"...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.