The choice is yours!

I'm going to get a little philosophical this week.  I was at Target with Savannah this past Tuesday.  She had received a gift card from my brother, Jamie, Angie, Madeleine, and Caroline for her birthday.  (Savannah thanks you guys for the gift card).  As we went through the store, we first stopped off at the Wii game section.  Savannah had her heart set on a Littlest Pet Shop Wii game.  When we got over there, we discovered that there were no copies of the game in stock.  We could have gone to a different Target another day, but Savannah wasn't leaving that store until she had spent her gift card.  I then proceeded to show her some of the other kid friendly Wii games that they did have is stock.  Mistake!  Now she couldn't decide between three or four different games.  I called Nikki for help.  Nikki mentioned that she thought Savannah wanted an actual Littlest Pet Shop toy.  My next mistake, was telling Savannah what her mom thought.  We then headed over to the toy section, so that she could look at Target's selection of Littlest Pet Shop toys.  When it was all said and done, we looked at Polly  Pockets, Littlest Pet Shops, Barbies, and a plethora of other 7 year old girl friendly toys.  Oh, and did I mention that Porter was with us.  After about 20 minutes of surveying the toys, Porter was complaining and my patience had about reached their limits.  Finally, Savannah decided to go with a Wii game.  This little experience in patience taught me a lesson.  Everyday we are faced with more choices than we can probably count.  Some of them are small, insignificant choices, such as, what should I wear today, what should I eat for lunch, which type of toothpaste should I buy at the store.  Others are a little more important, from what time should I get up to give myself time to read, ponder and pray, to how to respond to someone at work who offends me, to deciding whether or not to tell the truth about something.  Heavenly Father watches me make these decisions, and what patience He must have in watching me.  The patience I had to exude while Savannah chose how to spend her gift card is but minuscule compared to that of God's patience as He witnesses us make dumb choices in life.  Choices that can affect, not only our eternal progression, but the eternal progression of others as well.  How many lives are affected when I make a bad choice.  But then again, being able to make choices in general is a blessing that God has given us.  A few weeks ago, I mentioned the attributes of God.  I described Him as an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent Father.  But how could God be all of this, and there still exist evil in the world?  The first thing that I realized is that though God created our spirits and bodies, that we are all independent beings from Him.  In other words we have personalities and traits that He does not control.  While our spirits dwelt with Him in the pre-mortal existence, He gave us the blessing of choice, to be able to make decisions on our own even when we were but spirits without physical bodies.  In the Garden of Eden, God did not force Adam and Eve to obey Him.  He desired that they obey Him by choice.  Therefore, He gave them the choice to partake of the fruit of the tree of good and evil.  It was the partaking of that fruit that would give them the knowledge of distinction between good and evil.  They would then be able to experience the bitter from the sweet, the feeling of joy and of pain, and they would do it by their own choice.  Since the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, both good and bad have entered the world.  Though God could control all that happens here on earth, He does not, for He desires that His children decide for themselves how to react to this harsh yet beautiful experience of life.  Some have been born into horrific situations.  Unfortunately, those situations were determined mostly by the decisions of those that came before them, and because we live in an imperfect world where God allows evil to exist with the good.  Is it possible that God, then wants us to experience the bad so that we may better appreciate the good.  An example to think of, would be to picture your own children.  As parents we try to teach them to do good things.  Do we not do that so that at some point they will decide for themselves to choose the good?  I know I receive more satisfaction from watching my children make good choices rather than watching them do something because they felt coerced or forced to do something without choice.  Just like a loving parent, God wants the same for us.  A wise philosopher named Truman G. Madsen once said that perhaps God isn't omnipotent as we think He might be.  For example, He will not and probably cannot do things that are contradictory, like creating a rock that He cannot lift.  It doesn't make sense.  But besides that, there are eternal laws that He will not break.  Otherwise, why would He send His only begotten, perfectly sinless Son to die for some horribly disobedient people like us?  Couldn't He have just saved us without having to have done this?  It goes to show that there is an order to everything and that it all falls back to the fact that He will not take away the freedom of His spirit children to choose. 

2013 was a great year!

So, I didn't do so well at keeping a journal last year.  I wanted to take a moment and remember the many events and experiences my family and I had during 2013.  The year started somewhat rough as I missed another birthday of my oldest.  I feel bad for poor Savannah, as it was the forth year in a row that I was gone for her birthday.  In 2010, I was deployed.  In 2011, I was TDY to Nellis AFB. In 2012, I was TDY to Maxwell AFB.  And last year I was TDY to Guam.  This year, however, I will do all I can to not be sent anywhere with the Air Force.  Of course, like most times that I leave to go TDY, Nikki found herself with a sick child while I was gone to Guam between 31 January and 15 February.  Cora developed a bad cough and practically stopped breathing from a bad case of RSV one night.  Nikki took her to the emergency room.  Thankfully, we had some good neighbors from our ward, Brent Hunter and James Rivera, who went to our house and gave her a healing blessing.  The blessing along with the medication that she received helped her have a quick recovery.
After Guam, I then had to go TDY to do my arctic survival at Eielson AFB near Fairbanks, AK.  Although it wasn't nearly as challenging as the survival course I did in Spokane, WA, it was definitely not a walk in the park. 

Waiting for Baby Cora

I am sitting here with my beautiful wife at the Moore Medical Center waiting for our baby Cora to join us.  The experience of watching a child be born into the world (especially when it is mine) is one of the most spiritual experiences in the world.  It is physical proof to me that God exists.  He allows us mere mortals to participate in the creation of life.  What an awesome blessing!  I can't wait to see her little face.  I am also so grateful to my beautiful wife.  I think that women are usually closer to God and the Holy Ghost, more than men, because they go through all the pain and struggle of bringing this new life into the world.  Jesus Christ has gone through so much for us.  He bore our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross of Golgotha.  Because of His crucifixion, He continues to where the scares of that beautiful yet horrific moment on His hands and wrists to show us what He suffered, and how much He love us so that we can have eternal life.  In the same manner, women bear the scars from birthing their children, going through their own Golgotha, showing their children the love they have and the pain they go through to give them mortal life, being in their own right saviors to God's spirit children that patiently wait to have their turn here in mortality.  Thank you Nikki for what you have done for our children and me.  And thank you Mom, for being one of my saviors here on earth and for helping me to have this gift of life.

Thankful to those that serve their fellowman....

So before I went away from my home and family for the past two weeks, Nikki told me that she didn't have a good feeling about me being gone.  I thought she was just being paranoid.  But sure enough, we had the winter storm of the year this past week and Nikki just about went into labor while I was on the other side of the country.  Lesson learned, listen to your wife!  However, while I was trying to get on the next flight back to Oklahoma City, we had many friends to whom I am thankful, for they helped Nikki and my little ones immensely.  Nikki opened her door Tuesday after the winter dumping to see our friends Kelly Guest and the Murphys shoveling our driveway.  On top of that, Zach Gardner (our home teacher who didn't even know he was our home teacher) drove across base before the roads were plowed to check up on my family.   Nikki also received many phone calls making sure she had everything she and my children needed.  It was a beautiful display of Christian service.  Later, Beth Murphy drove Nikki to the hospital to make sure she wasn't in labor, and on Thursday, Ili and Brittany Yuan took her into the hospital again to get a second shot that she and our unborn baby needed. 

I am so grateful to those individuals who have been such great examples of Christ and the service He has given and continues to render us.  Christ is the second member of what we believe to be the Godhead.  I talked about Heavenly Father a couple posts ago and who He is.  Jesus Christ is Heavenly Father's first born spirit child and was known as Jehovah before He was born in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago.  He was the creator of our physical earth and was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  He, like Heavenly Father, is a God and is a separate individual being from Heavenly Father.  He was born to a mortal mother named Mary, and His literal father was Heavenly Father.  So Heavenly Father was not only the Father of Christ's spirit, but also of His physical body.  While He lived, He gave us the perfect example of service to His fellowman, performing all manner of miracles and living a sinless life.  Because His mother was mortal, He was subject unto physical death.  However, because His Father was a God, He was able to resurrect, to take His life back up and take upon Himself an immortal body after His death.  He bled and died for each individual, so that each individual can have the choice to repent and be forgiven, so that they too can return to Heavenly Father's presence and become more like Him.  But even though, Christ died on the cross, He was resurrected three days later, and He lives today.  Because of His resurrection, each person that has lived, lives, and will live on this earth will also be resurrected and receive a new body sometime after they die.  Christ also organized His Church while He was alive.  All the Gospel revolves around Him and His atonement.  I love Him and hope one day I can be more like Him. 

Brothers and Sisters...

Well, it didn't take long for me to fail on my New Year's goal to write once a week in my blog, did it?  The great thing about falling down sometimes is learning to get up and not falling again.  I've been away from home doing work related things for over a week now.  I suppose it's a precursor to what will be ahead of me in the near future when I'm gone for a longer period of time.  Though, I am and will be far away from home, I am so grateful for modern day technology which allows me to talk and see my family even though they are hundreds to thousands of miles away.  Today, I went to church here where I am.  It never ceases to amaze me how the Church is so well organized.  (Of course it is... it's the Church that God organized, I would hope that it would be).  I love that I can expect the same lessons here that I would receive anywhere else in the world.  One of my good friends went to church with me today.  He is in the process of learning about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It's been such a long time since I was in the same boat as him when I was learning about the basic beliefs and principles of the Church.  I forget how many things I take for granted.  Even the simple practice of calling each other "brothers and sisters."  Why is that?  Well one reason is because in a spirit sense, we are literally all brothers and sisters here on this earth.  Not only did God create man physically, but before this world was, He created our spirits and we existed in a pre-mortal spirit world.  That is why we refer to God as our Heavenly Father.  That also makes every person born to this earth a spirit brother or sister.  Jesus Christ was our Heavenly Father's first born in that pre-mortal spirit world.  Our spirits look like us now except they are not tangible as we know it.  When we lived with Him before the world's creation, God presented a plan for us in a Grand Council, which was that we could return to live with Him, and so that we could become more like Him.  Just as a father or mother wants there children to have all that they have and more, He wants us to have all that He has (though not more, since He is perfect).  Part of being able to do that is to have a physical body like Him.  God the Father has an immortal physical body that is perfect.  Coming to this earth helps us to get one step closer to that by being born with physical bodies which will one day be resurrected like Jesus Christ was resurrected.  (Resurrection is a topic all it's own, to which I will one day get)  Many of us also came to have experiences and be tested while we are in this mortal state, so as to grow and learn to obey God's commandments.  Since it would be our choice to obey God or not, God knew that there needed to be a Redeemer on earth in order to save us from our mistakes and sins.  Jesus, said that He would be that redeemer and that He would give all the credit and glory to Heavenly Father.  However, there was another spirit child that was at this Grand Council who also wanted to be our Savior.  That spirit was Lucifer.  But his plan was to force everyone to obey and to take away our freedom to choose.  Lucifer wanted all of the glory for himself and did not want to give any credit to anyone else.  When these two options were placed before Heavenly Father, He chose Jesus to be the Universe's Savior.  Lucifer did not like this, and so he rebelled and was able to draw away a third part of all of Heavenly Father's spirit children, to rebel also.  God, therefore, punished Lucifer and his followers and sent them to earth without receiving physical bodies.  They then became our tempters, trying to cause us to make wrong decisions in life for they wanted us to be as miserable as they are.  Of course all of us don't remember this pre-mortal life, for there is a veil as it were, which keeps us from remembering, so that we will learn to follow God's teachings by faith.  (Faith is also another subject all its own).  Knowing what I have just explained allows me to realize that every person that I come in contact with on a daily basis, is a literal spirit brother or sister of mine.  It also helps me know that each person that is born once made a choice to follow Jesus Christ when we all were in the presence of Heavenly Father as spirits.  If you think about it, every person has divinity deep within them and the potential to become like our Heavenly Father is, physically and spiritually.  This perspective helps me to love and serve others, as I love and serve my own family.

A New Year Goal

I'll be honest, I don't know if I necessarily like New Year's Resolutions.  Sometimes I get lulled into a false sense of security that if I mess up, I'll just wait until next year to try to change.  Then when I attempt to change something in my life, I give up after a couple of days or weeks if I'm lucky.  Anyhow, I think that it is almost natural to set goals at the beginning of the year.  Those goals must be specific, measurable, and obtainable.  One of my goals is to write on this blog at least once a week.  So far, so good, right? 
Lately, I've been thinking about my personal belief in God.  Who is He?  What is my relationship to Him and with Him?  I'll never forget an experience I had with my Dad.  When I was about to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, my Dad told me that if I ever wanted to know what he believed about God that I could ask him.  So one day I did.  He took me to nearly each window of our house in Columbia, Illinois.  He told me to look outside each one.  Then he took me on top of our roof.  He told me that each person has a different perspective of who God is and what the world is like and that God sees it all.  What an awesome lesson.  I still ponder on what he told me that day, and even though my Dad is not Mormon, his belief in God is not far off what I believe.  So, Dad, if you are reading this, I'm going to tell you what I believe about God.  I believe the same thing you do.  Each person on this earth has a different window, perspectives of how this world is and who God is.  God does see it all.  He knows all and knows us.  I believe that we are literally children of Him.  That He is our Heavenly Father, and that we lived with Him before we were born into this life.  I know that we look like Him, that he is not just some apparition or puff of smoke or some foreign alien experimenting on a planet and its creations.  He has a body as tangible as yours or mine and as a prophet once said that He is "an exalted man and sits enthroned in yonder heavens!"  Man was and is created in His image.  I believe that He wants us to experience life for ourselves and that even though our life's windows might be cloudy, scratched,  broken or even stolen, that He is merciful and just.  And just like an earthly father wants the best for his children, God wants the same and that means to become like Him.  He is also omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent (I could get into the famous philosophical question, how could such a God allow there to be such suffering and misery or evil, which I believe I have the answer to, but I will save that for another week's post).  I know that we can know Him as we search him out, and that He will make Himself known to us when we do seek.  I love Him and will do all I can to make sure that one day I will be with Him again.  Even though men have tried to prove that He doesn't exist, He always will, even when we may say that He doesn't.  Thank you Dad for that lesson you taught me that day.  I love you and hope that I can use what you have taught me to teach my children as well. 

A well needed Christmas vacation

So for the past couple of weeks I took off work to be with Nikki and my chitlins to go visit my parents in Columbia, IL and Nikki's parents in Branson, MO.  We first stopped off in Branson to break up the eight hour drive to my parents.  We stayed there a couple of days to visit, and then we spent around five days with my mom and dad.  We had a good time.  We took Savannah and Porter to the Science Museum in St. Louis, which was the first time that they had been there.  Savannah loved it, but then again she is our little sponge as she soaks up the knowledge.  She especially loves astrology and science.  On Christmas Eve Eve, Jamie, Angie, Madeleine, and Caroline arrived to Maga and Pop's.  Savannah and Madeleine were like two peas in a pod.  They only see each other maybe once or twice a year, and they are best friends.  Porter tried to get into the mix, and sometimes he was successful.  Caroline is the cutest little girl, especially when you hear her little voice saying "Mommy, mommy, mommy.... daddy, daddy, daddy" as fast as she can.  Christmas Eve, we received a white Christmas as it snowed around four inches in the St. Louis area.  Amanda, Mike, and my dad went out and built a snowman with nearly all of the snow in my parents' front yard.  It was the best looking snowman I had ever witnessed except for perhaps the bud light that was fit snuggly into his chest.  I think he drank to much that night considering the fact that Christmas morning he was leaning over to the side quite a bit.  Mom made an awesome Christmas Eve feast, and later in the evening we went down to the breezeway to hang stockings over the fireplace and to listen to my dad read the grandchildren "Twas the Night before Christmas", just as my Grandpa once had done when I was little.  Christmas was a lot of fun as the little ones awoke to see all that Santa had left them.  While we gathered around to open the bigger gifts, Savannah and Madeleine played St. Nick while they divvied out the presents.  After we finished with all the hoopla of Christmas morning, everyone sort of lounged around with a Christmas morning hangover, at least until the afternoon, when Jamie took the girls outside to go sledding in my parents backyard.  It looked like so much fun that Porter and I had to join them as well.  Savannah had a blast.  Porter liked the sledding also, but he was more interested in making snowballs.  It was the first time for both of them to go snow sledding, and I am so grateful that they did it with my brother and me.  It reminded me of the past when Jamie, Amanda, and I would get the sleds together and ride down our backyard and into the woods for hours at a time.  Then we would go inside to a warm fire and hot chocolate.  As Christmas drew to a close, we loaded up the mini-van and finished our Christmas sojourn to Branson.  We got in late and went to sleep soon thereafter so as to be able to go to Church the next day and to celebrate Christmas now with Nikki's side of the family.  The remaining time we had with Nikki's family was also fun.  Nikki's dad had the time off from work, which he hadn't had in a long time.  While in Branson, we went to the Butterfly Palace, found my new favorite restaurant, and went to a fun Branson show.  Towards the beginning of December I found out that my favorite restaurant, Acapulco's, had closed down for good.  It was a little taqueria that had my favorite food in the world, tacos al pastor.  Well, I was heart broken... that is until, we discovered a place called La Iguana which had even better tacos al pastor than Acapulco's had.  We also went to a show called Pierce Arrow that had a very funny comedian and some decent Christian Country music.  The best part of the show, however, was watching Porter get his groove on in the middle of the aisle with his little sweatshirt hood on.  He reminded me of a midget gangsta hip-hop dancer.  Over all we had a great time at Nikki's parents.  It was a lot of fun to hang out with Nikki's dad.  I consider him one of my best friends rather than a father-in-law.  The only bad part of the vacation is that we didn't get as much time to spend with Merrill and my siblings.  I'm so grateful to my family and Nikki's family.  Perhaps one day the Lord will bless us to be able to live closer to them so that we can see them more often, but until then I will cherish every moment I get to spend with them.