Today I am taking a short break to write about what I am doing in my life right now. I am at BYU majoring in Statistics with an emphasis on applied and analytical statistics. This is an excellent major for me because it is challenging and helps me develop my mathematical skills. I have loved what I have been taught so far. It is useful information that I plan to carry with me into my career. I have no desire to be a statistician though. I would like to take what I have learned and apply it as a business executive, particularly as a hospital administrator. My end goal is to become a CEO of a hospital. Statistics is my segway into an MBA program. I am also earning a minor in business management while at BYU. All of my Stats and Business classes are incredibly challenging. They all force me to look at things a little differently. My daily schedule from Monday through Friday is:

First, Wake up and go to work at 7:30 in the morning. 

Second, End work at 11:00 am (Monday/Wednesday/Friday) or 1:30 (Tuesday/Thursday) and go to classes until 4:00 pm

Lastly, Watch Kate and do homework from 4:00 to 9:30 pm till Anna gets home from work. 

My days are pretty busy, but I prefer it that way. I am able to get a lot done and feel accomplished. 

At this point in my life I am quite content and happy. I am also glad that Kate is starting to crawl! She scoots backwards mostly, but every once in a while she will take a scoot/slide forward. It is so cute to see how proud of herself she gets when she moves around. All in all, things are good.

This video is of baby kate, she is so dang cute!

And here is a photo of Kate and I!

I will never forget my 'firsts' in Spanish. My first time going to the temple and doing everything in Spanish. My first time praying in Spanish. My first time giving a blessing or performing a baptism or doing a confirmation in Spanish. Even when I had much experience under my belt I always got the jitters before doing something important in another language. My first prayer was memorized! Lucky for me, I had been embarrassed many times before, often because of my own brothers. I was always able to get over the jitters though. I am so grateful than I was never so scared or nervous to the point of not being able to be a productive missionary. I do remember a time when an Elder in my zone was afraid of opening his mouth to speak. He was a new Latin elder. He just couldn't summon the courage to speak with people he didn't know. His companion was struggling with this elder's inability to contact and asked if I would help. I took the opportunity to help and we switched companions for a day. I immediately started to contact people in the streets with this scared elder. I kept on contacting hoping he would gain some courage and maybe do a contact for himself. That didn't happen, so I thought to myself, "What would dad you?" An idea immediately popped into my head. I took the Elder to a park where lots of people were gathered. We saw an old lady on a bench by herself and a group of guys not far away from her joking around. Instead of asking whether or not my companion would like to contact either the woman or the group, which would require a yes or no answer and let him escape, I told him to contact the group of guys while I contacted the woman. I knew what his response would be. "Elder! Can you contact the group? I'll contact the old lady!" I figured a way to get him to want to contact. Now, getting him to do a contact wasn't enough. He needed courage to talk to anybody, not just the easy contacts. Here is where the "what my dad would do" part came to play. I agreed to the Elders terms and told him to walk with me over toward the group and I would contact them while he continued walking past to contact the older woman. As soon as we reached the group of guys I grabbed the Elder and pushed him into the middle of the group of guys and said, "Hey guys my friend here wants to talk to you real quick." I winked at my companion and walked over to the older woman to contact her. While I was contacting the woman I looked over every few seconds to see how the elder was doing. He finished his contact and met up with me. He had a look in his eye I hadn't seen yet, it was confidence. He felt so proud he contacted a group of "scary" guys. For the rest of that day he had no problem contacting people on the street. It just took one moment of courage for him to find his. I was proud of him. Sometimes you just need break the ice and get confident!

Christmas 2008

The best christmas I've ever had was in 2008. I was in Huaycan, Peru. My companion, Elder Zambrano, and I had been teaching the Casimiro family for a while. What started out teaching one of the daughters and her inactive father but quickly began teaching the daughter's "husband" as well as the mother of the family. The Casimiros were a great family. We loved spending time with them. We were even allowed to eat with them on sundays once in a while. The mother was a devout catholic and didn't want anything to do with the church, but she loved my companion and I. The daughter, Liz, wanted to get baptized but couldn't because she wasn't legally married to her "husband" William. My companion and I spent many days teaching William and Liz the importance of being legally married and in November of 2008 they were married. Liz was baptized shortly after but William still wasn't sure he could give up his old life to be baptized. Even though he progressed very slowly, my companion and I always took time out of each day to talk to William. Now, back to Christmas. Christmas was definitely not the same as being home. There were no presents and it was the middle of summer! I did, however, receive a surprise christmas gift. The phone rang. It was hermano William. He told me over the phone about his reading of the Book of Mormon and the things he was learning. He told me of a spiritual experience he had just had while reading about faith in Alma and came to the decision he needed to exercise faith and be baptized. I was delighted. I never felt so happy for someone I cared so much about. It was an amazing feeling to hear those words come out of his mouth. It was the best Christmas gift I have ever received. My good friend whom I will never forget made the best decision. I learned that Christmas really wasn't about presents or snow or even Santa Claus! It is really about experiencing the love Christ has for all of us through service.