P4 (as I wipe away a tear)

Ahh, P4 how dear you were to our hearts.

A nice weekend in Laramie

Some of you know my two roommates, Kathy and Gretchen. They are excellent people. I went to their family's house this weekend in Laramie to help out with the 5K that their dad runs, as I mentioned last week.
Anyway, when I go up they always put me in their older brother Karl's old room. In that room there's this cute picture of their family. I put Gretchen at about 3 or 4 and Kathy at about 6 or so.

Isn't it a cute picture? The funny thing is that they both still make these faces. I think that's why the picture's so funny to me. Anyway, I posted that up for those of you that know K & G.
Kathy runs the 5K every year that she's actually in the U.S. She improved her time this year over the last couple of years. But she was still beat out by a 77-year-old named Dorothy who has had 2 reconstructive knee surgeries. We can't hold this against K too much because the Dorothy tends to be in the top 25% of the racers. She beats out 25-year-old men.
They did spoil me with some good German food: Schnitzel for lunch and Rouladen for dinner. Rouladen was my request. You should all try it. Or you could try it with some mustard. It's really good stuff.
So we're back in Provo and that's frustrating to me. We were this close to staying for an extra day. But then we were responsible and came home. Oh well.

With my eyes closed

I realized something about myself a while back that I think is sorta goofy. As many people know, I don't go to bed until it's really, really late. So late in fact that there are times that I'm going to bed and my mom is just waking up. I've told her she should give me a call so that we can chat. But I digress. Since I'm the last one to bed every night in my apartment, I'm the one who turns off any of the lights that are still on. We have a hall light whose switch is just to the right of Kathy's room and my room is just to its left. Often this is the last light that I turn off before heading to my room to go to bed. When I turn this light off I also shut my eyes once the light is off and walk to my bedroom with my eyes closed and don't open them until I've turned on another light. I've realized that I almost always do this at my apartment. When I turn off the last light, I close my eyes until I arrive at my desired destination, choosing to be totally blind. It's the weirdest thing. I'm pretty sure that I've done this for a long time.

Off to Laramie

G, K and I are off to their hometown of Laramie, Wyoming. The Hapi-Ness 5K is this weekend and G & K's dad's in charge of it. The Rimmasches are fun people, but they have this rabbit. I tell you, she's a hater. She seems all nice and what not, but really all she does is hide from you unless you're a Rimmasch. Her name's Ruthy, and until she hated on me last year, that's what I called her. But after the hating and hiding, I now pronounce her name in Portuguese, which sound a whole lot like "hoochie." I garner the ire of G & K every time. She's a real hater. But "she's so pretty," as Gretchen likes to remind me.
Have a fun weekend. Maybe I'll get a chance blog. I'll let you know how the race went.

Action, moving, doing something and being okay

A couple of days ago FoxyJ wrote an excellent post about the "The Celestial Perpetual Motion Machine." It struck me as very fascinating. She always would say fascinating things as we would gather at the computers in the office. The biggest reason why it hit me was because I'd been thinking about the same things as of late. Honestly, though, I've been thinking about this since October or so of 2000 when I was a greenie in the mission field.
A while back I was talking with a friend of mine about his fear of not moving forward and acting because he was so afraid of making a wrong decision that he was tied down by catatonic, "I-might-make-a-wrong-choice" fear. While none of us want to make wrong decisions, inaction is just as damning. Why? Damnation means a stop in progression. When we're not moving forward, we're at least stopped, even if we're not taking steps backward.
Thinking back to my parents and the way that they raised me has taught me how the Lord helps us. My parents were really good at teaching me to make my own decisions and then at letting me make them. They were also very good at holding back for a little while to see if I'd correct myself and come back to a good path in life. (I mean this spiritually and well as everything else.) If I weren't coming back to where I should be, my parents would bring me back.
Have you ever felt this with our Father in Heaven? We're all given the Light of Christ to help us make decisions that will bring us happiness. In my mind this also teaches us that when we stray a little bit, we know. And when we've wandered off a short distance or a long way away, God will try to bring us back.
So what does this have to do with inaction and moving? Well, if we're not moving, we're not going forward on the path to happiness, we're not making decisions that will help us draw closer to our Father in Heaven. We're not even making the wrong choices so that we can recognize them, come back/be brought back and then learn from them. Now don't go off saying that Vanessa said that it's okay to sin a little and we'll get our stripes and then we're hunky-dory. What I'm saying is that we're human and we're going to make mistakes. Why not be moving forward when we make these mistakes? Then when we're brought back we'll have some good, forward-moving inertia.
The crux of my run-on blog is that we should have the courage to move forward. I really feel that our Father in Heaven trusts is to make right decisions, otherwise why would He have sent us here? I also believe that He knew that we'd make mistakes, so we have a Savior. But have you ever noticed that the more that you move forward, the more you make use of the Atonement of the Savior? I think it's just that we're becoming more sensitive to better choices and recognize more often how to correct our behavior.

And honestly, this belief that I need to keep moving forward--if for nothing else to someday have things be alright--this belief that acting and doing something has been what's kept me going over these last few, somewhat turbulent weeks. Even though I really enjoy my thesis (see here), it's not easy. It can be really hard. But I'm forcing myself forward because I refuse to stop anymore. I want to be happy. One of my favorite scriptures is 2 Nephi 5:27 And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness. I think that scripture encapsulates everything. Maybe I should've just posted that. Remember that 2 Nephi 5 comes right after Nephi's psalm and "O wretched man that I am!" in chapter 4. Nephi's bemoaning his mistakes. And they're fleeing from the Lamanites. And their family's been torn in two. Yet, they're happy. I think this is a very telling part of the Book of Mormon.
We can be happy too, even in all of our struggles. I think that a lot of this is simply desire to be good, looking to God and then having the courage to go forward.

There. I'm done. Sorry about the hugely long blog entry. If you're reading this sentence right now, I'm really impressed that you made it this far.

You ever had too much fun with a camera?

Click here.

Life Goals and sandwiches

Over the weekend I had two more of those yummy sandwiches, btw. But I think I'm going to try to be a little bit more moderate. (wink wink)

My sister Laurel shared us the list of her life's goals. Some were serious like, get married in the temple, graduate BYU w/ a certain GPA, etc. But she also had some funny ones like own a Kate Spade purse and a Kate Spade diaper bag. She's a funny kid.

So I've started thinking about some of my life's goals. I've decided to periodically blog about them as I figure out (or remember) what they are. I'm not a big goal setter, so this might not be that big of a deal. Oh, and these aren't going to be in any particular order. (like #11 being #11, and #12 being #12)

1-Go to Portugal
2-Go to Spain **The link is to Madrid's POST OFFICE!!
3-Go to France
(I put those there so I can cross them off)
4-Finish my thesis
5-Defend my thesis
6-Do a good job defending my thesis.
7-Be sufficiently organized
8-Own a 6-speed manual transmission
9-Own a more responsible car, like a hybrid or something
10-Learn more languages
(I think I'll make a separate blog for language wishes)
11-Get married in the temple
12-Have a family
13-Play baseball with this family
14-Go to a lot of baseball stadiums like Camden Yards, Fenway, Arlington, Shea, SBC Park, Wrigley Field, Dodger Stadium, Minute Maid Park (even though it has the stupid center field hill), and, if all were right in the world, Ebbets Field, and the Polo Grounds. But alas, all is not right in the world.
--Now before anybody freaks out, I've been to The Coliseum, Yankee Stadium, The Metrodome, and the old Tigers Stadium already.
15-I'd have my very own field in my backyard to have family games and invite the neighbors over.