Thoughts and stories, by Pal

      To those dear readers who occasionally read my blog: I truly am sorry for not writing for the last 7 weeks!  I got a slipped disk in my back, and I was in a fair amount of pain, and I basically became quite sedentary!  Just this last Monday I was able to get into a pain specialist doctor and get a shot in my lower right back, which has taken away quite a bit of the pain.  Also during this time, I had a lot of nerve twitching, and tremors all the time in my right foot!  It was so noticable whenever I walked, that I sat most of the time!  I didn't dare drive, as that was my driving foot!     I have been to a good chiropractor, who has done traction, electrical stimulation, etc. but I stubbornly had decided to go only 2 times a month -- to save money! I'm going again today--driving myself!      I learned that my thinking was quite wrong, when I saw my sister who had so much pain in her back due to having gone ...

  I'm posting two articles today, as they are both related, and both appeared in the Meridian Magazine today.  They both quote Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, and others.   I want to go on record here in my blog, and anywhere else I speak or write, saying:  I DO support the brethren, and Church teachings, and the Prophets!  I believe all the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints teaches, and every true principle we are taught! I am grateful for my faithful pioneer ancestors, and I want to live as they did -- true to the teachings and principles of this TRUE Church! The Middle Ground is Disappearing By  Dan Ellsworth  · August 23, 2021 The following first appeared  in Public Square Magazine . We are witnessing an ever greater movement toward polarity. The middle-ground options will be removed from us as Latter-day Saints. The middle of the road will be withdrawn.  If you are treading water in the current of a river, you will go somewhere....

I totally agree with this article.  I have always loved people of all races, and I am very saddened when people do not show them respect and love.  But this article has such good and honest thoughts about the situation in the United States right now, and I hope you'll read it, and find wisdom in it! The Riots and the Danger of False Narratives By  Maurine Proctor  · June 2, 2020 The Book of Mormon, written specifically for our times, is a warning in so many ways, but there is a caution that we should not miss. That is the consistent and emphatic plea about the perilous and destructive power of false and manipulative narratives. When you look at the book through that lens, suddenly you see it everywhere. Again and again the people are “stirred up to anger”, even to the dissolution of their own nations, by the ideas and arguments that take hold of them with such power they cannot shake them. They hold on to them with self-destructive fero...

I haven't written for a few days, as I've been supporting family members who have had some real problems.  Today I want to share this very important article from LDS Living. Jonathan Decker: The  Jonathan Decker: The Tragedy in Mexico, Our True Enemy, and Compassion in the Last Days by Jonathan Decker, LMFT  | Nov. 08, 2019 Author's Note: I wrote this in place of my "Ask a Latter-day Saint Therapist" article this week. It was written for those both within and outside of our faith. My normal column will return next week. For news coverage of the  Mexico Massacre on Deseret.com . I've been thinking about the tragedy in Mexico, in which a cartel brutally shot and burned alive American women and children. Having a wife and kids who mean the world to me, the reality of it hit me hard. I actually cried about it uncontrollably yesterday. And yet, I have heard some people claim that these people deserved their fa...