more changes, more time

What is it about "finals" time that gets you on the internet and updating your blog? Oh yeah, PROCRASTINATION. Well I think my family puts the nation in Procrastination because we all do it and living at home, taking on-line classes makes me feel justified in this act. It has been so long since I updated this little journal that I don't need to change the background because the Holidays are once again right around the corner. Well here is an update of the last year, in no particular order.

1. Randy- decided to go on mission, got himself ready, got a call, turned 19, went to Alaska, came home, had a farewell party, didn't leave, waited, waited, waited, waited, waited, got a phone call, waited, waited, waited, waited, waited, got an official military call, left. Just like that.

This event is major on this list because it has kind of directed the path of my life for the last oh 4 MONTHS! Do I regret it? Do I regret saying no to a freaking amazing job in NYC, or DC, or Lady Gaga for that matter? BIG FAT N-O NO- at least most of the time. A realization we all come to at some point in our lives, some of us later than others is that at the end of the day what really matters is who you are and who you are is what you do. My family needed me. I don't think I have really learned this lesson yet, but, I have learned to follow what is otherwise called a gut instinct- I hope.

2. I graduated- for the most part. long story i will save for later.

3. Goals- I am reshaping them, but they look a lot like they did about 7 years ago except for one minor major thing. I now realize, Heavenly Father wants me to have my own family, not the one I already have, but my own addition to the one I already have. ( it's gonna happen on his time though).

4. VICKY SUE- my baby sister goT MARRIAGED! to this great new brother, DAVID! AND NOW WE ARE RELATED to his most wonderful parents in France! ( can we say milk the thin family connection?)

5. Jemms- WE lived together for Maymester. Expected but nevertheless EVENTFUL. Tori was missing from it all, and it would have been much better had she stayed, but alas her family in KUAUI was anxious to have her home.

6. Broder- he's nicer to me now. He and B are expecting a new little one. Her name is going to be Etel- she's going to be a rockstar. oh and Lily was also born last year too. She is just like her grandpa the Gorilla! hahaha....!!!!

7. Toni- is famous and in Vegas where she broadcasts "live" every evening at 11:15 p.m.

8. I TOOK my dream MUA class and did quite okay. Met some sweet friends like Tanna.

9. Lived in DC for the Summer and met Emm and Jaymos family and fell in love with them all. They are sooo wonderful- especially Sis. Smith.

10. Think that there is a very, very, very, very slight, but nonetheless existent possibility that I lost a bit of the extra weight I found during the mish.

changes, time

So, we're getting well into fall and this fabulous Fall semester. I think it's time for the back-to-school candy apple red to take a break in the back seat. bring out the Orange Crush! Speaking of Orange Crush, the RA's of the Lofts held our Orange Crush party last weekend. It went fabulous, however, I wasn't able to make it. Why? Conference, Mission Reunion, Homework...? Sadly, while the first two were legit occurrences that i wish, i wish so bad i could have gone to, they were not indeed the causes of my absence at the Orange Crush on Friday night. the culprit to whom i assigned most of my utils was actually my very first RAM trip! ( RAM standing for Remote-Area Medical). In short i was on a weekend long medical mission trip to Grundy, virginia. These medical missions bring aid to the rural people's of the Appalachia region- and as i learnt today world as a whole. This "little" events are actually quite the event, hundreds of doctors, nurses, dentists and medical staff from the region volunteer their time and efforts to visit remote locations and provide all sorts of medical service completely free of charge to the public as a whole. People drive hours and sit in 24 hour long lines to get a dentist to look at their teeth or check their vision and hearing or get their very first breast exam. In this wonderful phenomena, I- a wimpy pre-med kid- fit in as a general service volunteer. Depending on the luck of the day and the help needed we can do anything from draw blood to pick up trash to wander around aimlessly seeking a doctor who will let us shadow them.

Anywho, I'm getting off track. So, I went last weekend and it was such an amazing experience then late this past week, i was offered the chance at a second round this now ending weekend. At first, I was sure I had to turn it down seeing as how I'm broke- gas and board were like 25$ and I have a pile of homework from the last week, just waiting for me as well as a lab Exam fastly approaching. So, all in all, I was nervous and thought i'd better say no, but the urge didn't leave and I said yes! YES! YES! This weekend was phenomenal. The clinic took place on a race track in Bristol Tennessee where people pronounce their last name H-O-L-L-A-N-D as "hair-ey" literally. All weekend i felt like people were looking at me like i was stupid when I couldn't understand their name. They would say" My name is Haa...i....n" and I would say "excuse me what?" and they would say " haaaa....i....nnnn" and I would say " umm what" and they would just grab their patient form and show me their name at the top and i would say, " oh HARRISSON" and they would look at me like " duh! that's what i said, 'haa...r.......n'". Oh the joys of Appalachia! Anywho, back to my point again.

This evening we got back a tad bit early. To be honest, I was looking forward to an evening of dinner, shower, bed and maybe a movie. I was exhausted. However, right in the middle of dinner and shortly after a prayer asking the Lord to help me remember his sabbath I received a call from my bishop, bishop stuart. He mentioned something about a meeting, for RM's, a testimony, me and 2 minutes to which i agreed. This meeting turned out to be the highlight of my i don't know, probably week! I was able to give my testimony at a meeting for RM's, future M's and current M's. It was blissful, it was just what i was needing, to feel the powerful spirit of the restoration. The talk was wonderful, it was given by Dr. Sowell's best friend and now former mission president of the fortworth texas mission. but anywho, yes, it was wonderful and here is what i learned.

As we were singing the opening hymn, "called to serve", I had this sudden urge to just keep marching, marching all the way out of the building out the parking lot and down the street, to a home, a door a stranger anybody that might listen to my testimony of the Gospel! The Church is TRUE! THE GOSPEL IS TRUE! AND WE ARE ALL THE BETTER FOR IT! IF ONLY we would take the time to share it with others to take that kind spirit that abides with us in the chapel to the outside world and there share it. I am grateful for my mission and for my mission presidents! may the lord continue to bless us all!

lady lofts, my girls

Let's be frank here. I'm not one of those people that really feels kindly and cares about others. my bad, i'm working on it, really. i could quite frankly care less about what people do with themselves, it's not like i don't like them or wish them the worst, i just don't think about them. the only people in the world that i care about and you know, L-O-V-E, are my pops, moms, broder, toni, vicky, randy and brandi and soon david AND my mission peeps ( and Keish, and britt, AL, sheri, aunt and uncle and a few others, but not many more). Nothing gets me more riled up than when someone attacks them. Call it territorial, passionate, retarded, loyal, whatever you want... it is what it is. I'm randomning for a reason. Tonight i chilled with some of 'my girls', the 44 to whom i am RA responsible. We were driving back from Roanoke and listening to mostly shakira's waka waka song, when it suddenly dawned on me. I stinkin care about these girls like a lot. Put them on the list, 1.fam, 2.mish fam, and now, my girls, 3. It's the weirdest thing, i really don't get it. As soon as you "serve" someone the love and loyalty that you have for them just shoots through the roof. It is in moments like these that I feel like I could maybe just a tad, a very weebit, possible, just perhaps be able to understand and almost describe the phenomenon of christ-like love. You want only the best for those people and are willing to forgive shortcomings but yet you hold them up to a higher standard, you LOVE them. and so that's all i wanted to throw out there, feel free to catch this other bit of jabber.

On Your Porch

blah, blah

What happens when you attempt writing and keeping a record of things and then you don't for a while? A lot, but mostly its confusion on my part, since there is a ton to say that hasn't been said and it all just boils together and keeps getting fuller and fuller. it's kind of like a jewelry box. The first one my parents gave me was when i was like 10, it was small and heart shaped with seashells glued onto the outside. I think they picked it up in mexico or jamaica. Anywho, i started filling it with a ton of knickknacks until the day that i went to cram yet another pair of who knows what and found that it didn't fit. the earrings, necklaces and bracelets had all jungled up into a great big yarn looking ball. to be honest i don't think that i ever untangled it, i just started putting my "treasures" in something else and left that alone in the back of the cupboard. Writing for me is like pulling that jewelry box out from its forgotten oasis, opening it and trying to untangle the web of randomness with no clue as to where to start and make sense of it all.

hmm as i'm writing, or in this case vomiting words, i'm starting to feel a lot better. I've noticed that lately. I walk around a lot having conversations with myself about nothing really and never really consciously recognizing that im talking to myself until recently. now ill be sitting there in the middle of one when suddenly, I think, " ooo, that would be a really good thing to write about..." the sucky part continues, however, when later that night, mostly week, I sit down and go to write and find myself drawing blank after blank having completely forgotten my 'brilliant' ideas.[ side comment, so I'm sitting on the porch of my school at the moment typing this up, not by preference but from obligation, I'm an RA here, they needed people to man the check-in desk and I'm the only one without a life. So anyway, this little old couple drove up to Main got out started taking pictures- with me in them mind you- and as it turns out when they finally made it up to me, the little old lady is a former alumni from 1957! pretty cool ey!]

my self consciousness in writing is only heightened by my university experience. I finally made it back to school this last May after a two year absence- given i was working for the Lord, but still-. In what i thought to be a smart move I traded my Middle Eastern politics class, because it required me to read an average of 80 size 5 font pages every night during the month long course [ another side note, I'm going to Montreal in about 2 days and just got a text from Phil informing me that we're going to the movies on tuesday! oh, i can't wait, I'm going to try to post my to-do wish list for montreal before i actually head out.] for an ARH course titled Saints Signs and Symbols with promises of an easy A and interesting never going to use random info about paintings. I totally sound like a slacker but on my defense, it was my first 'semester' back at school and i was also registered for Interm. Logic with Jones which had been making me sweat since i had gotten in the car in provo with s.coffin to drive across the country. I needed to finish the term strong in order to pump myself up for the rest of the school year. Anywho, so as is with most stories that are told, I came in to a rude awakening when on my syllabus I saw a paper assignment due the last week of the term. The course professor also turned out to be the Dr. Madison Sowell- only the foremost expert on dante and random stuff-. As the events continued their progression, my paper was graded as being of mediocre calibre with a really nice 80%, it was more of a 79, but he gave me the extra 1 point for effort. Needless to say, I didn't get an A in the class, or maybe i did, it was an A disguised as a B+, again the + for effort. This whole random story for my point, on the back of my sheet, his comment was, " blah,blah... a manual in style and writing". with a " read it. Kind regards, M. Sowell".

Yup, I'm a loser.

and because of that, I posted one of my favorite songs underneath this post. ( again a fallacy of sorts because there is no real valid connection for the post story and the song, seeing as how the song is more related to my feelings about AZ).

open eyes, testimony

There is one thing above many that I will forever thank the Lord for giving me and that is the experience of having served as a missionary of his church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The time of my life that was spent wearing a badge as a rep. of our Saviour is special for many reasons. I suppose that the biggest one however is the change that i saw take place in my view of the world. THe only way to describe the change I experienced is to somehow relate it to driving down a dark road late at night. I've driven through places during the late of night that don't really seem like much until on the journey back in the light of day, they are the most beautiful places I've ever seen- kind of like my drives from provo to phoenix. That's what my mission was like for me, seeing things as they really are as the Lord really sees them. I am soo grateful for that. I am grateful to know the purpose of life. I know that there was a man called of God and that he made it possible for me to have an opportunity of coming, really coming to know God, his name was Joseph Smith. I am grateful to know this. To have taken a drive where the sun would rise allowing me to see things as they really are.

HOH BOTTLES, PROMPTINGS

The whole fam went out to work for pops today- well most of us. Moms, pops, toni, vicky, david and myself went and did a job out in Scottsdale at ironwood.( my sisters just came in my room, they think it's lost and found in here or somethin. anywho, toni is one of those peeps who believes in pictures and 3 syllable words, that's her suggestion for the bloggerz) So back to the whole fam going out to work... we got done early so vicky and toni and i decided to go shopping.

Since toni had an appointment at ASU we headed towards tempe marketplace nearby to kill time while toni waited for someone to critique her resume or should i say " CV"... Anywho, Vicky and I as usual were in some deep conversation about how Lady gaga's parents were totally shocked about her behavior but relented after her millions came in when we pulled into the Jungle that is tempe marketplace. G, being the usually ADD driver that she is was paying next to no attention to the dozens of passersby and jay walkers when the spirit smacked both she and vicky upside the head. Crossing the street they saw a young guy with a small rolling suitcase and red ice cooler. He was walking up to people but they all seemed to be uncooperative.

" What do you think he's doin" asked vicky...

g needing no explanation for the random question, " I'm not sure, maybe he needs somethin".

it was the next second that the two of us decided to find out what the seemingly unseeming kiddo needed. looking for the closest parking space near him- and might I add the farthest from Ulta, our destination- we parked and decided to "run into him". As we made our way across the mile long parking lot to get to this kid we weren't thinking much other than we needed to talk to him and give him what he asked of us. As our paths crossed, the young man as we had seen him do stopped, which wasn't surprising, and offered us " a cold, chilly water on this hot az day for 50cents" [ thick jamaican accent] which was surprising.

Still a bit shocked g asked, " what for ?...." ( really intending to say "what are you selling hoh for?")

Jamaican kid looking kind of confused with an obvious question... " uhh for water, 50 cents for water?"

g feeling kind of stupid, " yeah, sorry, right... we'll take 2".

It is not very often that I feel and immediately recognize the distinct obvious prompting of the Holy Ghost, especially now that I'm no longer a people serving Missionary, but I felt it today. I have no doubt- Vicky nor I- that a Father in Heaven was concerned for that young man and, working with what he had, wanted us to give him the $3 in my wallet. I am grateful for moments like those, moments that remind me that there is a God whose hand i can see. I consider myself a semi decent and charitable human being, but definitely not one that is astute enough to notice someone in the middle of a huge crowd in the middle of a busy shopping center with 50% off banners alluring the eye to store windows all around. There is a God in Heaven who sent his spirit to smack us and point out this one lone soul. I'm grateful to know and recognize it.