Dallineation

I've been using Mastodon – a free and open source, decentralized social media platform and a compelling alternative to corporate-controlled platforms like Facebook and Twitter – regularly since June of 2019. Mastodon is part of the Fediverse – a collection of inter-connected apps developed around ActivityPub, an open, decentralized social networking protocol.

I enjoy reading books. Real, physical books with paper pages that you keep on a shelf when you're not reading them.

Reading on a phone, tablet, or even a dedicated eBook reader just isn't the same.

Taco Bell recently announced a new taco subscription service.

This evening my family had delicious homemade tacos for dinner, so naturally the topic of the taco subscription came up. I remembered seeing a headline about it somewhere, but none of us had looked into the details. So we started speculating what the taco subscription might be like based on what we know about streaming subscription services.

As of today, BlackBerry has shut down services for their phones running the BBOS and BB10 operating systems, which means they lose most of the core functionality that has allowed them to be usable phones long past their prime.

There are lots of news articles, blog posts, and social media posts about it, so I will try not to get too wordy here. Suffice it to say that I am and always will be a BlackBerry fan, and I dearly miss my beloved physical phone keyboards.

I go through these phases where I try to acquire things that I once had – or always wanted to have – in the past. Even if I got rid of those things for a good reason, even if I felt like parting with them was the right thing to do, I sometimes regret having let those things go. This is probably why – although I will always aspire to be one – I will probably never truly be a so-called minimalist.

I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints living in the US. I currently serve on my Stake High Council (a lay leadership role).

Here's how I use technology to help fulfill my calling (responsibilities) as a High Councilor on an average Sunday, and other ways I use technology for church-related things outside of my calling.

When I saw this post in my Mastodon feed, I thought it sounded like a good way to motivate me to start writing blogs again and develop a habit of writing consistently.

This is a transcript of an excerpt from a Facebook Live Event for Youth and Single Adults in the Africa South Area of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, held on November 16th, 2021. The full video of the event can be viewed here or here.

Whatever identities we may have – national, political, cultural, etc. – there is one that precedes and supersedes them all: child of God. This is our First Identity.

In a March 2020 BYU devotional address, President M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught:

[Y]ou are and have always been a son or daughter of God with spiritual roots in eternity. First and foremost, you are and always will be a spirit child of God. Those aren’t just words from a beautiful Primary song. They are words of truth. They are imbued with eternal significance for all of us.

The foundational fact of heavenly parentage is not just my truth or your truth. It is eternal truth. It is written in big, bold, capital letters. Understanding this truth—really understanding it and embracing it—is life changing. It gives you an extraordinary identity that no one can ever take away from you. But more than that, it should give you an enormous feeling of value and a sense of your infinite worth. Finally, it provides you a divine, noble, and worthy purpose in life.