Today, I baptized myself. Kinda Ok let me back up a second... So I was eating breakfast at a diner in rural PA. I was thinking of what I wanted to do after that, and I saw when looking on maps that there was a place not too far away called "priesthood restoration site". It had some cool pictures of statues online, so I wanted to go see those. I drive over there (only like 10 min away), big complex, but only 1 other car in the parking lot. I see on the door a sign that says "free guided tours", so I go in... The place is set up like a museum, with various paintings and items on display - clearly a lot of work went into it - and while I'm appreciating the first few things in there, an older lady comes up and welcomes me. I tell her that I'm interested in learning more about all this stuff I'm looking at, so she calls her husband over. I discover through talking with them that while I thought I was coming to a sort of general priest retreat sort of thing, I was actually visiting one of the most historic sites to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - the very place where the prophet Joseph Smith did the majority of the work that he did in writing the Book of Mormon. I agreed to go on a guided tour of the land, visiting the very plots of land where Joseph Smith lived and worked with his wife, and also through the woods where he would walk and pray. It was quite the experience walking through there - I felt extremely connected to God and my faith - even though I wasn't sure exactly about the church of jesus christ of latter day saints - I felt the direct connection with God that I can only get at special times and in special places. A key part of the tour was a story about Joseph Smith and his associate Oliver Cowdery walking through the woods and being visited by Saint John the Baptist who restored the right to baptize, and instructed these two men to go down to the Susquehana River and baptize each other- and they did. So, to wrap this all up, after the tour I went down to the river myself once again not totally sure what I was going to do - but once I got down there, I felt called to immerse myself in the waters, and so I did. Only for a quick second lol but it was a full dive underwater immersion, and I really did feel the spirit in me especially for the brief moment that I was underwater. I don't know if I should really think about it like I baptized myself, because technically it wasn't the full baptismal process w/o someone else there to do it for me- But it was definitely special for me, and even if it wasn't really like I baptized myself, I wanted to show God that I cared, and that I want to continue to work towards him, and that I wanted to renew my faith in him. I wanted to choose him, in a way that I could not when I was a baby. And while I don't recommend that everyone go jump in a river like I did today, I think it's important that we renew our faiths in whatever way we see fit, and we should keep aspiring towards the good, and we should not be afraid to take risks, and we should do whatever it takes to serve God because at the end of the day this is the best way that we can serve ourselves.

The only one way to reconcile these two statements: A. God is omnipotent B. We have free will Is to say that God was omnipotent when he created the universe, then created it in such a way where he was no longer so Free will= God's potency removed from himself, instilled in us

Of course God could make a stick that he could not lift. Omnipotence implies the ability to create things which violate the trait of omnipotence itself In which case, with regard to that object or system, God would not be omnipotent- but only because he willed himself to be so.