Reflections of a True Millennial

So I deactivated my Facebook and now no one visits my blog. Oh well.      Well life is life. Right now is that stretch of time where you are so ready for the moment when the final school bell rings and you're free for three months, but you still have over a month to go in school. Looming tests and exams seem like distant fears that are just obstacles to get around before the freedom of summer. But these "obstacles" cause the pressure to rise as review sessions are held, homework increases, and studying inches its way further into the wee hours of the night. Juggling schoolwork, sleep, a social life, and Church becomes too much to handle. Often Church is pushed off to the side for the fear of failing school, the necessity of sleep, and the notion of not having a social life. What we are so quick to push away is actually so important. Scriptures and prayer become a second priority and up-keeping a sense of morals seems like to much of a burden in the overly mora...

     Happy Easter to everyone!     This is one of the greatest times of the year, it is the time where we celebrate the most important event in history- the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. At our Church this weekend, there was put on a performance of Act II of the play "Savior of the World." This play was produced in the year 2000 by the First Presidency of the Church as a testament of Christ and His life. Act II presents the time immediately following the death of Christ. Inexplicable grief is over the disciples of Christ as they mourn the fact that He has died. Mary Magdalene is grieving when Christ appears to her in the garden. At first she does not recognize Him, but when she feels it in her heart, she knows. Christ appears to others, and they as well do not recognize Him, except until they have felt His words in their hearts. The Apostle Thomas proclaims that he cannot believe Christ has risen until he has seen Him. When Jesus doe...

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! -- For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.                     -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow      Life is.... Well I don't really know what life is, but I know it seems pretty long. And throughout life there are a lot of places to go and a lot of people to see. Everyday contains something to do, a task to accomplish. It's easy to be caught up in the tiny mundane tasks we do each day and not pursue any real goals. Life without goals is boring. Imagine a soccer game without goals, it would be so boring. But the score would still be 0-0. Ha. Ha. But seriously, goals are the things that drive us! We wouldn't be laboring in our school classes if they didn't serve an ultimate purpose- to g...

     In 1979, President Jimmy Carter sai d, " For the first time in the history of our country the majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years." Since then, a sea of statistics have rushed out citing the downward fall of youth groups in America, and the increasing crisis of their future. Graduation rates have plummeted, the national debt has sky-rocketed, and many other detrimental  statistics  have been released. The slew of negative studies makes one long for the days of childhood, where life was carefree and tasks were menial. The future has been painted as a destitute time of despair. But forget all of that, the future is still a blank canvas. It is unique in the fact that it is the only time where we do not know what will occur. The projections show life becoming worse and worse, but that's not the way it needs to be.      In these early years of our life, it's important to define who we are...

     Your morning probably starts with a loud beeping penetrating your left ear, or maybe the radio suddenly clicking on and blaring the latest song. Either way, you feel around on the clock to find where to turn that annoying noise off. Then you grudgingly pull off the covers, plop your feet down on the floor, and take a step. Then another, and another, and another. Throughout the day, you take your steps across your home and school, across the practice field for your team, across the store, and just about everywhere else. Then your day culminates as you pull on your pajamas and take one last step into bed.      Steps are the little ways of progression to get where we need to go. One step won't get you far, but a series of steps will lead you to wherever you need to go. At times you don't want to step anyway, it may seem to laborious of a task to get from point A to point B. At other times, the desire to get somewhere new puts a certain spring in your ste...

     Up.      Up is the word of progression, the word that shows things are moving along nicely. It's a simple two-letter word, but has a whole array of connotations. The notion of moving up creates a sense of advancement, a sense of becoming something new. Up is used in the common term "growing up."      All of us grow up a little bit from day to day and from year to year. It's difficult to see any progression from day to day, but as the days string together to form weeks and months we begin to inch a little taller and enrich our minds more and more. Just from looking at the past school year in comparison to this school year, I can see a change in myself from the quiet new kid to the rambunctious sophomore that I am. And starting off as the "quiet Mormon" and becoming a bit louder, people wonder if I'm being "corrupted?" But another friend pointed out, it's not corruption, it's just growing up.      As we grow up,...

Here's a topic that you might be interested in: you. Because as a human being, your mind is almost defaulted to think about yourself first. To care about someone else often takes a conscious effort on our part, but for some people we automatically think about them first. If they've had a rough day, we let them tell their story. If they need help with something, it's like second nature to give them a hand. Those are the people we love. This past Tuesday we celebrated one of the most over-commercialized holidays of the year: Valentine's Day. But behind all the candy and gigantic stuffed teddy bears is the real reason for February 14th. It's a day to celebrate the people we love, not just your significant other, but your dearest friends and family members. It is times with these people, times like February 14th, where the desire to serve and love others is pretty strong. But what about all the rest of the time? What about those days where you are the one having a bad d...