A Mighty Change of Heart

As those who know me well will already know, I am a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Many of the converts to the church end up being exposed to it via full-time missionaries who are tracting about and stumble upon them. However, my story is quite different than that. It's even quite the contrast to the stories of members sharing the gospel with random people they know. Since I've been asked about it recently at a surprising frequency, I suppose I'll share the story of how I came to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
My story really has two parts. There's the part about my dad and his relationship with the church over the years and there's the part that's all me. I can definitely say that I would not have been converted to the gospel had both of these taken place, so I will share both.

First, my dad's involvement:

Strangely enough, my dad was actually born in the covenant to parents who had been sealed and lived most of his life in the Mormon belt in Idaho Falls. His childhood and his relationship with the church were both lukewarm at best. His parents divorced when he was about 7, and he continued to live with his mother afterward. She soon remarried another guy who was a member of the church on paper, but not really in spirit. To make a long story short, my dad's relationship with the church was strained and he ended up going completely inactive around the age of 17 or 18. Over the next 25 years, he ended up joining the Air Force where he met a rough-and-tumble kind of woman, got married and had a single son (me). During this time my dad had little or no contact or association with the church.

In about 2003 or 4, my mom got a job with an armored truck company hauling around money, (this hearkens back to the 'rough-and-tumble' idea). My mom's boss was married to a member of the church though he, himself, was not a member. They ended up discussing the church at length and my mom ended up bringing home many of the conversations that they had, knowing that my dad was a member. Additionally, my dad's brother, who had always been very active in the church (and is currently serving as a bishop) called my dad more frequently than usual just to see how he was doing. These two often ended up discussing the church and the gospel, at least on some level. The combination of these two things got my dad thinking more and more about the church. This culminated until one day in February of 2005, he resolved that he was going to go back to church for the first time in 25 years and recommit himself to the gospel.

And now the portion that's all me:

From before I could remember my family has always had a big wall unit kind of thing that held our TV, VCR/DVD player, stereo system, and other miscellaneous things. One of the things that we kept there was basically our family's collection of books. None of us read incredibly fast, so there was never all that much in there, but there was at least enough to fill a section. Since my dad was an inactive member, we had several copies (and several editions at that) of the Book of Mormon. I remember one day when I was about 9 or 10 laying on the floor just looking at the collection of books my family had, when I saw the Book of Mormon. The title on the spine of the book didn't particularly catch my eye at the time, but the script below it did. It read, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." When I saw that, it made me feel a sense of happiness and peace for no apparent reason, and I said to myself, "Hey, I bet the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the place to be when it comes to churches." Up to that point I had never really attended any church services and would probably have characterized myself as an "optimistic agnostic." My mom and I had gone to a few non-denominational Christian services that were basically like The Who concerts with a collection plate. Needless to say, I wasn't feeling that. A couple years later I picked up the same copy of the Book of Mormon and thumbed through some of the pages and looked through the pictures it had in the front, which I later found out were the prophet Joseph Smith, Samuel the Lamanite, Jesus visiting the Americas, etc. When I looked at these I felt that same feeling of peace and happiness from before and knew that that book was just a good thing in general.


After I had these experiences with the Book of Mormon, when my dad decided that he was going to go back to church in February of '05, I knew I was going to go with him. In an interesting turn of events, my dad actually called up the bishop of the Malley Ward and informed him that he and his family would be coming to church on Sunday. After cleaning out his underwear, Bishop Robinson of the Malley Ward confirmed where we lived, and that we, indeed, actually lived in the Webster Lake Ward. I'm pretty sure that, to this day, Bishop Smith owes the Malley Ward 3 new converts.

After we went to the correct ward a couple of times, my mom and I met and took lessons from the full-time missionaries. After finishing these up, my dad, since he already held the Aaronic Priesthood was privileged to baptize both of us on April 23rd, 2005. In an irony of extreme proportions, April 23rd would have been the night of my Junior prom, had I elected to go. I like to think that I diverged quite a bit from most of the rest of the people my age that evening.

Now my parents are both actively engaged in the church with my dad serving as the 1st counselor in the Elders' Quorum presidency and my mom learning the way slowly, but surely. I'm here, at BYU, being as faithful to the testimony I've gained as I know how to be, and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon.

Irony

NEWSFLASH: For anyone who doesn't know me very well or just hasn't just put 2 and 2 together yet, I'm not an RM (Gasp!). I did not serve a full-time, proselyting mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When I was 18.75 years old, I submitted "papers," though most of them are electronic, to serve a mission. On the 22nd of April 2007, my branch president at the time called me into his office and told me that I would not be serving a mission for the church, and thus my zeal for missionary work died. However this is not the point of this blag post, it just gives a more full context...

The real point of this post is to help shed some light on the irony of my relationships with women since that fateful day in April. As most Mormons will tell you, according to Mormon culture, it is essentially a prerequisite for a man to be an RM before any young woman will be willing to marry him. While this is not a part of Mormon doctrine, nor is it universally true in Mormon culture, I seem to gain a stronger testimony of this principle daily.

The real irony of my not having served a mission is that I seemed to be much more popular with women during the two years that I should have been on a mission than I ever was before or have been in the year or so since my theoretical mission would have ended. In order to quantify these claims, here are some statistics that I've compiled for the 24 months I theoretically should have been on a mission and for the times both before and after:

From July 2007 to July 2009 (Theoretical mission timeframe):

• Fiancées: 2
• Months in a relationship: 17
• Percentage of time spent in a relationship: 71%
• Kisses: Countless
• GPA: 3.41

Before July 2007 AND after July 2009:

• Dates: 8-10, depending on your definition of a date
• Time in a relationship: 0
• Kisses: 0
• GPA: 3.62

Wow, this is even more depressing now that it's in print. Anywho, I must acknowledge a few things before I move on. I must acknowledge that the women with whom I was in relationships for these two years were, more or less, complete psychopaths, who should have caused me to preparing by looking for the nearest emergency exit, being aware that it might be behind me. Additionally, I've included my college GPA during the time periods in question as a reference to how distracted I was by other things. While this isn't actually that good of a measure in this case, there is actually a significant difference between the two.

Overall, it just seems like I took a two-year hiatus from being an awkward, antisocial nerd and have now picked up where I left off. The only real differences between the pre-mission me and the non-mission me is that now I have less hope for the future and no car.

These things being said, there's only really one way to end this post:

A Little Clarification

For any who are curious as to precisely what I'm going to be up to after I finish my undergraduate education in August here's a general rundown. I'm looking to go into industry (ie. get a job) for about 2 or 3 years, then go back to grad school in order to get a master's degree. Since a master's degree will soon be essentially required for licensure as a civil engineer, I suppose that I will have plenty of motivation to go back when the time comes. I'm doing this mostly so that I can get in-state tuition at one of the graduate schools of my choice, since I will, in no case, be able to pay $27,000 for even a single semester.

A graduate school, much like a woman, must have a few basic things in order for me to be interested. In my case, a school would need to be in a state that's not too far out in left field, have a good graduate program for civil engineering, offer a certain curriculum of classes and research opportunities, and be reasonably priced for in-staters. Other qualities which are attractive in grad schools include, good sports-viewing opportunities, an intense rivalry with a nearby school, and a cool mascot and/or fight song. I've come up with 11 schools that I would like to attend, currently in order, but subject to change:

1. Georgia Institute of Technology
2. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
3. Texas A&M University
4. Purdue University
5. North Carolina State University
6. University of Washington
7. University of Arizona
8. University of Notre Dame
9. Oregon State University
10. University of Colorado-Boulder
11. Utah State University

Now, number 8, Notre Dame probably has you ready to type "WTF?!" in the comments section of this blag post, but there's a very good reason it's in the running. Anyone who studies civil engineering at Notre Dame automatically gets a research/teaching assistantship, and with it, a full tuition waiver (of about $22,000/semester) and a living stipend of up to $18,000 a year, which is currently more than I make in a year, by the way. This just makes Notre Dame too good of a deal to totally write off.


When I apply for grad school, I'll probably apply to three places: One in the state where I live, Notre Dame, and BYU. For example, if I lived in North Carolina at the time, I would apply to North Carolina State, Notre Dame, and BYU. In this case Notre Dame and BYU would essentially be my backup plans unless they offered me something exciting after I applied.

At this point I've applied for at least 20 jobs, mostly in Georgia, Virginia, Texas, Indiana, and North Carolina. I've heard back from probably about 8 or 10 of these companies/organizations with bad news for me. So far I haven't gotten any callbacks or interviews. Though, I'm convinced that this is currently as a result of my August 2010 graduation date, more than it is my qualifications. I'm also figuring, at this point, that my networking connections in Denver would help me to find something in that area, but that would be a tertiary option. As a last ditch resort, I might just end up submitting applications to Dick's Sporting Goods, Foot Locker, and the like. Let's just hope and pray that it doesn't come to that.

English 316

So, yesterday in my Technical Writing class, we were asked by our instructor to write a letter about being rear-ended near Point of the Mountain. Why would you get rear-ended on the interstate? I don't know, but I ran with it. Half the class was asked to write the letter to a loved one, while the other half was asked to write to their insurance company. The point of the exercise was to see the difference in letters that had similar topics when the audience changed, but that's mostly irrelevant. Here's the one I wrote:

Dear Liahona Insurance, Inc.,

I was traveling to Babylon yesterday afternoon to visit Temple Square when I was rear-ended, just north of Lehi by a dirty Spyewt fan. Apparently, he was feeling covetous after another miraculous, last-second victory by BYU's football team, and my BYU license plate frame set him off. After exiting his vehicle, spewing forth expletives, he raised his fist as if to punch me, but was struck dead in the very act. Since my vehicle sustained a sheared frame and his was still in relatively good condition, I drove away with his. I tried to contact his loved ones to see if anyone would want to pick up his vehicle, but his cell phone had no contacts and his facebook profile read, "-1 Friends." I'm still not quite sure how that worked out.

Now the only tasks are removing the smell of body odor, tequila, and formaldehyde from the vehicle, as well as all of the University of Utah paraphernalia. I am contacting you to take care of the minor damage to the bumper, grill, and hood of the vehicle, as well as to get the vehicle painted cougar blue. The original scarlet color had changed in places to more of a fluorescent pink, with all the alcohol that's been spilled on it.

Please get back to me as soon as possible. Go Cougars.

William White

Am I Blagging on a Friday Night? Yes, I Submit that I Am.

As my undergraduate experience is about to come to a close, I'd like to reflect on some of the things I will probably miss when I leave BYU campus and Provo. (In no particular order)

• Football-During the time that I've been attending BYU, the football team has gone 32-7 (.821) , including a 16-2 (.889) record at home, and a 2-1 mark against Sputah. Speaking of Holy War games, I've attended 2, and charged the field at both after seemingly miraculous victories. I will definitely see more BYU football games in the future, because football was one of my most fond memories during my undergrad experience.

• Zoobies-Have you ever seen an undergraduate with 3 kids? I have. During my years here, I've seen kids anywhere from newborn to about 5 sitting in class with their parent(s). I'm not entirely sure why I appreciate the concept of zoobies so much, I guess I just do.

• The Police Beat-There's very little in the Daily Universe (DU) that has any redeeming value. I mean, how can you report on dumpy apartment remodeling as your front-page headline and still take yourself seriously? Anywho, with so little to read in the University newspaper, those things that actually have entertainment value are golden. Thus is the police beat. Since there's very little legitimate crime on BYU campus, the police beat ends up reporting on things like the many pranks around Helaman Halls, the mind-bending crap that goes on in student family housing, and people losing their iPhones, only to find them ten minutes later in their apartment. I have genuinely looked forward to it every Wednesday for quite a while now.

• The DU Readers' Forum-Similar to the Police Beat, the Readers' Forum of the Daily Universe has some entertainment value. The Readers' Forum is basically a place where students can submit preposterous claims like, "If Brigham Young was around today, he wouldn't be able to go to BYU, because he has a beard," or "The principles of the Gospel are essentially similar to socialism." Other readers then take the golden opportunity to criticize these remarks and break them into tiny little bits. The net effect is a section in each day's DU that is jam-packed with pure hilarity... as long as you can appreciate the humor of someone taking themselves WAY too seriously.

• The Environment-Have you ever seen a university where, for the most part, students don't drink, smoke neither the legit tobacky nor the wacky tobacky, and even if they are having illicit sexual relations with strange people, at least keep it on the down low? Welcome to Brigham Young University. I love that this environment produces probably some of the most honorable people I may ever meet in my life and that I am surrounded by them daily. Additionally, I've met some of the smartest people, whether students or professors, while at BYU. This university is truly one-of-a-kind.

• Conservatism-Along the same lines, there is probably not a region in the United States that is nearly as conservative as Provo, Utah. Here politicians actually get voted out of office for not being conservative enough. While we will probably see some of this come November of this year, I've enjoyed living in a place where it happens on a regular basis.
  

• The Testing Center-Now you're probably supposing at this point that I am FREAKING INSANE, but I've counted it a blessing in my life to have a testing facility like this. In most other colleges and universities nationwide, professors just schedule 3 hours for an exam in some classroom on campus, and if you miss it, you're just kind of SOL. I've enjoyed being able to take tests at my leisure, at least within a certain time frame. While I won't particularly miss taking tests, I will miss the freedom afforded to me by a testing facility.

• Religion Classes-I feel like I've been spiritually fed above and beyond what I could have been otherwise. Let me just say that Institute is just not the same. Maybe it's just that my brain isn't in learning mode at 7:30 on a Thursday night, maybe it's that I'm actually somewhat accountable for what I learn, maybe it's that religion professors are better teachers because it's not just their calling, it's their job. Whatever the reason, I've enjoyed the opportunity to have religion classes at BYU. It also doesn't hurt I've taken 5 classes and gotten 5 A's... and am well on my way to a 6th.

• Seeing General Authorities Speak-Before I came to BYU, I saw a grand total of 3 general authorities of the church in person. Since coming to this school, I've lost count. I've seen more prophets and received more guidance from them in the 3 years I've been here than in the 19 years prior. Receiving special words for me and a few thousand of my closest friends from the general authorities of the church is a tremendous blessing that is available at few other places on the earth.
  

• Making Fun of Easy Majors-I remember taking Stat 221 and thinking that the class was a joke. I'd play calculator games the whole time, then go and get 98% on the test. People would often tell me that they struggled with that class and considered themselves lucky to have passed it. What's the reason for this disparity? Stat 221 is required for: Business, the School of Family Life, Psychology, Sociology, and Family History majors. Since that time I've taken it upon myself to make fun of people whose majors require half the number of credit hours as mine and have dramatically easier classes. While this wouldn't be specific to BYU, it's something that I've treasured during my undergrad experience.

• Norm Nemrow-Though I'm taking his Accounting 200 class in my senior year, I still feel blessed to be on the same campus as him. Norm was a great entrepreneur and made like a googol dollars in both his business and his later investments. Yet, he's still a great teacher, even over his DVD software. Norm is the man.

• Dissing the Spyewts-Trust me, I will continue to disrespect the University of Utah and their Spyewts as much as is reasonable, but I will probably not have the opportunity to do it as a student again. I have relished the opportunity to go to a school that has such a bitter rival so close in proximity. I will probably not have another opportunity to accuse my rivals of being in line with Satan (unless I go to the University of Arizona for grad school). In fine, the Holy War rivalry is part of what has made my BYU experience so great.
  

So there you have it. While there will certainly be some things that I won't miss about my undergrad experience, there have also certainly been a good number of things that I have embraced, and that I will certainly miss when I leave this place.

Tracting

My relationships with women have always been awkward... that shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. But some of the encounters I have with the opposite gender genuinely qualify as mega-awkward. Once again, I've found that I've fallen victim to what I like to call the, "Day Late and a Dollar Short Phenomenon." Just let me give you a typical conversation involving Day Late and a Dollar Short:

Me: "So [Random Woman], I have two tickets to [insert event here], would you like to come with me?"
Random Woman: "Oh, that's really sweet of you, and I'm really flattered, and I'd totally go, but I'm actually going out with someone else right now."
Me: "Oh, well on your facebook profile it says that you're single."
RW: "Yeah, I should really change that."
Me: "Yeah. So, how long have you been with this guy?"
RW: "Uh, about 3 days."
Me: Holy $h17!!! "Well that's cool, good for you."
RW: "Thanks, good luck finding someone..."

And this isn't an isolated incident. It's happened at least 4 times, essentially the same way... one woman actually married the guy she was going out with. Sometimes I wonder if I'm only attracted to women who are producing pheromones, but just don't realize it until a week later than most men... it's not entirely out of the question. Ironically all of these instances occurred when I was trying to find a date to a specific event... all of them events that required tickets. So, in the end I am eventually relegated to knocking on the doors of random women in my ward looking for someone to go with me. I am quite literally tracting for dates...

Thank You Dr. Chapman

As anyone who reads my blag should know, I took a class in LDS Marriage and Family last semester, (I mean I only wrote 3 posts about my classes.) During this class, I was exposed to a book called "The Five Languages of Love," by Dr. Gary Chapman. After hearing about this book in class, I knew I wanted to learn more about Dr. Chapman's theories on love and relationships, so I visited his website and bought his book. Well, now I've more or less finished that book and I'd like to share a few things that I've learned about myself and my relationships with people after reading it. The rest of this post will be written assuming you have some familiarity with the book and its concepts. If you're not familiar with it, feel free to visit the link above.

Things I've learned from reading this book:

1. My love language is definitely physical touch.

There's really nothing that speaks love to me like a good hug or other appropriate touching. I'd probably fall for just about any woman (reserving veto power) who reaches out and touches me. I also feel a certain amount of love from words of affirmation or quality time, but those pale in comparison to the love I can feel through physical touch.

2. Just because you feel loved doesn't mean she's "the one."

After reading this book, I realized why I fell for both of my ex-fiancées. And yes, I've been engaged twice before, talk to me privately if you really want more details. Both of these women were "touchy feely" women who really enjoyed hugs and kisses and the like. In retrospect, I think both of their primary love languages were physical touch as well, which often works out well except... Both of these women also had emotional issues that probably should have left me running fast and far yelling, "Get away from me psycho!" all the way.

3. There's a reason my love language is physical touch.

In Dr. Chapman's book, he says that we often learn our primary love language from our parents and how they love us. When I first heard this, I thought it was strange, because I really don't think my parents touched me or each other all that often while I was growing up. However, after I thought about it for a while, I realized that physical touch was really the only way that my parents expressed love to me while I was growing up, even though there wasn't that much of it going around. There were certainly no words of affirmation or acts of service going around. We gave gifts, but this was usually accompanied by, "D@mM!+ Charlotte! How much did you spend on this $h1+!" We also had quality time, as Dr. Chapman defines it, though it was usually accompanied by, "D@mM!+ Gary, you're an ephing Pr1ck, I hate your guts!" Though there wasn't a lot of touching, it was the only way that love was really expressed in my home growing up.

4. My dating habits (and lack thereof) have an emotional root.

When a man is taking a woman (especially a Mormon woman) on a first date, there are some things that would be totally appropriate, and some things that just wouldn't. For example, it would be perfectly appropriate for a man to tell his date that she looks pretty, to open a door for her, or to bring her a gift of some sort. Inasmuch as the date itself is quality time, this pretty much covers the first 4 love languages. Would be appropriate, on a first date, to take your date in a swift embrace, and kiss her? In some cases it might, but for the most part, no. People (especially Mormon people) tend to establish that physical touch necessarily implies a continuing commitment. I understand the reasoning behind this, but that really doesn't help me. What it really comes down to is that I have a really hard time feeling any degree of love on first, second, third, etc. dates because it's just not socially acceptable to express love in my language that early in a relationship. And without that emotional connection, dating becomes little more than a hassle and a burden.

5. It is important for me to know that I am loved, even if I don't feel it.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, The One You Wish Was the One, I often have a morbidly obese shoulder devil yelling in my ear, saying that no one will ever love me. I genuinely believe that this is because I don't often feel loved since people are usually reluctant to touch me. Though I often feel as if no one really cares about me, I've been able to realize that there are diverse ways of expressing love, and have been able to recognize people's sincere efforts to express their love for me. I also have better come to realize that there is an Eternal God in Heaven who loves me and wants the best for me. Even though it will be a long time before I can touch Him, I know that my eternal soul is of great worth in His sight.

PS-I hope this post wasn't too squishy or emo for anyone... That's not really how I was trying to come off. :)