Here is our adorable family at the Aaronic Priesthood Restoration site!
Silly boy!
Cousins!
The Sacred Grove!
These are pictures of us with the Howards. And one of Stephanie's friends I guess.
Meet the Wise Men!
The High Seas! Or, the High Falls. Niagara, Niagara, I love ya, Niagara! You're only 454.2 miles away!A long time ago, a man came to a land. He was known throughout the land as the Blue Knight since all he wore was shades of blue. For this reason all records with any mention of him in it was printed in blue. These records were written by his descendants who inherited his mysterious powers. Strangely, many generations of the Blue family went without powers. While he was in the country, he built two schools for his descendants. One would be for people with two or less powers, people with three to ten of his powers would go to the other. He never considered that someone would have all the powers but two. (Perfection, the boring power even the Blue Knight did not have, and darkness which no one had ever had yet.) The Blue Knight was chased out of the country by one of his sons with the first power of darkness and evil. His minions were shadows, and he used them to chase all the other Blue family members away. But he didn't stop there. He tried to take over the schools, but the headmasters, also sons of the Blue Knight, returned and fought him off, with fire and ice, the brothers two powers. Unfortunately, he escaped and the two brothers had an argument about whose fault it was. They separated and had each of their family members vow not to intermix with the other side. This was hundreds of years ago. All the original Blue family members had died. At least, that's what their descendants thought. Rumors flew around that the Blue Knight had not died and he was in a disguise, having no clue who he really was. Another flew around that the evil son had managed to find a way to live for 1700 years more than he was supposed to. That he had gathered an army. And that he was looking for a secret weapon. On the next year it was the 1600th anniversary of the brother's fight. On one part of the world, where the fire son's descendants had settled, there was a huge fire. In the place where the ice son's descendants had settled, a huge blizzard raged. Beggars were taken in. One of the beggars was a young man named Fred Akbar. Unknowingly he was a powerless descendant of the Blue Knight. He pulled himself to a door and knocked on it, then he collapsed. The door opened and an old woman peeked out. When she saw the poor beggar, she pulled him inside. When Fred woke up, he was surprised to see a very pretty young maiden nursing him back to health. Even after the blizzard, he stayed with the old woman and her daughter, until the maiden and he were married. They had a honeymoon to Arizona, where they and the old woman later moved in. After a while, they had a son named Adonis Abel Akbar. He was a powered descendant of the Blue Knight and they were surprised to see him exploit so many abilities, much more than ten. In fact he was the only descendant with all the powers of the Blue Knight. One day when he was two, his parents and grandmother disappeared into the darkness in a movie theater. He was sent to an orphanage, which one year later burned down giving off much smoke and almost killing everyone in there. Everyone survived- except that Adonis disappeared into the dark forest behind the orphanage. No one ever found him and he was assumed dead- until four years later when he turned up at the school built for descendants of the Blue Knight with two or less powers. This is the story of Adonis' first adventure at the school.
I'm going to print it with blue ink since it mentions the Blue Knight. I thought up the plot in the middle of the night trying to come up with an original idea. Some of my other ideas were Aiden Jet (based on Harry Potter), Battles Of The Galaxy (based on Star Wars), and Chronicles of Mythology (based on Percy Jackson). Pretty sad. I have had one other original idea, Snow Chicken, which is basically Frosty the Snowman turned into a chicken who fights crime. That was 3 years ago at Christmas. I wrote it as a gift for my sisters. This led to Snow Chicken 2: Birth, where Snow Chicken fought the same person (Zeb) disguised as a kid from Lucy's karate class. Then, Snow Chicken had chicks! Lucy was Snow Chicken's human sidekick. In the third book, it was revealed that Zeb was hypnotized by aliens. The spell is broken when he and Lucy get a good look at each other and they fall in love. That's as far as I've gotten. Anyway, comment whether you think this is an interesting idea, or a oh-boy-that-kid-is-crazy idea. Thanks!My talk is about how scripture study blesses our family. In preparing for this, my first talk, I read about President Monson's first talk. It then talked about how to write your own talk. One of the first instructions was to find a scripture that compared to your topic. I couldn't think of one at the moment. I used the search tab on the church website to look for one. Then I saw an article by L. Tom Perry called “Back to Gospel Basics” from the Ensign for May 1993. He says,
"Let us consider again the blessings promised us if we faithfully practice daily family prayer and daily family scripture study. The scriptures are filled with admonitions to stay close to the Lord and call upon His holy name in prayer. In the latter days of Alma’s ministry, he instructed his sons on how they should live. After Alma’s remarkable conversion, he spent his life proclaiming the gospel and perfecting the Saints. Before he died, he wanted to instill in his sons a desire to be obedient to God’s will. To Helaman he said:
'O, remember, my son, and learn wisdom in thy youth; yea, learn in thy youth to keep the commandments of God.'" (Alma 37:35)
In our family scripture reading, we had recently read these chapters, which are chapters 36-39 in Alma. I realized that, like Helaman, we too must learn wisdom in our youth. One way we can do this is by reading scriptures as a family. In this way, the parents can help their kids understand the scriptures better and they will learn lessons in the scriptures and become wise as Alma wanted Helaman to. In a way, we are Helaman, struggling to be good while Satan acts as Corianton, running around being bad. We too have someone who wants us to learn wisdom in our youth. He is our Father in Heaven. I bear my testimony that our Heavenly Father loves us and He wants us to return to Him someday. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
I was super nervous on that morning, but when I had finished, I felt happy. The best thing about talks is that once you do one, you don't have to one again for a while.
Michael
P.S. Even Henry helped. At the beginning of Dad's talk, he said into the microphone, "I luh tures." A.K.A. I love scriptures. :D
