We tried to be civilized for most of the game, but we lost it by the end, and filled the last spaces with nonsense.

On another day, I had some of the delicious ginger cookies that Gin sent for christmas for dessert. I decided it would be great to dip them in the left-over meringue frosting from christmas. It was delicious, but a little drippy.

Continuing the food-ventures: PIZZA! It was tasty! I haven’t had pizza in a long time, and I got so excited I just had to take a photo. I took it with the flash, but I tried covering the flash partially with my hand, so that it doesn’t look sodang ugly.

http://murphyrambles.blogspot.com

I will hopefully be posting more there soon.
Thanks!

https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1gfaTRsYlF5hWtt0ERdesPm6-myJ3KlDUGsIiEZ07YHw&hl=en

13 And these will I place in the nethermost part of my vineyard, whithersoever I will, it mattereth not unto thee; and I do it that I may preserve unto myself the natural branches of the tree; and also, that I may lay up fruit thereof against the season, unto myself; for it grieveth me that I should lose this tree and the fruit thereof.

In this case, the Lord of the vineyard (representing Jesus Christ, if I am not mistaken) speaks to his servants, the prophets.

He gives them a commandment, actually he gives them many, and he tells them what he is going to do. He says (if I may take the liberty to paraphrase): “We’re going to cut some of the natural branches off of this tree that has gone bad, and I’m going to put them somewhere else until later. You don’t have to worry about where I put them, that doesn’t matter to you. You just need to know that I’m going to do it, and later we will bring them back.”

Isn’t this how the Lord has always worked with his prophets? Is it not how he always will?

There is in the book of Amos a bit of wisdom:

5 Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is for him? shall one take up a snare from the earth, and have taken nothing at all?
6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?
7 Surely the Lord God will do nothing, abut he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
8 The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy?

Paying special attention to verse 7 we see that God always fills us in on his plans, and we have always known that, as long as we’ve had the Bible, but the Book of Mormon helps us to understand that the Lord doesn’t always sit down with a blueprint of life with the prophet and make sure he memorizes the schematic, the prophet is not a perfect man. Rather, he is a man that is inspired by God when necessary to warn and teach the world as a whole.

To some it may sound like crazy talk, but I know it’s true. I found out for myself, I asked God personally. If you haven’t you can too.

Cool.

Even though it’s desert, I think it’s pretty. I don’t know if I’d like to make this blessed state my permanent place of residency, but I do think it’s a pretty cool place to visit. It also helps that my beautiful sister, and her cool husband live here.

They have a hammock on their back porch, and here’s the view I had from it as of yesterday:

And here’s a really cool bug that Kris found while he was mowing the….. plants.

And, one of the best parts of Santa Fe, my nephew M:

And here’s some of the really cool trail riding that is available right near the house, we went on a fun ride yesterday even though it was hot.

So there we go!

Here’s a cool little image that I’ve composed just for fun. Not really advanced, probably not good composition, but it was an excercise in using one of my favorite new programs, Pixelmator! (pixelmator.com) I love the app.
Anyway, just for fun! That’s me, sitting on… me.

Now we’re headed to the conference.

BUT! You women are so important to me that I will take the time to write this thing that has been stewing in my mind for days.

First things first,

THE BATTLE

Know it or not beloved womenfolk, you are in a very nasty battle. It is you against the world, against the invisible forces that be. For some reason it seems that there is something out there that wants to destroy our happiness, and so it attacks you from every angle possible.

The most obvious place we can see this is from famous fashion magazines and television shows. Girls, have you ever walked by a magazine stand at the grocery store check out and though “Gee I shure wish that I looked like her”, or “why don’t I look like that”?

I want to tell you that the great majority of those images you see on the magazines are LIES! Really, they are! Artists take a human girl who has gone to much effort to look “attractive” and then they put a bunch of makeup on her and stick her in an unreal situation and take photos with impressive contraptions, then afterward they paint and refine and retuck and remake until they end up with the perfect “sexy” construct that DOESN’T EXIST!

And that probably ends up making you feel ugly and inferior. It happens all over magazines and all over the television.

But the next worst thing about it is what this attack does to your natural ally-the male. Aside from Pornography itself which I have seen the effects of and I abhor. It is the worst sickness there is, DO NOT enter into it and if you have get help soon. Your family depends on it.

Aside from pornography these simple images in ads put unreal images in the minds of us men of how you women should really look. According to the television you should all have perfectly flat stomachs without any bulges or bumps, you should be in a perfect hourglass shape and not a gram of fat should exist on your blessed bodies. This also is a lie.

We are all human, fat is a natural function that we have to help us store energy and maintain a constant body temperature. Of course, we should not have too much of it, that is bad. But we should definitely have some.

The truth is, there is nothing bad about love handles. A little fat is good and healthy. Now I’m not saying that we should all look like muffins here, but I am saying that what the world calls “skinny” is really “close to death”.

Got the point?

So it seems that something in the world wants you to feel miserable about yourself, and wants the guys to look you over because we think that there is some life-sized barbie doll waiting for us somewhere, and we’re too stupid to see the virtue and reality that sits in front of us.

My message to you today is this:

Stop looking at the fashion magazines! Stop believing what the media tells you about what’s pretty.

Stop asking yourself “Does this make me look fat?”

Rather ask yourself “Do I look healthy?” “Do I feel healthy?”

That is what really matters. Please do everything you can to help us men young and old understand this principle.

If I must I will tell you how I began to think this way, and it was when I took a figure drawing class. I had to draw the female form many times over, and they were all dressed in swimming suits, which is much less covering than you see every day. When I began to study the form, I began to notice that the really skinny girls really looked unhealthy. They really did! And I saw that the healthy looking girls did not resemble the super-models we see on television. Rather, they had a healthy amount of fat upon them. It surprised me, but I began to realize the truth of it…

So mothers and sisters, wives and daughters, friends and girlfriends, STOP worrying about being skinny, and START focusing on being healthy.

I will do what I can on my end to educate us dumb guys.