Bike rides = bonding

This evening I went on a bike ride with a friend. It was a short little ride, but just what I needed. It was so nice to be outside after being inside most of the day stressing over my assignments and other things. And it was nice to have good company. We enjoyed catching up on each other's lives, observing a herd of deer (I'm pretty sure I counted ten!), and breathing in the fresh air emanating from the groves of fruit trees that we rode past.

My friend observed that bike rides are wonderful things and that she's had some special moments riding bikes with other people. I would have to agree. Some of the most pleasant times that I've had have been spent riding my bike with a friend.

Little Snail

When I got home from work this evening the grass was wet from the rain. It was dark, so it wasn't until I got inside under the dim lights of my basement apartment that I noticed a little friend who had attached himself to my shoe.

It was the cutest little snail I've ever seen: his little snail body so transparent that I could see his internal organs and his shell so delicate that it could have been a thin layer of crystallized sugar.

So, I had to document this little guy before I released him onto the leaf of a tulip plant. I wonder how long it will take him to grow into a big snail. What do snails even eat? And I wonder what he will do in the winter. Maybe he'll stay huddled up in his little shell until he defrosts in the spring? I sure would like to know.

The last year and a half

I figure there should be some kind of explanation about what I did the last year and a half. But, the task intimidates me, so that's why I've put it off for so long. I just don't think a single blog post could do it justice, so that's why until now I haven't attempted.

Anyway, here goes my attempt at the impossible...

February 2009, Missionary Training Center. I spent two months there learning Indonesian.

May - July 2009 in the cleanest city on earth: Singapore.

I spent the next nine months in Sibu, East Malaysia.

In Sibu I became acquainted with sitting on the floor, riding a bike in a skirt, in the rain, mud and floods and also had the opportunity to meet many wonderful people and to see how the gospel changed their lives.

(Pictured above is a family we taught. They were pretty young and had four kids. Precela and Vijay are bouncing their two youngest children in these slings attached to springs hooked up to the ceiling. Pretty much everyone uses these nifty devices.)

This is Rose, a tiny thirty-something-year-old mother and her shirtless, deaf, five-year-old daughter and their nine-year-old neighbor. Rose is illiterate, but was able to feel peaceful about what we taught her and felt comforted when she prayed at night. She impressed us by going against her mother's wishes and continuing to learn from us and eventually being baptized.

This is Senia, one of the women we taught who was baptized. She cooked this monitor lizard for us to eat. It was actually pretty good.

She also cooked us cuttlefish, dog, and snake.

I spent my last three months in Miri, East Malaysia.

This is how they barbecue chicken: feathers, bones and all.

They pluck the feathers while it cooks.

So, there's the super condensed version! I had other pictures I wanted to upload, but I didn't plan this post very well and it's too hard to rearrange pictures in these posts, so... oh well! It was a great year and a half. I learned a lot and met a lot of amazing people. They didn't have much, but they were happy. And those who accepted the gospel had what was most important.

If you are curious about what we taught people, or even why someone in their right mind would want to go half way around the world to only communicate with their family once a week via email and twice a year via telephone go here. It was definitely one of the hardest things I've done, but also one of the best.

I wouldn't have done it had I not known the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is true and had I not seen the blessings in my life that have come from accepting the gospel and living it.

Plea from a pack rat (part II)

When I wasn't making any progress in my attempt to throw things away and I was feeling pretty discouraged, I finally humbled myself and asked my dad for his assistance. If you know how my dad is about throwing things away, then you would know that this was a big step for me, because he throws pretty much everything away. He is the antithesis of a pack-rat.

So, he reasoned with me that I should throw away all my notes from classes and that I should even get rid of old text books, unless I had reason to believe that I would ever be needing them or using them again. He said he saved one text book from his college days that he really liked, but even that he never looked at. His reasoning for getting rid of so much is that we live in an information age where pretty much anything can be found on the internet, or the library, and most textbooks become obsolete within a few years anyway.

So, that helped me to throw away a LOT of notes quickly without even thinking twice or regretting it (I haven't regretted it yet, and I don't plan on it!). It also helped me to get rid of my geology text book which I had contemplated keeping since I had enjoyed that class so much.

Then I came up with a little criterion of my own for throwing away notes to talks at church and devotionals and such. My dad had already convinced my to throw away (or send to the recycling) my Ensigns that I had been collecting, under the reasoning that they can all be found online, hence there is no need for me to be collecting them. When I turned to my notes I thought, I haven't looked over these recently, if at all, and if they meant a lot to me I should have or could have written about them in my journal. So, that enabled me to send them to the recycling without any pain. They have served their purpose, as have the rest of my notes, and must no longer add to my clutter.

When I see how much I have been able to eliminate, I feel that a burden is being lifted. I'm finally accomplishing what I've been wanting to do for so long. It will soon be done with, never to hold me back again, and I will be able to move on to other things.

Some things I wrote down to help me stay on track with my purging:

Simplify
Be brutal
Be realistic
Feel good and don't look back

Plea from a pack rat

Does anyone have advice for making oneself throw things away? I've been going through some old things that I've saved, that some would say without hesitation, throw them out! Burn them! Dispose of them immediately! Rid yourself of such burdensome sentimentality. Such silliness!

But, as determined as I was to do just that before I approached this task, I am now caught in uncertainty and hesitation over questions of whether I might be doing humanity a disservice by destroying valuable personal history.... But, really, I must tell myself to be reasonable! I'm pretty sure humanity will not care that I throw a few letters away... I've done it before. And please be realistic! Humanity, not even my own children, will ever care about this stuff I'm hanging onto.

Ok, so, I think I've built a pretty good case for the trash can.... Let's try this again!

A bit of heaven

Last week I went to Lake Tahoe with my parents.

We skied at their favorite resort: Heavenly.

As we were enjoying the beautiful scenery, my mom thought it would be fun to come up with poems. Here's what I came up with:

A Poem For Heavenly

The snow magnifies the sun in a brilliant white that blinds and mesmerizes.
Trees laden with heavy coats of snow bend stiffly in unison,
Frozen in their downwind stretch.
And a layer of this beautiful stuff softly covers the mountain Heavenly,
Making white fluff to hem the sky and to border the big blue lake.

That probably isn't very good poetry, but I thought I'd give it a try. I think that's the first poem I've written since my creative writing class... or maybe not. I really like Angie's poems, so I thought if I ever expect to be able to compose a poem that well, I better start practicing! My parents wrote poems too and maybe I can get a hold of them and post them too.

Places to be in NYC and DC

I spent the last two weeks visiting my siblings, siblings-in-laws and nephew in Arlington, Virgina; and Queens, New York. While I was there I enjoyed seeing what each place had to offer, which is quite a lot. So, if you ever find yourself in the cities of D.C. and N.Y., here are some things you might enjoy seeing and doing:

D.C. area:

• visiting the Arlington Cemetary (it's huge! and it's really peaceful)
• going to some museums (there are TONS of great museums. This time we went to the Freer Gallary of art, but ones that I've enjoyed on previous visits were the Smithsonian, the Holocaust Memorial Museum and the International Spy Museum.)
• Great Falls Park
• Going for a stroll/run/bike-ride or whatever you please along the Potomac river. This time of year there are a lot of nice looking geese, but I think the spring would be the ideal time to go with all the cherry blossoms. I've never seen it, but pictures look incredible.
• Etc., etc., etc.

NYC

• attend a performance at Carnagie Hall
• outdoor ice skating, that is, if it's winter. We went to Bryant Park which offers free ice skating if you have your own skates and then $12 rentals if you don't. That was the best deal we could find. Other places charged around$14 to skate on weekends, plus an additional $6 to rent. But, if you happen to have your own skates, it might be worth it to check out the Lasker or Wollman rinks in central park. It's actually only $4 dollars to be admitted to the Lasker rink, but I didn't see what it would have cost to rent.
• Visit the MoMA and the MET. Both museums are huge! The MoMA is free Friday nights, but very crowded. The MET is a suggested donation.
• Eat out at a Thai or Indian restaraunt. If you prefer a different kind of food, New York has everything. One night we ate at a place in Queens called Donovan's Pub, which is an Irish pub. They serve some pretty great burgers, and some would say the best in all of Manhattan. We also had some Tomales from a street vendor which were great.
  
• take a run on the Brooklyn Bridge.
  

There's a LOT more to do than that, but those are just some starters.

Christmas surf

I'm grateful for a sister and sister-in-law who inspired me to put on my wetsuit and brave the cold ocean water on Christmas day. I debated it for a long time, but I am glad that my hesitation didn't get the best of me. I decided that I really wanted to go out into the waves, even if I didn't know that I did. And I decided that I would regret it if I didn't. So, I squeezed into my wet suit and took a turn with our fun sized surf board. The water was cold, but not too bad. The waves were really good and I managed to stand up twice, which is an exciting accomplishment for me. Even if I might not have regretted it if I hadn't given it a try, having tried it and having achieved some success, I was glad that I did it. It was one of those occasions where I was glad that I overcame my lazier and less adventurous inclinations and left my zone of inhibiting comfort to realize the excitement of something that I had almost considered too much effort to be worth it.

Singapore is a nice place...

I just got my mission call today! I will be serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Singapore mission, which also includes Malaysia. I will be speaking the Indonesian language, which my roommate tells me is Bahasa. It's a weird feeling to finally know where I am going. I had not expected something so exotic. It's exciting!!!! I hardly have a clue about anything regarding the culture or language. So, I'm going to learn a lot! The challenge now will be to focus on finishing up the semester without getting too antsy.

Telos Turkey Tri

Last Saturday I did the Telos Turkey Tri in Orem, UT. It was way fun and I felt pretty accomplished afterword, although I felt pretty whipped too. The running was definitely the hardest part for me. There was also a killer hill that we had to climb twice for the cycling portion. I had to walk my bike up the hill or else I probably would have rolled backwards down it trying to bike it. Then, I got a pretty bad charley horse in my calf trying to hop back onto my bike (it was my friend's road bike, and I think it was probably a tad bit too big. Despite that, it made all the difference in the race. Road bikes are fast! I love riding them).

The procedes from the triathlon are going towards funding the registration for Team Telos in their upcoming events. I didn't know that much about it before, but was pretty impressed when I learned that Team Telos helps get youth into doing triathlons. I think that's a brilliant cause. I am a firm believer in the benefits of physical activities. In my own life, I have enjoyed the added energy and endorfines that come from exercise. Triathlons, or any race or sport for that matter, are great because they give you a goal to work towards and they help develop character. If kids were to be more involved in sports, boredom wouldn't be as much of a problem and concequently drug usage and crime would also become less problematic. People would have more ambition and self confidence and would take better care of the God-given gifts that are their bodies. So, koodos to Team Telos for helping kids get involved in triathlons.

Bugs!

I am cohabitating with box elder bugs-- there are many of them.

Timpanogos

Today I hiked Mt. Timpanogos with my roommate and another friend. We started climbing around 2 am. We finished around 1 pm. Given that we had a two hour detour in the beginning where we headed off on the wrong trail, we made pretty good time.

It was a beautiful hike and I really liked starting it in the dark and then finishing in the light. It was pretty cloudy and it rained a little, so we weren't too hot. At the top it was really windy and cold. A lot of storm clouds were blowing by and there was some lightning, so we weren't sure if we should venture all the way to the top. But it was too hard for us to leave after hiking so long without reaching the summit, so we risked being struck by lightning to finish the hike. It was worth it. The view was incredible and I felt incredibly small atop such a large mountain.

It was definitely one of my most exciting hikes. On the way down we got pelted by little balls of hail and lightning struck way close. But, we survived.