Reflections of a True Millennial

"As a country, we have been through this too many times. "Whether it's an elementary school in Newtown, a shopping mall in Oregon, or a temple in Wisconsin, or a movie theater in Aurora, or a street corner in Chicago, these neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children. We're going to have to come together to take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics." -President Obama, 12-14-12 Yes, this has happened to many times. Small towns plastered across national news for all the wrong reasons. Intricate stories laid out over weeks displaying a web of corruption and a trail of broken hearts. Too much. Places like movie theaters and schools seem like places we can't even go. Since I was a kid, my perceptions of the time when my parents grew up seems like a time when everything was perfect. Old home videos from their childhoods set up a viewing window into another time. It seemed like...

Yay, it's December 2nd! Christmas is almost here. December is one of my favorite times of year, you can just feel the Christmas spirit. And you can see it too, in decorations going up around the house.      In the above picture is a little basket in our living room with all the Christmas books we own. Of course there are many classic titles by classic authors with classic characters and classic messages. But headlining the pile has been a book by an odd title by an  odd author with odd characters, but a classic message. Well, staring me in the face every time I pass by, "The Lump of Coal" by Lemony Snicket coaxed me into reading it this afternoon. I remembered the story was about a lump of coal who could not find acceptance anywhere and his journey, but didn't recall the last and perhaps most important paragraph. When the lump of coal finds a purpose to his cold, black, charcoal-y life, Mr. Snicket closes the book with the following paragraph...

There's an oft-quoted question, "If you were put on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?"So basically, if video of your life were to be put on screen in a courtroom, would they be able to tell who you say you are? Today is a day of thanks. And by scrolling through Facebook, being with family, and many other activities we can quickly tell what everyone else is thankful for. We also have opportunities to say what we are thankful for. Pretty simple concept. So what about tomorrow? We'll always be thankful for our friends, families, food, clothes, and whatever. But will we always show it? If someone sees us on April 3rd or June 17th, will it be obvious what we're thankful for? Or will we be pessimistic and complaining? Be thankful everyday, and show it everyday. Don't ever take life for granted, because before you know it the things you have will be gone. You'll be off pursuing other things in life, and wishing you ...

"Isn’t it true that we often get so busy? And, sad to say, we even wear our busyness as a badge of honor, as though being busy, by itself, was an accomplishment or sign of a superior life."                         - Dieter F. Uchtdorf      So how about that daylight savings time? An extra hour of sleep yesterday! Of course, it was originally intended to be an extra hour of work, but you know... sleep is nice and work isn't so nice.      But sleep is often hard to come by. Waking up in the morning feels like waking up from an unusually long nap instead of a refreshing night of sleep. It seems like someday we'll be able to get a full night of sleep and we won't have so much work. Someday, you know, off in the future. So, wouldn't it be easy to just be happy then? After all, we're so busy doing important things now.      Happiness however, is not a destination waiting along the b...

     Standing as the utmost test for college readiness, Junior year has historically been pounded into our heads as the hardest year of schooling. National Merit, SATs, ACTs, tons of AP classes, and thinking about where to spend at least 4 years of your life next highlight a laundry list of endless tasks that students have the responsibility of completing. Being a well rounded student is rolling from everyone's grasp as juggling everything becomes too much. Sometimes there are those days where you get home past 7 and have no motivation to do anything really. Like today, or pretty much everyday for the past few weeks really. And going to a school like ours helps, but also doesn't.      Unfortunately, it seems that everyday we get more and more stress building up, it feels like layer upon layer of work is mounting up. Not just a figure of speech, literally layers of chemistry papers are building up. It feels like the only way to get any relief is to clear ev...

     While the autumn months are bringing a passing of nature, General Conference this weekend compels every listener to make a fresh start. Cheesy sentence yes, but complex sentence? Also yes. Thank you English.      Anyway for those who have no idea what "General Conference" means, it is a worldwide Mormon event that occurs every six months. In it, the living Prophets and Apostles of this time speak to members of the Church and anyone else who cares to listen. Yes we believe in a living Prophet, but no he's not a dinosaur left over from the first century AD or anything. He's just a man called by God to be the Prophet, but that's a whole different topic. So General Conference is an event in Salt Lake City that is broadcasted all over the world and delivers inspiration and doctrine to those that watch. Each speaker at Conference is not assigned a topic and can pick to speak about whatever they feel needs to be spoken about. However, I find it interest...

This weekend, be enlightened and receive answers to life's questions by watching General Conference. Tune in on Sunday at noon ET on lds.org or BYUtv.

     In Matthew 25:14-21 the parable of the talents is delivered by Christ. A parable is a short story with a hidden meaning, and a talent is a unit of money in that era. In this story, a man calls upon his servants and gives five talents to one, two talents to another, and one talent to another. He gave them this money "according to [their] several ability" (v.15) for each man to use this money to get more. The man that got five talents traded his money and eventually ended up with ten talents. The man with two talents did the same and got four talents. The man with one talent feared his master and hid his money. Eventually the master comes back and has his servants come before him. He is very pleased with the first two servants and makes them "ruler over many things" because they have "been faithful over a few things" (v.21). The man who hid his talent sorrily came before his lord and was rebuked as a "wicked and slothful servant" (v.26). He r...

     So, how's the first 2 (or 3) weeks of school? Is 24 hours a day enough to fit in all your work, friends, hobbies, and sleep? Combinations of 12 hour school days (plus hours of homework, 5 hour sleep nights, and an abundance of other activities have been the norm for myself and most other Juniors at my school. (But maybe it's paying off, I corrected a common PSAT grammatical error just as I was reading that last sentence.) So with our 24 hours each day we have about 24 million different things we could participate in, I guess the biggest question is, what do we participate in? With the lack of any post for a few weeks you could probably guess my writing hands have been more focused on English assignments than blogging. Well let's run down a day's schedule. You wake up anywhere from 5-7 AM  and get ready for school. Perhaps if your Mormon you venture to Seminary for an hour or so in the morning. After all this school starts in the morning and the next 7 ...

Well for most of you, you're dreading going back to school tomorrow and you're just wasting away your last few hours of freedom scrolling through Facebook. Or you're me or anyone at my school and you start next week! Haha! Well that's just my paragraph of gloating. Regardless of the fact that I start next week, I'm going to do a back to school post tonight anyway. If you're still in the swing of summer you can always read this later when it's your turn to scroll through Facebook during your last hours of freedom. Anyways, back to school. It doesn't feel like summer was nearly long, but I guess it never does. As school rolls around, we're dropped into the same area with 1000 (or 4000) other students who have very different standards and views than we do. Almost everyone can find a few other kids who have pretty much the same values and ideas as themselves, but it's hard to be among so many kids who aren't like you. It can be easy maybe to be...

Birthdays are celebrated in many different ways. First birthdays are usually celebrated with close friends and family, but the only thing you want is cake. Of course, you don't remember. By the time you're eight or ten, you might upgrade to a bounce house, water slide, or any sort of the thing. Once you're about twelve or thirteen you become too "cool" for birthday parties. You'd rather just go the mall with your friends, because that's "cool." Spanish girls will celebrate their fifteenth birthday with a glorious Quince! Other girls will have a glamorous Sweet 16 instead. Well my big 16th birthday was this Friday. I'm not a girl, so no Sweet 16. Thankfully. But, my birthday was pretty atypical. The day was spent hiking to the summit of Mount Timpanogos, elevation of 11,753 feet. The question is, what's the point of that? We hiked and hiked for hours on end, slurping larges amount of water, and munching on obligatory trail mix. Once yo...

     For many South Floridians who frequent I-75, a new construction site has popped up between Post Road and Griffin. It's kind of a peculiar design. The construction site was even featured in a contest of a local magazine asking reader's what was being built on this site. Photo Credit: Derek Hernandez 6.23.12      Behind the gray Ford and white crane is the said construction site. Well the site is one for a Mormon Temple. Now why would I be writing about a new Church building, like who cares? There's Jewish Temples on every other street corner, so what's the big deal about a new Mormon one? Well our Temples aren't exactly the same as standard meetinghouses. Perhaps you've heard of Mormon Temples and their personification as places of mystery where only Mormons are allowed and secret activities take place. Well the cloud of mystery surrounding these buildings is often misguided. Let me explain.       In the Temple, only faithfu...

Wow, I haven't blogged in almost a month! So by now, almost exactly a month of summer has gone by. And for me, it hasn't been a bad month, but it hasn't been the month I would've wanted. This past Wednesday was the 4th of July, which of course means a big fireworks show. While sitting through the overly-long, 40 minute fireworks show on Wednesday, it all reminded me of New Year's. The beginning of a year is also a time of celebration with fireworks and fun. And New Year's is a time of new beginnings and fresh starts, accompanied by resolutions of how you'll make your life better in the coming year. These resolutions often are invigorating for a few weeks, but then expectations fall flat and the high hopes of the year are not realized, when the year has barely even started.      While contemplating this New Year's activity in July, I thought of how my life is now compared to where I want it to be. Of course, I'm not a bad person or anything, but so...

     "All the world is an empty canvas here before us."      Well that's the end of that, isn't it? That's right folks, sophomore year is officially over. Quite unbelievable yes, but it is done. The year 2011-12 has seen a lot of change. Whether knowingly or not, everyone is changing, becoming who they want to be or who they try to be at least. A quick comparison of any current high school student to their sixth grade self would surely provoke many interesting contrasts. Maybe even quite a few continuities and changes over time. I can assure you, many of us would be appalled at how awkward we used to be. Three friends of mine decided to point out my such awkwardness by liking all my old Facebook posts, circa 2009.      As we grow up, we become more intelligent and mature. We slowly refine ourselves to become more of who we want to be. Changes are made to reduce our "awkwardness." But really, our changes are not just a matter of social beha...

   Well guys, this is my 100th post on Reflections of a Smart Kid. On May 5th 2011, I posted the first entry with the following paragraph:      "Woo! First post! So, welcome to my blog. I'll try to occasionally update it with my thoughts on life, sports, school, etc., etc. So if you would be so kind as to check back on the blog every once in a while, it would be much appreciated. And if I'm extra boring, tell me!"      My blatant awkwardness never ceases to amaze me. Oh well. Except for one early post about the 2011 NBA playoffs, most of my entries have taken on a more inspirational aspect of things. But what if I, for some reason or another, didn't have those other 99 posts to deliver the messages I would want people to hear. What would I say if I had one post to tell it all. Well, more or less, I'm going to try to write what I would say in one post. Bear with me.          About two weeks ago at school we got our 20...

I feel like everything I post on this blog is really the same thing with just a few superfluous big words added here and there. See, I just used a big word in that last sentence. I'm constantly writing the same things because it feels like I have a constant cycle of just a few small things about myself or about people in general that annoy me so much! Not that I want to complain or anything, I just hope that the low number of people that actually read my blog can maybe get a little bit of motivation from what I write.    Well after that amusing anecdote, lets hear about the one thing that annoys me more than all else- happiness. No, I'm not a Scrooge. I actually love to be happy! But what annoys me is that a lot of people don't share that same love. We're all faced with trials and hardships, and yes we all have those times where it feels like the world is ending and we just want to give up. Everyone has moments when naturally, they are just sad. But the thing that see...

So I deactivated my Facebook and now no one visits my blog. Oh well.      Well life is life. Right now is that stretch of time where you are so ready for the moment when the final school bell rings and you're free for three months, but you still have over a month to go in school. Looming tests and exams seem like distant fears that are just obstacles to get around before the freedom of summer. But these "obstacles" cause the pressure to rise as review sessions are held, homework increases, and studying inches its way further into the wee hours of the night. Juggling schoolwork, sleep, a social life, and Church becomes too much to handle. Often Church is pushed off to the side for the fear of failing school, the necessity of sleep, and the notion of not having a social life. What we are so quick to push away is actually so important. Scriptures and prayer become a second priority and up-keeping a sense of morals seems like to much of a burden in the overly mora...

     Happy Easter to everyone!     This is one of the greatest times of the year, it is the time where we celebrate the most important event in history- the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. At our Church this weekend, there was put on a performance of Act II of the play "Savior of the World." This play was produced in the year 2000 by the First Presidency of the Church as a testament of Christ and His life. Act II presents the time immediately following the death of Christ. Inexplicable grief is over the disciples of Christ as they mourn the fact that He has died. Mary Magdalene is grieving when Christ appears to her in the garden. At first she does not recognize Him, but when she feels it in her heart, she knows. Christ appears to others, and they as well do not recognize Him, except until they have felt His words in their hearts. The Apostle Thomas proclaims that he cannot believe Christ has risen until he has seen Him. When Jesus doe...

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! -- For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.                     -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow      Life is.... Well I don't really know what life is, but I know it seems pretty long. And throughout life there are a lot of places to go and a lot of people to see. Everyday contains something to do, a task to accomplish. It's easy to be caught up in the tiny mundane tasks we do each day and not pursue any real goals. Life without goals is boring. Imagine a soccer game without goals, it would be so boring. But the score would still be 0-0. Ha. Ha. But seriously, goals are the things that drive us! We wouldn't be laboring in our school classes if they didn't serve an ultimate purpose- to g...

     In 1979, President Jimmy Carter sai d, " For the first time in the history of our country the majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years." Since then, a sea of statistics have rushed out citing the downward fall of youth groups in America, and the increasing crisis of their future. Graduation rates have plummeted, the national debt has sky-rocketed, and many other detrimental  statistics  have been released. The slew of negative studies makes one long for the days of childhood, where life was carefree and tasks were menial. The future has been painted as a destitute time of despair. But forget all of that, the future is still a blank canvas. It is unique in the fact that it is the only time where we do not know what will occur. The projections show life becoming worse and worse, but that's not the way it needs to be.      In these early years of our life, it's important to define who we are...

     Your morning probably starts with a loud beeping penetrating your left ear, or maybe the radio suddenly clicking on and blaring the latest song. Either way, you feel around on the clock to find where to turn that annoying noise off. Then you grudgingly pull off the covers, plop your feet down on the floor, and take a step. Then another, and another, and another. Throughout the day, you take your steps across your home and school, across the practice field for your team, across the store, and just about everywhere else. Then your day culminates as you pull on your pajamas and take one last step into bed.      Steps are the little ways of progression to get where we need to go. One step won't get you far, but a series of steps will lead you to wherever you need to go. At times you don't want to step anyway, it may seem to laborious of a task to get from point A to point B. At other times, the desire to get somewhere new puts a certain spring in your ste...

     Up.      Up is the word of progression, the word that shows things are moving along nicely. It's a simple two-letter word, but has a whole array of connotations. The notion of moving up creates a sense of advancement, a sense of becoming something new. Up is used in the common term "growing up."      All of us grow up a little bit from day to day and from year to year. It's difficult to see any progression from day to day, but as the days string together to form weeks and months we begin to inch a little taller and enrich our minds more and more. Just from looking at the past school year in comparison to this school year, I can see a change in myself from the quiet new kid to the rambunctious sophomore that I am. And starting off as the "quiet Mormon" and becoming a bit louder, people wonder if I'm being "corrupted?" But another friend pointed out, it's not corruption, it's just growing up.      As we grow up,...

Here's a topic that you might be interested in: you. Because as a human being, your mind is almost defaulted to think about yourself first. To care about someone else often takes a conscious effort on our part, but for some people we automatically think about them first. If they've had a rough day, we let them tell their story. If they need help with something, it's like second nature to give them a hand. Those are the people we love. This past Tuesday we celebrated one of the most over-commercialized holidays of the year: Valentine's Day. But behind all the candy and gigantic stuffed teddy bears is the real reason for February 14th. It's a day to celebrate the people we love, not just your significant other, but your dearest friends and family members. It is times with these people, times like February 14th, where the desire to serve and love others is pretty strong. But what about all the rest of the time? What about those days where you are the one having a bad d...

In Joshua's final sermon to the Children of Israel, he counciled "choose you this day whom ye will serve."  Throughout Israel's exodus from the land of Egypt, the people had difficulty following the Lord at all times. This wavering of service to the Lord can be seen from the time that Moses came down from Mount Sinai to find his people worshipping a golden calf. In Matthew 22:37-38, the Lord councils that the "first and great commandment" is to "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." But what does it mean to love God? John 3:16 states that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son." This popular Scripture, oft quoted by Broncos miracle-maker Tim Tebow, reveals a little bit about the love God expects us to give. God gave up His most prized possession for us. Similarly, we must give up our most prized possessions for Him. Are the relationships you have bringing  you closer to Heavenly Father or are they filled with lus...

Sometimes a weird complex presents itself in our brain. Whenever someone explicitly tells you not to do something, a strong urge to do that very act takes hold. My older brother, who happened to take AP Psychology, labeled this as "teenage butt-headness" or the more proper term "reverse psychology." For example, when you tell a little kid not to eat any more cookies, a craving for cookies sweeps over him. But why does that continue to apply to us today? It seems as teens if we are told not to date before the age of 16, that suddenly becomes very tempting. Or if we are told to keep the Sabbath day holy, then we feel like that is such a great burden that cannot be carried. Why do our minds work this way? Well, it's all about our mindset. When a rule without a seeming reason is placed before us, we wish to reject it. Going back to the example of telling a little kid to not eat a cookie, he doesn't really understand why he can't have another cookie. Health i...

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths." -Proverbs 3:5-6 In 1856, the Willie and Martin handcart companies set across the United States on the journey to Zion. These faithful saints were limited to 17 pounds of supplies a person, and severely rationed on food. Their commencement of the trek was in the middle of July, and following the coming months, winter struck harshly. Life seemed difficult, and food was severely limited, but these faithful pioneers journeyed on. Eventually these pioneers made it to the Salt Lake Valley, their ultimate destination. Many were lost along the way, but the members of the handcart companies stayed faithful to the Lord and trusted in His direction. Often times in life, we are asked to do big things. Many of the most important decisions we will ever make in our life are made before the age of 25. By that time, we've basically defined ...

This is probably the most cliché time of year. People make wild resolutions that usual concern weight loss or knowledge or something. But then two or three weeks later, the resolutions get pushed away and life goes back to normal. But this year for some reason, I'm feeling really motivated. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, January 1st is just another day. Seemingly no more important than February 3rd or November 16th or any other day of the year. You're probably going back to the same school or job this week to be with the same people, but take this opportunity to get a fresh start. As you throw away the calendars from 2011, throw away who you used to be. Many important things happened in 2011, so remember the things you need to, learn from your mistakes, and move on. Use this new year as a new start for your life. This all sounds good and motivational, but in all honesty by the time January 3rd or so rolls around, all motivation for a better life is lost in the races. So d...