Music and Lyrics

Dear Reader, I love the music from "High School Musical." It's my guilty pleasure. However, the song describes exactly how last night felt in our apartment. After getting off work, I rode home and found lots of people in our apartment, several of whom I did not know. It was a good time to meet these new people. The game we started was even better. It is called 'The high school' game. The idea behind this game involves everyone and breaks the ice really fast with people you don't know very well. One person at a time, the group makes guesses about what that person was like in high school. Anyone can guess and it doesn't matter if you are right or wrong because it is in the past and nobody will get offended because you don't really know what they were like unless they went to high school with you. Spiritually and emotionally the game was very uplifting. It was a way for all of us to get to know each and I now feel that all of us are close friends, d

Dear Reader, We will  be short and sweet with our post today. I love the fact that it's Sunday. It has come to be one of my favorite days of the week this semester. Hopefully all you have a great day that rejuvenates you for the rest of the week. Today I just want to recognize and salute all those hard-working people out there. Sometimes certain jobs can seem like they are not very fulfilling: custodial work, counting cans in a factory, facilities management, etc. I can't personally recognize everyone who has ever worked one of those jobs, I would like to recognize the guys who made my bike. A bike showed up in a box on my doorstep yesterday. Upon taking it out of the box and putting it together, I had the very clear thought, "Man, I wish I could talk to the guy who made this bike and tell him how much I appreciate him. He probably thinks his job is lame sometimes. I want to let him know how much his job affects people's lives." To make a long story short, I

Dear Reader, Those days when you feel like everything is impossible. Despite what the title of the post suggests, I do like rainy days. It's the feeling of the song that expresses the feeling of today (this entire week, really). Have you ever you had those days when you feel like you are just not good enough to do anything right? That's the idea behind the song "Rainy days and Mondays." It expresses how some days are really tough and all a person wants to do is curl up and give up on their endeavors. The other part of feeling down like I am this week is worse. Sometimes with negative feelings come other negative thoughts. When I feel like this, I unconsciously find the loopholes and negative sides to every situation, even if the situation has nothing wrong with it. I'll show you what I mean with this video below. It has been posted all over Facebook for the past couple of days and it is a very uplifting story. However, every time I have watched it this week, I

Dear Reader, This weekend was a fun-filled and fast weekend. On Saturday my parents had left me a car, so I was able to drive to work! That made life easier. After work I started the weekend with a drive to Lake Point, Utah. Following a reception, the weekend kept going with a movie night with one of my besties, a nice trip to Provo with my mom, a visit to a memorial, church planning adventures/disasters, dinner with some good friends, tunnel singing, all topped off with a great game of Dominion! First things first, I'm so happy for my buddy Dallin who was married for all time and eternity on Saturday! It was great to see him and his new wife on Saturday, along with all of his family. We are so proud of you, Bro! Now, the title for today's post comes from the movie my friend and I watched after the reception. "Letters to Juliet" is the name of the film. How was it? Well, I have mixed feelings about the story. Watching it at the Kitchen household was great. I lov

Dear Reader, Last night at work was a lot of fun. As I have said before, working at the Missionary Training Center is probably the best job on the planet. I came on my shift just before 4 in the afternoon and it was probably the fastest shift I've worked, despite the fact that it was an eight hour shift. We set up all the rooms in the main building, cleaned the carpets in a couple of buildings and turned off all the lights at the end of the day. Little did we know that someone would beat us to turning off the lights in the main building. Yep, that's right. About an hour before we went home last night, the power went off in the main building of the MTC. We had a semi-dance party in the hallway. One of my coworkers showed us a dance that she is going to teach little kids in a couple of days. Theo let us know how much he knows about basketball and Kyle made us all smile as usual. :) So, we have a good time while we are working. Between cleaning up puke and turning off l

Dear Reader, For those who didn't catch the reference, the title comes from a song by the Carpenters. They are an old group that my parents listen to all the time. Anyway, I just thought of the song today while writing all kinds of letters. Writing letters is so much fun! Just ask my friend Lindsey (I love what you do with your blog, it's very original). Today I'm writing letters to send in the mail to my missionary friends all over the world. Today I have written addresses ranging from California to Europe. I am so proud of all those who are serving as full-time missionaries and preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The rest of this week has been pretty interesting as well. I've been getting closer and closer with my roommates, despite not being home much. Dillon is such a great guy and knows how to make anyone smile. It is no wonder why everyone knows him and loves him. He will just walk right up to anyone he doesn't know and introduce himself. He is quite a c

Dear Reader, It's so appropriate that the most common songs about mothers are found in the primary song book. It is the place where we find the best songs about the most important things in the Gospel, so it's highly appropriate that mothers should counted among those songs. I love my mother dearly. She is quite amazing and will not let you be upset. She will fix your problems. As one of the most helpful people on this planet, she will definitely not leave anyone stranded out in the cold. She loves unconditionally and hugs constantly(I dare you to enter and leave our house without receiving a hug from my mother. So, happy mother's day! I do hope that all you mothers/motherly figures are enjoying your day and know how much we all love you. Now we just have to figure out how my dad was lucky enough to marry my mom...

Dear Reader, Do you keep a dream journal? I do. There is that moment in the morning after you wake up but can still remember your dream. It is not long before that dream is driven from your conscious mind, though. The purpose of a dream journal is not only to remember the dreams you have. Someone who keeps a dream journal regularly will start to remember more and more details about the dreams they have and they will dream more often. I started this dream journal my first semester of college. It was a suggestion from my first roommate, who was a great guy to be living with. We would talk until the early hours of the morning and he explained to me one night about his dream journal. He emphasized that the key is to have it close to your bed, so you can start writing the second you wake up. A few of the dreams he had were pretty spectacular and he could recall them in detail because he had written them down in detail. I've been doing the same ever since and every time I write dow

Dear Reader, Ok, I had an epiphany today that was really amazing...amazing that I didn't realize this before. In John 14:15, Jesus says, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." Now, we were talking during my Book of Mormon class (I know, New Testament references in Book of Mormon classes. Welcome to BYU). As we were talking we said that some people keep the commandments of God because they know there are benefits to following them or they will be punished if they don't. However, we talked about how we should follow the commandments simply because we love Him. This realization hit me hard. I'm going to be working a lot harder this week and the months to come.

Dear Reader, Believe it or not, there is a song entitled, "3.141592." It was a song I heard back in grade school when some guy came and talked about using music to learn math and science better. It may have been the lamest assembly I have ever attended in my school career, but it stuck with me. I believe he has an album...don't ask me what it is called, though. Anyway, I thought of that song today because computer science has recently become my interest in school. Just this morning we were in a lab for a computer systems class. The goal was to write a program that says "Hello, World! My name is [such and such]." The code for it is fairly short, but has many more aspects to it than I would have imagined a week ago. The TA had to help me about 3 times to get it right. On the bright side, the understanding of computers is coming more and more with practice. At the end of the semester it is possible that I could write the simplest of programs that are actually

Dear Reader, Yes, this song from High School Musical 2 is very appropriate for this week, not to mention this semester. It is quite a feat that I even have time to write tonight, due to all the homework and actual work I had to get done today. Moving into a new apartment is a process, apparently. I haven't really gotten to know my new roommates yet. Spencer and Tyler are amazing, I know. However, I have spent very little time talking to the other three, Dillon, Nick and Cameron. They all seem pretty chill. Nick has his girlfriend over frequently, but she is chill as well. I think this apartment is pretty awesome with the people we have living here and the people that live in the apartments nearby. Work is getting to be pretty jolly, too. This week we have been working the new schedule (On which I work 40 hours. Wahoo!) and we are getting to know different people at work. Today I worked with Blake. He's a nice guy from California who is getting ready to go on a mission. We