Murray Ceff's Blog

 The Death of Murray Alexander Ceff I've been inspired to write this piece after reading the Tolstoy novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich. (This 12 chapter novella would be a great start for anyone wanting to start reading Tolstoy, to become familiar with his style of writing, before you tackle War and Peace or Anna Karenina.) I felt inspired to read this at 3am this morning after my regular bathroom visit and having a difficult time getting back to sleep. I had absolutely no idea what to expect in the story, but have grown familiar with Tolstoy having read Childhood, Boyhood, and part of Youth. So I knew what to expect in terms of writing style at least, and his usual setting of 19th century Russia. When I saw that it was only 12 chapters I didn't expect to finish it all within a few hours though. In a nutshell, Ivan Ilyich lives and dies in late 19th Century Russia and struggles to accept the life he leads and searches for meaning in his life, particularly as he suffers from a t...

My Dad was my hero when I was a boy! I have taken some of what I will write from Sr Reyna Aburto of the General Relief Society Presidency, and I have also borrowed some themes and paraphrased some ideas from a book title the Crucible of Doubt, by Fiona and Terryl Givens. I will also quote some paragraphs from The Living Christ - The Testimony of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, published some 21 years ago. Most cultures around the world have developed some form of hero worship. This possibly started when the biggest and strongest man helped his tribe win territory over competing tribes. Or perhaps he was the best hunter. Perhaps that hero worship became so pervasive that the hero became the king. And the Kings eldest son became the next king and so forth. We see this pattern in the Holy Scriptures. And, as was the case in the Japanese culture, the king or emperor can become a god. It wasn’t until after WWII, with the American influence, that the Japane...

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...