Conference Weekend--Mission Reunion

Well I can't believe that it is October again my friends. Feels like yesterday i was coming off that plane from Guatemala and it has been 15 months. My brother Glen has 8 months left in his mission. Thats crazy. 

So this weekend i went down and saw my mission president and his wife. 

I was also able to reunite with some of my good friends from the mission. Some of my best friends that I was with during my whole mission however weren't there. I missed seeing Elder Moss and my trainer, Elder Hansen, who both seem to have more important things going on right now. (I guess hunting and going to Guatemala are more important)

Here I am with Elder Petty. He replaced me as Branch President there in Joyabaj. Elder Peck and I drove down with his friend Spencer Rammell. In the middle is Elder Caldwell. You can't see it very well but he is supporting a "I Love Jesus" hat. Gotta love that kid. Then there is me. and my good friend Elder Ellis. He's married, and since he's been married I hardly ever talk to him. But i assume married people are very busy. You know with all the work and school. (Riiiiight...haha)

I was also able to see my old roommate Brad Kramer. It is cool to see people you have not seen for 3 or 4 years and see what a mission does to a person. We are all more mature and have the same goals it seems like. It's just taking some of us a little longer to get there. But it's cool to see some people get married that were Dear John'ed on the mission and felt like they had no hope if that one didn't work out. 

I LOVED conference as well. I think that the First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 focused all their talks on me this time. I think it is like that always if we pay attention to what the spirit tells us. Every talk can be personalized I believe. But I really liked President Eyring's talk in the Priesthood Session. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed with things. School, Work, Dating, Fulfilling Church Callings, Attending the Temple regularly and we think "well when I get older it will get easier." It's not that way. In fact, it is the opposite. I have just come to the realization that I need to get back to planning every hour, every day just like i did in the mission. I seem to have achieved everything I had set out to do when i organized myself like that. I recieved so much comfort from the speakers this weekend. The world with the economy as it is can be such a scary thing. But conference gave me a whole new aspect. The Lord will protect us if we are keeping his commandments and trying our hardest to do all those necessary things we need to do in life. He won't let us fail. I'm excited to see what life has in store for me these next few years. Well, until next time. :)

Melaleuca----Taking Over My Life On The Last Day of the Month

Let me tell you about this place called Melaleuca. Every last day of the month it takes over my life. I work from 6-10 in the morning everyday here taking calls in Spanish and helping customers with many issues: placing orders, finding lost packages, cancellation information; you name it in the company, I help them with it. But the last day of the month Melaleuca takes over my life. I work the lastday of the month from 6-10 in the morning, go to class from 10:15-1:30---then come back to Melaleuca, eat food (which is always good that they provide and I can't complain about, unless it's from JB's) and finish my shift from 2-10. wow. Words can't express the relief I feel when 10:00 is up. I love my job, because i love working with Spanish people and really the products are great, but 12 hours at any job takes it's toll on ya. Especially when you don't move anywhere and are seated for that long.

I remember working construction and 12 hours passed by like a breeze because we were so active. I loved it. The only downside was my crew wasn't mexican so there was no way to keep up my Spanish.

So really, the tribute to Melaleuca is: please find some way to help me not sit on my butt for 12 hours. It's raw. It hurts. But at least I get paid for it. Tuesday and Wednesday in 30 hours I had spent 16 of them at Melaleuca, 4 at school, 6 sleeping and two at home getting ready for bed and doing homework.

One day I will hopefully have a real job that I will LOVE. But i'm sure no matter how high i get up, work is work and will always get redundant. I guess I will just have to live with it. It's part of life.

Good Thing I Have My Friends

What can I say, I love driving down main street and screaming out the window at people. I love seeing people's reactions. I don't know why. I guess I am still mature. haha. I know, "soooooo high school right?" I will mature, one day I guess. Maybe that's why I am dateless. But good thing I have my good friends Nat and Steve to go on Horkley's runs. Best $0.65 cents I have ever spent. (For those of you not familiar with the Horks, you can get a 44 oz. soda for $0.65.)

General Conference is this weekend. So you know what that means? Ok, maybe not, but it means Mission Reunion. The place where everyone shows up with their significant other and shows off how good looking they are. Well me, I got myself. Yeah, thats right. Flyin' solo baby. I'm prepared for the marriage questions, i get them everytime I go back to my home ward. No big deal. Life's a Garden, Dig it.

Ps....this is two nights in a row i have blogged.

Drama=Dating Retirement

i can't help it. It follows me wherever I go. I leave high school and think, oh people are going to be mature in college and i am not going to have to deal with drama, I was wrong. So I thought, hmm....well, at least i'll get a break from drama while i go on my mission. haha. Guess again Ry-Ry. Babysitting some elders just created drama that nobody wants to deal with on the mission. So i come back from the mission thinking there will be a little drama, man was I wrong. There's a lot of drama.

What am i going to major in? Does she like me? Did I make a wrong move? Should I wait for them to be aggressive cause my aggressiveness could be creeping them out hah? I just don't know. I think i have came to the ultimate conclusion.

RETIREMENT.

Unfortunetly this isn't your typical "old man going to do nothing with my life" type of retirement. It's dating retirement. Michael Jordan has retired an extreme amount of time, but has came back out twice. Therefore i think, I'm going to retire and just "hangout" with girls.

Now I know what your thinking. "You need to date Ryan." I will. Just not right now. For the moment, i'm hanging up the free dinners, the keys to the car and for now, most of all the relationship issues. Now i can just be free, hangout with whomever i want, and life will take care of itself. Plus, i'm going to college to get an education, i'll just focus on that, so that I don't end up wasting my hard earned money.

So in other words. Now is not the time to set me up with girls. Not interested. If they wanna hangout thats cool, i'll go meet em and maybe we can go watch some college football games together. But unless a girl comes up and totally sweeps me off my feet, i'm done for a while.

Thanks for understanding. :)

well friends and family, I should first apologize for not updating my blog. A lot of things have happened and i guess i have just been so involved I haven't had time to update this. My new picture is from my new Macbook that i bought for school. An investment that will be totally worth it because it won't break down like a PC, and might last me 4-5 years hopefully. But Mac's are so simple. I don't think I will ever go back to a PC. haha.

Three weeks ago I had the opportunity to go with my friends to San Diego to get away for a week or so for the "summer vacation." It was awesome to just spend time with the guys. I love being with girls, but us guys, we definitely need GUY time every once in a while. We went and stopped in Vegas to eat at the Bellagio Buffet and i was blown away by the elegance of the food. It was so good. (It better have been for $30.00) haha. But we made some contacts in the line. We started talking to people about how we were planning on going to Mexico and they asked us if we were scared and we told them no because 5 out of the 6 of us spoke Spanish. Which of course lead us to talk about our missions, what church we represent, and answer a few questions. They were from New York. But we decided to plant some seeds. It was a great experience and gave us a little taste of that missionary spirit we all miss.

We spent some time down in Tijuana and Rosarito, Mexico. We made a few contacts there as well because many people were so impressed with our Spanish. My good buddy Austin served his mission in that area, so we traveled with one of these families that he baptized. They picked us up in Chula Vista, California and drove us across the border to Mexico and showed us the good things that Tijuana and Mexico have to offer. We went down to Puerto Nuevo, like 15 minutes from Rosarito and ate some seafood there. Probably some of the best seafood I have ever tasted in my life. (we definitely ate good on the trip:) When we came back to San Diego we attended a session at the San Diego Temple as well.

I was also able to see my good friend Trish one more time before she entered the MTC. Which was good for all of us. Her, Austin and I have become great friends over the last semester.

Well a new semester has begun. Only time will tell whats in store.

PS....I love comments, and hearing about how everyone is doing so don't be shy. Miss you all.

I Hate Goodbyes.....

Well this is dedicated to my dear friend Trish. She left Austin, Nataley and I alone in Rexburg. But no worries, I told her I would wait for her. She leaves to the MTC on September 3rd. I had an awesome opportunity to go with her and her fam and a few other people through the temple as she recieved her endowment. What a great example she is to all of us, and I know she'll be a great missionary. Summer Semester begins so I will have a 7-week summer to just work until classes start in the fall. But life is moving way to fast sometimes. I can't believe it's been a year since I returned from my mission. Time flys when your having fun I guess. What a difference a year makes. It will be exciting to see what this year has to bring.

Oh Finals Week

After studying for so long I decided I needed a little 20-minute break and with that I would update my blog and add some pictures from the last semester. We went boating a few times and also went to Rigby Lake, the place with the closest similarity to a beach around here. Definetly have had some crazy times here and with a seven-week-break on the way in-between summer and fall, only more are on the way.

PS...I am now 22. Yeah.