Murray Ceff's Blog

Chapter 5 Why the Gospel Makes Sense to Me Earlier, I wrote about the missionaries teaching me. It felt right and I felt the Spirit speaking to me, or the Lord speaking to me via the Spirit, telling me that it was all true. But I haven’t really written much about what it is I now believe, which, of course, is based on what the missionaries taught me but has been expanded somewhat over 40 years of reading and experiencing the Gospel in my life.  To me, life without the Gospel has no meaning, no purpose. Scientists can tell us how life on earth exists, but I don’t believe that they can tell us why it exists and what the purpose of life on Earth is. The Gospel of Jesus Christ gives our lives meaning. A large part of the Gospel is the story of Adam and Eve. Exactly when they lived and how they lived, I do not know. The first commandment that God gave to them was to “multiply and replenish the Earth”. In other words, raise a family. If you want to become a better person, become a father...

  The Arunsapai family, with Elder Reynolds on the right and Elder Ceff on the Left Chapter 4 Missionary Service After 2 weeks in the Missionary Training Centre (MTC), I couldn’t wait to get into the mission field and actually teach people about the Restoration. Not that the MTC was a bad place to be (although the food was really bad) but I wanted to get out where the real action would be.   I soaked up all I could learn there. Prior to going to the MTC, I had spent almost a week staying in the Temple accommodation and spending as much time as I could in the Temple. I had heard a little bit about the Temple in my first 18 months as a member of the Church. But it was shrouded in mystique. Sometime before attending the Temple, I had a dream about being in the Temple. It’s too long ago now for me to remember the details of the dream, but I remember feeling distinctly at home in the endowment room of the Temple, feeling like I had been there before. The MTC lessons were fant...

  l to r. Elder Jones, me, Elder Hatch 8 November 1981 Chapter 3 - Early twenties I lived in Queensland for quite a few years in my early twenties. My drug use was a problem, but I didn’t particularly want to stop. It was a part of my life, that I strangely thought was a positive influence. But negative experiences can lead to positive outcomes, if you want them to, and you are open to change. I started to develop health problems which were becoming a bit of a nuisance. I was having problems with digestion, and I sought help with an acupuncturist. A friend of ours was studying acupuncture at a new college in Brisbane, and they had a student clinic, so I went there for help. There was a very experienced Vietnamese fellow named Trinh working there as an instructor for the students and he oversaw my treatment. It seemed his most senior student was a very likeable Australian guy called Peter (I think). He said that I had a “cold stomach” and he used needles and moxibustion to heat ...

 Chapter 2 The rebellious teenage years Yep that's me at about 19 years of age I guess when I look back on my life, I tend to think of it as pre-school, primary school, and high school, then early 20’s, and beyond. If I look back in a spiritual sense though, it’s more like Presbyterianism, rebellion, searching, finding, pre-mission, post-mission and soon it will be a mission again. I’m not sure what really sparked the rebellious phase in my early teens. At one stage, I thought it was all about surfing, but as I think about it a little more deeply, it was possibly initiated a little bit more by the counter-culture revolution of the 60’s and 70’s. Surfing was part of that revolution, but I think there certainly could have been room for me to keep participating in family Church attendance and also pursue my love of surfing. The counter-culture revolution was a result of a few different factors coming together. One factor was the rise of feminism and at about the same time the inve...

 I have a habit, and I believe that it is a good habit, of trying to memorize scriptures. As I try to memorize them, they have more of an impact on me and I think more about how I can apply the teaching of a particular verse in my life. It's the first part of this verse that really caught my attention. "For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ..." 2 Nephi 25:23 I feel, after studying this verse, that what I have in my head, I should put "on paper", or more accurately, as text on a screen, in part to persuade my children, and others, to believe in Jesus Christ. So I have started writing my life story, at least the part of my life that is most important, and that is about my spiritual life, the side of my life that has eternal significance. Whether we like it or not, I believe we all have this side to our lives. Perhaps we ignore it, and pretend it does not exist. But I choose to believe it and so I tr...

We've met some interesting characters here in Bangkok. Maybe the most inspiring was Tom. I wish I had taken a photo of him. He is a sprightly senior man, a full head of wavy grey hair, probably very close to me in height and weight (172cm, 68kg) maybe a bit smaller, and in good shape. I guessed he was in his mid-70s. We had breakfast with Tom and his wife on Tuesesday morning, and then yesterday morning we chatted while in the foyer while they waited for a taxi. I wished we had long to talk to Tom, but one thing I've always  been good at is getting people  to talk about themselves. When we had breakfast together, he told us how old he is. Eighty-four years old. So I got him talking about what he does to keep healthy. Every second day he does 100 push ups. The other days he walks 2 miles. That's pretty darned impressive for an 84 year old. I found that to be pretty inspiring! If you took my kitesurf and SUP surf sessions out of my exercise routine, he actually does mor...

The Bangkok English speaking ward was scheduled to start their Sunday meetings at 10.30am on Sunday. We'd had a late night of course, not arriving at the airport until 11.30pm, but  we figured that even with a bit of a sleepin we would still have plenty of time to get to Church by 10.30am, especially  when we found that we only had to go 2 stops on the underground to get there. We went down to the foyer of the Mini R Hotel, and spoke with the person at the desk, hoping for directions to the station. Another Aussie guy nearby overheard and offered to help. He told us that the Thaliand Culture Centre railway station was just a few hundred metres down the road and we couldn't miss it. Well, we did miss it, and by a fairly large margin! Always be careful  using Google Maps! The problem is that if you search for "Thailand Cultural Centre", Google maps will show you where that is, but it won't show you where the "Thailand Cultural Centre MRT station" is. I...

Margot and I are currently  in Thailand. Today is Wednesday 3rd February 2020. We arrived here in Bangkok on Monday night at 11.30pm. We had a fairly uneventful trip really. A 3 hour layover in Singapore gave us time to have something to eat, which in itself was not worth writing about, except to say that as a guy that only eats fish and chicken meats and avoids chilli, Asian food generally  does not seem to give me many choices. I'll  write about why and how I changed my diet another time. That's not what I intended to write about this morning. We are staying at the Mini R Hotel on Ratchadaphisek Rd in Bangkok. Right next door to us is the Bangkok International Dental Centre. Yesterday I spent 2 hours in the morning getting prepared to have work started on 4 crowns in the afternoon. I need 1 bottom and 3 top teeth crowned. Then in the afternoon  I ended up spending  4 hours in the chair! So 6 hours in total in one day "at the dentist"! It's not a way that I w...