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.