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:

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.

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?

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 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

                                                                                                                                                                        

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...

Enduring to the end

Imagine yourself in a very intense raid right now and you and your raid group keeps dieing. There comes a point in time where you are thinking "Ok its time for me to quit this raid and go do something else." What do you do? Do you leave the raid and go do something else or do you give this boss fight one more go around?
Well if you are like me my response would be like Leeroy Jenkins, "Lets do this chumps!" Ok so you give this raid boss one more shot and you guys finally down the boss! (Down meaning beat.) So stop yourself and think this over... you beat this boss that has some really epic loot and an awesome mount out of it, how do you think you would feel? If you are like me or any WoW Player you would be really excited knowing that you were able to down one of the hardest bosses in all of WoW! You might be thinking "wow that was a very enduring task that you had to go through." If that is the response you gave then yes! You are right. When it comes to a raid you have to be able to endure the long gruesome hours of trying to defeat bosses as well as working with quite a bit of people all at the same time.

Today I want to talk about something that is probably one of the hardest things that we could ever do in this life and that is what Christ and all of the prophets have talked about and that is enduring to the end...

Taking a break from WoW=Keeping Sabbath Day Holy

So there was a time in my life when I used to play World of Warcraft a lot.(and when I say a lot I mean a lot.) So one day as I was playing WoW I chose to stop playing and go do something different. I told my friend Jake what I was going to do and he agreed that it was time to take a break from WoW for a while. So Jake and I decided to stop playing WoW for about two years. During that time I did quite a few things. I did some traveling,  played some other games, as well as going out and hanging with friends. I have often times looked back and said to myself, the break was well needed. Now I wont lie to ya, Jake and I did go back to World Of Warcraft after the two year break, but let me tell you something that I was able to learn. Not only was a break needed, but I was able to learn that taking a break from things can be well needed...