This past week has been kind of big. I am going to write about two things. Our branch presidency in my Young Single Adult unit has been changed, and working with Trevor at Santa Cruz Nutritionals will be my second topic.
First of all, Nathalia, the Brazilian foreign English student, left last Sunday. That night we needed to do some last minute shopping, and Trevor and I went with her. I didn't want to deal with Trevor's driving skills and left them. He was driving the car as if it is his, and we had not arranged how we would pay for gas. Trevor had us drive to the mall, when it was only across the street. Trevor's skills of driving was so bad that he did not consider trying to look for the pedestrians before, turning right, and he almost ran over a skateboarder. I could not deal with him, so my good bye to Nathalia was me being fed up with Trevor and leaving before they returned home.
Nathalia and I did not do much together, for we learned that the Brazilian culture is different than what we have. At age 14, the families let their children live as if they are on their own, and they hang out with friends until unknown hours, not knowing what they do. I think that it is ironic that, the past branch president of my YSA unit, President Brad Burgon, his wife namely Andrea said that she believes a scientific study, saying that people lose their common sense at age fourteen, and they don't get it back until the early to mid-twenties. I think that my journal entry has been on topic well, for Trevor's driving skills story will transition to my experiences with Trevor at work, teaching him the skills needed at the factory. Talking about getting a new branch presidency will be the other topic, but I am deciding which of the two topic to write about next.
I will start by writing about working with Trevor. We both worked in the same station, so we were able to work very closely. I found that I needed to teach him the skills of the workplace, when he was bumping a tall rack full of candy on things. We worked on the production line called hand table, and one job that we have to do is called dumping. We dump the candy usually in machines, but we dump candy onto a table in the hand table line. There are special skills that I have learned to dump efficiently over the years, and I love how Trevor and I connected because we are able to have a lot of fun together as I taught him how to dump on the hand table.
It took us back to the days, when we watched cartoons on Saturday mornings. We recalled the anime Ultimate Muscle because I don't know the names of any other wrestling moves, practicing the Kinniku Buster. On the hand table, it took me a while to warm up to the activity because I have not dumped at the production line for months. After dumping most of the candy out of a tray there is usually candy left stuck on the tray. I remember how I have learned to dump in a way that the candy would rarely stick on the tray. I had to teach him the technique of what I learned over the years, and we felt that we were weight training, learning a wrestling move. The trays usually weighs about thirty pounds, and it was funny how Trevor could barely lift it. I remember about a decade ago. I dared him to hold a ten pound dumb bell above his head because I did not believe that he was strong enough. When he tried, he fell over like tying a weight to a flower. I think that he lived up only to my expectation though. I did not expect him to be able to hold the the dumb bell over his head, so he didn't. In the exercise, learning how to dump, I taught that he needs to lift the tray like a shoulder press up, flip it upside down, and hit the edge on a curved surface of the table. Trevor struggled at first to lift the thirty pound tray, but he lived up to my expectation. It was fun, practicing the Kinniku Buster. I love teaching especially when I am successful. Trevor was so thrilled to knock all the product off the tray in one hit. Scraping off the candy off the tray is takes time, and is a little annoying.
One time I was working with Trevor sorting out bad product, and I told him about parables that I think about when sorting. Out of the many jobs sorting makes me think of parables. Sorting in itself can be related to virtue. Sorting has the intent to get rid of all of the product that is not good. It can be related to thoughts, media, music, and many other things. I believe that all thoughts are given to our thought processes by the light of Christ, the Holy Ghost, the natural man, and the spirits of Satan. We need to sort out the bad thoughts to remain pure. Productivity is important to sort out distractions too. When sorting, many times we look to sort out the worst defects in the product, but there is less worse defect to take out of the line. I try to sort out looking at many levels of defects sorting them out all at once. If we only sort out the worst product, you are not removing the actual problem. One time the line suddenly started shooting out a new color that should not be in the product, when we were sorting out really deformed product. On the other end, people were putting the product in boxes. When the inappropriate color was added to the product, we quickly switched the line to load the candy onto trays instead of boxes. One lady did not make the transition sorting out the product, quickly to put it in the boxes. I did not believe that she could sort out all of the bad product so fast. I think that she was taking out only the miscolored product, missing the deformed product they we were looking for before. I did not believe that she could sort out all the bad product at once in such a short period of time. You cannot maintain a highly productive line without good sorting skills applied to the production.
Another analogy from pondering sorting out the defective product from the production line is relating the product to people. Not everyone is made perfect, and it does not mean that the candy was not created with the same purpose and intent. Sometimes the product is not whole, and sometimes it had other things within or on it that makes it hard for people to say it is good. Sometimes the product has things called tails, and we were told a while ago to pick them off, putting the candy back in the line, if it is whole. I am a bold person, and I am not ashamed of the Gospel standards. I believe that there is a strong liberal movement in the world today. If I say or do anything opposing its values, I will be attacked with propaganda, telling me that my belief is immoral. I will relate this parable to the trials homosexual people may endure. This is my journal, and I want my posterity to know that I do not espouse most of the liberal movement's agenda. I read an article about homosexual people, so we can understand them better. One of the principle that was taught was to 'not to let your sexuality define you.' I understood that principle as, if you have homosexual feelings; don't let it force you to think that you cannot fulfill the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The tendency of homosexual feelings does not need to determine your destination. It is like the product that has something extra to endure the make it through to remain with the good product. The people that are faithful to do their best at living the Gospel of Jesus Christ will receive eternal life. There are many people that have to endure something more than the average person because we live in mortality, and it is not a perfect world.
Working in the sorting line with Trevor, I also told him that some times it feels like we are playing a puzzle game or a lame cell phone game. The more perfect you sort out the bad product the more points that you get. One game that I thought of was with organic jelly beans. I smash deformed jelly beans together. If I guess the jelly bean that does not break from the impact, I win that round. As you can tell, my job does not require much mental exertion like the jobs dealing with people. Now I will transition to writing about the branch presidency of my unit.
Last Sunday in branch conference, the Ocean YSA Branch got a new branch presidency. The experience was very emotional for many people. President Burgon was the branch president, and he is a cousin of my father. That made the branch special for me the past six years that they have been serving. I don't mind the change though. I am told from the perspective of the presidency that my presence stabilizes the branch greatly, when I am home. In my perspective, I feel that I have divided the branch more than I united it. I have been in the branch longer than the branch presidency, and I have been apart of branch things, seeing many people no longer with us for a reason or another. One thing that I learned is that division between people comes because there is a lack of mutual understanding. I have seen many relationships develop tension, and we did not have any contentious situations. I have been taught to not do anything for these situations in life. When I told Trevor these thoughts, I was reminded by him the verses from Matthew 10:
34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
That was a little comforting, but they are still gone.
