Who has inspired me.

When I think of all my teachers I have had throughout my educational career, there are many that come to mind of those who have inspired, lifted, and sacrificed a lot to help me. I think of the teachers that have actually taken an interest in my life. I remember my fourth grade teacher, Mrs Lambert who supported me and I took time to visit even after I got to High School. She came to my mission farewell when I left for Texas. She has to be my favorite teacher of all time. I know that with a lot my teachers, I will invite them to my wedding when it happens.

Of my Collegiate career though, there has only been a few teachers that have truly made an impact on me, and really driven me to want to get to know them, and for them to know me. Only a few have actually helped me think differently, loosen up, and have a lot more fun. One teacher that comes to my mind is Scott Newman.

Scott Newman has made a significant impact on how I approach things in my life. I have only had one class with him this semester, but the way that he has taught has shown me how much he really cares about his students. Not only does he apply his own life experiences with his lessons, he encourages that we do the same. I have really come to love his teaching style, his personality, and his love for the gospel. He is such a great example of someone who understands the principles of the gospel and the scriptures and carries that into his own life and in business. 

I am so thankful that Scott Newman has been led to teach at the LDS College, and that he is the head of the business management department at the college, so I can continue to work with him through my continuing education.

Thank You Brother Newman!!

becoming a dentist

Becoming a dentist is not a cheap expense. I have been able to use my own money, to go to school thus far. I have been through 3 semesters of college and spent roughly $5,000. This has been my own money and I haven't had to take any loans or grants, scholarships or anything yet. I feel accomplished in that sense, but my bank account begs to differ. That is $5000 worth of investment that won't pay back very quick. Because of the long-term goal of being a dentist, it makes it difficult for me to work while going to school and still be on targeted schedule in 8 years.

The only way I can do that is to take out loans for school starting with my next semester of school and pursue that for the remainder of my educational career. The average dentist right out of school and ready to practice is in student debt $250,000. A QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS!! There is no way I would be able to earn that much and pay for it myself. Thus my desire to be a dentist is a major road block to starting a family.

When I go on dates, and finding out more about  the girl I'm dating, we usually get to the topic of careers. Dentistry is a huge appeal to a woman because it is such a high-return job. They feel they would have security in their lives. What they don't realize or have counted is the cost. In the girls I've dated none could truly be in a job/career that would make it so  we could live on one income consistently, and with me part time, for 8 years. In the logistics mindset, it is stupid to start a family with someone who is still in school like me and will have a large amount of debt in addition to my own. In the Eternal aspect, it's nothing but a small set back.

I find it incredulously difficult to discern between my thoughts of not being ready for marriage because of money and providing or if it really is just me. I know God gave us brains to think for ourselves, and as such has left for us to choose. That includes using the thought process that is given to us to know whether something is a good idea or not. In my life, i  go back and forth constantly. It is an amazing idea, but i just don't know. There are so many variables in my life right now, and will be more and more variables later in life.

work, school and life

Over the years I have struggled and wrestled to find a career that would suit me. It would be something I enjoy, find intriguing, growth is available, and most importantly would allow me to be with my family during the nights. That includes not bringing home work with me. The second was to be home on the weekends to go to church and to serve in callings i am placed in. And third, to provide the things in life that we can enjoy the things God sees fit to give us. This is all future tense of course. I don't have kids, I don't have a wife, a house, a car, Heck,  I don't even have a college degree.

I am 22 Years old, with some work experience, A High School Diploma, and 300 Dollars to my name. Let me tell you how stressful and unsatisfying it is to be in this position. Yeah, I know, there are people worse off than me. But that's the thing, I'm part of the group that people who are way ahead of me reference to when they say,  "well there is someone less fortunate than you." IM THE ONE LESS FORTUNATE!! It is this very thing that makes life difficult for me to face. I face it though.

My goal is be a dentist. I decided I would do it,  well because I decided i would. It met the requirements I listed above and I chose to pursue it. Now back to real life here, I have just about finished my first full year in College. With my choice in school I will be able to receive an applied Associates degree by 2017. But that is a non-transferrable degree. Universities will only accept the credit hours they want. I may have to take the same classes again only because I didn't get an Associates of Science. Thus I will have to spend one more semester at the college. Thus obtaining a 2 year, 4 semester degree, in 5 semesters and 2 1/2 years.

Single Adults in Utah

One of the most exciting but stressful things being a young, single adult here in Utah is Marriage.  Marriage is of course the culmination of the years in making a decision for the rest of your life. In Utah, singles my age get married particularly young. My sister was married when she was 19 or 20, I don't quite remember. I am almost 22 and not married. Now im not trying to complain at all about not being married, but what I am saying is that there is this ginormous expectation to be married and I know I'm not ready for it.

It's not that I don't want to be married, I do, like really bad. I can't wait to have those experiences with a hot woman that I love, and that loves me back. I honestly have as a goal, that on my wedding night, as we are about to leave the reception with all the people having showed up, just before we are about to get in the car, I will yell with great confidence with my new bride next to me, "I'm going to go home, and SLEEP WITH MY WIFE!!!!"

Before that even happens though, dating has to occur. I mentioned in a post prior that Marriage is the next step in life after having come home from a mission -- I understand that. But at times, it is hard to fit or even measure up to the expectation everyone has of getting married. Why is everyone so different? I have friends,  some companions from the mission that are already married, engaged, dating  steadily,  dating casually, and then single. EVERY PHASE! I don't know what they have done to be able to get to that point where they have found who  they want to be with and then go for it.

I have dated a couple of girls since being home, one of which I was for sure I was going to marry, but it didn't feel right, and with time it proved to be so. Many of the things we considered were goals and aspirations in life.  Careers, friends, family, hobbies, testimony, church service, a lot of things. We matched in many of those categories and we were attracted to each  other, but I began to feel that we just like the physical closeness we had. Or at least that's how I felt. I began to just want to be with her because she would hold me, kiss me, and comfort me. All of that we had in common began to be immaterial to me. I was nice, but i saw that I didn't want that. The way my life is planned, it didn't make a lot of sense. I feel that I won't be married for some time because the way I have planned my life.

My life

Right now in my life, I  have a lot going on. It is so stressful to get things done in my life that it makes it hard to prioritize sometimes. I get distracted by other things, caught up in the things I need to do, or more often than not I just ignore it. My plate is filled with these things:

1. I go to school 4 days a week Monday through Thursday
1. Leading to countless hours of homework, reading, and projects.
2. I work as a Valet on Saturdays 3:30pm-11pm
3. I serve as the Ward Mission Leader in my singles's Ward
1. As such I go out with the missionaries every wednesday
2. I go out to visit members during the week, and try to encourage ward missionaries to do the same
3. I go to ward council and am responsible to help carry out the ward mission plan
4. I serve in the Temple on Fridays from 4-9 but in reality I don't get home until 10 sometimes.

Because of these and probably many other small reasons, I am unable to do all I want, when I want it. Being with friends is difficult because I've got something going on. Dating is near impossible because I have something going on. SOMETHING IS ALWAYS GOING ON!! It's stressful, it's overwhelming, and its not fun. 

I feel like I should have complete control of my life, but because I am stretched so thin, my life is controlling me. In a recent meeting with one of my stake Leaders, I described to him  my busy schedule, and of course I said everything is fine, it's difficult to tell you priesthood leaders that things aren't good -- you just don't want to be a burden. But at any rate,  I told him about my life, and he asked if I'm dating, and i said, "where i can fit it in." He responded that I had to make that a priority in my week. It is the next ordinance that I  am trying to prepare for, but I don't feel like i am at all in a position to do that. I will talk about that in another post. 

All in all the advice he gave me was to cut out things. "For it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength"(Mosiah 4:27). The thing that he advised should be the first thing to cut out is serving in the Temple on Fridays. over the course of the Four months working there, I have come to love serving in the temple as an ordinance worker. I love all the old people I serve with and they love me. It's like I have this vast wealth of knowledge, accumulating into over hundreds of years of experience and they are free to give it. I get advice, knowledge, and fun conversation from them. I love being on the Friday Shift at the temple, and i understand what my stake leader was  telling me, but I still cant find where in my life I can relieve the stress.

Conference With a Social twist

General Conference was such an amazing time for inspiration and guidance. I had a different experience than I had in years past because I had focused on looking for short and inspirational quotes and sayings to use on my social media platforms. I mainly used Twitter because of the quickness of posting during the conference. I was able to create word art and take a few pictures as well. I found that Posting on Instagram and twitter while using the #ldsconf and other related hashtags, gave more traffic on my accounts. I gained more followers and more likes because I was posting content that was relatable to the events going on at that time.

The best engagement I had was on Instagram. I took a picture of my conference crepes that we make for conference each year on the first Saturday session. There were a lot of people who liked it, commented on it, and even started following me because they like crepes, conference and it was relatable. On twitter, I had less engagement, but still enough to see how everyone was using the relatable content from conference to get more engagement.

Unfortunately I didn’t do this for all the sessions of conference, I spent more time paying attention to what was being said. I understand the importance of social media and using it to promote and share relatable content in the moment it is being used. But I felt like I wasn’t paying attention to what was being said because I was focusing on posting to my platforms and so I didn’t do it for all the sessions because I missed a lot that was said. So I can see things getting out of control with posting during conference. It did feel fun like a competition to see who could post what was just said first and then everyone would see it and repost it – I did enjoy that.

Overall, using social media during conference was a great way for me to  expand how to share the gospel on social media. I can see it just blowing up others’ social media and that is all they see. Obviously they will do something about it, but from what I learned there are a lot of people engaged on social media that want to help others share that content that is shared. I found it very exciting for my phone to be constantly buzzing with notifications. There were so many things to share and repost, or retweet, and it was amazing to be involved with that big buzz. I found that the hashtag #ldsconf had become trending right as conference started and remained trending on twitter for the entire length of the conference. It was amazing to see how many people use this opportunity to share with others their beliefs and what they are doing. It definitely helps me see the easiness it is to share the gospel on social media and inviting others to participate. With more and more people on social media, it makes it easy to share the gospel and show others how easy it is. 

Easter- A time to Reflect on Jesus Christ

Easter. A time to reflect on The Lord  Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for us -- As a whole, and individually. I love the Easter Season so much. It makes me sad that people don't think about the eternal significance as much as they do at the Easter Season. Which is why I  love the Church's Easter campaigns. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints have many campaigns issued during the year - Christmas, Easter, New Years, Mother's Day, but Easter I feel is the one campaign that can last throughout the year. Easter is about the sacrifice of Christ and his rising from the grave and conquering all. That is a message worth rejoicing about all the time. And I feel that the Campaign that the church initiated helps with that.

The Hashtags create a particular feel about the longevity of the campaign. For instance, #Hallelujah is a perfect example of something that is tied to a specific subject, but is not tied to a particular time of the year like, #Heisthegift(The church's Christmas campaign).  This Hallelujah effort from my observation has reached many people, and for a good reason. I've seen many non-members and members alike share their testimonies, experiences, and feelings about the Savior and hashtagging Hallelujah. It is simple, and it is powerful.

In my opinion, the song sung by the tabernacle choir with a whole bunch of other people, should not have been the Hallelujah chorus. Yes, it's Hallelujah, and that's the campaign. But that song has always been tied to Christmas for me. It's the classic Messiah chorus that comes only once a year at Christmas. What could have been better is doing an Easter song, or something more apart from Christmas songs. I would have suggested, He is Risen, or I believe in Christ. Variations of the songs would have made it great, but it would have tied it more particularly to the campaign and not to Christmas like it is in my head.

My participation in the campaign was not the best- I'll say that. However I did participate and I feel good about what I did share. I started with sharing a personal testimony of how I feel about Jesus Christ and what He has done for me, followed by sharing my favorite video about the Savior(an Easter campaign by the church BecauseofHim). I love videos. I think that is way to get people moved and doing something about things. While in my social media ing on the interweb, i found another video entitled, "He's Still Risen." This was not a video produced by the church though. A Christian group had put it together focusing on how we should feel about the Savior at Easter. It put a modern day look at it too, making it relatable. I  simply shared the video saying that I agree with it and posting the church hashtag #hallelujah. I  don't know how much of an impact my two posts have been, but I love the idea of always acting as if the Savior was risen today.

Click here to see the two videos:

Because of Him

He's Still Risen
This one gets me right in the feels