Why I write these songs

I also want to help people see that there is more to this life than just existing, more than what we do from one day to the next.

We are all children of our Heavenly Father. He has a plan for us, and He wants us to become like Him. He has given us the fulness of the gospel, and He has called a prophet to lead and guide His Church on the earth today.

We are here to learn how to live in heaven: to accept Jesus Christ through baptism by someone who holds His authority, to make covenants with our Heavenly Father, and to keep them. It is through those covenants that we can become like Him.

I’m still striving every day to come to know my Savior, Jesus Christ, and my Father in Heaven, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop. I just hope that someday I’ll know Him even better than I do today.

I served my mission in Tampico, Mexico, from 2001 to 2003. There I learned the blessing of serving others, of preaching the gospel, and of letting the Holy Ghost testify of the truth.

Our Father in Heaven is the author of all truth, and He is the only one who can answer the question of whether this is true. Then it’s up to us to follow those promptings, no matter how strange they might seem. We don’t fully understand the mysteries of God, but we have to stay open: open to greater understanding, open to hearing His word, and open to letting the Spirit testify to our hearts.

Like everybody else, I’ve been through so much in my life. I’ve had my ups and I’ve had my downs. But there has always been one constant: my belief in, and my trust in, my Savior, Jesus Christ. He knows how I feel. He understands what I’m going through, because He has experienced it Himself. And it’s only through His Atonement that I can be made whole.

My favorite song is on Hold the Line. It’s called The Refiner’s Fire. It helps me see the immense love my Savior has for me. Even though I struggle, and resist, and want to do things my own way, I’m learning that I need to let the Savior refine me, shape me, and make me into the man He wants me to be.

The Savior is filled with love for all of us. That’s why He came to this earth: to fulfill the Father’s plan, to atone for our sins, and to overcome death. He has overcome death, and we will all be resurrected someday. And because He atoned for our sins, He made it possible for us to repent, so that we don’t have to keep feeling the pain of the darkness we bring into our lives.

Many people think all we have to do is accept Jesus Christ in our hearts and we’re forgiven. But through reading and studying the scriptures, I’ve learned there is so much more to it than that. We also need to repent, and we need to accept Jesus Christ and take His name upon us. We do that by entering the waters of baptism, and not by just anybody, but by someone who holds the authority of the priesthood.

Priesthood authority allows a man to act in God’s name and to do His work here on earth. It allows us to make covenants with our Heavenly Father. That’s why it’s so important that we are baptized only in His Church, because there is no other church on the face of the earth that holds that authority. If someone has the desire to follow Jesus Christ, they will seek Him, and they will accept Him when He testifies the truth to them.