Good Looking Kids

Confession: I miss Grandpa all the time. Today I was flipping through their life history book (thanks Emily!) and I noticed the pictures of Grandma when she was young. One of my thoughts was, "None of us look like her!"

Random I know, and not spiritual necessarily, but who do you think looks like who in the family? Who do your kids look like? Who do the cousins resemble in family history? I am still aspiring to look like a Bradshaw, but I'm not sure I do right now.

Shipping Beats Perfection

 For months, or maybe years I've been wondering how to keep track of spiritual notes. How many journals should I have? Which journal should I take to church? How should I organize impressions during general conference? Where should I put my scripture study notes? Maybe it's an excuse, but I kind a haven't done a lot of that  over the last few months or years. But this week I had a weird sort of Revelation:  shipping beats perfection.  This is one of the core values at Khan Academy.  The idea there is that you can write and tweak code forever, and it will still not be perfect. Maybe that's what I wanted, perfection. So now I'm going to just do it. Something is better than nothing. I'm not going to be embarrassed about  my unorganize notes, electronic or handwritten, I'm going to be embarrassed about  not having notes at all.

 Of course this could be applied to a lot of different things. Sometimes in the church we plan a lot,  but maybe we just need to fellowship a lot. CS Lewis said: Do not waste time bothering whether you "love" your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone you will presently come to love him. 

 What do you think? 


  On another note, I really intend to look at this blog more often but I don't get alerts in my  email.  And please excuse the punctuation, I am doing this speech to text. 

Accepting the Will and Timing of the Lord

I'm speaking in church next Sunday. Does anyone have any favorite talks or insights about this subject?

Beautiful!

I'm speaking in church in two weeks. While studying my topic, I came across this BYU Devotional address from 2012. The speaker's personal experiences are beautiful and touched my heart:

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/dallan-r-moody_what-happens-when-life-gets-one-degree-colder/

Civic Standards for the Faithful Saints

So a while back I saw a meme on Facebook that was attributed to President Benson, quoting him as having said:

If you vote for the lesser of two evils you are still voting for evil and you will be judged for it. You should always vote for the best possible candidate, whether they have a chance of winning or not, and then, even if the worst possible candidate wins, the Lord will bless our country more because more people were willing to stand up for what is right.

This quote seems to lend support to voting for a third-party candidate, but I've looked around a little, and I can't find the original source. (One website attributed to a personal conversation, which casts doubt on its credibility and means it can't be universally applied.) But what I did find was this: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1972/04/civic-standards-for-the-faithful-saints?lang=eng&_r=1.

I bring this up because I haven't figured out yet what to do about the upcoming elections and I've been fretting over it. The way I see it, the options are:

• Don't vote. There aren't any good options, and I can't in good conscience support any of them. But I know we're supposed to be involved in civic-ly, so this doesn't feel right.
• Vote for Donald Trump. Ug. The only argument I can give in favor of Trump is that he's likely to nominate conservative justices to the Supreme Court. This is a big deal. But I really can't respect him--on so many levels--and I don't want to vote for someone I don't respect.
• Vote third party. Like, Evan McMullin. I think he's idealistic and not a serious contender, but I can at least respect his values. But this feels like a wasted vote, and like I'm practically voting for Clinton and a bunch of liberal Supreme Court justices.
• Hillary Clinton isn't even an option. I actually think I like her better--as a person--that Donald Trump, but I so totally disagree with her platform that I can't even consider voting for her.

So yeah, I'm in a pickle. If anyone has any insights they would like to share, I am all ears.

Love!

This is a must watch. I recommend watching instead of reading, because there are some cool images that you won't want to miss.

I took 2 political science classes from President Holland back at BYU and was a huge fan. (He is Elder Holland's son.) When I saw that he had given an address at BYU-Hawaii earlier this year, I couldn't wait to listen.

This was seriously one of the best talks that I've enjoyed in a while. I love the way he talks about the new Provo Temple and draws a comparison to trials in our lives. Kind of reminded me of Elder Brown's "God is the Gardener."

https://devotional.byuh.edu/media160405

Elder Oaks on Elections, Hope & Freedom

I am excited to listen to this brand-new BYU devotional later today. Ya'll should check it out so we can discuss!

https://www.lds.org/prophets-and-apostles/unto-all-the-world/elections-hope-and-freedom?lang=eng&_r=1&cid=HP_TU_13-9-2016_dPAAST_fCNWS_xLIDyC-2_