The Gift

First off, I want to say how amazing technology is. Today I received an email from the First Presidency on how they are going to send newsletter to our emails. So awesome.

Second, I love this video.

He truly is the Gift.

A Letter to Stephenie Meyer

1 December 2014

Dear Stephenie Meyer,

First, I would like to briefly introduce myself to you. My name is Kristi. I am a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Currently, I am in my last semester at Brigham Young University, majoring in Family Life Studies.

You may be wondering why I am writing you and I will explain why. When I was in high school, I read your first three books, Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse. At first I liked your books, but after thinking about them, I have no idea why I liked them. No offense to you, but something about them has always bothered me, like there was some underlying factor that I just couldn’t see, until recently.

Currently I am taking a class called Media, Family, and Human Development. We have learned a lot about how much media influences people, especially adolescents. In literature, adolescents are exposed to about 30.23 acts of aggression, after reading one hour verses 18.46 acts of aggression when watching one hour of television. Most adolescent literature shows acts of verbal or relational aggression, although the male characters tend to be more physically aggressive. Typically, this aggression is NOT justified and there are never any consequences for them. By the time a child graduates elementary school, they will have seen 8,000 murders and 100,000 other acts of violence. The effect of media violence on subsequent aggression is just as strong as the effect that smoking has on lung cancer. Over 1,000 studies, including a longitudinal study spanning over 22 years, show a link between media violence and aggression. Overall, media violence influences physical aggression, aggressive thoughts, aggressive feelings, physiological arousal, prosocial behavior, empathy, nightmares, relational aggression, racism, fear, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, and sleep disturbances. All of that information is very overwhelming in seeing how violence in media can affect one’s soul.

In the For Strength of Youth (2001), it says, “Depictions of violence often glamorize vicious behavior. They offend the Spirit and make you less able to respond to others in a sensitive, caring way. They contradict the Savior’s message of love for one another.” In the 2003 Ensign, Brad J. Bushman said, “Similarly, the Spirit is offended when we pollute our minds with harmful, violent material, whether or not such material causes us to commit violent acts. Consuming violent media makes it more difficult to keep ourselves “unspotted from the world” (James 1:27). It is troubling that so many people consider it entertaining to view violence […].” Violent media desensitizes, makes us unware in feeling.

Your books contain quite a bit of violence as there are numerous fights between the vampires and werewolves. I can see why it is there because of your plotline, yet at the same time, it puts a reality to all these statistics and warnings. It is one of the many sources that lead to this desensitization. It does not uplift or invite the spirit into one’s life. It is a source of chaos and confusion.

Another source of confusion that hurts people’s souls is pornography. Many people describe along the lines of “printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings” (Google’s definition). My Media class defined it as “two people having sex (seeing and implying), two people in bed together (after the fact), frontal shot of man, woman takes off top, woman takes off top in a non-sexual context, rear shot of a person, passionate kissing, and heavy petting. This I total agree with. Pornography is more than what many define. There are many things out there that can sexually arouse a person. This is what I label as pornography. For children and adolescents, this can led to lasting impressions, harming their sexual development, leading to an earlier onset of sexual intercourse, and more risky sex. For marriage, it can lead to decrease sexual desire, women feeling objectified, divorce, and dissatisfaction with partner (in affection, appearance, sexual curiosity, and sexual performance). Also, sexual deviancy, sexual perpetration, decreased intimacy, acceptance of rape myths, behavioral aggression, and sexual aggression can be results of it. Sex and pornography are rampant in the media.

The For Strength of Youth (2011) says, “Pornography in all forms is especially dangerous and addictive. […] Use of pornography is a serious sin and can lead to other sexual transgression. Avoid pornography at all costs. It is a poison that weakens your self-control, destroys your feelings of self-wroth, and changes the way you see others. It causes you to lose the guidance of the Spirit and can damage your ability to have a normal relationship with others, especially your future spouse. It limits your ability to feel true love. If you encounter pornography, turn away from it immediately.”

According to the Google definition, you book does not contain pornography. But if you look at it in the sense that there are parts that are sexually arousing with the romantic scenes of passion, it does contain pornography. This is just another set lens, a way of thinking, a way of looking.

Twilight’s summary says, “The lovers find themselves balanced precariously on the point of a knifed-between desire and danger. Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires.” This is not in line with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Mosiah 3:19 reads, “For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yield to the enticing of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord.” Satisfying our desires is satisfying our natural man.

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ, I believe we should uphold to what we believe in. We shouldn’t satisfy the desires of the world, but listen and uphold the word of God in all that we do. As Alma preached to his people, we need to “stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places” (Mosiah 18:9).

I really do not mean to be offensive in this letter, but as everybody knows you are a member of the church, I feel like you should be upholding those standards so others may have an accurate view of the Church. I as a fellow member of the Church, I do not appreciate reading about moony, love sick couples. I would not want my daughters to read and learn from Bella’s example. This is not how we should act. Yes, we have emotions and sometimes they are hard to deal with, but we can overcome our trials and heart breaks. That is where the atonement of Christ comes in. I know there are many others in the world today who do not believe in Christ or His atonement, but that does not mean we cannot profess our belief in Him and of His redeeming power. We should teach our children correct principles (Doctrine & Covenants 93: 42). When we have power in the media, we should use it for good and write, speak good things. We should have messages of peace and charity (Moroni 7:47), not of hatred and violence. This is my belief. This is my message.

Thank you for taking your time to read. Like I said, I don’t mean to be offense, just giving a hand of admonishment.  

Sincerely,

Kristi

A BYU Student

A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Saints

List of research articles:

• Malmuth et al., 2000; Kim & Hunter, 1993; Sheppard et la., 1988
• Manning, 2006
• Witherspoon, 2009
• Huesmann et al., 2012
• Coyne & Archer, 2004
• Bushman & Anderson, 2001

• Bushman & Anderson, 2001
• Strasburger, 2009
• Huesmann, et al., 2003
• Anderson et al., 2010; Coyne et al., 2008; Krahe & Moller, 2010

Upcoming Cinderella Movie!

Two of my roommates and I are SO excited for the new Cinderella movie that is coming out in March! Right near my birthday. It's our plan to go watch it in celebration of my birth! It looks cute!

The Season of Giving

I know I already posted this, but it's still my favorite and now it's really Christmas time. :) Remember it's the season of giving - and that season lasts all year long.

Common Sense Media

All of a sudden I am obsessed using the website Dr. Coyne showed us today. There have been times when I wanted to know WHY a certain movie was rated the way it was. Often I would find little descriptions, which were helpful, but I always wanted more. There also have been times where I wanted to know what a book was like, whether it was "Kristi - Rated" or not. When Dr. Coyne showed us the website https://www.commonsensemedia.org/ I was enthralled and immediately looked it up to see what it was like. 

It gives you the rating for positive messages, positive role models, violence, sex, language, consumerism, and drinking/drugs/smoking. With each of these rating, it will give you a description of what entails under that category. Then it will give you more detail about the story, whether it's good, ect. I think whoever undertook this project was a genius as there are so many uncertainties in the media we have today. 

I remember in High School my English teacher gave us an extra credit assignment to go see a movie at the movie theaters. The movie was PG13 and sometimes, even those movies are a bit too much for me. So I tried looking up why it was PG13. Somehow I stumbled upon the small font that said there was nudity and sexual scenes in it. 

Anyways, the moral of the story is, I think it is important to censor what we watch, read, ect. Content is important to understand before embarking into media, to know whether it is appropriate for your children and yourself.

The Meaning Behind Holidays.

In my household of ten girls, there are several who have already started celebrating Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas, but why forget the celebrations of Thanksgiving? From November 1st 3 of my roommates started listening to Christmas music. I remember one morning last week in particular. It was 9 in the morning. I heard Christmas music being blasted and girls and guys singing (yes, I think there were men in our house at that time...seemed unusually odd to me since that doesn't happen often). Then a few days later, on Saturday, I went to our upstairs living room and found a Christmas tree all decorated! And other Christmas decorations surrounding the room! It was cute, but where have the decorations and celebrations of Thanksgiving gone? Last night, I was talking to some of my other roommates and friends about traditions for Thanksgiving. Only one of us had Thanksgiving traditions. I am grateful for the way she was raised in remembering the purpose behind Thanksgiving, as they read the story of the Pilgrims. In thinking about this tradition, it has made me realize how commercialized all of our holidays have become. Forget why we do it! Remember the cute decorations and the gifts you'll be getting for Christmas! I wonder if one reason why we like starting Christmas so soon is due to the fact of being busy ALL the time that it gives us more time to fit it into the little bits of time we have. We are such a busy people. Too busy at times. Do we give enough time and attention to the things that are really important? But I am becoming distracted from the topic at hand! Anyways, I think it is more important to remember the reason we celebrate the holidays and stop focusing so much on the materialist parts of the holiday. And to give everyone their equal share! I'm all about equality.

...Although, I should admit, I have listened to some Christmas music...instrumental music. But I am also remember my songs of Thanksgiving...which they aren't much. And why not? ...

The Hope of God's Light

Here is a powerful conversion story about God's light of hope:

I just love his story. Very touching!