Histories and Mysteries

This article has finally come! Today's article is about my mission trip to Tepic, Mexico. But before I get to that I wanted to announce another article written by Anna at Intertwining Melodies . About three hours before I left for my mission trip, Anna left for her mission trip to Northern Ireland. Also for those of you who noticed her blogging break, I will notify you that Anna is posting again and one of her newest articles is about her mission trip, so go check that article out. Now about my trip. My team left on Saturday, June 23rd, which was also the day of my 16th birthday. Before we left the church, the leader of my church's short-term missions program, gave us a short message on Joshua 1:1-9: 5 There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. 6 Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, whi...

I have read a lot of books since the 2018 Winter Book Reviews post, so as last year, I will take two articles review the books I have read since then. You are reading the first article and the second article will be published in August. Books Read       Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie    The Summary   Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy   The must-have Pevear and Volokhonsky translation of one of the greatest Russian novels ever written Described by William Faulkner as the best novel ever written and by Fyodor Dostoevsky as “flawless,” Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and thereby exposes herself to the hypocrisies of society. Set against a vast and richly textured canvas of nineteenth-century Russia, the novel's seven major characters create a dynamic imbalance, playing out the c...

For those of you who noticed, I have changed the blog design again. I really did like the previous design, but because I added pictures to head each article, I needed to change the design to one that would display the whole picture instead of a sad, little square. There are a few new things to the blog including the new design and pictures to head each article. I also added a book review link on the sidebar. In that I will be listing all the books I reviewed by article as well as sneak peeks to new book review articles so check back there often. Here is the second part to my articles on the Rebellious Writing movement. Please refer to the first post if you have no clue what I am talking about. By the way, all verses are in the English Standard Version unless notified because this version states particular words better than the King James Version does. This post is going to combine three requirements which will close up this series: 3. Write a post/rant about why we nee...

I originally published this article on March 8th of this year after the series finale of Star Wars Rebels. This is the last reposted extra article for the 2018 July Extras so I promise that there will be a completely fresh new article next Thursday. Star Wars Rebels came to a fulfilling and emotional conclusion on March 5th with its season finale. After four seasons of seeing the strong bonds between this somewhat irregular family and the progression of each individual character, I decided that I would write an article about this TV series not only because I really enjoyed the story that these characters brought to the Star Wars universe but also because this series showed creative writing ideas in action. For the sake of #rememberingrebels, here are some practical writing tips straight from the Star Wars universe. Warning!!! This article contains spoilers for Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Ha...

  I am back to my regular scheduling, so as I said last month, today's article is about the main holidays of Israel. Because I feel really bad for skipping a week (I was probably mostly lazy?), this post is much longer than usual. I also didn't want to split up the information anyways. Next week, I will discuss some of the traditions of the Jews. Since I have nothing else to say in the intro, here is the meat of the article. Purim Purim is first mentioned in the book of Esther. The Jews were supposed to be slaughtered under Persian law, but because of God's sovereignty, they ended up surviving and conquering their enemies within the kingdom. In commemoration of their deliverance, Israel yearly celebrates this event by exchanging mishloach manot  (gift baskets of food and drink), donating mattanot la-evyonim (money to the poor), eating  se'udat Purim (a celebratory feast), and reciting prayers. Purim takes place on Adar 14th of the Hebrew calendar (which ...

  Today is the first article of Histories and Mysteries' July Extras! I published this Valentine's Day article this February on my defunct writing blog. If you are a writer, I hope these tips will help!   A friend said to me that every time she thinks of romance, she thinks of two people grabbing coffee. But an isolated scene about grabbing coffee will probably end up not connecting to the rest of your novel. As I said above, I could care less for romance so writing romance is somewhat difficult and very, very awkward for me to write so this was quite the learning process for me. Below are five tips that I helped me while writing a romantic scene in my novel, and I hope that they will help you guys as well.   1. Watch a Movie / Read a Book Most movies and books have a little bit of romance in them at the least and this is a great way to see the "romantic format" in action. This format can be explained like this:    ...

I'm kind of cheating with this post since I should have posted it last week. But it's actually here, so your welcome. :) Today, I will be writing about the Assyrian and New Babylonian Empires. The next history post will be Part 2 about the New Babylonian Empire. The Assyrians are also from the Fertile Crescent area as you can see from the map to the left. Assur was the original capital that the empire was named after. Nineveh is the capital city of this empire. When this city fell, the empire fell as well. Nineveh was also mentioned in the book of Jonah. God told Jonah to preach to the people of Nineveh to repent. There were many wicked things in Nineveh, but there were also many young children in the city. After a long journey, Jonah eventually preached to the city and the people repented. Then, of course, the wickedness returned to the city (not that it ever went anywhere in the first place) and the empire fell. Tiglath-pileser I, one of the greatest Assyrian conquer...