Chapter 13: Zoo Wisdom and Other Stuff

So, while reading the scriptures with my wife the other night, we came across a verse in the Book of Mormon that intrigued me. The verse was Alma chapter 2, verse 5. (For those of you who don't know, the Book of Mormon is a book of scripture for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, more commonly known as Mormons). So this chapter is talking about a man who wanted to be king, but an election denied him. The verse in question reads thusly: "And it came to pass that the people assembled themselves together throughout all the land, every man according to his mind, whether it were for or against Amlici, in separate bodies, having much dispute and wonderful contentions one with another." Amlici was the man who wanted to be king. The phrase that caught my attention is "wonderful contentions". Since when are contentions wonderful? Later in the Book of Mormon, the Savior Himself teaches that "contentions are not of me, but are of the devil" (see 3 Nephi 11:29). Wouldn't that imply that contentions are the opposite of wonderful?

Like I said, I was intrigued, and so I decided to research the word wonderful as it would have meant in the year 1830 (which is when the Book of Mormon was translated and published). I came across an 1828 version of a Dictionary of the English Language, which gave me this definition of the word 'wonderful': Adapted to excite wonder or admiration; exciting surprise; strange; astonishing.

I chose to focus on the word 'strange', so when you replace wonderful with strange, the verse makes sense to me. Just so you know, that is one of my methods of studying something I don't quite understand.

On to other things. My family's recent excursions to the zoo inspired me to watch (again) the movie We Bought a Zoo. I found three nuggets of wisdom that I am choosing to include here. Nugget #1: Girls will talk to you about anything. The secret to talking is listening. I think it should be fairly obvious why I chose that nugget.

Nugget #2: Sometimes, all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage. This nugget actually goes well with something you can read in Chapter 3 of this blog.

Nugget #3 is something you'll have to puzzle out for yourself, if you can: "Why not?" You might have better luck understanding this nugget if you actually watch the movie...

On a final note, I have completed my Teaching Technology Portfolio, which I have been working on all semester. It is here for those who wish to view, comment, and/or criticize. Thus concludes Chapter 13.