Dreamgirl

About three weeks ago I proposed to Claire and, I can still hardly even believe it, she said yes! We are planning to be married and sealed in the Hong Kong temple on December 30.

Claire and I met when we were just 8 and 10 years old while our families were living in Singapore for our dad's overseas assignments with companies they were working for at the time. Years later and after I served a two-year mission in Hong Kong for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Claire and I reconnected at BYU in Provo, UT. After about two months of dating, she left to serve a mission in Hong Kong also. We wrote letters for a year and a half, until she came home--writing letters is way more fun than it sounds.

She has been home from serving a mission for about four months. We're both studying at BYU. I'll be graduating with a bachelor of science in accounting this December.

We got engaged in Los Angeles, just outside the LDS temple on Santa Monica Boulevard. We were visiting Southern California for another friend's wedding. Strangely, our friends, Andy and Daisy, were in the bushes filming the proposal, so you can check it out. Andy and Daisy were literally IN the bushes, so good luck trying to figure out what's going on.

I feel so lucky to be marrying Claire. She is seriously my dream girl. And I'm happy to report that from now on I won't be posting to this blog alone!

Ong

Andy and I went to San Diego a couple weeks ago to visit the Ongs. Ted and Amelia Ong presided over the Hong Kong mission while we were there as missionaries. Another former mission companion of mine, Brian Johnson, had been renting out the Ong's neighboring home for the summer while he interned at a CPA firm. Brian's wife and little boy were there as well. We had a great time with the Ongs playing games, going to the zoo, attending the temple, and visiting the Chinese branch's Saturday night activity.

Seeing the Ongs in their home ward was such an inspiration to me. They are serving faithfully in their callings and building Zion wherever they are. I want to serve like them. They are sharing the gospel with those they meet. Their gardener inquired about their faith and Sister Ong gave him a Book of Mormon. Later, President Ong was speaking on assignment in another ward in the stake and they invited the gardener to come and listen. I admire their love, inclusive outreach to others, and courage to share what they believe.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was staying up late with President Ong after games and talking about school, careers, family, marriage, politics, the mission. Good memories. He is a role model of the kind of priesthood holder I want to be.

To all the returned missionaries out there: keep in contact with your mission president. Blessings will come.

Teach me to walk in the light

I happened to be working in LA instead of Irvine on Wednesday, which made my commute much shorter than usual. Having that extra time after work opened up the opportunity for Andy and I to go to the Los Angeles temple in the evening. We arrived at about 6:24pm, changed into white clothes, and made it into the 6:30pm session.

About three quarters of the way into the session the power failed in the whole area surrounding and including the temple. All we could see were emergency exit signs. Pitch black inside.

Andy and I waited in anticipation to see what would happen. Would we finish the service? Would we have to wait? I prayed we wouldn't have to stop and return home without completing the work we came to do that night.

How easy would it have been for those in charge to say, "What can we do? The power's out. It's not our fault. It's already 7:30pm, let's just let these people go home, we'll resubmit this work for completion first thing tomorrow morning." But they didn't. The temple presidency and their wives arrived with flashlights and additional temple workers to push forward with the work despite the conditions. I was inspired and reminded of the urgency and truthfulness of the redeeming work for the dead. We have no time to waste.

Brethren, shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage, brethren; and on, on to the victory! Let your hearts rejoice, and be exceedingly glad. Let the earth break forth into singing. Let the dead speak forth anthems of eternal praise to the King Immanuel, who hath ordained, before the world was, that which would enable us to redeem them out of their prison; for the prisoners shall go free. (Doctrine and Covenants 128:22)

Therefore, that we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven — These should then be attended to with great earnestness. Let no man count them as small things; for there is much which lieth in futurity, pertaining to the saints, which depends upon these things. (Doctrine and Covenants 123:13-15)

And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. (Malachi 4:6)

It is sufficient to know, in this case, that the earth will be smitten with a curse unless there is a welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children, upon some subject or other—and behold what is that subject? It is the baptism for the dead. For we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect. Neither can they nor we be made perfect without those who have died in the gospel also; for it is necessary in the ushering in of the dispensation of the fulness of times, which dispensation is now beginning to usher in, that a whole and complete and perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and glories should take place, and be revealed from the days of Adam even to the present time. And not only this, but those things which never have been revealed from the foundation of the world, but have been kept hid from the wise and prudent, shall be revealed unto babes and sucklings in this, the dispensation of the fulness of times. (Doctrine and Covenants 128:18)

Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead? (1 Corinthians 15:29)

Now they were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble. (Mosiah 28:3)

Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming. (Doctrine and Covenants 2)

You'll just know

I've been slothful and haven't posted in a while. Here's a picture summary of this past month since moving to California.

Peyton, Daisy and Sky. This photo is entitled "The Printer Cartridge."

Love.

A gloomy day at Huntington Beach.

Keiko. My sweet sweet train buddy.

I miss Rigby. Mission call this week.

Mommy

I have an incredible mother. I can't think of a time when I needed her and she wasn't available. I can't think of something good that I've done in my life that wasn't at least in some way inspired by her. I never have to guess what she values most or what she expects of me. I know the Savior is what comes first in her life; that, in her eyes, living the gospel is more important than any worldly recognition. I am grateful for her example of commitment to the Lord and obedience to covenants. She gives me reason to live according to the truth I know. She is Christlike. She listens to me. She's the most concerned of anyone in this world about my immediate well being.

My mother is a mother who knows. Our home is a place I love to be. It's a place where I can feel the Spirit. And my mother is to be thanked for that.

I love my mom.

Quinn, Tara, curry

A little sibling quality time at Bombay House, compliments of mom. Good food and good entertainment--we sat right next to Amy Wong on a date that sounded pretty intense. (She eventually asked him if he wanted to finish the conversation elsewhere because he kept talking and asking questions long after the bill came and was paid. We could hear the conversation very clearly.)


Be good this summer Tara, I'll miss you!

Schools out!

I'm done with finals and it's summertime! I'm looking forward to heading home to Arizona to chill with my family for a couple weeks before I head out to Irvine.

Also, I've got some reading to do:

Atlas Shrugged | Ayn Rand

Outliers | Malcolm Gladwell

John Adams | David McCullough

How to Change the World | David Bornstein

Team of Rivals | Doris Goodwin

Baby cousin

Last weekend Tara and I visited our cousin, Jordan, and her husband, Jeff. They just had a new baby girl, Kendyl. SO cute! This picture shows Tara holding Kendyl, sitting next to their two boys, Caleb and Owen.

So...my cousin's kids are my first cousins once removed (see chart below, heh, nerdy I know).

Emerson and genius

I haven't been so inspired by literature as I have been today by Emerson's Self-Reliance. I regret that it has taken me until now to finally read it for myself. He's amazing. Reading this gives me motivation to let my own ideas flow, to create, to build, to risk failure. Just think of it, something you've thought of or dreamed of has probably never been introduced before in the history of the world. You can through your own "toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to [you] to till" become like "Moses, Plato and Milton" and "set at naught books and traditions," speak not what men, but what you think.

Check this out! Emerson!

I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instil is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,—— and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is, that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.

I love that Emerson said that "society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members." I can't even say how much I've sensed that in the past months of my life. Conformity IS the virtue in "most request."

The bottom line is that it's up to the individual to cast it off and do something truly great, different, new, genius.

Capital Group

I've accepted an internship offer with Capital Group in Irvine, CA for the summer. Pretty stoked.

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News media and professional responsibility

The poor treatment of Bush and the worship of Obama in the media makes me concerned for those who believe all they read. I came across the following quotation in an opinion article in the Wall Street Journal by Peter Berkowitz, senior fellow at Standford's Hoover Institution. I think he hits it right on the head.

Bush hatred and Obama euphoria -- which tend to reveal more about those who feel them than the men at which they are directed -- are opposite sides of the same coin. Both represent the triumph of passion over reason. Both are intolerant of dissent. Those wallowing in Bush hatred and those reveling in Obama euphoria frequently regard those who do not share their passion as contemptible and beyond the reach of civilized discussion. Bush hatred and Obama euphoria typically coexist in the same soul. And it is disproportionately members of the intellectual and political class in whose souls they flourish.

To be sure, democratic debate has always been a messy affair in which passion threatens to overwhelm reason. So long as citizens remain free and endowed with a diversity of interests and talents, it will remain so.

In October 1787, amid economic crisis and widespread fears about the new nation's ability to defend itself, Alexander Hamilton, in the first installment of what was to become the Federalist Papers, surveyed the formidable obstacles to giving the newly crafted Constitution a fair hearing. Some would oppose it, Hamilton observed, out of fear that ratification would diminish their wealth and power. Others would reject it because they hoped to profit from the political disarray that would ensue. The opposition of still others was rooted in "the honest errors of minds led astray by preconceived jealousies and fears."

Indeed, the best of men, Hamilton acknowledged, were themselves all-too-vulnerable to forming ill-considered political opinions: "So numerous indeed and so powerful are the causes, which serve to give a false bias to the judgment, that we upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions, of the first magnitude to society."

In surveying the impediments to bringing reason to bear in politics, it was not Hamilton's aim to encourage despair over democracy's prospects but to refine political expectations. "This circumstance, if duly attended to," he counseled, "would furnish a lesson of moderation to those, who are ever so much persuaded of their being in the right, in any controversy."

As Hamilton would have supposed, the susceptibility of political judgment to corruption by interest and ambition is as operative in our time as it was in his. What has changed is that those who, by virtue of their education and professional training, would have once been the first to grasp Hamilton's lesson of moderation are today the leading fomenters of immoderation.

Bush hatred and Obama euphoria are particularly toxic because they thrive in and have been promoted by the news media, whose professional responsibility, it has long been thought, is to gather the facts and analyze their significance, and by the academy, whose scholarly training, it is commonly assumed, reflects an aptitude for and dedication to systematic study and impartial inquiry.

For some reason that professional responsibility has been seriously neglected and perhaps forgotten by many in the news media. The effect is disheartening. Where else can we easily access information but from the media around us? I just can't help but include his closing comments also:

Some will speculate that the outbreak of hatred and euphoria in our politics is the result of the transformation of left-liberalism into a religion, its promulgation as dogma by our universities, and students' absorption of their professors' lesson of immoderation. This is unfair to religion.

At least it's unfair to those forms of biblical faith that teach that God's ways are hidden and mysterious, that all human beings are both deserving of respect and inherently flawed, and that it is idolatry to invest things of this world -- certainly the goods that can be achieved through politics -- with absolute value. Through these teachings, biblical faith encourages skepticism about grand claims to moral and political authority and an appreciation of the limits of one's knowledge, both of which well serve liberal democracy.

In contrast, by assembling and maintaining faculties that think alike about politics and think alike that the university curriculum must instill correct political opinions, our universities cultivate intellectual conformity and discourage the exercise of reason in public life. It is not that our universities invest the fundamental principles of liberalism with religious meaning -- after all the Declaration of Independence identifies a religious root of our freedom and equality. Rather, they infuse a certain progressive interpretation of our freedom and equality with sacred significance, zealously requiring not only outward obedience to its policy dictates but inner persuasion of the heart and mind. This transforms dissenters into apostates or heretics, and leaders into redeemers.

Consequently, though Bush hatred may weaken as the 43rd president minds his business back home in Texas, and while Obama euphoria may fade as the 44th president is compelled to immerse himself in the daunting ambiguities of power, our universities will continue to educate students to believe that hatred and euphoria reflect political wisdom. Urgent though the problem is, not even the efficient and responsible spending of a $1 trillion stimulus package would begin to address it.

Click here for the full article.

Deseret International

Check out Deseret International (click here). They are doing some phenomenal things to alleviate health care issues in developing countries, and they are doing it with efficiency like I've never seen. I'm working on a project for the organization now where I'm looking at some financial information and the cost effectiveness of their initiatives. By donating $20 you can change a life. You can move someone from despair and helplessness to a normal and productive life. They donate resources and equipment to allow local doctors to perform more surgeries (and more free surgeries) on patients with club feet, cleft lip, cleft palate, cataracts, etc.















I've actually been to their facility in the Philippines, the longest running of their operations. They have a presence in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, Chile, Egypt, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Syria, Tonga, Uganda, Vietnam, Western Samoa, and Zimbabwe. They partner with local doctors so that the medical help is permanent and builds the local economy.

















Check out Deseret International (click here).

How Can I Be

I recently found out about this sweet song, so I thought I'd share for those of you who haven't heard it.





The original is here (click here) if you're interested; I just had to know who wrote this and why. It's beautiful.

Be there

It's been a great year. A few steps closer to graduation, perhaps just one closer to knowing what I want to do after I do graduate. Some experiences have been challenging and have taught me that there are many things that are just not in our control. But in those things that are in our control, we reap what we sow. I'm grateful for my family. What a blessing it is to be with them during the holidays!

I met my goal of posting to this blog twice each month! Here's to New Year's resolutions met! I'll be dreaming up some new ones in the next couple of days. I hope to keep blogging, but on a less strict schedule.

I'm getting some ideas for what direction to aim myself in the year ahead. I love these words from Elder Hales:

Be there. Each of us was there in the Council in Heaven to choose the great plan of happiness we now enjoy. Young men, when you have made a commitment to yourself, your family, your bishop, your employer, be there. When it is time to be in church, at Mutual, or fulfilling a priesthood assignment, be there. When it is time to graduate from school or training programs, be there. When it is time to serve a mission, be there. When the young woman you love most kneels at the altar of God’s holy temple, be there (and not as a witness). When your family is gathered in the celestial kingdom, be there. When the Savior waits to greet you as you return with honor from your life on this earth and your Heavenly Father wants to encircle you about in the arms of His love, be there.

Happy New Year!