As the Moon, So Beautiful (Tsuki ga Kirei) Mini Review

"To decide I’m hopeless before I even begin is nothing but laziness"– Dazai

I am starting to find out the specific genres of shows I love to watch. They have to have these two key elements: 

1. A ever growing relationship (Love or not)

2. The plot involves the family, or family growth.

This can be very clear as the show CLANNAD, which basically means family, as my favorite show. I gave a little review in my previous blog which can be found here: https://parooka.blogspot.com/2017/02/tomoyo-after-its-wonderful-life-mini.html

I came across this show as I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and the Crunchy Roll ad suggested I start watching this. I saved it to my bookmark tab like I do with all other anime I intend to watch and kept going on through my Facebook. I didn't really start to watch it till about 2 weeks later while I was donating plasma. 

The basic plot of this show is, "Kotaro Azumi and Akane Mizuno became third year students at junior high school and are classmates for the first time. They’re put in charge of the equipment for the sports festival, and slowly grow closer via LINE (Phone Messages). These two, along with fellow students, relate to their peers through mutual understandings and feelings. As their final year at junior high school progresses, the group overcome their challenges to mature and become aware of changes in themselves."

At first glance this seems like a typical school relationship/drama show with all its cliches. And, you would be right. However, in my opinion, this show had something that caught me. The animation and the two main characters. The animation, when hand drawn, looks simply breath taking and amazing in detail. I forgot at times that I was watching a TV show instead of a movie. There are times where it randomly switches to CG 3D models and the models just look lifeless. It is a great thing that none of the main characters are victim to this. These 3D models are mainly just for people filler in certain place in which the scene takes place. 

JUST LOOK HOW OUT OF PLACE THEY LOOK?!?!?

Maybe a third key element can be added to the list as mentioned before:

3. Very relateable characters

Most every show has a character you can somewhat relate to, but there are very few that have some kind of character that defines you right on the nose. I felt it as I watch the movie A Silent Voice. The same I can say here. The two main characters, Kotarō Azumi and Akane Mizuno, were amazing together. It reminded me the feeling of having a school relationship and discovering the different feelings of love. Back when we were more innocent and open minded. They grow together, they get to know each other, the find the definition of love together.

What really has turned me off lately with movies or shows with romantic elements in them is that they just end when one declares the love for the other and then magically they live happily ever after. I would like to know what happens after. How does their relationship strengthen further? What other obstacles do they overcome? This happens frequently in main romantic genres in anime. However, although this show doesn't execute it as well as other shows I admire, it still ends with a warm feeling in your heart. 

**SPOILERS**

They show the other adventures this couple goes through as they grow up and later show the whole extended family together celebrating Azumi and Akane's first born child. 

In conclusion, this show has a special place in my heart. It reminded me of the hard times of separation, what exactly to say to a special someone, and just learning how to handle relationship issues. The animation, although not super realistic, still looks very pretty and captures each scene's atmosphere. Every time I saw Azumi and Akane together finding ways to overcome certain challenges and proving time and time again that they love each other and something we can continually learn as well.

“I want to spend my time with people who don't look to be respected. But such good people won't want to spend their time with me.” 

― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

My Bullied History / Koe no Katachi (A Silent Voice) Mini Review

"Everyone goes through difficulties in life. But we're all in the same boat, aren't we? You have to learn to love even the things you hate about yourself and move forward." 

-A Silent Voice

As far as I can remember, I have been always a super sensitive kid. Whether I had it since birth or it was developed over time, I do not know. Even the silliest little insult at times that can be easily identified as a minor joke or to make me laugh at myself can possibly hurt me dearly as well. I don't know whether this is a good or bad attribute to have in my life, but it has taken me since elementary school to understand it a little bit better. Why do you ask since elementary? This was my earliest memory of getting bullied.

I believe we all get bullied throughout our life. Whether it be by someone at school or even at home meaning a brother, sister, or even parents, we have had some kind of bullied experience. This has probably happen the other way as well where we have bullied someone when we were young. What comes as a huge factor however to when we are bullied is how sensitive we are to the words being said to us or actions that are being included in by someone. As mentioned before, I was a very sensitive kid and still really sensitive now. I did, and still do at times, let myself hurt too easily by some little thing people say at times. We all hear that saying where, "Stick and Stones will break my bones, but words will never break me." To some extent, this is true. We shouldn't let word easily defeat us. We shouldn't let others definitions of ourselves destroy our own definition of ourselves. However, words still hurt. They can hurt very badly. 

In elementary school, I was bullied very heavily. It is very funny though because I was a big kid and could have easily stood up to the bullies that were bullying me. However, I was getting hurt very easily and it was pretty much hurting my way of life and school. My mother could see this and decided to transfer me to a different school. This was a private church school and so surely this would not have the trouble of bullying here, right? 

Actually, in my opinion, the bullying was even worse. Where as the bullying at my previous school was mostly done by boys, this time is was mainly girls. They didn't even want to touch me, look at me, or even interact with me. It was just terrible. I remember thinking, "If this is how all girls are, then I don't want any part of them." 

Don't get me wrong, I now realize I am a super weird person. But to have this thrown at you day after day in school, saying that you don't fit in, can very be heartbreaking. Now this never escalated to the point where I wanted to end my life or hurt myself physically in any way. However, there were other ways where I did hurt myself emotionally. With being bullied, comes a huge amount of stress. And being the young kid that I was, I was dealing with stress poorly in terrible ways. I started to want to separate myself and be alone. This even included my family. Maybe this was some kind of phase every teenager goes through whether it be a rebel part or another, but I firmly believe that the main trigger was bullying and self-definition. 

It came to a part where...I did start hating myself for a bit. Why was I like this? Why did I like the certain things that was I was getting made fun of? What was the true definition of normal? And was I as far away from that definition as possible as a person? I felt as if everyone had some wrong thing to point out at me. To quote one of my favorite shows named "Say 'I Love You', "No one likes others pointing out their weakness."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I recently saw a movie called 聲の形 (pronounced Koe No Katachi) or in English, A Silent Voice. I was introduced to it through a church mission friend on Facebook. I read the manga/comic and really liked it and later found out a movie was coming out for it. It is my favorite slice-of-life movie to date. To put in short summary from Wikipedia, "The story revolves around Shoya Ishida, a former delinquent who bullied Shoko Nishimiya, his deaf girl classmate, alongside his friends back when he was in elementary school. When Nishimiya transferred, all of his friends and teachers turned against him, making him isolated well into high school to the point that he decides that there is no point in having friends. Having no plans for the future, Ishida even contemplates on committing suicide until he suddenly reunites with Nishimiya, who is still lonely due to her shyness. Realizing that both are suffering due to his past sins, Ishida sets out on a path of redemption by trying to reconnect Nishimiya with their old classmates that Nishimiya never had the chance to befriend back then.

To me, I was a combination between the two main characters in this story, Shoko Nishimiya and Shoya Ishida. Both go through such a hard time of people telling them that they are worthless, that they did things wrong. It even comes to the point where Shoya Ishida blocks out everyone and in his eyes, doesn't see peoples faces. Shoko Nishimiya even apologizes to people constantly for even being alive or in the peoples lives and hates herself for it. This was the sort of thing I found myself relating to. How did they fix these feelings? Well, a lot of factors came into play, but one main one stood out to me: They relied on each other plus friends and family to continue finding a reason to continue and live! 

This is how I remember getting out of the situation I was in. I did change schools, though I did have some good friends in that school as well. But the main thing was perhaps the group of friends I had in my church group where we gave constant support to each other. I also realized my family's love for me and very much appreciated it. I had great leaders in my Scouts program and church that help gather up my self-love again. Instead of blocking people out or just listening to the negative explanations of people pointing our flaws in my life, I started to listen to people more and see if there was any way I could correct the current flaws they pointed out. Instead of completely relying on myself for comfort. I found others, and I constantly found God again and again to help me improve myself. This does not mean I liked who I was. It means I loved who I was, current am, and who I can become.

Let me explain my last sentence in the last paragraph: I loved who I was meaning the great things I was that I didn't realize back then. Did I make mistakes? Ya, of course. But because of those mistakes and overcoming them or constantly becoming better to resist those bad things, I can be who I am today and become even better tomorrow.

As I look through people online who have been bullied and shared their story, one constant question that pretty much sticks out to me is, "Would've you like to change your life back then so that you would've handled things better?" To that I would answer: 

No.

I love who I am because of the actions and trials I went through. I love who I am now because I know how to overcome those obstacles if and when they come up again. Could there have been a better way to deal with them? Sure, but thinking on that constantly will not change a thing. Thinking about the now and to improve is the way I live my life now.  

I am still fully against bullying. I think it has a severe self-destructing effect on others than people realize. It can even lead to the cause of confused identification. People can sometimes lose the confidence in their-selves. But even if we get bullied, or even when we do bully others and feel completely bad about it, it is not the end of the world! We can overcome anything with help others. We may not stop bullying altogether, but we can sure stop and reverse the effects of it. 

Tomoyo After ~It's a Wonderful Life~ Mini Review

There are only a few things in this world that make me cry. "Tomoyo: It's A Wonderful Life" is now added to this list.

Let me take you back to when I was first introduced to this universe: I was an average freshman in my first semester in college after returning from my church mission. During my mission, I had gotten into this idea that I wanted to watch different anime shows. The problem was, I didn't know where exactly I should start. I finished one anime called "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" and liked it very much. I didn't know quite the genre I was particularly interested in. Then one of my roommates who was trying to connect with me so I didn't seem like an outsider in this apartment complex, suggested of an anime called, "CLANNAD".  I went into this blind trusting his suggestion. What I didn't expect was that this particular anime was going to be my favorite shows of all time. It wasn't some show where it was like, "Wow! That was truly amazing! I need to watch it again as soon as possible". It was more of a calm and heartwarming. But the number one reason why this show is talked about is defined in this image:

Have you ever watched a movie or a show where you swear you are so close to the characters or can directly relate to them that you care so much about them? This was the instance of CLANNAD. The characters are introduced to you and one particular character, named Tomoya (TO-MO-YA), tries his best to fix each character that he comes in contact with issues. This is the case with the first part of the show which is just named, "CLANNAD". This impact becomes even harder in "CLANNAD: After Story" which is the second part of the CLANNAD show. It has been said that if you don't shed a tear during this entire show, then you are a monster.

Sorry, I got a little to ahead of myself. I won't give any spoilers  Here is the plot summary that introduces the show: Tomoya Okazaki is a third year high school student resentful of his life. His mother passed away from a car accident when he was younger, causing his father to resort to alcohol and gambling. This results in fights between the two until Tomoya's shoulder is injured in a fight. Since then, Tomoya has had distant relationships with his father, causing him to become a delinquent over time. While on a walk to school, he meets a strange girl named Nagisa Furukawa who is a year older, but is repeating due to illness. Due to this, she is often alone as most of her friends have moved on. The two begin hanging out and slowly, as time goes by, Tomoya finds his life shifting in a new direction.

Now to introduce one of the characters that Tomoya meets in this show. This person, as mentioned in the title of the game I am reviewing, is Tomoyo Sakagami. Her summary from giantbomb.com says, "Tomoyo is a recently transferred second year student at Tomoya's school and is one of the top students of the school. Although she is a year younger than Tomoya, she does not show him respect as her senior. Tomoyo's goal is to become the student council president. " 

Now this show is based on a visual novel game that share the same name as the show. In this visual novel, you have the choice to choose different paths that lead to a different story and also a relationship with the different characters you encounter. Tomoyo After is following the story of your decisions to follow the Tomoyo route in the original novel where Tomoyo is now your girlfriend that you are steady dating. To put it short, Tomoyo After ~It's a Wonderful Life~ follows the same format as the CLANNAD visual novel. You have certain choices that you can make to choose different paths in the story. Some can really alternate the story and make some incredible emotional moments. Although these moments are everywhere, I never really cried or felt depressed here, UNTIL THE VERY END. I will not spoil it for anyone, but never had I felt so close to one character in a long time.

I was in the plasma center donating when I reach the ending of this long and heart wrenching story. When that particular part it, I started to tear up a bit and people started looking at me weird. I would probably have the same reaction if someone did the same thing I did. Although I was embarrassed, I was still glad I was able to read this story. I came home to my apartment where the roommate I had previously that introduced me to CLANNAD was and told him I hate him for introducing me into this show/universe. Of course I meant it jokingly. 

In the end, if you are looking for a heartwarming and tearful story, I would say that this visual novel/story is a good choice. I understand if you do not like anime or don't want to come even close to it. But for all those who can look past that, this is something I would highly recommend. 

*Note: The one on steam is the clean version so all the bad scenes so I rather get this one than the other.

Our God Given Gifts

             Gifts, gifts, gifts. Oh how we love when we get gifts from others. It gives us the feeling that we are loved at that moment. We see that gift and feel super happy about it. But although we may love just getting gifts from others and that moment of receiving it, do we feel the same as using said gifts?

            We see gifts as just an act of love and just accept that as it is. But can we return that love with using that gift as well. A mother might buy some Play-Doh for a child and the child is ecstatic about it, but if the child ignores it or doesn't use it, it seemed that gift was for nothing. We probably have all been sort of through this experience whether being the giver or the receiver. We may see a present and say, "Well, that is nice. Thanks!" And really never touch it again. Or you may see the person do that with your present and feel like you failed them in giving.

           How do we show love back to the person who gave us to the gifts? By using the gift, of course! If you don't use that gift that the person gave you, you don't really show the appreciation of that gift. My mom for Christmas bought me a X-Box 360 controller which I use for my computer when playing games with my roommate. I really thank my mom for this. I use this a lot of the time and the same can be said about my other gifts from others.

           But probably the biggest example of this concept is the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He gave us the perfect gift. He sacrificed Himself for us so that we may be able to return to Heavenly Father again. He provided a way for us to be forgiven by applying the atonement in our lives. Although many of us know about this, how many of us use this gift constantly? Many of us just think we need to use this gift once and then we are done with it and just store it up in the "attic" never to be touched again? Is that the way all gifts should be used? No. If we did this, then what was the point of that gift? Sure, we would still return to our Heavenly Father, but we wouldn't progress. We wouldn't be able to make ourselves better. We wouldn't find the joy of using this gift.

          This is how I see the Atonement. It is a gift. It has always been a gift. It was meant to be a gift. We need to use it as a gift. To show love to both Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, we use this gift constantly by taking the sacrament and repenting of our wrong doings. And this is not the only gift that God has given us. He gave us talents such as music, art, communication, language, etc. And what does the Lord say to us according to our talents? We should use them! Not hide them, or just use them once. We should use them constantly. (The scripture of the story of the talents is Matthew 25: 14-30)

        As many of you know, or now will know, I love to produce music. I like to write my own songs or do covers of different songs that I like as well. For some reason, when someone calls me out on it or wants to compliment me, I shy back and feel like I don't want to show this. It is a weird feeling. There are many of those who ask me to play for certain events or sacrament meetings and although I usually say yes, my natural instinct is to hide this and say, "Oh, I don't really play." But if I want to grow in my God given gift and shown my appreciation of this gift to Heavenly Father,  I should use this more often.
     
        We shouldn't hide our talents or gifts from others as the foolish man did in Matthew 25, but expound on it. Our gifts could become better and we can discover more of the gifts that God has given us as the wise men did by multiplying their talents. Use your gifts for good! Use them to show that your thankful. Use them, so that they may show love to all. I promise that if you do, you will gain more love of our Heavenly Father and His love for you.

Becoming One

            I have just begun to read the Old Testament. I have always been afraid of trying to understand a lot of the Old Testament mainly because of all the info and laws that are in there. It is a lot of information to try to remember at times and can get you also confused. But perhaps I have been taking it the wrong way of just trying to memorize things in it. There are some terrific things that are in there. One in particular that stood out to me was at the beginning of the book in Genesis. It is in chapter 2 verse 24 and it reads: Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

When I first read this, it seemed like a "duh" moment. Of course you leave your mom and dad behind to live with your spouse. But what really caught my attention was the ending of the verse. "And they shall be one flesh". I then asked myself a question: What does it mean to be one?

There is a similar verse in the Doctrine and Covenants 38: 27 which says: "... I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine."  We are told to be one. Not separate, but all as one. But what does that mean?

I remember at the beginning of my mission, my companion and I were at a members home after helping them with cutting logs. He treated us to some grill cheese sandwiches with tomato soup, (which is probably one of the best combinations out there) and we started to talk to him about families. He was talking about how close he was to his wife compared of when he didn't have the gospel and now when he did. He brought up the Genesis scripture and explained on how he saw it. He compared it by only using his two fingers: the index finger and the middle finger.

If you look at this figure of the fingers they are separate. There is that gap in between them and they are not one. They are not together and they are distant. We don't want to be like this. We don't want to be distant from who we love. We want to be closer together and see eye-to-eye with others.

Now we see here that they are together. There is no distance really between them.This is really good compared to as before. However, although they are together, this is not the best they can do, or if we apply it to us, the best that we can do. We still don't want to have two different purposes. We want to be as one.

This should be our goal. We need to become meaning one in purpose. But how can we do this? Look at the God Head as an example. They are 3 separate beings: Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. Even though they are separate the share one in purpose. What is that purpose? Moses 1:39: For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.






Does this only apply to family? No. This can apply to the Church as well. We want to see the way God sees a situation or how he see us as individuals. My hope is that we can all make that goal to become "one" as a people and as a family. This isn't a short term goal. This is going to take time, even to the end of our lives, but we can learn a whole bunch about us and how God sees us.

Pressure of Getting Married

Being in Utah and being single can be pretty tough. The default mindset of when you come home from your church mission is usually looking for a wife and dating a ton. This is a pretty good goal to think about. I mean, we all want to be with someone we love all the time whether we want marriage or not. But being pressurized to get married fast or not jumping on dating can be stressful.

I have been home from my mission for about 5 months now and haven't gone on a single date. Why? That's a good question because most days I ask myself that. Why don't I reach out and ask girls on dates? Am I scared? Do I think it's a waste of time? I have been thinking about this a while and it does trouble me. Being married to the one I love is one of my huge goals. Before I came home from my mission, I had an interview with my mission president and we were discussing the next goals in my life. Everything looked like it was lined up right with school, jobs, transportation. The only thing that wasn't super clear was dating. My mission president gave me this advice, "When you fine the right girl and you love her and she loves you, don't wait for while, make plans to get married." At first this was pretty alarming to hear. Getting married or planning marriage that soon while dating?! That's super fast. But as I have come back to a normal life, I can see others who do put off marriage for quite sometime and you see them question their relationship and things start falling apart.

We should date! Absolutely! No question! But for some odd reason we think when we go on dates that instantly we are in a relationship with that person. One date means a relationship to us. I find that funny. I even thought that way in High school. But dating helps us understand who the person we asked on a date truly are and we get to know them.

There is also one point I want to make before I drop this topic. I am a big believer of fixing ourselves or finding ourselves before we depend on others for happiness or discovering ourselves. If we depend to much on one person for our happiness, we soon lose what we find our own happiness on whether it be scriptures, sports, friends, family or whatever. Once we find our happiness or our road, then the relationship we have with others will not completely control our life.

I am a wierd person. I AM! I like certain things that others find wierd, time wasting or whatever. But does that stop me from thinking about dating or moving foreword from life? No. Just because I like something that may seem odd, different, or doesn't quite fit your life style doesn't mean I don't go through the same struggles as others do or just ignore them.

Marriage is, again, one of my big goals. And I am sure that over time I will learn more about preparing for marriage or just love in general. I don't know everything about love and I don't believe anyone else does either. But we constantly learn more about it every day as we should.

Don't let others pressure you to go on dates. Go at your own pace. Don't let others press you to get married super soon. Go at your own pace and pay attention how good you feel about the situation. Get your life in order so that your future spouse may help you, but not be all depended on.

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.