Music Improvisation

"Music...can at the same time belong to the patient's world and be part of reality perceived by the senses of hearing, seeing, and touching." (Alvin, 1966, p. 138) 

Audible, visual, tangible thoughts. =) I love music.

Humility and Confidence - Ammon

One of my current scripture study projects right now is to see what the disciples and prophets and followers of Christ in the scriptures say about themselves. Is confidence the same as pride? Is it possible to have confidence and humility at the same time? How?

Here is a quote from Ammon, one of the sons of Mosiah, after his mission to the Lamanites:

10 And it came to pass that when Ammon had said these words, his brother Aaron rebuked him, saying: Ammon, I fear that thy joy doth carry thee away unto boasting.

11 But Ammon said unto him: I do not boast in my own strength, nor in my own wisdom; but behold, my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and I will rejoice in my God.

12 Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.

13 Behold, how many thousands of our brethren has he loosed from the pains of hell; and they are brought to sing redeeming love, and this because of the power of his word which is in us, therefore have we not great reason to rejoice?

(Alma 26)

The green text means that he is talking about himself and/the others with him. The red text is when he is talking about Jesus Christ. As seen by looking at the green text, he expresses both humility and confidence. He says "I do not boast," "I am nothing," and "I am weak." But he also says "I can do all things" and "we have wrought many mighty miracles" and "the power which is in us has saved our brethren." How does that work? How does someone who is weak do all things?

Then, by looking at the red text, it's seen that something confident (and green) is never said without red text nearby. Instead of just "I can do all things" it's "In his strength I can do all things." "We have wrought many might miracles, for which we will praise his name forever." Not just "the power which is in us," but "the power of his word which is in us."

Ammon's example shows that confidently talking about oneself alone might be boasting, and our words might be false, but when we talk confidently about the team "the Savior and me" or "the Savior and us," we're not boasting, we're praising God.

The difference is Jesus Christ.

The take-away I get from this is that I shouldn't express confidence in myself alone. When I express confidence, my goal is to include (either out loud or at least in my head [to keep me humble]) an acknowledgement that anything good that I've done only happened through the help of Jesus Christ.

Not only will it keep me humble, I believe it will also keep me happier, because I can look forward to more great things, as I know that Christ will never run out of the power or the love to help me.

Why so happy?

So, I was able to to do a lot of awesome family history work today! I found people who hadn't been entered into FamilySearch yet! And I can do their temple work! Well, several were men, so I'll need to find a kind male to help me. But yeah! I'm doing REAL family history!! This descendency research idea is working well for me! =) It's odd, but good, how happy my family history success has made me. It's helping me out of my mini-depression I've had for the last few weeks. For which I'm very very grateful. I'm grateful the Lord led me to do this. And after years of off-and-on trying, I'm so grateful to finally be having success!!!

Brand New Day

Feeling better now. This is my new theme song. I'm in love with it. And the sun completely agrees with me today. =)

My Occasional Grouchy Post

We all have our bad days. I won't go into everything. But I'll admit that sometimes I just want to kick something - really hard - because I'm really tired and frustrated of being alone. End of story.

Next post will probably be happy.

And maybe I'll delete this one later. We'll see.

Missionary reawakening

Well... a lot has probably gone on since I've written. I won't try to catch up on everything right now, but I did want to mention that I have a new desire to do missionary work. Part of it was talking to the sister missionaries for a while during the Saturday Institute thing (the "When Thou Art Converted" conference). And we're gonna start doing visits again to the girls in our Relief Society, so I'm gonna feel tons better pretty soon here.

Not focusing on boys is going really well. I'm grateful the Lord let me know not to worry about it this semester. It helps a lot to know that I don't need to, and shouldn't, be thinking about it right now. Much better than wondering if I should be giving it more thought, and just being wavering and confused. So I'm grateful. I just prepare by learning how to better serve and do the Lord's will, and how to give Him my whole heart, might, mind, and soul.

Trying to have faith that being 25 will be at least as awesome as being 24! I only have a few days left... =) So much incredible stuff has happened this year. 24 was epic, but 25 will be, as I've said before, amazingly beautiful. =)

One more thing I want to mention is that the Spirit of Elijah is working on me. The rest of life feels like an interruption from doing my family history work... I have a lot of excitement for doing descendency research and finding people to do the work for. It's going to be great. =)

Preparation

I've never noticed before how well-prepared the people of King Benjamin's day were. They had worked to get rid of all contention in the land, and everyone had love towards their fellow men. That takes a lot of work and help from God! They were diligent in keeping the law of Moses, as they brought animals to sacrifice, in order to keep the law of Moses and to show gratitude. They wanted to hear the word of God from their king and prophet, and were willing to gather (and with pretty short notice) in order to do so, and they brought their whole families as well. I'm just really impressed by the goodness and diligence and preparation of these people. It's my opinion that they couldn't have had the marvelous discourse, experience, and change of heart that takes place in Mosiah 2-5 if they hadn't prepared themselves first through their charity, obedience, diligence, and gratitude.

What amazing experiences are we missing out on by not preparing ourselves? How awesome will our future be if we do choose to prepare as they did?

Goosenest

Today was packed. Much cleaning, running, talking, eating, and being with family the whole time. My dad and I went running on one of the local high school tracks, and then dropped me off on Goosenest to run home from there, as part of my half-marathon training. I didn't run the whole time. I'm definitely not used to hills, or running in the cold. But it was a beautiful day. I hope that I can be ready for the race by May!

Life is pretty good. I absolutely love the fact that my dad and I are getting along so well. Some prayers take years to be answered, but they are answered. =)