Birth and Atonement

Today, I was reading 1 John 5 and I came across these verses:

"For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world:and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
"Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?
"This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth." (1 John 5:4-5)

This may seem not much to you but I thought it was interesting that they made a point that Christ had to be born just like all of us. This may sound a little graphic but baby Jesus was born by "water and blood." He was a mortal who overcame the world, trials, evil, and even death. Once He had suffered all these things and was resurrected, He became perfect.

We, too, were born by "water and blood." We, too, have the potential to become perfect: full of glory and having all the attributes that God and Jesus Christ possess. However, we, unlike Christ, cannot overcome the challenges, trials, and death (alone).

Garden of Gethsemane by Simon Dewey

I don't know if you noticed the title of this post but you might wonder what do water and blood have to do with the Atonement? Everything. Christ who suffered in the Gethsemane sweated "great drops of blood." Through His sacrifice or should I say through His blood, it is possible for us to repent, change our nature, and become like God and Jesus Christ.

During the process of repenting, we make a covenant with the Lord through baptism (by water) and then through the Atonement (by blood), we are able to offer up our natural man and become a saint.

When we were born, we were pure and innocent but the whirlwind comes and beats us down and we slowly become tainted by the world. However, through Christ, we are born again and become pure once again. This time, the whirlwind and the world cannot bring us down because through His blood, we can be made white whenever we desire.

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Hymns: Peace to Our Little Emma

Not too long ago, Alysha told me that she plays some of Mormon Tabernacle Choir songs to calm Emma down. I can't remember if it was her idea or I just decided to do it but I started singing hymns to Emma at night so that she would fall asleep.

I started with "I am a Child of God" and she loved it! She became very calm and started to fall asleep in my arms. Perhaps, it's just because she is tired. However, last night for some reason, she just started wailing! It was as if she was really scared/terrified of something. I just took her and do the same thing that we always do to put her to sleep: bouncing on the exercise ball and turn off all the lights.

She becomes more and more
Asian when she gets tired.

She was still crying and very fussy but when I started singing "I am a Child of God," she was calming down but still fussy. I continued singing hymns for a while and she fell asleep (not for long but she wasn't fussy anymore.) I think it is so cool that this little human would feel the Spirit and would receive peace from it. Some may argue that it's the sound of the song that she enjoys. I doubt that. I don't enjoy my own voice when I sing so I don't think she is enjoying it either. However, it really is the Holy Ghost that she feels when I sing and I feel it too.

"The singing of hymns is one of the best ways to put ourselves in tune with the Spirit of the Lord." -Elder Dallin H. Oaks-

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New Job, New Path

I was going to write about how I got this job that I have now but it was too long so I am going to make it really short and sweet.

I worked at the Intermountain Medical Center for about 11 months. I wanted to become a radiologic technologist; however, I didn't like the idea of working and going to school full-time when we were going to have a baby. I didn't want to miss anything. I didn't want to miss our little Emma growing and learning new things. I wanted to be there to experience and enjoy all of it.

Thus, I began my search for a new job. At times, it was frustrating, disappointing, discouraging, and depressing. However, I knew I had to keep trying: trying to find the right job, right career, and right path. For a while, I wanted to go into business management and perhaps get a degree in MBA. I guess that wasn't what the Lord had in mind for me.

After many interviews and sending off lots and lots of resumes, I was offered a job as an imaging scheduler at TOSH. It would be a desk job and would pay a little better than the job I had previously. I thought that I would just stick with it until I find something better. During that time, however, I also had an interview at BYU as an office specialist.

While TOSH was deciding whether they wanted to hire me or not, I had an interview at BYU on a Tuesday and a few hours after the interview, they invited me to a second interview the next day. During the second interview, I met with an assistant dean of the department and learned what I could do to move up in the department. I thought that this would be the best opportunity for me to get more education and have a stable career. I really wanted this job.

However, something that I feared would happen happened. TOSH offered me the position as an imaging scheduler. I really wanted that job at BYU but I wasn't sure I was going to get it. I decided that I would tell TOSH that I would accept the job and then if BYU offered me their position, I would just call them back and reject it and take the job at BYU. (This is exactly what I did with the rad tech assistant position (my previous position) almost a year ago now.) And that is exactly what happened.

BYU called and offered me the position that I have now. It is salaried with great benefits. I love, love, love working at BYU. I love the people I work with, the environment I am in, the possibilities, and everything. Perhaps, I am so "infatuated" with this job because it's something new; however, I don't think I will regret the decision and regret not going into the rad tech program.

Just to tell you a little about what I do now, I personally deal with all the off-campus people wanting to have a luncheon or a meeting at BYU (everyone else has their own responsibilities) and we all basically reserve rooms on campus for events. It is a desk job; however, it is never boring...except when we have finals since we can't schedule anything during finals. Thus, I am writing on my blog.

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The Book of Mormon: Of God or Of Satan

I was studying for a lesson I will be teaching this Sunday to the young men in our ward and I came across this talk by Elder Tad R. Callister.

He talked about how his great-great-grandfather had studied the Book of Mormon to know for himself if it is true or not. However, the way he approached this self-discovery was worth mentioning. He told himself that the Book of Mormon is either "written by God or the devil, and I am going to find out who wrote it."

Elder Callister goes on and says in his talk that "...there is no middle ground. It is either the word of God as professed, or it is a total fraud." No middle ground! It's not possible form God or maybe the prophets wrote it; it's either from God or not. Simple as that.

We don't to wonder whether it could be from God or not for days, months, or years. We have to decide right now whether it is from God or not. If you are still struggling to find the testimony of the Book of Mormon yourself, I would invite you to read it, ponder every word of it, and pray. Elder Callister's great-great-grandfather read the book twice in 10 days to find out for himself. How willing are you to find out for yourself?

To end, I would like to quote this scripture:

"But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.
"And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand:
"And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?" (Matthew 12:24-26)

 Would Satan publish a book that is against him and invite people to do good?

I know the Book of Mormon is true and it invites everyone to do good and to believe in God and His Son, Jesus Christ. It is of God. I know it, and you can know it for yourself as well.

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"The Tongue is Fire"

For one, hello everyone. Kyoo is back! ...well, kind of. I finally got a desk job where I might be able to update the blog once again. Also, I will be working on updating my wife's and my new blog so we will see how much updating I will be doing.

Anyways, I was reading from James in the New Testament this morning and came across this very insightful scripture:

"And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.
"But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.
"Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be." -James 3:6, 8, 10-

Out of all the body parts, Paul taught that the tongue is the one would defile our whole body. I don't think he meant that the tongue is the only thing that would defile the body; however, I thought it deserved some pondering.

"But the tongue can no man tame..." I don't necessarily think that we can't control what we say; however, it's something that everyone struggles to control and use. Before we could think about not saying something, it is already out in the open, completely exposed, no way of taking back, just...out.

And then Paul says that "out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing." How true that is! The priesthood holders give blessings, we pray for those around us, and we preach the word of God. Then, with the same mouth, we turn around and judge others, say negative things about others or about ourselves, and swear/cuss.

As I have mentioned multiple times in the past, I do not claim to be perfect. I need to be working on this for sure. What I am doing and hoping to do is to raise the awareness of all of us so that we ALL do our best to work on our weaknesses.

What I believe that could help us is changing ourselves, our very nature. If we didn't have any malice or bad intentions in the first place, we would not be "cursing" or our tongue would be "full of deadly poison." We must do our best to become, as we have heard many times, like Christ who would never let His tongue rule Him and defile His body.

To end, I found this quote by Brigham Young, who said:

"Let not thy tongue give utterance to the evil that is in thine heart, but command thy tongue to be silent until good shall prevail over the evil, until thy wrath has passed away and the good spirit shall move thy tongue to blessings and words of kindness.... When my feelings are aroused to anger by the ill-doing of other, I hold them as I would hold a wild horse, and I gain the victory."

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