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. . .