Everything is Beautiful

Everything is beautiful if you care to look. The things that people have done are absolutely amazing, and this world that God has created is far more incredible than most realize. Why be sad when you live in such a fantastic place and time? Smile. Look outside; look how incredible everything is. Get ye into the mountains and look at the amazing autumn colors, and feel the cool breeze making that beautiful rustling sound among the trees. Look at your phone, your camera, your computer; how can they even exist? Do you know how it works? Do you know how complicated it is and how much time and effort has gone into that? Look at the magic around you, the magic that we have been allowed to use and create; fresh water from the sink, preserved food in the middle of summer due to a refrigerator, fruit that grows on trees, vegetables that spring up out of the ground. Look at the people. See them give when they have but little for themselves, see them do silly things just to get others to smile, see them love each other; what greater gift could there be? The love of Christ is most precious and desirable above all other fruit, and it's growing on a tree in front of us. Why be sad? 2 Nephi 9:52: "Let your hearts rejoice." It does not say "make your hearts rejoice" it says "let your hearts rejoice." You know deep down that there is so much happiness, so much goodness, so much joy and perfection around you, and you want to be happy, you're naturally inclined to be happy. Let yourself be happy. Why would you let something get in the way of that?
So much beauty in the gospel, in the world, in others, and in yourself. Let it shine through the clouds. You're all beautiful. I love you.

The John Quiz, Number 1

So I don't really know what this is or how it came out of my head. I made it for my roommates, but you should take it to see how well you can do. If you want. 

Instructions: Choose wisely. Defend your answer if you wish. The goal is to get as many points as possible. Points may be able to come from unconventional methods. Impress me, I’m open minded.

Section A: Multiple Choices

What is the 34^th Atomic Element?

A. Selenium           B. Ruthenium        C. Einsteinium       D. Rhenium

What is the 46th digit (after the decimal) of Pi?

A. 7                         B. 3                         C. 5                         D. 1

Was ist Zauber?

A. A Potato            B. Frio                     C. Magic                 D. Nein Minuten!

Are you supposed to answer this question?

A. Indirectly          B. Mostly                C. Twice                 D. Nope

Es ist nie zu spät so zu sein wie Mann _______ gewesen wäre.

A. Gerne                B.Geschichten      C. Gemuse             D. Yep.

What is the best to be?

A. An Incompetent Philosopher        B. An Evil Genius

C. An Exceptional Plumber                 D. All of the Above

If an answer is randomly picked, what is the probability of choosing the correct answer?

A. 1/4                     B. 1/2                     C. 1/4                     D. 2/3

Which of these is the best place?

A. Narnia                B. Hogwarts           C. Middle Earth     D. Fincayra

Hats

A. Jester                 B. Robin Hood       C. Cowboy             D. Fedora

Is the corn creepy?

A. Yes, it has ears.                B. No, it’s amaizeing

B. Yes, I hear it stalks.          D. This is the worst question on this test.

What constitutes good music?

A. John Adams      B. A Sick Beat        C. Groovy Rhythms              D. It has notes

Section B: Short Answer

What is a dragon?

Temple Dedications

I just love them. That is all.

Fridays are Classy

My Shoe Broke

The sole fell off my shoe.

Of course I did this:

Now what should I do with it?

This is what happens when you have refrigerator magnets with big words on them:

Some Scholarly Observation Missive

                Hi Seth and Jordan. In my understanding you must be out hence. When you come to our society I have there a question to make the taut mind expatiate fully with thought. If we were curious, man would always find my ideas clever, so why do my valid opinions almost feel as obtuse ennui? Obscure factions use absconding vicissitude at me, which will only guile every solution about individual delight. That banal lair, too, is like arid miscreants that represent droll gall. Soon it could form a nefarious and cunning pedagogue for system usurping. His time is here in deft, verbose, and munificent platitude; rue him like mean pariah. Never rest but obdurate self, and the crass lapse can say no language. Know they trod above. See how Kafkaesque she has profligated, though her woman filled mellifluous zeal? Ameliorate amalgam eschewer after fecund boor elucidate tinges. By herculean admonition of book, sound, and word, are ye sanguine, obsequious, or torpidly wry? Alleviate then enervate through salient beauty as paragon expunge on pithy temerity! Roil vapid din! Festoon turgid acumen! Repose from a trenchant fusillade. 

Yes, this was entirely crafted from refrigerator magnets, and yes, it is mostly grammatically sound and in some way, shape or form makes sense. 

That was me

This night I had the spectacular privilege of attending the Timpview Marching Band Family Night. It was cute. Actually it was absolutely amazing, and I love the marching band and all the people in the marching band and I miss them and I miss doing that. I want to play bass drum again. Just for a little bit. I love those people. It was a happy realization for me to discover that I will be a junior in college at the same time as my female friends who are currently juniors in high school. Basically I just love everything. Yep. But mostly band.

Today is a good day to pie.

I'm going to give the super-quick version of this story.

So, I was walking through Brigham's square during my hour break, and I see a table set up in the middle, and atop the table were several pie tins filled with whipped cream, so I thinks to myself "that looks exciting." Naturally I go up to the person there and ask what this is for. She explains, it's just for fun. All I have to do is use my face to find the candy bar they buried within the cream before the other competitors, and I win! Of course, I could not turn down something so fun, so we waited for a couple more people to show up and then, we began.

Since I'm super pro at things like this I found the candy bar incredibly swiftly, and hence won the competition. Now, one of my competitors, who finished just after me, was disheartened by his defeat, and decided to get even. It was not difficult to see that my pie tin still had a lot of whipped cream in it, and was very much within his reach. Next thing that I knew, I had a face full of cream. I'm sure it was a rather hilarious image, and I was not at all angry, as you kind of have to expect this kind of thing when joining in a pie competition of any kind. In fact, I somewhat enjoyed the smell of whipped cream which lingered with me throughout the day, and I've come to the conclusion that whipped cream is probably good for your hair. Anyway, it was a good experience, and I can now say that I have been pied.

Also somehow I found this low resolution picture of the aftermath:

Mocktail Party = Classy

It's pretty late, so I'm going to keep this post short, but just know that everything tonight was at least fifteen and a half times as wonderful as I make it sound.

Basically Josh Brewer threw a Mormon Cocktail party this night, and it was absolutely splendid in every way. Everybody that came dressed up classily, so naturally we all looked super good and felt amazing. The food was outstanding; everybody who came contributed in some way, and there was delicious salad, soup, cucumber sandwiches, shrimp, cheese with crackers, and cocktails consisting of fruit juice and sprite. There was both live music, provided by John Wilson rocking out on the little electric piano, as well as some sweet jazzy music playing on Josh's speakers. Naturally we all danced, mingled, and had deep philosophical conversation. The venue was perfect, the night was crisp, and overall everything was exactly as it should have been. I love people.

As I Smote its Ruin Upon the Mountainside

My very last round of bowling today turned out like this. I bowled and the shot looked beautiful, right in the middle. I thought it would be a strike for sure. Nope. It turned into a 7-10 split.

Of course, the usual conversation played out.

Miranda: I'll make you dinner if you can hit both of them.
Me: Funny. You know, I'm gonna do it.

I then proceeded to select the heaviest ball I could find, and I threw it as hard as I could. It barely nicked the left pin, right on the outside edge. The pin then proceeded to bounce off the back wall and hit the second pin.

Miranda owes me dinner.

So much more satisfying than a strike.

Just To Clear Things Up

People don't understand what I mean when I tell them I'm a potato. 

And frankly...

Thank You, Ralph.

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success." -Emerson

I just needed that right now. Maybe you do, too. I don't know.

Friday.

It seems like I started college only a couple days ago, but really it's been almost two weeks! Oh how time flies when you are slowly collecting more stories to tell. 

And speaking of stories....

It was a warm late afternoon, the sunset smiling majestically as always as I made my way over to Helaman  Fields where I had heard there were shenanigans going down. Sure enough, when I arrived there were plenty of awesome people throwing around those wonderful 175 gram really sweet frisbees that BYU makes out of recycled plastic bottles, so I did not hesitate in joining in. Soon, the party was in full swing and we were playing some pretty cool getting-to-know-you games, and then there was a dance. Naturally I danced for a little bit, but then I saw a group of people playing ultimate, and that definitely takes priority over dancing. I soon joined in and we had an awesome game going on. I nailed some pretty sweet tricky tosses right to people in the endzone, and I even caught some really tricky tosses to catch. Anyway, I was really into the game, and so I was running forward to catch a frisbee that had been thrown in my direction. I stretched out my arm and snatched it from the air and then tried to make my feet stop moving. Unfortunately, the grass was wet, and my shoes were the not of the most frictitious footwear variety, so I successfully stopped my upper body, but my feet kept right on going. I fell backwards, thrusting out my arm at an awkward angle to catch myself, and then pop. My arm didn't feel so good. Before I worried about that though I switched the frisbee to my left hand and tossed it to an open team mate. After that I went over to my paramedics and they relocated my dislocated shoulder, and all was well. But while it lasted the dislocated shoulder felt pretty strange. 

Anyway, after all that I came home. After being home for about five minutes there came a knock at the door. I answered it and who was there, but Preston Sharp! My friend whom I haven't seen in about 7 years. Anyway, he was just going door to door with a group of other kids playing "Bigger or Better" which is an awesome game, by the way, and it was super random and awesome. 

After that Eva and Taylor came over to make sure my arm was okay, and then we went over to their apartment because we were going to watch a movie or something, but then we ended up just talking until 1:29 in the morning. This is my first time in college going to bed after 1. Sad. 

I'm not sure how exciting those stories were for you, but I like them, so I wrote them down. 

A Great Acomplishment

I'm so proud of myself; I got my gallon of ice cream to last for four days!

Another Random BYU Story

Once upon a time (a few days ago) Riley and I were walking to Kat's apartment. As we walked past building 27 of new heritage, we heard a knocking coming from a window. We looked up to see a girl waving at us from about the third floor. She then proceeded to give us her phone number one digit at a time on a dry-erase board, and motion for us to call her. We almost kind of half expected it to be something important, but instead she was like "Hi! What are your names?!"
I still haven't actually met this girl, but maybe it'll happen some time.

Wyview Story Time #2

Today, still a bit jumpy from the fried chicken experience, we Muffin Men were chilling around the apartment getting ready for bed. Suddenly, there came a knock at the door, and the three of us rushed to the door and opened it, running into the night to catch the girls who had fled the scene. We found them hiding behind a pillar only to discover that these girls were not the girls who had left the fried chicken, just some other mischievous door knockers. We turned to go back into our apartment, but we found that it was locked. We were all in our pajamas, none of us had keys, none of us had phones, and none of us had shoes.

No problem, we could just go get keys from our RA Kevin downstairs. But he wasn't there. We couldn't call him either because we left our phones in the apartment. Really the only thing we could do was wait for him to come back. Luckily, the mischievous girls invited us over to their apartment where we then chilled and waited until Kevin came back and let us in to our apartment.
We're going to watch a movie with them tomorrow. :)

I just love BYU.

Wyview Story Time #1

Yesterday Jordan, Seth, and myself decided to make muffins, and give some to the nice girls who baked us cookies the previous day. We did a wonderful job, but we ended up with over twice as many muffins as we had intended to bake, so we decided to give some to random people. Along with plates of these muffins we wrote some interestingly pretentious notes, because we were just in that mood.

One of the apartments that we visited didn't seem to appreciate our gift too much. In fact they seemed really weirded out.


The note we gave them read:

Happy Saturday, 
We hope that these muffins both find you and leave you in good health. We, John, Jordan, and Seth, have searched for days for the best bananas with which to make these muffins, and we hope you enjoy them. Glad to have you in the ward!!


From, The Muffin Men. Apt #352

P.S. Visit us anytime!


At any rate, they basically thought we were super weird, and it was an awkward moment.

Today, there came a knock at the door. When we opened it, we looked down, and lo and behold, there stood a note with a plate of muffins and... Fried Chicken. Upon closer examination, yes, those were 2 of our 3 muffins.

The note they gave to us read:

Happy Sunday, 
We hope that these muffins both find you and leave you in good health. We, Rachel, Eva, and Taylor, have searched for days for the best bananas with which to make these muffins, and we hope you enjoy them. Glad to have you in the ward!!

From, The Muffin Women. Apt # 327

P.S. Visit us anytime! 

Now, The first thing you need to know is that we never delivered any muffins to apartment # 327, we delivered them to number 358, which turns out was the very apartment that thought we were weirdos.

At first we thought the apartment we gave the muffins to had re-gifted them to the apartment across the hall, who had in turn given them back to us, but after inquiring about we discovered that Eva nor Taylor nor Rachel had ever seen said muffins or fried chicken.

All in all this entire exchange has been exceedingly strange, and a blow to our pride. We thought those muffins were really good. Getting food back just hurts.

Does anyone have any theories as to what exactly is going on here? Why did they not like our muffins? Why did they give us fried chicken? Why did they blame it on apartment 327? We may never know.

BYU LSH

Late Summer Honors has just been an absolutely incredible opportunity for me, and I am so very glad that I decided to do it. My class is absolutely wonderful, and I just love having real conversations about books with people who actually know what I'm talking about! Also people that give me good feedback on my writing.

What could be better than random firesides and presentations where the speaker can talk about Hermeneutics of the Bible, and then relate Exegesis and Eisegesis to our own scripture study, and tie in an awesome spiritual message, and the people in attendance don't grow bored or confused of it?!

It's so incredible to open meetings with songs and prayers, and especially be able to mention scriptures at any point in the conversations/lesson.

It is my favorite thing in the world to meet so many amazing people who share my love of learning and love of the gospel. I love being able to instantly connect with these people because they're so much like myself. People that make me smarter and better in only a few minutes of conversation with them.

Thank you, everybody. So very much.


I'd like to specifically mention:

Erin
Emma
Rachel
Eliza
Matt
Mark
Katherine
Alyson
Isaac
Ben
Sean
Vera
Sarah-Elizabeth
Elsa
Lindsey
Emily
Travis
Mary
Marli
Other Emily
Other Rachel
Ariel
Justin
Sarah
Amanda
Victoria
Rebecca
And everybody who played games with me or participated in activities with me or I met in any way.

And of course my friends from Timpview.


I've loved hearing everybody's stories, as they've had some incredible experiences, and I've really loved meeting people from other states and countries.


And anybody, feel free to come visit me any time that you want.

Wyview, Building 26, Apt 352.

Goodbye...

I'm moving out of my house, and moving in to wyview. And I have old stuff to take with me, and new stuff to take with me, and lots of adventures ahead. But unfortunately I can't take everything with me. No, my secret castle made of pure gold underneath my house is not very portable, so I had to destroy it.

It turns out that I'm lucky enough to have some pretty fantastic adventures.

I am going to tell you my story of today. It's a very good story, so hopefully I can do it justice. Basically the gist of it is that I hiked mount Nebo (tallest mountain in Utah county) today with my dad and a couple brothers. But there is so much adventure and awesomeness that stemmed from this experience, so I should like to share a portion with you all.

First, I drove there, but that's not the exciting bit.

The exciting bit is the actual hike, which turned out to be one of the most absolutely gorgeous hikes that I have ever been on. It was also extremely long and extremely difficult, which only made it better, of course.

The first section of the hike was just a bunch of fields and stuff, but they were still awesome because they were filled with happily colored shrubbery and exciting insects. The next section of the hike made me feel like I was a hobbit in the shire, which basically means it was the best forest path that there ever was. After that we hiked over one mountain and got to see all of the cool stuff on both sides! Then we climbed a mountain and walked along a ridge and scrambled up some boulders and did some other crazy stuff, eventually reaching the very top of the north peak of mount Nebo, and reaching an elevation of 11998 ft! I jumped two feet in the air so that I could say I hit 12000.

At the top, it started to thunder storm and rain and wind very scarily, so we climbed down as fast as we could. It's rather intense when lightning is striking closer to you than you've ever seen it before, and you're on top of the tallest mountain in the county, and your hair is standing on end from static electricity. That storm made me feel like a character in an awesome adventure book.

Overall our hike took over 9 hours and I had to carry my brother Jacob for that last bit because it was too far for him. It was very long, and very intense, and very perfect. I would definitely like to hike that with some friends sometime. If they can handle it.