How could it not be true?

Monday, December 15, 2008

My roommate, Andrew, is taking Book of Mormon this semester and his professor shared this quote with them the other day. I thought it was pretty sweet. It's from Hugh Nibley when he was teaching BoM up at BYU.


Hugh Nibley used to offer a most interesting challenge to his students at BYU:

Since Joseph Smith was younger than most of you and not nearly so experienced or well educated at the time he copyrighted the Book of Mormon, it should not be too much to ask you to hand in by the end of the semester (which will give you more time than he had) a paper of, say, five to six hundred pages in length. Call it a sacred book if you will, and give it the form of a history.

Tell of a community of wandering Jews in ancient times; have all sorts of characters in your story, and involve them in all sorts of public and private vicissitudes [daily activities]; give them names — hundreds of them — pretending that they are real Hebrew and Egyptian names of circa 600 B.C.

Be lavish with cultural and technical details — manners and customs, arts and industries, political and religious institutions, rites, and traditions, include long and complicated military and economic histories; have your narrative cover a thousand years.

Keep a number of interrelated local histories going at once; feel free to introduce religious controversy and philosophical discussion, but always in a plausible setting; observe the appropriate literary conventions and explain the derivation and transmission of your varied historical materials.

Above all, do not ever contradict yourself! For now we come to the really hard part of this little assignment. You and I know that you are making this all up — we have our little joke — but just the same you are going to be required to have your paper published when you finish it, not as fiction or romance, but as a true history! After you have handed it in you may make no changes in it ... What is more, you are to invite any and all scholars to read and criticize your work freely, explaining to them that it is a sacred book on a par with the Bible. If they seem over-skeptical, you might tell them that you translated the book from original records by the aid of the Urim and Thummim — they will love that!

Further, to allay their misgivings, you might tell them that the original manuscript was on golden plates, and that you got the plates from an angel. Now go to work and good luck! [The Prophetic Book of Mormon, F.A.R.M.S., 221-222]

HOW COULD IT NOT BE TRUE?!!!

T-minus One Month!!!

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Well, here it comes. Today is December 14th, one month to the day when I will enter the MTC and begin my mission. Last night I went to the MTC for the last time as a volunteer- at least for this semester. It snowed all day, but I made it up the hill with just a slight injury to the ankle when my tires found some secreted black ice. The worst part about it is I got blood on my pants, but a little cold water and scrubbing took it right out.
The MTC was great. I love volunteering there as an "investigator" to help the missionaries practice teaching lessons. This group of missionaries were staying an extra week in the MTC because of the holidays so we had a new senario to play out. They taught me and another volunteer a quick lesson and then talked to us about missionary work. They gave us some pointers as both of us were going to serve missions soon. It was a great night and I made it home safely. No accidents. I didn't get hit by a car.

I ONLY HAVE ONE MONTH TILL MY MISSION!! I'M SO EXCITED!!!! I JUST CAN'T HIDE IT!!!

Fungus Bread

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

It all started back at the beginning of the semester when Andrew recieved a large loaf of cinnamon bread from a friend. I think he might have tried it, but decided it wasn't good. He set it out on the counter for us to eat whenever we felt like it. We never felt like it. Soon we noticed some strange colors, but just blamed it on the little cinnomon bits imbeded in the bread. Andrew put the bread in his cupboard which he doesn't get into too much. Fast forward to the present. Andrew takes out a green and white fuzzy ball of bread and offers me a slice. He brought it in my bedroom and threatened to open it. I threatened him with his life at that point. And so the fungus infested bread remains in the cupboard above the counter in the kitchen for Christmas break afterwhich it will probably stay till the end of next semester as well. At least I won't be there to see when it turns red or orange.

I was trying to get a picture of Andrew holding up the loaf of grossness, but he refused so I throw it at him and he through it back. This is the action shot of him throwing it back at me. His new nick name is Fungus Head.

Winter's Best Game!!!

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

My roomate, Hayden, started playing this game on the internet the other day when a friend of his suggested it to him as winter's best game. I watched him play it a few times and laughed, but then I started playing and it actually is kinda fun. We got adicted to it. All three of us were playing the game on our computers at the same time. I think we'll be playing it a lot this week. Basically, it's a bunny that hops on top of bell which are falling out of the sky. You get points for jumping on the bells and you keep hopping way up high in the sky. If you fall, it's a long ways down, but don't worry rabbits always land on their feet. I hold the high score currently at 2,582,129,588 points. Have fun playing away! www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g3/bells.htm

Plastic Flying Disks

Sunday, December 7, 2008

So, here's the skinny. Hayden, my roommate from Cairo, Egypt, for some reason decided it was cool to flick bottle caps. It was a weird thing when I first met him. Apparently he had a bottle cap collection at home of over 200 bottle caps. I thought he meant like the metal bottle caps on glass bottles. Then I saw him flicking a bottle cap. It's very strange and my other roommate, Andrew, and I just thought he was weird, but then he had his mom send him more bottle caps. Somehow his collection of 200 were accidently thrown out and so his mom collected bottle caps from friends she had and sent them here to Provo. She called them Plastic Flying Disks or PFDs.

It's actually quite fun to flick them at people. We often have wars in our appartment where PFDs will be wizzing around our ears as we hurl PFDs back at each other. I guess Hayden's the expert at PFD flicking so he grades our performance and accuracy as we have our wars. I am currently a level 3 flicker and Andrew was demoted last night to a level 2 flicker. It's a very precise art as the finger positions and spin are all vital to the direction and velocity of the PFDs. Are we getting too serious about it? Wait till we make teams and have logos, then call us crazy.

T-Time

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Timothy thought the turkey tasted tart. Timothy took the turkey to Target to try the tremendous Turkey-Tart-Turnaround. Timothy told the teacher that the Turkey took ten to twelve times the time that the tanned turkey took to thaw. The teacher told Timothy to try to tame the turkey tomorrow. Timothy took to the thesaurus to try to turn this tragedy towards the thought that tomorrow's turkey tastes tight. The tighter the turkey, the tougher the tendons. Timothy thinks turkey tastes ten times tighter then turtle tastes. Turtles taste tangy to Timothy. Tosha thinks Turtle tastes ten thousand times tenderer than turkey. Timothy transports the turkey to Target tomorrow to talk to the teacher twice. "The turkey tastes twenty times tartier than Tosha's turtle". The teacher told Timothy, "This tutorial takes this turkey to the tightest turkey trip to Toledo tomorrow". Timothy thought this talk took time to talk through. "Today! Thanksgiving terminates today! Toledo?...Tomorrow?...Today! The turkey takes ten to twelve times the time the tanned turkey took to thaw! The Turkey thaws till this thingy ticks twice! Then the turkey takes to the trash!"

"Thanksgiving Day"

Sunday, November 30, 2008

My birthday wasn't completely horrible. I did open my presents by myself after singing to myself. My roommates were too busy with other things. I got some letters from friends and family and a package from my family. In it was a California State flag which is now hanging in my window being held up by magnets which they also got me (I guess it's a joke. Haha.). Then there was a nice, mission appropriate, CD, a CD player, and some mini speakers so I can listen to music on my mission. And they also got me a watch. It's not much, but what else do you need going into your mission? Thanks Fam! A friend in one of my classes took me to the Cannon Center to eat for lunch. He had to go to another class though so he just left me there. Thanks a lot. It was my first time eating at the Cannon Center. Then my roommate, Hayden, bought me some IBC root beer and some Sour Patch Kids which was pretty awesome. Then I was invited over for dinner by some friends from St. Louis (thanks a lot Erin and Shae). We had salad and spaghetti. Let’s see...what else did I do? I worked on my nursing and psychology papers a bit and called some people up. Thanks for talking to me! So, that's about as exciting as my birthday gets now I guess. So, this is what it's like to be old. lol.

One Wednesday morning I got picked up by the Rellafords whom I hadn't seen in two years. My cousins live up in American Fork, Utah and they come down every year to help out sorting canned foods at this place in Provo. I helped out and then they took me up to American Fork where I stayed for Thanksgiving. It was a lot of fun. I played flag football with the guys and almost broke my knee. Fun stuff. Then stood on the sidelines playing with Hannah and Katarina who think it's the greatest thing to climb on me like a jungle gym. Then the kids all watched Wall-E at night which was pretty good. I hadn't seen it before. Then on T-day, I went with some of my cousins to play ultimate frisbee with some of their high school friends. It was a lot of fun, except for hobling around on one good leg. Uncle Berry went up to Salt Lake to get Aaron from his mssion. It was nice to see him again. We made a home movie called "Thanksgiving Day". It's supposed to be a spoof off of Independance Day and the first Thanksgiving with the Pilgims and Indians. It was kinda fun. Then we had some awesomeness of a feast and some pies later on. It was a lot of fun spending time with my cousins and Aaron again. We took Aaron back up to Salt Lake Thursday night.

Anyway, sorry there's no picture. I thought I left my camera at my appartment all week, but it was really in my backpack which I did take with me. Bummer.