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How Sacred Youth Music Has Changed — And Why EFY 1999 Still Reaches My Soul

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How Sacred Youth Music Has Changed — And Why EFY 1999 Still Reaches My Soul Note: these are my thoughts, but ChatGPT has modified some of the language and format  I started my mission in 2000, and even though I never owned the EFY 1999 album A Season for Courage , those songs are burned into my memory. They must have been passed around on the mission, copied, shared, played in apartments and mission cars, because every track feels strangely familiar — like an old friend I didn’t realize I’d missed. Listening again 25 years later, one thing stood out immediately: compared to today’s Strive to Be music, the songs of that era were more subtle, more tender, more metaphorical. They didn’t just declare devotion; they illustrated it. They carried symbolic threads from verse to verse, inviting you to sit inside an emotion instead of simply naming it. There was depth woven through the simplicity. And some of those songs still cut straight to the soul. ⸻ “Feel the Fire” and the Ache to Ret...
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I’m Gonna Need More Revelation

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  I’m Gonna Need More Revelation .. and desperately so… Thursday, March 14, 2024 What do the following phrases from scripture have in common? Always Remember Him ( Moroni 4:3 ) Pray Always, that you enter not into temptation ( Matt 26:41 ) Line upon Line, Precept upon Precept ( 2 Ne 28:30 ) From them that say, We have enough, From them shall be taken away even that which they have ( 2 Ne 28:30 ) Always have His Spirit to be With Them ( Moroni 4:3 ) To help illustrate how this is, I turn to my distant memories of Linear Algebra (the study of matrices). In Linear Algebra, there exists a series of equivalent statements , each of which implies the other.   There is power in this: the moment you know that just one of these is true, you automatically can depend on the others being true. Here is one set of equivalent statements in Linear Algebra: A is invertible. A is row-equivalent to the identity matrix. A can be factored as a product of elementary matrices. The system Ax=b has exa...
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“He is Risen!” for Ward Choir using Hymnplicity arrangement

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He is Risen! Here’s how to learn the parts for this wonderful Easter Hymn. Arrangement The arrangement is from Hymnplicity Easter, where you can  hear a brief sample . As with all Hymnplicity arrangements, your parts come straight from the hymn book ( click here to view the parts on a webpage ). The only thing that change is when  you sing melody, when you're quiet, and when you sing parts, as follows ( download this for printing ): Parts Soprano No need as it's melody. Alto Bass Tenor
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Their Pride was Their Downfall

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 The Jews were killed and scattered not because they were bad and knew they were bad, but because they were bad and thought they were good. In 2 Nephi 12 , the prophet Nephi -- a man who had left Jerusalem many years earlier -- copies the words of Isaiah the prophet, from Isaiah 2, into the Book of Mormon. In this chapter, Isaiah talks about how "lofty" the people are by using the imagery of tall cedars, oaks, mountains, hills, towers, walls and ships. This is what I wrote about this section: Trees and mountains are metaphors for pride and being haughty. Because they were proud, the Jews were killed and scattered and Jerusalem destroyed.  Because they thought they were too good to be destroyed, they killed the prophets.  The interesting thing is that their downfall was not that they were bad and knew it but that they were bad and thought they were good and were unwilling to acknowledge that they might need to change.  And when I say Jews, I mean all the houses of Isr...
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The Book of Mormon is All About Joy

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Joy. Joy and rejoicing everywhere. That's what the Book of Mormon is about: how to receive joy beyond our wildest imaginations! "Men [and women] are that the might have joy" (2 Nephi 2:25). We exist to be happy. And how? It's receiving Christ ourselves through repentance and helping others receive Him as well -- through repentance. this is joy which none receiveth save it be the truly penitent and humble seeker of happiness. ( Alma 27:18)   I like the thought of God's light shining inside of us:  their souls were illuminated by the light of the everlasting word; (Alma 5:7) I think that when we have God's light in us, we feel joy.  It's delicious to us.  It's like the fruit in Lehi's vision of the tree of life ( 1 Nephi 8:10-12 ): And it came to pass that I beheld a tree, whose fruit was desirable to make one happy.  And it came to pass that I did go forth and partake of the fruit thereof; and I beheld that it was most sweet, above all that I ever b...
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I Felt a Force in my Fingers

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     On Christmas Eve Sunday, I sat at a beautiful grand piano in front of a congregation of hundreds.  A singer waited patiently at the pulpit for me to begin the intro, and I waited patiently for my nerves to calm down.  Eventually I had to start, and as I did, I hit a few wrong notes and played out of rhythm, until the singing started and I got into a flow.       And that’s when it happened.  That’s when I felt it.  Fingers that had been unsure became sure.  Missed notes gave way to correct notes.  Anxious speediness slowed down to calmer tempos. Lack of jiving with the singer changed to synchronization.      Every time I play in church, this same thing happens: some force flows into me, like Captain Marvel’s power, and into my arms and fingers, helping me play with confidence and accuracy.  I’ve felt it at the organ as I accompany congregational hymns and at the piano, as I did on this day.  Wh...
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James in the Arena

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I've just read portions of Theodore Roosevelt's speech Man in the Arena , having heard it referenced several times in the past weeks.  It's the one with these famous lines, It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat This week, also, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of L...
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