To Vegas and Back!

Salutations to all! Once again, I have done a terrible job about keeping my blog updated! Sorry to those who have been anxiously awaiting this new blog!

Let me see.... Where do I start? Ah, yes! Well, for starters Merry belated Christmas and a Happy belated New Year to all! I can't believe that that much time has already elapsed! Goodness gracious! I hope all of you had a great Christmas and New Year! I know I did! I was able to see most of my family again! Woohoo!

Since my last blog I have managed and have had the opportunity to be able to go down to Vegas twice! Once at the beginning of December for my paid vacation I had to use (darn it! ;)). Then just two weekends ago! The first time I unfortunately traveled by myself. :( However, this last time I had four companions to accompany me on the journey! But not just any four companions! Oh no, siree! They happened to be Q'eqchis from my mission, whom I knew from the mission! They were brought up here to the states to work by a returned missionary of 5 or 6 years about 1.5 to 2 years ago. Now they live about 5 to 10 minutes from where I live! It's great!

Anywho, my wonderful father and step-mother were kind enough to offer us a place to stay for the weekend. We had a blast! Thank you Dad and Loralie for all your help that weekend!

You're awesome and I love you! And the Q'eqchis (Arnoldo, Juan, Hector, and Francisco) share their appreciation for your hospitality! We mostly roamed around the Strip, went bowling, visited a mission companion, and stopped by the temple and walked around on the grounds taking pictures as you very well see. But I believe the most memorable part of the trip was when we attended a spanish branch that I am familiar with from when I was living in Las Vegas.

It is at this branch that the branch president served his mission in the Guatemala Quetzaltenango Mission about 20+ years ago. At that time Polochic (the area that I spent most my mission and learned Q'eqchi) was part of that mission. What I already knew was that he, Raul Herrera, also served in Polochic and learned Q'eqchi! But what I didn't know until after we arrived at the chapel was that he knew the family of the Q'eqchis that were there with me! Even one of them (Arnoldo) Raul remembered from when he was 10 or 12 years old! Now Arnoldo is 30+ years old with a faithful family of his own! It turned out to be a great reunion for the two of them!

After the block of church, Raul and his wife invited us to join them for dinner with their family. So we over to their house after church and sat and talked and shared stories and looked at Raul's mission photos! It was so much fun! The food was great! Sadly, after dinner it came time for us to hit the road and head back to Salt Lake. But before leaving we were able to take a few photos of all of us Polochic-ers and exchanged contact info. Then we were off!

All in all, it was a great adventure with a couple surprises!

"Be Grateful"

Well, once again i have slacked off on writing a blog. One reason is because there is nothing really new to say. But I figured i would update a little with what has been going on.
Work is going great, for the time being- seeing that they laid off my mission friend that helped me get the job in the first place. So we'll see how long this good job will last! I am having many overtime opportunities which i jump on when i can to help save money for school and things to come in the future. Praxair actually offers to help pay for tuition! $2,000 per year. That will help me out tremendously as well as claiming residency to get in-state tuition.
Speaking of education... I am currently working on getting registered for next semester at SLCC! ♫Back to school! Back to school to prove that i am not a fool!♫ lol... I have been able to get my transcripts from Nevada sent up and have calculated to see what was transferable and such. I still, however, need to stop by the school to see the results. I can't really sign up for classes not knowing what has and what hasn't. Because of work i will be taking afternoon/evening classes.
Thanksgiving has come and gone! It was great! Ate some grub and reflected on what i am trully grateful for! A Heavenly Father who loves me; my Savior, Lord, and Redeemer, Jesus Christ; a big, wonderful, loving, earthly family; and great friends! All of which have greatly influenced and benefitted my life by being good examples for me! Thanks to all of you! I love you all!
This past weekend i was able to make it down to St. George for my newest nephew's baby blessing! Sway Andrew Richter! He's so cute and adorable! It was great to be part of it and to witness his loving earthly father, Mikel, bless him!
So within the past few days i was able to see all my siblings and parents! I love my family! Now i get to head back south this week, Wednesday. But this time to Vegas where i will see some of my family again as well as several great friends! I have a few days paid vacation to use before the end of the year and this is the only open spot left to use...So i am taking it! Woohoo!
well...that is pretty much all that is going on currently. Feel free to leave comments or ask questions that you may have. ;)

New Calling!

Well, this morning as I was getting up and ready for church I received an anonymous text message asking me if I could meet with a member of the bishopric today during the block. I replied, "Sure." Afterwards, I was thinking what would it be about because I still hadn't been recognized as a member of the ward. So when the time came, I went and met with the first counselor, Bro. Fenton. We sat down in an extra room and he told me that they would like me to serve on the FHE committee of the ward. So I asked him if they had my records yet, and he responded that he believed that they had just received them. Of course, I accepted the calling! Then in sacrament meeting they finally recognized me in the ward and sustained me in my calling! I was set apart shortly after the block. Then Bro. Fenton informed me that the committee have some pretty cute young women. So we'll see what happens with that! Ha ha ha! But no rush!
Tomorrow for FHE we are hitting up the Haunted Village near the This is the Place Monuement. So it should be fun! I hope that it better staffed than last night because when I went last night, it wasn't all that scary. lol

Insight on BS, MS, and PHDs by Elder Oaks

Tonight, my singles ward for FHE had Sister Oaks come speak to us. This only can suggest who most likely accompanied her, Elder Oaks himself! They were a little late gettin there thinking that it started half hour later than when it actually did. Sister Oaks explained that they thought for some reason it started at 7:30pm rather than 7pm. They happened to be shopping at Costco shortly before hand. She told us how Elder Oaks tried to go incognito (sp) in there with a hat on. "Tried" being the key word here! Well, within a short time he was spotted in the dergent section. We had a laugh with that one.
Towards the middle of Sister Oaks' talk, she invited Elder Oaks up to share some remarks or words of advice for we youngsters. He said, "Keep learning!" And he went off on how we should keep learning until the end of our days because learning is was makes life interesting and exciting. Then he said that it doesn't mean to go get a degree after degree after degree. Then he said this, "You all know what BS is, right? Well, MS is just More of the same stuff, and PHD is Pile Higher and Deeper!" We got a kick out of that! They're both a hoot! But I know that he is not discouraging to seek that level of degree in anyway. It doesn't haven't to be just worldy knowledge. It can be spiritual knowledge as well! More so in fact!
Well it's getting late. I just thought I would share that little bit with you!

Football vs Rugby

Today, I happened to have the opportunity to check out the interesting and entertaining sport of rugby. I went with Hadley and Travis to the Utes Rugby game this morning to watch Hadley's friend play. She called me up last night to invite me, and seeing that I have never been to one, I thought it would be fun. It was! But the temperature sure did drop though! IT SNOWED TODAY!
Later this afternoon I went to Hadley's house to watch the BYU/ New Mexico football game rather than freezing my but off at the game. We made Choco Krispie Treats and ate them as we watched the game. BYU won 21-3! Go Cougars! Also, the Utah won against Wyoming! Both of them remain to be undefeated! The rival game between them will be an amazing one if this keeps up and they are still undefeated by then!

The Happenings of the Week

I guess I would like to start from last weekend (conference weekend). I had my first mission reunion the friday night before conference. I had a blast! It's a shame that we don't meet more often than once a year. But there are several mission buddies that are here in the SLC/Provo areas going to school and living! We are actually trying to get a few of us to hit up Nightmare on 13th next weekend, amongst other friends! It should be fun! ...and I am getting side tracked with the topic at hand! Sorry, but for those who don't know me that well, I am very random! Random ideas or recollections pop into my head and I start to go off on tangents and talk about them!
Anyways... last weekend for conference weekend I had several of my latin friends from Las Vegas come up. We were able to go to the saturday afternoon session of conference. We sat up in the balcony on the 3rd to 4th row from the way back! But hey! We made it inside! It was quite an awesome session! Especially with the funny talk given my Elder Worthlin! He's a great guy! Another highlight was the primary choir that sung that session in place of the MOTAB. During one of the songs they sung the camera was focused on a spot where a red headed, freckled youngster was is sight. The red hair most definitely stood out! lol... My latin friends galnced over at me when they saw him, and made comments like "Look! There's Craig Jr.!" or "It's Craig's kid!" to one another. It was pretty funny! From there we hung out around temple square until late in the evening. Then we went back to my place where we talked and made some mini m&ms and mini chocolate chip cookie dough and baked a little of it while we munched on some of the dough! Then we called it a night and went to bed.
On sunday morning we went to the Assembly Hall building on Temple Square and watched the session in Spanish! That took me back to the mission! All in all, I had a good conference weekend! I was spiritually, socially, and mentally uplifted!
As for work... everything is going well! I was able to get my Utah drivers license on monday as well! In doing so my process towards getting my CDL and HAZMAT endorsements have progressed! In order to get the CDL/HAZMAT endorsements I have to pass a thorough background check by the FBI with finger prints and all. But before I could get that done, I had to get a Utah license, and before i could get a Utah license i had to have money- aka receive a paycheck! I received my paycheck last week friday. So on monday I finished my route around 11:00am, meaning that i was done with work! The head driver guy said to go ahead and leave so i can go to the DMV. Come to find out, Praxair paid to have my license done since it is part of me of getting me hired! That was great! On top of that, i didn't have to take the 25 question, open-book, written test either! So i was in and out of the DMV in about 20 minutes! It was great!
That night, i was able to go with some friends (Hadley and Travis) to see Eagle Eye! That was a good movie! The whole movie was almost in suspence! I quite enjoyed it!
Wednesday night I volunteered to assist the RS in my ward with their visiting teaching dinner by setting up. serving, and taking down. I had a good time with that as well. And no, I wasn't able to get any girl's number. But don't fret! One of these days i will get one! LOL!
Other than that nothing too exciting has been happening. Just been brushing up on my health benefit forms and such to get those turned in pronto!
So...yeah... I guess you can say that I had an eventful week! As well as say that this is another long blog that i have written. I more than likely have bored you, but thanks for sticking it out to the end! And i leave it at that!

Looking for Suggestions

I am new with this blogspot stuff- hence why my background, style, etc. are pretty dull and boring. I am open for any suggestions as to what to do and/or where i can go to style my blog. I await your recommendations/suggestions!