Hinckely's Insight on Work

"Industry, enthusiasm, and hard work lead to enlightened progress. You have to stay on your feet and keep moving if you are going to have light in your life." This quote by President Hinckley impressed me the most in that article. That was something he learned after using a Model T car. He knew that the more energy and the faster the engine was going the brighter the lights would be. And that's how he related it to our lives and the work that we have to do. To have light in our lives we need to be productive and always working. I think this is so meaningful to me because most times I'm searching reasons to have the motivation to be productive. Sometimes I can just get so tired of it and really can't stand having so much work to do. And yet when I'm lazy I don't always feel better. But to know that work is another way that we can have light in our lives is comforting and it gives me just another excuses to push through and get things done. It's not easy to be productive but it's a lot harder to be productive if you're not motivated. So this insight that President Hinckley brings to my attention is just another reason that can make me motivated to be a hard worker. Like I said hard work can really be a pain, but what always helps me is to think about the end product. When I think about getting tough and hard assignments done for a class and that always seems to overwhelm me, instead I think about why I'm working so hard. Mostly it's so I can pass the class and don't have to take it again, or it might just be so that I don't lower my GPA. Or even I can think that once I get this out of the way I can get into the classes that more specifically have to do with my major. That's sometimes how I have to get through a hard assignment is to think of the rewards I get in the end and how it will benefit me in the future. Thinking of the end results is what makes me work hard for them.

Education in Zion

I went to the exhibit and couldn't decided what I liked the most. There were so many things that were fascinating to me there. I loved all the old looking journals, keepsakes, and displays. They are always fun to look at and examine. Like the speech that Joseph Smith had written on a piece of paper. The handwriting is in elegant cursive and yet I could hardly make out what it was saying. And there were these dance shoes that were old, worn and tattered and I just loved how they looked, I guess there's something that draws me to these old objects, I love to see that they're worn, knowing that there is some story behind them. Another thing that I thought was so elegant and lovely was the desk that was a replica to the desk of Carl G. Maeser. I would love to have a desk that looked like that in my room. All of the old visuals I found very fascinating. But what I think I liked looking at the most was the art. The murals and portraits were wonderful to look at. I thought it was funny how in one picture a man had a mustache that was huge and appeared to cover over his lips, like curtains covering his mouth. That was very amusing. But the pictures that I found most interest in were the two huge paintings found on both sides of the exhibit. They were huge and reached all the way up to the ceiling. And what I loved was that they content of the picture was only small at the bottom of both of them and the rest of the paintings were filled with sky. I'm not sure why the artist chose to do that, since I don't exactly think like a painter, but I just loved it for some reason. In one of them the sky was filled with pinkish clouds that are my favorite to see in the sky because they are so pretty. Anyway those two paintings were probably my favorite, and I think it had a lot to do with how massive they were.

Homecoming

This past week I didn’t get the chance to attend too many Homecoming events
due to my job and big assignments due in my classes. But out of all the events
during the week I was able to go to the Kick-Off Barbeque and the football game.
The day I went to the BBQ I wasn’t feeling too well, so instead of eating I
just tagged along with my friends. We stood in line waiting for our food. It
smelt quite good like the BBQ’s I remembered from back home, however I was
afraid to eat any with the fear that I might throw it all up afterwards. So as
my friends stood anxiously in line we listened to the band play for a little
bit, trying to find out friend that plays the trumpet, and watched the
cougarettes “dance”, which was basically them waving around their pom-poms
like at the football games. Once my friends finally got their food we found a
nice spot to sit down and eat. We talked and laughed and had a pretty good time,
minus my stomachaches. Deciding that I should probably go back to my dorm and lay down I left the group with
one other friend to get on the bus back home, where I took a very long and
relaxing nap. My football game experience was a better experience considering I
was no longer sick by this time (I think my nap helped out a lot.) Even though I
had to come late to the game because I was finishing up my shift at the
Creamery. But I was very excited because I had never been to a BYU football game
before because I always had to work during the games. Even though it was cold I
had a really good times with my friends who liked to yell the whole time. It was
a really fun experience that I won’t forget because not only was it the
Homecoming game but it was my first game.

Welcoming Correction

I really enjoyed Robert D. Hales talk during the Sunday session. He talked mostly about Christian courage. I enjoyed his talk because he pointed out many valid points that made sense but we don’t always think about. Sometimes we as members of the church are so ready to defend the church when a non-member accuses us or offends us by the things they say about our church. But we aren’t supposed to fire back at them and shoot them down. Some may say that it makes us seem weak when we don’t defend our religion, but really it’s Christian courage. We need to think about how Christ acted when he was confronted and really we should act like he did. This was really a correction talk for me especially back in my high school, because of the many misconceptions that people had about our church. I had many kids in my English class who were told certain things about Mormons that they believed with a passion that were very untrue. Many times I was offended because of the things that they would say and at times I fired back at their accusations. So this talk seemed to speak to me, even though I’m here at BYU now and it seems as if I won’t get an experience like that around here, I know how I should deal with it in the future.

Why the Y?

Last week wasn't the first time I had been in the Hinckley Center. I had been there before but only in the lobby on the nice couches. I really enjoyed the little tour we had of the building, considering President Hinckley is probably my favorite prophet of all. I loved him a lot so it was really neat to see things that was his or represented him. What I probably loved the most was Sister Hinckley's chair. It was really wonderful that it was donated to that building. I also enjoyed looking at his yearbook and the shovel that he used at the groundbreaking. All of these things I loved seeing because of how it reminds me of how great of a prophet he was. Honestly the first thing I think about when I hear the phrase "Once a cougar, always a cougar." I think of how I've heard that once you sign the honor code you sign it for life. I've had many discussions about that, and while I'm still not sure if it does last for life, that would be one thing that would stick with you. If you think about all the people who have been cougars and what that represents. So many good and righteous have graduated from this school. We uphold a high standard that not only produces hard workers but also people under the best behaviors. And many of those traits carry with a person throughout their life. I know that when I graduate from BYU I have a name to uphold, I'm required to live up to the standards that are valued at BYU and scarce throughout the rest of the world. People know the of the kind of people who graduate from a place like BYU, they know they're hardworking, and trustworthy. And I feel good to be apart of such a respected University.