July 2022 — Hezekiah was a righteous king who trusted in the Lord. He also had great faith. Is trust different from faith? In a sense, yes. Trust is the demonstration of faith. We grow our faith by exercising it through trust. And when we trust in God, our faith grows. Increased faith…

You are extremely fortunate to have many good men in your life. One of those men crossed the semi-centennial mark today. Uncle Matt is 50 years old. That merits a moment of honor. Now there is a tension in the Stowell family. As a rule, we celebrate achievement and good…

The following was first published on Blogger in 2011 DJ Lance would make a nifty Soldier. If you don’t know who he is, you are missing out on one of the most captivating and entertaining characters on all of Nick Jr. I was watching “Yo Gabba Gabba!” with my brother-in-law…

One of the best leaders I have had commanded the public affairs unit I served in for nearly ten years. This is a story about how she focused on what was important and blocked out the nonsense, even when it rained down heavily from her superiors. We were participating in…

This post was originally published in 2014 on Blogger. Why are combat deployments so depressing? You’re talking to an expert, not because I am severely depressed (this post is not a “cry for help,”) nor because I have extensive psychological training, though I did sleep in a military barracks last…

December 2022 — Researchers recently created a light one billion times brighter than the sun. Imagine the light that God can produce! In a lab at the University of Nebraska, these scientists built the brightest ever laser beam. They found that the light shining on an object actually changes its appearance. Ultra-high energy…

September 2021 — Temples We often speak of temple “work.” We build temples to perform sacred rites for those who have died. Temple ordinances were revealed to man in these last days as part of Elijah’s promised return. Elijah held the sealing keys and conferred them to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the…

Note: This piece first appeared in My Public Affairs on Blogger in December 2014. As we stacked hundreds of duffel bags and ruck sacks on the driveway just off Doughboy Loop, I remembered pretty vividly a group of Soldiers doing the same thing seven months earlier. At that time, we…

Note: This piece first appeared in My Public Affairs on Blogger in August 2014. Some are fond of calling it a “boondoggle.” Others call it “meddling.” Those are the charitable descriptors. A sizable faction refers to our Afghanistan intervention as an “invasion,” and “occupation,” and the worst kind of neo-colonialism. …