Reflections of a True Millennial

So, I guess my intended schedule of posting hasn't really worked out. I can't provide a great excuse, since mostly I'm just lazy. But in the past few weeks I actually have been doing some pretty great things that I think are worthy of detracting from my writing. This past week was probably the best week of my life. In January, I decided that it would be a great idea to go to EFY this summer. Especially for Youth (EFY) is a week long camp held all over the country for Mormon teens to strengthen their commitment to God and the Gospel, while also having fun and meeting new people. It's a pretty awesome program. But, upon deciding EFY would be a fun thing to do for the summer, I discovered early registration had ended and getting a spot would be difficult. When I first checked for open slots during regular registration, everything in this session was booked. But somehow, we logged on at a later time when a slot had opened up. We quickly signed up for EFY Provo session 7...

Well, I must be getting good when a friend (who's ten times smarter than myself) approaches me for a motivational blog post.  So yes, I just wrote about summer and I myself have completed all studying for the entire school year (finally), but some less fortunate, including said friend, have exams still to come. Therefore, more studying. Darn. So, yeah I'm about to write about studying. But, stay with me, it'll get better. This whole year, I've told myself that school wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to study. There's homework and then there's studying. Homework is easy enough to complete by doing a few problems or some project. But studying just kills your brain. I think maybe it's the amount of personal initiative that studying requires which carries its' difficulty. You can't just do every odd question on page 112, you have to sit down and review and read and whatever. Blah. But, life is not all about studying. And this blog i...

For a special series coming soon. --- So yes, I am a Mormon. You've probably seen those ads on Youtube with cheery people saying things like "I write a blog, I want to be an engineer, and I'm a Mormon." Well maybe those Youtube ads have better stories than I do. Or perhaps you've had those guys in white shirts and ties with name tags knock on your door. And more likely than not if you're reading this, you know me (a Mormon). So, you've had some exposure to Mormonism, but really, what is a Mormon? What do we believe?  The name "Mormon" is actually a nickname for this misconceived Church. The official name is "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." Quite a mouthful to say, so often it is abbreviated as the LDS (Latter-Day Saint) Church, or referred to as the Mormon church. The term Mormon comes from "The Book of Mormon," which is a book of Scripture  recording the teachings and history of a group of Israelites th...

     Thursday was really the last day of Junior year. It kind of snuck up on me. Most years, it's a big countdown- 20 days left, 19 days left, 18 days left, .... - but this year it kind of just happened. Even waking up this morning, it didn't feel like the last day of school. And even now it doesn't. It's been such a long, rigorous year and I feel like it's all just continuing on tomorrow and next week. But we're actually done.      The first day of this year was kind of odd, just like today. There wasn't a lot of fanfare. From the first hour of the day when Mrs. Gregor laid out the lesson plans for the next few weeks (with more assignments and quizzes than imaginable) till the closing bell in Calculus, it was a daunting day. I feel like "first days" in high school have never gone too well for me. I'm always a little introverted, forced out of the comfort of summer into new classes with new teachers, assignments, and different classmates, w...

And so it begins. The Seniors are gone, graduated, off to bigger things. Cue the slogans spelled with numbers (stay c14ssy, etc.). Schedule your senior pictures. Start applying to colleges. It's all happening. Maybe I'm a bit prideful to be writing about the beginning of the class of 2014, when all the graduating seniors today probably have unexplainable feelings of anticipation and unknown. Today's really their day, their commencement. Congratulations to all the seniors who are moving on. You will all certainly be missed. That's life. Change is inevitable in any situation. As anticipation fills the outgoing class, excitement enters the new upperclassmen, fear strikes incoming juniors, and a myriad of feelings occur. Change is inevitable. We get so ingrained in our repetitive ways of life, that change is difficult to deal with. But every change brings a new beginning, whether it be a new grade, school, job, family, friendship, or anything. Change brings opportunit...

     With any thing in life, there are two ways to do something: in theory and in application. Theory basically means practice, when you study, prepare, and work for something. Application is when practice is put to the test. In theory, everything works. It application, it's much different. Things happen, mistakes occur, and life doesn't always work. The leap to application seems broad, often too broad for us to hurdle. But the definitive factor that separates the truly successful from the rest is application. In theory, you can accomplish anything. In application, you can learn anything. Application is not a means of perfection, but it's a means of working towards perfection. Great inventor Thomas Edison struggled to make the light bulb at first, failing hundreds of times. When asked about these failures, he replied: I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways t...

     Faced daily with differing paths and decisions, we mold our character and disposition through the choices we make. We facilitate each option through two means- commission or omission. Specifically each wrong decision we make can come by commission or omission.      The concept is fairly obvious and probably what you think about concerning choices. Commission is what you do. So if you do something, you've committed something- whether it be good or bad. What we often don't think about when it comes to choice is omission. Omission is what we choose not to do. Even though the concept of omission isn't obvious to our minds, it's often how we choose to do wrong.  We all know the sins of commission, and we're not likely to commit a serious wrong such as killing someone, it's probably just not going to happen. But, when things become hard it becomes so easy for us to omit the things that matter most. What we need to do quickly turns into what we should...