Just so ya Know

I have started a word-of-the-day blog in which I post another awesome word every day.

Click here to see it!

Yekaterinburg, Russia.

Yep. Folks, that's where I'm going. I report to the Provo MTC on April the 24th of 2013. And then I'm off to a magical land of ice and snow and Russian. I really don't have words for this occasion, it's just too grand. I shall surely have to write about it later.
I will say this though. I was not expecting this at all, but I am extremely thrilled about it!! My chess playing will come in handy! I'm really excited to learn Russian, and hope that I can manage it. Apparently the letters don't make the sounds that they're supposed to.

A Thought

Our life on earth is a piece of heaven that we have been given to test us to see what we will do with it. 

I colored it and made it fancy because that way more people realize that it's important.

On Skyping

I love skyping. We have really cool technology. We're extremely blessed that we can talk face to face with somebody far away; in a different state or even a different country. Today I was blessed to be able to skype with my wonderful brother Will on his mission in Milwaukee, and it was very cool to be able to see how he has grown.
I also had the privilege of skyping with my wonderful friend Taylor May in Washington who I miss very much. If anyone wants to skype me, please contact me so we can do it. I would absolutely love to.

Christmas Time!

I just want to mention a couple of my favorite things about Christmas Time.

First of all, the happiness. I love how the Spirit helps to make people so happy! I love seeing people walking around with a smile on their face because they've tried a little harder to keep their thoughts focused on the Savior and on helping others. I wish people would always stay so focused so that happiness could always be so thick in the air.

I love the lights. Christmas lights are so wonderful and beautiful. They help to remind me of the Savior, and that He is a light for us; that looking toward Him will help us to be happy and help us to see through the darkness.

The music. Songs about Jesus Christ that are sounded all across the nation, gladdening hearts everywhere and bringing the spirit into many lives. Music that can soften the heart and turn people to look selflessly outward.

People. People everywhere, with thoughts on their minds of giving instead of getting. People who are focused on others are so beautiful to see, to talk to, to watch, to hear. It is so wonderful to see people with a smile on their lips as they walk with a close friend or family member, eager to see their face when they unveil the wonderful surprise they have for them. People laughing, skipping, running, smiling, singing, holding hands, handing off presents, presenting surprises, surprising each other with acts of kindness. Adventuring. People who get that it doesn't matter where you go, what you do, what you gift, what you get, as long as you are focused on other people and the savior. People who would sing even if the Grinch took all their presents and fancy decorations because they can feel the Savior's love and they have each other.

Laughter. Hearing people laugh, seeing people smile. It just shows that people are happy, and it makes others happy as well! Laughing is literally a way to share your happiness!!

Food. Food is good. And candy. And Chocolate. Oh, and pie; we mustn't forget pie.

The cold. I'm not sure why, but around Christmas Time, I love the fact that it's cold outside! The chill in the air is so refreshing! And it helps people to be grateful for their warm cozy houses and their delicious hot chocolate. It gives one another reason to be close to loved ones. It helps one remember the humble circumstances of Christ's birth.

The stories. Stories are so beautiful. I love to hear touching tales of the lives of people; a time where somebody made another's Christmas though selfless service and charity. I love to hear reminders of the true meaning of Christmas. I love to get to know people better through tales of their lives.

The love. To see a general shift from people being grumpy to people being grateful. For people expressing their love for the Savior, for each other, for Christmas, for friends, for family, for food. I love hearing that people love stuff!!! It's far too easy to dislike something; and around Christmas Time, we realize that liking that very same thing leads to much happiness! It's too easy to say, "This song is dumb. It's cheesy, and it has nothing to do with what Christmas is really about." But it's far for enjoyable to let it make you smile, and to dance about to it, and say it's cute, and then remember what Christmas is about anyway!! Why would you let yourself be unhappy in such a time of love? People love things for a reason, and if you can figure out how to love the things they love, you come to love them more as well. That's what Christmas is about. Learning to love as Jesus loved.

Folks, I love Christmas.

On Snow

Snow can be a wonderful thing. It can be so wonderfully fun to build snowmen with friends, and feel the refreshing cold pierce through the warmth of your hands, and then have to retreat to a warmly abode with a cup o' cocoa. It's beautiful to watch the light and fluffy flakes lazily drift down from the sky while cuddled up in a big chair with some grand friends for great conversation, and lovely music inspiring a jovial mood in the background.
But, as much as I like snow, I cannot say the same for Ruthenium. Ruthenium, my car, does not like snow.
Now, a deep enmity as Rue has for snow cannot be founded in a single day or night, but only through a long series of negative experiences and persisting problems. The first problem that sets poor Rue on edge in the edge of a storm is the fact that she, unlike other cars, is incapable of performing the simple function of defrost. This makes it so that every time the weather snows, or rains, or randomly decides to be moist, the insides of the windows of Rue fog up horribly, which makes it rather difficult to see. Sometimes I have to resort to drying the interior with a towel before continuing a journey. The second problem is that Rue also has no heating, which makes driving anywhere in the cold, well, cold. Rue is also incapable of rolling down her windows, or honking her horn, or turning off the battery and check engine lights, or having AC, or turning off her headlights, or accurately displaying the amount of gasoline in the tank, but these are just general problems, not snow problems.
Ruthenium has also had some unpleasant experiences with the snow. For example, on friday, Rue obliged to drive Seth and I up to salt lake to Seth's aunt's house. On the way there, we were caught in a terrible blizzard. Due to the impossibility of seeing the road, I had to pull off the freeway and we sat in a parking lot until the weather cleared, which led to a very late night indeed.
Today, Rue thought she would be fine on the ice roads, but no, she was wrong. Rue was going along like a happy little car, when suddenly there was ice instead of road. Rue then proceeded to drift over and smash into a curb with a terrible thud. After that, the alignment of the wheels was thrown off, making driving yet another slight more difficult.
Also, a light snowing all day made it requisite that I scrape off the windows before going anywhere today, so I ended up having to do that at least five times. The last time I did, my hand slipped and I sliced my knuckles open on some of the ice that had become a part of Rue's exterior.
Basically, my car just wishes that it was summer again.

A Story

Tonight I had the privilege of volunteering in the MTC referral center. That means I was at a computer, and when somebody went onto mormon.org and requested to chat with somebody, I got to be one of the people who could chat with them. It was really awesome. I got to talk to lots of people and answer their questions about the gospel.
Anyway, we were supposed to only be getting chats in English, but one time somebody started a chat with me, and they began the conversation with "Hallo. Ich habe eine frage." This means, "Hello, I have a question." IN GERMAN!!!!! I was super excited!!! I was then able to have an entire conversation with this person from Germany, and I could understand everything he was saying and was able to answer back! Folks, my German is definitely not that good. I'm positive that I was able to understand words that I have never heard before in my life. I was able to dispel both the rumor that Mormons can have more than one wife, as well as the rumor that the Mormons are in charge of the NPD (the neo-nazi political party in Munich.) And then, after that, The guy told me that he wanted to learn more about the church!!!! After that, I told him about the Book of Mormon, and then he gave me his address and I was able to refer him to the German missionaries who are going to go to his house to teach him!!!! This is the coolest thing that has ever happened to me. What are the odds that that person would just happen to begin a chat with the volunteer who could speak a little bit of German? Folks, the gospel is true, and the Lord will make sure those who seek it will be able to find it. I'm so very grateful for this opportunity that I had to share the gospel with somebody, and to give them the opportunity to learn more about the Church.




Also, for Seth: After we finished each chat, we were supposed to mark who each person was that chatted with us and what they wanted. The options were like, "Seeking information" and such. One of the options was "Trolling."

I have a blog?

Happy December everybody!
How in the world has it been a whole month since that crazy Milkshake party? How is the semester over? It's weird, ladies and gentlemen; it's a strange thing.
I'd like to take just a couple weeks to say "thank you."

Thank you to my fantastic roommates, Seth and Jordan. You guys are the greatest ever, and you've been an amazing example to me. You two have helped me to grow in so many ways, and to become such a better person. I really could not have asked for better roommates, because they simply don't exist. Your tolerance of my ridiculousness as well as your kind and giving spirits have been essential to my survival this semester. I am very confident that wherever you go, you will always exceedingly bless the lives of those you come into contact with.

Thank you to one of my best friends in the whole wide world, Kristen Blair. Kristen, thank you for being such a light. You have helped me to see so much; about myself and about others. You have helped me to grow and learn and find the way from places of strugglement to higher ground. You have helped me to smile through sadness and to find joy in the little things of life. You have helped me to have a much greater focus on the gospel in my life and you've helped me to see the music in everything. You are so kind and loving and just all around perfect.

Thank you to Taylor May. What in the world would I do without this wonderful girl in my life? Taylor, it has been so fun to get to know you this semester, and I'm so very glad that I decided to sit by you and Eva in church at the beginning of the semester. You always know just exactly how to make me happy, and I don't know what in the world I'd be eating if you didn't feed me so much good food. I'm pretty sure that over half of my smiles of this semester came from you and your perfect loving kindness. You're going to be the best missionary that Oklahoma has ever seen!
Thank you, of course, to Eva Jane as well. Eva, Thanks for being so much fun. Everything's always a party with you around. Thank you for singing for me and playing your guitar for me and for always being so outgoing and happy. You have fun in India, okay?

Thank you, Dallin, Nathan, and Tyler. You guys are all so good. You've been a great help to me this semester. I've had a grand time eating Milkshakes with you guys, and learning valuable mission lessons from Dallin, and planning hiking with Nathan, and attempting to speak Afrikaans with Tyler. Thanks for just being awesome and for being our friends.

Okay, there's at least ten thousand more people that I need to say thank you to, but I have to go right now. Just know that there are more to come!

I love you all!!!

Trail of the Angels

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=ABOxTtxJxNw&feature=endscreen

Can you feel that?

Shenanigans

Well, I'm home alone for this weekend, so if you have a random impulse to come visit someone, there's a lonely kid in wyview that would love your company.
Also, I taught chess for two hours today. I don't know that I've ever talked that much before.
Life is good.

When I tell you you're perfect.

Everybody’s perfect. That is not to say that they don’t make mistakes, but it is to say that without them, there is no way that the perfect plan of salvation could be complete. It needs everyone, every piece, every bee, every note, every letter of every word, and it has them. That’s what makes it perfect. Sometimes they make mistakes, but what kind of a picture has every line going in the same direction? 

You are perfect, because perfection needs you; imperfection and all. 

There is so much I don't know.
Teach me.
I'm ready to learn.

Dirait-on

"Abandon entouré d'abandon, tendresse touchant aux tendresses... 
C'est ton intérieur qui sans cesse se caresse, dirait-on; 
se caresse en soi-même, par son propre reflet éclairé. 
Ainsi tu inventes le thème du Narcisse exaucé."

Timpview Choir, you make me cry. 
Music is so beautiful; thank you for sharing of your sweet spirit.
Thank you for giving that to me.

Dirait-on tel amour mon coeur,
Pour la musique est tel amour.
(Yes, I did write that just for you.)

My Most Boast Post

I still have perfect vision. 

I have never had a cavity.

I wrote a beautiful 14-page philosophy essay. (Not the one in the post below; that was not fourteen pages, plus it was terrible.)

I beat random people at chess frequently. 

That's all. :)

How to write a philosophy paper when you have no idea what the text you are analyzing is supposed to be saying:

John Oldroyd

Professor Arts

History of Philosophy Honors

10 October 2012

Aristotle Paper

            Aristotle has a bogglingly ingenious cranium. The fact that he is able to define scientific thinking and reasoning instantly puts him high above many of today’s greatest minds. According to this brilliant constructor of thought in the second part of his first book of posterior analytics, scientific knowing requires that the basis on which demonstrated knowledge rests (id est the premises of aforementioned demonstrated knowing,) must be invariable truth and primary to the drawn conclusion, or closer to what men can observe and perceive in the physical world. Scientific knowing, then, cannot be demonstrated, because the only way for knowledge that can possibly be demonstrated to be accepted as absolute truth is to establish evidence for or otherwise authenticate that this demonstration proves congruent. Though the term did not surface until later on, Aristotle basically explains the principle of epistemology, or knowing that something is true on the most basic level. One of these “immediate basic truths” is then termed a thesis. A thesis, further, also makes up definition, which should not be confused with a hypothesis as it can be immediately and irrefutably proved. In short, coming to a conclusion requires prior demonstrations, as everything in the conclusion rests upon the assumption that we know to be true the supports of our argument. Indeed, any person, in order to be convinced of something, must know that the principal truths which are used in the conveying of a higher truth are true even more so than of the higher knowledge.

            In his second book, Aristotle elucidates that effective knowledge existing is dependent on a tetrad of questions and their responses. First of the questions is whether or not an object is connected to a specific attribute. For example, “Is courage a positive character trait?” The answer to this question instigates question number two, which is why is there a connection? The third question is whether or not a thing exists, which similarly to the connection between the two preceding questions, propagates the fourth and final question with its response. (The fourth question being what is the nature of that thing). These questions provide men with all of their knowledge; or more accurately, the answers to the questions do.

            The first and third questions enumerated are similar in that each asks whether or not a thing has a middle, and the second and fourth questions further clarify their antecedents by asking what the medium is. By virtue of this connection, we may immediately infer that asking one question of a pair is to ask them both, meaning even as we ask what the nature of a thing is, we ask why it is, and vice versa. The answers come equivalently, so to understand the essence is to know the reason.

            So, how does one discover the essence of a thing? We are further enlightened when Aristotle expounds that "Not all the definable is demonstratable nor all the demonstratable definable.” Definition is the essence of an object; to define something is to say “this is.” Demonstration, on the other hand, is dependent (as expressed earlier) on these basic truths.

            When men want to know why something is, they look to the end result. If we know that a man buys an apple to be healthy, we know, also, that he eats the apple to be healthy, as both, while not exactly the same steps, are comparable in design. In creating a statue, the metals, the sculptor, the art, and the appreciation of the art are causes of the end product. In summary, causes are many, and to know nature, it is obligatory to account for each.

            The aggregate of these conceptions is that physics must be to discover reasons for the nature of things inalterable. “Those things which cause movement by being themselves moved” are no longer inside the realm of physics, and must therefore be adapted into a different form of science. Science, then can be broken into a triad of fields of specific study: things that cannot move (such as mathematics,) things in motion but indestructible, and things in motion that can be destroyed. Physics can be attributed to something when it can alter motion but not be itself moved (such as gravity.) A force that one can say with certainty will result in a specific change, is then worthy of being classified as physics. 

I want to be a missionary now.... AND I DON'T HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL I'M GROWN

I cannot express how happy I am right now. Everything in my life has led up to this moment. All of my greatest wishes are fulfilled and also all of my greatest fears are quenched. Brace yourself, world, for elder Oldroyd #2. I am so ready to go. The Lord has been preparing me for this in ways that I had no idea of. My gratitude cannot be expressed by any words my feeble mouth may be able to come up with. My life just changed a ridiculous amount.
To be a part of this is just absolutely incredible. The work of the Lord is moving forward, friends, and I'm going to be right there helping push it along. Wish me luck!

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