On This Day 11 Years ago. . .

    Today is the 5th of July, 2014. Yesterday was my 3rd favorite holiday (behind Christmas and Mothers Day) Independence Day. Every year, this day for me usually entails picking up fireworks in the street from last night, and relaxing and sometimes going boating. But the 5th of July that has been most memorable for me was the one 11 years ago when I was Baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

    So 11 years ago today I just turned 8 years old on the 16th of June. Now for kids that grow up in the Church, turning 8 years old is a big deal, they all look forward to it and can't wait for it, because when they turn 8 that is when they can be Baptized.

    The reason why it's 8 is because that's the age that Heavenly Father knows that children are ready to be accountable for their own actions. Christ taught us that "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." So Children are those who will enter into the kingdom of Heaven, and those who become like them. And the Prophet Moroni in the Book of Mormon tell us why that is. That a doctor doesn't come to heal people that are healthy, but the sick. And Christ didn't come to save those who are without sin, but the sinners. And really think of the last time you held new born in your arms. Could you see, feel, or think of anything that this little one that would make them not worthy to enter into God's presence? Truth be told, I've only held one baby in my life, it was my baby niece right before I left, I was scared out of my mind I'd drop her. But the point is, that she is is perfect, and doesn't need any forgiveness.

    So anyway, when I as 7 turning 8 my parents, being the super awesome people they are never once imposed that I was going to be baptized when I turned 8. It was always my choice. It wasn't a "we're going to talk to the bishop and figure out when you are going to get baptized." kind of thing, or even a "when do you want to get baptized thing." they always made sure that it was my choice and something I wanted to do. Even though they are extremely strong members of the church, and they know that that is what I needed to do, they never once did anything like that. They taught me about Christ though, and why he was baptized. And about Joseph Smith and the Priesthood being restored. And about what was so important about Baptism and why we need it.


   I remember a few days after my 8th birthday I actually went to go ask my mom about my baptism, because I knew I needed to be baptized. I learned about it in Primary and from my Parents. And I wanted to be Baptized. I asked her something like "Mom, why haven't you or Dad talked about my baptism?" and She said back "Well do you want to be baptized?" I said, "Well yeah, I was wondering why we hadn't talked about it." The conversation went something like that, I can't quite remember it all, I was 8 years old, give me a break.

    So we got my baptism all set up and I only remember a few things of my baptism. One of them was that my older brother Andy was the one to baptize me. Another thing that my parents let me chose, who baptized me. Looking back I wasn't thinking at all. I don't know why but I didn't think at all that I should have my dad baptize me. But my first choice was to have my oldest brother Dave baptize me, but he was out of town working in Alaska at the time, and no I haven't really forgiven him yet for not being there for my baptism. But so he wasn't there so Andy was the one to do it, which was awesome. I remember practicing (out of water) with him in my parent's bedroom before hand. Another thing I remember was how weird it was going into the font and wearing long pants, it was thee weirdest feeling on my legs to go into water with pants on, another thing that proves I was only 8 at the time. Then I remember when I got the Holy Ghost, how many people were in the circle. My Dad was the one that Confirmed me. And in the Circle were my grandpa's, my uncles, and I'm pretty sure Brother Bovee was there, if not I really hope he was. But I remember how great the feeling was in that circle.

    So that is the story of my baptism. Now I don't remember all the details, but I do know that I was baptized by the proper authority of God. Now what I want to do next is to stop writing. This Monday (when us missionaries get to email home) I'm going to ask my mom to write what she remembers about my baptism, and find some pictures of it. I'm sure her account will be a lot more detailed (and factual) and I'm sure it will be a lot more meaningful. So I'll get that up soon, and I really hope that you read that one, a lot more then I hope you read this one.

   Love you all, be encouraged. Have fun. Be Nice.

Have Miracles Ceased?

    I was healed by the Power of God.

    Acts 3: 1-8
1. Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.
2. And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered int other temple;
3. Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms.
4. And Peter, Fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us.
5. And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them.
6. Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.
7. And he took him by the right hand, and lifter him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. 
8. And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.

    So here we have a tale from the Bible of a Miracle. A man, due to his mortal imperfections could not walk. But after the act of a man who held the Power of God, He Walked. 

    How Is This Possible?

    Nothing in natural science could possibly explain this, that a man who was crippled since birth could suddenly one day walk with out the need of surgeries, therapy or any kind of medical assistance. But simply a man walked up to the cripple, took him by the hand, helped him up, then he could walk. It Doesn't Make Sense!?! How Could It?!?

    The Power of the Priesthood
    

    In the Church of Jesus Christ, we have our core beliefs which are found in the 13 Article's and Faith written by Joseph Smith. 13 Articles of Faith. The Seventh article states that "we believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth." I have seen my brother healed by the Priesthood, after he fell onto a cement driveway onto his head, I've seen a close friend of mine healed after he fell 6 feet onto his head breaking a vertebrate in his neck (he's now walking and serving a mission in Japan) and now I want to add my testimony and experience to theirs.

    A Miracle

    So as we all know missionaries on their Preparation Days love to get together and play basketball. And if you've had a missionary out, then you would know that basketball is the cause of most missionaries injuries. So we were playing basketball on a Preparation Day and I went up for a rebound against good old Elder Howell and I got bumped in just the wrong way to dislocate my shoulder, again. I'd done it once before about a year ago, and once it's out the first time, it's really easy to pop it out again. 

    Now if any of you have popped your shoulder out of socket before, then you know. It's extremely painful. There's no other way to say it, it hurts a lot. And the kicker of it is that it is a constant pain. It doesn't reside, it just stays there until you get it put back in. 

Shoulders should not look like that

    So when I got bumped and it came out of place, and we had to figure out what do, the first thing was have the other Elders there give me a blessing. Now blessings are not given by out by our own will. It is only through the Lord's will that they come to pass. So when giving a blessing, having the Holy Ghost with you is a must, because he puts His words, in your mouth and then you know what to say and what to bless and promise with the blessing. For more information on blessings Elder Oaks give a great talk on it. So all the Elders got in a circle around me and placed their hands on my head, and the Elder acting as voice for the blessing gave an amazing inspired blessing. He blessed me that I would be healed, that I would be able to continue to function and work the rest of the day and the rest of the week. He said a few other things, then closed in the name of Jesus Christ. 

    My companion and I went to the urgent care center and got it put back in, not pleasant let me tell you, and the doctor there set me up for an appointment with his surgeon, a very well educated and experienced surgeon, to have him look at it to see if there was more we needed to do. I had to wear a sling around for two days, which wasn't a lot of fun, but I dealt with it because I wanted to make sure everything went right. We went to the surgeon and he worked with me for a bit and said that I would need surgery to tighten  my tendon's to keep it in place and it wouldn't be a permanent problem. And we know that  Haitian's Floss could work but would be only a temporary fix. But the real kicker was that the whole time I was thinking, "You got a Priesthood Blessing, and in it you were promised by the Spirit that you would be healed." I decided not to go with the surgery, and that I would do some therapy to strengthen it. But what I was really saying to myself was that I would put my trust in God's Power to help me.
everything up so that It wouldn't be a problem in the future. The surgery would have involved about a 5 day recovery where I really couldn't do anything, then a 5 week recovery of being in a cast, which means no bike riding (and if you've read about

    Now in logic sense and in most all circumstance I would completely agree with what the doctor said and agree with his judgement. And I am not saying to openly disregard a professional's advice, and counsel. They're smart. They've gone to tons of school for these things and they know what they are doing. Take there advice.

    But in this case I was promised by someone who was ordained and set apart as a servant of God and who was given " power to heal sicknesses" (Mark 3: 15) and the next day I woke up, took my sling off and haven't had to use it sense. I've been a little sore and stiff, but It's been almost two weeks and I've been riding my bike, out working all day, and even playing a little basketball (but definitely nothing very extreme). The only reason I can explain that this is possible is from being healed by the power of God.

    Does this seem miraculous? Is it coincidence? Is is the Power of God? or me just being stupid? In my opinion, it's a combination of all but the second one.

    God still heals us, Spiritually and Physically. I was healed Physically, so I can go out and help others be healed Spiritually. In our Zone Conference a few days ago we had another General Authority talk to us and he told us a very simple divine truth, that everyone dies spiritually and it is ONLY through God we can be healed, and that truth of being Healed is incredible. And it can only be fully accessed though Baptism into Christ's Church though his Authority.

    I am a missionary for Christ's Church, and my humble plea is to invite all to enjoy the full blessings that can only come through Christ's Atonement. If you are a Member of the Church then you know about this already and have already taken steps towards that. My invitation to you is to help those who are not yet on the path, by Inviting Them Into Your Home to Meet the Missionaries. If you are not a Member of Christ's Church, then my invitation to you is to Meet with Missionaries, ask them your questions, tell them your thoughts, and then listen to what they have to say.

    Feel free to contact me personally through Facebook.

Mormon Social Media

    Hey Y'all, First thank you for looking at this blog post, welcome to it. Here's my thought for the day,

Mormon Social Media. 

*NOTE* this is a long post so it's split up into three parts if y'all want to just focus on one and not read the whole thing

1. Mormon's Online (in general)
2. I'm a Mormon's
3. Bible Videos

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    MORMON'S ONLINE: So to start this one I simply ask y'all to watch this video, First because it's hilarious, and also because I think it sums us what the Church is trying to do online.

   I'm guessing that this is just a mock "I'm a Mormon" that the Church put up, but I laughed my head off at it. "You are the curious Yak." And I think it just shows what the Church is trying to do with their campaign on the internet. Flooding the internet with positive messages instead of all the negative one's online. I mean think about it, members of the Church spend hours and hours online (just like the rest of the world) and  most of the time just doing nothing (especially like the rest of the world). So why not give them something positive to do online, instead of looking up pictures of funny cats all day." 

    I'd say they succeeded at doing that, they've helped us make being a Latter-Day Saint online easy and well pretty fun and well cool. We've got Mormon.org, LDS.org, Biblevideos.org, Mormonchannel.org, Mormontopics.org, all these different websites that the Church has put up that are great ways to share being LDS with out being pushy, and to help strengthen our own testimonies and families.

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    I'M A MORMON: K next video for y'all so here's this little nugget of fun for ya. . .

    If you know anything about me you know exactly why I shared this video. Personally I LOVE music, and especially Indie music, so Neon Tree's is pretty high up on my favorite bands list. Then one day Elder Nelson and I discover that I the drummer for Neon Tree's put up a I'm a Mormon video! Needless to say we watched it a lot. We loved it! The fact that someone who others would look at at think wow look at their job, look at their fame, would put something up and have most of it talk about her family and how much she loves them and about her personal relationship with God I think is incredible!

    So I'm a Mormon's, I love them. Showing people that us as Momron's (or members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) are normal people! It blows my mind how many people here in the South, and really all over, think we are super weird people! Well okay I will admit we're weird, but not in the way everyone thinks. I would love to just clear things up here and now. NO: we don't have 50 wives! haha everyone loves that rumor! Oh and can everyone just tell a friend today that if we have little black name tags, it means we're not Jehovah's Witnesses, no disrespect to Jehovah's Witnesses. So Mormon's are normal people! Doctors, Authors, my mom's a Teacher, my brother is a soon to be Dentist, my Bishop is the Athletic Director of Weber State University. If you don't know what university that is ask my other brother, the sports fanatic, who was the Rookie of the Year for the NBA in 2013, he came from WSU. and speaking of Basketball, has anyone ever heard of Jabari Parker?? Yeah he's LDS too. I'm a Mormon's, I hope, are helping people realize that Mormon's are normal people who have normal every day crises, and they can over come them through our Savior.

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     BIBLE VIDEOS: Alright the best for last, has anyone seen the Bible Videos?? Not the TV series The Bible, which I hear is pretty awesome though, but the videos the Church has put up. Well here's my favorite, please enjoy appropriately. 

 

 

     

    Can you get better then this??? This is in my opinion the greatest thing since sliced bread or the Book of Mormon. Seriously though I could watch these all day, for so many reasons. One that this is the best portrayal of the Savior I've seen. Two I love that they follow the text of the Holy Bible (KJV) perfectly. Three they are artistically amazing. Four k I'll stop at 3 other wise I'll be here all day.
    This though is my favorite thing that the Church has done online. Putting up well made, intriguing, videos of the Bible stories. With so much bad no good stuff on the internet now, why not share some happy uplifting stuff that is also amazing!?

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    CLOSING THOUGHTS on all this stuff. I love that the Church is reaching out online, putting things that people like on the internet, and making them fun, cool, and spiritual. So my challenge you all y'all who read this today is to go onto one of these three websites; https://www.lds.org/bible-videos/?lang=eng  www.mormon.org or http://www.mormonchannel.org/ then find a video you like, huh that must be hard, finding a funny or interesting video online, wow I'm giving you hard homework. Then just send it in a message to someone. Family, friend, acquaintance, search a random name on facebook and message them it. Just see how they like it. Oh then message me on facebook and tell me how it went, I'm just Elder Jess Allen Firmage on facebook, go ahead and find me then message me about it! I'd also love to get feed back from you on there if you want to message me.

Thank Y'all for reading, now please go out and have a nice day alright? Thanks.

Shaking hands with an Apostle

   Have you Ever wondered what it would be like to meet Peter, James, or John? Or any of Christ's original Apostles? What would it be like to be able to ask Peter what it was like seeing the nets burst from fishes, or ask John what it was like having The Savior of the world ask you to care for his mother? I imagine their faith would be something so powerful you could see it in them, and feel it when you're near them. Now I have never met  Philip or Bartholomew, but this last week I did get to shake hands with someone of the same caliber of faith, the same seniority of apostleship, and with the love so radiant it was so easy to see how he is an Apostle of the Lord, anointed, called, and ordained.

   Elder Nelson and I are driving down the street one day and we get a call from good old Elder Standing. We pull of to the side of the road and answer it and he tells us that in 24 hours we need to be in Knightdale North Carolina. That we needed to pack clothes for 2 days, all our emergency cash, and anything else we needed. Needless to say Elder Nelson and I start freaking out trying to figure out what was going on. Elder Nelson thought that there was a hurricane about to hit. We asked Elder Standing what was happening and after some persuasion he told us that Elder Neal L. Anderson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was going to come speak to the entire mission. Now we are really going ballistic. I thought the Second Coming was about to hit and we were all headed off towards Zion! We got back to our apartment and started packing getting our selves all excited when Elder Standing and his companion came by and told us they were kidding about the cash and packing for two days, but that we did need to pack for the night because we were going to go spend the night at the Zone Leaders, our cool as Ice Zone Leaders, and we were going to car pool up with them to hear Elder Anderson. So no Rapture which I was very disappointed at, but we were still going to hear an Apostle of the Lord Speak.

Elder Neal L. Anderson

    So in 24 hours all of the 230+ missionaries in North Carolina were together in one place, when we finally got all together it was such an interesting feeling, having every single ordained and set apart representative of Jesus Christ for our mission together in one place, and every single one of them knew how important this meeting was and how incredible the man we were about to see was. I wrote down in my journal some of my thoughts before Elder Anderson got to the meeting house.

    "There is a tangible tention of excitement in the air moments before an Apostle of the Lord is about to walk in. Not only is almost every missionary in North Carolina at one place in one time, but all are here to listen to a speaker of the calabler of Peter or Luke, to give instruction on, what we know not. . . I am sitting close enough to see the color of his eyes"

Elder Paul B. Pieper

Elder Hugo E. Martinez

    Once he came in a whole new breath came into everyone in the chapel, Elder Anderson walked in with a big smile on his face and started waving to everyone. And who should follow him? but Elder Martinez, Elder Peiper, and Elder Parker, all of the 70. He then directed everyone that we were going to go through and get to shake all their hands. I was probably one of the first 2 dozen who got to go up and shake their hands. It was so crazy getting to shake his hand. You could just feel unconditional love from him, to me a goofy, simple, little missionary from Kaysville Utah. I wrote a bit more after shaking his hand.

    "In the history of my life this will go down as one of the most magnificent days in the history of my mortal experience. It make the 2nd time in my life I've shook the hand of an Apostle of God. One of His chosen, anointed, and called disciples. A man who has been in the presence of the Prophet and counsels with him daily. Shockingly he has very normal sized hands. but a love radiated from his very soul through his fingers and his eyes. . . Everything from his outward appearance suggests an average man, average height, average weight, a suit, blue tie, gray hair. But the feeling in the room is indescribable."

    I know that the feeling I was feeling was the one of the most powerful experiences I've had with the Holy Ghost. It was almost a physical presence in that room. And listening to him speak was incredible. I had a head ache for 2 days after because of how strong the spirit was, and because I don't think I've ever tried to focus so hard onto what a man was saying for 2 hours. It was definitely an experience I'll never forget. I know he is an Apostle called of God, and his single desire is the happiness of all of God's Children.

God Created Baseball

Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don't care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win, it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game.

Great Sun Set Over the Lumberton High Ball Park

    And on the 8th Day, God created Baseball. Do I believe that? I kinda do.

    Baseball is easily my favorite sport to watch, which I can attribute that almost fully to my mother. She is the biggest baseball fan in the world. It doesn't matter what team is playing, when, or where, she will sit down with a bag of popcorn, maybe some roasted almonds, and watch that game from start to finish. And she taught me well, I can do the same thing and love it just as much. Especially if the Red Sox are playing.

    Now why do I think God created Baseball? Well lets take a look at God's plan for us, AKA The Plan of Salvation, and take a look at America's Past-time. . .

So in God's plan for us in the life

• We started in Heaven with God.
• Then Chose to come down here to Earth to live and love and grow and prepare to. .
• Go Home to God.

Now in the great sport of Baseball how we play is to. . .

• Start at Home Plate
• Go around all the bases, out to where we can get tagged out, get in pickles, where people walk, run, steal, have fun, get angry, get a little competitive, and all this other good stuff, but in the end how we end up winning is to. . .
• Make it Home Safe.

Isn't this what we all want in life? To get Home Safe? Now we might get in some Pickles in this life. We might get a little dirty, and even sometimes we might Strike Out. But we have this Loving God who's our coach, who is always letting us get up to bat. The thing to remember though is, there's only 9 innings in a baseball game. There's only so much time in this life. Don't spend your time worrying about how much pine tar is on your bat, how nice your pin-stripes are (no one likes those anyway), or who is in the bleachers watching. All you need to worry about is that when it's your time to get up to the plate and your pitch comes, you swing with all you've got. You run faster then you've ever run in your life. Yeah it's scary out there on the base-paths but we already know who's going to win, just make sure you've made it safe at Home.

God Created Baseball, And Saw That It Was Good.

Floss. . . Who Knew???

    Today I have a funny story that I wish to share with you all, it blew Elder Nelson's and my minds, I still don't understand if I can really comprehend how it worked, just that it did work. To preface this story you need to understand a little about Lumberton, the town I'm currently serving in for my 2 year mission for the LDS Church. Lumberton is an extremely diverse place to live, full of a lot of humble people, who are the ones that are truly ready to accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ, because what did Christ say? "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." So the missionaries here in Lumberton spent most of our time teaching people who are immigrants of the countries of Burma, Haiti, and Elder Nelson and I are soon to be teaching some Micronesian's (don't ask me where that is on the map). Now these people are some of the most humble people I've met in my life, also the most Christ-like, mostly due to poverty. But there are many blessings that come from poverty. And Resourcefulness is truly a blessing these people poses.

    News Flash to the world, missionaries Love riding bikes. It's a great stress relief, it gets us to burn some energy we have after sitting and studying every day, and we get to burn off some extra weight we pick up from our Beloved Members not being happy till we have had three plates full of food. Now as all missionaries and bikers know your worst enemy on a bike, is a flat tire. They just stink, you're out of commission till you get it fixed, which usually takes a bit more than a wink, smile, and a Priesthood Blessing. Kidding we don't bless our flats.

    Two weeks ago I got a flat, and it stunk, my companion and I were both frustrated and we really wanted to get some work done and get out and enjoy the spring time in North Carolina. When Preparation Day came around we went to Wal-Mart to try to get something to fix it, and I saw the green slime stuff that seals flats. And well me as a missionary am all about wanting to see things Sealed together (if you don't get that joke ask for some missionaries to come over and explain it to you, they'd love to do it). So I buy it and follow the instructions on the bottle and it works, for about an hour then I can hear that awful sound I hate, of air going out of the inter-tube, HIIISSSSSS, and get more annoyed at the situation. Luckily I've got a great missionary in the district I'm a part of down here who knows a lot about bikes. He's Elder Standing, and he is in the Lumberton A area, who works with all Haitian's, he's almost fluent in Creole and is a stud Elder. So he gives me some patches for the tire and some advice, oh and also tells me as a joke what the Haitian's do when they have a flat. They just take some floss and wrap it around the inter-tube and it works. So I tried the patch, HIIISSSSSS. Then tried cleaning out the slime from the tube, and filled it again with the rest of the slime, HIIISSSS. So now I'm out 8$ on slime that didn't work, I'll probably have to buy a new tube, so get the specs of the tube, buy the right one, get it put in, get it all working. Probably another 10$ plus 2 hours of shopping and hooking it up. I'm really frustrated by now and am covered with slime, grease, and sweat, and decide to go for broke. I'll have to throw the tube away anyway I figure so might as well try the Haitian's Floss.

    I borrow some floss from Elder Nelson, as we both joke about how this'll never work. We get a good 4 feet long strand and talk for a second over what we think Elder Standing was talking about when told us the story, we figure that I'd have to wrap the floss around the hole as tight as I could, pinching the tube, and make it wide enough to cover the whole thing. It was a great moment in the history of "those moments" for Mormon Missionaries. Us wrapping some floss around my punctured tire, hoping, but not believing at all that it will work. I get the floss wrapped around it and it looked pretty sloppy but not half bad. I pump up the tire a bit and put my earn by the floss and wait for the sound. But, I hear nothing. . . I look at Elder Nelson, Look at the tire, Look at the floss, Back to Elder Nelson, Back to the floss, pump the tire full, put my ear by it again, Nothing. . . by now out we're speechless, and completely dumbfounded. then I just start saying, "no. . no way. . no way this worked! No, No way!!!" I didn't know to laugh for yell, but I hurried and put the tube in the tire and hook it up to my bike, and take it out to the street and start riding it around. and it worked. It held up as we went to go teach someone later that night, and has held up for the last week and a half.

    I learned two lessons from this, One; don't ever give up on something, when you've tried everything, try something new, or different, or maybe even stupid, try and it just might work out. and Two; the people in Lumberton are the best in the world. honestly I've never loved people so much, they're the greatest. I may speak a different language then them, look different, eat different foods, but one thing is always the same. When a person feels the Holy Ghost, it's completely universal, everyone can understand it and know that what they are feeling is good. Through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we can have that good feeling every week as we come to Church, but what's more is that we can have that feeling always as we receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost, after Baptism.



Final lesson learned; Floss. . . who Knew??? The Haitian's apparently.

Another Testiment of Him. .

     Four Months, Twenty-Two days.

     I have started, read, and finished the Book of Mormon twice in my life. Once as a boy while reading it with my Mother, and after we finished the last chapter, Moroni chapter 10 I busted up into tears and didn't under stand why. The next time was in the 9th grade, for seminary we were asked to read it by the end of the school year, I made it about half way with a month left in school and I wanted to finish it so I flew through the last half not carrying very much for what I was reading, just that I was reading it. Regardless of only finishing it twice, I knew that the Book of Mormon was true.

    Now that four months, twenty-two days at the top you're probably wondering about is how long it took me to finish the Book of Mormon since coming on my mission. Since coming to North Carolina and even before then I've born countless testimonies of the truthfulness of this book. I wrote down my testimony at the front of the book before I started, and I wrote it again at the end, and well this is my testimony of this book, the greatest and most true book in the history of man kind.

    If I could compare this book to such things that I have come to trust, rely on, and love, i would compare it to the Mysteries of Disneyland , The Wisdom of the father, the comfort of my Mother, and the Passion of my Sister. Within these pages you are able to enter into a world so very different then ours, yet so very alike. The places the people live, the things they do, their lifestyles, their adventures, are so very different from ours today. But, what is the same is the people themselves. In this marvelous book of scripture you will find a people who love their families, who care for their children. They are concerned for what will happen after they die. Families fight, feelings are hurt, good people do bad things, bad things happen to good peolpe, and hope at times seems like more then just beyond their reach but that it was only a distant memory. Now if this does not sound like the world we live in today then I have been both blind and deaf while on my Mission. The truely amazing thing is that not only do see and hear the lowly lamentations of General Mormon after everyone he has come to know and love has been killed, but you also learn how to find the overwhelming True Happiness that only comes through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is Eturnal Life.

   In Lehi's dream he says that the fruit of the Tree of Life is most precious, even above all other fruit. and in the Angel's interpretation of the dream to Nephi we find that the fruit is a representation of the Love of God. Now after reading this book again and pondering the message it contains I add my testimony to those of Prophets, Apostles, Members of this Church and Millions of Misisonaries serving and served through out the world, that It Is True.  As Peter stated, Christ "hast the words of Eternal Life" and this book stands as Another Testimony that He lives, that He Loves and that he will aslways stand ready to accept those who desire to follow Him.

   This, my testimony, I bare in the sacred Name of that Great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both the quick and the dead, even Jesus Christ, Amen.

How It All Began, Well Sorta

   Alright almost a year and a half ago I was a senior in high school. I was huge into theatre and wrestling. In October 2012 I was in a Shakespeare competition in Cedar City Utah.  We would watch and support the members of our team and were doing our best to be respectful to the other teams. While we were watching on of the rounds of the competition my buddy Brian leaned over to me and showed me a text. It was from his mom telling him that President Thomas S Monson, the President and Prophet of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had just announced that worthy young men could now serve full time missions from ages 18-25, instead of 19-25

   So my buddies and I were freaking out at this, but we couldn't do anything because we were in that round still watching people do their scenes and monologs. As soon as the round was over my friends and I were freaking out, we realized that all of us could be on missions in the next year. This threw a wrench in a lot of my plans for life but also opened up opportunities, I didn't really know what to think. My orignional plan was to go to Utah State University with my sister for a year once she got back from her LDS mission, you know get my Generals done, and hang out and goof off in collage having fun being a freshmen. Then when I turned 19 a year later I would serve a mission, then come back 2 years later and finish collage and go on in my life. But with this new change it was opened up so many opportunities. But I was so excited for the news, I was shocked and landblasted at it, and I was so excited. One of our friends that was there took a picture of all of us when we heard the news. Hey look it's a picture of all of us.

    Well after prayer, fasting, and thinking everything I could think of out, I guess the next thing to say is, for the last 5 months (in 2 days) I've been serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. What I've been doing for the last 5 months has been inviting others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. I've loved every second of it, even though it has been a pain, and really really hard, I know that what I've been doing out here is true, it's what the Lord wants me to do.

    Oh and if you're wondering what those other 4 knuckle heads are doing right now. (from right to left)
The Legendary Jake Smith is still rocking it at Dear Ol' Davis High School, soon to graduate. 
Elder Brian J. Milligan is in San Pablo Mission.
Me
Elder John Passey is serving in San Bernardino California.
And Elder Austin Petersen is serving his mission in in Portland Oregon.


For the 4 of us out it has been, is, and will continue to be An Adventurous Adventure. . .