Mine Intent

For the fulness of mine intent is that I may persuade men to come unto the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and be saved.

Wherefore, the things which are pleasing unto the world I do not write, but the things which are pleasing unto God and unto those who are not of the world.

-Nephi

Immigration

Immigration

I had a conversation about immigration not too long ago with a few of my roommates, this is what we decided:

Lately I've been taking the bus to the mall, which has opened my eyes to the lower class of Provo, and all the unseemly things that BYU students are normally not exposed to in their day to day living. I've also had opportunities to talk to the bus drivers, who have seen it all. One time I was talking to a truck driver gone bus driver, who had literally driven through all of the lower 48 states. Talking to her confirmed to me again, there is a lot of space in this country.

Even driving down to St. George confirms it, there is a lot of space in Utah.

If there is all this space, why not just open up the borders and let all these huddled masses yearning to breath free be free? Let them come in and be productive and enhance this great country!

This is why not:

Everyone wants the benefits of being free. But not everyone who wants benefits wants to work for them. In that same group of huddled masses are those who want to be able to come in and be productive and enhance this great country! But there are also those who want something for nothing, they are tired of working hard to survive and want to live off of the wealth that others have generated. Providing for these people brings no return, they literally burn money on their lusts. Imagine taking a certain portion of your paycheck every month and burning it on the stove.

Naturally, I don't blame those who are in government positions who have realized this phenomena and therefore set up barriers to entrance. I think the words of Emma Lazarus poem could have been changed to: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, but only send those that are willing to work and be productive, we don't want your leeches."

Another problem with letting in the huddled masses is that unless otherwise coaxed, they will stay huddled in masses. This results in ghettoes. It's logical to stay together, but at the same time it then creates barriers and disunity with the locals. If huddled masses were allowed to come in large groups it could be quite unsettling when all of a sudden local legislature is taken over by new comers. In summary: immigrants need to integrate. Otherwise they aren't becoming part of the country, they are becoming they're own country in the middle of some else's.

If these two criteria are met: the immigrants are productive, and the immigrants are integrating. Let them come! The more the merrier! From what I've seen, we have plenty of room!

Hope Cycle

The Hope Cycle

Hope - Faith - Law - Happiness (-more hope)

Definitions:

Hope: is a belief that you can be happy

Faith: is action based on hope

Law: is action conformed to criteria

Happiness: the result of living certain laws. ( once happiness is obtained, your hope in that course of action is increased )

Examples:

A boy sees a cute girl in an ad smiling and drinking a Coke. The boy believes the girl is happy. He doesn't know for sure, but he has enough hope that happiness might be found here that he decides to act. The law, or criteria of action to obtain this happiness is simple, one must drink a Coke. The boy conforms to the criteria and drinks a Coke. The result, the high levels of fructose corn syrup and sugar spike his insulin levels and and gives him a quick surge of energy. It was a nice feeling, but the result did not fill any of the boy's real needs. The boy realizes that this course of action produces quick surges of energy, but is not the happiness he is in search for.

Someone hears that if they avoid judging others too quickly they will be happy. This person decides to conform to this law by postponing judgement out of a hope that they will be happy because of it. Soon the person finds that because they didn't judge so quickly they have gained several friends that they normally wouldn't have had.

God and law:

The glory of God is intelligence, or light and truth. (D&C 93: 29-30, 36) Truth is a knowledge of how things are, were, and will be.(D&C 93: 24) This includes a knowledge of laws that bring happiness. God knows what actions we need to conform to in order to be happy. God shares this knowledge through prophets: www.mormon.org

Some people wonder why religious people conform to laws. Some assume it is out of fear in something that is not true. If people conform out of fear in something that is false this is sad.

Some religious people conform because they are hoping in something that isn't true, this is also sad.

Finally, intelligent people conform out of hope in something that is true. By conforming they reap the result, and when they realize they are happy this increases their hope, and the cycle continues.

I invite you to find happiness through living the hope cycle. Find a law, live it, and if it brings you true happiness, keep living it!

17 If any man will ^ado his ^bwill, he shall ^cknow of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.

John 7: 17

Mustard Seed

Faith as a Mustard Seed

Recently I read this scripture in Matthew 17:20

"...for verily I say unto you, If ye have ^bfaith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this ^cmountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove;"

I was intrigued by the choice of word "as" instead of "the size of."

I think when most people hear this scripture they think of faith the size of a mustard seed. Meaning, if they put forth just a little tiny bit of faith, mountains will move. I believe this can be true, sometimes all it takes is a couple washings in the Jordan River to heal a leper. (2 Kings 5:10) But I was also intrigued by the interpretation this way:

If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed has faith.

Do mustard seeds have faith? I think they do, faith is the agent by which all intelligent beings act, not that mustard seeds are the most intelligent creation around, but they are living things. They exercise that faith in growing, otherwise why on earth would they bother breaking out of that dirt in the first place? The hope that anything is worth while is always the motivation for action. Which action is not based off of a sure knowledge, there is still some risk involved, and this is faith: Acting without a sure knowledge of something. ( and it is after the trial of that faith comes the witness, or knowledge. (Ether 12:6)).

In other words, I'm claiming that faith as a mustard seed is not related to the size of the mustard seed, but to the amount of work that the mustard seed goes through to become a mustard tree.

This seems like a more realistic promise. I'm more apt to believe that God will move mountains for those people who would be willing to pull out their shovels and say, "Somehow, I'm going to move this mountain!" and then start digging. Or as President Uchtdorf explains:

“When our wagon gets stuck in the mud, God is much more likely to assist the man who gets out to push than the man who merely raises his voice in prayer—no matter how eloquent the oration.”

Healthy Living

Big and Ripped Cycles

Recently I upgraded my workout and eating routines. Most of my research I pulled from websites of people who were very health conscious, and in great shape. Here is what I learned:

To get big, and ripped, (not too big, or dangerously ripped, I mean healthy) is a goal of a lot of people I know. But it isn't possible to get big and ripped at the same time, they need to be broken into cycles. To get big a muscle needs ample amounts of water, carbs, and protein surrounding it all the time. This means that during a big cycle one would be carrying a little bit extra on them, and eating and drinking a little bit extra. On the reverse, in order to get ripped, a muscle needs just less then enough so that it starts pulling from the bodies reserves, but not so little that it starts breaking down other muscles as fuel.

It isn't possible to have more than enough, and less than enough at the same time. Getting big and ripped is like walking: you take one step to get big, and one step to get ripped.

BIG CYCLE

TIME: 2-3 weeks

WORKOUT: Warm up your muscles by lifting some light weights. Lift the heaviest thing that you can lift four to six times. Take a little break. Now go back and do it again as much as you can. Take another break and then top off the workout by lifting what ever makes you feel good.

RECOVER: Only lift that muscle group once a week. It takes about a week for a muscle to fully recover. In the mean time eat a lot of healthy food and get about 8 hours of sleep a day. On the other days of the week work different muscle groups.

EAT: Eat enough that you feel like you have ample energy. You can eat whatever you want as long as it is in the right proportion. Cake? Sure, you can eat cake, but you will only eat about one slice of it per week to keep it in the correct proportion. Here are the foods that should take up most of your diet:

-Whole grain, Oats, Brown Rice, and Vegetables | Balanced with a little bit of meat or milk

-A fruit when you want some extra energy

Everything else should only be occasional, cakes and things are great for special occasions, but they do not build your body. BE CAREFUL: A lot of food companies sell foods and advertise them as everyday staples, but they aren't. White bread is a snack, not a staple. Fast foods, pizzas, these things are snack material.

Drink lots of water. For everything you eat, imagine that that food is broken up and needs to float somewhere. How much water are you going to have to drink to move that food around? Now drink that.

Ripped Cycle

TIME: 2-3 weeks

WORKOUT: Warm up your muscles by lifting some light weights. Take your heaviest weight that you can lift and cut it in half. Now lift that as many times as you can. Take a little break. Now go back and lift that same weight as fast as you can as many times as you can.

RECOVER: The same as before: Only lift that muscle group once a week. It takes about a week for a muscle to fully recover. In the mean time eat a lot of healthy food and get about 8 hours of sleep a day. On the other days of the week work different muscle groups.

EAT: Eat the same things as mentioned above, but slightly less food, and a little bit more water. Cold water burns calories because it cools your body down so your body has to work harder to maintain state. It also makes it easier for your body to break down its fat stores.

I encourage you to experiment with healthy living and this information, see what it can do for you!

0$ Chicken Coop

The 0$ Chicken Coop

Yesterday I met with a guy who sold a table saw to my roommate's brother. I was interested in his CNC machine, which he built himself. He lived several blocks from campus, in an area that was populated by small houses in regards to apartment complexes. The residents of these houses appeared to be graduates that had not yet married, but who hadn't continued on to grad school or left Provo in pursuit of work. Most of them appeared to be miniature Entrepreneurs, DIY's ( Do-it-yourself-'s) running out of home businesses from their small houses or barns turned into shops.

My contact also was running a business out of his barn shop. His barn was equipped with saws and routers and a brick kiln as well as his CNC machine. There were also several wooden electric guitar bodies scattered around which they had milled out with the CNC.

After asking a few questions about the machine another guy walked in and asked us if we could help him move his chicken coop. He needed several people to lift it so I offered to help as well.

We all hopped into the bed of his small red truck and drove to his house. In the back was his chicken coop with about 5 chickens living in it. He proceeded to hand us chickens and we would stick them in the coop. At one point of our moving preparations he looked at me and said, " This is a 0$ chicken coop! Made completely out of scrap material!"

We all grabbed corners of the coop and set it sideways on his truck, it didn't fit in the bed itself, and even sideways it left two of us standing on the tail gate which he left down, with the coop protruding about 2 1/2 feet out of both sides of the truck. The wait of the coop was so much that the back wheels looked like they were in danger, and that was before we hopped onto the gate.

We drove several blocks around Provo, finally deciding that the best place to put the coop was in front of my contacts house in a neighbors old garden. That's where I took the picture.

The difference..

I was intrigued by the ambition of these people. They were applying the value for value trade over and over again, and as a result were having a certain amount of success, but they definitely weren't the multi-millionaire that I had learned the principle from. What made the difference?

I believe the solution lies in their target market. To make a million dollars, you will either have to provide something that one million people will think is worth trading a dollar for, or that one person is willing to trade a million dollars for, or anything in between. The electric guitar market is completely saturated, even for custom guitars.

It intrigues me that the way then to make money is to find what people value and then to provide it to them. Or in other words, service.

Rocks and Waves

Service as a staple..

A couple months ago as I was going through some girl drama I realized that the particular girl I was interested in was acting very much like a wave. Sometimes she would show a lot of interest, and other times she would be very cold. Riding this wave made me sea-sick, and at one particular low I had a profound realization. Basing one's happiness on waves is a false happiness.

I went to my large whiteboard that I have in my kitchen and wrote down all of the waves in my life. This including money, power, popularity, and in that case, girls. ( which offended my roommate ) so for his sake and other's I write this disclaimer: the term girls represented my experience of basing happiness off of the conditional love that I was receiving from this girl. Girls are great! It's creating a need/dependent relationship on them that isn't healthy for either side..

Which brings me to my realization. I was basing my happiness on how this girl treated me, which was wave like, but how I treated her was in my control, which meant it could be constant, like a rock.

I decided then and there to base my happiness only on rocks. Constants. This does not mean that there isn't happiness in waves, honestly when you are on top it feels great! But the downside is that the wave will ultimately, at some point, fall.

When climbing rocks, on the other hand, the higher you get, the better the view. And the altitude you get you keep.

It's simply a matter of choosing which form of happiness one will pursue, one that rises but then disappears, or one that lasts. I prefer those that last.

Service

On the other side of my whiteboard I wrote down a list of constants. How I choose to act is something that I will always have control over, regardless of what opportunities are available to me. Since choosing to serve others brings me happiness, and increases how I value myself, I knew that it is something I could depend on, a staple for happiness.

Service for the sake of improving oneself, and not for the sake of recognition or compensation, can be quite an adjustment form the pursuit of momentary happiness that is obtained from waves. Waves and rocks are very different in nature, but after one has made the switch they quickly find out that it is a much more gratifying and lasting happiness.

Considering this, I invite you to serve others, not for the sake of how those you serve will react, but for how you will feel about yourself.