Manti Temple Trip

This is belated, but I wanted to tell about it anyway. Plus, I don't have much else I can do while I wait for BYU's webpage to quit being slow so I can register for Fall classes.

On March 6th, I got off work early so that I could join my ward in going to the Manti Utah Temple. I rode to Manti with my friends Zach, Dan, Robert, and Hannah, and we had a blast! We talked and listened to fun CDs like Men's Chorus, Beauty and the Beast, EFY, and other good stuff. I even looked at my homework for a few seconds. :) We also read about some of the history of the Manti Temple.

Our ward group was the last of four groups signed up for the night, all of which were larger than the temple workers were expecting. So, after running out of lockers in the bathroom and getting dressed,
we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

But I tell you what; waiting in the temple is the greatest place to wait!

The set-up was kind of odd (at least compared to the modern temples), and people getting confirmed or baptized had to awkwardly walk in and out of the waiting area multiple times. However, I finally got the chance to get confirmed and baptized for people anxiously waiting on the other side of the veil. Hoorah for Israel! The baptistry was beautiful and had hand-painted original murals (at least that's what our rap sheet said, and it certainly looked like it). Each of the scenes depicted a "famous" baptism in the scriptures or church history and had a scripture reference written out to go with it. One of the references was something about "Pearl of Great Price #:#." Obviously, that was an original since now scriptures in the Pearl of Great Price are referred to by their book name first. When my turn came, I literally face-planted (can you do that with water?) into the font. Good thing Freddy was there to save me from splashing a ton of water everywhere and from hurting myself more than I did!

This is Kara, me, and Ie Ling in front of the temple soon after we arrived. This was en route to the separate entrance for the baptistry around on the other side of the temple.

This is what some of the temple lit up at night looked like.

Same caption as the last one... :)

This is the view from the lot where we parked. Beautiful!! How in the world did they build this all those years ago?!

Our car stopped at In-N-Out for a very late dinner on our way home. That was my first time to eat there! (My thoughts? Eh. Just a burger and fries. Not gross, but not out of this world.)

I'm so glad that I got to go! It's amazing how many blessings come from attending the temple.
[And, 45 minutes later, I finally got registered for all my classes even though I knew exactly what I wanted from the beginning. What a pain!!]

Laughter, One of Life's Best Medicines (or Weapons)

Today I turned on the TV and flipped channels for a bit while I ate my delicious lunch. I stopped on BYUTV, because usually nothing else has anything even worth spending 2 seconds watching in the middle of the day. I saw a general giving a talk, and I remembered that last Thursday there was a huge line of people outside the JSB waiting to go to a speech by some highly ranked official. I heard later that it was General Petraeus, the top guy over the armies in Iraq. So, since I had heard a few things about the speech when it was given live, I decided to stay on BYUTV for a second to watch a bit of the re-broadcast on TV. I heard the introduction and the funniest part (at least it was the funniest to me, because I didn't watch the rest of it once he started getting serious :D). Here's what he said:

General Petraeus' Top 10 reasons BYU grads make good soldiers:

10 — They have already been on many a mission.

9 — Army chow is no problem for folks accustomed to eating green Jell-o and shredded carrots.

8 — It's not a problem if they don't know what rank someone is, they just refer to them as Brother or Sister so-and-so.

7 — They never go AWOL. They just call it being less active.

6 — They will seize any objective swiftly if you tell them refreshments will be served.

5 — They know how to make things happen. In fact if you ever need a base built quickly in a barren wasteland, stride out to where you want them to start, plant your walking stick down and say in a loud voice, "This is the place."

4 — They have innovative ideas for handling insurgents — like assigning them home teachers.

3 — They always have a years' supply of provisions on hand.

2 — They are the world's most reliable designated drivers.

1 — They understand how far Iraq has come over the last seven years, and they think that Iraq's old spot in the "Axis of Evil" can now be filled by the University of Utah.

(Thanks.)

Hilarious, eh? Even though I know speech writers were the ones who came up with this list (General Petraeus even said so later on), it makes me feel good to know that the guy leading our armies in Iraq has a sense of humor.

DanceSport

This semester I'm in Dance 180, Beginning Social Dance. I have a lot of fun in this class, and so far I've learned basic steps to the Foxtrot, Cha-Cha, and Waltz. I think before the end of the semester I will also learn the West Coast Swing. Luckily enough, BYU hosts a national amateur dance competition each semester called DanceSport. Originally I didn't want to compete in it. I wasn't excited to have to practice outside of class and I thought I'd have a friend in town on the day of competition. However, when a guy asked me if I was competing and I gave those excuses, I even had to admit that they sounded lame. So, I thought about it and decided to take the plunge and sign up for the bronze-level of Cha-Cha.

Emerson and I did have to practice outside of class, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. In fact, when you're really stressed about life, it's pretty fun to stop and take time to do a little cha-cha (ing?).

The day of the contest arrived, and I rolled out of bed quite early to get ready to be at the Marriott for our 8:00 event start time. It was nerve-racking at first, but we kept telling ourselves that we just wanted to make it past the first round. When the numbers that made it on to the next round were posted, we saw that we had reached our goal!

We repeated this process over and over, only trying to improve the little mistakes we had been making. I was quite delighted and somewhat surprised to keep seeing our number posted to come back! In the end, we made it through five rounds and only got cut right before the quarterfinals. We were okay with that because we felt like we had done our best, and we didn't necessarily want to have to come back at night to compete in the later levels of competition.

I'm so glad Emerson asked me to compete with him because it was a fun experience that I'm sure I won't have too many opportunities to repeat throughout my life. Here we are after we had finished:
My friends Dionna and Randee came to watch me perform, even! They took some pictures and filmed us dancing, but I forgot to give them my own camera, so I don't have any of them directly (all I can suggest is that you look on facebook).

Later in the evening, I came back to watch some of the higher level dancers perform. After all, I wanted to get my whole $10 worth out of my day-long ticket! Shortly after I came in, I saw quite the character dancing. Check it out!



You can bet that it's Cosmo ballroom dancing! Way to go, bud! No wonder you're such a cool mascot. :)

Here's another taste of what I saw. This wasn't my favorite of the evening, but my memory card got full before I could film the really cool stuff.


When we kept continuing on, we noticed that many of our classmates continued with us. We had 6 couples make it as far as we did, with two of them continuing on to the quarterfinals! It was also fun to hear that my very own classmates won the entire 180 Cha-Cha contest, and that my teacher won the cabaret contest that she competed in. Way to go, class! We're awesome! :D

Have you ever seen or participated in a dance contest?

Come support me!

Hello readers,
I'm here to ask/convince you to come to my University Chorale concert on Tuesday, April 13th at 7:30 at the Provo Tabernacle. The tickets are already on sale, and I believe they are only $3! Because we will be performing at the Tabernacle and not at BYU, the tickets will probably sell out faster than usual (it's a smaller venue). Come support me if you can! :D
Yours Truly,
Your Favorite
=)

Peter and the Wolf

Are you all familiar with this story and music? I'm a fan. My memories include seeing a performance of it when I was young and being enamored. The music was stuck in my head for days. Often, when I tell people that I play the bassoon, they think of something from which they know the bassoon and ask me if that's it (so as to verify their thoughts of what the bassoon even is, I guess). Usually I get one of the following:

• It's a balloon with two "s"s! (From The Phone Call, a funny but cheesy church movie probably from the 80s or 90s. I barely watched it for the first time this year, but I knew the quote from so many people asking me about it. P.S. Did you know that the inspiration for the character of Napoleon Dynamite came from this movie?!)
• An oboe? (No, sillies. That's why it has a different name.)
• From that broomstick song? (Referring, of course, to "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," depicted in Disney's Fantasia.)
• Isn't that in Peter and the Wolf? What part is it? (It's the grandfather, by the way.)

Anyway, the other day (after having one of the above conversations with a friend) I decided to find a recording of Peter and the Wolf and listen again. Luckily for me, I had recently been introduced to Grooveshark, a website similar to Playlist (from which comes the music on my blog). I was able to find a recording of the whole thing (click on the track entitled simply "Peter and the Wolf"), including the story! I could still picture the actors as they danced across the stage in my youth. I really enjoyed doing my homework to the sounds of my childhood memories!

Preparation

With the recent earthquakes and destruction happening around the world, my thoughts echo those of Bruce R. McConkie:

"Take heed; prepare; watch and be ready. There is no security in any course except the course of obedience and conformity and righteousness."

"But my disciples shall stand in holy places, and shall not be moved; but among the wicked, men shall lift up their voices and curse God and die."

Doctrine and Covenants 45:32