About My Father's Business

Tomorrow is Mother's Day.  Well, for at least some people.  Ever since I served a mission in Mexico I've been trying to promote the concept of Mother's Day on May 10th every year instead of the second Sunday, but so far no luck.  So, for now, we'll celebrate tomorrow. I've always found the phrase "words cannot describe" to be a little odd.  When you think about it, words are all we really have to describe something.  But in writing about my Mom and what she means to me, I can appreciate the sentiment.  Words alone do not seem adequate, but since they're all I've got I'll try to use some. First, I'll borrow some words from Joseph Smith: "We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuou...

Take a second and think about the following question.  What if there were no rhetorical questions?  This would then mean that the question itself merits an answer.  It would mean our brains would need to engage in an activity to which most of our brains are not accustomed.  We would need to answer all questions, regardless of how inane or pointless they may seem.  It would certainly challenge the popular belief that there are no stupid questions.  We only say that because we don't believe that all questions deserve an answer, so we can dismiss some of them without any further thought. So what would happen if every question was meant to be answered?  What would happen if we had to pause and think and come up with an answer?  Play along with me as we go through some of the most famous rhetorical questions to see what would change if we dispensed with the rhetorical. Q:  What was he thinking? A:  This is one of my favorite questions th...

It's a new year.  I guess that means it's time to set some goals and resolutions for my life.  Or at least for the next couple of weeks, which is how long most of us remember said goals.  Either way it seemed appropriate to share some things that have been on my mind when it comes to goals. I've never been incredibly skilled at setting goals.  I tend to either set them impossibly high, which defeats the purpose, or unnecessarily low, which also defeats the purpose.  I realize the potential of goals to help us stretch ourselves to grow and improve, I'm just really bad at finding the right balance between shooting for the moon and hitting the cowpie right in front of me.  So I've done some pondering thinking about what it means to have goals. I think in it's simplest form a goal is something we want; a desired outcome that carries with it an set of actions necessary to be acheived.  Most of us are really good at defining the outcome but really bad at...