Feasting Upon The Scriptures

I'm impressed with my bishopric. Why? Because they actually caught me on a weekend when I was actually home, and asked me to give a talk in church today.
It's surprising because when summer hits and school is a distant memory...my family is gone. Seriously. Gone. Vacations, birthdays, other things....we don't make it to church that often during the summer.
So to find me, when it was summer, and I was home for a weekend, and didn't have to work? Wow.
That didn't mean they found me on the first try. No, it took them a couple of times to find that one weekend I would be in town. But they persisted, and they got the reward of me speaking in church.

So, here it is. :) My talk. lol Can I just say that I'm glad it wasn't Fast Sunday?

Everyone knows that Turkey is the main dish of Thanksgiving Dinner. And everyone tends to have a favorite part of the bird. Dark meat, white meat, wings, legs, whatever. I heard all the time growing up about how good Turkey was with anything. However, I remained unconvinced.
"Surely," I thought to myself, "Turkey is only good as a thin slice of meat between two gigantic pieces of bread. The less you can taste that turkey, the better. Having it any thicker or eating it with anything else was just plain crazy!"
You could say that I got my first real taste of Turkey in 9th Grade when I started Seminary. I was served a heaping pile of white meat with flavorful gravy covering it. And not wanting to fail my class, which requires me to eat the whole heaping pile of the New Testament to pass, I began cleaning my plate. How else would I get that nice shiny necklace t the end of the school year?
That year marked the first time I'd read through the New Testament. And unless you think otherwise, I hadn't read all of the other books either. Like I said, I liked my turkey sliced a thin as possible. However, in that first year I surprisingly discovered my favorite scripture while having to mark scripture masteries. 1 Corinthians 10:13
There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
That scripture has influenced a lot of my life as I took it to mean that God wouldn't give me any trials that I couldn't handle. It was comforting, but the next year brought something that I couldn't really call a trial.
I'd had my first real taste of turkey. I thought I knew ho all parts of the turkey would taste. I was learning different as we started munching on the legs. Aka the Book of Mormon. It was good, delicious.
Only, I wasn't feeling right. It could be compared to that urge to go take a nap after you've stuffed yourself with Thanksgiving Dinner. It wasn't a trial. Just a feeling. A feeling that at any moment through a freak accident I would suddenly die. A feeling that my life was going to be cut short. Eating Turkey sandwiches -going to church- and having Turkey and Gravy -reading the scriptures and going to Seminary- would help in the moment. But once I was done eating, that feeling would come again.  
I'm not sure what or who gave me the suggestion to try my Dad's Mashed Potatoes. It could have been a teacher, a talk in conference, family, or a combination of other things. All I knew was that I needed answers. I needed comfort and I convinced myself my Dad's mashed potatoes would be the solution. Why? Because my Dad never makes his mashed potatoes the same way twice. And I needed something that I could return to again and again. Where the base ingredients of it stays the same, but at each meal it would taste slightly different. I needed my own personal set of scriptures meant just for me.
So on October 30th 2005, I got my Patriarchal Blessing. And it is a lot like my Dad's Mashed Potatoes. Every time I read it, something different sticks out to me and helps me when I'm going through trials, or when I want to win an argument about what I should be doing with my life.
"No Dad, I can't get a job right now, my blessing says nothing about that. It just states that I should learn, that I should be in school. So lets forget the job for now okay?"
Just so you know, that dark feeling didn't fade right after getting my blessing, but it did help me to look up and see the light at the end of the tunnel.
And if I thought that I could slack off on my consumption of the turkey, my blessing knocked that idea right out of the window. For a phrase in to goes as so:
"You have the responsibility to study the scriptures" -oh darn.- "and the words of the latter-day apostles and prophets, through them you will find safety."
You didn't have to convince me twice on that. Read the scriptures and I'll be safe? That totally had an impact on me, especially back then when I felt like my life  could end at any moment.
But being new to reading my scriptures, I wasn't quite perfect at continuously reading them. Once seminary ended for the school year, I would slack off on reading during the summer and go back to just eating my turkey sandwiches.
That attitude ended upon graduation from High School. Graduation from Seminary. The main motivation to read my scriptures had left my life and summer was approaching. I had to make a decision then. I knew myself well enough that if I didn't do something to provide my own motivation, I would probably never eat turkey again without two big slices of bread surrounding it. I would probably only eat the mashed potatoes once I a blue moon.
And...I didn't want that. So I decided in my first year of college that I would try to eat the whole turkey in a year. I would make the goal to read the Quad in a year -Old and New Testament, Book of Mormon, and D&C- That would mean that I would have to read four chapters a day and eight chapters on Sunday.
Surprising even to myself, I accomplished it. I'd established a pattern of eating turkey that meant that when I finished the four books at the end of the year, I just returned back to the Old Testament and started reading it again, though at a much slower pace.
Only, by the last year of college, I was beginning to get tired of eating the same things over and over gain. I recognized that if I didn't find something else to eat with my turkey and mashed potatoes...I would start to slack off on my consumption. But what else could go with that?
Stuffing. I discovered stuffing my last year of college. Like really discovered it. That year I ended up being on the Orem Institute of Religion's Student Council as a co-chair for the Publicity Committee. Now Institute wasn't the stuffing. It was more like a helping of veggies. Delicious and different enough from Seminary that I would often go there for peace and found a second home there from the very start of college.
No, the stuffing hearkens back to the line from my blessing. "Study the words of latter-day apostles and prophets."
General conference. Something that I had experience with in that my parents would blast the talks from every available means; TVs and Radios, at the same time. It was hard to escape it, so I would end up listening because I had to, but not because I wanted to. And I wouldn't go back to the talks when they came out in the Ensign. It was a one time listen for me. But then, my committee decided to do an art show, where the artworks would be themed around the idea of one-liners from the most recent session of General Conference. One-liners are like the name suggests. One line from a talk that basically 'says it all.' For example one that has stuck in my mind for years was when President Monson said "Every Cinderella has her Midnight...it's called Judgment Day."
My committee also recognized that people wouldn't have the time to go search for a one-liner to draw, so we took the goal upon ourselves to read a set of conference talks, mark up the one-liners we found there and left them on tables in the Institute for others to look through and also mark up.
Doing that. Marking up the talks. I found my Stuffing. This was actually fun! It was applicable to my life! I read my set of talks and then went right on marking the rest of the conference. This. This I enjoyed. why hadn't I done this part of my blessing before?
I had a slight problem though. My access to conference talks was rather limited. I only had so many available to me, and when I ran out...my only option was to go look them up online. Not something you can do when you only have five minutes between your class periods.
But two Christmases ago, that changed. You see, I got an Itouch. Originally it was so that I could put more music on my playlists as I'd run out of room on my previous Ipod. But then I discovered this crazy thing called an App. And you could find an App for everything. So, for fun, I downloaded the Gospel Library Ap. Mobile Scriptures! Just in case. For who knew what reason.
You really don't know how excited I was when I discovered that not only was the Quad available I this App, but conference talks were as well! Tons of them, from way back before I was born. Back to when my parents were kids. But also the most recent sessions as well!
"Study words of Latter-day Apostles and Prophets." What did latter-day mean to me? To me it meant my time. My life. And in my blessing, I took it to mean that I needed to study the words spoken by apostles and prophets in my lifetime. That's when I got my crazy idea. Literally, on Facebook, I titled it: "My Crazy New Years Goal."
I would read all the talks from the year of my birth to the present day. This October will bring the total up to 46 General Conferences. Could you not see that this would be fun! And it has been fun. As I'm now in my second year of this new years goal.
I started off easily enough. Two talks a day. I mean, it's pointless to sit down to a Thanksgiving Feast and stuff yourself until you're sick. After that point, you're not anxious to continue eating. It could take months or years before you'd even want to try. so I started off easy with two talks and hadn't reached the year 2000 before New Years Eve was again knocking at my door.
So this year I upped to anti to Three. And as of now, I only have 12 more conferences to go! Yay! I recognize I'll probably take this goal into a third year, but I really don't mind it. It's been worth it.
Reading Conference Talks has made me aware of the feast spread out on the table before me. Before this goal, I'd only been focused on what I had on my plate. Nothing more. After reading conference talks, I can find principles within them that I can apply to my past, present, and future. That I can use to give words of advice to others. These modern day scriptures have also increased my love for the Quad -ancient- scriptures. They're no longer words on a page to me. 
No, I've come to realize how real these people are. How the ancient prophets must have shed a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to write down, their thoughts, feelings, experiences, and teachings onto plates in order to have us be able to read them today. To know that these people actually existed, that they had lives and could have done other things, risked their lives in some cases to write down words of wisdom for our day. It's humbling.
I mean, how would we feel if we worked all day to prepare a wonderful feast, only to have a guest come to the table and insist that a sandwich is the only way to go. They don't need to eat anything else.
Would you want to shout at them: "No! There is so much more to eat on this table! Come, partake of something else. The Mashed Potatoes! The Stuffing! THE TURKEY! Come on! You can have so much more then a sandwich if you would just reach out and take it. There is so much more then just  bread and turkey on this table.
There are so many sources we can draw from in the modern day to make our simple meal a feast. Yet many of us, myself included are only focused on the plate of now, not the banquet table of eternity. You can find answers not only in church, the temple, or reading the Quad. You can gain so much more by Patriarchal Blessings, General Conferences, and Mormon Messages. There are so many more side dishes to sample from this feast then  you might be aware of at this time.
Beyond that, what good is it to have this feast if you eat it by yourself? A feast generally means a group of people eating a big meal. It's fun, it's lighthearted, a cause for celebration. So why not share your discoveries of the feast with others? Share your sudden love for mashed potatoes or green beans. An example of sharing that I've found is that when I'm reading the conference talks, I mark down thoughts, phrases, and stories that had meaning to me, and I post them periodically during the week on my blog for others to read.
Elder Robert D. Hales in the October 2006 Conference -I read this last night!- stated: "AS with voices from the dust, the prophets of the Lord cry out to us on earth today! Take hold of the scriptures! Cling to them, walk by them, live by them. Don't nibble."
That's what feasting upon the scriptures means to me. It means gathering a bunch of people together and sharing our discoveries, trying new dishes, and especially...eating more then just the turkey and bread. We were meant to feast upon the Lord's words, both ancient and modern. Not nibble at them.
I have a testimony that scriptures, both ancient and modern can help us out in life, that they can make our day brighter, and our lives happier. I leave these things with you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Until you next see these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Dream

My family and I were all hanging out in my parents living room, talking. When I looked out the window and saw this big long mostly white with red and blue squares -drone rocket- hanging out right outside the window. My Mom yelled at my brother, who was sitting on the couch in front of the window to get down. He stared at her blankly, and we repeated it. Get down get down! He hit the floor as the drone burst through the window, and it's long nose tipped towards the ground, I went behind the couch only to realize the bomb was heading straight towards my couch and it surely couldn't give me much cover for when it exploded. So I dove for the couch the rest of my family had been on, wondering, why were we being attacked? We hadn't said anything! Done anything wrong!

Then the unholy tones of daylight pulled me away....
And I became myself again. :)

-S.N.D