Successful Activities

I was a Family Home Evening group leader this semester for church, which meant I was responsible for organizing some sort of spiritual enlightenment and activity once a week for a group of people I go to church with.

There were a couple of things we did that went well, so I'm going to share them.

Creating

I think one of the biggest worries of people my age is what to do with your life. So, one week, we started by reading a few quotes from this amazing talk about finding your life's calling.

Then we watched a video that my sister Emmy posted on her blog awhile back. A "Mormon Message" about creating. Because that's what we're doing. Even homework is creating, and creating is divine.

Then, for the activity, we sculpted ice cream. (Do you see a theme?) For the treat, we ate ice cream, but not the same ice cream that was sculpted.

We bought ice cream in cartons, so you can just peel away the carton, and then bring out the figure within it (with spoons, knives, and other kitchen implements). The theme was Disney characters.

This is Lumière (Beauty and the Beast)

This was supposed to be Simba, but the way it turned out, we decided it could be a character from Brother Bear.
Mater, from Cars. (Sideways--sorry about that.)

Bridge

I learned a few things during this past General Conference. One of them was that we just need to keep being consistent and doing the little things. Another was a story told in Neil L. Andersen's talk. He talked about how we need to not get offended about little things. He told a story about how Parley P. Pratt had been offended when he was doing what was right but was "judged unfairly." When it happened, Joseph Smith told him, "Parley...walk such things under your feet...[and] God Almighty shall be with you."

That phrase stuck with me: Walk such things under your feet.

So, for a family home evening lesson, I passed out a little piece of scrap paper to each person, and a sticky note to each person. I found the whole Parley P. Pratt story in his autobiography posted online, and read bits of it.

Then, I asked each person to write a challenge to faith. I told them it could be a personal challenge, an offense, a commandment, whatever had challenged their faith. And that no one was going to read these.

I then asked them to take the sticky note and write on it one thing they learned in General Conference that we should do. This might be following the prophet, praying, reading the scriptures, etc. (And that we would be reading these)

I had set two chairs facing each other, and told them that this was our "bridge of faith." I asked them to crumple their scrap paper and throw it under the "bridge," and then stick their sticky note on the bridge. We talked about how doing things to develop faith--the things they had learned to do at General Conference--can help you overcome the things that challenge your faith. To "walk them under your feet."

And then I asked if anyone wanted to cross the bridge. A few of the guys did it.

"Um, excuse me..."

So I biked to school this morning. I always bike to school, on the eBike that I got from my cousin (thanks to my parents). I had just got onto lower campus and was going up a hill to get to my class.

I was also running late, and was trying to go quickly. Another bike came up beside me, and the girl riding said something to me. I was listening to my iPod, so I couldn't quite here her. (I assumed it was a comment about my bike, since a surprising number of strangers ask me about it. In fact, that's the only thing people talk to me about while I'm riding a bike.)

I took out an earphone, and what she was saying was, "Did you know there's a bra hanging off your backpack?" The answer to this question was obviously no (in fact, I just about ran into her at this point). I stopped, took off my backpack, and--sure enough--there it was, hanging from a bottle of water I had in one of the water bottle holders.

Yep.

I tried to replay in my mind the people I had gone past. I couldn't remember passing anyone I recognized--besides the nice Jehovah's Witness man who stands at the entrance to campus and passes out copies of The Watchtower most mornings. I tried to think of where it all broke down. What was the fatal decisive moment? Was it buying a bottle of water the other day (I had felt guilty for that, plastic bottles ruining the earth and all). Was it not putting all of my laundry away last night? Was it getting up to late to not be in a hurry this morning? The implications of what would have happened--possibilities of riding through campus with a bra hanging off my backpack, of walking into class with it--also went through my mind.

And so I want to emphasize my gratitude to that girl on the bike, who saved a bit of my dignity. She instilled in me a resolve to tell people the things they don't realize, whether they have food in their teeth or toilet paper stuck to their shoe. I, in turn, urge you to do the same.

The awkward people of the world will thank you.

Most Recent Life: Fort, Spark

I've had a few recent blog realizations. One, I'm a little more interested in my blog again. Two, I don't have particularly interesting things to blog about. Three, I really enjoy reading other people's blogs, even if they are just about every-day stuff.

So, I'm blogging about some kind of mundane stuff.

The Fort.
So my roommates and I got a group date together. There was much deliberation about what we would do for this date (which gave me a new respect for guys who plan dates). After much discussion, we decided to build a fort. In our living room.

The fort wasn't looking to be very exciting until one of the guys suggested we turn the couch on end. We did that, and put a chair on the table, strung sheets off the ceiling and from the door and the refrigerator, put all the couch cushions on the ground and had a picnic in the fort. The picture hopefully gives you some idea of how it all went down. Spark.
My friend Jessica gave me a Groupon to Spark Restaurant Lounge for my birthday. I went there Friday night with some friends (the group would have included Jessica, except she lives in Salt Lake, not Provo, the location of Spark Restaurant Lounge and of me). It's quite the place. I was going to lift a picture of someone's Flickr photostream, but I'll just let you click the link. They set our places at the end of a long, black table. Kind of like medieval dining. We all felt chic. My friend Natalie got a Shirley Temple. It was described in the menu as having a "cotton candy cap." We all wondered what on earth this meant, until she got it. Basically, it's what it sounds like. There was fluffy cotton candy on a stick stuck in the drink like a flag. Quite the garnish.

The Trip, Part II

Some more pictures from the trip--this one of the Hill Cumorah. It really is the tallest thing around--a spectacular view from on top. Several people elected to roll down it. I declined. A set of keys to one of the rental cars was lost in the process (and quickly found).
We drove from Palmyra, New York, to Kirtland, Ohio. Everyone learned the Erie Canal song ("I've got an old mule and her name is Sal...") on the way. It was sung several times during the trip. We stopped at one of the locks on the actual canal. It's still used for shipping and recreation.
A reconstruction of the John Johnson farm in Hiram, Ohio, where the Church was officially founded on April 6, 1830 (a Tuesday). The other building on this site is half a visitors' center and half a meeting house for the area.
And we went to Kirtland, Ohio. The Kirtland Temple was a highlight of the trip for me. It's currently owned and maintained by the Community of Christ, a break-off from the LDS Church. They also run several of the sites in Nauvoo, and they had some big-wig guides for our group. One was one of their major scholars, and the other the director of all their sites in Nauvoo. I appreciated their work to maintain these common aspects of our heritage and their explanations of their beliefs, but that wasn't why I so loved visiting the Kirtland Temple.

A lot of amazing things happened in the Kirtland Temple while the saints were there. There are reports of miraculous things happening at the two packed dedication services. Later, Christ, Moses, Elijah, and others appeared here. And though not all the ordinances we have in the temple were performed until the saints were in Nauvoo (so after the days of the Kirtland Temple), it was the first temple of the new dispensation--it opened this age of temple work. I felt such a special peace being inside it, and I felt close to and grateful to those who worked so hard for it.

It's a big building, and I got the impression that it's very delicate. There are three levels: two huge meeting rooms (with pew boxes and benches that could be shifted to face either way) on the first two floors, and offices upstairs. The main level meeting room was for everyone, the second level was for priesthood meetings and training. The upstairs offices were used by the First Presidency, but also used as a school on weekdays open to anyone.
On the way to dinner that night, we stopped to see Symons Ryder's grave. He was an early member of the Church; the reason he gave for leaving it was that Joseph Smith spelled his name wrong ("Rider") on his mission call. He was a wealthy man, and after he left the Church gave a lot of money to a college in the area, and was a leader in the Campbellite Church. "Disciple" in "disciple of Christ" is misspelled on his gravestone.

Isn't this a wonderful cemetery? We stopped really briefly, but there was a quick game of "Enemy and Defender," which involves lots of running and giggling, before we left...car keys were lost then found here, too.
The next day we flew to Saint Louis, then drove to Nauvoo. A brief stop in Hannibal, Mark Twain's home town.
By now we had a tour bus rather than cars. Everyone was excited as we drove into Nauvoo--excited to see the temple. There it is, on the hill. We drove in to Nauvoo from Missouri, talking about the saints being driven out--following their footsteps, so to speak. It was so hopeful--triumphal, even--to see the temple in Nauvoo. And when we left a few days later, we were again in their footsteps, this time to Salt Lake City. Salt Lake, where it all finally worked--enough for them to build their houses, city, temple. Enough for them to stay. It strikes me that I am living what they hoped and worked and sacrificed for.
At one of the Community of Christ gift shops in Nauvoo, our professor, Richard Bennett, noticed two or three books he had authored or co-authored. He asked one of the students for a pen, picked one up, and started signing. He let the visitor's center people know as he was through about half the stack.

The Trip, Part I

It's not like I haven't gone on any trips lately--I kind of feel bad for not giving others this kind of attention. But this really was a special one. I signed up for a Church history class this semester because I needed two more religion credits, two more Honors credits, and something that fit with a crazy schedule. This class was the only one that fit the bill. I was surprised, though, to get an email this summer informing me that the class included a trip to Church history sites in the eastern US. My parents, bless them, agreed to pay the subsidized fee--and it was an amazing week.

We flew into Rochester on the 22nd. For the first half of the trip, we were in rental cars and mini vans. We landed and started driving, and all of us were just excited to be there. Couldn't quite believe it--midterms one day, New York the next.

The next morning we went first thing to the Joseph Smith farm. This is where the 14-year-old Joseph Smith prayed about which church to join, and got a direct answer from God and Jesus Christ.

I was just blown away with how beautiful upstate New York is. When we were flying in I had already pretty much decided to move there. The farm itself is also beautiful. And, this is silly, but part of what was so cool about being there was that that's where the Restoration DVD was filmed--the DVD I sometimes saw three times a day on my mission with people learning about the Church. It's a good one. Click the link, go watch it.

The Sacred Grove was a highlight of the trip. It was so peaceful. A few people talked about hoping for a life-changing experience going into the Grove where Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ came to answer a prayer, but that that didn't happen. That instead, there was a feeling of calm and of peace. The feeling here--that feeling--was like being in the temple.

Next was the Grandin Print Shop, where the first edition of the Book of Mormon was printed. As we were about to leave, a senior missionary stood up and said they were one of a handful of missions that was piloting a program with missionaries blogging. MISSIONARIES BLOGGING! Using technology, how wonderful is that? And it's not just the senior couples, but young missionaries, too. Here's his blog, and a link to all the official missionary blogs that have been started. I'll put a link in my blogroll, too.


This is Alvin Smith's grave (Joseph Smith's older brother), though his remains got washed away in a storm a long time ago. So his grave marker.

Home Again, Redbox, Halloween

I got home last night from a Church history trip to Palmyra, New York, Kirtland, Ohio, and Nauvoo, Illinois. It was a wonderful trip. I wanted to blog while I was gone but then I forgot my camera cable...so I'll post about it--with pictures!--real soon. I feel so cheerful since getting back. It was so good to have in the middle of a hard semester.

I used Redbox for the first time in my life tonight. It just blew me away. I think it's pretty much space-age. Technology in general is just amazing me particularly lately. Maybe the Church history tour helped with this--hearing lots of stories and reading about a time when communication was hard, transportation was hard. Now there are cell phones, computer models of buildings, instant publications, airplanes...and Redbox. The video comes out in a little case. It really is like something out of a movie. Seriously.

Today was Halloween on campus--the day closest to it that people could dress up for. This just delights me. I saw a black cat and a couple of wizards. There was the Queen of Hearts with a full Elizabethan collar. I saw a Miss Frizzle with red curly hair piled up, and a dress made out of planet fabric. I had two favorites, though. One was a girl dressed up as an old person. This itself is not that creative. What made me smile was that she was on her own, but still walking with her cane using little shuffles. She was on her cell phone, telling the person on the other end in a grandma voice, "no, today my name is Granny Granger, and that's what I made my second-graders call me." She carried on the voice and the shuffle for as long as I could see or hear her. The second favorite was when I went up to the video section of the library on campus. They keep the videos behind a big desk, and employees have to go get them for you. I was asking about one when all of a sudden Charlie Chaplin walked out from the shelves of videos. I was severely disappointed when he started talking to someone.

Out of the Closet

I realized today how much I don't like talking about politics.

In the half hour break before my French teaching class, I sat down to eat my lunch. Another student from the class (before anyone in my family gets excited about this: he's married) came and sat down next to me and pulled out his.

We were talking about the homework assignment and teaching and whatever, and somehow we got on politics. Or he got on politics. It started out alright. Things I could smile and nod about. Then he started talking about how terrible it was that the Democrats wanted to get rid of democracy, and that really what would be ideal is to return to a flat tax--I mean, people don't want to move up to the next tax bracket, and it makes them lazy. And some people end up living off Medicaid.

I realized about then that this was like those moments on my mission where I started talking to someone on the street who turned out to be very Christian and whose son had been a missionary in China and Australia and just blessed me for what I was doing--when I knew, a moment later, I would talk to them about the Book of Mormon I was carrying, and they'd do a 180.

And so it started getting a little awkward as I didn't really give any "yeah, I know what you mean!"'s to what he was saying. I started making broad generalizations as I was thinking things like, "this is why I don't talk politics. I hate disagreeing, and I hate arguing my points." And that's mostly what I advocated in our conversation (and what I really do believe): we have to start agreeing with each other, or nothing is going to happen for anyone.

The awkwardness increased, though, as it became evident that, even though I'm a Mormon in red Utah county and BYU once more, I wasn't agreeing.

It continues.

This was the second time this semester I've talked about politics. The first one was maybe a week or two ago when I was doing homework in the Wilkinson Center, and a girl came and sat next to me. She was a journalism student, writing a story for the Daily Universe, and could she interview me? I said sure. She asked me about the elections. I told her I had voted for Obama. I was gone for the first year of his presidency, but what I've experienced since I got home I've been happy with--our big problem, though, is that there's no compromising. It's just becoming more and more polarized--therefore, more and more of a stalemate.

Okay, so back to today. Me and French Class Kid were walking into our classroom. I waved at a professor I know who was walking down the hall towards us. Carrie, said the professor as he stopped, you were quoted in the Daily Universe...today or yesterday. Talking about politics. Giving your opinion. French Class Kid turns to the part of the class that was there--hey! he says. She was in the newspaper!

At this point, I just about died. I know that professor's pretty conservative. I knew French Class Kid was, and that he knew I wasn't. And I knew this shouldn't be a big deal. Still, I realized I don't like wearing my politics on my sleeve at BYU. No, I don't really like it period. I kind of felt like I was outed today. ...Still, stand up for what you believe in, right?