More Treasure To Remember

Hello Once Again Audience So what has happened in the past few months? For the first time in quite a while I actually get to say something other than ‘not a lot’. It’s been a very exciting time to be me. First of all, I have a job! I work in the housing department of the local council, which so far has been both revelatory and fascinating. I remember the day I found the posting online I said to a friend that it felt like I was being called to it; this is still my belief. I’m not sure why I’ve been called there, but I’m sure I’ll find out eventually. The second big thing to happen lately was our annual Hub Church weekend away to Centre Parcs, which just so happened to also mark the year point of my joining Hub fulltime. And whilst the worship, the teaching and the fellowship were all amazingly on point, none of that was the highlight for me. During worship in the Saturday evening session I kept getting all these inspirations. Maybe it was my mind finally finishing a year of

Hello Once Again Audience. So, another year has come and is now in it’s dying embers. So what have I learned in this, my 24 th year on this wonderful planet we call Earth? Actually, quite a fair bit; far more than I expected. I’ll get to that, but first, it’s music time! Whilst not all the lyrics are a perfect match for me, this has become my anthem this year. Three years ago I made a mistake, and it cost me (by now you should know what this is, if not, read my previous entries). When I decided to come back, I made a promise; that I would fight to rectify that wrong as best I could, and in the process, regain as much of what I lost as possible. As I sit here now, I wonder what 22 year old me would make of my fight. There are still many things that are ‘missing, places I still haven’t been back to and people I have yet to reunite with. Yesterday I was in a well known supermarket (hint, it’s the orange one) looking for chocolate digestives. I usually end the day wi

Hello Once Again Audience. You now know the story of how I entered exile; now is the story of how I came back. I’ve told this story before, but before you read something else know this will be an extended version; kind of like watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy. View this as the extended films, sort of. To the less religiously inclined among you, this may grate a bit, my apologies. And as before, I’ll try and be as respectful as possible of my LDS friends’ beliefs. So I was in. I truly believed everything I was taught and/or learned. Whilst I’d lost some very dear friends, I managed to find new friends, some whom I still hold dear. I considered going on a mission twice, in fact it was the night of my stake interview that I started to think the church wasn’t true, but we’ll get there. But the biggest change was that I ended up getting engaged. Obviously I am no longer engaged, or married, and it is there that today’s story will begin. I’ve made no secret of the fact

Hello Once Again Audience. In the past few months I’ve been asked a lot of questions. There’s been the standard ‘how are you?’ all the way to the obscure ‘can I lick your eyeball?’ (I politely declined this very generous and friendly offer). But in all these questions there have been two that have been asked on a semi regular basis; ‘what made you join the LDS church?’ and ‘what made you come back to “normal” church?’. Over the next two posts I shall attempt to answer both of these questions, possibly in far greater detail than I have given in person. I would like to briefly take this time to reassure any LDS friends reading this that while I have no great love for your church anymore; I still love you and shall do my utmost to be respectful of your faith. So, without any further ado, let’s ask the first question. Why did I join the LDS church? This is the question I’ve had the harder time answering, because in some ways I simply don’t know. There we go, I hope you enjoyed

Hello Once Again Audience! So here we are. A new year, a new blog post. And you may notice, a brand new blog entirely. The old blog still exists, don't worry, but I felt it was time for a fresh start, which coincidently is what this post is all about, being the new year and all, it feels appropriate.  This is usually the time that I sit down and regale you all with tales and adventures from the past year. I shall not do that this time. A lot went down in 2017, and a fair bit of it I have no intention of trying to relive. There were some personal highlights though, some life-long goals achieved. But in some ways, 2017 has been one of the roughest years I've had to endure so far. There have been times when I've found it hard to hope for days yet to come, and I personally reckon that if not for a handful of people, I would still be in that place. If I had to some 2017 up in a word, I'd probably use refinement. When I came into this year, I thought I'd end it with a wif