Check it out!

Hello all! I have officially quit blogging! However, you can still find little updates on my Fiance and me at www.jaleneb.blogspot.com. Check it out, she's famous!

pics

USU vs. SUU Homecoming game!

Cafe Sabor!

Brad Paisley!

The 80's dance at USU

All of us at the cabin!

First and foremost I would like to dedicate this blog to a special person I like to call Bunches, your blogging expertise has inspired me:-). I have failed as a blogger lately. Even more so than before, for that I apologize to ALL my dedicated followers. Lately I have been up to a few different things, mainly Anatomy and spending time with the well-known blogger miss Jalene Bouwhuis. Anatomy has taken over my life and is really stretching my abilities, which is always a good thing i suppose! This semester has been my toughest by far and I cannot believe that almost 2 months have already passed! School at the U is a bit better this semester. Living with scott closer to campus has made it more enjoyable. This past month I have had a LITTLE fun as well. We went to a Brad Paisley concert and sang through the rain and SWEET lightening in the distance and had a blast as seen in the above picture. I had a birthday, big 23. Yup, 23. That is a bit scary. I swear just yesterday I was 10 years old and living the life. Life is very good now though, I am extremely happy with how the Lord has blessed me and provided for me since coming home a couple years ago. I have been working at a physical Therapy clinic the last few months and I have really loved it so much. It has been awesome working in the feild that I hope to have a career in. I only work a few days a week but I have solidified my desire to go to PT school and have my own practice someday. What else have you done that last few months Lincoln? well, I have been to 80's dances in logan, the homecoming dance and game in logan, a super duper cabin in big cottonwood canyon, one pretty sweet hike to the wind caves in logan canyon, went to a session of general conference AND last but not least, I even became a TRUE AGGIE! Those are the highlights of my life over the last little bit. It's been a blast! Jalene also celebrated a birthday lately, we went to lunch at Pei Wei and then dinner at CPK! It was so much fun having our birthdays so close together, just one big party week! Recently Jalene and I went to Nightmare on 13th haunted house with all my buddies and their wives/girlfriends/dates. It was so much fun, actually, it was pretty scary! I was a man and held Jalene's hand all the way through. At one point she told me that I was holding her hand too tight..........I was THAT dedicated to my job as protector ;-) It was alot of fun getting all the guys together again, it has been too long since we all got together. It is bittersweet to be in this phase of life where we are all getting married and moving away and doing our own thing. If I had it my way we would all live in the same neighborhood the rest of our lives. Since I am a computer illiterate, handicapped blogger, I will post a whole seperate blog after this with some picture highlights of lately. Enjoy!

Family VACA

The most disappointing day of the week is most definitely the day after you get back from vacation and you are back in work and real life is just looking at you and laughing. That was yesterday for me and I did not enjoy it at all! Our week in Huntington Beach was incredible. Our beach house was a 5 minute bike ride from the beach. We had a good time riding our cruisers down the main street in HB by the pierre to the beach, I truly felt like a beach bum at that point. It was awesome. Our first day we did what all utah vacationers do, we loaded up a ton of food and water and spent ALL day at the beach. We swam, boddy surfed, built an amazing city out of sand and of course burried eachother up to our heads and had a competition to see how could bust out with the most style. Being from utah we all fried ourselves and regretted it for the next few days. on day two we loaded up and drove 90 miles down to san diego to sea world. Such a fun place! All the boys ran off to ride the rides that got us all soaked! it was refreshing with the ocean breeze, awww! We ran over to the Shamu show, and sat in that hot stadium for 20 minutes, and then the amazing music came on and we coulda ll tell the show was supposed to have started. but I didn't see any humangous whales jumping....then the music stops and the trainer comes out and says sorry folks, for the first time in eight years, not one of our seven whales wants to participate today in teh show, sorry! haha I guess you can't make an eight ton whale do what it doesn't wanna do! Day three we decided to relax a little, and recover from our vacation to that point. we slept in and ate a big breakfast, rode our cruisers around town and shopped a little, then drove down to san diego againthat night and saw WICKED. It was my second time seeing the show but it still blew me away. I forgot how hillarious it is! Our family are big theater buffs, so we enjoyed that alot. Day four Me and Chase and Preston and Quinn left everyone else back at the house to relax again and we went to KnottsBerry farm. It was a blast! We love roller coasters, although I black out everytime! It in an old park, but it had some new amazing rides. We went from a standstill to 82 MPH in around 3 seconds. It was a rush!

I am now going to finish this post, which I started a few weeks ago! Needless to say the vacation was fun but the effects have all but warn off by now!

Lately:

Even though this portion of the post has nothing to do with our family vacation, it is still going to be posted under the Family VACA post. Deal with it. Lately things have been going really well. Work, school, friends and all other aspects of life. I am finally feeling really comfortable at work and selling a ton and forming relationships with all the guys and then I get a call from Performance West PT, where I left an application months ago. I have been waiting for and anticipating an open Aide job there for a while. So, just as life goes, just when I feel comfortable doing something, a major twist is added in. I have my second interview for the position tomorrow and I feel really good about it. I don't know what I will do. Will I take the job and have awesome experience for my PT school application, but be broke......or will I put it off for another 6 months or so and put away some good money and invest in my future that way? Either way there will be sacrifices made and valuable experience gained. School started today and it was a pretty typical first day of class, teachers trying to put on their mean faces to weed out the weak and everyone in class wearing their best clothes to make a solid first impression. It's all pretty hillarious. As odd as it sounds, it actually feels pretty good being back in class and on campus again. I love summer, but it makes me feel lazy and worthless sometimes. I love having something worth while to accomplish. it keeps me positive and makes me feel like i'm activley doing something about the future i envision for myself. My anatomy class will no doubt be the highlight of my semester. I am really excited to get into it again, I love this topic! it is the only topic that I can study for hours upon hours and still love it. I think I am really going to love my sports psychology class as well. I wish I would have had this info available to me when I was actually an athlete! I love living in sugar house with my buddies as well, it has really been so much fun. This really is the funnest stage of life. I have really learned that it is no more than what I make it. I have gone through my periods of stress, worrying and wondering when certain things will happen for me. I am tired of that, waiting, for what? I am really enjoying being 23 (almost) and paving whatever road I want for myself in whatever direction I want to. The mission feels like it is more and more a dream every day. I feel so close to the memories but so far away from poland. I really wish I could go back, and keep my polish and interact with thoes people again. I feel horrible that I worked so hard for what I did there, and now it feels like I didn't really do that. Like it was just a dream. Atleast I am lucky enough to have all my mission buddies around all the time to remind me that I was there and that I did have some sort of impact.

At this time I would like to give a shout out to the coolest AGGIE promoter/recruiter in all of Logan........and YEA it came to pass, the Jalene did persist in her ways of flattery in the ways of the aggie. Oh YEA she did craft her words wisely and did deceive Lincoln (almost) insomuch that he did believe her that USU is.....indeed.........the PROMISED LAND.

well, thats all folks! Happy reading!

Summa FUN!

The summer is winding down SOOO quick and it is killin me! For those of you who know me, I LOVE concerts.....of any kind! I dare anyone to find a funner date than a concert at usana ampitheater! Yesterday I went to the jack's manequin(spell?) and The Fray concert with Briana. I am not a huge fan of either band, I only really knew 2 songs but it was incredibly fun nonetheless. My buddies Devin Edmunds and Scott Gibson came with dates and we sat on the grass in the perfect summer night weather. I had a blast with Briana, she sang every word to every song and I just danced to it like I knew what was going on haha. A small (not so small) mosh pit formed out on the grass. At first we ignored it and then it got so huge we had to join for a few songs. We lifted Devin up onto the crowd to crowd surf and then we turned around and there was a line of about twenty girls just waiting for scott and I to lift them up onto the crowd. We were like "what, who made us the official crowd surfing lifters??" ha but it was fun. We had about a 2 hour drive getting there with all the traffic and all, so we listened to a little Brian Regan and Jerry Seinfeld in the car and almost wet ourselves with laughter! Afterwards we went to Iceburg and got a "mini" cone that took us 20 minutes to finish! I love summer because every night can be a night like this! Well I guess an update is in store. I moved out aa few weeks ago into a house in Sugarhouse. I live with my buddy Scott Gibson and it's been so much fun. I live in a space, not so much a room, but it's actually surprisingly comfortable. I have been working at ClearLink for a few weeks now as well. I sell Dishnetwork over the phone, it is pretty easy and I have been doing really well so far. Working full time again has been an adjustment, 9 hour work days is not all it's cracked up to be lemme tell ya. School is coming way too quick and then life is going to speed up again in all the bad ways. With a stats class and a medical anatomy class i should have my hands full!

Update

For those of you who care I thought I would do a little update on my life. It would seem, based on the overflowing number of comments I received on my previous bloggs, that I am writing to myself.......which is ok I guess!! I finally found a good place and I am moving out this week to a house in sugar house right down by campus and also right by the institute building where my ward meets! I will be moving in with my buddy Scott Gibson which will be so much fun. We are going to join an LDS fraternity at the U and hopefully meet alot of new people. I recently got hired on by Clearlink. I will be selling Dish Network and DIRECTV over the phone. I am looking forward to it because it pays awesome and it is a fast growing company! I have a few buddies who work there too and that always makes it better right? It is out by the airport and seems to be a pretty laid back atmosphere. I am looking forward to working full time again and living on my own. Living at home is great and all, I mean I love being so close to the family and all my siblings but a man just needs to spread his wings! I will miss going to the rec center with Quinn and Preston everyday though! I have been doing a lot this summer with my ward and it has been so much fun! I have a calling as an FHE advisor and we have been having some awesome acticities lately and people are actually coming! We had a water balloon volleyball/real volleyball/frisbee/human slingshot activity monday and had about 70 people show up. Last week we had country swing dancing lessons, it was a blast! Tonight we had ward temple night which is my absolute favorite. We typically have over 120 people show up for these nights and it is so wonderful going through a session with so many people you love and respect. I was sitting next to a friend who I have known since 7 grade and here we were doing something we had never done together, it was really cool. We decided after that we would go together to the temple atleast once a week. My Dad has recovered amazingly! He is still getting more and more energy back each day but he is back working full time and saving the ward one PPI at a time! He is back being his over active, goofy, task oriented dad that i've always known. Life is good, it has been a rough month for me but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! This next semester is going to be an intense one for me but I am excited for it! I will be taking an anatomy course and lab and a statistics class as well as a few others! I am looking forward to getting more into my major classes, and the scary thing is that I will need to be applying to PT school in a bout a year and a half or so.......wow! Life is flying by and I can't stop it. Anyways, I am sure that nobody will be reading this line because anyone who did decide to being reading has surely stopped reading by now! If not, i'm sorry! Hope you enjoyed hearing what is going on in my life!

Piotr: Is planting the seed as rewarding as reeping?

Earlier this week as I was gloriously slaving away in the garden with mom I received a phone call from a girl in the ward. She asked me if I was planning on attending FHE the following monday, I replied "yes, of course" and she said "good, you will be giving the spiritual thought" and at that point I had no choise but to accept. I have given a millin spiritual thoughts in my time, but the thought of doing it in front of hundreds of people in a singles ward is a bit nerve racking. Nonetheless I have had that on my mind ever since wondering what I should share with the ward. I really wanted to share something that would mean something to them, not just a nother spiritual thought to keep in the back of your mind but one that would effect them and they would change because of it. Recently I was sitting in my room and I spotted my little red "lie book" from across the room. Now, let me explain exactly what this little lie book is. It is basically a year book for my mission. Everytime I transferred I would have missionaries and members and investigators that I had grown close to sign this book. There are jokes, pictures, and some serious stuff as well. It is one of my most valued posessions because it has so many memories and so many wonderful times associated with it. As I glanced through it I saw one in particular that I had not read in a while and I had somewhat forgotten about it. It was from a man named Piotr( the man in the above image getting baptized) and was titled "Nasze Spotkanie" translation, "our meeting." When I was a young missionary in my second transfer in Poland I was with an elder by the name of Elder Keister, who was also very young. Together we spoke enough polish to get the job done half decent and even managed tog et a few people taught. One day as we walked down the dirty streets of sosnowiec, we contacted a man (piotr) and he was a young man probably 24 or 25 and was athletic looking. He was coming from the park where he had been playing basketball, so we had an instant connection. He was very interested in talking to us and rather than meeting later he wanted to meet right then. Of course we were not opposed to this,so we walked a short distance and sat down. My first sign should have been where he took us to sit, it was an outdoor cathedral where they do mass a few times a day. There was no mass at the moment but there were a few peoplein the seats praying. We began teaching him and answering his questions, very typical. He quickly showed us just how devout he was to the catholic church. He would stop us mid-sentence and begin praying and shouting to mary or some other catholic saint. He even got on his knees out of nowhere and began praying to mary after hearing a bell go off, apparently she was there with us. He was very stubbarn in his ways and beliefs and was very happy with his life. We finished our meeting with testimony and we parted ways. We never saw him again, afterall the meeting had not gone well at all in my opinion. I was transferred to a new city a few months later as well as Elder Keister. Exactly a year and a half later I was transferred to a city named Katowice, which is 20 minutes from sosnowiec. I was to end my mission in this city. I spent 4 awesome months there in the same branch I had first been in when I got to poland. It was wonderful! On my second to last sunday in poland, I was in sacrament meeting waiting for it to begin when I saw Elder Buras walk in with a man and sit down. I faintly recongnized the man but did not think anything of it. After sacrament meeting I got up to greet everyone and walked over to the door and as I walked past Elder Buras, the man he was with grabbed my arm and said "Taylor! How are you??" and it took me about 3 seconds to remember who this man was, it was Piotr! It was a great reunion, we hugged and talked and got caught up and then I asked him the golden question, "what are you doing here?" and he then told me his story. After our meeting he had continued living his life as he had always lived it. He had always remembered our meeting, but nothing more than that. Things in his life began to spiral downwards and he was really being tried. He went to the only place that he knew of, his church. The preist was rude to him and had no answers that helped Piotr fell comfort. He felt let down by the only thing he had been dedicated to his whole life. He began to question the catholic church and eventually stopped attending. One day he knelt in prayer and asked his Father in Heaven to help him find the truth, to lead him to something or someone who could comfort him and help him find peace. As he left his apartment he walked out onto the street and began walking. He soon saw those familiar white shirts in the town square, with a white board talking with everyone. They saw him and asked him if he wanted to come write his name on teh board, so he did. He then stood there and talked with them and got set up to meet with them later that week. He met with the missionaries for a short period of time and he felt the spirit testify to his heart that this was an answer to his prayer, this was where his peace was to be found. When I saw him at church that day, I knew i recognized him but he looked different. He had the light, the light that only comes from this gospel. I knew immediately when I looked into his eyes that he was the same Piotr, but he was so different on the inside. He was going to be baptized a few days after I left poland for home. He asked me to perform the baptism, I would have stayed an extra year in Poland to perform that baptism if they wouuld have let me. Is it more rewarding to plant the seed, or to reep it? I have always thought that it was more rewarding to reep it, and see the success and blessings. After that, I am a firm believer that it is equally important and rewarding to plant the seeds as it is to reep them. I was lucky, I got to plant the seed and then watch the seed be reeped. I wonder if I have planted any seeds since returning home from my mission. Have I done any good for anyone? Has my influence, pressence, example or words effected anyone as much as they did Piotr? I hope that I never take for granted this Gospel. What a priceless pearl we have. If I had to search my whole life to find this gospel, and then go through the hardships associated with conversion, would I love it any more than I do now? I know that this is the message I want to share with the ward tomorrow. I am so grateful that the Lord can teach the teacher and the students at the same time. I know the Lord can and will lead us to these little tender mercies if we will but listen and obey. I know the power of writing these kind of experiences down. I have read that story and his testimony a dozen times and it teaches me and humbles me each and every time. What a life changing lesson would have been lost had I not written it down. I will not take the Gospel of Jesus Christ for granted. I want so badly to treat the gospel in my life as new converts do, with such reverrence. The way they cradle the Book of Mormon in their arms when they walk, as if it is a fragile vase, the way they carry the Book of Mormon with them everywhere they go, the way they are giddy like a little child just from being in the chapel. This is what the Lord had in mind when he commanded us all to be as a little child. I think that a shorter version of that will be a wonderful spiritual thought tomorrow. Ya gotta love FHE right?!?!