Happiness

To be happy you have be confident. To be confident you have to live with no regrets. To live with no regrets you have to not do anything stupid but if you do make up for it and don't do it again.

Sense of Humor in the Middle East

Hello dear friends! I have had a couple things come to my mind as of recently through an email group I am in. This email group sends each other articles about current Middle East events and we talk about them. Sometimes they are really lame and other times really fascinating. I have two I want to share.

First, ULTRAMAN from the Middle East! They love Japanese style of things. So check this out. It's nice to know that in Saudi Arabia? they have a sense of humor like many of the geeks and nerds we have around here (myself included of course).



Second, there was an article found in Egypt and it is about the Mormons believe it or not. Well, the Arabs as far as knowledge of the church and misunderstandings goes it is similar to how Americans think we worship lizards and snakes or whatever crazy thing, this article portrays us worshiping an ancient Egyptian god, namely the god Osiris. But I guess if you were to read Nibley's writings you'd see that it'd be pretty confusing as he relates the ancient Egyptian theology to modern day knowledge and revelation.

The ancient religion of Aton has reappeared in the historic cities of Upper Egypt after approximately 3450 years since its initial appearance in 1450 BC. The worshippers of Osiris have reemerged in Luxor and Abydos and several other tourist areas where one of the writers of the city lead them in prayer, worship, and meditation at the Luxor temple where no sound was heard in the tourist city over the new sounds of worshipping Aton and Osiris in East and West Luxor amidst fears of the growing numbers of new worshippers. The worshippers gathered to pray special meditation prayers and ritually eat dates and sing songs that are a mixture of Pharaonic songs and Coptic hymns.

Rumors are going around of the presence of followers of this new religion in several of the Egyptian tourist areas and the sources themselves say that the followers of this new religion in Luxor are connected to the Mormon sect in the United States and that their religion is a combination of Christianity, Judaism, and the ancient religion of Aton. However, tens of the worshippers of Aton and Osiris flocked to the tomb of Ra’musi, known as the tomb of Ramusa, in west Luxor, and to the temple of Abydos in Sohag, and to the Pyramids in Giza, inciting fears of the rise of a new religion of Aton and Osiris in the historical and tourist cities of Upper Egypt.

The Osiris worshippers, who converted the Aton complexes leading to the tomb of Ra’musi, the advisor of king Akhenaton, for prayers, during which they raised their hands towards the panel of the winged sun multiple times and then placed their hands on their chests while singing ritual songs and chants that were part of ancient Egyptian and Coptic rituals, bowing down before the winged sun panel before performing their ritual which ended in tears at sundown.

Mormons believe in making a pilgrimage to the Abydos temple in the governorate of Sohag, in getting married according to ancient Egyptian rituals, and that the people of Abydos spoke Old English and lived for centuries at Abydos, known by the name “Um Siti,” who guarded the entrance of the Abydos temple and who were known followers of Osiris and who remained in the vicinity of the temple until its death.

According to the Egyptian scholar Abd al-Monaim Abd al-Azim the Mormon religion appeared in the United States and was led by Joseph Smith, one of the sons of a farmer who had a farm in a village near New York, who claimed that the walls of his bedroom split apart and an that he saw a bright light surround an angel that God had sent from heaven to teach him the new religion. Smith claimed that the angel called himself Moroni and that he directed Smith to the location of the Book of Mormon, a book written by Abraham that God supposedly concealed. Smith also claimed that he discovered a marble box containing the teachings of this religion, written in Hebrew and hieroglyphics, and that God commanded him to not reveal them to anyone on the grounds that he was a prophet of God. He later returned the teachings to God after he had learned all their secrets.

All the more reason to help people to understand what the gospel is all about. Who knows if this was really a true story distorted on purpose or this is what they really believe about the Mormons. And if you are not Mormon and reading this, I highly suggest you go here to find out what we are all about yourself.

Good Things to Come

I love what it is to be so close to a finish line. But I don't like the ability to be so tired at the end. Makes you want to give up. But it's otay, anything is still possible for good when doing right. I love this video from Mormon Messages. They always are so good at the clips they make. 

Lesson Learned

I wish I could move past into something much greater. I have learned a lot of lessons, but for those lessons learned it can take time to finally apply them.

The other night at work a Mexican lady came through the register with a few summer dresses for a young girl. One dress didn't have a price tag or anyway to find out how much it was. In her broken English she said a few times that her friend told her it was $4. Normally, these brand new summer dresses are $20 and no way would be on clearance for $4 which is what she was claiming. I sadly had a little bit of doubt of her integrity on the claim she was making. But I was willing to accommodate and give it to her for $8 and just scan another dress and change the price. Well, while sifting through the dress one last time I found a little tiny tag with a UPC number and punched it in. And guess what? The dress ran for $4. I was amazed. Then the customer said, "See? I am not a bad woman."  I stood corrected and actually quite happy that was the case.

Yesterday, the census called again offering a different position, similar to the last of working in the office but I'd be an office clerk (don't really know the difference). I accepted it making sure I wouldn't have to work Sundays. But I have a conflict that it is 40 hours a week and will conflict with Kohl's. I told my boss today that I was given another job offer and he was quick to be accommodating to this new temporary job. It was actually quite a relief to know that he was quick to offer to help. He mentioned that he wanted to make sure they could keep me. It's nice to feel wanted.

I wish I could express some of the void feeling I have. It's like part of me is just not there. It makes me sick to my stomach, literally. Sometimes when I pray or read my scriptures the feeling gets worse. I realize that I know the principles of the gospel, but do I apply them as well. I need greater faith. That faith makes the atonement more real the more I have. I can't expect to be truly happy just by simply living the commandments. I have to live the commandments with more sure knowledge and faith that it is right. Which I do know it's right, don't get me wrong, I just need more faith. It needs to turn from something like this:

To more up close and focused:

I do know that everything will be ok no matter how hard things may be. I just to rely more on Him and what all of this life journey is all about. I know He is my Savior. I know He lives. 

But if ye will turn to the Lord with full purpose of heart, and put your trust in 

him, and serve him with all diligence of mind, if ye do this, he will, according to his own will and pleasure, deliver you out of bondage.

Mosiah 7:33

Lost

Well, things have been good. This other girl, Loraina, at work early this morning asked me a lot of questions about the church. Turns out she is Jehovah Witness but not practicing. I tried to teach her about priesthood authority (which the JW's believe in but don't believe it's on the earth currently) but I don't think she comprehended it. She seemed interested in meeting with the missionaries, so we shall see.
Another interesting thing that is developing with work is that my right leg and foot are starting to cramp up real bad with all the fast walking I do while there. I somehow pulled a muscle in my ankle area my first week at work and seems like it gets worse little by little. Hopefully nothing is too wrong. I just need to take it easy.

I haven't done much besides work today and watched an episode of the tv show Lost on Hulu (been sleeping, too many early morning shifts and lack of sleep). Last night's episode in fact. Lost has been my favorite TV show I have ever seen. My roommate Mike introduced it to me freshman year at BYU shortly after season one started and have been hooked ever since. It is on its final season with only two or three episodes left (grilling to wait and see how it will end). Some episodes are sort of less exciting because they are those transitional episodes to help the plot be set up. Well, last night's episode was not one of those, it was intense and quite honestly emotionally draining. There are few times in my life I cry during a film of any sort and I cried during this one. There is one other scene from Lost that I will show you hereafter but first want to talk about Sun and Jin's final scene in this TV show.
A background - Sun and Jin are husband and wife from Korea that haven't always had the best marriage but the Island seemed to have fixed their problems and even allowed Sun to become pregnant when earlier they couldn't have a baby. To make an extremely long story short. Sun and 5 others finally get off the island in 2 seasons ago, but Jin and others stayed. Sun thought Jin was dead during those three years but decided to go back to the Island after she found out Jin was still alive. It was a tender moment when they finally met again.
So now they are trying to leave the Island again but this time in a sub which then was placed with a bomb that exploded and now they try to escape one last time. Notice how Jin will not leave his wife again. Notice the music. Notice just even the littlest amount of feelings of sadness you may have felt. This thing, I hate to admit, made me ball. I edited these clips this evening.



Phew - made it through that one.

This next one is from 3 seasons earlier. Actually from season 3 episode 1. Much different time and events going on during this one than the last clip. Jack Shepherd, a doctor and leader of the survivors from the plane crash, is caught by The Others and they place him in a holding place. He is pretty resistant at first and Julia (the woman speaking during the clip who turns out to be a good guy unlike the rest of The Others) helps him calm down. We learn earlier that his wife has an affair and leaves him for that man. His own insanity drives him crazy to pushing her even more away. The flashback during the clip explains what happens and I love afterwards his greatest desire. It hit me so hit the first time I saw it because I had just gotten out of a tough relationship at that time that I still cared for the girl and wanted nothing else for her to be happy.



Ok ok, I promise I am not some sort of Lost junkie...I just wanted to share how awesome and amazing your feelings can be after watching something done right. And...it's a dedication to the most amazing TV show - LOST.