59Please, step into my office and let me tell you about myself; after all, everyone seems to love to talk about him or herself. Do you know what the difference between heaven and hell is? Heaven is sharing stories about your life and hell is having to listen to someone else’s. If you are reading beyond that terrible joke and are curious to learn more about the mysterious, devilishly handsome man at the pulpit, please, read on.
I was born in Provo, Utah during an intense December blizzard to two wonderful parents who have loved and supported me throughout my life. Growing up I enjoyed playing sports. I was particularly good at baseball, and some of my fondest childhood memories are from those days. Sometimes in the early the morning when I walk outside and feel the sun on my face and the smell of freshly cut grass fills my nostrils, I am taken back to those glorious summer days playing baseball with my friends. Of course, not all of my summers were spent playing ball. When I wasn't playing baseball, I was working.
I usually remember my early experiences working by what year of high school I was in. The summer before my freshman year, I spent the summers mowing lawns and doing yard work; however the summer of my sophomore year, I began the grueling work that every real Idaho boy usually experiences; farm boy. I irrigated fields, took care of chickens, cows, and general management of the farm. Those were early mornings and long nights, but I learned to love it. There was nothing quite like watching the sun rise over the Teton mountain range and listening to the water strumming over the growing fields. The summers before my junior and senior year, my friend invited me to be part of his dad’s construction crew. Those were great summers, not only did I gain the skill sets for how to frame homes, but since we listened to the radio while we worked I also grew the library of classic hits I could sing word for word. After high school I got a job working for my uncle in St. George painting parking lots, roads, and creating roadside signs. I went down with one of my good friends and we worked together through our first real experience away from home.
After working in the hot sun for three months I returned to Rexburg to begin my studies at BYU-Idaho. I entered the foundations courses and found I really enjoyed school and did very well in all of my classes. After two semesters, I took a break from school to serve a mission for my church. I put in my paperwork and was assigned to labor in the Taipei Taiwan mission. Six months from the time that I received my call to serve, I was in the missionary training center in Provo where I spent 3 months in an intense language study program and familiarized myself with the discussions we would share with the people of Taiwan. After three months I was on a plane to Taiwan where I quickly learned to love the people, the culture, the language and the food. We lived a very regimented lifestyle and only communicated with our family once a week via email. We spoke with hundreds of people a day, and performed humanitarian work on a regular basis. Before long I had a good handle on Mandarin Chinese and was able to speak, understand, read, and write Mandarin. I spent 25 months on that island and the experience changed my life. The long hours mowing lawns, the cold mornings moving pipe, the challenge of framing homes, or the blazing heat striping roads in St. George were all difficult yes, but they lay no hold, and pale in comparison to the challenges I faced while serving in Taiwan, and they were the best two years of my life.
After I returned home from Taiwan, I immediately began school up again and declared my major in Business Management. After a semester, I decided to attend a study abroad with two of my best friends. We enrolled and were accepted to study at the BYU Jerusalem center, which rested just above the city of Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives. The curriculum was very challenging. The first time I ever received a grade lower than an A was my Old Testament course. Of course, there were an infinite amount of places to explore and experience. Aside from our weekly visits to specific locations throughout all of Israel, we were free to visit different areas of Jerusalem as we pleased. I greatly enjoyed being exposed to such a rich and unique culture. As part of the Jerusalem Center experience, we also flew to Turkey, where we traversed to locations of the New Testament including: Istanbul, Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Bosporus Strait, Gallipoli, Troy, and many other historically rich places. Following the tour,
I returned to BYU-Idaho to continue my degree. I completed two prestigious internships; my first internship I was part of a start up team that build an online English learning platform. Immediately after, I was hired at a company that generated 2.4 billion dollars of annual revenue. I am completing my final semester at BYU-Idaho. I love life, my family, my friends, and look forward