Faith or Frenzied-ness? :)

So, I sold my road bike.

I did not want to.  As you could probably tell by my posts about road biking in the last 2 weeks as opposed to the long hiatus of non-blogging before that, I fell in love with road biking.  I could tell that if I kept at it (which I wanted to do), I could become very good at it and even compete.  I love the rush of wind as I pedal at a consistent rate.  Basically, I "fit" as a road cyclist.

However, sometimes things don't go the way you want (at least not at first).  Friday night, I was saying my nightly prayers, and the thought came to ask this question "What do I need to do to prepare myself for my future wife?".  I had asked this or at least similar questions before, and usually the answer was to be patient or no answer, which to me means, "It's not time for you to know yet" etc.  But I hadn't asked it since I had bought this bike.  The immediate answer was "Sell the bike."  Not just A bike from our garage, not even just one of the two bikes I own, but THE [road] bike.  My thoughts were "What? I just bought it!  I love riding it! It's good for me!  Isn't it?  Was that just me thinking that for some weird reason?"  Anyway, I kind of struggled with those types of thoughts for a good while in my prayer, and then asked if I was still ok to go on my ride (see last post), and I felt I was, so I did.  Then I said "If it's Thy will, I'll do it."  The next night, (Saturday night), I said in my prayers again "Like I said, if it's Thy will, I'll do it, but I need to be sure I'm not just doing something crazy for no reason", and asked Him to confirm to me that what I was thinking was truly from Him.

Well, Heavenly Father answers prayers (if you didn't know that).  I went to a friend's ward to hear her report on her mission, and the theme of the meeting was "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths."  That's in Proverbs 3:5-6.  I was like "Hmmm, if that's not a clear answer, I don't know what is" but somehow I felt that I was going to keep receiving confirmations that day.  Well, I did.  My own sacrament meeting, Bishop Ayre's daughters Kenedi and Amanda and Brother Hansen's daughter Madison spoke about the trials of their pioneer ancestors and how they had to sacrifice some great things to receive even greater things.  Also, Travis Bodtcher and Collette Charles (soon to be Bodtcher) talked about their relationship and how grateful they are for each other.  That wasn't a direct answer to my prayer, but it reminded me of how wonderful married life will be, and that I should be willing to give up anything for her.  Travis talked about how greatly his life changed the moment he decided to turn his life around, and now he's getting married in the temple because of it.  That was interesting to me.  Then in Sunday School we were talking about rehoboam and jeraboam and their poor leadership.  There were a couple of comments that hit me, but most of all when we talked about the grandson of Rehoboam I think it was, I can't remember the name right now, who was righteous and was surrounded by enemy armies.  He was told by a prophet to wait and trust the Lord, and the Lord caused the armies to fight each other and were destroyed.  Elder's Quorum the lesson was on the talk by Elder Martino, called "All Things Work Together for Good".  Basically, the whole day was saying "Yes, you should trust Me and the Holy Ghost.  The answer you received was from Me."

So, it's now gone.  I'm kind of sad, but I trust that the best will come of it.

I'm grateful for my testimony, and Heavenly Father's love.

33 mi

Today I rode 33 miles on my new road bike.

I know that for experienced riders, that's not very far, but considering I've only had the bike for a couple of weeks, for me, this is the longest consecutive ride that I've done on the thing!  Last week, my Brother-in-Law Paul and I rode from my house to the second entry of Snowbird (see map).  We met Chrissie and my parents there for a day of hiking.  Then we just threw the bikes in the car and rode back down with them, so overall it was about 16-1/2 miles of riding.  But today I decided to go up and back.  I woke up today at 7:30 to start out by 8, and got back around 10:45 or 11:00 (I don't remember exactly).  As I got to the second entry, I decided to keep going (mostly because I was following a lady, and she didn't stop there, so I felt like less of a man if I did stop).  But I made it to the 4th entry, where I took about a 10-minute break to rest and enjoy the beauty of that canyon.  Next time I go, I'll go the rest of the way up to Alta.  Then the descent.  If you watch the tour de france or anything, you'll see some cyclists getting up to like 60 mph.  I got up to 42, and let me tell you, even though I'm a little bit of a thrill-seeker and I LOVE anything that feels like I'm going fast, I was a little nervous.  It wasn't bad at first, because the road is newly paved and smooth, but when I got toward the bottom where it's a little more beat up, I slowed down to about 32.  So yeah, those guys that go 60 are crazy.  Anyway, it took me less than 1/2 the time to get home that it did to get up.  I really enjoy cycling, and I think I'll stick with it.  It's going to be hard though when school starts, because to get really good, you really have to devote a LOT of time to it.

So for the rest of the day, we're going to play some ULTIMATE at 4:30 and then go to the REAL SL game tonight and watch fireworks after!  I'm pretty stoked.

Get out there and exercise, it feels so good.

The Priesthood

I've kind of delayed writing this for a while, because it's personal and very important to me, and I wasn't sure what I wanted to share, and if there was anything I shouldn't or didn't want to.

However, for the few people who read my blog, I think, I would feel comfortable telling you about these experiences in person, so why not in my blog?

A couple of weeks ago, our family went down to my favorite place on Earth - Lake Powell.  We've been going twice or three times a year since I was a little kid, and I look forward to every single opportunity we have to go. This year was no different.  I was able to go the whole week, and I couldn't wait for morning ski rides, sun-tanning, hikes, swimming, having fun with my awesome cousins and sisters and parents (I could've just said family), and perfecting the back-flip on my air chair.  We got there on Monday afternoon, so my first opportunity to ski on nice water was Tuesday morning.  Unfortunately, for some strange reason, my Dad decided not to wake me up for the nice water, and just went (even though I've woken him up many times to go skiing)!  I was a little upset.

So later on that day, when the water was choppy because of boat traffic, I decided to break out my air chair, and see if I couldn't land the flip and hold on.  So I rode for a while, just enjoying the flying feeling of gliding above the waves.  Then, I jumped a couple of times, and tried the back-flip, but didn't really jump, so I just fell headfirst into the water, which I've done a lot (see video).

So the next attempt, I jumped, flipped, and in mid-air I thought "Yes!  This is it!  I'm going to make it!".  Something weird happened, and even though I had made it around, I crashed when I hit the water.  Usually, this is no big deal.  This time though, it was.

To me, it felt like my hand had gone into the rope handle, and that the handle had hit my forearm extremely hard and pulled me forward in the water a little bit.  It hurt like the Dickens, and when I came up, I saw that my glove was gone.  After telling the people in the boat to pick up the glove, I noticed that I couldn't move my fingers, they were just stuck in a half-clenched position (as if I were still holding the rope in my hand), and there was a half-golf-ball-size local area of swelling right where it felt like the handle had hit me.  I thought (verbatim) "Crap, I just broke my arm".  So my dad helped me into the ski boat, and we went back to the houseboat to look at it.  It still hurt a ton, and I was thinking I had ruined my family's (as well as my own) favorite summer vacation - which, to me, was more painful than the injury - seriously.  I didn't cry about my arm, I only cried when I was by myself changing, because I was sad to have to leave without getting to ski.

Anyway, I had the thought "I should have my dad give me a blessing", and Christine, one of my 3 amazing sisters, even suggested it to my dad.  Well, we decided to drive out to the channel to see where we could go to get my arm x-rayed, or at least to talk to someone about my arm.  When we got out there, my dad gave me a blessing, and then we called.  As I talked to Brian, the guy at the Bullfrog clinic, my arm hurt less and less, even though I didn't notice that until afterward.  The swelling had gone down almost completely, and I could move my fingers almost as much as before.  There was still some pain when I flexed my hand or wrist, but it wasn't nearly as bad as before.

The next day, Christine and I decided to go on a little hike across the canyon from our houseboat:

So we took the kayaks over there, and parked them at the bottom (1).  We left our life jackets there, and started climbing up the rocky slope.  Every step we took sent small rocks down, so we tried to make sure not to send rocks down on top of each other.  We got to a point where there were huge boulders (2), and we had to rock climb around them to get up higher.  I went one way, and Christine decided to go another way, about 10 ft away from me, (to the right in the photo).  We were just talking, and both of us were thinking how cool we were as siblings to go hiking up this hill with our chacos on and everything, when I suddenly hear Christine yelling.  I turn around to see her falling backwards off of the rocks above a 10-foot drop, and about 60 feet total below her to the water.  I watched in horror as she fell and rolled and fell again down the hill.  All I could do was yell her name trying to show my immense concern and worry and love for her, because I thought she was going to die.  When she finally stopped falling (about 10 feet above the water) (3), she sat there, turned and looked up at me holding her head.  I was worried she had split her head open, and was going to go unconscious soon.  I heard her yell across the water to the houseboat "Dad!  Get in the ski boat and hurry over here!"  That comforted me a little in knowing she could think and yell.  I slowly started moving to the side and then down as they came over in the boat and took her back to the houseboat.  As I walked down carefully, I noticed that one of the kayaks was upside-down in the water about 10 feet from the shore (4).  At the bottom, my dad and I talked a little about what had happened.  He said that he could only see me up at the boulders and the rocks falling down from me.  The huge boulder Christine had been on was falling straight toward the kayaks, and he thought Christine was in or near the kayaks!  One miracle is that the boulder didn't follow the same path as Christine, who went left (black line) and the rocks went right (green line).  Apparently that boulder had hit the one kayak and flipped it over into the water, smashing the one end.  When we got back to the houseboat, I went to change into dry clothes, and again, being alone, cried because of the emotions I had felt as I watched what I thought were my sister's last moments.  Then, my dad and I gave her a blessing as my mom, aunt and sister Chelsey took care of Christine's cuts.  She was in shock and was shaking.  Miraculously, she didn't break any bones, didn't split her head open or anything.  She had some pretty big scrapes, but no deep cuts, and a twisted ankle to top it off.

I was amazed at how quickly she and I healed.  I was able to ski Thursday morning, Thursday afternoon and Friday morning.  Christine, I think, could have as well, but to be safe decided not to, in case of infection from the water getting in her cuts.

(The girl in the picture is my cousin Ashlyn, who got up on skis for the first time this trip!)

I know those are long stories, but I wanted to preserve as much as I could what happened, and add to them my testimony of the Priesthood.  I know that it's a real power, which has been restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith by Angels, and that God and Jesus Christ personally appeared to Joseph Smith to restore this power and the true Church of Jesus Christ.  How grateful I am for a worthy father who is willing and able to give me and my sisters those blessings when they are needed, and for the blessings that come through that Priesthood and the love of God.

Road Bike!

I bought a road bike yesterday.

This is a factory picture, but the real one looks identical to this one.







I'm fairly excited.

Summertime

I just love summertime.

It's made for me.  I think my body's natural habitat is some desert with a nice clear lake nearby.  I love the hot, dry air, and so does my skin.  Basically, Lake Powell is where I belong (or similar places).

Last summer I took classes at the U, trying to accelerate my acceptance into the major (which did help).  However, after going to school constantly for over a year and a half, I decided that this summer I would not take summer classes and try to enjoy it as much as I can.  I've been looking forward to being out of school now for a year, so I can enjoy summer.

Two problems:  1.  It's not really summer-typical weather right now.  It feels more like March in May!  However, that's not the main problem.  2.  I don't have any structure to my life!  I have all these awesome plans of things to do, but then I end up not doing them.  I was worried that I might fall into this pattern.  It's hard because I'm working at nights, so I don't get to hang out with people (who mostly work during the day), and during the day, there's only so much that sounds fun to do by yourself!  I also have an expensive car repair coming up, so I don't want to be spending tons of money on anything.

So, I need to figure out some way to be more productive that will keep me going on a good, healthy schedule.  I think I'll start going up to the research lab almost every day for a few hours.  I don't like feeling lazy.

Midterms, Madness, Mercies

This semester has been a really stressful one. My classes are not easy, and there's always something due in at least one of them. This week has been especially rough with 2 midterms and a large project due tomorrow.

I've been trying to organize my time better so that I can get more done, including homework, cleaning my room, preparing scholarship applications, serving in my calling, and having time to spend with friends. However, organization is one of the weaker points of my personality, and I can't seem to figure it out. This week I've just gone to school, then work, then as soon as I get home, I pull out the books and study until I go to bed. Kind of crazy.

This morning, I had to wake up even earlier than usual to get to school on time for one of the above-mentioned midterms (Differential Equations). I've been relying a lot on divine help to get me through this week and in general through my schooling. I've noticed a lot of help on exams and homework assignments, so much that I know that if I do my part, I'll be blessed. But this morning, Heavenly Father decided to reassure me of His love and willingness to help me in my life. I know this might sound so simple and coincidental, but to me it wasn't. I went out to my car, and as I was pulling out, I stopped for a second to close the garage door. In that second, I looked up at the bright, almost-full moon right outside my car window, and in that one second, a shooting star went flying right past the moon. I drove to school with a smile on my face.

I'm just thankful for a Heavenly Father who sends us tender mercies, even when we feel like we'd do OK without them.

Ultimate!

How have I not devoted a post to this sport yet? I've mentioned it (see "Sports") but I have more than just an interest in the game.

If you've read my profile, I explain very briefly that one of my greatest motivators is watching and imagining what people are capable of, physically, mentally, spiritually, etc. It is my belief that this is the reason why I love to play ultimate frisbee. There is something that happens automatically in my mind and (dare I say) even my soul, every time the frisbee goes up into the air. Immediately, subconsciously, my reaction is "Is it possible to catch?". I don't think it, it just happens, and I go. My favorite plays are when someone on my team throws the frisbee toward the endzone, but either they throw it too far, or they try to push my limits, and I have to really book it to even come close to the disc. As I run at full speed, it seems like the frisbee is so far out of my reach, I'll never get to it in time. It starts its inevitable descent, still yards in front of me, and just as it's about 6 inches from the ground, I dive, barely get my fingers under the edge, with my wrist just grazing the grass, and slide for a while with the disc in my hand. Mmmm...

Anyway, I've loved this sport ever since I first played. I think I was about 12 years old, maybe younger, and we went up to my Grandparents' house in Mt. Green. A bunch of my older cousins and uncles went down to the park to play. I'd never heard of it, so they explained the rules to me, and we played. I wasn't very good, so they didn't throw me the frisbee a lot, but when they did, and I caught it, I felt elated. Every time we went up there, I wanted to play again. One winter, I missed playing so much, that after a snow-storm, I geared up and headed over to the elementary school field with my dad's purple "Ripper" frisbee in my hand. The field was white (not already to harvest, covered in snow). I threw the frisbee as far as I could, and started rolling a snowball toward where I had thrown it. I got there, threw it again, and rolled the snowball. Eventually, it got to the point where I couldn't roll the snowball anymore, so I just threw the frisbee around a little. My dad and sis. came over and tried to help me move the snowball more, but it just cracked down the middle.

The next significant chunk of time we spent playing was in High School. We played a lot. About once every other week in the summer. Mostly, it was because people would say, "Hey, let's do something." Someone else would say "What?". Then I would say "Let's meet at Southwood [a park] and decide." I think I gained a few enemies out of our female friends at the time, because they hated playing all the time, but I just couldn't get enough. We played for hours and hours.

At one such game, the injury period began. It was 2 weeks before our Senior trip down to Lake Powell, just after we had graduated. I was running behind the ultimate wizard, trying to catch up before he grabbed the frisbee (which he did in the end). He tripped over something in the ground, his leg stuck out, and I tripped over his leg. Fell onto my left shoulder and broke my collar bone. That hurt.

At another game, I ran into a hill, and really hurt my foot. I couldn't walk on it for a while.

After my mission, the streak continued. A day or two before I reported on my mission in our Ward, I broke my thumb. Ran into another guy. I didn't think it was broken, until two weeks later when I finally went and got X-rays. Had to have surgery to fix the 35-degree angled thumb bone.

Just after my thumb healed, I got the torn cartilage in my knee stuck in the joint playing ultimate. Had to have surgery to sew the cartilage back together. 6 months of healing time.

It's been two years now since I've seriously injured myself playing ultimate. I kind of had to tone down my playing style to avoid those injuries, but I think it's smarter. We play about once a week, sometimes more. There was one week where I played about 11 hours of frisbee in 3 days, with 3 consecutive games (all unrelated). Basically, it's a passion of mine to play, especially with my friends from High School, and my Ward, (and the girls that come and play - awesome!).

The last significant thing, is that we (my High School friends + 1 and myself) won the Intramural championship at BYU. We got t-shirts. If I can, I'll post a picture later. Right here:


Anyway, I love the sport.

Wow, I think this is one of my longest posts. Hope you're not too bored.

Utah

I live in one of the greatest states ever.

Today, for work, I had to drive up to the U (not the campus, the letter). I had to go up there to take some pictures of a lot that someone wants to build a house on. Someone wealthy, obviously because the view is incredible up there. I could check how much taxes would be just on the lot, but I won't.

Last night, I went up to my Stake President's house for a Bishopric date night. When I say "up", I mean it. His house is the highest up the mountain just East of the I-215 3900 S exit. He has a pool that overlooks the whole valley, and we had a steak dinner out there, and then swam in the pool after watching the beautiful sunset. If I get the chance, I'll hook up my phone and post the picture of the sunset from it right here. It was amazing.

Also, tonight I'm headed up to the Uintah's for a campout with my friends from high school. It's an annual thing we do, and it's tons of fun!

So, with all this mountain stuff, I got to thinking about how many awesome things we have in this great state! Mountains, for hiking, camping, mountain biking, with rivers for floating, lakes for water skiing. Also, we have desert and hot dry air, which is my favorite. Lake Powell, which trumps anything you could argue for any other state. Plus, my family (including most of my extended family) lives here. Pretty much, I've got a great life, and a great location for my personality. I get to do all the awesome things that I love to do, all within an hour of my house.

Sweet.

Sports

I love playing. This week I've played a sport every night. Monday was volleyball and Tuesday and yesterday were both ultimate.

Volleyball - This was a stake FHE, and anyone could put together a team. I was lucky to be picked on the best one. We went undefeated.

Tues. Ultimate - BYU Coed Intramurals. We aren't undefeated this time. But, we won! We were playing a very good team, that had 3-5 subs, while we were down a player the whole game, and we won 12-5! That was a good feeling. We just beat them with our hustle.

Wed. Ultimate - This was just for fun, with friends from our ward and high school and everything. I love playing, and I can't stop until everyone's gone. Even then, I love to throw the disc around with a couple of people.

So anyways, last night, after all this ultimate and volleyball (both sports in which jumping is required), I felt the effects of not stretching. I was watching psych with my sister and her friend Jill, and I just stretched, and I got the WORST cramp/charlie horse in my calf! I couldn't relax my leg, and it killed and lasted around 5 minutes. I know I'm not old, but I guess I am getting older. Maybe I should stretch before and after I play...

The Begog

This is something new for me. I don’t know if my life is interesting enough for other people to read about, but it’s something to do in the very little spare time that I have, and it’s a good way for me to remember my life. I’m pretty bad at keeping a journal, so I thought maybe I’d try this whole blogging thing. My sisters really enjoy blogs, and have their own. You can check their blogs out too - cxclax.blogspot.com and c-bop.blogspot.com. You’ll soon find out that they are the coolest sisters ever (including Chelsey, even though she doesn’t have a blog “BLOG!” yet).

My parents are amazing as well, so put us all together, and you have the coolest family ever made!

Seriously though, we are the best.

Anyways… to start this thing off, I figure I’d better tell you how I got to be where I am now. I’ll keep it brief:

I was born in Ogden, Utah on January 28, 1986. I grew up in Murray, Utah all my life. I went to Murray High School, and then went to the University of Utah for a semester. I then served a 2-year mission in Donets’k, Ukraine. Now I’m back at the U, studying BioMedical Engineering. It’s such an exciting major. I love all of the classes that I’ve taken, and I’m excited for all the others I have to take!

I love waterskiing. It is my favorite hobby ever. I’ll probably put a few pictures on this of us at Lake Powell and elsewhere, enjoying glassy water. It’s ok to be jealous, just try to do your part to keep the water that way. I also love playing Ultimate Frisbee, and most other sports, including running, mountain biking, hiking, soccer, football, etc... Music is a big part of my life, and of course, the Church plays an important role in defining who I am.

So that’s me!