André's Famous Fudge

While, I am writing up recipes, since I made fudge for the ward talent show, many people have been asking me for this recipe, so I decided to put it up here.  This also marks the first time I try to put pictures (or rather power point slides) on the blog.  But since I made a beautiful slide show, I figured it deserved some credit.

You do not want to skimp on the chocolate chips.  Nestle works the best.  Do not get great value brands or even Hershey's.  And make sure that you get semi-sweet, because milk chocolate will make your fudge way too sweet.

A trick is to put the butter in the pan, and then use the wrappers that the butter came in to butter the 9x13 pan.

This takes some practice, but the best results come when you buy one candy thermometer and always use the same thermometer so that you know its quirks.  Each candy thermometer is calibrated a little bit differently, so just get to know yours.

If you have two pots and two candy thermometers, you can make both batches at the same time, and then swirl them together before you pour into the pan.  Don't swirl two much, though, or you will end up with just one combined flavor instead of two flavors swirled together.

Rumbi Rice

So, lately I have been cooking without a recipe, nothing big, just soups and casseroles and stuff, but I think that it is cool to be able to make a meal using the supplies that are available.

Anyways, we have had this can of coconut milk sitting around the apartment for ages, and I decided that I would use it to make some Rumbi Rice, as made by Rumbi Island Grill.   It turned out really well and is quite easy.  I decided that there may be others who would like to make it, so I wrote up a recipe for it online.

2 cups uncooked white rice
3 cups coconut milk  (The vanilla coconut milk that comes in a carton, sold by the soy milk at Walmart works the best)
1 cup water (I like my rice to be nice and fluffy and we don't have a lid to boil it in, so I use more liquid up at school than I did at home.)
half a can of black beans
frozen vegetables (I like cali veggies)
two pork chops
Olive oil
Teriyaki Sauce
1 tsp ginger  (I never measure spices like this, I just add it until it feels right, but if I had to guess how much I added, these would be the amounts.  Feel free to get fancy with your spices.  If you have a love for garlic or rosemary or cilantro or something else,  it is perfectly acceptable to add them in addition to or instead of ginger.)
1.5 tsp seasoning salt
1/8 tsp Seasoned Meat Tenderizer

Boil rice in the coconut milk until fluffy.  Add ginger and seasoning salt.  (When most of the moisture has boiled off, add water to the pot to prevent it from burning, and to keep the rice fluffy.)  Wash black beans in water, drain.  Add black beans to the pot. Stir.

Cut uncooked pork into cubes.  Sprinkle pork with Seasoned Meat Tenderizer.  In a separate pan, fry in olive oil until fully cooked (sides will be a light golden brown).

In a separate pot, boil the frozen veggies until soft.

Add 1/4 of the rice mixture to a bowl.  Over half the bowl place 1/4th the pork on top of the rice.  On the other half the bowl place 1/4th the veggies on top of the rice.  Drizzle with Teriyaki Sauce to taste.

Makes four servings.

"That is a very productive church!"

I used to be very confused about why we call our complete standard works published in one colume a quad. After all it contains: the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. And that seems to be five books in my mind, but a quad implies four. Why don't we call it a quint? (I eventually figured out that when we call it a quad, we are counting the entire Bible as one book.)

Well, during High school I attended a thing at the Universit of Utah called Math Circle, and all of the people there loved numbers to a similar degree that I did. So, one day I asked some of the smartest people there about it. I had assumed at they were LDS also, but I was wrong, and they didn't even know what I was talking about.

But when I had explained the situation that there are originally two books and that through modern day revelation we had three additional books. Their response was, "That is a very productive church." That sentence has stuck with me since then.

I was thinking abiut that sentence nd how wonderful it ia to live in a very productive church, when I realized that modern revelation isn't limited to the quad, but every six months our prophets speak to us, and we get taught on high. Not only have we added three books to the original two, but we also have the archives of all of the conferences for many many years. I love being a part of a work that is directed by God!

The Bible says that ye shall know them by their fruits, and normally we interpret it to mean the Book of Mormon, which is amazing and wonderful and God's proof to the world that the Book of Mormon is true.

But perhaps it also refers to all of our fruits. We have more scriptures and revelations and wisdom from God than most people could even imagine. Ours is truly a productive church. If you were to try to count our fruits, you would discover that our tree of revelation is a very productive tree.

So enjoy conference weekend everybody, and think about how thankful you are to live in a "very productive church!"

Texas Fort Worth

Dear Sister Sanchez:

You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  You are assigned to labor in the Texas Fort Worth Mission.  It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 18 months.

You should report to the Provo Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, July 11, 2012.  You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Spanish language.  Your assignment may be modified according to the needs of the mission president.

You have been recommended as one worthy to represent the Lord as a minister of the restored gospel.  You will be an official representative of the Church.  As such, you will be expected to maintain the highest standards of conduct and appearance by keeping the commandments, living mission rules, and following the counsel of your mission president.  As you devote your time and attention to serving the Lord, leaving behind all other personal affairs, the Lord will bless you with increased knowledge and testimony of the Restoration and of the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Your purpose will be to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.  As you serve with all your heart, might, and strength, the Lord will lead you to those who are prepared to be baptized.

The Lord will reward you for the goodness of your life.  Greater blessings and more happiness than you have yet experienced await you as you humbly and prayerfully serve the Lord in this labor of love among His children.  We place our confidence in you and pray that the Lord will help you become an effective missionary.

You will be set apart as a missionary by your stake president.  Please send your written acceptance promptly, endorsed by your bishop.

Sincerely,
Thomas S. Monson
President

Are Mormons Christian?

Up until this semester, my answer would have always been yes.  Absolutely.  I believe that Christ is my Savior and he died and suffered for my sins.  He is my God and my Creator.  I thought that was everything that was necessary to be considered Christian.

But I guess that I was wrong.  Apparently the term Christian has a much more complicated definition than I first thought.  There is much more to being Christian than I would have expected.  I don't understand the definition, nor do I know all of it, but I think that in order to be a "Christian" church, the church has to believe in the Trinity.  And Mormons do not believe in the Trinity.  We believe that Christ is the literal son of God the Eternal Father.  We believe in the Holy Ghost as a personage of spirit.  We believe that they are three separate beings, but that they are one in purpose.  This is very different from the view of the Trinity, which I don't understand at all, but I think it has something to do with God being Three in One, and that they are all the same person, or something.

When we were discussing this I felt that I was back in the middle of a Lincoln-Douglas Debate from High School.  I felt that the answer to the question, "Are Mormons Christian?" depends entirely on which definition you prefer.  I remember definition debates and how much I hated them.  We would argue that if a definition came from Black's Law Dictionary then it would be preferable to another definition, and then people would argue over what edition the definition came from.  The idea of debating a definition is laughable and strange from my current perspective.  In math you don't debate definitions.  You accept definitions and then work from there.  A word does not determine a definition, but rather the definition is the word.   However, sometimes a word will have two or more conflicting definitions and it is important to determine which definition you are using to avoid confusion.  This is a very complex and confusing process in determining the worth of a definition and which one should be used in a given situation.

I would much rather avoid a definition debate.  They are long and tedious and nothing is really established.  The whole argument boils down to what you personally believe, which is a very hard way to convince anyone else that you are right.

Are Mormons Christian?  Perhaps.  I have always thought so, and I will continue to think so.  However, that is only by my understanding of the word Christian?

Are Mormons Christian?  I don't really know.  There are better questions to ask:

Do Mormons believe in Christ?  Do they worship Him as their Savior?  Do they believe that He is the Creator of the Universe?  Do they consider Him to be God?  Do they believe that He died to save them?  The answer to every one of these questions is yes.  Absolutely yes.

Am I Christian?  I don't know.  But I do know that Christ is my Savior.  I know that He died to save me.  I know that He created this world, and rules it as God.  He knows me, and knows how to help me in all of my trials.  He is my God, and I love him.

Science and Religion are not necessarily contradictory!

I have always felt that Science and Religion compliment each other.  But it has always seemed that I live in a very small world of people who do so.

When I tell people that I can accept the idea of Evolution and the concept of Creation at the same time, I was always at risk of offending almost everyone around me.  The Scientists would look at Creation and say, "Balk, we don't need a God to explain how the universe came into existence.  God is only a part of those weak minds and poor souls who need something to believe in, because they can't accept reality."  And Churchites would look at Evolution, and say, "But, Genesis says that it was done in a week.  And Genesis says that God created us.  We are not evolved from Monkeys!"

I would try to keep my believes about both to myself, until I knew what type of person I was talking to.  It seemed to me that Genesis is a spiritual account of the Creation.  It tells the record of the people.  It was not meant to be an instruction manual on how to create or even a scientific pamphlet explaining what was done.  Rather it was meant to inspire God's Children to believe on His word and to worship Him and only Him.

The theory of Evolution does not rule out the hand of God, or rule out some intelligent designer ordering everything the way He wanted it to be.  Rather it is a theory that tries to explain natural facts about our world.

Now, the Theory of Evolution is a theory, and like all other scientific facts it can not be accepted as law until proven.  There are many scientific theories, like String Theory,  and others that are internally consistent, but haven't been proven.  That is the way science works.  Scientists find something in their world that they can't explain and try to explain it.  If the explanation seems to hold up against other findings, then it is a theory.  Other scientists will continue to examine the world around them, and occasionally a previous theory is replaced by a more modern theory.  And sometimes theories actually get proven and become Laws, like Newton's Laws of Motion.  But even these Laws of Motion were in time found not to explain everything, and we had to account for Einstein's Theory of Relativity.  Science changes over time, and gradually as a community we come closer and closer to explaining our world.

Now, as a Theory, Evolution makes lots of sense.  It explains what we have observed perfectly and no contradictions have thus far come into light.  Therefore, I have accepted it, and try to understand it.

I see God when I am doing mathematics and everything becomes beautiful.  I see God when I am observing the heavens (Astronomy is a weird science.  It is the only science that doesn't really have the ability for experimentation, because the distances involved are so big.  Rather it is a science of observation).  I see God when a ball drops to the ground and it's motion is perfectly described by Physics.  I see God when Chemicals react precisely with other Chemicals.  I have seen God during a tensile test, when I stretching steel to see when it would break.  The perfect descriptions of our world, that we call Science are also the building blocks of my testimony.

Now it seems that I am not alone in my quest to understand both Science and God at the same time, without contradicting myself.  Here is an interesting article about others and how they view the world in which they live.

Proof of God in a Photon

I think it is interesting that Galileo was the first to really separate Religion and Science.  He was trying to protect Science from an over-powerful church.  Now, the times have changed.  It seems that most churchs are now trying to protect Religion from an over-powerful scientific community.

Why is it that Science and God can't both explain our universe?  They aren't two separate ideas fighting for the right to exist.  Rather they are two different sides of the same coin.

Once I saw that, I see God in my science classes and science in my religious studies.  They are both good!

What would I give to know God?

King Lamoni said that he would give all his kingdom and all his sins to know God. It made me wonder if I would also be willing to give it all. In this video, we are taught that wickedness will bombard us. It will be all around us and everywhere.
 
I recently posted about how wonderful living in the information age is. It is wonderful to live in a world where I can literally carry around all of the standard works and an entire library as well as access to knowledge like never before on the internet.

However, this wonderful blessing sometimes becomes a stinging sword as well. With so much information available everywhere and always, I find myself distracted by things that don't really matter. Am I willing to give it up to know God? Can I tune into the right channel and listen to the Spirit?

I hope so. I pray for the strength to be able to do so.

With all of the distractions around me, I want to be able to always find time each day to contemplate my relationship with God, and how I can improve it.