Science Camp

HOLY CRAP!

So, this past week, I was a counselor at science camp for Union Hill K-8 school. The science camp was held at Alliance Redwoods Christian Conference Grounds. This little piece of world was probably to most beautiful place I've ever been to. The temperature was perfect every day. The weather was amazing.

The kids were so awesome! They were so much fun and so full of energy! It was so fun to hang out with them for a week!

The teachers there were a blast, too! You could really tell that they loved what they were doing and loved teaching the kids. They were all probably in their late twenties. They were so much fun! The teacher (or Naturalist as they're called at camp) that was with my group of boys was nick named Wrecker. Don't ask me why. All of the Naturalists had different nick names, such as Frodo (camp director), Granola, Blockbuster, Zippo, Fox, and lots more. Wrecker was so much fun! One of the classes entitled Forest Friends was all about finding and tracking a deer. He taught the kids different signs to look for to see if an animal has been close by. Before the class, he had planted rolled up pieces of Tootsie Roll, making it look like deer poop. When they came up to it, he ate it, convincing the kids that he ate deer poop!!! He was so much fun!

And, yes, we did find a banana slug.

What a week!!!! It was so nice. The camp is usually a Christian camp, so they had all of these really cool scriptures printed on signs posted on trees all over the camp. It was really cool. I really felt closer to God. Helping teach His children about the earth and being out in it, away from technology, away from everything. It was an incredible week.

Yes.

Wait, what?!

Yes, I'm back. My mission call got changed to October. I'm still going to Guatemala (throwing out a little whoop whoop!), but not now. If everything had gone according to plan, I would actually be out of the training center right now and be in the training center in Guatemala. But, no. I'm in Nevada City. Oh well.

So........ this past couple of weeks have been very interesting, with telling people why I'm home and all that good stuff. But, anyways... I've been working back at the good ole pharmacy! (dang)

I don't really know what else to say, soooooo....

k cool bye

My Time

So here I am, trying to think about what I'm going to say for my talk in church this Sunday. For all of you who don't know, I'm going to serve a mission in Guatemala for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for two years. I'm super excited and super nervous and super scared all at the same time. I can't wait to go but I don't want to leave. I'm really not looking forward to saying goodbye to everything I know and have grown to love so much.

But anyways, back on topic... I'm leaving in two weeks and this Sunday I have been asked to give a talk in my church meeting. The topic: "How I have prepared to serve a mission and why missionary work is important."

Wait, what? Okay, I know what all of this means, but I have to talk about it? I do? ME? I shouldn't be going on a mission! I'm not old enough! I should be watching my brother go, watching him get ready, waiting for my turn to come! I've grown up knowing I'd be going on a mission, and I've been taught and told that my whole life! I've been raised singing the song "I Hope They Call Me On A Mission" in primary. I was told that throughout my whole life I should be preparing and getting ready to go to a different place, for me a different country, for two years! Two years!!

Despite these anxious feelings, I'm going. I've been called to serve. I've been waiting for these two years my whole life. Everything I've done has been in preparation for these two years. Every class I've taken and every person I've spoken to. Every mistake I've made and every obstacle I've triumphed. Somebody in Guatemala is waiting for me...

So here I go!

Michael, your time has come.

(wish me luck!!!)

An Ode to Lunch Break

My work... my job... not fun. I work at a pharmacy as a cashier/pharmacy clerk. So, basically, as a cashier, I stand there, bored out of my mind, hoping that somebody will come in and buy something. And as a pharmacy clerk, I stand there while old people who really need medicine tell me about how if they don't have the medicine they could go into withdrawals, go into a coma, and then die. 

I love it when they do that, because they are basically saying, "Here! I have my life in my hands and now I'm putting it on the counter in front of you. If you don't get my medicine right now, it's going to shrivel up like a raisin, turn dark blue and purple, and then implode. Thanks!!!!"

So, at around one or two o'clock every day, there is an hour. One hour. Only one. But it is the best hour of my day (except for the hour directly following closing time). This hour, this beloved God-sent hour, is lunch time.

So, here's to you, Lunch Hour. The happiness you bring to people's lives all across the world lights up our spirits, giving us the gusto we need to get throught the second dreadful half of the day. The food you put in our grumbling stomachs revives us from the long, tiresome work morning we were forced to endure only on the sad little bowl of Cap'n Crunch cereal.

To Lunch Hour!

He Did

Remember when I said that this wasn't the place that I would try to piece together the puzzle of life? Remeber when I said that this was where I was just going to vent? My public journal? Well, this is a combination of the two.

Today started out like a normal day. I heard my cell phone buzzing. When I answered it, I heard a warm, loving voice calling to wake me up. I showered, ate, and got ready for the day. I went to my girlfriend's church, and then came home. I watched a bit of a movie... and that's when I realized how temporary and sudden this life really is.

Life is a beautiful thing. We are given the opportunity to grow, to learn, to find who we really are and then share it with those around us who are trying to do exactly the same thing. We see how cruel people can be and how good people can be, as well. We learn to love. To want to make someone happy. To do whatever we can to make that person happy.

This life is a gift. This life is wonderful. How sad it is when someone leaves it.

I heard a story once... It went something like this...

"A little boy and his mother were talking about their very sick dog who had recently died.

'Are you okay?' the mother asked her son.

'Yes,' replied the boy. 'Mom, we come to earth to learn how to love each other and be happy, right?'

'Yes, we do.' the mother answered, unsure of where this question had come from.

'I think dogs learn this faster than people do. That's why they don't live as long.'"

I think the same thing can be applied to people. We come here to learn how to love and how to be happy. And it's easier for some than it is for others. I think there are some who pass at a young age because they learned these things much faster than the rest of us.

I know he did.

Sound Effects

When I was in kindergarten, I used to get picked up for school by my best friend. Every day, he and his mom would drive up to the house, honk the horn, and I would come running out of my front door. He would be, of course, in the front seat and so I would jump in the back... That's when the fun began...

I distinctly remember our adventures. Brian would man the co-pilot's seat, which, as you know, is the main gunner seat of the vehicle. From the back, I would take control of the missile launch. Every car we passed was the enemy, and we never left any survivors. The triggers to the guns were the little handles in the door way of the car, AKA Oh Crap! handles. We would jerk our arms, pretending that the guns that we were shooting had kick to them, launching our tiny bodies back. His mom was the pilot, and so, we always made sure that she was going the right way. So that we could get back to the USS Enterprise safely. These adventurous missions were always much more fun when it was snowing outside. The snow flakes would fly past the windshield, and it would look as though we were traveling at Mach speeds while we flew past the stars.

But, there was something more important. More important than who manned the gunner seat, more important than where the triggers were in the cockpit of the ship, and more important than where we were going....

The sound effects.

With every gun, there was a sound effect. With every turn of the wheel, there was a sound effect. With every enemy star cruiser soaring past us, there was a sound effect. The sound effects were crucial. If you didn't have the right sound for the right tool, the mission could be in jeopardy. With the wrong sound effects, the others might not know what you were doing, and therefore putting the whole crew at risk. The sound effects mattered most.

I took a semester of school up at Brigham Young University Idaho, and there I took a Spanish class. My teacher was incredible. He had lived in Venezuela for two years and was fluent in Spanish. He is an awesome guy. He once told the guys in the class, "If you ever find a girl who can make good sounding sound effects, she's a keeper no matter what."

Oh, the wisdom of his words.

Apple Juice or Orange Juice?

Sometimes I wish I had the courage to just yell at somebody. To really get in their face. To really let it all out. I wish I could just flip out at them.

But... I can't. I know how bad I would feel. I know how bad they would feel and that would make me feel worse. I know that if I said some of the things that I think, I would be in a lot of trouble. Have you ever seen those shows or movies where something happens and you're like, "Whoa, what?" Like, the hero of the story randomly jumps on the villain and just starts beating the crap out of them. Or, they chuck a book at their face right in the middle of a meeting. But then, it flashes back to the hero just standing there, not doing anything, just taking it. I often wish I could do that with my life. Visualize how doing something one way would turn out and see if I liked that or not. Then, flash back to reality.

I remember this show from when I was little, and this episode has always stuck with me. It was on Nickelodeon, called "So Weird", and about this girl who would always run into extremely odd situations. With aliens, and monsters, and people who were invisible, and ghosts and stuff. And, there was one episode that talked about how one decision can change a life. They used the example of what juice you choose to drink at breakfast. They showed two scenarios side by side, split screen. In the screen on the left, she chose apple juice. She grabbed the pitcher and poured the juice into her cup, and everything was fine. A normal day. In the screen on the right, she chose orange juice. She grabbed the pitcher, but it slipped from her hand. The orange juice spilled everywhere on the table and down the front of her shirt. She scrambled for napkins and towels but her shirt was permanently dyed orange. She was extremely upset, and she let that set the tone for the day. Then, the show put the two together. It showed how different the girl's life was because of the apple juice or the orange juice at breakfast.

Sometimes, when I'm day dreaming at work, bored out of my mind, I think, "Maybe if I had a bagel instead of pancakes, my day would have been more exciting."