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.   

A Forever Family

This week I will be in Virginia Beach for a few days for work.  I know many are thinking, "Wow! Tough gig!"  (Sarcastically of course).  Honestly, it is tough.  Don't get me wrong, I like having peace and quiet from my wonderfully crazy chitlins every once and a while, but that's why I get up at 5:30 every morning.  My hotel is right on the beach front.... in fact, my window out looks the ocean, and yet I have no one with whom to enjoy it.  I miss Nikki.  I'm horrible when it comes to ideas for doing dates with my wife, but being here has already given me a few.  Now all I need to do is convince someone to drop 500 bizillion tons of sand near Oklahoma City along with a few sea shells here and there.  I am so grateful that I am sealed to my wife for time and all eternity.  Some that aren't Latter-day Saints might be confused by that phrase.  Over seven and a half years ago, Nikki and I entered into a Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and we were married.  That marriage, however, will not end once we die.  We believe that the marriage we have seals us together forever, or in other words, that in the next life we will still be married.  That also goes for our children.  They and their families (once they get married and have children and so on and so forth) too will be with us forever after this life.  That eternal marriage that I have with Nikki and the fact that I will be with her and my children forever gives me more joy than anything else in this world.  It doesn't make sense to me that God would send us to this existence, to have us form bonds and to fall in love with those around us, only to separate us in the next life.  And even though, I do get to be with Nikki forever, I still hate being away from her for this short time.  If you're reading this Nikmo, I love you and I'll see you soon.

Season of Gratitude

As Thanksgiving is fast approaching, I have been reminded frequently of this very topic, being thankful.  Back in the beginning of October I found out that I wasn't going to be able to take the job I desired in St. Louis.  Everything seemed to line up perfectly, except one thing... my current employer didn't allow me to go.  Interestingly enough I had three different jobs lined up at one time, even in a cruddy economy such as the one that our country is passing through at the moment.  Many would be grateful to have one job that pays anything let alone three, each that pays pretty well.  I was fairly disappointed whenever I found out that I wasn't going to return to the St. Louis area.  Even though, my true home is where my wife and children are, I will always consider that area my other home.  My parents and sister are there, and I have many friends that are still there as well.  I miss them all very much and yearn to be near them again.  On top of that, moving to St. Louis would have meant that I wouldn't have to be separated from Nikki and my little ones for a while.  (As staying in my current work means that I have to leave them for periods of time.)  Anyhow, the point is that I was very frustrated.  The weekend after that news hit, I watched General Conference.  (For those who are not LDS, the Church has a bi-annual conference televised over satellite and internet to all of the world from Salt Lake City where the leaders of the Church give talks about various Gospel related topics.)  The President of the Church, who we consider to be a Prophet, Thomas S. Monson, gave a talk about gratitude.  It was then that I realized how grateful I should be for all that I have.  God reminded me of all that I had and that even though I didn't get what I wanted, that I still had a great job that sustains my family.  A month and a half has passed since then, and week ago I was again reminded of that lesson which President Monson shared.  This time I was taught through an experience I had.  At least once a month, I accompany the full-time missionaries from my ward (Church congregation) to visit different members and investigators of our church.  I found out that they were going to visit a family that speaks Spanish, so desiring to practice my Spanish, I volunteered to go with them.  This small family consisted of a man and his aunt.  They had moved from the west coast into the Oklahoma City area not so long ago.  The man had lost his job and was looking for work.  His aunt's friend who is living in the Oklahoma City area had invited them to stay with her to find work here.  After a couple of weeks with no luck of finding any work, the man became despaired.  Before they moved to Oklahoma, they had converted and were baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  The man yearned to be close to God, so he prayed that he could find the Church here in Oklahoma.  Literally the next day, the full-time missionaries knocked on his aunt's friend's door.  (This was a miracle alone, considering that the missionaries hardly ever knocked doors in that area because the people there generally did not answer their doors.)  After the friend answered the door and was about to send the missionaries away, the aunt saw them and beckoned them to stay.  From there, this man and his aunt found other Mormons in the area that began to help them.  Unfortunately, the aunt's friend kicked the two out of her home because she did not like Mormons.  Thankfully for this little family, a Church member found out their plight and allowed them to move into a run down house which he owned that was vacant within our ward's geographical boundaries.  His only requirement was that they clean it up and take care of it while they stay there.  When they moved into this tiny house, they found it full of trash, dirty diapers, animal remains, and several broken windows.  On top of that the water heater and gas wasn't working, they didn't have any furniture except for a table, a refrigerator and a mattress which was being lent to them, and the car that they owned had broken down due to a bad transmition.  A week after they moved in is when the missionaries and I visited them.  They had done an amazing job on cleaning the house, despite all of the other issues.  As we visited with this man and his aunt, they were thrilled to see us.  As we talked to them, they told us how they came to learn about the Church and how they became converted to restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The aunt had just found their scriptures and in those scriptures, she found the pictures of their baptism and the full-time missionaries that had taught them.  She cried out of joy.  During the entire visit, they did not complain one bit about the situation they were in.  In the face of all the adversity that they were going through, these two humble people, were grateful and happy for all that they had.  They knew what was truly important in life, and that no matter what they faced, they had their faith in Jesus Christ, and that they were going to do all they could to be close to Him. 
The missionaries and I presented a spiritual message to them that night, but in reality they taught me the bigger lesson.  It doesn't matter what worldly goods we acquire in this life, where we live, or even what kind of job we have.  What matters is family and our faith in Christ.  Do we complain constantly about every little problem that we are faced with, or do we take on the challenges of life and become stronger?
I am eternally grateful for my wonderful wife and my two beautiful children.  I am grateful for two loving parents and for my brother and sister that miss so much.  I am thankful for Nikki's family and how they love me as if I were blood.  Finally, I am thankful for my Savior and for the privledge of being a member of His Church. 

Beginnings

It's funny how many times my stunning wife has encouraged me to begin a blog.  When I think of a "blogger," I think of an obese 35 year old left wing Obama-maniac, sitting in his parents' basement stuck in front of his computer all day complaining about how Lyndsay Lohan was wrongfully arrested for smoking pot.  That or I think about a beautiful mother typing away at her laptop, discussing the hilarious things that come out of her children's mouths.  Either way, I don't think of myself as a "blogger".  I've decided to do this for lots of reasons.  Written records are very important to me.  For the past two years I've written in a daily journal.  But here, I want to dedicate my words specifically for all to see, especially my children and my family in general.
I'll start by describing who I am.  I am a child of God.  I was created in the image of Him.  Though I am a man of flesh and blood, I have and am a spirit that was with Him before I was in my mother's womb.  I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Mormon.  I am a husband to the most attractive woman I know.  I am a father to two wonderful children, soon to be three.  I am a son to two loving parents.  I am a brother to a brother and sister that I miss constantly.  All of these titles make me who I am.  I could mention my job, my schooling, my hobbies, and interests, and yes, they are a part of me; however, they mean nothing without God, His church, and my family.