Yesterday and Today

This whole week has been just great.

I feel like I've re-unlocked the power of prayer. I've really seen the Lord's hand in my life this week. He answers prayers! It's so cool! Seminary is really changing my life. You can ask God for anything that is of His will. I love it! This week lost things have been found and my happiness has grown thanks to prayer. I love my Savior so so much. :)

I think my voice reguarding the Stake Dances have been heard. I wrote a letter to the young men's president and gave it to him last Sunday. Last night he thanked me for the letter; something will be done about it. On the inside I gave a huge "YESSSSSS." I was really happy. Well, that night we listened to a lot of seminars about missionary work. I didn't know what the activity was and came unprepared: I didn't bring a notebook! :( One of the speakers brought a bowl of sticky rice and soy sauce and some other really delicious sauce that was red, spicy, and sweet. He let everyone sample a bit of it. After his lecture everyone went outside for cooking smores. However, I, a guy named David, and some other cool dude whose name I didn't catch tarried. We ate up almost all of the leftover sticky rice!! It was SO delicious! My current most favorite Asian food. I could've kept eating that stuff all night long. I'd sure like to learn how to make that dish. It's probably really simple. That was a fun night; good and social. Noah Smith is a stud! When I went to go give him a hug, be picked me up like I was made out of styrofoam, flung me around, then placed me back on the ground again. What does that guy eat?? It's either that or I am a lot lighter than I think I am.

Today I was hoping to get my permit but, just like yesterday, it didn't happen due to lack of organization and following through. Today my totally awesome piano lesson got in the way (but it was a really fun lesson! I'm loving learning basics; I can see it increasing the quality of my playing gradually). Yesterday dad was ready to go, but I was still studying for it and when I did get out of the house, it was too late to take the test there. We are going to try to go there again tomorrow; third time's the charm!

Today was a total music day for me. Thanks to some heavenly guidance, I was able to not only find my lost Phantom of The Opera Songbook, but also a lot of music from the musical Les Miserables. I fell in love with it all all over again. I spent a lot of the morning just sitting in front of the piano, playing tune after tune, enjoying every minute. I look back on it now, and I realize that I probably should've gotten some work done during that time. Grr... Keenan, keep on praying for discipline!

I'm listening to the soundtrack of Les Miserables from my dad's old tape player. :) I really really like the finale. It is just, oh, what to say... everyone should learn this story. Throwing music into the story increases it's awesomeness by 100%! I love it.

Sick Day

I vomited in the middle of the night. It must've been something I ate. Or maybe my immune system is fed up with the lack of sleep.

Anywho, I have a runny nose, and gross sneezes. I am sick. I slept in till 8 and missed seminary. I worked on a little bit of school after making an egg sandwich for breakfast until the English LL. That was fun; I'm so excited to meet most of my virtual friends in person at the Open house in two weeks! After that I played guitar and piano, probably more than I should've. I'm excited to perform music. But I need to DISCIPLINE myself to work when I need to work and practice when I need to practice. Moderation in all things. No excuses.

Then I went to the YMCA, had an okay family night, and got all caught up in lessons. A good day, but I can choose to do better.

9-26-2010

Ah, today was a good Sabbath.

Last night I went to a fellowship party at the Wright's house. They are hosting some foreign exchange students, and they invited me to come! There were a lot of other teens there, and the two that I got to know the most were the two exchange students living at their house. The one from Thailand had a long name that was difficult for me to pronounce, and so we just called her Fa. The one from Spain's name was Carmen. They both liked music, and liked the guitar music I played. There were these other guys that brought along some real electric guitars, and they serenaded the party for a little bit. We played some name games and whatnot, then we watched some videos, we listened to music, and we even got to play a board game that I brought along. It was a great time. Foreign exchange students are so cool! I find it really cool to be able to speak two languages very fluently. And the accents are totally awesome. Just being around these people made me think: "wow, there actually are other countries with people and teens and stuff." It was a great cultural experience.

This morning I listened to a talk by John Hilton III called The Dog Ate My Scriptures on CD. I forgot that we had it, and I didn't even remember listening to it before until I recognized some of the things that he said in the talk. It was a very very inspiring talk about responsibility and agency. I am responsible for the person I become and the decisions I make. This statement is like, this stage of my life's theme. It is my choice to act however I want to act, regardless of what other people do or what my environment is. I can choose to be happy anywhere, even in a Nazi death camp. I will find ways to get jobs done, just like Nephi. The power is MINE! 

The testimony meeting today was pretty good. A lot of very inspiring testimonies from all of the ward members. I bore my testimony of the Plan of Salvation today. After that Sunday school was pretty neat. We discussed Isaiah and the significance of the Priesthood in the family. It was very interesting to me and helped me understand some things that I didn't. I was called to give the lesson in Priesthood meeting today, and the teacher wasn't even there! It was just me and Parker in the room, all by ourselves. So I gave my lesson titled What Faith Isn't and went into some attributes of Christ and their opposites for me one-man audience. I challenged him to study about the Christlike attributes that we didn't go into today and try to apply them to his life. 

Today my father and I were planning on doing some home teaching, but one of the ones that we tried to meet were home. 

I took a little nap today; I was tired from the long party last night. Tonight I will get to bed early so that I can start keeping promises to myself tomorrow with a strong and alert mind!

An Adventure...

Man, something's just awesome about Fridays when it comes to seminary. I had a crazy time yesterday...

So we played this random object scripture chase which was awesome. Everyone was runnig around and trying to grab random objects and stuff from around the room. So, like, Sis. Brinkerhoff whould do one of two things every round: She would either show an object from a bag that represented one of the scripture mastery verses that we'd have to get or she would call out an object that we would have to put on the table. It sounds kind of dull the way I write it, but it was really quite an exciting game.

Brinkerhoff: "The next object is... a red pencil."
(There's a bunch of pencils in a box on the table)

*Miranda, Jared and I dash to the container, shoving and grabbing for the pencil*

Jared: "Got it!!"

It was that sort of thing. She'd say stuff like, "A dollar", or "Some kind of jewelry". The scripture chase part of it was fun too. Something that I found kind of funny was how Savanna was so quiet whenever she got the verse before anyone else. Hm, how to describe it... Okay, so, it was like the teacher would show something representing the verse, and the mouse in the corner would flip to the verse in his scriptures before anyone else and yell, "I've got it!" That's the best way to describe it.

After the game we ate some homemade bread and jam. Something was mildew-y about the strawberry jam. I swear that it tasted just like my grandpa's workshop. I ate it anyway; it was nostalgic jam and reminded me of grandpa. But the other jam tasted just fine.

That day I realized that all of the other seminary kids would walk to the GP High School after seminary. It was the one in town, and it was close by. After internalizing this fact I thought, "Hey, it would sure be fun to follow Jared around campus... Mwahaha. I'll show those district leaders that they can't keep ME off of that school!"

And so I caught up to the rest of the group, and they told me about a security guard that would probably kill me if he saw me on campus. I never even saw him, and I WALKED RIGHT THROUGH THE SCHOOL. It was so fun. I was thinking, pretty much singing in my head, "Mwahahaha, I'm not even a student here... Look at all of the people! This is so cool!" I was just throwing "yo"s, "hello"s, and "'sup"s to anyone who would dare look my way. It was fun. Most of them just thought I was strange and paid no attention.

By the time Jared got to the library to work on an assignment, I decided that it was time for me to get out of there before something bad happened. I simply walked to the other side of the big school and walked into the downtown area. I told Sis. Brinkerhoff to catch me is she saw me running home, but she didn't see me. I jogged all the way from the Savage Street building to my house yesterday. Sure, it took more time out of my day, but I feel that experiencing the public school experience just for a few minutes was worth it.

Worked on a portfolio assignment for almost the whole school day. I am appalled that it took me so long to finally polish that one assignment. Ah well, ya do what ya do.

Oh day...

Hatmen 3 is done. Finally finished editing. Phew! I wonder why I waited till the school year to do it; I feel rather didn't-accomplish-anything-on-the-list-and-yet-still-exhausted today.

Well, last Saturday after going to a scout meeting and helping the family make pear butter, I was driven over to my cousin's house to film H3. Though I don't feel as confident about the quality of this episode, we did have a fun time filming it! I think almost everyone pitched in on ideas for it. I also brought a few masks and we had fun with those. I'm still frustrated that I lost my fedora at a choir performance last semester! I had to introduce a new character: Green Hatguy. He's a jerk of a jock and isn't as funny as the mwahaha-uses-strawberrys-as-weapons Black Hatguy. Ah well. Ya do what ya do.

Sigh. I got no lessons done today. None. I just did work on a portfolio that I was hoping to finish, which I did not. Well, there's only one way to solve this kind of a slump:

"I will work harder!" -Boxer from Animal Farm.

Best Seminary Game Ever (and other day events)

Today started out groggily, but I think I'm getting more used to 7 hours of sleep. I still need to get to bed earlier, doggone it! Anyways, I went to seminary this morning, and, just like every other day, Sis. Brinkerhoff used pictures and other memorizing tools to teach all of the students the scripture mastery. Today was picture day, the day in which we took class pictures which would hang on display in the Stake Center all year long. I still remember the ridiculous grin, messy hairdo, and awkward position that I had in the picture from last year. I did not want to get it wrong this time. So we took a few pictures and I gave myself a mental note to NOT grin as huge as I could. It's a habit I need to break.

When we got done with the pictures (after doing some goofy ones too, of course), we went back to the classroom and played a game. There were chairs set up in a 4x4 square, and there were three teams. The teacher was to call out a scripture reference, and the students would find the scripture as fast as they could. Once they found the scripture, they could go sit on one of the chairs on the grid. If 3 team members were in a row, they'd get a point and then we'd repeat with a new scripture reference. It's like tic tac toe, only cooler. It was the most fun game I remember playing for seminary. You can change your seat to get in the way of others and to align with your team members. I remember the game getting pretty lively. Savanna, a usually quiet girl in class who was on my team, was screaming and pushing other people out of the way to stop them from getting three in a row as I frantically looked for the verse as Miranda yelled the reference: "D&C 25!!!" It was so awesome and surprising to see all of my classmates act that way. And at that time in the morning! The team named Noah's Ark (led my one of the coolest guys in the stake, Noah Smith)  won, but the Padawans (our team name, which we changed later to the Platypus Padawans) got second. :) It was a great morning.

Sis. Burg gave me a small container that had four doughnuts in them. She said to share them with my family. I thought "cool!", but then I imagined myself running home with the box of doughnuts in hand which I did. Sis. Brinkerhoff dropped me off at my usual spot, and I had fun yelling at cars passing by, "HEY, WANT A DOUGNUT??" While waving the box at them as I ran. It was fun. I stopped at the Stewart's house, a family in our ward, just to use their bathroom, and thought, "Well, might as well give them these doughnuts for almost destroying their bathroom (good thing they had a plunger handy)."
And so I ran home doughnut-less.

Today's schoolwork wasn't as fulfilling as I had wished. I spent most all of it working on two essays, one of which I got nowhere on. Ah well. :) It'll get done.

For tonight's movie night, one of the movies we saw was Toy Story 2. Toy Story is my most favorite movie trilogy. I just love it!

Temple Trip was good. :)

For starters, I got to go on a field trip today. I got to see Cassidy and Allie at a park somewhere in Medford. Cassidy is learning how to play guitar and I helped her restring hers. It was good seeing them again! :)

After that I went to a piano lesson (which I just stared doing recently and is going awesome!) and then I got to go to the temple. The experience was very reverent. I guess that's the best way to explain it. I brought a notebook so that I could take notes for my own personal revelation while I was there. I was the first male to be confirmed and baptized for the dead, and so I got done and dressed before anyone else. As I sat there listening to Bro. Neuenschwander perform the ordinance, I took notes on what I thought and felt. Okay, Lord. What should I be focusing on in my life? I wrote down the answers that came. Make promises, keep them. Make promises, keep them. Increase your Honor. Take initiative. Stop comparing. Stop victimizing yourself. You are where you are because of what YOU have done. You are responsible for the person you are and who you will be. So do what you can do instead of worry about things you cannot control. This will increase your circle of influence. 

And so, I am now working towards new goals. My eyes are directed toward newer heights. I'm ready to take control over my environment. Grants Pass, then, THE WORLD!! MWAHAHAHAHAAHA! Life is going to be a lot of fun; I can tell.

9-15-10

Today I think turned out to be a good day.

I got schoolwork done, attended the LL I needed to attend, I got to chat with Ceana, and I even got to do a bit of service at the pear farm.

Today I completed the first chapter of the Seven Habits, which focuses on proactivity. Before I wasn't really seeing my potential to become what I want to become. The decision is really up to me, reguardless of how people treat me, how I was raised, etc. I pondered a lot about this kind of thinking while picking pears in the church orchards this evening, and my proactive muscles started to get to work. I'm excited for the ideas that I have in mind now.

A picture for the blog...

I thought I'd put up this picture just for kicks. It's not a good picture of me, but the look on my brother's face is EPIC.

"...Guide us with Your grace..."

There's much to say.

Yesterday I went to a ward barbecue in the afternoon at around 5. It was pretty fun; I brought my guitar and entertained there. One of my friends there reminded me of the Stake Dance going on that night. I was not planning on going; I thought that I'd get in the way with the ward barbecue. But she reminded me that it started at 7, when the barbecue was pretty much over. I thought, "Hey, with those fun wax earplugs, that last dance I went to wasn't so bad! Maybe I can get a ride with the Tripps." And so I asked Marney if I could get a ride to the Savage Street building (where the dance was). She talked to her dad and said that It'd be fine. But she still needed to get ready, and so she said that they'd pick me up from my house (after I'd gotten a bit more prepared for the dance :P). 

So, I went home and got ready for it. It was Hawaiian themed (what's the deal with Hawaiian themes in my Stake??), and so I borrowed my father's radiant, orange Hawaiian shirt. I wore a nice brown shirt underneath which I thought harmonized with my eye color. I got my hair all gelled up and just waited. And waited. And waited...

I looked at the clock and it was almost 8, an hour after the dance had already started. I talked to my mother and she explained a lack of communication. It was complicated, but what I got out of it was that her dad thought that they'd be taking me home instead of actually bringing me there. 

Out of my mother's wonderful mercy, she drove me there herself, with three reluctant toddlers who had one of their most favorite musicals (Webber's Cats) interrupted by the trip. I had my earplugs in my pocket and was ready to have some fun. At least until I walked through the doors. I could hear a huge, pulsating beat and a loud female soloist singing dependently about some guy she was obsessed with over the pounding heartbeat drums. I squinted into the window on the door to the cultural hall and could see silhouettes dancing in the very dark room. I turned and saw a picture of Christ on the wall and thought, no way. The Savior does NOT want me in there. I turned around and walked straight through those glass doors. 

Thankfully, my mother was still in the parking lot, waiting for me to give a signal. She wondered whether I'd want to have the colorful shirt at the dance or not and was waiting for a few seconds to see if anyone else was wearing that kind of a thing. I am so glad she was inspired to wait for me. That would've been a really spiritually draining experience. And I'm also glad that there was a lack of communication too! 

But all the same, I feel ashamed that leaders set up that kind of nonsense for the youth. It is really, really sad. I found out later that that night they gave the DJ job over to a priest in my ward and one of his friends. I don't think that was a very good idea, and all the same, these dances need some major changes. The dance at Education Week (minus the volume) was not really that bad. It was much lighter and was in a larger place. Wearing the earplugs made the experience just fine for me. But at this dance, it all seemed too dark. The song seemed too suggestive pertaining to the beat and the lyrics. I'm really glad I had a brief scripture study before going to the dance so I had the Spirit to prompt me to leave.

As you all may know, I've been trying to get myself organized. I heard a quote today that really inspired me in my planning. I don't remember exactly how it goes, but it was by one of the Apostles. If said something like, "Success is vanity unless it is in the name of the Lord." So, I need to make sure that all of these things that I am trying to focus on are what the Lord wants me to focus on and pray for His guidance. Another quote I heard today was this: "Self-mastery: Turning yourself over to the Master." That sounds so much easier than trying to become successful on your own! 

In order to improve my life, I must become more dependent on the Savior. It's the only true way.

Friday (whoa, just realized. Today's 9/11)

Ah, today was a good day.

Went to seminary today for the second time this year. Sis. Brinkerhoff is one of the nicest ladies I've ever met. I guess you could say that I job-shadow the seminary teachers that work in town. After class I have to stay because I get my ride home from Sis. Brinkerhoff. I help her and the other teachers clean up and we have a good time chatting and laughing about various topics. Sis. Berg is the Freshman teacher for seminary this year, and she is the wife of the Patriarch that gave me my Patriarchal Blessing. She is a very sweet woman. It's great getting to know these good people! But I miss Sis. Allen and Sis. Dastrup from last year; they were released.

Today's seminary class was spiritually potent. It was abut the 3 Acts that make up Premortal, Mortal, and Postmortal life. They related it to a play in which you participated in. The thing is, you don't know what happened in Act I. Which is why you must read the script. You will see a lot of bad things happen on the stage. But it all has to happen. It all turns out alright in the end of the play in Act III. So remember that. That works with Habit 3: Begin With The End in Mind. Just try to see the big picture; it's so much easier to make the right decisions when you are! :)

Today's choir practice was not as dull as yesterday's. It was a bit more fun. We're starting a song ("Chumbera") and we got to do some more entertaining warm ups.

Today I also had some fun describing a way I would estimate how many deer there are on an island for Biology. I wonder what the comments to my discussion will be like.

Tonight was movie night, and we had an okay time. We saw a couple Simpsons episodes (with a foul-language filter!), and then my parents watched a movie called A Walk to Remember. I watched the first part and thought it was lame and decided go read a book instead. But I came back during the second half of the movie and discovered awesomeness. It was a really religious, dramatic, romantic film and I almost cried. Mom did. But it has a few wordies in it so don't watch it unless you have a filter. It was so good. It was a good Christian film and I felt like screaming to the characters, "THE MORMONS!! GO LISTEN TO THE MORMONS!!"

 That's how I feel about a lot of people.

Another Day

Can you imagine a world in which everything stays where you put it? That'd be cool.

The last two days were not as organized as I wished they were. The kids had a good time with my dry erase board (and totally using up the marker), and so I didn't have my usual schedule for a couple of days. I still need to become more diligent internally, and it's a lot easier to be so if you can look at something that says, "Hey! This needs to get done right now! Go!" 

They let me in choir, but they didn't start till Wednesday. My school only has one choir which is a concert choir in the first trimester and a swing choir in the other two trimesters. To tell you honestly, these first few days have seemed a bit dull. Mr. Lawson has been doing nothing but explaining warm ups for the past two days and will probably keep it up for the rest of the week. I'm ready to do some BELTING AWESOMENESS! I wish I had a bunch of friends who were available who love to sing. Then we could start a singing group that sung stuff that WE liked and wanted to sing. That'd be cool. Or maybe I'll just do that with my own family someday. That'd be so great to have a family choir, if not a band! That'd be SO RAD. I've heard of families that are like that.

I am having trouble in Latin... They didn't give me all of the vocabulary words or something. I'll figure it out with the teacher. Autobiography's coming along, math-science-government I'm doing fine in.

I finally got Waiting figued out. It's crazy it took me THAT long to think up a song. Ug. I'm still working  on all of the exact same tunes I was a month or two ago. None of them (not counting Haven't Met You Yet) are at a performance level, but some are getting close.

I think I've got my Eagle Project all set up. Now I just need to get it approved by a committe of some kind.

Labor Day

Today was a great day. I got up earlier than I have all summer (not counting that sleepness night during the Wilderness Survival merit badge!) and got started on my day. Prayers, scriptures, sit ups, cream of wheat, get to work. I got a strong start on Latin this morning and continued in Science and then in Government, my 2nd and 3rd easiest subjects.

Before starting on Math I had to go out and do some work with the family on our (neglected) yard. It is almost traditional for our family to come back from a summer full of travelling to a weed infested, dry wasteland. And so today we got started on fixing it up, celebrating labor day with a bit of labor!

I got back, finished Math, and then I (eventually) got my rough draft figured out for the Autobiographical Narrative that I need to do for English.I finally decided on a topic: My month long stay at my Aunt Heather's house summer 2009.

It felt so good to set goals and GET THEM DONE! :)

We had a pretty good dinner tonight. We had chili dogs and fruit salad, followed by a cake (which I got to make!) and a delicious fruit smoothe. Family night was okay; I think we're getting better at having them.

Tomorrow is an exciting day for me: choir starts! I hope they'll let me in again; we're going to just walk in and register and hope they don't notice that they actually aren't really supposed to let me in
 for some strange reason like what happened last year. We'll see what happens.

Sigh... my day has been filled with good music. I love love love my Josh Groban/Andrea Bocelli (I think that's how you spell his last name) channel on Pandora. These guy's voices are awesome. My voice has been feeling awesome today. I've been able to hit the high notes in my Buble songs decently! Maybe summer is a curse for me, the school year feels SO GOOD in all aspects of my life!

Return to The Faith

Today was really life changing for me.

This summer I have been struggling with depression. No matter what I did I never felt like I did enough to get enough. I knew that blessings come to those who serve diligently and I was impatient with myself, desiring the blessings of a faithful servant.

But my morning scripture study helped me stop thinking this way. One of the scriptures that I fell upon was D&C 62:7. It ways, "I, the Lord, am willing, if any among you desire to ride upon horses, or upon mules,or in chariots, he shall receive this blessing, if he receive it from the hand of the Lord, with a thankful heart in all things." (Emphasis added)

This lead me to thinking differently. Keenan, I thought, you aren't seeing the good things around you. You are comparing, and have been thinking that what you have isn't enough. You have lost a thankful heart.


And so I looked up Gratitude in the For The Strength of Youth Pamphlet. What it read was good, but it didn't really hit home. And so I looked in the Christlike Attributes section of Preach My Gospel. It wasn't there, but I found something else instead. I found and read the part on Humility. It's kind of long, so I won't quote it, but it was the answer to my prayer. I had learned that yes, being this, and being that are good and great things, but this summer, Keenan, you've put your life more into your hands instead of the Lord's hands to try to become this way you want to be. Why have you lost your trust in Him?? Why have fear when you can have faith in the Lord that He will strengthen you? Faith is the opposite of fear, and it is faith that you must regain to wipe away your fear. Remember earlier this year, how cheerful you felt almost all of the time? That was when you were much more reliant on the Lord than you are now. You need to get back to being that way. And you WILL.


I was really glad that I had finally found the core of my sadness: my own pride. My lack of humility was my cause of depression. But now that I've figured it out, I don't feel so terrible anymore. I am comforted in Christ. :) I think I slipped away this summer due to slothfulness, negative influence, and lack of seminary. I need to develop a bit of backbone!

I'm so glad my fast was effective today. This is going to be a great week.

I've also started studying the 7 Effective Habits of Highly Effective People again. I had forgotten a lot of it, and I'm really really excited to become more useful to God and my fellow men!

Mwahahaha! NO MORE DRUGS!

Yay! Today I took my final dose of Acutane. No more dry skin, depression, and orange pills! And as a plus, my skin has really cleared up! The dermatologist said that it would get even better over time. I'm really happy about this!~

I think I've found my most favorite kind of work out: chopping wood! That's right. It's a lot of fun if you get into it. It'll provide entertainment for me for quite awhile; we have lots of wood to chop! :)

We have new neighbors, by the way. They're a pretty friendly older couple. Ugg, I feel so bad for not remembering their names! They paid Henry to mow their real nice front yard. It has lots of space, pretty trees and green grass.

Sigh... It's like all of my family's computers hate my movies and want to prevent me from ever making any ever again or something... I filmed a goofy music video lip-sync for Vanilla Twilight and I can't put it all together on this one computer. I guess I'll have to try transferring all of the files to another computer see if the movie maker will work for me on another one.

I'm trying to beef up my Youtube channel. I've gotten Hatmen 1 and 2 on there now and I am going to call the Jarivses to see when I can film Hatmen 3 with them. Oh, I'm so excited!

Sigh. I love fasting. It feels so good when you KNOW you or someone else will get help in something important.

Getting better.

I got a fever yesterday, and felt real nasty this morning. I slept in, and tried to keep up in work even though I was feeling weak. I know that there is still work to do, but I felt like just taking it easy this evening with some facebook and blogging. We still haven't found out who made the mysterious mess in the bathroom last night. Ah well. I guess I'll never know for certain.