Write Elder Garner at the MTC:

Elder Anthony Ross Garner
MTC Mailbox #107
ARM-YER 0716
2005 N. 900 E.
Provo, UT 84604-1793

he will leave the MTC July 16th.

Mission Addresses

I know this post is not inspirational or anything but I could not think of a better place to put this information. Here are the addresses that I will be able to be contacted at over the next two years as I serve in Armenia:

MTC Address:
Elder A. Ross Garner
Armenia Yerevan Mission
Provo Missionary Training Center
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604

Armenia Pouch System Address:
Elder A. Ross Garner
Armenia Yerevan Mission POUCH
P.O. Box 30150
Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0150
(Letters sent through the pouch system must be single sheet, folded into three-pannels and taped at the top only, no envelopes, placing the address, return address and stamp on the front of the letter itself. International stamps are not necessary for letters sent through the pouch system.)

Armenia Mission Home Address:
Elder A. Ross Garner
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Vratskan #5
0051 Yerevan, Armenia
(International stamp needed.)

It would be best to send letters through the pouch system.

I am so excited to serve a mission.

Ross (soon to be Elder Garner :o)

Of Love

“Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:36-40

The subject matter of the work is love. Love of God, love of neighbor and love of self. I wish to stress the importance of the subject and reiterate what has been stated in the excerpt from Matthew. Love is the great commandment and upon it hangs all the law and the prophets.

Love, as defined by the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary, means “to regard with affection, on account of some qualities which excite pleasing sensations or desire of gratification. It is also described as “an affection of the mind excited by beauty and worth of any kind, or by the qualities of an object which communicate pleasure, sensual or intellectual.”
According to Mr. Webster love is essentially conditional; being extended only to those things which excite pleasing sensations that appeal to our sensual or intellectual passions. Thus it means that I will love you on condition that you gratify my desire for pleasure in some way.
This form of love is not the love we should be striving for as Christians. Christ said in Luke 6:32 that “if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.” This form of love, as stated by Christ, is shallow love. What exceptional goodness is there in man who is nice only to those who are nice to him?
We Christians should be striving for a better love. A love that Paul describes in his teachings to the Corinthians as one that “never faileth.” This love has no pre-conditions, no personal agendas or other limitations. It has no special pre-requisite requirements to worthy of it. This love is completely self-less and unconditional. It is deep and devoted without any sign of hypocrisy. This love is Charity, the pure love of Christ.

The Greatest Commandment

When I was seventeen I decided that I was going to make something of my life. I had grown up in a very active Christian home where I had been taught that God had bigger plans for His children than they could ever imagine and if they would simply turn their lives over to Him, He would do more through them than they could ever do on their own.
I thought on this a lot and I actively sought after the will of God for me through a study of the scriptures and much prayer.
One day when I read the verses in Matthew that were quoted at the beginning of this work I stopped and thought about what I had read. I asked myself what it would mean to me to love God with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my mind. What would I do? How would my actions and behavior change? (What is to follow is the answer I found for myself through further study and contemplation. I realize that it is my answer and so I am not going to assume that it is yours as well. But consider what is to be stated and feel free to take what you like and discard what you will).

“With all thy heart”

When I hear the word heart in this context I think of all the emotional aspects of love. This is rather hard to describe and the best way I think I can portray this is through another personal experience.
During the summer of my eighteenth year I worked as a grounds keeper for a large company along with three other laborers. We developed a very strong friendship over the summer with a sense of unity and comradery that I have never before experienced.
One day as we were working together, not speaking a word, I looked at one of my companions and was suddenly filled with a sense of love for him that I have rarely felt before. Neither he nor I had done or thought or said anything, I simply felt love for him and for my other two companions. That feeling caused me to want to serve them and show them how I loved them. It was an overwhelming, completely consuming feeling that welled up inside me and seriously threatened to pour out through every faculty of my body.
This I believe was the love of God. The energy that came from it was quite astonishing and very powerful. This is what we are asked to give to God. All of our emotional energy God wants devoted to Him.

“With all thy soul”

My personal definition of “soul” is the combination of both body and spirit, thus the commandment becomes loving the Lord with all thy physical and spiritual abilities. I love the Lord with all of my fingers and toes, with all of my skin and my organs, with all of my senses. With all my physical possessions do I love Him with and all of them I would willingly devote to Him.
A good example of loving God with all thy physical ability is given in the film “Chariots of Fire.” In this film we are introduced to a young Irishman by the name of Eric Liddell who is completely devoted to serving his God. His plans were to potentially be a missionary to China, but Eric was also given a pair of legs with which he ran faster than any man he raced.
In 1924 he was given the opportunity to run in the summer Olympics representing the nation of Great Britain. This opportunity he took, but as he got more and more involved in his training his sister, an individual equally devoted to serving her God, became worried that her brother was getting carried away; that his god-given ability to run was running him away from his God.
She expressed her concern to him and in response he said, “I believe God made me for a purpose. For China. But He also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure. To give it up would be to hold Him in contempt. You were right. It’s not just fun. To win is to honor Him.”
Eric went on to win a gold medal in the Olympics and later fulfilled his call to China to serve as a Christian missionary.
This man loved God. He ran for God. It does not matter what your physical abilities may be, do them for God.

Joseph B. Wirthlin, a great religious and moral leader once said, “Do you love the lord? Spend time with Him.” This quote is at the center of loving God with all of our spiritual ability.
Spend time with God by praying, by reading His words, by fasting, by being in nature and apart of nature, by listening to inspired music, by listening to and being with God. When we spend time, quality time with God, we come to know Him which increases our ability to love Him. For how can a person truly and deeply love somebody he does not know?
“Do you love the Lord? Spend time with Him.”

“With all thy mind”

This, of course, is our intellectual abilities and we are supposed to love God with all of them as well. When in love with someone we usually think about that person a lot. He or she is probably the main subject of our thoughts. We think of them when we are away and we do not want to leave when we are with them. God wants us to give Him that same consideration, but it is also more than this.
The mind is a marvelous, awe inspiring creation. It is one of the things that sets man apart from the common beast. The ability to think and reason to come to great new discoveries has led the human race to the prosperous and advanced state which it now enjoys. And yet the capacity of the brain is still largely untapped. All of this God wants to be given to Him. That does not mean the only thought we should ever have is about God, but that we should essentially think everything for Him.

(It is understood that I have just attempted to separate things that are very interdependent, and so it may be hard identify them separately. My purpose in doing so was simply to illustrate that God wants us to love Him with everything we posses.)

These four areas we have defined basically cover all that man is composed of. He is emotional, physical, spiritual and intellectual and all of it man is suppose to give to God. One might think that to do so may seem faulty, extreme and risky. Why would anyone ever make him or herself so vulnerable? Experience seems to tell us that to do so would be inviting pain, sorrow and heart ache. Why would anyone choose to be so exposed?
What must be understood in this case is you are not opening yourself up to a flawed mortal but to a perfect being. He will not trample over you like so many thoughtless people do, but He will cherish that great gift which you have given Him and He will return the favor, in the form of blessings and in personal revelation that shows the extent of His eternal and perfect love for you.
It is as if I am an investor and my stock I am investing is love. The market is full of commodities I could invest in such as material goods, education, relationships, etc., each one promises a certain yield and each has its own risks. But there is only one investment option that has a guaranteed return with huge profits. God is that option and as an investor I am going to hold true to that old adage and put all of my eggs into one basket, investing all of myself in God.

Live for God

(This is a talk I once gave in sacrament meeting. Because it is a talk it does not flow the same as writing and it is directed to a very specific audience. But I think it is appropriate to post it here.)

How will you be remembered when you die?
How do you want to be remembered?
How will you choose to be remembered?

Winston Churchill once said, “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” I believe he was true to that statement and I challenge you to do the same. A blank sheet of paper is before you, the future is yours to author, what will it say?

Be sure that it says what you want it to because the world will remember it and even write it for you if you do not. The best way to prevent this is to decide what you want, but in this is where most people make their first fatal mistake of mortality. They choose to live for that which has no worth. Their sights are set on the things of this world which are good and for our use, but they are only rays of light, they are not the source. The joys that they bring to our lives are as the light of a candle when compared to the light of the sun the gospel gives us. Our sights must be set higher than the things of this mortal world. If we live for clothes our sights are too low. If we live for iPods our sights are too low. If we live for cell phones, TV shows and computers games our sights are too low. Even if we live for our education and careers our sights are too low. The challenge that I want to make to all of you here today is to live for God. Only then will all things be added unto you.

Most of us have already accepted this challenge. We did so when we were baptized. It was then that we covenanted to keep all of God’s commandments and that we would always remember Him and in return we are promised that we will always have His spirit to be with us. Every week we renew this covenant, promising that we will live for God and every week, though we fail to keep this promise perfectly, we should progressively be becoming better and better people.

If we turn to the scriptures we find many excellent examples of individuals who have dedicated their lives to serving God. When we think of all the great prophets of history we do not remember them for how talented, rich or good looking they were. In fact, such details are rarely given or are not deemed to be significant. In the Book of Mormon it does say that the prophet Lehi was fairly wealthy having “gold and silver and all manners of riches.” (1 Ne. 3:16) But it does not dwell on how he obtained it. He may have been a merchant, a business man, an educator or a lawyer for all we know. The fact of the matter is that he was not remembered for his riches and worldly positions. He was remembered because he was a true Disciples of Christ. All other things were merely details and a result of his choice to live for God.

Ezra Taft Benson once said,
“Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace.”


All of this does not mean that we should be spiritual and prophetic all the time. Joseph Smith, the man who “has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men… that any other man.” is a perfect example of this, for even though he was a prophet we know that he had a fun loving, playful personality. Such was probably the case with other prophets like Nephi, Alma and Moroni. 2 Nephi 2:25 explains that “Adam fell that man might be; and men are, that they might have joy.” Our Heavenly Father wants us to find happiness and experience the joys of this mortal life, but we must recognize that the joy that we were meant to live for can only be obtained through obedience to His commandments. And think of this, all the great prophets are remembered for their powerful testimonies of Jesus Christ, not for the great positions they held. They understood the purpose of life and they truly lived it.

There are many great examples of people who truly live life in the world today, but there is one in particular that I want to mention here and he is my father. The many blessing I have personally received because my Father chose to live his life are innumerable and I will be forever grateful to him for his righteous example.

Live your lives and start living today. (Alma 34: 32-34) “The day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors… Therefore I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance.”

The time given us on this earth is a great gift from God. We must care for it and not loose any of it. Be jealous of your time, do not spend it on frivolous fancies but invest it in a good cause. For the time will come when we shall all stand before the judgment seat where we will be asked to give an accounting of our lives to our Heavenly Father. What do we want to be able to tell Him?
We must all live our lives right now in a way that we would not be ashamed to tell our Heavenly Father about. We must do it now because later may be too late. The Apostle James said in James 4: 14, “Whereas is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth.” Life is too fragile to handle carelessly. We must have a firm grasp on it for how well we use it will largely determine the type of life we will have in the eternities. Today is all we have yesterday is gone forever and tomorrow will always be tomorrow. So do not put off till tomorrow what should be done today.

The wicked exist. The apathetic, survive. Only the righteous ever really live. Live your lives brothers and sisters, live for God.

Despotism of Modernity

In class we were talking about the forms despotism (or tyranny) takes in government. The principles we discussed were quite interesting so here are a few of them.

All of the despotic rulers throughout history, up until a certain point, were more removed from the common people. The average Joe did not have to much to fear under the rule of Nero, Alexander the Great or Henry VIII because these tyrants were concerned only with those who had political power. The closer you were to these men the more power you had and the more power you had the more you were considered a threat to the throne. Henry VIII had his queens and his chief advisers like Thomas Moore executed. Alexander the Great, when he conquered a nation, only had the kings of those nations killed. Nero destroyed his own mother who had put him on the throne and did so mainly because she had the power to put him there. This behavior is predictable of most tyrants up to a certain time in history. The turning point occurred during the the early 1900's though its seeds were planted around 1787.

Modern despotism plays out on a much more personal level. Those in high political positions had much to fear still but under rulers like Stalin, Hitler and Mao no average Joe was safe. He had everyone to fear; the state, his neighbors, even his family. Such absolute despotism was never before possible because the government had never before been so involved in the affairs of the individual. The socialistic state engenders this relationship between the government and its citizens. A "Nannie Nation" offers numerous services to its citizens and creates the mentality that the state will provide for all their wants and needs, but in order to receive these benefits much personal information is required. An example of this is the United States' income tax. If you want to get a greater tax return you give the government information about how much money you make, how much of it you gave to charity, how many kids you have and their ages, how old you are, your health issues, etc. I would agree with those that would argue that socialistic programs are created with the intent to help people but it must be understood that such programs increase the power of government and when this kind of power falls into the hands of a Hitler or a Stalin, because the power already extends into every aspect of the citizen's lives, the tyranny of these men is felt more completely.

But what is the point of all this? Yes, despotism has increased its power but why has it done so? I do not say that I have the answer but I would like to point out the interesting correlation between the birth of modern despotism and the birth of America and constitutional government. It is interesting that following so closely the greatest amount of political freedom ever to be enjoyed was the greatest amount of political bondage ever to have been endured. And so, with the greater light comes the greater darkness and as good increases in goodness evil increases in evil. What is also interesting is that it seems to always happen in that order, good increases than evil increases, as if the later were some how dependent on former for its expansion. It is as if evil is incapable of original thought in that it cannot create an evil without stealing from a form of goodness. Such is its evolution.

The Key to Influence

Since the main purpose of this work is to persuade the reader as to the destructiveness of pride I must admit my own shortsightedness and arrogance in my thought that I could know anything about such a subject as to write a work that explores and explains it. In truth I have little experience to draw from: the number of my years, when counted, is nine less than the number of words in this sentence. My experience in writing is even more limited than my years and I have yet to author anything of renown. I have no credibility and you have every reason to set this down and never pick it up again. But know this; I have written what I know to be true. Its correctness I have proven for myself in my life. These principles have worked for me and I believe they will work for others if applied correctly.


Men of Truth
Christ said, “I am the son of the living God.” Moses, when presented before Pharaoh, demanded the release of the Israelites. Paul declared to the Corinthians and the Romans that the only way to gain eternal life was through the gospel he preached.
By what authority were they making such statements? The audacity of these declarations is really quite astonishing if you think about it. Jesus was the son of a carpenter. He lived in no palace, had no servants and held no political position yet he went about claiming that he was the King of kings and Lord of lords that the prophets of old had prophesied of. Even, that he was the son of God.
Moses, in his old age clothed in the garb of a shepherd with no weapon but the staff in his hand walks into the palace of the most powerful ruler of the world at that time and as bold as brass, demands the release of the Israelite slaves.
Paul was no more than a common man, yet he stated time and time again to all that would listen, from bond servants to high ranking military leaders that the only way to salvation was through the gospel of Christ.
Out of context one might think such claims were made either by men outrageously arrogant and elitists or lunatics. But in context we know that Christ, Moses and Paul all had an incredible influence and many believed on their words. And those who did not believe hated them; not because of any pomp and conceitedness but because they challenged their authority by simply having the courage to speak the truth which was something they could not refute.


The Key to Influence
Truth coupled with humility is one of the most powerful tools of influence. Like a two edged sword it cleaves in two the most impenetrable of shields disarming the most formidable of foes. When parted they are all but useless.
Truth is meant to be published to all the world, carried from continent to continent and sounded in the ear of highest of kings to the lowliest of laborers. God is the source of all truth. Throughout all the ages He has revealed truths unto men that they might better understand what they must do to become more like Him. And though no man can come to a knowledge of truth save it be through His spirit, He has chosen men to be the messengers to carry it unto the world; men who are imperfect, who have a tendency to place themselves at the center of their universe where God should be. When this occurs the truth does not reach those who need it. They can feel the pride and they shut their doors and bar their windows as if they were preparing for a hurricane.
To separate truth from humility would be like placing cargo (truth) on a ship (man) and then trying to travel from New York to London without any sails. Pride has sabotaged the ship rendering it completely and utterly useless. Truth is a door through which we desire to pass, pride is the lock that prevents our entry and humility is the only key which can unlock it. Truth cannot be prideful.


Field Experience
In conversation with a friend of mine we came upon a subject of interest that we disagreed, both felling very strongly about the rightness of our positions. We left that conversation unsettled, each frustrated with the other’s blindness to what appeared to be the obvious truth, but to be honest, I was not completely convinced of the truthfulness of my own opinion.
I spent the next few days thinking about that conversation, churning over and over in my head all the arguments and counter arguments that had been presented. I read articles about the issue; I asked the advice of friends and family members; I studied it out and at the end of all my efforts I had a powerful experience when I knew for a certainty that I had found truth.
I then spent the next few days planning the future conversation I wished to have with my friend. I thought up questions to ask, series of logical steps I would have to help my friend make, how I would say certain things and when I would say them and all this preparation was done with the thought in mind that I must forget my pride and my desire to be right for the desire to simply find and share truth.
The day came and I brought up the issue again in conversation. The discussion went beautifully and by the end my friend came to the same truth that I had. I had obtained my desire, I was victorious. But the victory was not filled with praises of my victory; indeed, my victory was rather lost in the shuffle with my friend’s as he took full credit for the find which was, in truth, totally and completely his. But this is really what I desired. My victory was in his victory and this could only be obtained by me being okay with not getting the glory. It was through these means that I had influence. It was through these means that my friend was willing to accept the truth I offered him.


Happiness or Misery, That is the Choice
Pride is at the root of all human misery. God has no desire but that his children might have joy and He has not left man to grope around for it blindly. God has shown to man the way that leads to happiness, all we have to do is follow. The moment we put our will before God’s, (this being pride), we trade happiness for misery.
Give up your pride, put your trust in God and He will reveal the truths and mysteries of heaven unto you. He will open doors for you that before were shut, expanding your influence to those who need to feel the light you posses.

Broadening Our Horizons

Seeing the low activity of this blog site I think we should broaden the topic(s) of our conversation(s). It has been my experience when I've gotten on to post something I've felt restricted as to what I could post. This, I believe, has mainly been due to the mode set by the old title, "Our Divine Constitution". I have changed the title to "Fighting the Darkness, Spreading the Light" but am very open for any suggestions on how I could change the title and format to better fit our purpose. Please comment if you have any suggestions and feel free to post whatever you want.

~Demosthenes