Genuine Fake Watches for sale!

Today, I'm typing from the Kirkwood Highway Library, over in Newark.  It's a cool mid-size structure, with big plate-glass windows and a fancy decorative facade.  It's got a good selection of books, too, so it's not too bad.

I'm on an exchange with Elder Hidalgo, a cool elder from Chile.  About 5'5", he's a good elder with a good testimony.  Strappy little guy, too.  He is the smallest of the four spanish elders in our district, but he's always good for anything.  Little by little, he's overcoming his fears, and becoming stronger.  Just last friday, we had a wrestling match.  (A little uneven, I think:  Me, at 6'3" and 270 pounds, against him at 5'5" and maybe 170.)  I won, but in the course of the match, I shattered the crystal on my watch. 

So, here in Newark, I went to the Farmer's Market.  It's a nice little warehouse-ish thing, and has a jewelery kiosk where they sell cheap watches.  Now, I sport a  ten-dollar watch, and am feeling slightly guilty for supporting people who make cheap stuff in China.  Because I was actually able to inspect the watches, and check that they actually work, I was able to avoid buying a cheap, imitation product. (To read more about fake watches, click here and here.)

There was one watch that I really admired.  It was nice, shiny, had three dials, and I could see myself wearing something like that.  But, when I asked to see it, I took a nice close look at it.  Those three dials for date, month, and year?  Painted on.  Total fake.

In life, we need to check out what we do.  Really, that's all that we ask anyone to do.  We have a message.  As in all things, we need to check whether something is real or not.



A plastic hat is probably a good sign of a fake.

 Imagine that you're walking down the streets of New York city, and a stereotypical guy in a trenchcoat walks up and spreads his coat wide.  Inside, there's row after row of glittering watches: Rolex, Breitling, TAG Heuer, all in gold, leather, silver, and of course very expensive.  The man rubs his unshaved cheeks, and says, "$40 bucks. Take your pick."

Now, it's possible that the watches are real Rolex watches.  But, how can you be sure? 

The only way is to compare it with the genuine product.  That's really all that we ask people to do:  Look at what we have.  Compare it with the Bible, always having an open mind.  Most important, ask God.  I'm sure He knows what's true and what's not.  If you ask him, you can be confident that he will answer your questions.

Life, Legos, and the Gospel

Let's talk a bit about Legos.  As I've stated back in a previous post, I love them.  They're fun little bits of plastic, aren't they?  (Expensive too, at about 10 cents each...)  You can build pretty much anything and everything with them.  Me and my companion, Elder Lindsley, were just yesterday debating whether or not one could build a house out of legos.  We came to the conclusion that if we had enough bricks and enough superglue, there would be nothing wrong with it.

Here's a look at just some of the weird things people have built with Legos:

• A list of ten weird creations, including an ipod case, a knitting machine, a difference engine, a NES, and a Mac.
• A Rubix Cube solver
• A fully Functional Guitar Hero controller
• The Arc Du Triomphe

• Now just tell me this is not cool. ^
• Last, but definitely not least, The Brick Testament.  The Bible, now in Legos.  Actually really funny.
• If you're hungry for more, go to Seankenney.com

It kind of makes me really respect God a lot more.  Imagine that you are God.  Your task is to organize a world for your children, and all you have to use are Legos.  You have to make it big enough to hold six billion or more people, to be self sustaining, to give light, life, and generally have a place for all your creations and children to live. 

Sure, you have a lot of legos.  But they're still Legos.

Just think about the good job that God has done.  We are living on a world made of things even smaller than Legos.  We're all made out of those atoms.  God loves us, and has provided a way for us to succeed here on this earth.  He is much more intelligent than we can ever hope to be.  In his love, he has provided a way for all of us to become like him.  Jesus Christ came to earth, and suffered for our sins.  It's called the Atonement, and through Jesus Christ we can become perfect.

Life, Gaming, and the Gospel: Genesis

When I say the word Genesis, what does that call to your mind?  It has the potential to be the first book in the Bible, or perhaps a failed attempt by Sega to keep up with Nintendo and Sony.


In my case, it summons images of creating worlds, of new life, of incredible power.


In other words, it sounds to me like the spell, Genesis, from Dungeons and Dragons.


Genesis is a ninth level spell, which translates into being about the same amount of power as calling down meteors, totally reprogramming someone's mind, summoning a controllable black hole, or changing reality.  (You could say that that's what all D&D spells do, is change reality, but that's beside the point.)  Basically, Genesis gives you the power to create your own miniature universe, 180 feet in radius.  Inside that sphere, you can do whatever you want. 

Should you so choose, you could fill that 360 foot sphere with pure gold, and single-handedly solve a good chunk of the national debt.  (If we crunch the numbers, let's see what we get. The volume of a sphere with Radius of 180 feet= (4/3)Pi(180*180*180)=24429024.47 cubic feet of gold.  Google informs me that a one-foot cube of gold would weigh 1206 pounds.  So, that mass of gold would weigh... 29461403516.02 pounds.  Since gold prices are usually done by ounces, we need to multiply by 16 to get 471,382,456,256.36 ounces of gold.  Assuming that the market were not to crash because of the amount of gold, and taking the price of gold today at about $1700 dollars per ounce, we have a staggering $801,350,175,635,812 dollars worth of gold, enough to dig the US out of its ~$10 trillion dollars of debt, and perhaps buy the country on the side.  Even were the gold to sell for just a dollar per ounce, you'd still be able to pay for the country's debt and still be fantastically rich.)

You could make it so that for every six seconds that passes in this world, eight hours pass in your mini-universe. (Helpful when you need to cram for tests, or perhaps a bit of vacation.) 

You could make it so that those annoying telemarketers would never find you again.  Of course, you'd also make it impossible for us missionaries to teach you the gospel, so let's not do that.

This single spell would make the smart user thereof invincible.  Nothing could defeat him.  Anything he needed, he could create in his mini-universe, and then use.

Think of that next time you're trying to outthink God.  He has his own universe.  Best of all, he's willing to share it with us because he loves us and wants us to be happy.

Life, Movies, and the Gospel: The Lion King

Let's play Name That Movie!  A young prince is cast into exile when his uncle kills the king.  There, he makes friends with the local-yokels, and grows to adulthood.  Eventually, he realizes who he really is, and comes back to combat his evil uncle.  An epic battle ensues, wherein the evil uncle is killed, and the prince gets the girl of his dreams.

Nope, not Hamlet.  Hamlet dies, and Simba doesn't.

I think that the Lion King might have been one of the first Disney movies that I ever saw, and is still one of my favorite 2-D classics.  (Some of the others are Robin Hood and the Sword in the Stone.)  It came out in 1994, so that's only 4 years difference between this movie's birthday and mine. 

 A lot like other movies, I see myself in it.  We are all children of a Heavenly King, and have been sent to this world where we can't really see our father.  We have to make do with what we have, here in the jungle, and for the most part, we just go about our lives.  Eventually, we come in contact with God, whether that be through a ranting baboon or a personal experience.  Either way, we start realizing who we really are, and what we have the potential to become.  If we will follow the path that our Father has indicated, we have the potential to become kings. 

Let's go to it.