Leaderboard

We call it the 80/20 rule: 80% of the work is done by the same 20% of the people. Sometimes we call it the 90/10 rule.

Once again, I am disappointed with some relatively young fellow that has turned homicidal, and no one seem to have seen it coming. I have a theory that I have expressed. That drugs are involved. I believe it is time to put HIPPA aside and make public a full toxicology report of individuals involved in “mass shootings”. I strongly believe that marijuana is involved as a minimum and that mixed with psychotropic drugs could be a play. Why do I suspect marijuana? While employed at Boeing I worked with a sharp young engineer that tried marijuana and fell in love with it. He believed it was harmless, but I watched over less than a year that marijuana rotted his brain and cognitive functions. I first noticed something was odd when he attempted to convince me he could fly. I have wondered if the “Wicked” Broadway show and movie play into the beginning of someone losing touch with reality because of marijuana. Soon afterwards this fellow started to express paranoia (someone was after him to get flying secrets – not related to our project) and then within a month he disappeared. He was working under me on a classified military project. I was contacted by the FBI a couple of times, but I had no idea what happened to this guy. One day at work I got a call from this guy. He said he was in Hawaii living on a beach with some extra-terrestrials planning a revolution to take over the world to save humanity. He wanted me to get the keys to his truck and take his truck so the bank could not repossess it – he wanted me to have it. I contacted the FBI. They did not find him (at least that is what I was told) and I was to contact the FBI if he contacted me again – he didn’t. I have known two other individuals develop a chain marijuana habit and that have lost contact with reality with paranoia tendencies. I do not believe it is that far from pushing someone into homicidal tendencies – especially if they have previous mental problems and have been prescribed psychotropic drugs. But I cannot investigate beyond speculation because of HIPPA. The Traveler

That was a great talk. Brother Shumway and I have lots in common. We both love ice cream. My favorite is Blue Bell Vanilla Bean. “I bless thee that in due time a young woman shall be brought up especially for thee. Thou shalt have the privilege of meeting her through thy activity in the restored church.” -excerpt from a patriarchal blessing of a guy I know.

We had a nasty murder in our state awhile back that ultimately seemed caused by marijuana-caused paranoia. That was the first time I heard the issue, but now I see it mentioned everywhere.

I seem to have the opposite problem. I have difficulty stretching my talks into 20 minutes when I can make my point in about 10.

Then: And after a minute, if they keep talking, organ music starts playing. Finally, if you keep going, the microphone automatically shuts off. 😀

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we worship the living Christ. We know that he came forth from the tomb, that he is a resurrected being, that he is our advocate with the Father, that only through him and by obedience to the gospel he has given us can we return into his presence and that of the Father. Jesus Christ is our Redeemer and Savior. He was begotten of the Father in the spirit, the Firstborn of the Father, and is the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh. He is our elder brother. He is the second member of the Godhead. He was the Creator of heaven and earth under the direction of the Father. He is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. He is Jesus of Nazareth. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the Light of the world. He is the Author of our salvation. He was chosen before the foundation of the world to be the Lamb slain as an offering for our sins. Ultimately every knee must bow and every tongue confess that he is the Christ. He died on the cross to atone for the sin of Adam, that we might receive forgiveness for our sins if we would accept him and keep the commandments that he has given us, the plan of life and salvation. He arose from the tomb, the first fruits of the resurrection, thereby making possible that all mankind may live again in a resurrected state after mortal death. Yes, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” - Joseph Anderson, A Testimony of Christ And now if Christ had not come into the world, speaking of things to come as though they had already come, there could have been no redemption. And if Christ had not risen from the dead, or have broken the bands of death that the grave should have no victory, and that death should have no sting, there could have been no resurrection. But there is a resurrection, therefore the grave hath no victory, and the sting of death is swallowed up in Christ. He is the light and the life of the world; yea, a light that is endless, that can never be darkened; yea, and also a life which is endless, that there can be no more death. - Mosiah 16:6-9

Over the decades I've gathered maybe half a dozen or so stories from folks who smoked mj at some point. Some are of the "yeah, I tried that stuff when I was younger and it was fun but I don't do it any more" kind. I don't know enough to know if they're more crazy or stupid than they would have been without the mj, or if they're unaffected. The other group has regrets. One guy told the story about how he was excited when medical mj was legalized in Colorado, and gladly started a regimen to help with his anxiety and improve his marriage. During the legalize MJ fight in CO, such things were touted as the norm. It had the opposite effect. His anxiety turned into depression, he lost his job and everything got worse in his marriage as he self-medicated himself away from giving enough of a crap to work on his stuff. Over the years, I've grown ok with the various well-studied medicinal benefits, and I've watched the industry mature in some ways. I notice folks understanding that smoking anything is bad for you, and going for THC distilled into oils or candy or whatever. Colorado is learning when you wrap it up like candy, then kids eat it and end up in the hospital. Colorado is still mostly refusing to deal with the fact that we've turned our state into cartel heaven, as they moved their mj production across the border into our state. But yeah, if something had been available legally in the '90's when my mother was dying and couldn't keep pills down because of nausea, and her veins were too frail for a needle, I would have brought her a toke or an oil or something, to see if it might have helped in her final months. That's about as close as I ever want to come to the thing. Maybe if someone is trying to get clean off of meth, I might support MJ as a step down replacement, but I'm not exactly surrounded by people I know hooked on meth, so it's an intellectual exercise for me at best.

Elder Shumway would like a word. "Participate to Prepare for Christ's Return", specifically, the section of his talk titled "Help Others Receive and Rejoice in the Gift of Callings". I think there are likely some parallels with the parable ( ), but they may or may not be the obvious assumptions.

For as long as I can remember, I've designed my talks to be adjustable. I also volunteer to go last, knowing that I'm conscious of time and have planned to adjust to however much time is left. I tell whoever I'm speaking with that I'll take as much time as they leave me (I never tell them I'd like them to take extra time - I like to speak in Church). A few years ago, I was given some reference for my talk (perhaps a GC talk, but I'm not sure any more). The source material naturally divided into three areas of focus. I initially made notes for each of the three areas, but the more I prepared, the more insistent the Spirit became that I focus on the third. There wasn't enough in the third for a long talk, so I kept my notes about the first two, but focused my efforts on polishing the third. The other speakers left me just barely enough time to cover the third - I think I went a minute or two over. The Spirit knows.

Happiness is not so simple though. The principle of losing our life to find our life, sacrifice bringing blessing, and that joy comes from faith, righteousness, humility, service, obedience, and effort, are not intuitive to the human (natural man) condition. People are (in their fallen "natural man" way) seeking self-fulfillment, money, pleasure, and ease, laughter, fun, and a painless existence. The gospel does not intuitively provide these things (though it does in a round about way). The core principles of Christ's gospel amount to denying oneself and taking up one's cross to follow the Savior. These principles are obvious to those who've engaged in them, even in practical matters of life (such as working out and eating right to be healthy, being careful with money and working hard to be wealthy, etc., etc.). But the world, more and more, pushes the ideas of "deserve" and "self" and "victim" and "follow your passion" and all the Disney (a.k.a. Satan) garbage like that, which all feels, to the natural man, like how we should find/seek happiness. The problem is that it doesn't work. So I'm not disagreeing with you. An environment where people left happy is, you're correct, the key. But what that environment looks like is sacrifice, humility, service, obedience, a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and so forth. And that's a tough pill to swallow, even though it's the actual medicine we all need.

Up until this current ward, I had a remarkable 100% experience in my married life. I was asked to give a 15 to 20 min talk. I prepared a 15 to 20 min talk. I was given 5 minutes in which to deliver it. 100%. Notice that this was L-I-T-E-R-A-L. Not "most of the time." Not 90%. Not 99%. It was 100% of the time. One time my wife (who preceded me that Sunday) purposefully shortened her talk to be sure to give me more time because she was well aware of the curse. The youth speaker (who was actually one of the missionaries assigned to our ward at the time) didn't give a short talk. She gave a 35 min groan-a-thon about how terrible her life was and is and how difficult it is for her to be a missionary. Guess how long I had to give my talk? Zero, really. It was already the top of the hour. And the bishop asked me to keep my talk to 5 min. Good thing that's all I prepared for. When I gave my first talk in my current ward, I prepared a 5 min talk. But apparently, everything went on schedule. The youth speaker gave a 5 min talk. My wife gave a 10 min talk. And I had 25 min before 5 min to the hour (for closing the meeting). I gave my excuse and explained why I had only prepared a 5 min talk. I stretched it to about 8 min. The bishop had to get up and say a few words to fill in the extra time. The next time they called me to speak, they asked me to prepare a 25 to 30 min talk (referencing my previous talk). With some level of exasperation, I determined to prepare a 25 min talk and I also prepared a 5 min talk. It turned out that I had about 25 min to give the talk. So, I pulled out my notes for the longer talk and found out the hard way that it was really a 35 min talk. So, I had to rush through the end. People liked it.