The Ministry of Christ to the Nephites

We have heard many times throughout the Church that the biggest highlight of the Book of Mormon is when Jesus Christ comes and administers to the Nephites. What better way to learn of Jesus Christ gospel than to hear it from himself? Many wonderful things happened while Jesus visited the Nephites. But I am going to talk about one of my favorite moments of that whole ministry that can be applied to us in our needs.

This particular moment happens in 3 Nephi chapter 17 where Jesus is teaching the Nephites many things and he sees that the Nephites can't comprehend all of his teachings and tells him that he is going to depart so that they can study out in their mind. Does Jesus sometimes do this to us? Although we hear multiple times that he never leaves us, do we feel like Jesus leaves us for a bit so that we can understand his teachings? There were many times in my mission where this was the case. We were told many things both by members and non-members of the gospel that were pretty deep. But it just took some time thinking about it and going back to the basics so that we could find out for ourselves if what they said was true.

But that isn't the part that I wanted to focus on. It is the part after this moment that really hits me. In verse 5 we read, "And it came to pass that when Jesus had thus spoken, he cast his eyes round about again on the multitude, and beheld they were in tears, and did look steadfastly upon him as if they would ask him to tarry a little longer with them." I am sure we all feel this feeling. We wish that we can feel the love of God all the time in our lives, but there can be distractions that pull us away from that or draw our minds somewhere else. 

Listen to what Jesus says in the next two verses:
6. And he said unto them: Behold, my bowels are filled with compassion towards you.

 7 Have ye any that are sick among you? Bring them hither. Have ye any that are lame, or blind, or halt, or maimed, or leprous, or that are withered, or that are deaf, or that are afflicted in any manner? Bring them hither and I will heal them, for I have compassion upon you; my bowels are filled with mercy.

This is a personal invitation from the Savior for us to bring others or ourselves to him so that we may be healed. But you may say, "I am not lame, or blind, or halt, maimed, leprous or death. So this invitation is not really directed towards me". To these people, I say they have forgotten one thing that Jesus said in that verse. He invites those who "are afflicted in any manner. What fits into that category? I would say everything! Whether it be depression, addictions, or anything that we are having a hard time going through, that category covers it. So not only was Jesus healing the Nephites physically here, he was also healing them mentally and spiritually. And this invitation is to all.

Patrick Kearon of the Seventy reaffirms this in his General Conference talk in October saying, "The invitation given to the Nephites, when He ministered to them as the resurrected Christ, is still in force for you and for me: “Have ye any that are sick among you? Bring them hither. Have ye any that are lame, or blind, or halt, or maimed, or leprous, or that are withered, or that are deaf, or that are afflicted in any manner? Bring them hither and I will heal them.” ^.

In closing I would like to read one more scripture, Alma 7: 12 "...and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities." May we be able to continue to come to Him and have him be able to heal us.

A Crucial Step People Tend to Overlook When dealing with Addictions.

           We know that there are some addictions out there that can take control of a persons life. There are some that are easily denied where the opposite is also there. I believe that we all have our weaknesses and some of us may have identified very crucial ones throughout our lives. It may be as simple as someone "needing" a certain substance in the morning to wake them up or always using certain electronics for most of the day. It also may be something big in our eyes like misuse of drugs, pornography, spending money, etc.
       
           We also have been told many other ways to deal with these kind. Some of us have also been taught that we need some spiritual help in order to help deal with these addictions. You have have heard of the 12 step program. In this, it shows a 12 step process to help us control with our various different addictions. The twelve steps are the following:

1. Honesty

2. Hope

3. Trust in God

4. Truth

5. Confession

6. Change of Heart

7. Humility

8. Seeking Forgiveness

9. Restitution and Reconciliation

10. Daily Accountability

11. Personal Revelation

12. Service

          I will put the link down at the end of this blog that will direct you to the website that explains these 12 steps in more detail.

          Now, these 12 steps are great! Many others have tried this and it can work! Some others have and have struggled, but they know they have progressed more than where they had been previous. Some others can't even get past the first step! But the important thing is that they did put in some effort for dealing with their addiction.

         Now, this is not the crucial step I am going to talk about. There have been some who have been fighting their addiction for a very long time and feel like their hasn't been any process with it. Or others may notice that they have progressed a ton since they decided to do something about their addiction, but feel that they are stuck, or that they cannot overcome their addiction. Now, in my opinion, overcoming an addiction most of the time takes a while. Perhaps maybe even years. Addictions may be with us for quite some time.

        Now, this is where I believe one of the big steps of overcoming an addiction can come into play. There are too many people who think, "If I just declare that I don't want to do my addiction anymore, that I won't go back to it.". They may find however that they tend to go right back to the habit that they so declared they would never do again. That is a very tough feeling to go through and it sucks! One thing I have found helps a ton to help us keep our mind off of our addiction is to DO something else. Just sitting there and telling yourself, "No, I am not going back." rarely solves it. Once we go out of our way and do something else, we can be able to keep our mind occupied on other things.

        We know that addictions are super hard to go through alone. Thankfully, we don't have to go through it alone. We have a Savior who knows what it is like and to point us the way to help overcome it. I firmly believe that usually addictions take a while to fully overcome. Many of us are still going through our addictions. But if we look back at the progress that we have made to where we began this addiction to where we are now, we can see we have made so much progress. Sure, our addictions are not fully healed as we want them to be, but we need to recognize that we have become so much more doing so. Isn't that what life is about? Finding out who we are and also what we can become? Addictions may hold us down at times, but overtime it can be a big stepping stone for us in life.

LDS 12 step Addiction Recovery: http://addictionrecovery.lds.org/steps/1?lang=eng


         

My Thoughts on Anime (Use & Misuse of Art)

Let's talk about anime here. Now when you hear the word "anime", what is usually the first thing that comes to your mind? I can definitely say that many will think of this creepy type of art that seems to be "messed up". I wouldn't blame you for thinking that because that is probably what I mostly thought of as well when it came in anime in general. I find usually that whenever people hear about anime, their thoughts either go: "Oh, you mean what Dragonball Z is?" or of an anime character with some type of half-human half animal type that just makes you think "What the heck is this?". This, again, I don't blame you for because this is usually what I felt as well.

We all heard of famous anime tv-shows like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Dragonball Z, and perhaps Avatar: The Last Airbender if you classify it as an anime. Yes, anime is not new. It has been around for quite some time. It started around 1950s, but wasn't really accepted in mainstream till the 1980s. Since then, we have gotten many different types of varieties of anime.

My history of anime has been...meh. Of course as a kid I watch Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh when I was allowed to watch TV. Then there was this huge break of TV I had where I didn't watch a lot of shows. Somewhere in high school I started watching a bit of Dragonball Z Kai, which in short is Dragonball Z with less dialogue and more fighting. But after graduating high school I really didn't get back into it that much. I guess you can also count Sonic as a type of anime as well. I don't really since I focused more on the games rather than the shows. It wasn't really until on my mission, thanks to a couple of members, I thought that anime was interesting.

Now I am not saying I am one of those people who go out and dress as their favorite anime character and speak Japanese as much as they can or however creepy you think people who do this are. I don't do that. I just watch the show and then move on. That has been kinda the overall reaction of me watching any type of show. I either like it and it's on my mind for a day or two or I simply think, "Eh, that was alright." and go on to the next show.

My thoughts on anime is that the art is simply amazing! I love how beautiful the scenery with a specific character in the picture can simply make we wish every time I can draw that good. I can imagine the time and effort for each picture or frame in a TV show the amount of work it takes for that. I find it to be a beautiful piece of art.

However, there are quite of bit of anime art and shows that can be really disturbing and not really attractive to the eye. It can either be a pornographic image, or a pretty violent one, or whatever. You can just compare it to any other form of art like other TV shows, movies, pictures, etc. This is where you need to be super careful! For you see, there are a lot of good anime TV shows out there and I believe that many of them do share some deep messages. If you want to see one of my thoughts about one show I recently watch, here is the link:
http://parooka.blogspot.com/2015/11/a-mini-review-of-message-of-nagi-no.html

Clearly, anime is not for everyone. Also, many forms of art can have that same claim. There is good forms of it and bad forms of it. How that is determined is mostly by us and what we look for. I tend to look for types of art, whether it be a picture, film, or TV show that makes me feel positive, laugh, and perhaps at some times, even cry, and I am sure that this may be the many views of others. I wouldn't really recommend anime with every person I see. However, I still think, if used right, like other types of art forms, it can speak to us.

To close this topic off, I am going to show you my favorite piece of art that is in anime form. You may notice that this is also my background. This picture, I believe, is colorful and bright and just positive looking. Thanks for listening to my thoughts. Take care!

This image is from the game "If My Heart Had Wings: Flight Diary".

The Strengthening and Enabling Power of the Atonement

There are many who tend to forget what the Atonement does for all of us. Sure, it satisfies the demands of justice and helps us be able to repent of the wrong that we do, but it does so much more than that. But I must admit, we, even myself, don't usually think of the Atonement of Jesus Christ as something to help something else than just our sins. 

We are told multiple times throughout Sunday School, Church talks, and in General Conference stories of someone who recognized something they did wrong and finding Jesus Christ in their life and applying the Atonement in their life to fix the wrong they have done. This is a great example of the Atonement! We love to hear these stories like the Prodigal Son parable where someone goes astray in life and then recognizes that he has done wrong and came back into the fold. For me, these are a type of spiritual awakening for me as I pay attention to the things that I have done wrong and try to step foreword in doing right.

But is this all that the Atonement does? Of course not! There is so much more that the atonement does. How do we know this? Let us go to probably one of the favorites of scripture that talks about the atonement, Alma 7:11: 
"And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people."

Notice how in this verse it doesn't say the word sin even once! Does that disqualify sin as something the atonement covers? Of course not! There are plenty of scriptures that say otherwise, but this scripture brings up a good point of the different things the atonement covers. It says, "pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind". EVERY KIND! So does the atonement cover that moment when you got your heart broken in elementary by a boy you liked? Sure does! Does the atonement cover when you are struggling through school work? Sure does! Does the atonement cover depression? I like to think so! Look at the scripture. That is what it says.

Now this isn't the end of the scripture segment I want to share. Let's go on to a specific part in the next verse: 
"...and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities."

Let us break down the scripture. First, it says that Jesus Christ will take upon himself our infirmities. He will take upon himself the justice of our sins if we take the gift that he has given us which is a chance to repent. Second, that his bowels may be filled with mercy. Why does Jesus Christ do this? What motivated him? What was the reason that He went and did this for us while suffering himself? Was it because he was getting a reward for doing so? Was it because He was expected to do it? That is a pretty good question. But in a book I read by Brad Wilcox, he explains all these motives and he found them that they were true, but that wasn't the main motive. Jesus Christ did it because His love for us. He did it because that was the right thing to do.

Now third is probably the most important part of the scripture when addressing this certain subject. So it says, "that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities". What does succor mean? According to the dictionary, succor in old times means, "run to help". So if we replace succor with run to help, we get, "that he may know according to the flesh how to run to help his people according to their infirmities". See that? Because He knows our troubles, our trials, our problems, our struggles or however you want to word it, He can run to help us when we need it. Pretty cool, right? 

But you are probably thinking, "I have had this problem or struggle a while and I haven't felt like it has been helped or that Jesus is running to me." Very good point! There are times where we feel like no one is there to help us. We don't feel like we have any kind of motivation. Does that mean that Jesus Christ isn't there for us? I don't think so. I think he is always there for us no matter what. I believe that in some situations, not always, we need to recognize or search for Jesus Christ's help in order to be ready to receive that help. We can't always just sit there and wait for us to recognize Jesus is there. We need to search for him and ask for His help when we are in need of him.

Dallin H, Oaks said, "Our Savior’s Atonement does more than assure us of immortality by a universal resurrection and give us the opportunity to be cleansed from sin by repentance and baptism. His Atonement also provides the opportunity to call upon Him who has experienced all of our mortal infirmities to give us the strength to bear the burdens of mortality. He knows of our anguish, and He is there for us. Like the good Samaritan, when He finds us wounded at the wayside, He will bind up our wounds and care for us. The healing and strengthening power of Jesus Christ and His Atonement is for all of us who will ask. I testify of that as I also testify of our Savior, who makes it all possible."

I love the way that Elder Oaks compares the Savior to the good Samaritan. He doesn't pass us by and lets us do this all by ourselves. He helps us up and points us to the right direction. He loves us! He truly does! He doesn't do everything for us, for we need to put in our effort as well, but He still is always there. 

In Alma 42:15 it says, 

And now, the plan of mercy could not be brought about except an atonement should be made; therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also.

I also know that without the atonement, mercy could not be extended towards us. There would be no mercy and life would just absolutely suck. But we don't have that! Because Jesus Christ went through with the atonement, we don't have to walk through this life completely alone. He is there for believers and non-believers. He is there for those who curse him and turn their back to Him. He is there no matter what. People may not realize it then, but they will later on see that the Lord never left their side. I know this to be true and we can all know this to be true by continuing to study more about him and continuing to search for Him in everything that we do. This is my invitation to all. I hope that you may see that you are never alone.

Scriptures: Alma 7:11-12, Alma 42:15

Talks: 

Strengthened by the Atonement of Jesus Christ, Dallin H. Oaks, Web, October 2015, November 6, 2015

Dictionary Definition: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/succor

A Mini Review of the Message of Nagi no Asukara

I just finished this show and there was a lot of talk about love and caring for one another. It also brings up a pretty interesting topic where a character says he hates love because it can hurt you so much if it all goes wrong. However, it is not hopeless to love someone because it helps you understand what really love is and this character figures that out. Over time, we can come to know what exactly love is and perhaps it can grow to charity which is the pure love of Christ. The show is called Nagi No Asukara if you are interested in looking at it. The soundtrack is amazing and it definitely worth listening to.