More thoughts from Erik.

Every once in a while I have some thoughts about just stuff really. Last
Sunday I was thinking about people saying there is no way to prove there
is a God. This thought was provoked by my co-worker, I wont use his real
name, but i'll give you a hint, It starts with a S and ends with a cott.
He hates everything that has anything with God, Religion, and stuff he
says "controls his life", Yes he used to be Mormon. There really are many
ways that you can at least provide a lot of evidence that there is a God.
After all if you made a world wouldn't you stick your "signature" on it
somewhere?

The best place to start with any thought is at the beginning so i thought
about all the basic of basic things to do with God and good, and basic
human instincts.

I sent some of you a text that there is no such thing as Cold, Darkness,
and Evil, because they can not be tested, or measured, except by measuring
their opposites.

The way scientists measure how cold something is, is by measuring the
amount of heat it gives off. Example of this is what they do to try to
reach absolute zero. At absolute zero all molecular motion does not cease
but does not have enough energy to transfer its motion to another
molecule. The motion in an object is set by energy. The type of energy
that makes the molecules move is heat energy. The faster a molecule moves
the hotter it gets, once it starts moving to fast it begins to "shed" some
of its parts, or rather particles. When a molecule, or an Atom starts to
shed its parts, it is said to be radio active. The "free radicals" collide
with other atoms and start a chain reaction, hence radioactive poisoning.
But lets back up some....a lot.

When you touch something that is hot, you only know its hot because its
molecules are hitting yours so hard and fast that your own molecules begin
to become damaged, which hurts...or rather burns.

Back to my point. You can not measure cold without measuring heat.
Therefore cold does not exist in and of itself, it can only be quantified
by its opposite.

The same can be said of Darkness.

Darkness is only measured by "collecting" the photons flying around in the
darkness. The human eye can pick up these photons that bounce off objects,
and the brain creates an image based on the photons the eye collects.

The only way to measure darkness is by measuring the amount of light. You
can measure light intensity but not dark intensity. Darkness, like cold,
is not a thing. Its the absence of its opposite. Like coldness it is not a
substance, it is not physical, and therefore does not exist.

To make a short story long, Evil is what you get when you take good away.
We are taught in several places in the book of Mormon that mankind are by
nature carnal, selfish, and devilish. That without Jesus Christ we can be
no other thing, but evil. Wickedness never was happiness because happiness
is the product of righteousness. It is the measurable quality that
quantifies your righteousness. True happiness is only obtained by being
close to God, such closeness is only obtained by being righteous.

So how do we be both happy, and righteous? "the spirit of God is given to
all those who keep my commandments, (crap...NO one can keep all the
commandments all the time, old, young, smart, dumb, good, bad, EVERYONE
will sin as long as they are mortal.) So according to this scripture in DC
45 there is no way to be happy....Except there is more in that scripture.
"and to him that seeketh so to do"

Someone once asked mother teresa why she was doing everything she was
doing, when there was no way for her to possibly make even the smallest
dent in the amount of suffering in the world. What she said was prophetic,
and true.

"God does not require that I succeed. He only requires that I do the best
I can."

Both these scriptures say that to be happy all we have to do is seek to
keep the commandments. As we do this our ability to keep the commandments
will increase, making it seem easier to do. As a product of this increase
in our ability to keep the commandments, our happiness will also increase.

Everything is by default Cold, Dark, and Evil, and when everything is
cold, dark, and evil, everything will be completely dead, both temporal
and spiritual. Only by introducing heat, light, and Good, can life thrive.



There was a reason that Jesus said "I am the light, and life of the world."

So there are some long thoughts of mine. The fact that there is light,
heat, and happiness demonstrates the presence of God.

Eriks Thought

Every so often I make a full circle in a personal cycle I seem to go
through about twice a year. At then end of the cycle I always get back to
the same point. Alma 5, and Beware of Pride.

I can tell when I am getting to that point when I start getting answers to
my prayers about the material blessings I seek.

Here are some questions that I have to ask myself. Well mostly phrases,
and points that stand out when I read either that chapter, or Beware of
Pride.

I think we can all benefit from this. keep in mind that this is for me, I
had no one but myself in mind when I wrote these thoughts down. I wrote
these down for me to reflect on. So if what I am writing bothers you, its
because of your own guilt.

-Nephites fell because of pride.

-Lucifer fell because of Pride. (how he developed pride while in the
presence of God I would like to know, but the fact that he did is the
same.

-It was through pride that Christ was crucified.

-Saul became an enemy to David through pride.

-King Noah's pride sent Abinadi to the flames.

-Herod sorrowed at the request of his wife to behead John the Baptist. But
his prideful desire to look good to “them which sat with him at meat”
caused him to kill John.

-In the scriptures there is no such thing as righteous pride, All pride is
sin. (I think when a parent says "I am proud of you, they really mean I am
pleased with you. That is what the Father said when introducing is son
Jesus Christ "this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased."

-No matter how the world uses the word we must understand how God uses the
word so that we can understand the scriptures. (one of, if not THE biggest
way satan hides the meaning of the scriptures is by changing the way we
understand words. An example of this is the word grace.)

-Our will in competition against Gods will allows desires, appetites, and
passions to go unchecked, and unbridled.

-The proud can not accept the authority of God giving direction in their
lives. (I'll go where you want me to go dear Lord -as long as I want to go
there, they may even think themselves completely sincere, and even mean it
sincerely, yet that reservation still stands firm deep inside their
hearts.)

-The proud wish God would agree with them, they are not interested in
changing their opinions to agree with Gods.

-Another major portion of this very prevalent sin of pride is enmity
toward our fellowmen. We are tempted daily to elevate ourselves above
others and diminish them. (Enmity is something that God placed between us
and satan. I would like to know how that all works, from Gods point of
view.)

-The proud make every man their adversary by pitting their intellects,
opinions, works, wealth, talents, or any other worldly measuring device
against others. In the words of C. S. Lewis: “Pride gets no pleasure out
of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man
(No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.
Is this why I want to be rich? or do I want to be rich to help others?
Jacob 2:18-19.)

-The proud stand more in fear of men’s judgment than of God’s judgment.
“What will men think of me?” weighs heavier than “What will God think of
me?”.

-Would we not do well to have the pleasing of God as our motive rather
than to try to elevate ourselves above our brother and outdo another?

-Some prideful people are not so concerned as to whether their wages meet
their needs as they are that their wages are more than someone else’s.
Their reward is being a cut above the rest. This is the enmity of pride.

This is key:

-When pride has a hold on our hearts, we lose our independence of the
world and deliver our freedoms to the bondage of men’s judgment. The world
shouts louder than the whisperings of the Holy Ghost. The reasoning of men
overrides the revelations of God, and the proud let go of the iron rod

-Pride is a sin that can readily be seen in others but is rarely admitted
in ourselves.

-Most of us consider pride to be a sin of those on the top, such as the
rich and the learned, looking down at the rest of us. There is, however, a
far more common ailment among us—and that is pride from the bottom looking
up

-Another face of pride is contention. Arguments, fights, unrighteous
dominion, --generation gaps--, divorces, spouse abuse, riots, and
disturbances all fall into this category of pride.

(Generation Gaps? Parents to proud to have more kids? kids to selfish to
have children? I know that God expects us to use our heads, but where is
the line between faith, and pride? or is delaying having children ever a
mater more than just faith? Nephi teaches that there is a path between
where we stand, and the place that we need to be to fulfill Gods
commandments. I guess God expects us to use our heads to find that path.)

-The scriptures testify that the proud are easily offended and hold
grudges.  They withhold forgiveness to keep another in their debt and to
justify their injured feelings. (Is that why some refuse to let others pay
them back? "You don't need to pay me, I would rather feel like you owe me
something.")

-The proud do not receive counsel or correction easily. (On the other hand
the proud also seek to find ways to correct others using it as a way to
put themselves above another.)

-The proud depend upon the world to tell them whether they have value or
not. Their self-esteem is determined by where they are judged to be on the
ladders of worldly success. They feel worthwhile as individuals if the
numbers beneath them in achievement, talent, beauty, or intellect are
large enough. Pride is ugly. It says, “If you succeed, I am a failure.”

-If we love God, do His will, and fear His judgment more than men’s, we
will have self-esteem. (Self-esteem is nothing more than knowing ones
worth in Gods eyes. If you understand how God feels about you, nothing
anyone can say or do will effect how you feel about yourself. Suicide is
purely a self centered action. It is never a reaction to the hand that
they have been dealt.)

-The proud won’t change their minds to accept truths, because to do so
implies they have been wrong.


I know that was long. But it is important. Dad and mom are getting old.
(sorry =D) They will not always be able to hold us together as a family,
especially if we let our pride get in the way.

There isn't much I can say, any lecture you give yourselves would be
better than anything I can say. So start talking to yourselves. Read these
things over and over if you have to. If you haven't been translated there
is something in there you are guilty of. So get a move on =D
(Alicia approved it so you know its from God. :+D)

P.S. I love my wife with all my heart.

p.s.s. (or is that P.p.s?) my wife says I'm weird.

(I'm pretty sure its p.p.s since it stands for Post Script, and Post
Script Script wouldn't make as much sense as post post script.)

Our Life so far.

Erik and I met November of 06. Yes, it was almost love at first site. Erik was going to school at UVSC and I had just started at Bon Losee. We met at the singles ward. The first thing I ever heard him say was his testimony and he was telling us about a conversation he had had with his mom the night before. He was telling her that he was done dating and would be single the rest of his life. She said to him "Erik if you stop dating now people are going to think you are gay." We all laughed. The next time I saw him was at a pie party. I went with a guy and I didn't really know him, but once I got there I found out he was 30 and I just turned 19. I was kind weirded out. And Erik was there and He was sitting across the room and he saw that we had the same phone. He started to talk to me about my phone telling me that he had a cooler phone cuz he had broken his screen and it was colored all weird. That was the first time we ever talked.

So he never really asked me for my number. We were at a FHE and we were talking about guys asking for girls number and I could tell he wanted mine. But I was not going just give it to him with out working for it so I said "I only give my number to people who ask me for it. So he texted on his phone a really cheesy quote from a move and i cant remember it very well but it was something like, i don't know how to ask you for your phone number. It was lame anyway. So I took his phone and put my number in it. The next 2 weeks we texted all day everyday. My uncle died so I had to go out of town for a week end but I'll we did was text and text. When I came back he asked me to go to the movies with a bunch of people from the singles ward. So I went, we sat by each other wanting to hold hand but no one wanted to make the first move.

The next day we had our ward Christmas party and I met his sister and brother. I kind knew they were family already cuz they were together all the time. Anyway after the party we went back to Becky and Colby's house and watched a movie. Kara a new friend and Erik's brother Daniel came too. She liked Erik too, but he held my hand and she freaked out. That night we had our first kiss.

Tuesday after FHE Erik asked me to stay after and go to Daniels setting apart for his mission. So I went and his family was weird they had weird jokes maybe they just seemed weird cuz I was kinda weirded out just being there. his sister Lisa asked if we were b/f , g/f and at the same time as me Erik said yes and I said no. I was so nervous. After they set him apart we went to the gym where I took there picture. His whole family was there grandmas and grandpa.

After that night we have not dated anyone else. We had lots of fun together. He always made me laugh. We really didn't go out much. We watched so many movies. Life was great.

We had known each other for almost 2 months when we went ring shopping. It was weird to know that I was getting married but it was the best feeling in the world to know that I was going to marry him, the man of my dreams. He is everything I ever wanted in a husband. 2 months later we were so in love that we messed up. I have never been so scared in my life. Erik was so good he told his parents and mine which wasn't easy. We talked to our Bishop and Stake President and set a wedding date. We got married on April 13 07 in The Colonial House in Lehi. It was beautiful. Not the Temple we wanted but was what we earned. We went to Cali. for honeymoon. We had lots of fun. We went to Sea world. And just spent most of the time hanging and watching movies.

We got back and started the real world. We had so many bills. I was going to school, trying to finish it before the baby came and Erik was working for my dad. He hated it but he was doing it for me and our baby. It was a very long summer. I had morning sickness all nine months. Erik was so good to me! At the end of the summer Erik started work at EBC computers. That didn't last long. They lied to him about his pay.

Oct. 29 07 Maddison Jayne Pearson was born in the American Fork Hospital. It was a happy but scary moment knowing that we were going to raise a child. She was a happy baby most of the time. She had Colic.When Maddison was 3 months old I went back to school to finish. It was so hard to leave her. But my mom and Erik's mom took turns watching her.

Erik started working for my dad again. Helping Colby build the car wash in Provo. Colby and Erik did scrap metal together too. They did very well for a while.

May 08 Erik blessed Maddison. Finally after waiting for so long. On June 13 08 We were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple. It was a very happy day. I cried allot.

August 08 I finally finished school. 3 days after I finished Maddison started walking. She never really crawled so it was a big surprise. She was 9 months then.

Oct. 08 Erik started working for PC Laptops were he is still working.
Nov.08 We moved to Pleasant Grove from Becky and Colby's basement apartment. We loved living there but it was time to move away from family. So here we are.We still don't have all our stuff moved. Erik's car is stuck over there cuz some of my bright brother pushed alot of snow up behind it. So we only have one car and it makes life hard sometimes.

About a month ago I had a kidney stone so that's what they, the doctor's think. It hurt so bad. I went to the ER and they told me we think its a kidney stone but we can't find it. So we get to pay $2000 for that.
I'm still doing Mary Kay and Hair. Kaylie and I are going to try to sell some of the hair flowers that I make.