Giving Service

This time of year can be hectic for many people. It can be especially stressful for college students this time of year. During the month of December, finals for classes approach and require a lot of time for studying. Also, with the holiday season approaching, students might also have to spend time purchasing gifts for family members and friends. Many students either work part time or participate in sports. With the several different things going on during the month of December, this can cause a lot of stress on students. Right now I would say I am a little stressed because I have finals coming up next week in my English, Biology, and Book of Mormon classes, I have a paper I have to finish for my English class, I am leaving to California for Christmas break on Tuesday night, and I am also moving after this semester which means I’ll need to pack up all of my belongings. Although I am stressed, I have several friends that I believe are more stressed than me. I believe my friend Greg Barrett is much more stressed than me. I believe he is more stressed than me mainly because he is taking Calculus this semester. Every time I talk to Greg, he is either doing Calculus homework or studying for a Calculus exam. Besides Calculus, he is taking history, geology, and Spanish. Greg has a much tougher schedule than me. Because Greg is so stressed, I decided I would do something nice for him. I know how much Greg likes food so I decided to invite him over for dinner. Last night I made a tri-tip steak dinner with pasta and invited him to my apartment to eat. We had a good dinner and I’m glad I was able to do something nice for a good friend. I hope in some way I was able to relieve a little bit of stress from him by serving him in this way.

Giving Thanks

This last week was quite enjoyable for me. Although I was unable to go home for Thanksgiving, I was invited by my good friend Steve to spend Thanksgiving with him and his family. The food was delicious and I had a good time! It was also extremely nice having most of the whole week off from school. I had a lot of time this past week to relax and have fun. Since this past week was Thanksgiving, I spent a lot of time thinking about the things I am grateful for. I thought I might express here on my blog the things I am truly grateful for. There is so much for me to be grateful for because I have been given so much! First I want to express my gratitude for my Savior Jesus Christ and all that he has done and does for me daily. I know that without his atonement, I would be unable to attain happiness in this life or the next. I am also deeply grateful for the restored gospel I have I my life. I know that by living by the teachings of Church of Jesus Christ, we can truly be happy in this life and have the possibility of living with our families for eternity if we’re faithful. I am grateful I had the opportunity to share the gospel with the people of Russia. I am also thankful for a wonderful family. It keeps getting bigger and bigger each year. They’re all just wonderful and very supportive towards me! It is hard not being able to see them all the time, but hopefully one day I’ll finish school and be able to move back to California. I also feel extremely blessed to have such wonderful friends. I am grateful to live in such a wonderful country. I believe that it is truly the blessed land. Although things are difficult at times, we must remember that the trials we go through are necessary for us to grow. There are so many other things I am grateful for…. I could probably write pages and pages of things I am grateful for. I just want to remind you all how blessed we truly are and to not forget it. Hope you all have a great week!

Creatine

Many of you know that I've been working out pretty seriously for about a year now. Ever since I started paying for my own gym membership, I've wanted to take advantage of it and get my money's worth from it. I started taking a creatine supplement a few months after I started working out at 24 Hour Fitness. Since I've been researching a lot about creatine for my English term paper, I thought I might share a little bit with you about what I've been learning. Before starting my research about creatine, I did not know much about how it works. All I knew about creatine was that it helped you build muscle faster. I found a great Web site that explained in detail how exactly creatine works. I learned that our muscles require energy (ATP) for movement. Stored in our muscles is a supply of this ATP. Our bodies also have its own supply of creatine. ATP releases a phosphate group in order to liberate this energy. When this energy is used, it changes from ATP to ADP. Our body needs to convert this ADP back to ATP to continue muscle contraction (called ATP synthesis). This is where creatine comes into play. While we are still exercising, creatine donates its own phosphate group to ADP in order to change it back into ATP, thus giving our muscles more energy. By taking a creatine supplement, it will give our muscles more creatine in storage and our ATP supply will last longer before our muscles become exhausted. This means that we will be able to work our muscles for a longer period and thus increase our strength. Well, I hope that this information was interesting to you as it was to me and hopefully you might have been able to learn something from it. If you’re interested to know more in depth about creatine and what effects it might have on our bodies, let me know and I’ll let send you a copy of my term paper.

What is your favorite holiday?

I’m curious to know what your favorite holiday is! Let me know by posting a comment. As the 2008 holiday season approaches, I have become quite excited for Christmas to get here. Christmas has been my favorite holiday ever since I can remember. The reasons for it being my favorite holiday have changed, but still today it is my favorite holiday. Christmas used to be my favorite holiday for the same reason it was most children’s favorite holiday; I received lots of presents as a kid. I would always look forward to getting cool toys from Santa. I used to not be able to sleep on Christmas Eve night because I would be so excited for the presents. I still do enjoy receiving presents, but now I enjoy giving presents a lot more. The spirit of Christmas is giving, not receiving. On my mission, I always looked forward to Christmas because that meant that I would be able to talk to my family at home. It’s hard being away from your family for two years and not being able to even talk to them on the phone. It was always such a wonderful gift for me on Christmas to be able to talk to my family and find out how they all are doing. This year, Christmas will be a different experience for me than I’ve had before. I’ve pretty much been away from my family for an entire year. I have been able to talk to my family over the phone (unlike my mission) but I haven’t been able to see them much. This year I’m so excited for Christmas because I get to go home and spend the holiday season with my family. I’m looking forward to seeing all of my nieces and nephews. A lot of them will have grown a lot since the last time I saw them. Playing with all of my nieces and nephews will be a great Christmas treat for me! Over the years I have learned that Christmas is all about giving and spending time with your family. I love Christmas and can’t wait till it’s here!

Voting Day

Today is Election Day in America and I couldn't write in my blog without talking about it. News anchors are talking about the elections on several different television stations. Just recently they announced that Barack Hussein Obama was elected as the 44th president of the United States of America. I feel extremely disappointed and upset at the results of the election for president. I even feel a little sick to my stomach. Obama stands for several things that I do not agree with. Some of his policies that I don’t like include raising the taxes of the rich in order to give more money to the poor, pulling our troops out of Iraq before their job is done, meeting and negotiating with terrorist leaders, and creating a government run socialized health care program. I do not agree with all of the policies of McCain, but he is a lot closer to my views. I was upset when McCain beat out Romney in the primary election because I felt Romney was the best candidate. I vowed that I would not vote for McCain during the General Election. Once it got closer to the General Election, I realized that it would be better to vote for McCain than not to vote at all and get stuck with Obama. When it came to voting, I held my breath and cast my vote for John McCain. Although I knew that McCain had a very slim chance of winning the election, I still had hope that he might by some miracle pull it off. I just hope and pray that Obama will not do any serious damage to our country now that he will be President. Another important part of the voting today was proposition 8 in California. I talked about this proposition in an earlier blog and about how important it was that it passed. As of right now, the proposition is in the lead to pass. I will be happy with the voting today as long as proposition passes. We will see in the next few hours….

Professional Sports

Lately I haven't been watching professional sports on television. The World Series is going on right now and I haven’t watched a single game. I used to watch professional sports all the time. I would mostly follow my favorite teams but on occasion I would watch other teams. I have been watching college sports a lot lately (mostly football). I have lost so much interest in watching professional sports mainly because all of my favorite sports teams are absolutely horrible. My favorite sports teams include the Sacramento Kings, the San Francisco 49ers, and the San Francisco Giants. I’m the kind of sports fan that will not “jump on the bandwagon” and start liking a certain team because they are good. I have had my loyalties toward my favorite sports teams ever since I was a little kid. I refuse to change them because they stink. Most professional teams are good for a few years, then they are at the bottom for a few years, and then they are good again. It is annoying because there are a few teams out there that are always at the top and never at the bottom. As of right now, all three of my favorite sports teams are at the bottom doing horrible. It has been a long time since they have been at the top, especially for the 49ers. I try to follow my teams but it is so painful to watch how horrible they really are. I would watch them a lot more if they were actually competitive, but most of the time they don’t even stand a chance to win. Hopefully sometime soon one of my favorite teams will start winning again. In the mean time I am going to stick to watching just college sports.

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW!!!

Most people aren't getting too excited that fall is here and it is starting to get cold outside. Fall in Utah means that winter is right around the corning and when winter is here, the snow is also. I've already heard a lot of people complaining about the cold weather. My feelings toward winter are the opposite. Although I don't love being cold, I do love the snow and snowboarding. I've also learned that you can still be very comfortable by dressing warm. We've already had our first little snow here in Utah and I felt like a little kid waiting to open his presents on Christmas Eve. I know that a good snow storm is right around the corner and I absolutely cannot wait until the ski resorts open up so I can hit the slopes up on my brand new snowboard! I’m especially excited for this winter because I plan on taking a snowboarding class when I transfer to BYU Idaho in the winter and I know I will have a chance to go up several times. Riding can be so peaceful and at the same time thrilling. I used to wear headphones while I went snowboarding, but it is so much more enjoying for me to hear the quiet sounds of nature and the sound of my board gliding across the snow. I feel that to really start enjoying snowboarding, you need to go at least 5 times. Some people go boarding one or two times and they say they hate it. I feel sorry for these people because I know that they are truly missing out on something amazing! If you will just give snowboarding a real chance and try it out at least 5 times, I promise you’ll love it and be as excited as I am to hit those slopes.

YES ON PROPOSITION 8!!

I would feel bad if I did not talk about prop 8 in my blog, so here we go. I would say that most Californians are now familiar with proposition 8. Proposition 8 will put into the California constitution the same language that voters passed back in 2000 with proposition 22. It will clearly state that: "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California". It is extremely frustrating to me because prop 22 was passed by 61% of voters in California back in 2000, but it was overturned by the California Supreme Court earlier this year. One of the most important parts of prop 8 is that it will protect children from being taught in public schools that "same-sex marriage" is the same as traditional marriage. I read an article the other day that disgusted me. A first grade class went on a field trip to go watch their woman teacher get married another woman. These kids minds are like sponges and will possibly always think that a woman with another woman is normal. This is definitely not the case and isn't how nature or God intended it. For those that would like to read this story, here is the hyperlink: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/11/MNFG13F1VG.DTL Many organizations including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and many other christian denominations are supporting prop 8. I am trying my best to let as many people as possible know about how important this proposition is.

Financial Crisis

I have never paid much attention to the stock market. I have always thought that stocks were boring and they didn't affect me very much. What has happened in the last week has been a little scary and has caught my attention. I have been watching CNBC for the past week. On this channel they have a constant ticker at the bottom of the screen. This ticker shows the prices of stock for major publicly traded companies and it also tells you how much it has either increased or decreased for the day. Almost every stock that they show on this ticker is in the red (decreased for the day). The DOW Jones Industrial Average has dropped from 10,831 on October 1, 2008 to 8,579 on October 9, 2008. That is more than 20%! Also, today GM shares fell to its lowest level since 1950! All of this sounds crazy, but I think eventually things will work out fine. I don't think it would be possible for our country to go into another depression. I do think that this financial crisis will have an effect on the job market which might eventually affect me a little bit. In the long run though I think everything will be fine. One thing good happening right now is crude oil has fallen about 40% to $84.67 per barrel since its record price set on July 11 at $147.27 per barrel. I personally believe that crude oil rising so fast over the summer was the cause for our economic crisis. Many questions have risen about what should be done about this financial crisis. Although I don't know a lot about how our economy works, I think the best thing to do is to do nothing and ride it out.

Heroes!

Have you ever wished you had a superpower? If so, what kind of power would you want? How do you think it would affect your life? Would you use your power to help others or yourself? How do you think people around you would react once they found out you had a superpower? I've thought a lot about these type of questions ever since I started watching NBC's popular TV show "Heroes". Heroes is now in its third season and is very popular. I had heard a lot about the show the past year but never watched it. A few weeks ago I saw a preview for the new season premier of Heroes and it looked awesome. After a few days I decided to go to Hollywood Video to rent Season 1 on DVD. I sat down\and watched the first two episodes back to back. I thought it was very entertaining and fell in love with it right away. I couldn't stop watching episode after episode. Basically it is about a bunch of different people who start developing different "special abilities". Some of these abilities include walking through walls, self regeneration, flying, painting the future, time traveling, mind reading, and many more. Some of these people use their powers for good while others for bad. Together, the good people try to "save the world". Over the past few weeks I have watched both seasons that were released on DVD. If you like TV shows that make you think a lot and wonder what is going to happen next, then Heroes is the show for you! As to answer my own question, I would want the power that Hiro Nakamura has. Hiro can time travel and also freeze time. I think it would be fun to go back in time and see different historical events.

For my post this week, I thought I would write a little bit about BYU football. The past two weeks I've had the awesome opportunity of attending both of BYU's football games. The Cougars had received much criticism prior to the BYU/UCLA football game. BYU had won a very close game against Washington. Many sports analysts believed that Washington was cheated and the game should have gone into overtime. All the sports analysts could talk about regarding BYU prior to the UCLA game was how they didn't deserve the win against Washington and how BYU was an overrated football team.
Since the game in Washington, BYU has been dominating teams. First was against former #23 ranked UCLA where BYU handed UCLA its worst loss in over 79 years. The final score was 59-0. This game was a statement game for the Cougars. The next game was versus Wyoming who was 2-1 going into the game. BYU showed no mercy in this game either shutting out the Cowboys 44-0!
At the beginning of the football stadium, BYU was ranked #16 in the nation. After the game against Wyoming, BYU had moved to the #11 spot. The Cougars are on a mission this year. They want an opportunity to compete in a BCS bowl game. By the way they have playing, BYU definitely has a shot at being in a BCS bowl game and possibly even the national championship game!

Giving away a coke

Have you every bought something for someone you didn't know? Maybe you did it because you felt like being nice, or maybe you did it because you were assigned to do it by your teacher. This week, our assignment for English 316 was to purchase a coke for a random person you didn't know. I knew it was going to be awkward for me because the person would look at you weird and wonder why you would do such a thing. I did it while i was at Seven-Eleven the other day getting gas. I went into the gas station and grabbed two cokes. One was for myself and the other was for the next person in line behind me. After i paid for it, i handed the coke to the guy right behind me. He looked at me weird and said "umm...thanks". I smiled and told him "no prob" then walked out quickly because I was feeling awkward. It was definitely the awkward highlight of my week.

Camping last weekend

Last weekend I went camping with my cousins and Aunt Patti. We went camping down by Nephi, Utah and it was actually the first time I've been camping since before my mission. I had a wonderful time with them and I am happy I went. It did start our scary though. While my Aunt Patti and I were driving down, we got a phone call from my cousin Carolynn and she told us that there had been a 4-wheeler accident and Matthew (my Cousin Jason's 2 year old boy) was hurt. The 4-wheeler had tipped while Matthew was on the back and his hand was severely injured. Matthew was life flighted to a children's hospital in Salt Lake and my cousin Jason and Olivia drove up to Salt Lake to meet the helicopter. My Aunt and I continued to drive to the camp site to meet up with my other cousins. We later found out that Matthew was fine. He received some stitches and had a small break in his hand.

Despite the crazy start of our camping trip, we were all able to make the best of the trip and have a fun time. While we were there, we were able to participate in a lot of activities. Zack brought a few of his guns up including his .22 rifle and his shotgun. We shot at targets with his .22 and clay pigeons with his shotgun. One of the mornings, Zack, Britney and I went fishing at 6am. We had a blow up boat and we went in the middle of this pond to fish. Although we were not able to catch any fish, we had a fun time. My favorite activity was driving the 4-wheeler. I had an opportunity to go out on them several times. My favorite part of the 4-wheeling was when we went off the main road onto the small trails. At our campsite, we had a little bee problem. Hundreds of bees would come out and annoy us every time we were eating. Zack had found the bees nest and decided that right before we left, he was going to blow it away with his shotgun. Hopefully by destroying the bees nest, the next people that camped at this site wouldn’t have such a problem with the bees.

I am happy that I had the opportunity to go camping and enjoy the beautiful. I love spending time in nature while enjoying the peaceful sounds and the wonderful outdoor smell. I hope that next time I will not wait so long to go camping and enjoy these wonderful blessings from our Heavenly Father.