Sunday, November 30, 2008
Z is for Zion
"One of the greatest challenges we will face is to be able to live in that world but somehow not be of that world. We have to create Zion in the midst of Babylon.“Zion in the midst of Babylon.” What a luminous and incandescent phrase, as a light shining in the midst of spiritual darkness. What a concept to hold close to our hearts, as we see Babylon becoming more widespread. We see Babylon in our cities; we see Babylon in our communities; we see Babylon everywhere.
And with the encroachment of Babylon, we have to create Zion in the midst of it. We should not allow ourselves to be engulfed by the culture which surrounds us. We seldom realize the extent to which we are a product of the culture of our place and time."
-David R Stone
I did a post earlier about Temples and Adam did one about Las Vegas. The other day I was driving home from UNLV which takes me right down Tropicana past the strip. As I was doing this I was listening to some hymns on my Ipod. At that moment I felt so removed from Babylon and started thinking of my wonderful Institute classes which are very much in UNLV but not of UNLV. I thought about my amazing ward which has welcomed us with open arms and let us into their homes. I thought of the beautiful temple which we are blessed with and I thought of some pictures (Above) which seem to epitomize Zion in Babylon.
Zion is a state of mind. It is a place of spiritual enlightenment. A place designated for God's work to be fulfilled a sanctuary for the pure in heart. I'm grateful to be surrounded by the love of God and to be amid the wonderful people of the world who surround me in my Zion.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Y is for Young Women!
I have loved my calling and I am so grateful to be with the Young Women. In some ways, we are pretty lucky for having such a small group. There are about 17 active girls in our group. I am a beehive adviser. I think we are lucky because we all love each other. If there is ever an issue among the girls at school it is quickly resolved. The older girls are beautiful examples to the younger girls and the younger girls watch closely. Because I am so young at times I feel like I'm one of them lol. Last night they were shocked to find out that I had a facebook account... if my young women think I'm too old for a facebook maybe I should get rid of it lol.
Last week we had our first "movie night" at my house. I wanted a girls night and who better to hang out with than your sisters! It was a spur of the moment thing and so only three girls were able to come, but most of them will be coming over in a couple weeks to watch another movie and have treats. It was so fun to hear about their boy drama and dance plans and different activities.
The girls love to tease me for my little idiosyncrasies. The other day I realized that one of the girls I'm really close with is the exact same age as Megan- no wonder I like her so much. At first I felt intimidated but the girls are so warm and welcoming. I've never met a group of females so sweet and unselfish, so loving and so happy! These girls know who they are.
One of the councilors in the stake presidency came to visit us on Sunday. He was inspired to let us know that he knew the young women of our ward truly knew that they were daughters of Heavenly Father and that he loves them. I know in my heart that they each feel that. We've also had several of them bring friends to activities and church and invite them over to their homes to hear the missionary discussions. Two new girls were baptized recently and the love felt among all the girls helps them to feel welcome. We also have one sweet beehive girl who has been coming to church for years but has not been baptized because of her parents. She bore the sweetest testimony of living the standards of the LDS church and how it helps her to be a better person and that she knows the church is true and can't wait to be baptized one day.
I love my YW group! I think they are awesome and I'm so grateful to be able to be a part of something so wonderful!
Last week we had our first "movie night" at my house. I wanted a girls night and who better to hang out with than your sisters! It was a spur of the moment thing and so only three girls were able to come, but most of them will be coming over in a couple weeks to watch another movie and have treats. It was so fun to hear about their boy drama and dance plans and different activities.
The girls love to tease me for my little idiosyncrasies. The other day I realized that one of the girls I'm really close with is the exact same age as Megan- no wonder I like her so much. At first I felt intimidated but the girls are so warm and welcoming. I've never met a group of females so sweet and unselfish, so loving and so happy! These girls know who they are.
One of the councilors in the stake presidency came to visit us on Sunday. He was inspired to let us know that he knew the young women of our ward truly knew that they were daughters of Heavenly Father and that he loves them. I know in my heart that they each feel that. We've also had several of them bring friends to activities and church and invite them over to their homes to hear the missionary discussions. Two new girls were baptized recently and the love felt among all the girls helps them to feel welcome. We also have one sweet beehive girl who has been coming to church for years but has not been baptized because of her parents. She bore the sweetest testimony of living the standards of the LDS church and how it helps her to be a better person and that she knows the church is true and can't wait to be baptized one day.
I love my YW group! I think they are awesome and I'm so grateful to be able to be a part of something so wonderful!
X is for X-MEN
Author: Adam Turney
The X-Men are a group of mutant super-heroes that merely want to fit in with their normal human counterparts. You see, they are considered homosapien superior and have genetically evolved so that they possess special powers which include telepathy, telekinesis, strength, metal/indestructible skin, speed, flying, control of the weather elements, absorption of thoughts and energies, teleportation, and so
many other cool abilities. When I was in elementary school I began reading the comic books and loved collecting the Uncanny X-Men comic books. There were multiple versions of the X-Men comic books, but I found the group that I enjoyed. They weren't too expensive to purchase, but looking back I am not sure how I afforded them. My best friend Josh collected them too so we would get together and read the new release for each month. We would talk about how cool each issue was and how we wish we could have our own powers. We had our favorite characters that we wish we could be and we even acted like we were them, shooting beams from our eyes, throwing playing cards expecting them to explode, and pretending like we could move objects with our minds.
Eventually, after years of patient waiting, they finally released movie versions of the X-Men. When the fir
st movie came out my guy friends all dragged our girl friends to the movie with us on the first day of release (it would be like our wives dragging us to see Twilight...ew). The movies were amazing to finally see our fantasies come true. Even though we did not get to see all the mutants we wanted to, it was still fantastic to finally see some of our favorites on the big screen. The movies got progressively better and it was exciting to see Cyclops die in the third movie...he has always been a big dorg even in the cartoon series. The third movie left the series open for another sequel but I have not seen any real information confirming this rumor.
My best friend and I collected the action figures and spent numerous hours playing with them. I remember one day at his house we took his sisters Barbie dolls and we made a
video with our action figures and the dolls. It was hilarious because we put the dolls on a boogie board and pretended like a villain sent them out to sea and they were going to be killed. We rescued them with our hero action figures and everything was happy again. We even filmed these silly stories with a video camera...those giant ones that we had back in the early 90's. The toys were great because they all had special actions they would perform (thus the name, action figures) and that is what made them better than dolls because they did more than just bend their knees and drive in pink Corvettes.
Today I do not play with the toys or read the comic books. I still have over 100 comics in a box at home and I am hoping that one day, 100 years from now, they will have some significant amount of value. I also have comic cards that go along with the books, which are similar to baseball cards but have pictures of the characters and a brief bio on the back. On my birthday while I was dating Melissa she surprised me with a comic book I had wanted for years, it was the first appearance of my favorite X-Men character...Gambit. I will forever have fond memories of my time reading the X-Men comic books, and I will forever get giddy when I read rumors about a new movie being released. Sadly, the other day we were in Borders Bookstore and I tried to read a new X-Men comic book and they just aren't as good as when I was a kid...so I doubt I will ever find myself reading them again.
The X-Men are a group of mutant super-heroes that merely want to fit in with their normal human counterparts. You see, they are considered homosapien superior and have genetically evolved so that they possess special powers which include telepathy, telekinesis, strength, metal/indestructible skin, speed, flying, control of the weather elements, absorption of thoughts and energies, teleportation, and so
many other cool abilities. When I was in elementary school I began reading the comic books and loved collecting the Uncanny X-Men comic books. There were multiple versions of the X-Men comic books, but I found the group that I enjoyed. They weren't too expensive to purchase, but looking back I am not sure how I afforded them. My best friend Josh collected them too so we would get together and read the new release for each month. We would talk about how cool each issue was and how we wish we could have our own powers. We had our favorite characters that we wish we could be and we even acted like we were them, shooting beams from our eyes, throwing playing cards expecting them to explode, and pretending like we could move objects with our minds.Eventually, after years of patient waiting, they finally released movie versions of the X-Men. When the fir
st movie came out my guy friends all dragged our girl friends to the movie with us on the first day of release (it would be like our wives dragging us to see Twilight...ew). The movies were amazing to finally see our fantasies come true. Even though we did not get to see all the mutants we wanted to, it was still fantastic to finally see some of our favorites on the big screen. The movies got progressively better and it was exciting to see Cyclops die in the third movie...he has always been a big dorg even in the cartoon series. The third movie left the series open for another sequel but I have not seen any real information confirming this rumor.My best friend and I collected the action figures and spent numerous hours playing with them. I remember one day at his house we took his sisters Barbie dolls and we made a
video with our action figures and the dolls. It was hilarious because we put the dolls on a boogie board and pretended like a villain sent them out to sea and they were going to be killed. We rescued them with our hero action figures and everything was happy again. We even filmed these silly stories with a video camera...those giant ones that we had back in the early 90's. The toys were great because they all had special actions they would perform (thus the name, action figures) and that is what made them better than dolls because they did more than just bend their knees and drive in pink Corvettes.
Today I do not play with the toys or read the comic books. I still have over 100 comics in a box at home and I am hoping that one day, 100 years from now, they will have some significant amount of value. I also have comic cards that go along with the books, which are similar to baseball cards but have pictures of the characters and a brief bio on the back. On my birthday while I was dating Melissa she surprised me with a comic book I had wanted for years, it was the first appearance of my favorite X-Men character...Gambit. I will forever have fond memories of my time reading the X-Men comic books, and I will forever get giddy when I read rumors about a new movie being released. Sadly, the other day we were in Borders Bookstore and I tried to read a new X-Men comic book and they just aren't as good as when I was a kid...so I doubt I will ever find myself reading them again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)