Seeing Old Friends Again

So I feel that some of my tender mercies are personal and they may not make sense to others. Last week there were a couple experiences that I felt that way and so I did not put them into the blog. I feel like it would be more fitting to focus on uplifting and spiritual messages from the week. I feel like it would be best to try to uplift others with the things I share. So that is what I will focus on. It may also be some what like a journal.

Also because I have been sustained today I can now share that I got a new calling in church today. I have been called to be the new Assistant Ward Clerk.

4 September 2016, Sunday
After Church, We played some more games at Andrew and Heather's. We played a game that some of Andrew's students had made called Temple Escape. That was a lot of fun. Henry was really cute at church. There were a few times that I wish that I could record what he was doing.

For instance, he saw another toddler and walked toward him with arms outstretched for a hug. Andrew said, "Ben, Henry loves you." Ben just walked away. He is so precious.

5 September 2016, Monday
Our family home evening lesson was about being agents and not objects. Jessica V. showed the Mormon Message called Life's Drama. I liked the lesson. It tells me that I shouldn't be lazy and to "refrain from idleness" (Alma 38:12). Don't let others dictate your life for you. Be informed and learn how to make your own decisions. Be your own individual and help others. "Do not let us be slothful because of the easiness of the way" (Alma 37:46).

6 September 2016, Tuesday
My roommate, Jonathan, got our apartment together for a game of Dungeons and Dragons. It was a lot more fun than expected. I played it a couple times in the past, but I really enjoyed it today. I'm guessing it was just more organized than previous times. Also, we didn't spend forever making our characters. We used some pre-made characters. It was a really good bonding time for us roommates. It was good.

7 September 2016, Wednesday
Make package of nori (seaweed sheets) that I had ordered came today. I was expecting Friday. That made me happy. I probably won't make more for a few more days, but I'm just happy to have it.

Last night, Karl N. without trying convinced me to buy a smart phone. I didn't know TracFone had smart phones. Basically, because I mainly text having a smart phone will be cheaper than the flip phone I currently use. So I ordered one.

8 September 2016, Thursday
We had white glove clean checks today, which were nice. Like I've mentioned before I love just having a clean apartment. I always feel good after I clean.

Also, something that I find to be incredible and awesome is I noticed that our apartment managers own Dead of Winter. Dead of Winter is my favorite board game and Paul was really surprised that I not only had heard of it, but that I've played it. He said that we're going to play sometime soon. I'm totally looking forward to it. When I saw the game in their apartment I just got super happy. I love that game so much. The makers of the game made an expansion/stand-alone of it called The Long Night. Eric also told me that they're making another expansion. I'm looking forward to each one. I haven't played the game in a while.

9 September 2016, Friday
It was weird this morning. Yesterday, there were hardly any cars about, but today they were everywhere. Today was check-ins and the Get Connected program for the school, so overnight a whole lot of people came to Rexburg. It was really good to see some of my friends again tonight. I spent the night playing games like Warewolf, and Codenames. I had never played Codenames before it was a blast that takes a lot of thinking.

I also got the chance to sign up for my Latin 101 class. I'm really looking forward to that class. I've been studying the Latin language off and on for the past couple years. I really like it. It's strong and powerful and it's really cool when I find connections with the English language. A couple of the first connections I found were "audio" means "I hear," and "video" means "I see."

I also got the chance to make some more sushi today with Emily T., her brother Josh, and Eric. It was fun and delicious.

10 September 2016, Saturday
I got to see a lot a friends that I haven't seen in a while today. I loved it. It's good to have people back in town. I also saw a few people that I didn't expect to see. I love seeing old friends.

Visiting Provo

Henry is trying to get into Eric's suitcase

28 August 2016, Sunday
Yesterday, I thought about how I hadn't seen The Best Two Years in a long time and that I wanted to see it. I don't really like to watch movies by myself because then I feel like I'm just wasting my time rather than having some sort of social interaction. I was invited over to have curray and someone suggested that we watch it. It was awesome. There were a couple people there that had never seen it before, and it was fun to watch it with them and to see how much they enjoyed it.

29 August 2016, Monday
I made a list of things that I wanted to get done today. I'm happy that I was able to get it all done. The list was to read the scriptures, buy some more seaweed on Amazon, practice the piano, apply to Subway, and make more sushi. I also got some homework done and I went to Family Home Evening.

30 August 2016, Tuesday
I saw a good friend of mine today, Zac M. I didn't know he was up here for the summer. I feel like any time I see him it's a tender mercy. He's awesome. He said we should hang out sometime. So I'll probably text him later and set it up. He always seems so happy to see me and it makes me feel good.

31 August 2016, Wednesday
I was able to talk with Andrew today to set up when Eric and I will go visit him. I set up a couple of rides on the ride board, yet one of them still needs to accept my ride request. After an hour or so of talking with Andrew, I got a phone call from Henry. He's 16 month old now I heard him cooing for a few seconds then he hung up. I called him back a few minutes later and I guess he answered the phone because I got to hear him for another minute before he hung up again. It was super cute. I love Henry... It's probably not a good idea to let him play with the phone. Who knows who he'll call?

1 September 2016, Thursday
I was able to spend most the entire day working on homework. I got basically all of it done that's due Saturday night. Now, when Eric and I visit Andrew, Heather, and Henry I don't need to stress about it. All I have left for the semester for World Foundations 101 is an essay about Dante's Divine Comedy and a test. I'm only worried about the essay.
Today was a very good day. I felt very productive with my time. I definitely strengthened my diligence today.

2 September 2016, Friday
I'm happy that I was able to secure a ride to Provo for this weekend. Yesterday, I had tried to get one on zimride, but the person never contacted me back. Thankfully this new person got back to me within minutes and I didn't have to stress about it.

3 September 2016, Saturday
Eric and I went down to Provo and We've been having fun with Andrew, Heather, and Henry. It was a blast to see them again and play board games. I learned how to play Istanbul and Elysium. Both were really fun. We also played a game Andrew had made maybe a decade ago called Interstellar Pig. It was a lot of fun.

Flecks of Gold

I got the title of this post from the Mormon Message Flecks of Gold. It's usually the small and simple things that slowly build our testimony. We don't need to be looking for grand experiences. It's the small day to day assurances that will make the biggest difference in our lives.

I made a comment to one of my friends a month or two ago. I said that a lot of people are afraid to pray for patience or humility, but not me. In a way, I find being patient or humble somewhat passive. Well, at least patience can be. I'm good at being passive. Sure it still takes work, but the growth that comes from praying for things like that it super worth it. God won't give us more than we can handle, but He will give us things to stress about. That's where the growth comes.

I said that what I'm afraid of is asking for diligence. Diligence requires action and when I'm stressed I tend to not want to confront the things that stress me out.

I'm reminded of a time in elementary school when I was stressed about an assignment and I didn't think that I could get it done in time. My mother told me to not worry whether or not I could complete it, but to do what I could. That calmed me down enough to start working. I was surprised when I completed the assignment within a few hour's time. I've thought of this experience at times during college and it has been a blessing to me. Thank you, Mom.

Anyway, during the summer I've had a little more time on my hands than normal. So I decided to pray for diligence. I can't recall being given any trial where I needed diligence to overcome it. But I do feel like I've been given motivation. I believe that it is this motivation that has somehow brought me to the creation of this blog.

Junior High
In my Uncle Gary's class, we were talking about laws. I remember there was one that was about raising the minimum wage. I don't know why at the time, but I just felt like raising minimum wage wasn't a good idea. In class, Uncle Gary had us defend a side to a bunch of different propositions. I was the only one who defended that side. After I gave my side of the argument, my uncle Gary asked if anyone was going to add to what I had to say. For a moment I felt alone, but then Nick T. raised his hand. He said he didn't have anything to add, but he really liked what I said. That made me feel good.

21 August 2016, Sunday
I figured out a name for my blog. I feel like the name is good. Currant bushes aren't really common, at least I didn't really know what they were until I looked it up today. This lets me build it up as a deeper symbol beyond what is mentioned in the Mormon Message.

I'm happy that I was able to set up the blog in the first place because I've never tried doing this before. Eric was able to help me with a couple things.

22 August 2016, Monday
I went swimming today for family home evening, and I remembered a funny story from when I was younger. I was probably around 10 years old. I was at the indoor swimming pool in Fallon. Back then they still had the high dive. One kid dared me to do a belly flop off it. I was thinking, "Why not?" I think I partly wanted to do it because the other kid thought I wouldn't. So it'd be a little funny, I guess. Anyway, I did the belly flop. I had a stomach ache for a hour or so after that... I don't think I ever regretted it.
This was just a funny story I remembered and it put a smile on my face today.

23 August 2016, Tuesday
In Rexburg, there is a shuttle that goes around campus and to Walmart for free. So today, I went to Walmart using the shuttle to buy somethings for sushi. I'm going to try to make sushi for my first time, but hopefully by the time I post this there is already a post of when I made it. Well, when I was at Walmart I saw Nathan N. He's getting married this Saturday by the way. He was kind enough to give me a ride home, so I wouldn't have to wait for the Walmart Shuttle to make its round. He was my roommate winter semester. Now, he's my neighbor in apartment 1... but he won't be next week.

I played pool with Karl N. He's Nathan's cousin and was also my roommate during the winter. Karl is always willing to play pool with me. I was exhausted earlier today and after a nap I asked Karl if he wanted to play. I've played a lot of pool this last semester and sometimes when I play Karl just shows up and plays with me and whoever else I may be playing with. I like Karl. He's cool.

24 August 2016, Wednesday
I saw a man that looked a lot like Jim Wall. President Wall was my first mission president. I really enjoyed having him as my mission president. He's very wise and kind. Everyone knew that he loved every missionary. He's a friend to all. He is an example. He's Christ-like. I miss him.

25 August 2016, Thursday
Eric and I were able to spend some time together and make sushi. Even though we're rooming together we don't spend a lot of time hanging out. I really enjoyed it. Also, it'll only cost me about $3 to make a second batch of sushi due to the left over ingredients.

26 August 2016, Friday
I was working on homework today and I did a similar assignment yesterday. This time, however, somehow I was able to get the assignment done about three times as fast... I guess I was distracting myself yesterday, but I'm just so happy that today's assignment didn't take as long. I guess when one multitasks it tends to be doing two things inefficiently. It would be faster and better for both tasks if one does them one at a time.

27 August 2016, Saturday
Most of yesterday I was weak and exhausted. Thinking of Doctrine and Covenants 88:124, I decided to try to get to bed earlier. The scripture reads, "... retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary..." Recently I've been getting to bed pretty late, but I got to bed a lot earlier last night. I would like to say that scripture is true. I felt a lot better today, which was really good because I was able to get my homework done in time to go to Nathan and Rachel's wedding reception.

I also had peas yesterday to try to help. I haven't had a lot of vegetables recently either. But I do feel a lot better today. I need to try harder to get to bed at a better time.

I Roll My Own Sushi!

I made sushi for my first time just a few hours ago! I had some help from Eric. I got the recipe from SortedFood. I thought it would be fun. It was.

We had to make some substitutions in the ingredients. We used granulated sugar instead of castor sugar. Instead of rice wine vinegar we used rice vinegar. Mirin has alcohol so I looked up replacements for that. It said we could use vinegar and sugar... no one we asked had vinegar, so we use rice vinegar for that. I decided to only use imitation crab and cucumber for this.

Crab and Cucumber

Waiting for the rice to finish cooking

Eric rolls some sushi

It made five rolls

Each roll made about 11 pieces

We had it with some soy sauce and a little bit more wasabi. I thought it turned out pretty good. Eric said it was pretty good for our first time making it. We only ate one roll so far, but I'm looking forward to eating more. I gave one roll to those in apartment 1. They let us use their sugar.

With the left over ingredients I have I only need to buy more sushi rice and fresh cucumber to make another batch. Life is good.

Hello World

Last Sunday I decided to start a tender mercy journal. I want to write down a tender mercy for every day... I ended up writing things that may not be considered tender mercies, but things that I just thought were awesome! Yesterday after I had typed up that day's entry, I thought that I could make this into a blog. Partly because I know that my mom would very much enjoy it. Also, I feel like having a blog about my tender mercies will help me recognize them more.

It took me some thinking to come up with the name of the blog. I almost named it "I hope this works." I thought it was fitting for a few reasons. I hope that it gets me to do something with my spare time other than watch youtube, especially on Sundays. I hope that I stick to keeping up this blog. Before I made that name official, I thought it was a little tacky. I wanted something cool. Some sort of symbol or something that would become a symbol to me. I decided on Currant Bush because in Sunday school today the Mormon Message, The Will of God, was shown. I liked the idea of how we are the currant bush. God is our gardener and we need to trust Him and strive to become what He wants us to become.

My plan for this blog is that each week I will post some tender mercies from the week. Also if I feel the desire, I will probably post other things in the middle of the week. It's kind of just what ever I feel like sharing. I feel like sharing a few things right now, but I feel like this post is already really wordy, so I may make some posts this week.

Tender Mercy Journal

     Last Semester (I feel like adding this because it's really cool)

I was working on physics homework and I got stuck on a problem. I took a nap and as I was waking up I figured out how to solve the problem.

14 August 2016, Sunday
I was walking by apartment 1 and saw Kyler and Clayton and they reminded me about their apartment council. It's something that I've gone to the last couple weeks. The main thing they do is set goals for themselves for the up coming week.

After I did something silly, Kyler said with a laugh, “Why are you my favorite?”

15 August 2016, Monday
I go downstairs to apartment 1, so I can borrow Nathan’s toolbox to replace my tube on my bike that I’ve been trying to patch for a few days. He wasn’t home, so I decided to sit down. About a minute later, he comes home.

16 August 2016, Tuesday

I was able to help my roommate, Marcus. He was looking for his cooking sheet and I went to the lounge to ask Eric if he knew where it was. He was able to point me in the right direction and I got it back for him. I haven’t talked with Marcus that much, so it felt really good to help him out.

I was done with homework a lot sooner than expected.

     17 August 2016, Wednesday

I went to the temple today and I was able to stay awake for the entire session. I prayed last night that I would be able to stay awake. Sadly, I haven’t been able to do that in awhile.

I was playing pool and I made a really cool shot. There was a ball near the pocket. I don’t know why I didn’t just directly hit it, but I decided to hit another ball and had the cue ball do a back spin into the ball that was near the pocket and it went in! It was amazing. I surprised myself.

Somehow St. Augustine’s Confessions isn’t boring me to death and it’s not taking me forever to read each little part of it. It’s still not very entertaining, but I’m so glad it’s as good as it is.

18 August 2016, Thursday
I found out that I don’t need to read all of St. Augustine’s Confessions. I’m so happy about that. I didn’t want to read over 300 pages of that.

I’m just happy about my bike today. I love it. When I ride it, it feels like I’m flying.

Clean checks were today. I love the feeling of a home after it has been cleaned. When I clean the apartment, I feel like I’ve been productive and I feel good.

I learned how to do a hanging indent in LibreOffice Writer. It's like Microsoft Word for Linux.

     19 August 2016, Friday

I was able to practice the piano and I felt like my abilities were improved since the last time I had played. I want to be able to sight read hymns.

I didn’t spend much time on youtube (at least not as much as the past several days). I’m really happy about that. I don’t want to waste my time away watching it.

    20 August 2016, Saturday

I was able to help a guy named Joshua. I don’t know him, but I found his wallet at the I-center. I was able to email him and tell him that I have it. The lost and found was closed, so I waited by there with his wallet. When he came to pick it up, he gave me two dollars. He said he would have lost all of it if it wasn't for me... There's plenty of nice people here. I'm sure he would've gotten it. Anyway, I try not turn down acts of charity, so I accepted it.

I guess this is meant to be a tender mercy journal. The things that let me know that God knows and loves you personally. I don’t know if this experience really counts, but it makes me feel good. It makes me feel happy. So I suppose that this could count as a tender mercy. Is another way that tender mercies are manifest is just being able to see God’s influence in our lives? Whether it be through us or to us, or even just seeing others receive a tender mercy? It sounds good to me.