Thursday, February 08, 2007

Be Ready to Share

When the Winter Olympics were held in Salt Lake City, Utah, many members had a chance to explain our beliefs to others who were curious. Sometimes any publicity is good publicity.

This year and next year we'll be seeing and hearing a lot more about the former governor of Massachusettes Mitt Romney. Today, Drudge had a link to a NY Times about an article that discussed Romney's religion as an issue.

So be prepared to field questions about Mormonism during this presidential election cycle.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Web Participation

I took two negotiation classes in my MBA program. One of the repeating lessons I learned from those two classes as well as from another class is the importance of sharing information and knowledge.

For example, in a managing teams class demonstation, we played this game where half a dozen teams or so were "countries" and each contry's goal was to maximize on their gains. We did this by trading cards. Each card had some tid-bit of information. Anyway, the gist of it was that every nation only had a small part of information. Everyone was so concerned about giving away too much information that we all horded it. By the end of the class, a few of us convinced the majority of the nations to begin sharing information. By then, though, time had expired and the demonstation was over. If we had been quicker to share information, many of the groups would have been close to maximizing their profits.

Today I read a post over at the blog for the More Good Foundation. The point of the post was to convince members of the Church to participate in the Internet. I wholly agree with this. Just as in the real World, if we sit back and do nothing, the tides of evil will wash over us. But if we add our voice to the collective choir, then our voice will be louder than the dischord of evil.

So how does this relate to my point about sharing information? I think that the more we share our testimonies and what we are learning from the Gospel, the more likly someone who is "surfing" will stumble on your site and have a spark of interest ignite within himself. Your sharing might help a friend or a family member who reads your blog or your testimony ... just think testimony meeting. We share, we feel the Spirit, we grow.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Faith

I'm sure you've heard the analogy many, many times. Faith is like train travelling in the dark of night. The conductor only needs to drive the train to the edge of his light ... once he gets there, the light extends out further. James E. Talmage called this The Parable of the Owl Express.

Well today I had a similiar experience while driving into work. I live in Texas where the winters are mild. Snow and ice storms are rare. When we have one, usually the highways snarl to a halt with all the accidents. So people will usually stay home on those days. Every year, we see about one such winter storm.

Today we had our 3rd winter storm of the year and it brought the most snow ... at least in the north part of the DFW metroplex. As I stepped outside, I saw the ground and cars covered with two inches of snow. Normally I would stay home and work from home. But today I really needed to be in the office. I was a bit worried about how my 20 mile commute would go. But I cleaned off the ice and crept out of the driveway and on to the highways. The ice wasn't too bad, but the commute was slow. All along the way I kept saying to myself that if I could just get to the next stop light or next exit, then I'd reassess the situation. If all was OK, then I'd continue. If not, then I'd turn around. I did not know what lay ahead for me. I just kept going forward.

By the time I passed the airport, the roads were less icy and traffic was able to pass more quickly. By the time I was half way to work, the roads were completly dry and I was able to drive the speed limit without worrying about ice.

At work, everything was dry ... no ice or snow. It was crazy to think that such a big snow storm hit the area just 20 miles north. Had I stayed home, I would have never known that the commute would be OK. I would have been paralyzed by fear. But instead, I walked by faith as it were and I arrived at my destination without incident.