So God says, "Hey, get back here," and sometimes it's with a sharp tongue. But He's got to get through to you somehow. And He will get to you.

Story: I was riding the Aggie Shuttle last fall, and I was wrapped up in my own thoughts and wondering how the heck I was going to manage everything in my life. Usually when I'm introspective, it's hard to snap me out of it, but something caught my attention while I was on the bus. I looked up at a small window close to the ceiling. It was open a little, and I noticed there wasn't a screen. Just as I realized that, a small orange leaf fluttered into the window and landed on the seat directly across from me. Naturally, I stared at it, and then I laughed.

Why did I laugh? I'm not exactly sure. I've thought about this leaf for months, this stupid leaf that really doesn't matter, but I've learned so much from this stinking leaf that it drives me nuts and I wish I'd picked it up and pressed it in a book somewhere.

I'm not sure if this will make any sense, but I'm gonna try my best to explain the lesson of the leaf that I want to share with you. I was in a bus, a man-made moving box. It's meant to keep you safe from the weather and nature while you speedily make your way to your destination with the least amount of effort. I went into the bus to avoid walking and the weather. I avoided walking, but the leaf made it inside the bus, even though the bus was moving and the window wasn't open that much. Here's how I see the situation: I go places and make choices that makes it harder for the Gospel and God to reach me sometimes, even if it's just a choice about my attitude or what music I listen to. But even when I make those choices, if I give God even a little bit of wiggle room to influence me, He'll work with whatever room I give him. He'll come through my door if I open it for Him, but He'll also go through the window if He has to, even if all He can do is whisper through it.

Okay, two more things. Keep on reading! You can do it!

Another of my friends, Chelsey Cutler, wrote a post that covered nearly everything else we talked about at church, and I really recommend it to anyone who cares about themselves. That should be everyone reading this sentence. So visit her blog at http://chelseycutler.blogspot.com/ and read her post titled "Trials, Challenges, Changes, and Difficulties." It's worth it. And allows me to tell you this last thing:

I was very surprised that NO ONE in church mentioned Ether 6:2-18. This is one of my favorite things to read. I've read this chapter so much in the past month that I can't help but mention it. You can read it online here: http://scriptures.lds.org/en/ether/6

Ether 6 in the Book of Mormon can help you understand Why God gives us challenges and can help you accept and deal with whatever comes your way. I want to challenge you (a good challenge!) to study this chapter by playing a game of pretend. Here are the rules:

1. You are the Jaredites. Take everything in this chapter personally.
2. The vessels are your life.
3. The stones are gifts from the Lord to you. Find out what these gifts are.
4. Your preparations are your preparations. You're all smart enough to know what I mean.
5. The wind and the waters and the creatures of the sea are your trials and challenges and changes and difficulties.
6. The promised land is your perfect self, your celestial self, your life in glory.

That's all my thoughts. I hope someone gets something out of it. It helped me.

Guest Blogger: Andrew Antoff

Hey guys! I'm really excited for this post. It's my first guest blogger! Everyone, welcome ANDREW ANTOFF! (And the crowd goes wild!)

Andrew is an excellent writer. He's provided me with a sample of his work to put on my blog, and I really enjoy it. As a fellow writer, I know how hard it can be to depict the images he includes in his writing. I really want to write an introduction discussing all the technical beauties of this piece, but I decided that would probably bore you to death and that you'd rather just experience the piece for yourself. If you really like it, you can check out more of his work (really excellent stuff, so don't be shy!) at his blog, http://www.amberinglass.blogspot.com/.

So here it is! Enjoy!

The sky roared it’s protestation as I stepped outside to investigate the peculiar darkness settling outside my window. Directly above, the sky was still untouched and blue.

Crack.

Something flashed above my left shoulder drawing my attention. It was then I saw the sky to the southwest, a thick, filmy gray. Turning west, I saw the clouds smothered the horizon from south to north. As my eyes traveled the scope of their trail, all across the field of my vision they got progressively worse.

A daring 747 shot out from underneath the worst of the sky making its escape into the clear blue that was still above me. The airport was just there, below the darkest patch of black. I saw another plane circling around the outskirts of the storm, waiting to land. It veered suddenly and disappeared from view.

I took a seat in my lawn chair and watched the storm. The hairs on my neck stood on end, charged by the electricity from the heavens. There was another flash from the southwest, and seconds passed. I felt the answering cry across the battlefield, far to the north. It traveled through my body, rattled my teeth together, and deafened my ears.

THERE! Another flash, but I was watching for it; the sky divided in four--or was it five?--as the lightning branched from one purple bolt and split in different directions across the horizon.

There was a pop, like air displaced, as the bolts must have simultaneously, somewhere touched the ground, lost from my sight behind buildings and trees. I could feel the weather, but where I sat the sky was still pristine and clear.

It was then I noticed a flash from behind me, directly east. Turning, I saw a second storm front, completely unattached from the other. This one came from the coast, and was heading directly towards me.

It was not as large or as dark as the southwesterly in front of me, but thunder roared from it nonetheless. I turned my chair to face directly south, so that I could watch both sets of lightning as they sparred around me with each strike punctuated by an accompany blast of thunder that seemed instantaneous.

It was only then that I wondered, how safe I was sitting on an aluminum chair, beneath a tree, and some power lines as the heavens battled for my steadily vanishing, blue sky. Each side threatened to steal it; the opposing sides’ taunts both equally loud. It was hard to tell who took it first.

Staring directly up, I watched as the two fronts collided, and erased the trace of blue from all but memory. No sooner had they met, I was pelted by a curtain of heavy rain. I clambered for the safety of my doorway.

In the threshold I stood getting dripped on by the runoff from the roof. I wanted one last flash of lightning. I was waiting to see what side was the victor, but now that there was no more blue to quarrel over, neither seemed to be forthcoming with any more answers.

Too wet to continue I turned and went inside, and as I shut the door I saw a flash from the corner of my eye, taunting me.

“Who won?” I thought, turning to look. And then I heard the sirens and realized that it was nature.

True Story

The old lady waddled into my office. “Hi,” she greeted me. “Do you know anything about audio/visual connections?” She started fidgeting with her hands nervously, like a child asking their parents if they can have a sleepover. I wondered if she was nervous about the equipment she was trying to set up or if she was like me—afraid to ask people questions.

I’m also afraid when people ask me for help. I really do want to help them, but even when I try my hardest, sometimes I still let them down. I really just wanted to tell her, “Nope, sorry. I’ve never heard of audio/visual connections and I definitely don’t know anything about projectors, computers, VCRs, or DVD players either.” But this lady seemed nice, and curses, she did look really scared about something, so I decided to be kind and take the risk of looking like a fool. “I know a bit. Do you need help with something?”

“Well, we’re having a class...” She didn’t bother to finish her sentence. Instead, she stared at me like a lost puppy, or at least like a lost old woman.

“Okay, where is it?” I prod as I stand up, encouraging her to lead the way while I cringe inside. A class? I’m going to make a fool of myself in a class? How many people are going to watch me try to figure something out that I’ve never seen before? Crap crap crap crap crap!

“It’s just down here,” she replied as she guided me down the hallway. “We’re in the room with the people waving their arms.”

People waving their arms? I didn’t see anyone waving their arms. I looked around, but I saw no signs of arm-waving weirdos.

Instead, I saw a classroom full of old people, and a very tall, serious, scary man at the front of the classroom trying to figure out the multimedia system.

I froze at the doorway. Probably not the best way to act like you know what you are doing, but that’s what I did. I looked around the room.

Most of the people were sitting at desks, but there was a lady standing and pushing buttons on a control in what seemed to be a random fashion. I looked toward the projection of the menu she was navigating. It was completely foreign to me.

The scary tall serious man at the front of the room spoke. “Do you know how to set this up?”

No, I whimper to myself. “I can try,” I say to him.

The lady tries to hand me the remote. I look disdainfully at it, knowing that I wouldn’t be any better with it than she is. I tell her to hold on to it for a moment as I approach the front of the classroom, toward the computer desk.

As I get nearer, the scary old man comes closer to me, so I walk faster so that he doesn’t intercept my path. I also fix my gaze on the computer when suddenly...

Something seems familiar. I see the computer and hiding next to it is a small touch-screen monitor. I suck in my breath and pray that the little monitor is really the controls for the classroom. I’ve used controls like that before.

I touch the screen and it wakes up. I remind myself not to giggle at my success. It is a control system, but it looks different from the ones I’ve used. I stare at it for a moment and, to buy time, I ask the scary man, “What are you trying to do? Do you need the computer or a DVD player?” I try to read all of the buttons as fast as I can while he responds.

“Actually, it’s a tape.”

A tape? There’s no button for tape. No button for cassette either. Crap crap crap...

“We’re trying to watch a movie,” he clarifies.

Oh! A VHS! I click a few buttons on the menu searching for the VHS output, and...

I find it! Score! I hit it like a whack-a-mole and viola! The picture is playing on the projector.

“There you go,” I say entirely too quickly for anyone to understand me. I rush for the exit. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here.

“Wait,” the scary man calls.

I turn around with a smile, a lying smile that says I have all the time in the world and all I want to do is make his life easier.

“The sound,” he says.

Honestly, if he doesn’t know how to operate this stuff, how did he get this room in the first place?

“Uh,” I say idiotically as I make my way back to the little monitor. I’ve never had to use sound before. I don’t even know if there’s a sound menu.

I almost cried in relief when I saw the touch-screen menu. It had very few buttons now: play, pause, stop, rewind, fast forward, and VOLUME. I took all of the sounds off mute (after warning all the old people that they might want to plug their ears in case it was loud). That was the easiest solution of the day.

After solving two problems in a row, I felt much more comfortable in that room. The best part was that all of the old people started praising and thanking me. I was a hero! And I really didn’t do anything, now that I thought about it.

It was a good feeling. And it wasn’t even ruined when my coworker told me that he just puked because Taco Time gave them a beef burrito instead of his veggie request. He’s Indian. Not such a great day for him.

Foreword

I've been admitted to a group called the Inkers. It's a group of writers and mentors, and I've asked some of them to be guest bloggers here. They love writing, and that's what they'll talk about if they post on my blog. I'm giving you a heads up so you don't think someone hacked into my account. I'll also introduce them to remind you before I publish their post.