Hey everyone! My name is Kevin Harmon. I'm from Southern California and I'm in my early-twenties. Some might say I'm among the young and the restless. My educational background consists of going to a pretty prestigious Jr. High/High School and then going to Utah to attend Brigham Young University. I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and love it! My job consists of helping the mentally ill with living life- it's an incredible job that I love. My friends call me a dork often because I do really weird things and I'm a sort of goofy guy. Maybe you'll get some of that from my blog. Also, I love sports. Any and all! This picture is one of me sledding in the mountains of Nevada.
My Purpose:
Being a member of the LDS Church means a lot to me. I've seen so many blessings come from the gospel of Jesus Christ that I want to give back to Heavenly Father what little I can. In this case, I want to share with as many as who will read this, some of the spiritual thoughts, life lessons, and general advice that He's given me. I'm not a powerful writer, nor a marvelous intellect, but I want to convey what I can to others and maybe someone will be helped or blessed in the process.
At BYU, I took two religion courses from a certain teacher. After class, I'd talk with him about the gospel and life in general. One day I asked him if he'd ever thought about writing a book. He said that he had indeed thought of it and was in the process of writing one. He told me that his desire in a book was to write a spiritual book that could target any reader. He mentioned a book by President Gordon B. Hinckley (an LDS prophet). I think the book he mentioned was "Way to Be! 9 Rules For Living the Good Life". Anyway, the book he mentioned is a book discussing traits that everyone should develop in order to find happiness in this life. These traits include being grateful and being humble. What this religion teacher said was that, like President Hinckley's book, he wanted his book to be for anyone of any religious persuasion. Catholics, Buddhists, Protestants, LDS Church members, etc. all can benefit from having honesty in their lives, virtue in their hearts, etc. The purpose of me mentioning my conversation with that teacher is that I want my blog to be for anyone. I plan to use LDS Scripture and a large focus on Jesus Christ to talk about these things, but I hope that anyone can benefit from this blog.
Above: This is a picture of me while serving a mission for the LDS Church. I am re-enacting a scene from The Book of Mormon when a great prophet named King Benjamin builds a tower and preaches the gospel from on top. A tower wasn't sufficient, so I made a blog.
Below: I am teaching spanish, which I largely learned from my mission, to two of our Church members in Nevada. They are actually related to President Hinckley who was previously mentioned.
About My Posts:
As mentioned, I will be using LDS Scripture to discuss different aspects of life. I also plan to use movies, songs, things I hear at Church, among other things to further these discussions. Feel free to make comments. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not the smartest person in the world, so I will probably make mistakes or be a little short-sighted in some interpretations, but bear with me. It should be a fun ride!
My Testimony:
About a month ago I watched a movie called "How Do You Know." It's definitely not my favorite film, but it was a pretty cute romantic comedy. In one part of the film, Reese Witherspoon's character is going through a hard time in life. She ends up going to a therapist, but is too skeptical and nervous to actually talk to him about her problems. She does, however, ask him a question. It's something like this: "If there's one thing you've learned in all of your experience as a therapist, which helps clients the most, what is it?" He thinks for a second and responds, "It's to know what you need and learn how to ask for it". The wording's probably off, but you get the general idea. Well, just after watching that movie a co-worker was having his last day of work there and so another co-worker was asking him all sorts of questions about his life. I was reading "Catching Fire" at the time so I didn't participate too much in the conversation. I stopped reading for a second and thought that a good question to ask him would be "If there's one thing all of your life experiences have led you to know, what would that be?" I thought good answers would be something like "Honesty really is the best policy" or "Hard work does pay off." I never asked him that question because after thinking of how good a question that would be, I wondered what the answer would be in my life. What has my life led me to know? As I thought about that question, a four word answer came to my mind: the gospel is true.
My whole life has consisted of experiences that tell me that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true. The time's where I've lived the gospel have given me so much joy that I can't deny or ignore where those blessings have come from. The times in my life that I haven't been living the gospel as much as I should've also showed me why we should indeed be living the gospel. In these cases, I've come to know that obeying the commandments of God really does bless our lives. I've been able to see the power of prayer protecting me from temptation and steering me towards a happy life path. I've learned so many life lessons from the Scriptures that I've been able to live my life better and grow more as a person. As I go to Church, I can see others who share this same testimony of the gospel. Each instance of obedience does bring blessings. I want the whole world to know Jesus really is our Savior and can help us through life's troubling times. I know Heavenly Father answers prayers. As I read the Scriptures, particularly the Book of Mormon, I can feel Their love for me and Their desire to help me in life. I've come to know through prayer and following his words that President Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God on earth today. What a wonderful thing to have! Knowledge that the Book of Mormon is true has deepened my gratitude and conviction that Joseph Smith really was called to be a prophet in these latter-days. I hope we can all grow in our testimonies through this blog.
Conclusion:
I'm in love with the Scriptures so I want to share what I find in them and relate them to things I find outside of the Scriptures.
I call them "The Golden Plates". These are my Scriptures!
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