logical deduction

Today on my bike, I left a bit later than I should have (but that's why I had my bike, so I could do that and not miss the bus). I did not actually see the bus at WSU. I left after it was supposed to come but it tends to be late. I pedaled my heart out and somehow got to the FrontRunner station with 5 (read it FIVE) minutes to spare! The bus got there on time, which is 2 minutes before the train leaves. Actually I didn't look at the clock to know if it was on time, but as people weren't running like mad to the train platform that's my guess. Using my deducing powers that must mean the bus was approximately on time leaving WSU and had a headstart on me. I BEAT THE BUS!!! I so totally rock this bike thing! Too bad the triathlon is longer than 4 miles and not almost completely downhill...

Oh dear, I'm going to get behind

things that have happened:
-One day I rode my bike from WSU to the Frontrunner with a headstart on the bus and I beat it
-the next day the bus had a slight headstart on me and we got there about the same time.
-Thursday I had another amazing institute lesson (details below)
-Friday there were 2 opening socials for my 2 departments. I so love them both.
-I just rode my bike to Kaysville and back. There in 30 minutes, back in 34 (more uphill on the way back). It's somewhere between 5 and 7 miles one way.
-I had another run-in with a staple on Thursday. This time, it was 45 minutes before my piano lesson. Good job, me! I might be banned from staples again.
-After said staple incident, I had a run-in with a water faucet. Also right before my piano lesson. Maybe someone or something doesn't want me doing well in my studies...
-I am a freakin' photoshop master!!! more to follow.

So, institute. I hope I can get this across. The sermon on the mount in Matthew 5 was like a leadership conference for the apostles. He starts right in with the "blessed" things (or beattitudes)--which are amazing like I never really realized before! He gives the same lesson in 3 Nephi 12, but starts it off with the instruction to Follow Him and also to listen to the apostles. That part wasn't included in the NT version because the 12 already knew that, but when He taught the people it's there. And it is so important. As per last week's lesson, If we don't listen to the apostles, it's like we are rejecting Him personally, very important for us to hear that often. Actually in Matthew, they had just received the invitation to "follow Him" in the previous chapter, so it works.

We also learned about the beattitudes, that they are like stair steps, each one on a higher level than the previous one. The last one, though, is "Blessed are they who are persecuted for my sake" and it makes one think "how is persecution the highest level of blessedness?" Well, since Christ was persecuted, it puts us on His level, which is the highest! Then we looked at some translations. The word "blessed" from the Greek means "oh! the happiness/joy of..." and in Old English it means to be marked with blood (like, the blood of Christ from the atonement) and from the Hebrew means adore or kneel, like Christ adores us/Christ kneels to us! He loves us, He really does! So it was basically an amazing lesson yet again.

Pretty much anyone who wants to go to institute can! Do it!

kaunting update

I rode my bike home from WSU again (yesterday) and it only took me 1hr6min! Next time it will only be an hour. I didn't get off and walk at all but I have a definite goal for the future. Oh yeah, I also ran yesterday. I should still work on that one.

I also went to the Symphony on Friday--Beethoven was a flippin' genius! I'm serious, the 6th symphony is pure genius! I enjoyed it greatly.

And my ward got rearranged again, so now I have to find a new one. Yet another adventure! Change is usually an adventure for me, I deal pretty well. Except on certain occasions when it makes me angry. But I like adventures. So, do I go to my parents' ward? Or to another singles ward? Hmmmm...

Epiphany

Something happened at the institute today. I'm taking a class about the New Testament and we had a lesson pretty much about what it means to be an apostle.

Start in Matt 4:18-20
Fuller story in Luke 5:1-11
Then in Matt 10 the first 2 verses the 12 are called. In verse 1 it says "disciples" which comes from a word meaning "to learn." In the 2nd verse it says "apostles" which comes from a word meaning "to send." This makes sense, they are even "sent forth" to preach the word, right?
Yes! Look in verse 5
Then we discussed 7 duties of the apostles as found in the Doctrine&Covenants section 107. The 7 things are found in verses 23, 27, 33, 33 again, 35, 38, and 39. They're all really awesome and important but I'm going to share about the first one, because that's where my epiphany came from. Honestly I probably can't do it justice here but I felt so enlightened!

107:23 The twelve traveling councilors are called to be the Twelve Apostles, or special witnesses of the name of Christ in all the world—thus differing from other officers in the church in the duties of their calling.

Of course I knew they were special witnesses but it does not just say "of Christ" but "of the name of Christ" and the teacher brought this up and made us think about it. There are so many other verses that put it this way:
...that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son...
...and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God.
many instances of "believe on His name"
and more

So, why is it so specific to be the name and not the person Christ? Well, because "Christ" is a title, it became His name because He earned it, and in that earning of a title is where He can grant us salvation (i.e. the Atonement). In Matt 16:20, there is an interesting statement 20 Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. This was before he completed the atonement! He hadn't earned the title yet! After that, in the book of Acts of course the apostles are freely teaching to all that Jesus is the Christ (see Acts 17:3)

There is also another reason for this. The "apostle" being a "special witness" is better defined in Acts chapter 1 specifically in verse 22 "...must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection." Yes, if one could witness of His resurrection, one could witness that He had fulfilled His mission to save mankind, a special witness of the name of Christ. How could one witness that He was truly resurrected? How would one know that the Risen Lord had a glorified body of flesh and bone? Really the only sure way to know is to touch and feel the truth for oneself. This means that anyone called to be an apostle MUST be able to witness of this!

...and indeed they do. There are 12 men today that are true apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, you can find it in their words. Our teacher shared many of their words with us but I don't have a copy. I do remember some of the more famous ones, from Bruce R. McConkie and Jeffrey R. Holland, such powerful witnesses! So anyway, I learned something tonight. I could go on, but I think I've gotten my point across. If not, feel free to ask for more.

What a difference well-inflated tires makes

Yes, yes, once I realized what the problem really was, I pumped up my bike tires and it works much better now! I had also oiled the chain and adjusted the rear derailleur, good things, but until the tires were at proper inflation it just wasn't quite right.

Anyway, these pictures are good, too
HAR100818 from the ground
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31493337&l=e1b590f1e1&id=1335984666
HAR100819 from the ground
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2076344&id=1335984666&l=b42d921638
HAR100820 from the ground
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2076471&id=1335984666&l=dffaa56752

And I believe there was a request to hear about the Pepsi incident and certain evening adventures from the HARBOR trip:

On Tuesday, I drank a can of Pepsi. Wednesday morning we were supposed to get up by 5 so we could leave camp by 5:30, so we went to bed I think around 10ish. The other girls in my tent fell asleep pretty quick. I lay there, rolling over every couple minutes trying to get comfortable (my pillow was really hard), for quite some time. somewhere around 11:30 I finally pulled out my iPod and started a classical album in the hopes it would relax me enough to fall asleep. Well, one hour later the album was over and I was still wide awake! I kept rolling over every while and even tried using my sweater to soften up my pillow but it didn't work. I don't think I slept a wink. The best part even, I was not remotely tired all of Wednesday, never took a nap, and people were going to bed before I had even considered it. (I did buy a new pillow, though, which seemed to help, although I'm pretty sure it was the caffeine. Unless you actually CAN get high off of science and no one ever told me . . . )

Thursday it got really cold, and I guess some of the guys set up all their stuff in their bathroom in order to work more comfortably. I retaliated by setting up my laptop in the girl's bathroom and watching a movie with Linsey. (I had bought it in town on Tuesday, "The Curse of the Pink Panther") I enjoyed it. I think Linsey slept through most of it. I do not have a picture of us watching the movie, but I have acquired one from the other side (so awesomely hilarious!):

I like what I do, really

So, from HARBOR, we flew balloons on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. All very successful flights. links to the pictures can be found here, here, and here,

HAR100818
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=473481&id=902415461&l=9e4c8de252

HAR100819
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=473883&id=902415461&l=ebd603f6e7

HAR100820
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=474318&id=902415461&l=86ef68eaa6

I was in charge of the onboard camera, and we got some great stuff! Thursday was really really cool, we used a bigger balloon than before (and had some interesting turbulence, seen in the pictures) and it went higher than any balloon this program has ever flown! We received data from the GPS radios that told us heights of 101,575' and 101,949' and from that and other information *I* extrapolated a true bursting height of 102,089'. (I don't know why anyone else didn't do it, but at some point someone asked me to, but I was busy with my picture stuff, although when I was done no one had done it still so I did).

On Friday we played a game of sorts, guessing what height the balloon would reach before burst. I sort of won, in a way, that I'm not sure I understand, because really Murielle won... anyway, they let the two of us have first pick at paraphernalia and I got a pin from the package that went the highest. I've been wearing it all week, calling it my "space pin" and it makes me really happy.

At some point during the trip, Charla brought up that I only need 8 more credits to be a physic minor. . . a very convincing argument. I'm sure she was targeting me . . . but I did start thinking about and have done so all week and finally broke down and signed up. Now I have Astrophysics with Dr. Palen, the most amazing professor in the world! Most people probably won't understand the significance of this, but now I get to draw all sorts of awesome pictures and it's only too bad there aren't more tests in that class :-) I really need to do something super-amazing for her. She helped make me who I am today. I suppose I have about 2 years to think about it.

I will say I love the entire physics department, and the entire music department. I'm super glad to part of Weber's piano program, they just bought us 4 brand new Steinway model B's to practice on! Also, one of our students won 1st place in a national competition, over a ton of graduate students. Now we have a transfer student from Oberlin Conservatory, and she told me she thinks the pianists at Weber are better. I will stay right where I am, thank you!

The Job Search...

Okay, so I applied for this music teaching job at the beginning of August, and never heard back from the people. I know someone who works there already and she gave me a name, so I emailed that person, who at first still didn't reply. I then found a flyer for the same kind of job at school so I took the guy's number and then when I checked my email, the other lady had replied! But they aren't hiring teachers now. Although, they are hiring people for the front desk and pretty much invited me to the interview for that. It's tomorrow. I think I'll go. If I don't get the job, which I probably won't, at least they'll know my face and a bit about me already for when they decide they want to hire teachers again. I hope it's a good plan... (and if absolutely nothing happens, I can at least call that other guy!)

And now for something completely different...

I went running this evening. Good stuff. It's getting dark earlier so I didn't get to go real far, but that's okay. My toe hurts a little bit and so it reminded me of another mission story: well, it's not much of a story, uh, ok, I'll make it one. There's these rubber shoes, okay, and they're really really comfortable AND super convenient of you're going to get wet or dirty. The day I found them was interesting, my comp Sister Cepe and I were planning on going shoe-shopping but it didn't happen because we attended our zone activity and then she got a migraine. At some point it was decided I could go on a split with Sister Erasmo. She and I tried to go into town to this big shoe company, and it took a while to find, and then they didn't have anything that felt good. Then we walked around and found the palengke (market) and stopped by a couple shoe vendors. nothing, nothing, nothing, until--I tried the rubber shoes. Other missionaries had been using some but I wasn't yet sold on the idea. Until I tried them. It was the most amazing shoe-try-on-experience I've ever had! They're so squishy and awesome, I bought them right away. Then Sister Cepe was jealous. And I bought many pairs of them through the rest of my mission (being rubber, they do wear out easily--but they're cheap, so it's okay).

My "story" is this: one of the pairs I got I was convinced had a needle in it. Sure, one could have fallen into the mold or something. I could feel it just poking through when I stepped on a rock or something. After about 2 months I was feeling it all the time in my foot and not too incredibly happy about it. But every time I looked for it I could feel nothing with my hands. One day, I must have been rinsing them off and picking rocks off the bottom, then one particular rock didn't want to come off. With good reason, too, it was engrained so bad in the sole that it had reached to the other side . . . and it was rather pointy. I taped it to a sticky-note and put it in my PMG under the companions list :P The end.