Lehi’s Dream

Some thoughts I had while reading about Lehi’s dream. I will not relate every detail of the dream so for those who are unfamiliar, it can be read in 1 Nephi chapter 8. The first thing I noticed is the location where Lehi starts in his dream. The people he sees later all start at

Meaning in Religious Art

This was an essay I wrote for a meaning of life through art class I took, thus the official format. I feel it was worth sharing. Meaning in Religious Art             It was with difficulty I prepared to hypothesize about the meaning of life when I believe I know the meaning of life. It occurred

Plan of Salvation and What Christianity is Missing

Outside of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, what does Christianity believe about the after-life? Generally speaking, Christianity believes that we are born on earth, live our lives, die, are judged, and assigned to either heaven or hell. I heard something on an awesome podcast called Unshaken Saints recently that I’d never realized.

The God You Know

When I started writing the post Unity, Peace, and Love, I actually had another point I intended to make. As often happens when I write, my point got sidetracked (I hope by the Spirit) and I ended up going a completely different direction than originally intended. The point I was sidetracked from, I still liked,

Joseph Smith’s Long Night

Two thoughts from reading A Marvelous Work and a Wonder about Joseph Smith – From his story of Moroni coming to his bedroom three times throughout the night: Joseph Smith is up all night having visions. In the morning he goes to work the farm and his dad can tell he’s out of sorts and

November 2023 Israel-Palestine Conflict

I wrote about the Israel-Palestine conflict earlier this year. Here we are 10 months later. I encourage anyone to go read my original post. I just did. It helped me refresh in my mind the complexity of this issue. This issue clearly isn’t going away in our lifetimes. I think it’s only a matter of

The Prints

There’s a subtlety throughout scripture I don’t think we discuss often enough. We know that when we are resurrected, we are resurrected to our perfect frame. Not a hair on our heads will be lost. We will be perfected (Alma 11:43-44). We also know that when Christ showed Himself after His resurrection, He retained the

Agency and Mistakes: Was Brigham Young Wrong?

Let’s start with an assumption. What if Brigham Young incorrectly instituted the practice of the priesthood ban for black people? We always think in this way that God can do anything, however He wants to. Why didn’t He fix the priesthood ban for blacks issue immediately after Brigham Young if it was in fact a

What do we believe in?

My Aunt Lindsey often asks the question, “What do you know?” I usually respond, “Not much.” What do we really know? Anything? While reading Mosiah chapter 26, I came across an interesting commentary from Hugh Nibley, one of my favorite scholars. The commentary was on Mosiah 26:15 which reads: “Blessed art thou, Alma, and blessed

Books in 2022

It’s time for my annual list of books read last year. My 2022 list is down quite a bit due to some non-book reading and studying. I’ll rank the books from favorite to least favorite with a short description of what I remember about the book or what led to its ranking. Without further ado,