SOAR - Week 1

I spent an amazing week teaching multicultural students from across the country, who came to BYU as guests of the Multicultural Student Services (MSS) office.  I've had many personally enriching experiences with MSS and SOAR (Summer of Academic Refinement, or Students of Another Race, if you ask Chris) and I am very lucky to get to give back to a program that gave me so much.

I am teaching the science section of the ACT, which they took this morning.  I remember being in their place, worrying about a number and letting it define me.  I didn't do too bad, so that wasn't a bad thing.  But I hope they understood when I told them that this test really doesn't matter.  You can always retake it, and after you're in college, no one really cares what you got.  Except for high school students about to take the ACT.

The students are attentive, intelligent, and they laugh at my jokes.  I think every class I had clapped when I told them that I was engaged.  And when Hayley and I went to their Thursday night study session, they were all very excited to get to meet her, and I hope it helped her understand a little better how special I think she is.  The students almost acted like she was a celebrity, which is pretty much what I think of every time I see her.  I can't believe how blessed my life is.

To those students I had this week, thank you for an amazing week, and please get a hold of me if you need help with the ACT after you get home.  You are awesome!

The Story of How We Met - My side again - Part 1

I'm not sure how many of you will actually care, or are already sick of hearing about how I'm engaged.  I apologize to those I associate with on a daily basis.  I promise I'll stop telling that I'm engaged after I get married.  And then I'll try really hard not to tell you that I'm married.

So, this story starts a long time ago.  Alright, it's only six years ago, but if you think about it from my point of view, that's more than a quarter of the life I've lived so far.  The year is 2006.  It's summertime.  I've just finished my sophomore year of high school.  I had a lot of stuff planned for that summer, but apparently not too many things, as I'll explain in a minute.

My dad was still in the stake presidency at this time, and got to take my little brother, and the other deacons in the stake to scout camp.  This year, they decided to attend Scofield Scout Camp (which formerly was Scofield Frontier Base, and is now called Scofield Boy Scout Camp at Frandsen Scout Reservation).  The thing I remember most about this trip is how awesome their shirts were.  They had a bright blue shirt, and a fluorescent green shirt that they alternated between.  I would say that they did laundry, but I'm positive that they didn't.  My dad thought it was great because he could stand at the house and see where all of his boys were.

Scofield was somewhat under-staffed that year, or at least that's what I was told.  This is the part where I think that I must not have been too busy that summer, because I agreed to work at the camp for the last two weeks of the summer.  I got to work in aquatics and taught the canoeing merit badge.  I got the hang of it after a couple of days.  And I even got to earn it while I was there.  I thought it would be important to earn the merit badge before teaching other people how to earn it.

That summer, I got a sunburn from my knees to the middle of my thigh from sitting down in a metal canoe in the middle of the lake all week in my swim trunks that apparently went up a little higher when I sat down.  And we had an awesome staff party after we got everything cleaned up on the last week.  I still remember taking home extra apple beer for later.  It lasted maybe a couple of hours.

And this is the beginning of how I met Hayley...

Our Engagement Story - My version of it, anyway

I got engaged this last weekend to Hayley!  We'll be getting married in October.

Here are the details.  Since a lot of people ask for them, I'm assuming you'll want to know what happened too.  On Friday afternoon, I left work early to go ring shopping with my dad.  I ended up finding one that I thought she would like, and that I liked.  It's really beautiful.  On Friday night we went to Chandler's house for his birthday.  Because we walked there, we got to walk back to my house.  As we sat and talked on the way home, I realized that I could get engaged the next morning.  I already had the ring, and we were planning on going to the temple in the morning to do initiatories.  It was almost too perfect.

Where it almost happened

So Saturday morning, I got up at 6:30 a.m., found a smaller ring box that would fit in my pocket, and headed off to the temple.  I don't think I've had a more nervous time doing initiatories in my entire life.  After we were both finished, I suggested we walk around the back of the temple, which was something that we had done before on a Sunday afternoon.  There were a lot of people there, and combined with how nervous I was getting, I just couldn't propose there.

We decided to get back in the car and head first to her apartment for her to change, and then to my house for me to change, and then to Tucanos for lunch.  As soon as we got into the car, I began the process of racking my brain for a somewhat romantic way to propose.

On our way to my house, I suddenly turned right onto 900 East.  She asked where we were going.  I was hoping her texting would have kept her from knowing where we were going.  I simply replied, "Don't worry about it."  In my mind, I knew that she knew and there was no turning back now.

The actual ring, in real life!

We ended up at an elementary school, where we had swung on the swings many times.  She loves swinging and there aren't any swings closer to my house.  She sat in the swing and I got to push her.  She normally doesn't let me, but I got to push her for a long time.  As I was pushing her, I reached into my pocket, pulled the ring out of the box, and just held it in my hand.  I think that's the point where I started shaking.  I slowly stopped her swinging, asked her if she really loved me, and then, following a positive response to the previous question, asked if she would marry me.

I liked it, so I put a ring on it

I don't think she was expecting me to have a ring yet, based on her reaction to the question I asked.  It was as if I had asked it multiple times before.  To be fair, I probably had asked many times, though never officially.  And then I put the ring that I had been hiding in my hand on her finger.  Then I got the reaction I had been expecting.  And these have been the best 5 days of my life so far, and I'm looking forward to many more wonderful days with her.

Cowboy Boots

Everyone should own a pair of cowboy boots, even if they'll never wear them.  Plus, the guy in the glasses looks exactly like I imagine my organic chemistry professor back when he was in high school.  Compare for yourself.

The younger, hipper, high school version.

What he looks like "today"

Diamonds and Sapphires

Diamonds are chunks of highly organized carbon.  Even though they're relatively common, they have been made artificially rare, causing them to cost much more than they should.  While they have a high refractive index, are unusually hard, and are often very pure, they seem commonplace in jewelry, especially in engagement rings.  To me, they are the plain vanilla of the gemstones.  You can dress up vanilla ice cream with a lot of toppings, but at the end of the day, it's still vanilla ice cream.

Sapphires on the other hand, may not be very valued in the eyes of some.  I think that most would be surprised to see an engagement ring with a sapphire in it.  They are not pure, and aren't even carbon.  They are made of aluminum oxide, but the impurities give the stone its brilliant blue color.  They are also very hard and durable just like diamonds.  But I feel that they are somehow more unique.  And they come in a variety of colors, depending on the impurity.  Red sapphires are rubies.  How appropriate then are the words of the proverb:

"Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies."

It is certainly easy for us to be like the rest of the world and give a diamond view of ourselves, perfect, flawless, and polished.  But how much harder is it to share our sapphire moments with those around us?  They are even more beautiful, I would argue, and come from a deeper place.