A Curious Instrument

God promises us blessings for our obedience. Sadly, we often forego our blessings in favor of something else we want. Sometimes, those blessings are of a physical nature - like a house or a piece of land. If we choose to be wicked, such things will be given to others who are more willing to be obedient. In the Book of Mormon, Mormon the prophet witnessed how evil his formerly righteous people had become and shared what could have been done to retain the land of prosperity that they had once enjoyed. Mormon 5: 19 And behold, the Lord hath reserved their blessings, which they might have received in the land, for the Gentiles who shall possess the land.  20 But behold, it shall come to pass that they shall be driven and scattered by the Gentiles; and after they have been driven and scattered by the Gentiles, behold, then will the Lord remember the covenant which he made unto Abraham and unto all the house of Israel.  21 And also the Lord will remember the prayers of the righteou...

Christ loves us enough to make some demands of us leading toward a life like his with the Father. They are not heavy demands, no matter what Laman and Lemuel from the early part of the Book of Mormon say.. 1 Nephi 16: 1 And now it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had made an end of speaking to my brethren, behold they [Laman and Lemuel] said unto me: Thou hast declared unto us hard things, more than we are able to bear. 2 And it came to pass that I said unto them that I knew that I had spoken hard things against the wicked, according to the truth; and the righteous have I justified, and testified that they should be lifted up at the last day; wherefore, the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center. 3 And now my brethren, if ye were righteous and were willing to hearken to the truth, and give heed unto it, that ye might walk uprightly before God, then ye would not murmur because of the truth, and say: Thou speakest hard things against us. God will turn...

In all of her years of work, she had never found herself so flustered. She had used up all the time that could be stolen from her duties in the crew rest compartments. She sighed deeply and slapped another nicotine patch over her collarbone but so much wanted a long drag from a cigarette a few thousand miles away. She heaved herself up and slogged her way back to her assigned station. She hated being called a flight attendant. Once upon a time, she was a stewardess with a miniskirt on smoke-filled planes full of businessmen, choosing her next boytoy from among them, secure in the fact that her looks and charm claimed every eye and opened every wallet. She has seen rooms and laid in beds in every airport hotel on two continents. It went without saying that every woman on every plane either loathed her or wanted to be her. Those were happy times. She still stays fit with aerobics and no one suspects with her east asian perfection that she is now something over 40 years old. She would hav...

We all hope desperately that God will not abandon us. There are plenty of scriptures that say that we can put our trust in the Lord and he will accept and help us if we turn to him in humility. From my perspective, the Lord's forgiving nature is real. However, any of us can go too far and have Christ turn his back on us forever. I know, it doesn't sound right, but you have to understand the concept of repentance.  If we change our evil natures toward the good, Christ will forgive us and help us in our changing. You can depend on this, of course. What I am talking of is those who reject Christ and do NOT repent (or make a change for the better). This doesn't apply if we are just wanting to avoid punishment without changing our natures. I worked in a prison once and I am very familiar with people who just want to do or say *anything* to get out of prison. Many will insincerely act good and try to "game" the system to get what they want.  These don't actually cha...

I spent many of my young adult years reading Don Lancaster in several technology magazines, I bought and devoured his TTL Cookbook as a teenager, and kept up with his website over the years.  He was a constant source of inspiration in electronics. He passed away today. https://gilaherald.com/obituary-for-don-lancaster/