April 18, 2014

     This past week has been very productive, but I have let loose a little bit on scripture study. I was studying every day for a few weeks. Most every day of this week has been amazing. I went to the temple twice before I came up to Rexburg for school. One thing that I was grateful for was that God prepared for me to baptize more than Jesse and Naomi, who I was working with on Monday for a trip up on Tuesday. I was inviting as many as could make it to the temple on a Tuesday, but only Jesse and Naomi House could make it. Naomi House is a convert of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in my home branch, and she has been at BYU Idaho the past few months. Naomi is the unnamed friend that I refer to occasionally. She developed a great relationship with Trevor, and I embraced it. We are really good friends now.

     I learned to not have a strict plan for my service in the House of the Lord. When I returned from my mission, I found out that a counselor in the branch presidency served as an ordinance worker in the Oakland Temple every week, so I went up with him for a long time. Ordinance workers at the Oakland Temple serve six hour shifts, so I had those hours to serve God alone. This is not an option for people that have a limited-use temple recommend, for ordinance workers need to watch those people closely since they cannot serve freely in the many ordinance service opportunities there. Since I am endowed, I can serve in most every ordinance in the temple. The six hours of service was very freeing, and there are situations and options that change throughout the day; therefore, I learned to follow the spirit to seek and find these opportunities smoothly. I told Naomi and Jesse that we should not go in with a set plan, for the staffing within the temple at least in the Oakland Temple is limited in accommodating people. Jesse and I should not go in the temple abandoning Naomi to be received by the ordinance workers, since they usually have assignments. It's hard to round up the workers. I recommended to Jesse that we avail ourselves to the option of performing the baptisms for the dead, which is a privilege for endowed priesthood holders.

     When we arrived, we did make ourselves available to serve with Naomi in the baptistery, and the ordinance workers liked that Jesse and I could help serve in it, taking over the baptistery. Jesse baptized two other girls before Naomi for the dead first, and I confirmed them for the dead, giving them the Gift of the Holy Ghost. After Naomi was baptized, Jesse and I baptized each other, and two other girls came in; then, I took over the baptismal font, baptizing them as well as another brother. I was very grateful that God let us baptize five more people other than ourselves multiplying our fruits. This is a reason why I recommend that you serve in the temple with flexibility. I furthermore recommend that you avail yourself to greater capacities of service in the temple; for example, one can serve as a veil worker, volunteer, and ordinance worker.

     I am now in Rexburg, Idaho; preparing for my fourth semester at Brigham Young University: Idaho. I am feeling very good about this semester. It has been very smooth. One odd thing is that there is not many people here. There is usually a lot of people, walking everywhere and preparing. I was just speaking to a friend, and she said that there is only eight-hundred freshmen this semester. A new roommate of mine said that he was one of four-thousand, when he first came. It's the lowest that it has been in a while. I am meeting a lot of returning students and seniors about to graduate. It's weird to not see thousands of freshmen. I feel that my friends and I may have been impatient because we changed wards because we wanted a more mature ward. Last semester practically seventy percent of the ward were freshmen. We were tired of the immature freshmen. We saw that the student body will have to mature, since the age requirements of missionaries were lowered, but we seemed to have forgotten that in the past year.

     My two new roommates are Tyrel and Trent. It seems that Tyrel will fit well in our lives among the roommates, and Trent has left for the weekend. Logan is having a new friend join us for this semester, so we basically have a full house of cool people; no lame roommates.

     One thing about me that could be explained is that I enjoy meeting new people and being their friends. Yesterday I saw a Korean girl that reminded me of a foreign student that my family hosted. Her name is Dambi Kim. Her personality is very funny, and I wanted to get to know the sister that reminded me of her. The cafeteria did not have many people in it, so it was not too difficult to find her. Her name was Emily, and her personality was very similar to Dambi's. She said that she hated Rexburg. When she said that, I described to her how she reminded me of Dambi. I said that she had bold opinions too, and she was afraid of animals. One time we had a picnic at a park, and some birds flew in near us. Dambi was scared, screaming and retreating. Another story is that there was a cat sitting in front of our house, and she again was scared, and she just stood there, waiting for something to happen. I believe that my father came home from work, and she was still standing there.

     Emily related to her, saying that there are not that many animals in Korea; at least Seoul. Squirrels are frightening to her; dogs too. One time she was walking from a Chinese restaurant with friends and food, and she saw a dog. She was so scared that she threw her orange chicken on the ground and ran. All her friends laughed. She also related a similar cat story to that of Dambi. A cat stood in her path at Korea, and she froze there until other people could to follow pass the cat. It seems to be a Korean thing.

     I love talking to people and learning from them. I ate lunch with a friend today that I could write about, and Jesse and I had a good time tonight with a couple girls. I might as well write about it, since this may be the only time that I do. I know my friend because she works at the cafeteria and she is studying education, which I did too. We related pretty well with that. She is a teacher's assistant. Teachers love her as a TA, and Students hate her as a TA because she sustains the BYUI learning model. According to her and the learning model, "A" students are the most amazing students imaginable, understanding the concepts well, and apply the principles in the class to an extent that is admirable. The average students that merely do what the teacher asks gets C's. One thing that I thought was interesting about my friend is that everything seems to be controversial to her.

     Tonight Jesse and I wanted to go out and do something, and people are usually not spontaneous enough to go out on the spot especially when not many people are around. We went out in search of Mill Hollow. When we finally arrived, I ordered my sandwich, and Jesse ordered a shake to my surprise; therefore, I had to surprise him. When I saw two girls, waiting for their food like me; I asked if we could join them. Most of the time, when I ask if I can join them, it works out. I do this a lot, but I have never done it with company. Jesse was a little apprehensive at first. The two girls were named Heather and Becca. They are not my type because they don't have much passion for things. I asked what they like to do and hobbies, and I got nothing. They liked hanging out. I run into a lot of girls that have no productive habits or activities that they would do on their own. I wanted to still be their friends though because I learned something this week, which will be included in my next paragraph. Since Becca said that she wants to go see Divergent, a movie, and Jesse wanted to too; I got us at least a double date, planning to go see it next Friday.

     One thing that I learned is that I need to be quick to seize the moment. I have three quick experiences to relate. (1) Jesse and I were walking home from the store, and a girl drove us home. (2) I bought a carpentry book, and the girl, giving the book to me, offered me a job. (3) A girl said hi to me twice, sitting in a car. Each of these moments had great opportunities for service, friendship, and development. The girl that drove us home coincidentally lives in our apartment complex, and we missed a great friendship opportunity. Missing a job opportunity is always annoying. Pondering the situation of the third moment, I was on a jog, and a girl said hi to me, and was about to get out of a car; then, I stopped, not really noticing her, and I walked across the street because I was going to buy something. When I stopped and crossed the street, she pulled her leg back in the car and shut the door; then, she said hi again, when I crossed the street. I ignored her though because I did not want to deal with a girl’s random escapade. I realized after that this situation was a moment of great opportunity. She may be lost. I should have gone to serve her. Another experience, teaching me about seizing the moment, was verbally expressed to me yesterday. I attended a meeting of the college of physical science and engineering, and the faculty members addressed us as if we are attending the school for our first semester, giving us the advice of a hope of inspiring the greatest generation of students. There are so many opportunities in the world especially at a university. They said if you are very passionate about contributing to your field of study, just talk to a faculty member, and your desire to further the development in the schools progress in the field can be used well. Networking is a great fruit of this advice. School is not about classes and assignments.