For Roman Catholics, Lent is a time of reconciliation in a sacramental sense. Reconciliation with God, with others, with ourselves. I'm learning more about that, but it's also been a time of reconciliation in other ways for me.

I have been spending much of my free time trying to learn more about my Latter-day Saint faith and about Catholicism – reading, listening to podcasts, watching videos, seeking to understand. It's been like drinking from a firehose and I need to pace myself.

It's been a long day. I'm still actively attending and serving in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints even while I wrestle with doubts and questions. I need to stay anchored to something while I figure things out. But as a member of my ward's bishopric, that means my Sundays are usually quite busy.

Since starting down this path of exploring my LDS faith as well as learning more about the Catholic faith, one of my guiding mission statements has been: “I want to know God's will for me and have the faith and courage to do it.” But this morning I had the thought that maybe I need to add an additional mission statement: “I want to know which church can best help me to become more like Jesus Christ.”

I've been diving deep into historical and theological study but neglecting my spiritual life. I've been reading from the scriptures every day, but spiritual practices like prayer and meditation have kind of taken a back seat. I'm going to try to change that.

I went to the temple today. I'm trying to go at least once a week during lent. In the LDS faith, the temple is a separate experience from Sunday meetings at your local church building. It was peaceful and reverent, but I didn't get any answers or have any profound experiences.

When I wasn't working from my home office or shoveling snow (we had our biggest snow storm of the season today – it's been a mild, dry winter and the snow was desperately needed) I was trying to think about the importance and solemnity of the day and reflect on Jesus Christ more than usual.

I observed Lent for the first time last year. I am not Catholic, but it was an overwhelmingly positive experience for me and I have been looking forward to doing it again this year.

I went to a couple thrift stores last week looking for any book by Terryl Givens or Tad R. Callister. I didn't find what I was looking for, but came home with a stack of books, anyway. Among them was a book called “Radical Integrity: The Story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer” by Michael Van Dyke. It was relatively short (205 pages) and I read it in two days. And I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.

In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis explains the Christian perspective on the relationship of human individuals to one another, and two errors we are tempted to fall into.