Christmas + Thanksgiving Wrap Up

So I'm still fairly behind with blogging since I did such a crummy job at it for a good six weeks, so here's a bit of a quick update of what's been going on lately.

First off, our family once again did a lot of pies on Thanksgiving. It was amazingly delicious. We usually get tiny slices of each pie so we can sample them all. In the future, we may have to vomit the pies halfway through so that we have enough stomach space for all of them. Sort of like the spitting up whine thing you do when you go whine testing.

Also, my grades just came back, and I received my all time lowest grades ever in all of history. A C+ and a B-. And you know what? I don't even care anymore. I graduate in four months, I have a job offer, and I don't have to worry about keeping my GPA up for scholarship anymore. So why worry, right?

In related news, my brother who just returned from a mission in Japan has informed me that I'm taking a giant dump on every last vestige of Asian left in my blood. I should note that my other younger brother, who I've been living with for the last semester, has just barely received his mission call to Japan. For those keeping score at home, here's where we stand:

• Dad: served in Hokkaido, Japan
• Mom: from Tokyo, Japan
• Younger brother 1: served in Kobe, Japan
• Younger brother 2: going to serve in Fukuoka, Japan
• Younger brothers 3 & 4: almost certainly going to serve in Japan. Probably the Nagoya and Sedai missions, so that we end up covering the whole country with Low family shenanigans.
• Me: Little Rock, Arkansas.

Am I ashamed? Of course not. I learned how to deep fry stuff. And as any stateside missionary will tell you, "stateside is the best side."

Now, for Christmas, I got a graphics tablet. I'm really excited about it, but I'm still learning how to draw things. You might think that art skills would translate to drawing on a tablet super quick, but it doesn't. You have to look at a computer screen instead of your hand, and you still have to learn how to do Photoshop and stuff. I'll probably be illustrating this blog using the tablet from here on out. Even though I'm fairly slow with it, it's still faster than MS Paint or using the sketch app on the iPad. Hey, here's a picture I drew earlier for practice!

"I AM ZIIIMMMM!!!"

As you can see, my drawing on the left is kinda sloppy when compared to the source material on the right. So we'll see what happens from here on out.

Finally, I think I would be remiss if I didn't put up a list of what I was grateful for this last Thanksgiving. I've done it for the last two Thanksgivings, and I feel like it's a good tradition. I know it's super late, so maybe we'll just call it a Christmas List of Thankfulness. A Christfulness? Thankmas?

I'll figure it out. It will be its own post though.

Jon Comes Home Today! Top Five Music Videos For Him to Watch

Two years ago when I started this blog, my second post ever was about my little brother going on a mission for the LDS church. He left only two weeks after I got back from my mission in Arkansas, so we didn't get a lot of time to connect. In fact, the homecoming talk that I gave in my ward was on the same day he gave his farewell talk. I never thought it was a terrible injustice that we didn't spend much time together, but I am excited for him to come back.

So in honor of that, I'm putting together a list of things he needs to catch up on. Here are the top five music videos that I think he needs to see. Keep in mind this guy has been in Japan for two years without access to YouTube and stuff, so I chose music videos not based on the quality of music, but how much of an affect they had on pop culture. Besides, Jon would probably hate my taste in music anyways.

5. Friday - Rebecca Black



I think this is important because Jon needs to know why some people still say "it's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday" when you say how happy you are it's Friday. Also, it's just so terrible it's funny.


4. First of the Year - Skrillex 


Yes, I know this isn't the official video, but let me explain my reasoning here. First of all, Jon doesn't know what dupstep is. Yes, he's been gone for that long. He needs to know what dupstep is so that he can decide to hate it (or maybe he'll like it, but I think he's going to hate it).

However, I think he'll find the actual music video a little disturbing with its pedophile and creepy demon child. So, I'm posting this one because it has Mike Song doing some sick dancing in it (Jon was a fan of him when he was on America's Best Dance Crew with Kaba Modern).


3. Party Rock Anthem - LMFAO




The most overplayed song of the last two years deserves to be on here somewhere, right?


2. Somebody That I Used to Know - Walk Off The Earth (Gotye Cover)



Honestly, this cover is more entertaining to watch than the actual song, so I put it here. This song shows the shift that has happened in American music over the last two years - indie rock somehow became mainstream. Nowadays, the number one single seems to be just as likely to come from artists like Foster the People, Fun., or Gotye as it is from Hip Hop artists like Pitbull.


1. Gangnam Style - PSY



Honestly, this is possible the best music video released over the last two years.

You Won't Find This on the Mission Blog.

My little brother is on a mission for the LDS church. He sent me this picture of a name he found humorous, but didn't want to put it on his blog, which is all spiritual and read by many Japanese people.

I on the other hand, felt that this needed to be shared and laughed at, so here you go.

One Whole Year of Being an RM!

As of September 7th, I have officially been back from a mission for a whole year.  It went by super quick.  Because of this, I'm taking a look back at the three different stages of being an RM that I went through and the thoughts that accompanied them.


Stage One--The first two weeks of being back: "Everyone is going to Hell!"

 

• "Go on a date with a girl?  Gross!"
• "This Lady Gaga might actually be the whore of Babylon."
• "Go to the supermarket alone? There's no way I can do that without a companion!"
• "Were Disney movies always this suggestive?"
• "Watch a PG-13 movie? NO!"
• "What am I going to do for the rest of my life?"
• "I feel obligated to share the Gospel with that person over there wearing the BYU-I hoodie."
• "I must wake up at 6:30 every morning for the rest of my life."
• "Listen to Jimi Hendrix?  But he was on drugs and stuff!"
• "I'm going to tell this girl all of my mission stories. Girls love mission stories."

Stage 2--The next four months: "I'm going to Hell!"

• "I'm going on dates, but I have no idea how to flirt." <Note: this may or may not be a problem I've had my whole life.>
• "I woke up at 9:30 today.  I'm so lazy!"
• "I studied the scriptures for only ten minutes today!"
• "I spent four hours alone and didn't even wonder where my companion was.  Weird."
• "My mission president would be so disappointed if he knew how often I say 'fetch,' 'fudge,' and 'eff.'"
• "Is there any mission rule that I haven't broken since I got home?"
• "Is this awkward stage going to last forever?"
• "Actually, my whole life might have been a big awkward stage."
• "Well, at least I'm still obeying the Word of Wisdom like crazy."

Stage 3--6 months since getting home: "Ah, what the hell."

• "I've now watched every movie that came out over the last two years."
• "Ooo, sweet!  Lady Gaga has a new album coming out!"
• "I slept in until noon this last Saturday and it felt great."
• "I'm going to play some Halo: Reach, because I haven't had enough violence in my life today."
• "When I grow up, I want to be the gold robot guy on the Party Rock music video."
• "Harry Potter premier: Emo Death Eater with a dark mark sharpie tattoo is a totally cool costume!"
• "I haven't written in my journal since January." 
• "Could I fit four dates in this week?"
• "Dance party!"
• "What the eff."

Now on a more serious note, I would like to take a moment and say that serving a mission is the best darn thing I ever did.  The work was hard, the hours spent were long, and the cards that I was dealt were sometimes frustrating; but I have never felt better and more sure about what I was doing with my life.  The people I met were amazing and the stories I gathered will last a lifetime.

It is one of the scariest things that happened to me in the last year was the loss of the good feeling I always had as a missionary.  I still try to do things in my schedule that emulate the missionary lifestyle, like always wearing white shirts on Sunday, exercising and reading scriptures in the morning, and making time to go to the temple often. But nothing can compare to the satisfaction of helping people change for the better.  I miss the feeling of all the prayers that so many faithful Mormons all over the world offered for missionaries. I miss the knowledge that what I'm doing right here, right now, is the best possible thing I could be doing. And most of all,I miss seeing the joy in someone's face after they're baptized.

My Art Skills Have Improved

During Christmas of 2006, my parents decided to nurture my artistic abilities by buying me a giant canvas measuring 30 x 40 inches.  After thinking about it for quite some time, I decided to paint a copy of a Caravaggio piece called "The Inspiration of Saint Matthew."

I loved the style, the power, and the emotion behind Caravaggio's work, as well as the honesty of it.  I spent much of the summer after my high school graduation painting the canvas.  And by the end of the summer, I had this to show for it:

At the time, I was pretty darn proud of this piece.  I had never attempted anything on this scale before and mixing colors in acrylic paints was pretty new to me.  That summer I learned something about stretching yourself.

Then, in a year, I was on my mission in Arkansas.  I never had time to draw, let alone paint anything.  I had the occasional assignment from my mission president or an assistant to create a poster, a t-shirt design, or a logo; but never anything large.  I occasionally worried that my skills would become rusty without practice.

One day while serving I read an article in the New Era about a boy who was really good at playing the piano.  He stressed and stressed and stressed about serving a mission because he wouldn't have the chance to play for several hours a day.  The young man fretted about this to the point that he almost didn't serve.  Then he was promised by an ecclesiastical leader (I can't remember if it was a bishop or stake president or what) that if he served faithfully, he wouldn't have to worry about losing his talents.  This young man did just that, and when he came back, he claimed that his skills actually improved during the time he was gone. I didn't worry about losing my talents from that day forward.

Flash forward to this summer.  A couple of months ago I was visiting my parents house, where my copy of "The Inspiration of Saint Matthew" still hung on  the wall.  I had just finished the drawing and 2D design classes at BYU with pretty good grades.  I looked at the painting and saw colors that had been mixed wrong, lines that weren't clear, and faces that were. . . off.  I decided that I could do better, so I took the canvas home and repainted over the whole thing.

I'm sure that the year between graduation and serving a mission, as well as the two art classes helped sharpen my skills, but I'm still very happy about how little  my abilities rusted while I was away.

This is what the canvas looks like after I repainted it:

And some comparissons:

Do I owe this improvement in the face of a two-year break to a divine miracle?  I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

P.S.  I looked for that New Era article online, but I cannot find it.  Please let me know if you are familiar with the article I'm talking about.  It came from an older New Era.

"Your only supposed to highlight the parts you like!"

Haha. Yeah, doing that is for sissies.  Real men highlight their scriptures like this:

 

By the way,  this is a Book of Mormon that I read/highlighted towards the later part of the mission.  My mission president got the idea for this activity from Preach My Gospel.  I'd strongly recommend trying it out, because it was a really cool spiritual experience for me.

Storms, Sirens, and Prophets

I've been assigned to give a talk in my home stake in Farmington (a stake is a collection of 10-12 congregations in the LDS church, FYI).  Since I'm a recently returned missionary, I was told that I would be asked to speak a couple of times in a couple different congregations.  The high councilor who called me with the assignment told me that my topic was "using agency to change our very natures." 

"Huh?"  I said.

"Yeah, that was my reaction when I heard the topic, too," he replied.

Well, that call was a couple of weeks ago, and my talk is going to be on the 27th.  I'm still not sure what I'm going to talk about, so I think I'll brainstorm some thoughts on here.

For the uninitiated, agency, in the LDS sense of the term, is our ability to choose  between good and evil.  It is a gift that every person is born with, and is something that is so important to God that he has never put a limit on it.  In other words, God has given us commandments and laws, but he will not stop us from choosing to break them.

Of course, even though we are free to choose to do whatever we want, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.  For example, Jonah was commanded to go preach the Gospel to the people of Ninevah and command them to repent.  He chose to turn tail and flee to Tarshish (which is believed to be present-day Spain, which is as far in the opposite direction as you could go at the time).  It was Jonah's right to choose to do that.

As a consequence of his poor decision, Jonah was swallowed by a whale and had to live for three days in the whale's digestive tract.  It was only after he was brought to the depths of humility and repentance that Jonah was spared and given another chance to make the right decision.

One of the biggest ironies of our agency comes from the way we choose to use it.  In the Book of Mormon, we read of some of the consequences of sin:

". . .he [the devil] leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth

them with his strong chords forever." --2 Nephi 26:22

"And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security

that they will say:  All is well in Zion--and thus the devil cheateth their souls,

and leadeth them carefully down to hell.

And behold, others he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell;

 and. . . I am no devil, . . .and thus he whispereth in their ears,

until he grasps them with his awful chains from whence there is no deliverance." --2 Nephi 28: 21-22

I love the imagery of these two scriptures.  Flax is a fine, golden material.  So when Nephi tells us that the devil leads us with a flaxen chord, he's saying that the devil's temptations always start out soft and appetizing in appearance.  And then these cords eventually turn into stronger chords and then into awful chains.

So, let's consider a  person who had made poor choices their entire life.  Let's say this person didn't study very much in school and started to hang out with a rough crowd.  Eventually, this person dropped out before graduation.  One thing led to another, and pretty soon this person was involved with drug addiction and started having problems with the law.  I could keep on going with this example until this person meets their bitter end, but I think you get the idea.

Sadly, I've met many people like this.  Sometimes they're aware of the misery of the situation they're in; other times, they still think they're on a never-ending joy ride, blissfully unaware that they're actually on a train that about to run out of tracks.

With each bad choice, our options become more limited. How much freedom does a drug addict without a job have?  It's truly appropriate to say that they have become bound with the 'awful chains' of the devil. 

Like I said earlier, on of the greatest ironies of agency comes from when our choice is to simply give it away.

Contrast that with someone at the other end of the spectrum.  When you study hard, get good grades, and finish school, multiple colleges will want to have you.  From there, you can pick your major, find a good job, meet the right person, etc.  So with each good choice, our freedom increases.

Alright, now that I've preached to you, let's move on to a story from my mission:

I remember almost a year ago, I was a missionary in the Walnut Grove area, which is a street in the eastern subdivision of Memphis, TN (Cordova, to be exact).  The area is on the wealthier, whiter side of Memphis and is famous for having the school where "The Blind Side" takes place.

Briarcrest Christian Academy: the real home of Michael Oher
of "The Blind Side" fame

Our lovely apartment complex.

Me, in the Walnut Grove area.  I wish I could say that
we rode in that vehicle.

All of us missionaries had been warned for several months that tornado season was coming up, so be extra cautious.  We were given packets on what to do in case of a tornado and told what the warning signs were.  My mission president's wife warned us that if we went out of our way to get a picture of a tornado, she'd kill us.

Well, one night, my companion and I woke up at 2 AM to the sound of tornado sirens going off.  We got out of bed and went straight to our balcony to see what was going on.  It was a little windy, but nothing catastrophic was happening.  There were a few other people in the surrounding apartments who were also on their balconies, but none of them were panicking.

My companion and I looked at each other.  We didn't know what to do.  Missionaries aren't allowed to watch TV or listen to the radio, so we had neither in our apartment, so we were clueless whether or not we should take this alarm seriously. Our options were:

•  Call a member of the congregation and ask them to check the TV for us
• Stay up and see if conditions worsen
• Run to Wal-Mart and get food
• Hide in the bath tub
• Go back to sleep

In the end, we decided to go back to sleep.

Shortly after we woke up, the sirens started going off again.  This time, we felt comfortable calling someone and asking them what was going on.  We were informed that the sirens in Memphis are set up so that whenever a tornado goes off anywhere in the county, all the sirens in the county start sounding.  At the moment, the sirens were for a tornado that was several miles away and didn't pose any danger.

We breathed a little bit easier.  But now the wind outside had been replaced by a downpour of rain.  Here's a video of some of the action:

The tornado sirens continued to go on and off for the remainder of the day.  Sometimes, the sirens would last for up to two hours.  Every time they went off, we would find out where the tornado was, and every time we found out that the tornado was several miles away and posed no threat to us.  But because of the rain, we were stuck in our apartmet for most of the day, and the sirens started driving me insane.  I eventually just started to tune them out. 

When I finally went to bed, the sirens were still going off.

The next day was Sunday.  When we went to church, we discovered that a tornado had ripped right through Germantown Parkway--which was only a couple miles south of us--at around 3 AM.  The sirens had gone off, but I had slept right through them!  I repeat: I slept through a tornado siren as well as an actual tornado!

It was the first Sunday of the month, so we had a testimony meeting.  One of the members talked about how their day went yesterday.  It was pretty similar to ours: lots of tornado sirens, a run to Wal-Mart to get supplies, eventually tuning out the sirens, etc.

When this guy went to sleep, he had an interesting dream.  He dreamed that the sirens were still going off, but the sound was replaced by the prophet's voice.  He could hear Thomas S. Monson on the giant speakers all across the city saying over and over things like this:

"Keep a supply of food storage. . . Keep a supply of food storage. . ."

"Do your home teaching. . . Do your home teaching. . . Do your. . ."

"Read the Scriptures. . . Read the Scriptures. . . Read the Scriptures. . "

Sometimes, we wonder why the brethren ask us to do the same things over and over.  I remember one time my little brother said how annoyed he was that he had heard three sermons on the evils of pornography in the last month.  "I'm so sick of hearing about it! I get it!" he said.  My dad replied that the reason we keep hearing about it is because many people in the church aren't listening--so we're going to keep hearing about it until they do.

Prophets, scriptures, personal revelation.  All these things are sirens to help guide us in the storms of life.  But none of them can ever force a person to change their behavior.  A change in our nature has to come from within; from the proper exercise of agency. 

Does that mean that preaching the Gospel to those who are bound is a waste of time?  No, of course not!  Quite the opposite.  The only thing that can cut those awful chains that bind us and keep us from heeding the sirens of our day is the healing power of the atonement.  This is the reason that Lehi councils Laman and Lemuel to "awake! and cast off the chains that bind you."  He was hoping that something he was saying would sink into his sons' rebellious hearts and awaken something in them.  Sometimes in the scriptures we see this work.  Other times it doesn't.  But there is always hope that we can change our future by coming to Christ.

That's why prophets, apostles, bishops and missionaries keep saying the same thing over and over and over again.

A Christmas Story

There's nothing quite like writing on the laptop while sitting next to a warm fireplace.  I do love being home for the holidays.  Because of the mission, I haven't been home for Christmas since 2007.  I remember I got a couple of pretty cool presents that year, but my most memorable one from recent memory came last year.

As a missionary, Christmas can be kind of hard.  You're away from home, friends and family.  You'll spend it with your companion and any local church members kind enough to have you come over for the holidays.  The bright spot is that it is one of two days a year that you're allowed to call your family.

Anyway, I was serving in Jonesboro, Arkansas at the time.   I had been a missionary for around 15 months and had actually spent more time in Jonesboro than all my other areas combined, so I knew the members of the church there pretty well and was looking forward to having a good Christmas with them.  I really hadn't told my parents what I wanted for Christmas since there wasn't really anything a missionary really needs or is able to use (nearly all electronics are banned for us).  Besides, I think my parents already knew what to get me...

.......ties....

Ties are like the only part of a missionary's wardrobe that they get to switch up, so collecting ties became a fetish for me.   In fact, by the end of my mission, I had earned a reputation for having one of the best tie collections of any person in the field (I think I maxed out at 130 ties.  I've since cut back to around 80 right now).

This is a portion of my collection midway through the mission.  I always had the people who gave me ties sign the back of them, so they've become a wearable scrapbook of sorts.

These are two ties that I actually made myself with the help of a local ward member in Jonesboro.

Anyway, when Christmas came, I found many thoughtful gifts for both me and my companion--CD's, pens, stamps, dollar store toys, cash.  In all seriousness, those really are good gifts for missionaries.  Music is awesome for study sessions and car trips.  A nice pen writes much smoother and neater than the cheap ones.  Stamps let missionaries write people at home, since we can't call them.  We don't really have time to use anything else.  Of course, I had a few ties as well.  One in particular really caught my eye.  It looked strangely familiar....

Flash back to October.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints just finished their semi-annual General Conference.  The leadership of the church addresses us with spiritual messages and counsel for our time.  Watching General Conference is one of the best ways for people to get to know what our church is all about, and as a missionary, it was kind of like our Superbowl. 

The following week, I was writing my weekly email to my family.  I was talking about some of my thoughts from General Conference.  "I really enjoyed Elder Holland's talk on the Book of Mormon,"  "Elder Packer sure is getting old,"  "the choir sang some really beautiful numbers."  And in a throwaway comment, I said, "and Elder Yoon Hwan Choi wore the best tie of the conference."  For real, though;  most of the leadership of the church wears very conservative ties.  President Utchdorf will frequently wear some nice ones, but Elder Choi's was probably the prettiest tie I had seen in General Conference--ever.



You probably can't tell from the picture, but his tie has got some really cool designs in the pink spaces.  The color scheme is works really well with the white shirt.

Flash forward back to Christmas morning.  I was looking at a red tie with pink and white stripes on it that had a striking resemblance to Elder Choi's.

I would later find out that my mom had searched just about every department store in Utah looking for Elder Choi's tie.  She couldn't find an exact match (after all, he is from Korea and probably gets his ties from Korea), but she came pretty darn close. 

Did I really need another tie?  No; you can tell that just from the first picture I shared in this post.  But my mom knew that I kind of had a weird tie fetish and she really wanted to make me happy.  I will never forget that gesture of kindness that she did for me.  That's what the Christmas spirit is all about--loving kindness.  I pray that I may always remember that. 

Anyway, I hope you don't mind the change of pace from my normally light hearted comments.  But hey, it is my blog and I have said from day one that religion plays a large role in my life and will play a large role in here. 

Here's a link to the most recent General Conference of the LDS church: http://bit.ly/fHxK7h

And here's a link to Elder Yoon Hwan Choi's October 2009 Conference talk--it's a real good one: http://bit.ly/i6qkML

Here's Quick One

Another little tidbit about me and my family.  Two weeks after I came home, my little brother (Jon) left on his mission.  Most people say that two weeks really isn't a very long time to be with someone when you're in a situation like mine.  I suppose they're right, but I've never really felt that it was a cruel thing that my brother is gone for another two years.

Why?

Well, a couple of reasons:  The biggest one is because there is an LDS family that lives across the street from us, and they had one of their daughters get back from her mission on the same day that their next youngest daughter left.  They were allowed to visit with each other, alone, for a very brief amount of time (I can't recall if it was 30 minutes or 2 hours--but you get the picture).  So I got pretty lucky to have an entire 336 hours with my bro. 

The other reason is because serving a mission is awesome!  I know he's going to be having loads of fun and will be having the most amazing experiences.  And unlike me, Jon is going to a truly foreign place.   Jon is serving in the Kobe, Japan mission, which covers the central part of the main island.  It is home to several major cities (Kyoto, Nara, Hiroshima, Kobe, etc.), and to some amazing culture.  This mission also has some really deep personal connections as well.  I won't get into all of those details here, but you can read about them here at http://jon-low.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.html. 

Right before he left, my brother expressed some anxiety about leaving.  This is totally normal.  There's a lot of things to be anxious about.  I remember I had similar feelings as well right before I left.  I remember talking to one of my friends from my freshmen year at college about this.  This friend was older and had recently returned from serving a mission (I believe it was somewhere in South America).  As I went on about the thoughts of leaving all my friends behind and putting a stumbling block in my school work, my friend interrupted me and said "there will always be a hundred different reasons for not going."  I was taken off guard by his frankness.  "But," he continued, "you can't afford to not go."  Latter on, this same friend said the only thing I need to remember is that my savior loves me, and that the rest will take care of itself.

And it did. 

If you're interested in learning more about my little brother, you can visit his blog at http://jon-low.blogspot.com/.  Also, Jon's Mission President in the Kobe mission keeps a blog as well (a mission president is in charge of all the missionaries in a specific mission.  He is in charge of deciding on who goes to what town, as well as the well being of all the missionaries in his jurisdiction.).  You can follow his blog at http://presidentmcintyre.blogspot.com/

Welcome!

Hello there.  This is the first post in this brand new blog that I've created.  Yeah, I know--blogs are nothing new, I 'm kind of a late comer,  I don't have any real reason to be broadcasting myself to the entire World Wide Web, and so on and so forth.  But hey,  neither does Paris Hilton, and you don't see that stopping her.
 
I guess I ought to tell you a little bit about myself and what you can expect from this blog.  My name is Jake and I live in Utah.  Yes, I do happen to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (more commonly known as the LDS or Mormon Church).  In fact, I just returned from serving a two year mission for my church a little over a month ago.  Those of you who are Mormons know what this is all about, but for those who aren't :  this means that I was one of those guys you may have seen in white shirts and ties that you may have seen around town riding bikes and knocking on doors (perhaps it was yours at an inconvenient time).  This also means that for two full years, I was living away from my friends and family here in Utah, with my only contact with them being emails, letters, and two calls to home a year.  I was also severed from most of the rest of the 'real' world.  We missionaries don't watch TV, listen to radio or popular music, or go to the movies.

Here is a picture of me in the mission field, whilst in front of a bean field.

I'm the guy on the left.

My dad told me that the hardest part of serving a mission is coming home.  It really is kind of a culture shock in a lot of ways.  When I left home at the beginning of September, 2008,  the world had just barely found out who Sarah Palin was.  George W. Bush was still President.  Michael Jackson was still alive.  'The Dark Knight' was the big movie (and the last movie I saw).  Nobody knew what Twitter or Skype was.  When I got back in September, 2010, I had never heard a song from Lady Gaga or Justin Beiber (I didn't really even know who those people were--I just knew that one of them was a girl that dressed funny and appeared everywhere, and the other was Lady Gaga).   And this is all the cultural stuff.  The weirdest part about coming home is the personal stuff.  Seeing home again, catching up with old friends, that sort of business.  It's definitely pretty crazy to see how things have changed ("you guys did what to my bedroom!?"), but even crazier to see the things that don't change ("It's been two years and you're still arguing with that person?!"). 

Yeah, it's fair to say that my religion is going to play a fairly large role in this blog.  I'll probably regularly  share stories from my days as a missionary and such.  It should be fun.  But I'll also be writing a lot about my interests here--things like the YouTube videos I discovered, or thoughts on current events, movies, etc.  Hopefully, this will be an interesting read.