Childish Games

When I was young my friend cruelly took advantage of me by fabricating myths that we both had "Radars" in our heads. Actually, I dont blame him and the experience was fun. If I did what he said his Radar would make mine grow, thus increasing my power. However, if I refused he would shoot missiles at my radar. I must have truly believed in the whole phenomenon for some time and it was a pretty cool idea, except I had trouble coming up with the cause for which I was giving up my yogurt every time we got school breakfast. My powers once even progressed to the point were I CREATED A CAR which then drove out of a nearby cul-de-sac and into my line of sight. One day my dad asked me what I talked about with my friend. I let him know about the basics of Radars but some gut insinct caused me not to tell him about my friend's dominant Radar. When I told my friend about the incident he seemed worried and asked what I had said. I assured him that I didn't leak any bad imformation and asked what I could do to serve the cause.

These kinds of games are all around us in children. My brother recently told me about a game that the deacons play. It went something like this: "This is the most advanced custom my deacon friends have ever thought of! First you see who can survive the longest while engaging in a hand-to-hand pressure point lock while at the same time trying to hit the other person's funny bone and complete the victoy by containing their arm in three of you fingers until they give up." Apperantly this works best in church meetings when they pretend to listen and try not to yell, which looks pretty weird.

The Age of Exploration

I have done much study on this topic and will now relay to you the trends of middle-age exploration. The age of exploration was a time ranging from around 1400 to 1800 A.D. That’s probably not exactly what it says in text books, but I guarantee some exploring happened during that time. What was happening is this: A bunch of crazy tyrants were in need of new land and riches, and so they all were competing by sending brave explorers to the new world, who would either starve, freeze, be killed by natives, or find riches and land. Then, the explorer would claim the land to be his own, and sell off the natives to be slaves. Then, when was really famous, and deemed a hero, he would be either executed in a new colony, or shipped back to his home country and burned. There are many ways this might have come about. The first is this: someone would get jealous and tell the governor that the explorer was a heretic. Or, his neighbors would take out his intestines for whatever reason. The King or Queen would then take control of the new world, bring disease, kill everyone, and grab a bunch of gold. Then, they would be killed by more natives, then more people would arrive the cycle would restart until it burned out. Then, more natives would jump out of the bushes and eat those peoples' heads.

They would hear of a great native city which was even more rich and majestic then any other yet by some idiot sailor who's grandpa made it up. So another explorer would set out with an army and within a few months or less, all of his men would be killed by natives, fall into big pits full of snakes or tigers, drowned in quicksand, eaten by wild beasts, starved or diseased. Thus we see that the exiting time of exploration for people to go out and find beautiful new places to live, full of resources, and the natives who were desperate for new friends and toys, isn't really too good because everyone ends up dead in a fairly unpleasant manner, and possibly with his face bashed in or eaten. Obviously some exploring had to be done though, and I'm glad it happened for without a nation of freedom being born we would not now have Metal/

Church Pet Peeves (Lds church)

There are several behaviors constantly found in church that I will adress here. Im sure you've noticed these at least subliminally, but I think it's time for me to set in stone what is indeed not ok to say in church. It's difficult not to step over the line of sacrilage, but i'm sure you'll understand what I mean.

Firstly testimony meeting. This is a time to share a BREIF BUT HEARTFELT testimony. This is not a time to recite your travel log of the past month nor is it story time. I also recommend that you dont yell (at least very loud) or condemn stereotypes that are sitting in the congregation. Your testimony needn't be dripping with sophistry, but it's best not to hit the microphone or put your mouth on it while mumbling loudly and yes, I have experienced all of these.

Prayers. When you pray, no matter how hard it is, just try to finish all your words and refrain from saying things like "please bless that everyone could be here."
"Nourish and strengthen our bodies." You knew it was coming; this phrase lives on and is dreaded by vain repetition opposers all over Utah. Never say this around me! If the food is brownies or a similiar item then "we ackowledge that this meal will make us fat, but be that as it may, please bless us to savour the good taste of this desert" is much more appropriate.

Our final realm is that of talks. I have compiled all the pre-talk excuses into one to save time. There is a comon misconception that a temporary +3 bonus will be added to one's charisma level if one says something such as " well five minutes ago I woke up and remembered that bishop assigned me his talk so I prepared it in the shower. You see two weeks ago when I first recieved the assignment I tried to kill myself but that didn't work and he didn't believe that I would be out of town on that date so bear with me." But in fact this causes many people in the congregation to cringe. I have some advice for any youth speakers: PLEASE donot even attempt to make jokes.

QUIZ

1. Is it ok to discuss with your ward upcoming family anniversaries?

2.Is it a good idea to explain you childrens' social status?

3. In The Little Mermaid what did flounder initialy see in the shipreck that freaked him out? I don't get it.

4.Is it ok to say a prayer in public less than five seconds long?

5.How about touching the Grinch with a '40 pole?