Frisbee and God’s Everlasting Love

I’m sad to say Frisbee season is over.

I signed up along with Jeremy at the beginning of the semester on the ‘free agent list’ meaning the list of people who don’t know enough people to make a team. And I got lucky! I had the coolest team ever. Our first game was a solid hour scrimmage against ourselves and a few friends everyone had brought to the first game. This was made possible by one of the ‘real’ teams not showing up. But we had everyone. And we were good. Our team name became The Voldemorts. (apparently something to do with the office I never understood)

In truth all I was thinking when I signed up was “ So they organize a Frisbee game and make sure you get to play every week? Cool!” But I got more than that. I met a lot of really cool people and we kicked trash on the Frisbee field with only two regular season losses (one in triple overtime).

Last night we were kicked out of the single round elimination tournament, playing the 1st ranked pyroneers. Truth be told there were some very sketchy aspects of their win. But I came just to play Frisbee. Mission accomplished. Thank you Voldemorts!

On another note. I will be singing in Utah! Yep. Apparently every two years BYU Idaho pays a composer to create an entirely original sacred oratorio. The text is traditionally scripture dealing with the restoration. This year is the first year they are using a modern day prophets word as the text. The text for ‘God’s Everlasting Love’ Is by Elder Bednar. And the piece is composed by Robert Cundick. It Sounds absolutely amazing!

And we’re going to perform it in the tabernacle on temple square! So if you can make it I would love to see familiar faces there. We will be performing. November 14th at 7:30 as far as I know tickets are free and can be obtained online through temple square events. I’m really very excited to be a part of this performance.

Here ‘tis the link: http://www.lds.org/events/info/0,8197,726-1-739,00.html

Static

I know the last post really wasn’t all that adequate.

But recently it seems like all I have going on in my head is static.

Have you ever had enough going on in your head that it just cancels its’ self out and all that you can make sense of it is static? Sometimes it makes sense and a few words come out but immediately after they don’t make sense anymore and you’re left with static again. Yeah… Its not all bad. I really am fine. Just have enough going on in my head that it’s not coming out right away. 

I promise (for anyone interested) I’ll post again and actually put something here but for now all that I'm getting out of my head is……

Static.

In the end Life Is Good. :)

Yeah...

So...I miss my Family.

End of story.

March to the Sound of the Guns

The title is how Elder Dallin H Oaks started his talk today at devotional.

And what a great Devotional.

I was privileged to sing in this devotional. (And thus guaranteed a ticket to the Hart auditorium :) We sang Hope of Israel and it went very well. I enjoy that song and it was just as powerful as it could have been.

Singing aside, Elder Oaks talk was something to behold. He spoke of a war that we are in. But not the war with Satan that has been going on since the war in heaven. And not the war with the natural man that we all must face. He dealt with a slightly more temporal war though not without real ramifications.

Elder Oaks addressed the increasing loss of religious freedom in our country and spoke of it very much with the same rhetoric that we ascribe to the war with Satan. It really was powerful to hear an apostle of the Lord give such a definitive and direct speech.

A few highlights I wrote are as follows:

after speaking about the process of gaining religious freedom and how many nations are on their way to gaining that freedom he stated that the United States has had at its core the most religious freedom allotted to man. He confirmed that the constitution was ordained of God and then quoted the first amendment, and stated he was going to focus on the clause “No law prohibiting the free exercise thereof (religion)”

He said the conflict of religious freedom is in need of our defending. and named at least two major problems in our society that we must address:

1. Silencing Religious voices in the public square.

2. Religious freedoms diluted by other ‘new’ and in some cases ‘Alleged’ civil rights.

He also gave five ways we should conduct ourselves in our fight to defend religious freedom.

1.Speak with love and be patient.

2. Do not be deterred by intimidation or oppression.

3.Insist on freedom to teach our doctrine.

4. Know and defend that we have a right to speak publically but we must be wise in our political engagements.

5. Never support the idea that someone should adhere to some religious test for public office. (against the constitution.)

He made it quite clear that the problems he addressed are going to be the problems that we will face in our lifetime. So it is up to the ‘Hope of Israel’ to make the difference dealing with religious freedom in our age.

I know my paraphrasing does not do justice to everything that Elder Oaks discussed. So I encourage anyone who is interested to look up the talk. It can be watched on: http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/apostle-says-religious-freedom-is-being-threatened

Or read: http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/religious-freedom

It is worth the time.

Guess what? There IS Snow on the Ground!

Yep. it’s been snowing all morning. And probably most of the night. Now not too much is sticking. It’s still a first snow, when it just sticks to trees and grass and melts as soon as it hits the sidewalks and roads. But it’s snow and it really is beautiful. I know I’ll eat these words but it is nice. It’s clean and not too cold now.

Conference was amazing. Elder Holland is still one of my favorites who just tells you how it is. Conference weekend was enjoyable. Good friends, Good food, Good fun. Can’t beat that.

Let’s see any other random junk….?

I beat Jeremy again at Racquetball. My ultimate Frisbee team is amazing and undefeated. And…Life Is Good.

And that’s a Win!

Oh man finally!

I Have BEATEN Jeremy at racquetball!

In case you’re wondering this makes one win in like 60-70 games in the time that we’ve been up here at Idaho. We just sit there realizing neither of us wants to do homework so we look at our clock and say… “5:00 time for racquetball.” and we proceed to the hart building where we usually play 3-4 games Eric losing every one.

But today

A WIN!

Jeremy is still the master and I am still the Padawan but nevertheless it feels good.

In other news much like the rest of the mountain west its cold now. Just like that. One day shorts and t-shirts and then Pow! Snow on the ‘hills’ east of campus and a rain snow mix all day. But:

Life Is Good.