The Importance of a Name

Character Creation Screen

As you come to the character creation screen in World of Warcraft you are presented with a few options. Here you chose the race, class, and features of your character. By now you probably know what class it is you want to play, and what race either looks the coolest, or has the best racials.  But now you have to chose its name, knowing that your character (and thus you) will be known by it throughout all your adventures in Azeroth. Similarly when you were named, your parents probably put a good amount of thought into your name. Thus we can see the importance of a name.


A lot of people know The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as the Mormons. The nickname Mormon stems from our belief in The Book of Mormon, which is another testament (witness) of our Lord, Jesus Christ. I don't take offense to being called a Mormon, and most of the time its easy to clarify who we are by saying we are Mormons, but the real name of the Church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Obedience and WoW Terms of Service

World of Warcraft Terms of Service

As you log into WoW after a fresh new patch, you are greeted with an updated terms of service (ToS) for World of Warcraft. Most likely you'll just scroll to the end without reading one bit of it, but I'd venture to say that there are some pretty important things in there. Terms of service outline expectations on the part of both the user and service provider. So in a sense Blizzard says "If you don't break these the rules you'll be able to play the game and use the service that we provide." Similarly the player says, "I'll keep these rules Blizz so I can pwn noobs in the face."

"lolcat" ToS

Similarly, God gives us "terms of service". Have you ever received an awesome blessing in your life that you were thankful for? Chances are that blessing came from being obedient to one of our Heavenly Father's commandments.

Leveling and Growth?

Well hello again my friends, it sure has been a while since I last wrote a blog, if it wasn't for my friend Elder Cabral I think the last post that I did would not have been posted on time. Today I want to talk to you about probably one of the hardest things for me personally in World Of Warcraft and that is leveling. Now Leveling is not as hard as it once was, in fact they made it really easy for someone who is new to the game to level up to 85 way faster then before, but it still doesn't change the fact that I hate leveling. Now what does leveling mean? Well I am going to give you my own definition on what I believe leveling is. Leveling in WoW: When leveling in WoW a player does quest,dungeons and battlegrounds to gain Experience points (XP) to gain a level (LVL). When we level in WoW we gain one level at a time, which brings us one step closer until we reach out ultimate goal of 85.

Now when it comes to relating the Gospel of Jesus Christ to this post I chose to do it on something which I think everyone can relate to, and that topic is growth. Just as we level in World Of Warcraft we level up  in real life. "Just how do we level up Theo?" you might be asking yourself, well let me share with you how we level up in real life...

Battle Shout, War Chapters, and Prayer

Warrior Battle Shout

As some of you know, my first character in WoW was a warrior. One of the unique things about the class is that buffs (changes that make your character stronger) are applied using shouts. Some examples of warrior shouts are Commanding Shout, Piercing Howl, Demoralizing Shout, and Battle Shout. Today while I was reading my scriptures I came across a story that I felt related quite well to these shouts, especially Battle Shout. 

Captain Moroni + War Chapters

So in the Book of Mormon, there are these chapters that are commonly referred to as the war chapters (read another blog about the war chapters). Within them two groups of people, the Nephites (good guys), and the Lamanites (bad guys) are duking it out. In this long drawn out war, the Lamanites are fighting for power and to conquer the Nephites, whereas the Nephites are mainly fighting to protect their lives, families, and freedoms. Within one of the first battles of this war, the Nephites are pretty much owning it up, then as they surround their enemies they start to fight with much fierceness and anger. Seeing this, the Nephite commander Moroni rallys his soldiers and inspires them with thoughts of what their fighting for (v.48). Then in Alma 43:49-50 the story continues:

Know Your Lore

World of Warcraft Calendar

A while back I bought this daily World of Warcraft calendar. Its pretty sweet! besides the basic things you would expect on a calendar, this boasts a daily "lore" question dealing with the back story of the game. Each day I try to guess at the answer, and more often than not I will get the answer wrong. I'm just not that big of a lore guy!

So this calendar really got me thinking. I have no clue as to "Who is Garona's uncle?", but I might be able to figure out my lore and back story in real life. It would probably be a whole lot easier figuring out who I am related to than finding a fictional space goat's uncle.

World of Warcraft Lore

"Well Elder Cabral, could you give us some pro tips to find people in our family?"

Of course I could!

Divine Intervention

Paladin DI in Action

Before Cataclysm launched, paladins had a very unique ability called divine intervention. The ability allowed a player to sacrifice his life to place another in a protective bubble which lasted a couple three minutes. Why would this be important? Divine intervention coincided with the shaman "ankh", and provided a way for a raid to forgo the long run back to a boss while raiding. By one player sacrificing his life, the rest of the raid would be able to be in turn resurrected, just as long as the person "DI'ed" was able to rez.

Services and the Atonement

WoW Race Change

In World of Warcraft there are a bunch of wonderful services which any player can take advantage of fully. Some of these services include character transfers, name changes, race changes, faction change, character customization, etc..... You might be wondering why a player would like these changes and what makes them so great? Well my friends I want to share with you one reason why I love it a lot. Lets say you are a level (lvl) 85 Holy Paladin and you are PvPing (Player Vs Player) and you are one day tired of losing all the time to the Horde, wouldn't it be nice to change your faction and your race because of the mistake you made in picking the wrong faction? Because of these special services that Blizzard provides many players can make the changes that they need to or more importantly want to make.

Now what if I told you there was service that made it so WE (we meaning mankind or people) could repent of our sins and be forgiven, making it so we changed our old ways and made a new us, how would that make you feel? This change that I am referring to is the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Doing My Dailies Bro!



Mounts in Good Ol' Shattrath City

 Back in the day when I dinged level 70 I desperately needed some gold to buy an epic flying mount. The only problem was that I needed  around 5,00 gold (which was a lot back then) to go and get one. You're probably asking yourself "why would anyone drop 5,000 hard owned gold just for a mount that flew?" For one it was super fast, and Outland was a big place.

"The Isle of QD"

The solution to my problem rested on a small island named Quel'Danas. There I could do repeatable "daily" quests to gain gold. After a while I would eventually gain enough gold to get the epic flying mount that I wanted. However, with the goal in mind, more problems came up!

Loving your neighbor as yourself. ; )

Well its that time of the month again, oh you know writing another blog and relating it to World of Warcraft as well as something spiritual. Today I chose to talk about something that is or can be hard for a lot of people, which is loving our neighbors as yourself. The question that I have always asked is who are my neighbors? Is it the person next door to me? or is it the guy across the street? Well let me share with you somethings that I think will shed some light on this subject. Loving our neighbors isn't just being kind to the person next door to us or even across the street, it means to love everyone as ourselves. In John 13:34-35 , Christ says:                                                                                     

                                                                             
34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

You might be thinking, that is great and all but how does that show that we need to love our neighbor as ourselves?

Karazhan Books

LFM Karazhan PST!

So in the World of Warcraft there's a raid instance called Karazhan that I really enjoy. Karazhan was the entry level-raid for level 70 characters, so I found myself in 'Kara' pugs quite a bit back in the days of the Burning Crusade. Its a pretty sweet place to be, cause its basically a huge castle with a bunch of ghosts in it that drop loot.  

Oh yeah you read that book!

This one time in Kara, we were progressing through pretty well, and even got to the second half of the instance. I noticed that one of the other players we were running with had this new buff (buffs are spells that make your character stronger) that I had never seen before, so I proceeded to ask him what it was. Unbeknownst to me it turns out that throughout the instance there are books that you can actually pick up and read. Upon reading them your character gets a buff, and there are different books for different class roles like tanks, healers, and dps.

Scriptures!

The books in Karazhan remind me of the effect the scriptures have in our lives. The scriptures are holy books that God has given to us through a prophet. Let me ask you a question... If God were here on earth, would you care to hear what he has to say to you?

Who am I?

In World of Warcraft you can play on a server that is called RP which stands for "Role Play." Well I play on a RP server and I will admit that it can get pretty weird sometimes. Well one day I was walking by a couple of people Role playing and there was a line that has stuck with me, this person said. "Who am I?" My friends I have a question to ask you. Who are you? I am not talking about your name or where your from, but I mean Who are you really? I know that when I first saw that I kinda thought it was cheesy, but I want to share with you, who you really are. In Romans chapter 8:16-17 the Apostle Paul really explains who we are.

 16The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

 17And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

As we read in Romans, the Apostle Paul just told us, We are the Children of God!

Recruit A Friend

So Happy!

In the World of Warcraft there's this great program called recruit-a-friend.It starts with Blizzard (the creators of WoW) allowing you to send out invites to your friends who don't play the game. Your friends are then given the chance to open up a trial account in which they can play online with you side by side, level up three times fatser, and see if they like the game. 

They should play WoW together!

I think this is a genius idea! First off you get to start playing an awesome game with someone you actually like, and not only that, but you're progressing so much faster than if you started on your own. At the same time, you or your friend are  not really losing anything. The trial account is free, and there's not really any risk or things to buy until he's found out that he'd actually like to play the game. You on the other hand get to play with someone that you know in real life, share something that you enjoy with them, and maybe even get a sweet mount in the process.

Member Missionary!

The recruit-a-friend program is a lot like member missionary work...

Turning the other Cheek can Bring Happiness?

This life can be very hard sometimes. WE all go through struggles that we sometimes wish we did not have to face, for example: Somebody comes up to you and starts calling you all kinds of names which you really had no idea why, or maybe somebody was being ignorant and did somethings to you. In these times of trials some people would be mad and "Smite" (or in other words retaliate back with something worse.) while other people will harbor anger and hatred for a long time while other people would do as Christ taught them and that is to turn the other cheek. The scripture that I am referring to is Matthew 5:38-39 the Sermon on the Mount.                                                                

38 "¶Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."

The Savior is telling us to be kind to our enemies, even though they might not deserve it.

Epic Guild (Part 2)-- The Restoration

Continued from Epic Guild (Part 1) --The Apostasy...

Cataclysm drags on and the casuals have completely disbanded the epic guild. The GM has not logged on for ages, and the officers are no longer on the server. It seems like there is no hope left. People are confused, and it seems like new raiding guilds pop up almost everyday, spamming trade chat to try and recruit raiders. With all this confusion what would a newly dinged level 85 do? Does he risk trying to join one of these sub par guilds, and subject himself to nights of fail and repeated wipes? Probably not.

The GM logs back on

Time continues to go on, and miraculously one day the GM logs back on. Instead of inviting fully-epiced out level 85s the GM starts to /who players who are under the level cap. These people are basically noobs (I mean come on its been this long into the expansion and you're not even 85!), but he knows they are humble, and devoted, and that he can mold them into the officer core that he needs. Time goes on, and the guild starts to progress. All the officer core has been trained in the ways of raiding from a pro GM, they have a solid guild, and its time to recruit. Many people are unsure about the guild. The officers get questions like,"Aren't you that one guy that was spamming trade asking where your class trainer is?" or "Weren't you the noob I qued into a heroic with in greens and pvp gear?" But the guild has a way for everyone to resolve their concerns. It is to try it out. See for yourself if it works. And then if you're good enough, and can make the commitment, you can join up.

Christ's Church Fell into Apostasy

As mentioned in the previous part to this blog (Epic Guild (Part 1) --The Apostasy), Christ's Church fell into a state of apostasy after Christ's apostles died...

Epic Guild (Part 1) -- Apostasy

Imagine for a second that you're in an epic raiding guild. You have the best guild leader, and class officers. No one stands in fire, or goes AFK randomly. Healing and tanking are spot on, and the dps literally nuke bosses. You've cleared all content, and of course have downed heroic Ragnaros. Besides all that your guild also gets along. There's no loot drama, and players take advice without emo-raging.

Precarious Situation is Precarious

Then slowly the epic guild loses its leetness. For starters your guild master decides to leave WoW for a bit, due to drama on the server and massive amounts of hate on the forums. He of course leaves the guild in the hands of the competent officers that he's carefully selected. Thats fair enough. He also still pops in from time to time to see how everything is going, but slowly things start to go downhill.

With peple hating on the GM do you think that the officers would be free from hate too?

Reading FTW

Hello to all my friends out their reading today, Horde or Alliance I would like to thank you all for reading Elder Russel Cabral's posts as well as mine... As I said in my (Thank you for the support!),  Today I want to share with you the stats on how we are doing and relate that to why its been great to see you read. When Elder Cabral and I started this blog we had no idea that it was going to take off really fast. This was when Elder Cabral posted some stats on network blogs in (WoW Are You Doing?)  as you can see we were hitting some high numbers for two elders starting a blog in the middle of the month. It is because of you we have been able to achieve our goal, and we hope that you will continue to read this blog and learn something new. Just as you have learned by reading our WoW blog, you too can learn even more from the scriptures themselves. Jesus Christ himself said In John5:39   39¶^aSearch the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which ^btestify of me. As you can read the Savior told us to search the scriptures, the lords apostles and prophets here on the earth today have repeatedly told us that we need to search the scriptures diligently.

                                                                        

My friends I can tell you this much, I have seen the effects of not studying the scriptures and let me tell you this, you will never learn anything about the plan that our Father in Heaven has in mind for us, I can also tell you from experience that reading the scriptures can and will bring peace to our minds, and answers to our questions, the reason why is because God is our loving Heavenly Father and He has spoken to us through His prophets and apostles in the olden days as well as in our time... I really hope that you all at least give the scriptures a chance to help you out in your life.  I will give you this one promise my friends. If you read your scriptures at least 10 minutes a day you will feel the spirit of the Lord in your life more and you will begin to know what the plan is for us in our life today. I love you all very much. Thanks for reading

                                                                                                                                                                        

AoE French Toast

"We'll make it to Laurel... Someday!"

Every six weeks as a missionary, we have the opportunity to transfer from the area in which we serve. I love transfers and being able to travel through the state, and seeing all the other missionaries serving in their respected areas. Yesterday I got on a members van to travel from Missoula to Laurel, Montana and on the way we encountered a wild Elder Theodore Butler and his companion Elder Freeman. Lols ensued. 

French Toast-- Yummy Breakfast or AoE damage in Disguise

So we met up at this restaurant named The Hanging 5 or something like that in Butte, Montana (yes, there actually is a town named Butte) to have breakfast. We all ordered, and Elder Butler got some French toast with a fruit and whipped cream topping. (This is important-- listen up) The order came, and soon the French toast's topping was half on the table and a quarter on Elder Butler's pants and a quarter on the floor. I was sitting next to Elder Butler, so I of course absorbed some of the AoE French toast's damage. Those unfamiliar to WoW might want to note that AoE means Area of Effect. Although most of the RL (real life) French toast AoE hit the floor and table's edge, both Elder Butler and I received some damage to our pants...

Purpose to life (3) The final judgement

Welcome to the final post on the purpose to life. We last left off with spirit world, talking about paradise and prison. What I want to talk about now with you is what happens after spirit world. But first I want to share with you an experience I had in World of Warcraft. When I was playing World of Warcraft I really wanted to join this raid guild super bad, so in order for me to join this guild I had to go through one raid run to see if I had what it took to be a healer for this raiding guild. So I grabbed some Cheetos and some water and bunkered down what I knew was going to be an intense night. As we started the raid things went very well with the first two bosses, healing away with no problem and then BOOM! this massive AOE came and hit us really hard. They called for all healers to heal the tanks and dps asap. As I did I threw out some flash heals and some holy lights and I was able to heal a good size of the raid group. Well after we downed the majority of the bosses we decided to call it a night. Then the next day came and I was judged according to the performance I gave the night before and they said that I did a great job and that they could use me more. (Granted they said I needed to get a bit more better gear, but they said they would help me with that.) and because of that I was invited to join the Redrum Inc...

Revelation And WoW Blue Posts

The Interwebs

Anyone can determine that communication is a big thing in the world today, especially with the internet. It allows many people to come together, build communities, and share facts and opinions. As a hardcore WoW player, one of my favorite pastimes was reading what other players had to say and discuss. This lead me to YouTube videos, popular WoW websites, and of course the forums. With all these sources I could see how other players played their class and how I could in turn improve my game play.

Blue Posts

Out of all that I would read, probably the most interesting (besides players trolling the BDF forums) would have to be blue posts. You see when a WoW game developer or Blizz employee posts, the script of their post is blue. \a lot of these blue posts would deal with new patch notes, additional content, and occasional responses to questions posted by players. They were all really interesting to me because they spoke of things to shortly come to pass in the game's world.

So if there were people on the earth today (IRL), that could tell us of things to come, and and how we can prepare for these things, do you think that you would be interested in listening to them?...I sure would!

Purpose to life (2) Where do I go when I die?

Today what I want to talk about is something that I feel a lot of people have asked me over the course of my mission. The question, "Where do I go when I die?" I have had that question asked to me a lot so today I am hopefully going to answer some of those questions for you. So we talked about in our previous post (Purpose to Life (Part1) What's my purpose in life? ) What we are supposed to be doing while we are alive.What I want to do is share with you a quick WoW story with you. When I was in a BG (Battleground) You tend to get hurt a lot in battle to the point to where you will die, now when we die in WoW we go to what is called the spirit healer, which you just kinda wait in the Graveyard until the time is up for you to get resurrected.  Just like in WoW all of us have to die, there is no way around it, but death is not the end! Let me share with you some more scriptures. In 1 Peter 3:18-20, Peter talks about what happened to Christ after he died...

Another Roflstomp: One Shotting Rogue

Any gamer reading this has been one shotted before... simply, being one shotted means that you just died in one one hit, or extremely quickly. Any Halo player has probably experienced the one shotting capabilities of a sniper head shot, spartan laser, or well-placed rocket. Similarly, if you've ever player Team Fortress 2, you may have been one shotted by a spy's backstab, soldiers critrocket, or walking into an intelligence room packed with level three sentries!

WoW players also experience the thrill of being one shotted. One day (back in my noobier days) I was peacefully strolling through the Barrens... then BAM!!! Out of nowhere I was ganked, roflstomped and successively tea bagged by Alliance scum! Fast-forwarding to 70...

Purpose to Life (Part1) What's my purpose in life?

What is the meaning to life? I am pretty sure that if you were to ask a lot of people, they would tell you it is to live and to die. Others might tell you its to be tried and tested and then go live with God and I am sure that other people would tell you that there is no purpose to life in general-- that we are just here for kicks and giggles. My friends if you want the true meaning to life, then pay close attention to the words that I am about to speak because they will tell you what life is all about. In the Book of Mormon there is a missionary by the name of Amulek, and this is what he says about life in Alma 34:32-33:
32. For behold, this ^alife is the time for men to ^bprepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of ^cthis life is the day for men to perform their ^dlabors...

Our Quest Hub

Patch days very well might be the best days to play and not to play WoW. On one hand, you have a bunch of new content that you would like to experience. Maybe some new quest lines that end up in epic gear, new battlegrounds and pvp gear, or especially new raid instances (firelands) that your guild wants to get server first kills on. Then on the other hand you have the lag. Then more lag. Then the server crashes in the middle of your boss fights, or you get ganked at the new quest hubs,  and so on and so forth. 

You'll see a lot of these at quest hubs

I have quite a bit of experience with the lag, quest hubs, new raids and battlegrounds, but out of the aforementioned things, probably what I have most experience in and has caused the most grief to me are new quest hubs. For one thing, new quest hubs always have a bunch of Alliance there. Then, when you actually go out of the neutral zone, you have to deal with the possibility of being ganked while questing...

We Wear Epics

Cataclysm Login Screen

So you've just booted up your computer and fired up some WoW. You type in your username and password and login to the World... of Warcraft. Being the good Horde player that you are, you appear to have last been in the Horde capital city Ogrimmar, probably trading in all the honor points you've racked up from ganking all the Alliance (scum). As you journey on your trusted Kodo through Ogrimmar you notice all of your comrades and start inspecting their gear. You of course wear all epics. It would be shameful to walk around otherwise in blues and greens! All of a sudden a belf paladin Gladiator walks by, wearing the guild tag of the number one raiding guild on the server, and most likely the best 3v3 team on the battlegroup. After you get over the initial shock and doubtful thoughts such as "this guy has absoulutely no life" you start to appreciate the man and his BiS (best in slot) gear. He wears epics!

Epic Lewtz FTW!

A short time ago I wrote a blog entitled "If Everyone Wore Nametags" about how we as missionaries wear name tags and represent the Savior Jesus Christ. If you've left your house sometime since 1830 you have probably seen Mormon missionaries walking around...

Rise Above Mediocrity: Stop Keyboard Turning and S-Keying

Movement in WoW is a big thing! Imagine running away from a huge group of Alliance that is running towards you. Maybe your first instinct would be to use the s-key, which moves your character backwards. Or then again, a better answer might be to use the "a" or "d" keys to turn around, and then use the "w" key to run away. Both would work if you were trying to get away, but they are not the best answer!

So what is the best answer? How do we get away from enemy players or mobs that are trying to harm us without backpedaling slowly using the s-key? Or how can we turn faster than using the "a" or "d" keys? The answer is very simple!..

Happy Fathers Day!

Today I would like to say Happy Fathers day to all of the fathers out there! If it was not for you and the example you set to your children, in fact if it was not for fathers, children in my opinion would really be lost today. I want to start off by sharing with you something that I can remember from my childhood. When I was very young my mom and dad got divorced from each other, so growing up I would always head back and forth between my mom and stepdad's house and my dads home. I can still remember when my dad would always take me to the Oakland Temple whenever I would visit him. As time went on there were some things that I would learn that will always stick with me. My dad has not only taught me things about life, but he has also showed me by example. See also (Be An Example Unto The Players/Believers )  

                                                                                         
If it was not for showing me by example I believe that the words my father spoke to me would have gone in one ear and out the other...

Thank you for the support!

(Alliance paladin being out numbered by the horde.)

I would like to say thank you to all of you that not only follow our blogs, but also take the time to read and comment on our blogs! It is because of you that makes this blog well worth it to write! Today I want to talk about support and what it means.  In the Webster Dictionary online, the word support means: "to keep from fainting, yielding, or losing courage". As you all know by now I usually like to start off with a WoW Story. There was a time when I was in an intense Warsong Gulch match. (Now I want you to use your imagination.) You are a human paladin healing people and trying to keep them alive. As you go about healing people doing good (See Elder Cabrals post's "I Would Learn the Healer's Art..." and Raiding Part Two: He Can Heal Us) (You can learn a little something not only about helping others but also how Christ can heal and support us.) Continuing on with the story now. You are healing people and all of a sudden you start getting ganked by a lot of Horde players, your health is plummeting down to zero really fast and you only have a couple of options left...

Loot and Prayer: The Waiting Game

Good ol' Naxx

Anyone that is familiar with raiding in WoW knows that what you want doesn't always drop. I remember raiding Naxxaramas with my guild as a fury warrior and hoping for two handed weapons to drop. When the weapons did drop, I always lost the rolls and the weapons went to other players. I would seem to always get armor, and did well on the dps charts, but weapons would have made me so much better. As time went on I continued to raid, and as we farmed Nax I eventually got my weapons-- but it took time. It would have been very easy to just give up and quit, but that would not have given me the chance to get those weapons now would it?

As missionaries, we tend to ask people to pray quite a bit. That is something that I really enjoy about the message that we share...

"She Called Me A Troll..."

Its WoW (not gang signs!)

So believe it or not, there was once a time when Elder Butler and I were companions as missionaries (see having a friend=Missionary companionship). We had some pretty good experiences together, and I remember this one instance in which Elder Butler and I were trying to teach this guy in Billings (we'll just call him Joe). Suffice it to say that Joe was a pretty interesting guy... So we were talking to him, and he started to go a bit off topic and tell us about this girl. Yada, yada, yada, and he said something that really made us giggle inside due to the fact that we are WoW fanboys. Joe said "...She called me a troll man!"

You might be asking yourself, "Why would Elder Butler and Elder Cabral laugh at this poor man, who had just been called a troll?" The answer is quite simple, although there is more than one meaning to the word troll...