August 2, 2014

I am currently at the Capitola Beach. I am chilling out, watching the bags of two Japanese foreign students that my family are hosting. They are pretty cool. This past week has been my first week of the summer break. It has been pretty good. I got in a couple days of work. I started working on designing my cousin's house. My brother has the calling to organize service opportunities for the branch, and we served the grandma of Adrian.

     The Japanese students are fun. The two Japanese students are teenagers about to start high school, and their names are Tamoya and Keiji. Trevor downloaded the new Puella Magi Madoka Magica movie. We have been wanting to watch this movie for a while. It is a full length animated Japanese film. Puella Magi Madoka Magica is hailed as one of the greatest science fiction cartoons. It is super deep, and I don't understand it. It spoke about the Law of Cycle. We invited the two Japanese boys, and they were not into it because I don't think that they knew that it was in Japanese. They said that they were only interested in watching the opening scene. When we started watching the film, they wanted to watch the whole movie because it was in Japanese. The movie was a lot less comprehensible than the anime because it was based on different theories of science. No being able to read each subtitle makes it more confusing. On Saturday, I took Tamoya and Keiji to the beach. Keiji really enjoys the beach. When we arrived, I just let them go play and do whatever they wanted because they are very good friends just about to be freshman in high school. I sat with their bags. Sitting with the bags, I was left sitting next a big Polynesian family, and I did know if it was more embarrassing for me or them because they threw a Frisbee, hitting me in the head almost twice. They offered me a beer for compensation, but I resisted. I wanted to take a picture of Keiji and Tamoya. When I went looking for them, I ran into a BYUI alumni, recognizing me as a student from there because I was wearing a competitive sports champion shirt. He actually studied construction management like me, and he works at Swinerton. He asked me about looking for internships, and I said that I plan to intern with an architecture firm. The guy was named Sterling, and he graduated in 2004. Swinerton is a general contracting company, and they actually did a seminar at BYU Idaho. When I finally found Tamoya and Keiji, they were worried about their stuff, so I had to take a quick picture and go back to my sitting position, guarding the bags. We played monopoly in the evening with my Japanese brothers. We have had many foreign students stay with us, and I always have a brotherly relationship with them. Tamoya and Keiji barely understood what was going on, and I kind of took advantage of it. I like letting people think on their own while dad persuaded them not to trade me property. My family has developed the ability to complete both Monopoly and Risk games in one night. You may not believe this. Trevor and I had a similar value of property, and dad was being too conservative in playing as usual. My father really likes the orange properties. My family thinks that those properties give an unfair advantage, so we decided that the houses should cost 200 dollars each.  I out bid him for his last property needed to have the whole set of orange property, when it was up for auction. That limited the competition a little. He started investing very late in his property, when he finally purchased it from me. I did not have any property to develop, so I gave Keiji the necessary property for him to have the complete set of the yellow properties. I also bought a purple property for like 800 dollars from him for fun. He was kind of out of it. He invested a little in the yellow properties, and he wanted to go to sleep early. When he quit, he decided to give me all his property. Now I had a heap of property to invest in. Trevor had a lot of potential too, but the property that he won was mortgaged, and mine was not. It was a fun game.

     The job opportunity was interesting. We did inventory work for Outdoor World. I was really slow the first day of work. I only scanned about 1300 items while my brother heard that other employees had more than double the amount of items. There were a couple teenagers that Trevor and I hung out with during lunch. Taylor, the girl, is a junior, and Kyle, the boy, is a senior in high school. They are both really cool. Taylor got me into Instagram because she doesn't have a Facebook account. I love people, and I realized that I will be able to follow my friends more closely while I am away with the app. My second day, working inventory, was much more successful. I actually finished the section that I was assigned, and I finished my third section in a fashion that surprised the person that hired us. Taylor and Trevor were nearby and humored by his astonishment.

     Before the semester ended, my cousin, Shaundra saw my Revit architecture work, and she wanted me to help her design her home. She gave me her ideas. The main floor plan is inspired by a house featured in the Design Build Magazine. I don't think that the floor plans look normal, since it has very limited information, but I am working with it. The image is also very small. The house is very luxurious. She asked the master bedroom to be about 250 square feet. I feel that I am a very inefficient architect because a bed covered most of the room. The house has many weird angles. I think that the angles make the master bedroom hard to effectively use. The master bedroom is about 280 square feet, and that will probably make the entire house much larger than requested. Working with a client is interesting. The information on the house is very limited. I only have some exterior pictures of the house, and the floor plans. Shaundra said that she has been developing her vision for the house for over 5 years, and I have been able to see this from her Pinterest. Here are some pictures of the house. The progress of this house has slowed down because Sterling from Swinerton galvanized me to put together my portfolio for applying for internships.

I saw that in many of the images that Shaundra was impressed with in her master pin board. She liked a lot of big windows, so I put this huge 16 foot long double glass side-doors. 

blurry floor plans

The master bedroom is the red section. You can see the bed takes a lot of room.

I heard the word decal a lot in my class, and I did not understand that it was inserting image in a model until the end of the semester.

How do you like the nightstand lamps that I found on Revit City? I think that it matches the bed somewhat well. The material of the lambs are not shown well.

    Last Friday, we help Adrian, a member of my branch to serve his grandma. She doesn't have much help. We helped trim her yard plants mainly. We also took out a couple tree stumps out of the ground. I learned how to prune a rose bush. Humphrey, a member of the branch, saw me pruning a rose bush, and he trimmed down a rose bush a lot, but I pruned the bush how I was taught. Humphrey was very knowledgeable and a good leader.

    I want to add a series of pictures that I got from a run. I told a friend from school about a traiil from high school that goes to a Buddhist monastery. Here are the pictures of that.

Runner's discount :)

sorry i havent written in two weeks

sorry i havent written in two weeks but i expirienced a miracle with my brother writting me, thats been fun.

 

so lets see whats new. this week we found 7 new investigators! one family of three, a pair of brothers, a young mom, and the husband of an investigator. yesterday we were packed with lessons all day it was a miracle.

so we are still teaching the martinez girls and they are not going to be ready for the 9th so we pushed their date back to the 23rd, we asked them why and it is because they dont understand the book of mormon, even thou we read with htem everythime we go see them, it is not hte same because they need a guide at home teaching them how to lkive the gospel, os we had a little heart ot heart with the mother, about the importance of daily scripture study and family prayer, and bearing tesrimony to them of the truths of the gospel. she agreed. the girls are so smart and ready we did a re run fo rthe interview for batism and they believe everything they even talked about the importance of everthing like having a prophet and living hte commandments. We need to send y'all a picture of them, they are so cute! Their mom told them to pay more attention to the lessons and not be so giggly because the gospel is serioius stuff and they shouldnt be laughing so much when we teach them. then the girls told us that it is our fault because we make them laugh too much and  so we jokingly started acting serious, then they sat up straight and leaned in towards us, and were stroking their chins as if they were thinking and had straight faces on trying not to laugh, and we tried to teach them more seriously but it didn't work the whole situation was too funny.

 

so the women we are teaching who stays at home with her kids is reallly cool she is our age, and she grew up cathholic but she doesnt know anything about Christ or even how to pray. so its kinda cool because then as sh does those simple things like pray and read she will feel a big differenec in her life and her mind will be filled with understanding and she will feel the need to come unto Christ more fully. we taugh her the restoration and committed her to pray about it and she said she would, she gave a beautiful closing prayer and she thanked us for teaching her and resolved some of her concerns and for showing her how to pray , because now she will do it more often. she is very sincere.

 

next family was a family that i tti'd on the street once and went to try to teach htem a few times but were never home, so one night we had no planns and we had former investigators on our back up planns, so we decided to go visit, it was around 8:20 pm and we knocked and no one was home, but as we were about to leave they showed up back from their walk, so they invited us in, at first, not gonna lie it was sort of aquward, but then we just asked them questions and then the mom started telling us the issues she is having with her concieted son, who thinks he doesn't have to lift a finger because he is too handsome, and  he is only 11!! haha anyway more towards the end of our How to begin TEaching we started talking about church and all the fun things that the kids  will learn. He and his little 6 year old sister were super excited and begged their parents if they can go to church and they were totally fine with it, it was such a cool lesson because we got to ask them about what they want to learn about and we learned about their doubts and why they dont go ot a church, so now we know what to study for them for our next  lesson. our plan is to have the kids go, they will love it and this will then persuade their parents to come to church, it's brilliant!

 

if i sound like a TEXAN its not my fault it was sister Vargas :)

we are also teaching an amazing women who was a refferral from a member and thanks to her rightoeous example she wanted to learn more about the book of mormon, we  had a fantastic lesson at the members house and wow. the member taught her the ministry of christ the resroaraiton of the prieshood the book of mormon, the church's history, the first vision emma smith a whole bunch of stuff and even re comitted  her to pray about the lessons to see if they are true, so she said she will this was all after the lesson about the gospel, but becaue she made the comment about "it doesnt matter what churhc you go to as long as you have faith and live it its ok" my companion ans i were just so impressed and were glad she did in a beautiful confident was. it was amazing!! so we are hoping that she can feel better and recover from her lupus so she can come to church

He has returned!

by Isidro Zapata

One, two, three three, two, one he has risen death could not hold him and death lost its sting Jesus God's only begotten Son the only Perfect one who loved those who turned away Jesus The Perfect One gave his life away For You & Me First Love, Grace, & Forgiveness so let go of everything that keeps God at bay Jesus endure a painful Death cause he loves You more then U can Ever Believe so Unlock your Heart So U can finally See The Books will guide you to all the Love You will ever Need Jesus will never leave You when You are in NEED You have a Empty Space Within you that U Try to fill it everyday but nothing ever works so you turn to another but they have the same need so U walk away with a Empty Heart so just turn your Heart to the One Who is capable of meeting this human need and finally be at peace and erase the wrongs U have done and become like our Father and forever be bless to be with our families forever & ever Amen

Au Lomani iko!

Hi!!!!

This week has been so great. We have definitely seen so many miracles in our area. About 2 months ago we had ran into Michael Moe. He was sitting by himself in the dark outside his house and as my companion and I walked by we decided to talk to him. ( We were trying to find another investigator in his area) We learnt that he was Part Thai and was living his Mom and Brothers. It was kind of difficult to understand him because he was big ( I mean like Laughing Samoans Big) and his words weren't clear. But he was willing to meet with us again and learn more. He had also came across Missionaries in the past. Two times after we met him we called his house one day and his Mom told us that he was in a Coma he had had a lung infection and he couldn't breath. We prayed for him and finally got permission to visit him in the hospital. Last week on our way to go by and see him we felt prompted to stop by his Brother's house to ask for directions before we go so we did. On our way there we met his Brother and as soon as he saw us he told us that Michael was back at home!!!! We were so happy! it was a Miracle that he was ok and that he still remembered us. We had a great visit with him. He is now learning how to walk Steadily again and is still breathing through a tube. He can't talk just yet so we've been doing charades with him.lol:) I am so grateful that we listened to that prompting and that he was still so willing to listen. He recognized that he wants to come closer to God and Change for the Better. I don't have any pictures of him yet but I'll send it to you as soon as I do. 

Also this week we had 2 new investigators ( people that we're teaching)  at church their names are Destiny and Cassell. Destiny is 19 years old and comes from a kind of sad background, She and her Mom were evicted and they're now living with her Aunt. She was once atheist and always blamed God for everything. Just recently she's become more open to the possibility of there being a God. When we met with her she just took in everything we shared with her. And she agreed to come to church. She had an OK experience it was all new to her and she's still open to learn more. Cassell is an interesting and funny one. He is a 70 year old African American Man. He is soo funny!!! We have wonderful Members willing to help out and serve with us, One of them Brother Carl Fonoimoana was super willing to pick Cassell up for church. It was perfect and totally inspired because we had been praying to know how we could help our investigators to church and it was such a blessing because We like Cassell we had no idea that Brother Fonoimoana too had done some time in prison in knew exactly what it was like to be in Cassell's shoes. That was a miracle:) Cassell enjoyed church and yesterday's Sunday School was one of the funniest Sunday Schools I've ever been to. It was kinda crazy too because as the teacher was teaching Cassell would give comments and sometimes just ask random questions. My companion and I were like Oh My Goodness what have we done?!?! Then some one in class said something about "you Can lead the horse to the water but you can't force the Horse to drink it" then from back Cassell said "then get a Donkey" hahahaha weilei!! everyone just busted out laughing!!! It was a great Sunday School and we are really excited to continue to teach Cassell:) he's got a long way to go but his got a willing heart. Please pray for him. 

I am truly grateful to be here and to be learning all these things and learning to come closer to my Savior More. I came across this talk this week that I wanted to share with you: By Elder Packer

"Save for the  the exception of the very few who defect to perdition, there is no habit, no addiction, no rebellion, no transgression, no apostasy, no crime exempted from the promise of complete forgiveness. That is the promise of the atonement of Christ.How all can be repaired, we do not know. It may not all be accomplished in this life. We know from visions and visitations that the servants of the Lord continue the work of redemption beyond the veil. ¹⁷This knowledge should be as comforting to the innocent as it is to the guilty. I am thinking of parents who suffer unbearably for the mistakes of their wayward children and are losing 
hope."

How have you been lately?  How's your Family? How are you? 

Au Lomani iko!

Sister Koroitamana

July 13, 2014

This week has not been as stressful unlike the past couple weeks. My Business 101 class ended last Wednesday. That class was a hybrid online and on campus class, and these classes have a lot more work required than a normal on campus class. A few special things happened this week. I was chosen to be a BYUI coach for the Fall of 2014 Cross Country. Malcolm Hong, an administrator of LDS Single Friends, approached me as the administrator of the Mormon YSA Blog Spot to share the best content to their followers. The track banquet was put on last Thursday. My ward went to a retreat this weekend. I didn't stay the night because I had work to do modeling a replica for my Building Information Modeling class. I had a date with a girl named Camille. She Is the most virtuous and adorable woman that I met. I don't know, if I should write a paragraph on our relationship. It's too early. I hope that it develops well. We went to listen to the touring series of 18 songs newly composed by Daniel E. Gawthrop. That is pretty much the week. I believe that completed the last Architecture 100 test. Another exciting thing is that I was taught how to make my walls on REVIT textured according to the materials that it is constructed with. I am also reviving the Mormon YSA Blog Spot. My list is going on and on. Building a miniature house for my Framing systems class, I cut the sheathing for underneath the gables, and it turned out to be something funny.

One thing that I feel is that I always tell my roommate a story of achievement or failure each day. This week was full of successes. A story of a jog this week was something that I am proud of. I ran at least 3 times this week. On one of them I saw a girl as if she was on a run, but she was walking. I encouraged her to run, and she joined me. Our conversation was good, and it turned out that she insists on running each day even though she is injured. She is from Utah, and she usually gets injured because she doesn't run in the winter, and she has very high expectations for herself, when she starts in the summer, running as much as eleven miles. Did I say that I love teaching people? I asked about her philosophy on running, and she did not have any. She has a lot of peers that are avid runners, and she hears a lot of their knowledge about running. I taught her proper running form. She said that it is too much to think about, and it is because you are changing your bodies' running habit. I simply it to focus on landing on the balls of one's feet, and everything else will come naturally, if one understand proper running form. A runner’s feet should land below them; although, there is a philosophy that runners lengthens their stride by pushing his feet and leg placement forward. Momentum is built by pushing your body forward. Pushing forward comes from pushing your leg backward. If one lands on the front balls of their feet with the purpose to press backward, minimal momentum is lost, and impact is limited or redirected. When a runner lands on his heel, momentum is lost, and the impact is on the bone, ligaments, and tendons.

     I have been chosen to be a cross country coach! It was confirmed last week in an email, and I had a meeting with the coordinator yesterday. Yesterday is actually Wednesday, the 23rd of July, while the journal entry began on the 13^th of  July. My influence and input is being felt for we counseled together. The main input that I put in was that I realized that the times of practice for each of the teams are in the evening, and it will get in the way of Family Home Evening. My suggestion was to meet all three of the teams together at 5 pm, since most Family Home Evenings are held at 7. Coincidentally a coach named Clairie was taking Naomi's space in her apartment yesterday, so I asked for her phone number. It is going to be interesting, figuring a good way to meet all three teams together. Maybe we should just go for a long run. Maybe we should go out for a 20 minute run to see the fastest runners duke it out.

     It has been a few weeks since Malcolm Hong has recruited me to join the LDS Single Friends Facebook page's administration. Working with Malcolm has been interesting because his tone is serious and semiprofessional. Today is the 24th of July.  I share two weekly articles from the single adult bloggers that I follow every Wednesday, which was yesterday. I keep the content that I share serious because it is his environment that he has cultivated in the page. I am currently on a flight home from Salt Lake City, Utah to Oakland, California. I say semiprofessional because he conducted an interview with me, and he wanted to edit my responses to answer in a way that he would like me to answer his questions. I have done many interviews, since I explored the profession of journalism, and I learned in my education that an individual is not supposed to influence the replies of the person that the one is interviewing. I refused to follow is editing skills because it is my voice. I am not going to say what he wants me to say in an interview. He insisted on me changing my replies, but I expect a high integrity in his effort of professionalism, teaching him journalism skills. I told him that journalist always edit out the parts of the interviewee's replies. If he wants more words of mine to work with, he can ask for me further questions for me to expound. He didn't need me to rewrite my answers. I expected him to write an article like normal journalism, quoting sections of my replies, but he edited out the parts of my replies. He kept the format as if it was my words. I told him that if he wants to skip parts of my interview put a '…'. I use to work aggressively to promote my page like him, but I nearly was expelled from Facebook for my efforts. I could continue because things cooled off, but I felt kind of spammy in my aggressive promotion. A new thing that I am doing is adding vloggers content from Youtubers to the Mormon YSA Blog Spot. I plan to introduce the most famous Youtubers that I found this weekend. I will probably continue exploring the social network more, but not now.

     The Track Banquet was disappointing as the rest of the season has been. They only had brownies and ice cream. It is usually bigger and actually a meal. Many of the rewards given out to the participants in Track and Field did not make sense. All of the coaches got recognized, and the people in my team were praised for being examples of the spirit of Ricks. These athletes were not even the fastest nor did they take admirable leadership roles. They were just average runners.

     The retreat for my ward was nice. It built a greater unity and fellowship among the members. We did ropes course type activities. The activity that I did had a pole that I climbed up; then, at the top I was expected to jump of letting the ropes carry me down. Most everyone before I climbed up the pole had little problems; however, I figured out how to climb up it effectively. When I reached the top, fear struck my soul because to stand on it. I had to push up with one foot on a wiggling pole, which was about twenty feet tall. It took me more time to develop the bravery to stand on the top; then, it took me to climb up the pole. Most everyone after me showed weakness too. The activities after were chill, but I don't have anything to say about them.

     I have been working on replicating a vacation home for my Building Information Modeling class, and I did not realize how much skill is required. My first attempt to do rendering of building that the class modeled were simple, but it took a lot more time for this second building. I did not give much time to the practice of lighting and rendering after I developed the exterior, interior, landscape, and arranged the entourage. I change what I replicated from

And it ended up like this. The abstract chandelier was new for people to conceive, but I would expect people would imagine it after thought. Some tips that the teacher gave me on the final rendering is to put interior lighting on to make the house more warm and inviting. He also said that I should put more mullions in the big arching windows because it would be hard to manufacture such a big piece of glass; plus, the glass might break because of the tensile stresses on the corner. I held the dishonor of displaying the interior as an incompletely rendered image because I could not figure out how to fix the background image. The teacher was going to grade the pictures on Wednesday, so he let me fix it. The problem that I had was that my background image would move from the expected draft rendering. The background image was placed in a different location according to the different pixel density of the rendering. 

You can see by the picture that the background picture is still funky. I thought that the landscaping was in the way of the picture, so I hid it from the view. I also forgot to hide the grass, so you can see that too.

Here is the landscape that I designed. These last two picture were the final rendering that I entered for grading for my class.

Here are the pictures that I got of my group building a miniature house. We worked together well, and our culture didn't take things too seriously. It was chill, and we enjoyed our time together. The sheathing story that I mentioned before was fun. Sheathing is nailing up the exterior finish material. I cut all the wood, covering the walls just below the roof and on the gables. When I was cutting them, I decided to cut them all at once instead of one at a time. When I returned with all the boards cut, I realized that I didn't number them, creating a puzzle for myself to know what boards go to which wall. Figuring out how the boards fit together was fun.

I have been building the Mormon YSA Blog Spot more, since we partnered with the LDS Single Friends. I am exploring other sources for more sources to share. I now have so much content that I am currently overwhelmed. I am following many people to let their examples share the Gospel with how they live their lives. I found this one guy named Jason Celaya that teaches dance, choreographing the cheerleaders of the Jazz NBA team once. I am unsure if I should quit sharing the content that is not popular. I may have too much content. I think that it is better to be inclusive and liberal showing the lives of the single adults than show only a few bloggers. If I am exclusive, I have an unknown agenda. My objective is uniting and promoting people's faith in Jesus Christ by promoting his disciples' blogs, for it is their personal ministry and example. One YouTube musician named Tiffany Alvord just celebrated getting 2 million likes on Facebook and 2 million subscribers on YouTube.

 I wrote this while I was hanging out at the beach, waiting for my two Japanese foreign student brothers yesterday, which was the 2^nd of August. I will tell more about them in the next entry. I understand that jumping around in time is kind of confusing. I even wrote twice about how I am building the Mormon YSA Blog Spot with about a two week gap between them.

Post Time!

"[It's Post] time, go and grab your friends. We'll go to very distant lands. [Elder Lopez and the reader] the fun will never end it's [Post] time!"
-Adventure Time theme with the Lopez twist! 

That joke...

Not too long ago, I wrote a post about the Spectacular Spider-man which had to do with Morality. The only problem with lessons and Pop Culture is that sometimes, multiple sources teach the same lesson and morality and choosing the right is a lesson so nice I'm gonna teach it twice. "That's probably for the best cause that Spider-man one wasn't one of your better ones..." Yea, I guess I *got caught in a web with that one!* "Sigh..." Well, anyway, everyone, much like Dr. Who, loves Adventure Time so I thought, Why not?

So I haven't seen many episodes of this show either cause it's rather strange... "This coming from the man (Elder) who watches a show about colorful singing ponies..." How'd you know they sing...? "... I may have seen one or two episodes..." Hehe... Well anyway, the one I wanted to talk about is an episode called 'Goliad.' Some of you might have heard and/or watched this one. If you haven't, just know, it's weird... But I guess I can't talk. "Judge not, that ye be not judged." Looks like MLP isn't the only thing you've been studying up on. "Give me a break, school's out..."

So, 'Goliad' finds Finn and Jake doing their usual thing around the Candy Kingdom. They come to find out that because of Princess Bubblegum's brush with death, she decides to make an heir to the Candy Kingdom to rule in her stead. In comes Goliad. So using her DNA, Princess Bubblegum create Goliad and has been awake for 83 LONG hours teaching it to be a good ruler. So, much like any one of us would be, she is exhausted. Finn and Jake, being the good people they are, decide to give Princess Bubblegum a break and offer to teach Goliad what it means to be a hero and a good leader. Which isn't exactly the easiest thing to learn but that is neither here nor there.

See? Goliad. It's the giant pink one.
Told you, weird...

Eventually, due to a mishap that involved an obstacle course, yelling and all sorts of cartoon mayhem, Finn and Jake take Goliad back to Princess Bubblegum who tries to reason with Goliad stating that leadership is about helping one another, kind of like a bee and a flower. Goliad counters stating that the bee cares not for the state and well-being of the flower. Princess Bubblegum realizes that Goliad has been corrupted and needs to be disassembled. Goliad can read her mind cause, of course, Adventure Time. Long story short because I'm focusing too much on the worldy and not enough on the Spiritual, Goliad tries destroying everyone but Princess Bubblegum, using a hair she got off Finn, creates another candy sphinx named Stormo.

Goliad tries reasoning with Stormo saying that together they can rule but Stormo simply screeches and the two engage in an epic psychic showdown! Pretty much they just stare at each other for all time and eternity.

So because Stormo was created Finn's hair, he inherited Finn's heroic qualities which is why he opted to do good rather than join the forces of evil. It's also why he chose to sacrifice himself to keep Goliad in check for all time and eternity.

So. What can we learn from this? "You mean besides the fact that your skills in summarizing are shoddy at best?" Okay... Besides that. "You tell me." Well, we're talking about morality and there is a reason that that one sentence up there is in bold. It also goes back to all those Christ like elements I spent forever talking about. It's all about choosing the right. You see, in today's day and age, we face tons of decisions. Some are easy, like whether you should mix Sprite with Orange juice for your daily breakfast. (The answer is a delicious yes.) While others, are slightly challenging, like whether the ugly tie that has what looks like popcorn designs on it go well with khakis. (It doesn't.) But we still face those really really hard decisions like, whether I should stand up for what I believe in, even in the face of adversity. (That one is a yes, but sometimes you'll feel hard pressed to say it.) I read a scripture in the New Testament the other day that about sums it up. 

He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

                                                                                                        Matthew 10:39

A picture of heroism! At least,
I think that's what it is...

The only reason that the day was saved was because Stormo, who inherited Finn's heroism, was willing to sacrifice all he had to help and because he was strong enough to face the trial that was corruption, he gave his life to keep Goliad forever in check. So pretty much, try to be heroic like Finn. "Or you could try to be like Jesus..." Oh yeah, that one's definitely better. Try to be like Jesus dear reader because if there's one person who knows more about sacrifice heroism and Love, it's definitely Jesus. "Hallelujah!" 

Harry Poster

This post brought to you entirely by, Elder Storey! (With inserts by yours truly)

"You're a Wizard Harry."
-Hagrid (Pretty much the only quote I know and has nothing to do with the post...)

I think we're due for a good
fast forward...

Hello dear readers. Today we are going to talk about Harry Potter. Ever since I was a little kid I have loved Harry Potter. "Yeah?" Remember that little boy that looked at you in amazement as you told him he was a wizard? "Yeah!" Well we're not going to talk about that today. "Talk about anticlimactic..."

Fast forward past the three headed dog, the killer tree, the giant snake, the soul sucking demons, and the crazy deadly wizard Olympics, now during Harry's six year at Hogwarts Harry desperately need to get a memory from professor Slughorn. He try's everything he can think of on his own and nothing works. Finally he decides to use a magic potion (that's not a metaphor it is literally a magic potion) that will give him luck. He thinks it will magically make Slughorn want to give him the memory without him having to do any work. He expects it to change his outward circumstances to make them easier to deal with. But the potion doesn't do that. It give him the thought that he should go see his friend Hagrid. On the way there he runs into Slughorn and he comes with Harry to Hagrid's. All through the course of the night Harry gets subtle impressions on the next step he needs to take and by the end of the night he has obtained the memory he so desperately needed and which had seemed impossible to get. It is the same with us and our Heavenly Father.

We all have trials and challenges in our lives. We have all had those times when we have done our best and it not been enough. That is when we pray. Some of us may think that God isn't answering our prayers because our trials don't go away. We may think that since our outward circumstances didn't change our prayer wasn't answered. The part we overlook is that sometimes God lightens the load and sometimes he strengthens the bridges. Sometimes our load doesn't get any lighter, we get more strength and endurance to carry it. The outward problem doesn't change our inward capacity to solve the problem is increased.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:9).

We may not understand why Heavenly Father doesn't just take the trial from us but if we trust in him and know that he has our best interest at heart we will be able to face trials as they come knowing that our Heavenly Father will help us through it.

See? Look how happy Harry is to have read and learned that!

And if YOU want to write for Light's, Camera, Lopez! and bring the gospel in a funny pop culture related way, send me, Elder Lopez a message on Facebook! Are you a missionary who wants to help out but can't message other missionaries? Write a comment below saying you're in!  

Heya Love!

Yesterday after church Sister Greer went to try and visit one of our investigators -Rozana- to try and have her come with us to a fireside last night. On our way there I felt prompted to stop and try to see another investigator named Sheri. Sister Greer was so great she willingly helped me to follow my prompting although it didn't really make sense to go Sheri's home when we didn't have her Gate Code to go in to her apartment building. We went anyway and sure enough the Gate was locked. We stood by the Gate for a while and tried calling Sheri's phone. She didn't answer so we waited for a little while longer in case someone might open the Gate from inside. While waiting a lady with a scar on her Brow and mens' sneakers too big for her walked up to us and asked if we were with a church. We said we were and explained who we were. She introduced herself as Michelle and said that she was a victim of Domestic Violence and was running away from the man she was with. She said she'd been running all night from Long Beach ( the next City over)  and she was scared for her life. She explained that a couple of years ago she had put this man in Jail for all these horrible things he had done to her and to other girls and that he just got out of jail and the Police didn't protect her like she thought they would. She was so scared and she broke down crying and she told us her story. We could feel the fear that she had for this man. She cried as she told us all that he had done and it was so sad to know that most of the girls he had hurt didn't live to tell their story. Michelle said she ran away from him with nothing but the clothes on her back and no shoes. She shared how he threatened to murder her and even showed her how he would do it! Oh My goodness  it was like hearing a horror story or something you'd see on CSI except this was real life. My companion and I were both so sad and scared for Michelle. We took her to the car and it just so happened that I had put an extra pair of shoes in our trunk and she was the same size as me. So we gave her shoes and my sweater and some food. We prayed with her and really just felt helpless because there was really nothing more we could do for her. Last night I thought a lot about Michelle and being in her shoes. I was reminded of how Nephi felt in the Book of Mormon when people were just so wicked and evil. I was really in awe at how the world has become. It was so sad. 
I am grateful for that experience though because if we hadn't listened to the spirit we wouldn't have been able to help Michelle and share our testimonies with her. I know Heavenly Father will look after her. Please pray for her.

This week we've seen a lot of Miracles in our area. 2 Months ago we had went on a break with our investigator named Walfred. We all felt like that was needed so that he could decide for himself what he wanted and strive to live the Gospel on his own for himself and not for us. Then last week Walfred called our Ward Mission Leader - Brother Clement and told him that he was ready to come back to church and take this step.That was truly a Miracle and a testimony builder for me to know that Heavenly Father is always mindful of his children regardless of whatever circumstances they're in. I am so glad that Walfred has decided to take this step for himself and not for us. He is a Blessing!!!! 

Since being here I've come to love Jacob 5 in the Book of Mormon so much!!!! I love knowing that this is the Lord's work and it is truly a spiritual work and that we truly do labor with him. I am grateful to learn this and I am excited to continue to labor with him. This last week another Former investigator named Lauren also contacted us again after 3 months of no contact with her. She was now willing to let us come over and help her and teach her. We went over with Alex one of the Young Women's and had an amazing lesson with her. She loved it and it was great to feel Alex's testimony. Lauren and her Baby girl Chloe came to church yesterday and loved it:) 

Love you Heaps

Sister Koroitamana

Rainbow Dash and the Sonic Rainboom

"Hold on Rarity, I'm comin'!"
-Rainbow Dash

"Wow, it's been a while since you've written about ponies. I thought
you finally forsook it." Never in a million years dear reader, well... Maybe in a couple, we'll see, but until that sad sad day comes, let's talk a little about faith. "Can we not...?" Nope. We're talking about it. But first, a story!

Now because I've written a little about the ponies who make up what is colloquially known as, 'The Mane Six', it makes long drawn out explanations like this one

Two of the greatest sources of happiness

unnecessary.

As such, Sonic Rainboom finds Rainbow Dash ready to compete in what's known as the Best Young Fliers competition. It's a competition that I guess happens every year in which the best young pegasus ponies compete for fame and an afternoon
with the Wonderbolts. (Think Blue Angels, but in small colorful pony form)

Rainbow Dash is a HUGE fanatic when it comes to the Wonderbolts and it's her hope and dream to one day join their ranks and winning this competition is gonna bring her closer to getting there. "I thought you said these long drawn out explanations were unnecessary...?" I also realized there is A LOT more to this show than what little I remembered... Now stop interrupting please. But Rainbow has an ace up her sleeve. Well, I guess technically hoof... They don't really wear clothes too often... Anyway, she is the only pegasus capable of performing a Sonic Rainboom. (hence the name of the episode) What is a Sonic Rainboom you ask? Well Webster's describes it as- oh wait...
That's right, the word doesn't exist... Fine, I'LL DESCRIBE IT... When a pegasus like Rainbow Dash goes REALLY fast, they can break not only the sound barrier, but the color barrier too in a stunning display of... stunning...ness... Rainbow Dash is the only pegasus who can do this and she did it once when she was a foal (young horse/pony I guess the kid equivalent. And you thought this show only taught good Christian values...) but every time she tries it, she just can't break past the sonic barrier and ends up failing epically. But many still think it's an "old mare's tale." (It's their equivalent to an old wives tale. Hey I didn't write the show... I wish though...)

Wow this summary is taking longer than I wanted... Fast forward.

Point is, Rainbow Sonic Rainboom'd once on accident and hasn't been able to do it again which makes her kind of nervous. Although she isn't vocal about it because she's crazy prideful, (we'll talk about that one in a little) her friends pick up on it and decide to go cheer her on. However, the competition is being held in Cloudsdale, which as you probably guessed, is made of clouds which other ponies, except Pegasus ponies, can't step on. Twilight uses magic to give Rarity a pair of beautiful butterfly wings that are made of gossamer and morning dew, (remember that) but because the spell is difficult to do multiple times, she instead uses a different spell that allows the rest of them to walk on clouds.

Well up in Cloudsdale, Rainbow is nervous and is made even more so when she realizes that Rarity, because of the attention she is getting from her new wings, is also competing in the competition which majorly freaks Rainbow out. The competition arrives and Rainbow stalls due to stage fright until time runs out and Rainbow and Rarity both have to compete at the same time. Pulling herself together, she goes out and completely bombs her first two maneuvers. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, the princess of the kingdom is spectating, adding more pressure. So now it's do or die time for Rainbow so she once more tries to perform the Sonic Rainboom. She gains altitude and so does Rarity as she uses the sun to reflect light off her wings in a stunning display of... I don't know... Refraction? It's colorful, that's the point. However, much like Icarus, she flies too high and the very sensitive wings burn up and so she begins plummeting to the ground. The Wonderbolts quickly dispatch to retrieve her but because she's flailing, she knocks them unconscious. It's at that moment when Rainbow Dash takes notice of her endangered friend and abandoning all prospects of winning, she bullets down in Rarity's direction.

Alright pause at the best part.

Now we already talked about why faith is so important and that we need it in our lives or else we're pretty much just walking aimlessly down this path called life. However, simple faith isn't sufficient for miracles to happen. Simply believing isn't enough to change anything. As a scripture in the New Testament says,

"Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead..." 

(James 2:17)

By me simply wanting something, I don't get any closer to it happening. As we talked about before, Joseph Smith didn't receive a vision just by wanting it and sitting there, he made it happen! If you don't do, nothing will. If you want a more poetic version of what I'm trying to say, then Dr. Seuss is your man.

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going toget better, it's not."  

-Dr. Seuss (The Lorax)

So now you have faith and you've put forth the action and yet nothing has happened and you're saying to yourself, "can I say it?" Yeah go for it. "I just don't know what went wrong." So you're feeling bad about yourself and the boo-hoos are coming cause you listened to Elder Lopez's advice and so far as you know, nothing has come out of it and
you're at the point of swearing vengeance on he who has deceived you will not stop until justice had been served... Well calm down cause I don't need a vigilante coming through my window and beating me into a good looking pulp. Instead, what you SHOULD'VE done was flip your handy dandy scriptures to Ether 12:6 which says,

And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith. 

(Ether 12:6)

So there we reach trials. We'll fail yes and then we'll fail again and sometimes again but then we try just one more time... And then we fail again... "Anticlimactic." But after all these things, we humble ourselves because it's at the very time that we need it when miracles happen.

Alright, back to Rainbow Dash.

So Rarity's been falling for a while and is pretty close to the ground and Rainbow Dash is in a 90 degree nosedive to save her falling friend and heroes. The high velocity winds make it hard for Rainbow Dash to keep her eyes open and her mouth shut, a sonic cone begins to form around her slowing her descent until she finally breaks through the
sound and color barrier, flying at supersonic speeds fast enough to catch the endangered ponies and leaving a dazzling rainbow trail back to the Cloudiseum (it's a cloud coliseum and yes, that's actually what it's called.) Lessons are learned, friendships strengthened, yadda yadda, and in the end, Rainbow wins the Best Young Fliers competition, doesn't take The Lord's name in vain (cause the show teaches good Christian values) and gets to spend time with her idols.

It looks something like that.

So why did she succeed that time and not the first hundred? "Cause the show would be kinda dark and gruesome if she didn't...?" Well, I suppose that's true, but not what I'm looking for. She had the faith, (well, if you want to call it that, she is like I said, VERY prideful) she had the works, (she IS the fastest pegasus in all of Equestria) so what went wrong?

Two things did. One, she relied more on her own ability and allowing her pride as well as doubt to overwhelm her. If there's one thing we can learn, it's that pride comes before the fall and it was only until she was humbled sufficiently enough that she was able to bring about these great works. (But that's not the last you'll ever hear about
Rainbow Dash and her ego coming to bite her) Her fear was also what started getting to her, the bible dictionary definition of fear says,

"...Fear is spoken of as something unworthy of a child of God, something that “perfect love casteth out” The first effect of Adam’s sin was that he was afraid. Sin destroys that feeling of confidence God’s child should feel in a loving Father and produces instead a feeling of shame and guilt. Ever since the Fall God has been teaching men not to fear, but with penitence to ask forgiveness in full confidence of receiving it."

And two, it wasn't until the trial of her faith that she was able to do it. Things were different when she was just trying to win and impress everyone, which is its own reward. It wasn't until her friend's life was in danger and she had a lot to lose when she gave
all the worldly things she cared about up, and let pure faith take the wheel.

It also kinda looks like that...
Such determination.

So the moral?

Watch My Little Pony. Oh, and also and more importantly, you can't go wrong when you have God on your side. "You write a lot of these." Yeah I do, but we're at the eleventh hour now. "What's that supposed to mean...?" Guess you'll find out soon enough.

Spider-post 1: Morality Shmorality

"The power, feels good... But you lose yourself to it..."

-Peter Parker (Spider-Man, oh shoot, was I not supposed reveal that?)

Why Elder Lopez...? Why...?

There comes a time when we must all come to terms with the things we do and decide what kind of person we are going to be, a man of justice and honor? Or a scoundrel who thinks only for himself. Thus is the plight of humanity... "Wow... That was actually really profound. Maybe I've been wrong about you." What? Sorry, I was reading the back of this Laffy Taffy wrapper. "Sigh... Okay... Those things are getting really profound lately." Right? It looks like they're trying to *wrap* it up! "That picture sums up how I feel right now..." Oh...

So back to that very profound wrapper, it is outdeed true that because we as people have agency, or the ability to choose decisions for ourselves, that we do have to look deep inside ourselves to solve our problems and for the most part, decide what outlook on life we want to have. You know who else had this problem? "Everyone on Earth...?" Close, Spider-Man! Unfortunately, we have to talk about one of THE worst Spider-man movies ever created which is none other than Spider-man 3, but even bad movies have good lessons!

As unprofound as this picture may seem,
if you add a caption like: 'Everybody has a dark side.'
It seems a whole lot deeper.  It doesn't...

So in Spider-man 3, we follow the life of Peter Parker, AKA Spider-man as he does his Spider-man stuffs. Everything is going sucky for him per the usual until one day, researchers find this mysterious alien life form that was stuck on J. Jonah Jameson's son's (I can't for the life of me remember his name) rocket. So this life form we find out is a symbiote that shares a what? A Symbiotic relationship with Peter Parker. Now here's where the Biology comes in. What's a symbiotic relationship you may be asking? "It's great when you hold both parts of the conversation." Ignoring that, Well, it's an interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association. I wish I could tell you that I learned that in Biology but unfortunately, Spider-man honestly taught me that but that's neither here nor there... So both these parties are getting benefits from this whole working together thing, Peter Parker is stronger and faster and has a neat new suit, while the symbiote as a nice home and feeds off of Peter Parker's negative emotions. It's only till Peter Parker realizes that he's becoming a jerk and people are moving away from him (more than usual) that he realizes that, like the quote says,

 "The power, feels good... But you lose yourself to it..."

Lots of cool action things happen and the day is saved as usual by Spider-man, and his mask and suit ripped in literally the same spots each time... As it turned out, Peter Parker became the Symbiote's puppet and that didn't fly with him. But the point of all of that is, Peter Parker felt powerful and in control when under the control of the symbiote, I chose that phrase specifically. He THOUGHT he was in control until he realized, he wasn't. "You know, reading that, I thought that was gonna have a more profound meaning..." Yea, I totally did too... 

An example of the "bad things" Elder Lopez
does not support. 

So that brings us to the whole morality issue that I bet you were dying to read about. "Well, I made it this far right..?" An excellent point. Why is it so easy to be bad than it is to be good? "Is that a rhetorical question?" In a sense yes, but before you say anything about me being a bad guy, I'm gonna answer your rude question with a quote, "Just because you are bad guy does not mean you are BAD guy." Don't take that in any way more than just a Wreck It Ralph quote... Elder Lopez does not support the bad stuffs... 
Moving on, think about it, we live in a world where it's so much easier and more gratifying to do bad things, whether it's using coarse language cause the cool kids think it's cool, or simply changing or lowering your standards to match that of others. It's real easy. 

In today's day and age, having high standards is being challenged by people who disagree with what some others believe is the "norm" "I don't think that one was correct English..." Yea, me neither but who's gonna know? "Everyone... Okay, realistically, just me." Well, rather than share a personal example from my life, let's hear what an apostle of the Lord has to say about this. 

"Recently, I spoke with a Laurel from the United States. I quote from her email:"

“This past year some of my friends on Facebook began posting their position on marriage. Many favored same-sex marriage, and several LDS youth indicated they ‘liked’ the postings. I made no comment.

“I decided to declare my belief in traditional marriage in a thoughtful way.

“With my profile picture, I added the caption ‘I believe in marriage between a man and a woman.’ Almost instantly I started receiving messages. ‘You are selfish.’ ‘You are judgmental.’ One compared me to a slave owner. And I received this post from a great friend who is a strong member of the Church: ‘You need to catch up with the times. Things are changing and so should you.’

“I did not fight back,” she said, “but I did not take my statement down.”

She concludes: “Sometimes, as President Monson said, ‘You have to stand alone.’ Hopefully as youth, we will stand together in being true to God and to the teachings of His living prophets.”

So much potential...

So yes, it's tough to "Choose the Right" as they say, but it is always worth it in the end. Don't believe me? Well... That's your own fault... I've put enough compelling evidence. The point is, as the very deep Laffy Taffy wrapper I read said, sometimes, we just have to choose what kind of person we want to be. Whether we want to be a force for good, or a force for evil. Now at this point you may be asking, "I'll ask this one... Well, what about those people who do horrible heinous things to good people and get stuff from it? Why do they get off Scot-free while the other peoples suffer?" Ohh... A good question. This goes back to the whole instant gratification thing from earlier. Yes, they get something now, but from an eternal perspective, they wh- actually, let's let the scriptures take care of this one. 

"So the last shall be first, and the first last"

So what that's saying is, those who "think" they are getting ahead by hurting others, will find that they are far behind in the very end. So overall, be good! Do good things! It's hard sure, but it's worth it! Need help? There is tons of help here!