0:00:00 - 0:00:24 So today we're gonna talk a little bit about value. This is a wordy title, but basically what we're going to talk about is one role of angels. One role they fulfill. One duty they fulfill, which is to help us better understand value. So if you want further reading on this text and, and beyond further 0:00:24 - 0:00:42 reading, I strongly encourage you to reread these chapters after watching this presentation, Alma 13 and Moona Seven. I don't have time to walk through those verse by verse in this presentation. But I wanna give you some ideas that you can take back to the text and hopefully see more of it, more things 0:00:41 - 0:01:06 than you did before or see things more accurately than you did before and more extensively. Um I did do a verse by verse walkthrough of Moro I seven. You'll find it across several videos in uh on, on the youtube channel. OK. So this is an uh I guess a model we're gonna use for this video. I've got these 0:01:05 - 0:01:26 different, these people of different heights and the star. Now the star is where you want to go. It's whatever you define as being worth getting. It's what you want, it's your desire. Now, the question is of these three folks, which one has the easiest time of getting the star or maybe it's better to 0:01:26 - 0:01:47 say the best chance of reaching it. And the answer is obvious. It's the tall guy, right? The tallest guy can just reach up and grab that thing. And if you're familiar with the old movie Rudolph, The Red Nosed Reindeer, that's the abominable snowman, but it's not actually a question of size. So we're 0:01:46 - 0:02:08 using this as a figure, but what we mean by it is not someone's physical attributes or something that has been given to them, but rather something that they choose. So by the size of this person and this model, what we're talking about are things like the ratio of evidenced action. How much, how much 0:02:07 - 0:02:35 , how much of a reason do they need in order to act? What's the super sufficiency required? So how much, how much evidence do they need above and beyond? What is sufficient in order to act? We're talking about how much they hunger and thirst after righteousness. How intensely do they search for? What 0:02:34 - 0:02:58 is better? How tightly do they cling to what is good? And we're also talking about the willingness to suffer. So what kind of price are they willing to pay in order to get what they say they want? The first point I want to make is that the little guy needs more steps. So the big guy. He can just sort 0:02:58 - 0:03:18 of, he can see where he's going and he can make two leaps and get there. Uh, I worked with a gentleman who was really tall. He had to, he had to hunch over to go through doorways and if he wanted to and he's going up a flight of steps, he could do it in, in three steps. Right. Because his legs are so 0:03:17 - 0:03:36 long and, and that's just, you know, now he's got, it's not strictly true that it's easier. He's moving a lot more weight. He has to eat more. He's a big guy, but because he has long legs, he can just do this in a couple of bounds. Right? Well, the medium sized person's getting more steps because the 0:03:36 - 0:03:57 , the steps that are appropriate for the tall person or I should say scalable, he just can't do it. It's not the same. And then the smallest guy needs the smallest steps. Ok? And so to cover the same amount of distance, it takes a lot more steps. So my question is who provides these steps and how this 0:03:56 - 0:04:15 isn't a mystery it's given to us. So again, we're not going to read the whole chapter, but here are two critical verses, one from each of the chapters I mentioned in Marone 732 we read. And by so doing the Lord prepare the way that the residue of men may have faith in Christ that the Holy Ghost may have 0:04:15 - 0:00:00 place in their hearts according to the power thereof. And after this manner, bringeth to pass a father, the covenants which he hath made unto the Children of men. And in Alma 1316, we read now these ordinances were given after this manner that thereby the people might look forward on the Son of God. 0:00:00 - 0:04:49 It being a type of his order or it being his order and this, that they might look forward to him for remission of their sins that they might enter into the rest of the Lord. Now, you've probably read these verses a million times and the question if I asked you, do you understand them? Of course, you'd 0:04:49 - 0:05:08 say yes, but they may as well be written in Chinese and here's why so not too long ago, there was an eclipse and they have special glasses for, for eclipses and they kind of look like sunglasses. But if you look through them and you're not looking at the sun, you can't see a dang thing. It just so happens 0:05:07 - 0:05:25 that the traditions that we are doused in, I like those sunglasses and we just can't see anything unless we're looking at the brightest, brightest light and then it shows up as something faint. You know, it, it diminishes the intensity of the light enough that you could look at it without hurting your 0:05:25 - 0:05:46 eyes. We need to take off the glasses and slow down and read these word by word. And really figure out what they mean. Again, I, I refer you to the long series I did on moon I seven which I won't rehash here. But I do want to focus this and we'll do it through giving another point and then giving an 0:05:46 - 0:06:06 example that the big, the little guy, he can't see the big prize at the end. OK? Can't see the big prize at the end. And I like using this example of ants on a hill for this. So forgive the roughness of this drawing. Curves are hard in this program. But if you have an ant and it's crawling along and 0:06:06 - 0:06:27 let's say it is in an ant farm, it's just this two dimensional series of hills. It can crest the first hill. If it's, if it's goal is to go as high as it can, it can crest the first hill. And if it has the faith to do that, which is the willingness to yield to sufficiency of evidence. So if it climbs 0:06:27 - 0:06:49 the first hill, because it can see from where it starts that that's the highest place to be then and maybe we should just add that. Then what's gonna happen is it's going to see the second hill. Let me just adjust this. So if it sees the first hill and it has the faith, it'll climb up to the first hill 0:06:49 - 0:07:10 . If it sees the second hill, it'll climb up to the second hill, but only then will it see the highest place to be. So if it stops on the first hill and, and ceases to do the best it can see from where it is, it will never see the best hill, the highest hill. So this is why it's so important that we 0:07:10 - 0:07:36 always do the best that we know. And as we do, we'll learn better things. If someone stops short and they cease to do what they can see is obviously better. They'll never get further and going back to here, this is part of what makes you a big person in, in this model and everything that goes with it 0:07:36 - 0:07:58 . It's your willingness to do what has sufficient reasons for doing and to seek what is better than what you have. But you see most people when they see a higher hill, they say, well, I don't need that right now. I'd rather just stay where I am because what I wanna be is comfortable. I want to be as 0:07:57 - 0:08:19 , as lazy as I can be and as static as I can be and as painless as I can be. But they don't realize that no matter what through the, the course of time, they're going to get hit with bigger problems than they currently know about. And so they stay in, in comfort with their house built on a foundation 0:08:18 - 0:08:38 of sand because they say, well, it's not raining now. Therefore, storms don't exist. It is just a matter of time before everything they currently value gets blasted away and it's gone. And the only way to avoid that is to keep climbing. As long as you see something better you go for it and you just don't 0:08:38 - 0:09:04 stop. You see some people do that and as they do that, they come to see more of the whole situation and then they beckon other people to come up higher and they understand that these dips exist because they voluntarily experienced them. And so they try to warn other people before they involuntarily experience 0:09:03 - 0:09:23 them. That's the way this works. So let's go to an example, which is where to live. This is something I've talked about a lot. So I think it's a good example to show you what I've actually been doing. Not that I've been hiding what I've actually been doing, but it's really nice to put, to put all the 0:09:23 - 0:09:42 cards on the table all the time and then from time to time to point to them and say, you see this card I played five years ago. Now, does it make more sense why I did it? So let's look at our ants again and let's talk about what's actually going on. You've heard me say things like grow more of your own 0:09:42 - 0:10:06 food, try to grow most of the food that you eat right now. That is a hard goal for most people, almost everybody. It's an insane goal in fact. But what about just starting a little garden. So what would be the point of encouraging someone to do that? Well, there are tons of benefits if you grow food 0:10:05 - 0:10:28 in, in virgin soil, it's got in some cases 30 times more vitamins in minerals than what you buy at the store. And that's just AAA factor of soil depletion. If you're growing things in the same soil for 25 years, there's barely anything left in the soil, especially with commercial farming techniques that 0:10:27 - 0:10:54 uh worry about replenishing the three main um nutrients that are depleted, nitrogen, potassium and so on. But they never bother to restore the, the boron or the zinc or any of these other things, right? So uh the soil gets depleted over time and your body needs these things, it turns out. And so even 0:10:54 - 0:11:09 if you just grow a little bit of food, it might make a huge difference, then you've got all the benefits of getting your kids involved instead of playing video games or doing something stupid. They are actually learning to work with their own hands. They took out the spiritual benefits because the closer 0:11:09 - 0:11:33 to the natural order of things your life uh uh is so the more you're working with the things that God created directly, the harder it is to have whacked out ideas about the things, the way things work, it's really easy for someone to understand you reap what you sow when you actually reap and sow, right 0:11:32 - 0:11:58 ? So no one, no one who, who has to go. Well, I shouldn't say no one. We live in funny times, but it's going to be much less of a normal thing for someone who gardens to say something like whether my corn grows or not is just a social construct. I can, will a good harvest if I just want it bad enough 0:11:58 - 0:12:19 , it'll happen badly enough. It'll happen. Right. Of course, that's nonsense. You have to find out what actually makes corn grow and then do it. So it's much harder should be much harder for someone to entertain silly ideas, whether that be about temporal things or spiritual things. There are plenty 0:12:18 - 0:12:39 of farmers who believe very silly spiritual things too. So there's of course, a limit to this anyway. Ok. So what other benefits are there to growing a little bit of your own food? Well, pretty much anybody can do it. Even if you live in an apartment, you can get some pots and put them out on a balcony 0:12:39 - 0:13:03 . Right. That's something when you do little things, you get feedback from those things and that can give you further confidence and incentive to do bigger things. I've seen at least two stories where people started growing food on their balcony and ended up starting a commercial farm. That was the end 0:13:03 - 0:13:23 of the story. That was, they just stepped it up to that because they loved it so much. Or they saw the benefits so much. Right. Ok. Well, if you're in a, if you're in a suburb and you just have a little bit of land, then you can grow a little more. And if you're in a place where you, where you have the 0:13:23 - 0:13:51 ability, you can grow a lot more. You know, the outcome of all of these things includes getting you to think about and believe that there are consequences of where you live because if you're growing your own food, guess what? It won't do you any good? If you live in most of the United States and you 0:13:51 - 0:14:12 , there comes a point where you actually need it now and I'll get into this in another video, but there's such a thing as soft collapse and I'll, I'll explain what that means in that video, but don't think of everything as on or o on, on or off. Perfect or terrible. There's a big swath of territory in 0:14:12 - 0:14:33 the middle of that with lots and lots of variation. So if you happened to suddenly lose your job and be out of work for, let's say a year and for some reason you couldn't get on welfare or you didn't have access to whatever else, then maybe growing your own food would help you help soften the consequences 0:14:32 - 0:14:54 of that. Maybe. But odds are that if you're in a place where you need the food that you grow, odds are you can't live there anymore. Why? Because you will be surrounded by people who don't and they will come and take your food. You're, you're not gonna get a ripe tomato. It's never gonna happen. They'll 0:14:54 - 0:15:22 come and steal it before it happens and it might kill you along the way. If it gets that bad, it will get that bad. So it starts to get you thinking about the fact that where you live really matters. So the good news is that uh already things are bad enough with the food and water supply that if you 0:15:22 - 0:15:42 start working on these things, you will immediately start reaping the blessings. The bad news is, it's just the beginning. There are more and more changes to make after that and these have not been hidden. These aren't like secret things. Oh, well, the next step is you have to move to the top of Mount 0:15:42 - 0:16:08 Everest. No, the whole way is made plain. The end of this is you have to look at long term consequences and think about where you wanna be when everything falls apart. Now, there are a few things we have to talk about with this and one of them is that this pattern of what you value right now being limited 0:16:07 - 0:16:36 to right now, you're going to see this unwind in every single aspect of your life. Everything so few things that you presently value are actually valuable and you will come to see this as all things are revealed and as all consequences are applied, God has allowed this world to exist in a tiny little 0:16:35 - 0:16:56 bubble where it's insulated from almost everything that bubble is going to pop. And before it does, it's going to get really small. You're so many things are gonna be allowed through the bubble. That's a better way of putting it. You're seeing it already and it's just going to get worse now. Is that 0:16:56 - 0:17:19 doom and gloom? No, because the whole reason it's happening is to enable the things to get better. But unfortunately, when we speak, when I speak of things getting better and things getting more valuable, the, the principal source of that uh perceived increase in value. It's not actually things that 0:17:19 - 0:17:40 are better than what you think you have already. It's things that are actually as good as what you think you have already and slightly better. The main difference is that the bottom drops out of your sense of reality, things are horrifically bad and you have no idea how bad they are, but you'll find 0:17:39 - 0:18:02 out you'll find out as, as they get through the bubble. Ok? If you're still with me, getting back to the example of where to live, I it just so happens. I saw this today on Twitter. Now, I'm assuming this map is accurate. I will confess, I did zero to try to verify this. I don't care. The point is worth 0:18:02 - 0:18:22 making and it's, if it's not true, it's close enough to true, but I bet it is true. I bet some money on that. Ok. So let's look at this and I've got four circles on the map. Three of those circles are alike and one is different. Let's start by talking about Florida. Well, first off, if you, if you can't 0:18:21 - 0:18:49 read the scale on the map tells you what this is about. This is the change in appraised value of homes. Ok. So dark green means that it went up by over 60%. The time frame is 2020 to 2024. So 60% or more increase in four years. So Florida is all green and it's mostly dark green. So almost all of Florida 0:18:49 - 0:00:00 went up more than 50% in the last four years. Why? Well, that's a political change. People are flooding to Florida because of politics. And so, um, that's sort of a different situation than the other three circles. Where are these other three circles? Well, they're basically in the wilderness there. 0:00:00 - 0:19:39 There aren't too many forested wilderness areas in the United States. These are the, the ones that exist, right? You've got the Ozarks in the middle, you've got Maine in the top, right? And you've got northern Idaho and western Montana in the left circle. Now, there are other regions here that are dark 0:19:39 - 0:20:01 green in Oregon. This is my geography test. Oregon, Idaho and Montana that are actually plains. They're, they're, I call it wasteland. If you've been to Idaho, you know what I mean, sorry people that are from Idaho. Um Anything south of the Panhandle is just wasteland in Idaho. But is that called the 0:20:01 - 0:20:22 Panhandle? You know what I mean? The, the narrow part at the top, the narrow neck of land in Idaho. So why would wealthy people flock to these areas? Because that's what it means. If the, if the prices are going up by this much, they're relocating from areas with much higher costs of living. And I know 0:20:22 - 0:20:45 that for a fact, I'm in western Montana and we've been flooded from people with people from Cali, California and Seattle. It's, it's been a flood in my county. I think I saw that the, the school districts have grown by 20% over this time frame. It might be even more than that. There's 20% more kids in 0:20:44 - 0:21:00 Missoula County. I think I saw that figure. So, and I think that leap happened in one year. I think that was just one year went up by 20% which is insane if you think about that. So where are all these people coming from? And by the way, most people don't have kids these days or they don't have very 0:20:59 - 0:21:22 many. So the, the actual population increase has been much more than that. In fact, Montana just picked up another uh representative in Congress because the population has grown so much. So why are they coming to these places because they're trying to get out into rural areas, forested rural areas. Why 0:21:21 - 0:21:44 would that be? Well, they see the value in it, they see the value in it and they're willing to pay what they have. So, what's the effect of this? It cuts out people who don't have that kind of money? It's the case where I am that, that, you know, historically Montana has been full of ranchers, right 0:21:43 - 0:22:07 . Geographically, it's almost all dry ranches. Well, um, there aren't any ranchers who can afford to buy that land anymore. Only developers can because the the price per acre is outrageously high. So anyway, my point with this is that this windows is closing and it's already closed unless you have a 0:22:07 - 0:22:33 lot of money. So almost everybody who wants to move into the, the three dark red circles here is going to lose money. If they sell their house and move there, they'll have less house or a larger mortgage than they have right now. It wasn't this way five years ago, I suggested that you, you move 10 years 0:22:32 - 0:22:59 ago. I, I've been suggesting this for at least 10 years. And so if people listened, their property would have appreciated over 60%. So there's that. So even if I'm dead wrong about everything, you'd, you'd have 60% more money in your pocket if you sold and moved back to some terrible place. So this circle 0:22:58 - 0:23:21 is also worth talking about, you'll notice that these regions have not appreciated nearly as much. This is the Missouri River River Valley and you will see that it's a very important place as the future plays out. There are many factors to consider when moving. So, don't think that I'm saying, hey, live 0:23:21 - 0:23:45 inside this circle and everything will be hunky dory. I've said before, I'll say it again as Babylon Falls, it's going to hit everybody on the way down. And I've said that moving is not a substitute for a relationship with God or repentance. So if you want to get to the place where he can communicate 0:23:44 - 0:24:02 with you, and I've also said these are all my disclosures. I've also said many times, don't think that the next place you're gonna move is the last place you're gonna move. OK. So I'm giving you the hills that happened before the star. Don't think it's just one hill, your next hill is just the next thing 0:24:02 - 0:24:24 . But, and I've also told you look out for air force bases and anything that's downwind from them because there are a lot of nuclear silos here and they will be targeted in the event of a global thermonuclear war. However, this is a place worth looking at. I actually made a video on moving to the Dakotas 0:24:23 - 0:24:44 a while back and there are still properties that you can find. Maybe not so much in the Black Hills area, which is that dark green spot if I recall correctly. But um which is also the prettiest place in South Dakota. I hate to tell you, but there are spots you could move that are still affordable in 0:24:43 - 0:25:10 these parts. No, I've taken some language from the two chapters that I referred you to and I've put those phrases here. The only one I've modified is this one because it changed the tense of a word. These ideas are straight from the scriptures. You might ask yourself what the heck do these have to do 0:25:09 - 0:25:36 with moving? I'll read them and then I'll speak maybe a little bit about them. Prepare the way faith in Christ, giving place to the holy ghost in your heart. Covenants of the father, look forward on the Son of God, remission of sins, rest of the Lord. Now these phrases probably sound about as churchy 0:25:36 - 0:25:57 as they can get. And so when we have those paper sunglasses on those eclipse sunglasses, it's really hard to see how these apply to your actual daily temporal life. But remember there's no difference between the spiritual and the temporal with God. And so to the extent that you struggle to apply these 0:25:57 - 0:26:22 phrases to your daily life, you're missing an awful lot about the gospel. So how does moving prepare the way? Well, it does and I know how it does. How does it help you have faith in Christ? Well, it does and I know how it does and just imagine I go through the rest of this list saying the same thing 0:26:22 - 0:26:49 because I could specifically how does it do that? It takes a bit of time to explain that. So you'd have to understand all sorts of things about, for example, about gathering at this point, pulls in all sorts of things about priesthood and this pulls in all sorts of things about the differences between 0:26:49 - 0:27:13 people. And so all of a sudden it becomes this query across this network of ideas. And there's only so much you can understand from where you stand right now. It's a process to reveal these things and to help you understand them. And it's a process that starts with what you already know is obviously 0:27:13 - 0:27:38 better. There's no way to say, you know what, just stay where you are literally in this case, just stay where you are. And I will explain everything to you in a way that's completely intelligible to you. And then you can jump right to the best place you can be whether that's literal or spiritual. It 0:27:38 - 0:28:00 doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like that for anybody, including the the Biggins, right? This you don't just jump right to the star. There's a path. In fact, you'll find something very similar to this in through faith, this exact diagram and it's thoroughly explained there, there's a path and 0:28:00 - 0:28:28 it, it, it consists of cycles of exaltation in a basement, going up and down. And there isn't a way to get here without that. When it comes to angels, they can't hand you the end, they can help persuade you of the path, but you have to walk it. If God himself said I can't give my glory to another person 0:28:28 - 0:29:03 . He said I won't in Isaiah, but he won't because he can't. And if he can't do it, an angel can't either. The only way to get there is to walk the path. Now, what's the path? Jesus said on the way, right. He's not just the way for some churchy spiritual thing. He's the way for everything. So I will touch 0:29:02 - 0:29:28 on a few of these though. So what does it mean to give place to the holy ghost in your heart? When you see the word heart in the scriptures, your mind should go to the word desire. It's not always an exact simile, but it's pretty close most of the time. And sometimes it's exactly what it means. What 0:29:27 - 0:29:51 does it mean to yield your desires to the Holy Ghost? Well, how about yielding your desires to what you understand to be the best? I know that's kind of a leap for some people who don't understand the Holy Ghost very well. OK. But that's how this applies. What about the covenants of the Father? You know 0:29:51 - 0:30:20 what one of the covenants is that the father gives to men. He promises us that over the course of creation, every single person will be given every single thing necessary. So that in the day of judgment, every person will testify that their eternal state is their own choice. That is a covenant of the 0:30:20 - 0:30:56 father and he uses angels to fulfill that and all of his other covenants. So how would an angel help you have access to everything you need so that you come up as high as you're willing to? That's exactly what we've been talking about. They would go first and then they'd help you follow them and do the 0:30:56 - 0:31:28 same thing and they do that by preparing stronger arguments and greater evidence than you would otherwise have. Their example is probably the strongest piece of that evidence. How would moving have anything to do with remission of sins? As I said before, you can't repent of one's sin. You either align 0:31:28 - 0:31:54 yourself with God or you don't, you either submit to him or you don't, you don't try to repent. You don't work on repenting, you just do it or you don't. So how does moving have anything to do with remission of sins? Well, doing the best that, you know, is doing the best that, you know, it's not slicing 0:31:54 - 0:32:19 this up into 500 different things. Well, today I'm working on repenting from being angry. No, and tomorrow I'm gonna repent from eating too much. No. Today you do the best that, you know, and tomorrow you do the best that, you know, if you're not doing that, you're doing something else, right? It's all 0:32:18 - 0:32:41 just surface the core. Every sin is the same thing. It's your preference for what you think and want compared to what you think God wants. That's all it is. And you can dance around that all you want. You're never gonna fix the core problem until you fix the core problem. This is a beautiful thing. Um 0:32:41 - 0:33:04 It might sound like an insurmountable barrier. It's quite the opposite. All you have to do is get out of God's way. All you have to do is actually believe what you say you've been believing for a very long time, which is that God knows more than you. He loves you more than you love yourself. And he only 0:33:03 - 0:33:32 asks you to do what leads to your greatest possible joy. It's literally impossible to have anything easier than repentance because it's the direct fulfillment of everything that is best. It is the most rational thing you can do. So how is moving included in that? Well, I hope that's obvious. What about 0:33:32 - 0:33:58 the rest of the Lord? This is a big one and I apologize up front because I'm not gonna be able to do this justice, maybe suffice it to say that that as I've alluded to, there are great consequences coming great consequences. And if you don't, if you don't get to the places you need to be you, you're 0:33:58 - 0:34:36 gonna get slammed with these things. God provides protection from situations that would overcome us as long as we watch for and listen to his guidance. If we take that lightly or ignore or reject it, we have no promise. Now, none of these things, none of these things are about avoiding suffering. Like 0:34:36 - 0:35:04 I said, when Babylon Falls, it will hit everybody on the way down. The question isn't whether you're going, going to avoid pain. The question is, how much joy do you want in the end? In other words, there's nothing you can do to escape what's coming. Nothing. However, there's some interesting scriptures 0:35:03 - 0:35:25 on this. I I just can't branch off into that. This will be too long. There's nothing you can do to escape. What's coming? The question is, what do you want to get out of it? Do you want to curse God and die or do you wanna grow as a person? Do you want to just be miserable? More miserable than you can 0:35:25 - 0:35:51 even imagine possible right now? Or do you want to encounter greater joy than you ever thought was possible? That's the choice that's before you now moving isn't the end? All be all and everyone's in a different situation and details, exceptions, whatever, but there's a bigger picture here. And that 0:35:51 - 0:36:16 bigger picture is we need to stop thinking that whatever we see at the moment is all there is to know. We need to understand that the Lord absolutely uses other people to help us see more. We need to be watching for better things and we need to above all move toward the best things that we know in all 0:36:16 - 0:36:41 things now that is a very individual situation, but that's what we have to do. That's how we will ascend. So I think we'll leave it at that and I, I hope that this was helpful.