Thought and Purpose (chapter 4)

UNTIL thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent accomplishment. With the majority the bark of thought is allowed to “drift” upon the ocean of life. Aimlessness is a vice, and such drifting must not continue for him who would steer clear of catastrophe and destruction.

They who have no central purpose in their life fall an easy prey to petty worries, fears, troubles, and self-pityings, all of which are indications of weakness, which lead, just as surely as deliberately planned sins (though by a different route), to failure, unhappiness, and loss, for weakness cannot persist in a power evolving universe.

Read more

The Thought-Factor In Achievement (chapter 5)

ALL that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts. In a justly ordered universe, where loss of equipoise would mean total destruction, individual responsibility must be absolute. A man’s weakness and strength, purity and impurity, are his own, and not another man’s; they are brought about by himself, and not by another; and they can only be altered by himself, never by another. His condition is also his own, and not another man’s. His suffering and his happiness are evolved from within. As he thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains.

Read more

Visions and Ideals (chapter 6)

THE dreamers are the saviours of the world. As the visible world is sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and sins and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreamers. Humanity cannot forget its dreamers; it cannot let their ideals fade and die; it lives in them; it knows them as they _realities_ which it shall one day see and know.

Read more

Serenity (chapter 7)

CALMNESS of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom. It is the result of long and patient effort in self-control. Its presence is an indication of ripened experience, and of a more than ordinary knowledge of the laws and operations of thought.

Read more

Preface

AS A MAN THINKETH

BY: JAMES ALLEN

_Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes,
And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes
The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills:–
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:
Environment is but his looking-glass._

Authorized Edition

New York

FOREWORD
THIS little volume (the result of meditation and experience) is not
intended as an exhaustive treatise on the much-written-upon subject
of the power of thought. It is suggestive rather than explanatory,
its object being to stimulate men and women to the discovery and
perception of the truth that–

“They themselves are makers of themselves.”

by virtue of the thoughts, which they choose and encourage; that
mind is the master-weaver, both of the inner garment of character
and the outer garment of circumstance, and that, as they may have
hitherto woven in ignorance and pain they may now weave in
enlightenment and happiness.

JAMES ALLEN.

BROAD PARK AVENUE,

ILFRACOMBE,

ENGLAND

May 20, 2008 (from the CTM)

Hi!

I can’t believe that letter already got there. That was fast. I sent it after the Mother’s Day letter. Weird. That’s good though.

Yeah it seems like everywhere you go you find people that served in Brazil. Right before I left it seemed like everybody I talked to went there. It’s crazy.

I don’t have too many missionary experiences yet cause we aren’t teaching people yet. Last Friday though they gave every companionship in my district 30 passalong cards and two Book of Mormons, bused us into the middle of Sao Paulo and we had to give them all out to people! It was sweet! It was really cool to finally be using our language skills and talking to people about the gospel. We handed all of them out and had 20 minutes to spare. We did good. Some guy called us false prophets though. That was pretty funny. We could understand him but could talk back so we smiled, bore our testimony in Portuguese and thanked him for his time. Haha but we had a lot of success. The people that we gave the books of Mormon to were really excited. One of them spoke English so it was pretty easy to do it. The other lady stopped us and we talked to her for a while and tried to give her a book of Mormon. She said no because we thought we were selling it but we didn’t know that’s what she said at first so we just gave her a passalong card. She was really happy so we decided to just give her the book of Mormon again and we told her it was free this time. She smiled and hugged it and thanked us a bunch. It was really cool.

Elder Bednars talk was sweet! We got to shake his hand but that’s it. He talked about not getting discouraged and making sure we pray a lot. It was good. His wife spoke too. She was good too.

We get to choose if we only want to speak Portuguese and that’s one of mine and Elder Warrs goals during one of our classes. When we get better we’ll do it all the time though. Its fun to speak it. I’m kind of at where I was with German. I can understand A TON but when it comes to speaking, I’m lost. It’s coming along really well though. I hope everything is good in Utah! Love you!

Elder Hill

May 20, 2008 (to Mom from the CTM)

Hi Mom!

I got the cookies thing. Thank you! The coolest thing about it is that when you send an email or whatever through that, they print it off and walk it across the street. So you could email me through them today and I would get it tomorrow. That’s mostly why I wanted it. So I didn’t have to wait a whole week to hear from you. You can write me as many times as you want but always CC this email so I for sure get it. See if you can have dad and Brayden write through it too. We can cancel it once I get out of the MTC.

I’m surprised you already got the pictures. That was really fast!

Tthere are like 200 Americans here. I don’t know for sure. Not too many though. Thanks for sending my coat! That’ll help a lot.

I told Dad all of the schedule so you can ask him. It’s fun here though. Everything is good. The language is coming along. A lot of the work will be learning the vocabulary. We have six people in our room including my companion and I. Four Americans. and two Brazilians. They’re cool guys. They don’t know much English so it helps us learn Portuguese.

Well, everything is awesome here! I love you!

Elder Hill

May 13, 2008 (from the CTM)

Hi!

That’s good you guys did something on Mother’s day. We were able to send a letter on the Saturday before but don’t tell mom. Let it be a surprise. Haha! It’ll be there in like two weeks I think.

I need to email Jeff and talk to him about the trip. I hope it went good. What all did they do? Do you know?

So is that a major that Sergio won? I can never get them straight. I’m a little surprised the Jazz are hanging in there but thats good. Any draft news? I only heard the first six picks. Any big trades?

My companion is Elder Warr. He’s from St George and he’s a pretty cool kid. He kinda reminds me or Mark Huntington. It’s weird cause we’re by far the two shortest people in our district so its funny we got paired up. We get along good so that’s all that matters. Our whole district is awesome. We get along a lot and have fun. Nobody hates each other or anything like that. It makes it fun.

The General Relief Society President came and spoke to us today. That was pretty cool. It was a really short talk though. And David A Bednar is coming next Sunday! That’ll be awesome. There are only like 200 people here too so we’ll be able to meet him. We’re going to sit in the front so we can be first in line. It’ll be cool.

Yeah Brayden wrote me so I’ll be sure to write him. How is everything? Work going good? How are Grandma and Grandpa?

Love you!

Elder Hill

May 13. 2008 (to Mom from the CTM)

HAPPY MOTHER´S DAY!!

Sorry it’s late but I couldn’t call or email you. I hope you had a good day and it was really, really weird to not be there. I love you. You’re the best mom ever

What day did you get the letter? I think its something like two weeks to get to you but then it takes around a week to get to me. I don’t really know why its so different but oh well.

The plane ride was terrible. Almost everybody was able to sleep on it but I couldn’t get to sleep. And I was talking to the guy next to me for a little while but then he went to sleep so I just had to sit there forever. I just read and sat there trying to fall asleep for most of the time. It took like two days for my butt to completely feel better from sitting down for so long. Haha! It was bad.

I have access to stores and everything but they have weird candy here. Nothing American or anything like that. And I don’t know what the packaging says yet so I don’t trust buying anything. So send lots of MnM´s and maybe some Skittles. Just stuff like that. Good American candy. I found some Oreos but they don’t taste anything like them. But the best thing about them is you can get like 10 of them for 25 cents. So everybody gets them. Nice and cheap.

I’ll definitely need more money for a coat. Some kid got a coat sent to him today and it wasn’t opened or anything. I hear that only things like electronics and liquid things (because of customs) get opened. So I think it would be safe to send it. But I don’t really know. That kind of stuff is a little expensive here. Their sweaters are around R75 which is like 45 American. And they aren’t even that good. Just sweaters.

The weather is getting a little better here. It changes a lot though. But were inside most of the time so its not too bad.

I took some pictures of the MTC but I’m not sure if they turned out. I have to go get them after this. The MTC is insane. I cant really explain it. Its like a cross between a temple and a stake center. but huge. Its the biggest church building outside of the US. That includes temples and everything. Its so pretty. The gardens are amazing. Hopefully the pictures turn out so I can send some.

Well, I love you and I hope everything is going good. Send a package soon! I haven’t got any mail yet. Love you!

-Elder Hill

P.S. They have this thing called Mission Ties here.  They print off your emails and then they send them over to the MTC in the mail.  So if you wanted to email me a couple times a week, I’d be able to read them right when you send them.  I think its around $15 a month though.  I don’t really know.  If you sign up I get 6 free cookies too.  Haha! I’m going to have them send you an email about it and if you want you can sign up.  Two of the kids in my district do it and it seems pretty cool.  I’m not totally sure how it works though. Just thought I’d let you know.

David Archuleta ~ American Idol ~ In Utah

David Archuleta came to Utah yesterday to film a segment for American Idol.  Fox News Utah aired a 90 minute special which included interviews with him and a couple of musical numbers.  They also aired a wrap-up of his day. You can view these shows at the URLs below:

David Archuleta Day ~ Utah ~ Part 1
David Archuleta Day ~ Utah ~ Part 2
David Archuleta Day Wrap-Up ~ Utah

There are a couple of other clips of David Archuleta here.

To share the video with friends, please feel free to link to this page from your sites, emails, etc.  Please don’t remove the videos and place them on other sites without a link back to homeandholidays.com that looks like the example below.  A link is requested for each clip that you use.

For videos, Christmas stories, holiday information, crafts, coloring pages, recipes, Christmas Carols, midis, homemaking ideas,  inspirational stories and more! Check out homeandholidays.com

More of the special and a lot of other behind the scenes clips can be viewed at http://www.myfoxutah.com.  By the way, David is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  You can learn more about his faith here.

« Previous Page — Next Page »