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Well, I’m back.

Las Vegas was great. More correctly, the people were great, and Las Vegas is dirty and big and sinful and hot, but I loved my mission.

More to come later. I still don’t have access to my money, and bills are due soon!

I’ve been closing shop, so to speak, since I leave for my mission in a few weeks. My websites are mostly closed down, but they’re still online. I’ve been studying/preparing/packing more, and blogging less.

I just backed up the database and don’t want an out-of-date backup of my blog, too. But the backup needs to be stored away while I’m gone… so I think it’s about time for blog posts to come to an end.

You can stay updated with my mission by going to my main website (the terminal) for more information.

God speed

I’ve been busy working on other things… posts may be slow for the next couple weeks as I finish up some things before my mission.

“What we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.”

- Powell

Everyone knows this one…

“And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.”

- 1 Nephi 3:7

I sold my iPod Touch this week so it doesn’t go unused during my mission. However, that means that I can’t use the awesome Scriptures app I was using to save, read, and search the standard works (and actually quite a bit more than just the standard works).

Give me a day to adjust to using paper scriptures again… I know… pathetic, right?

We know the three greatest sins are, in this order:

1. Deny the Holy Ghost – Unpardonable
2. Murder – Unforgivable
3. Sex-related – Hard to be forgiven of

These are related. They are most serious because they all mess with the power of life, which is the power of God; it is the power that God has.

1. Deny the Holy Ghost – Permanent destruction of spiritual life
2. Murder – Unauthorized taking of life
3. Sex-related – Unauthorized giving of life

There is no recompense for the unpardonable sin, that is to receive a perfect knowledge of the nature of God and to outright deny and betray it (citation needed — I know). The unforgivable sin is not covered by the Atonement of Christ. That remission must come from our own suffering and repentance, and it cannot be achieved in this life.

Murder is not made remiss by the Atonement — but did Jesus suffer that anyway?

Thought this was interesting.

“Brother [Wilford] Woodruff spoke… He refered [sic] to a saying of Joseph Smith which he heard him utter (like this) That if the People knew what was behind the vail, they would try by every means to commit suicide that they might get there, but the Lord in his wisdom had implanted the fear of death in every person that they might cling to life and thus accomplish the designs of their creator.”

- Diary of Charles Lowell Walked, ed. By A. Karl Larson and Katherine M. Larson [Logan, Ut.: Utah State University Press, 1980] vol. 1, pp. 465-466.

I was watching Perseids last night (the big meteor shower of the year) and saw a lot of neat spectacles, including airplanes, orbiting satellites, meteors, planets, stars, geosynchronous satellites, the edge of the galaxy, and the moon. Gosh it’s a big place up there; you look at the dimly-lit horizon and see all the stars and think that you’re just on a rotating piece of dirt. A very, very special rotating piece of dirt. So I was thinking, the universe is really big.

And it was organized under the direction of an intelligent beings — a god, no less.

“Do not allow darkness and gloom to enter into your hearts. I want to give you a rule by which you may know that the spirit which you have is the right spirit. The Spirit of God produces cheerfulness, joy, light and good feelings. Whenever you feel gloomy and despondent and are downcast, unless it be for your sins, you may know it is not the Spirit of God which you have. Fight against it and drive it out of your heart. The Spirit of God is a spirit of hope; it is not a spirit of gloom.”

“There is nothing on earth, nothing that man can taste or experience that is so sweet, so happifying, so full of delight, as the presence of the Spirit of God. It fills the soul with joy that is inexpressible.”

– George Q. Cannon, Deseret Weekly, January 14, 1987, 48:351; also “Gospel Truth,” page 144

And,

“Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.”

– 2 Nephi 2:25