Gremlins!

Lynn Peltzer: What are they?
Billy Peltzer: They're the Mogwai... I guess.
Lynn Peltzer: Did you give them water?
Billy Peltzer: No.
Lynn Peltzer: Did you feed them after midnight?
Billy Peltzer: Well, I gave them some chicken.

Rather than delicious chicken, this little
guy wanted a good post for a change.

I've realized that lately I've done a lot of cartoon posts. By realize, I mean I've received complaints... Well, your friendly neighborhood Lamanite is here to fix all that by giving you a classic! 

We've all been counseled to follow God's commandments, but why? Far as I can tell, all they do is limit your freedom and  keep you from doing the really fun things right? "If that's how you feel about them, I don't really know if you should be missionarying..." It's called a rhetorical question, and my attempt at being funny which I try VERY hard to do so just...

Well anyway, many people see God's commandments as that, restrictions that keep them from doing anything but rather than see the forest for the trees, they see the forest for the forest. (I don't think I used that expression right...) But just think about it, what does it really stop you by following them? 

• Are you some kind of killer?
• Are your parents really THAT bad? Enough to do something bad?
• Don't you have enough stuff that you don't need to steal someone elses?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, Follow President Uchtdorf's two word sermon, 

Stop It.

The commandments, at least to me, don't act as restrictions, but rather as safeguards from ourselves cause I bet we can all testify that sometimes, we do some really dumb things. So why the protection? What's the worse that can happen? Well, let's find out huh?

(Now before I start, I want to leave you with a forethought, It's been YEARS since I've seen this movie so the details MAY be a little sketchy but roll with it okay?)

Usually it's the smaller animals that replace you.
I say that from experience...

Now Billy received a very special gift for Christmas. While most kids received a new bicycle or a scooter or even a new soccer ball, Billy received a very special pet, his very own Mogwai. What's a Mogwai? Imagine a Furby, actually, yeah pretty much a Furby. Billy's dad bought this furry little creature from a mysterious man with the following rules, 

"Don't get him wet, keep him out of bright light, and never feed him after midnight."

Simple rules right? All you gave to do it keep him away from any water. "Easy." Don't flash a bright light on him. "Done." And don't feed him after midnight. "Wait... Isn't technically every second after twelve, after midnight?" Yeah, well... That's not important and the movie didn't answer that question. "I thought you said the Book of Mormon answers everything..." It does, Boom. 

"And if there be faults they be the faults of a man. But behold, we know no fault; nevertheless God knoweth all things; therefore, he that condemneth, let him be aware lest he shall be in danger of hell fire."-Mormon 8:17

It's actually for that same reason why I hate getting
caught outside when it rains.

"Fair enough... Go on." Well, Billy finds out that Gizmo, his Mogwai HATES bright light and hurts him so that's one commandment broken and cause of it, it brought Gizmo pain, Billy then accidentally gets Gizmo wet and something kind of strange happens... Okay, it's really strange. Apparently, Mogwai, I guess the word would be reproduce when they get wet, so once Gizmo gets wet, he starts to molt balls of hair that in turn also become Mogwai. I think it hurts him too but I can't remember. While that may sound all fine and dandy, the new Mogwai aren't as kind and mild-mannered as Gizmo is and in fact are pretty much jerks, mischievous furry jerks. So that's the second commandment broken and already we see that things aren't looking so good for Billy, Gizmo and... Every one else... But hey, what could possibly go wrong?

Talk about creepy, it's just staring at me... 

Well, that's when they break the third and most important commandment, Never, EVER, feed them after midnight. Billy sees poor Mogwai who isn't Gizmo, (judging from the picture, I think his name is Stripe.) in his cage all hungry and cute and asking for some of the delicious chicken Billy's eating (Just see the first picture, wouldn't YOU give him chicken? "Aww...") So Billy decides to give him a drumstick and the Mogwai goes to town on it and demolishes that thing. All seems good in well but what Billy doesn't know is that once you feed a Mogwai after midnight, it becomes an evil gremlin, which is everything BUT cute and cuddly.

The little buggers are all evil and corrupt and feed all the other Mogwai as well as torture poor Gizmo who wants nothing to do with their revelry. Billy and his sister realize that the gremlins must be stopped because they're flipping the whole town upside down and doing things that are just inappropriate... 

Eventually the day is saved in a way I completely forgot, I want to say it had something to do with water, but for the life of me I can't remember but this all could've been avoided had Billy just listened to those three simple rules. (In the end the mysterious stranger takes Gizmo away because of all the havoc Billy and the gang have cause from disobeying which is another example of the importance of commandments.) So we have learned that following commandments keep you from almost destroying a town but that's not all they do, many think that they're just restrictions but there's a part II to all of it. (I'm talking about the commandments, there is in fact a second gremlins but do yourself a favor and don't subject yourself to that torture unless you want to see a small gremlin sing 'New York, New York' and as tempting as it sounds, it's not worth it...) 

The Lord blesses us when we do what he wants us to. In fact, here's two scriptures which prove my point!

There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated. 

 AND!

I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.

"So if your air conditioner goes on the fritz or your washing machine blows up or your video recorder conks out; before you call the repairman turn on all the lights, check all the closets and cupboards, look under all the beds, 'cause you never can tell there just might be a gremlin in your house."

Why add a caption when you don't need to!

pictures of our investigators Beatriz and the Martinez girls

hello everyone !! hope you like the pictures of the cute children we are teaching, they are so much fun.

The maritnez girls are tought cookies, they are still uncertain if they want to pay their tithing and since they werent reading the Book of mormon with their mom, except for with us their testimony hasnt grown as fast. Thankfully the church has come up with the Book of Mormon Stories, which is genius, it totally counts! so they have stared to read that. we are excited. MIRACLE!! so after we had dinner with them we had a nice conversation with the grandma who loves the church and she asked her daughter who is hte mother of our investigators when the girls are going to be baptized, because she wants to join them and be baptized too!!  we continued the conversation and asked her what she liked best about the church and she said everything and we talked with her daugther and she just sat there thinking. Well we asked her what she was thinking about and she said "about that day that i get baptized." it was so amazing!

but then we were over there the next day to do serive on saturday morning and she asked everyone if anyone wanted coffe and she expressed her addiction to coffee, and all the sister who are Mormon and tried to justify theri use of coffee and asked us things like why is it bad? one of them had a little attitude, and that it is proven to reduce the risk of cancer, and that coke is worse and why can we drink that?, i didn't know what to say because we both felt attacked and that no matter what we said they would not have listened. next time we talk about that and we are in an enviorment where the spirit can testify then i would ask them if they belive the church is true and if Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God, and if he was then when he recieved that revelation, it came from God and it is for our wellness. God is all knowing, he comprehends all things that we cannot and if we follow the council we will be blessed.

we have a new investigator named Alejandra. she reminds me of me when i was investigating the church. She is thirteen and is really mature for her age, she has even read some chapteres in the Book of Mormon when previous missionaries taught her, which is a big deal for someone to have the inrest and want to learn for themselves if the book is true, She really wants to come to church but her mom made up an excuse for her not to come. we will be persistant and loving. I know that if she keeps her eye on the temple and an eternal family she will never give up on her journey.

well i love you all have a happy week.

Look to the Savior and Live:)

Hi Beautiful!

Guess What?!? Last week while Sister Greer and I were out with our Member Sister Cocco we received a call from our Leaders and as soon as they started talking about having some changes in the Mission I just knew that one of us was going to be transferred. It turned out to be me and as soon as we heard that Sister Greer started crying. We were all quiet for a while and just let the news sink in. Sister Greer was sooo sad, She kept saying this was all dream. I can totally relate to how she felt because that's exactly how I felt when Sister Oakes left and I had only had 2 weeks to learn Harbor City. Sister Greer has been with me for 5 weeks and it's been such a great learning and growing experience, I really felt like I was a Mom in training helping her to come to love being a Missionary and not feel like she wants to go home and also helping and Feeling her Faith grow as she slowly gets the hang of things and the area. I feel that she will grow a lot more  now that she'll be in Harbor City with her new companion Sister Shute. Sister Greer is a blessing. Even as we were saying our "byes for now" she was crying and I know that that's exactly how I had felt. I know and Pray that she'll be ok. I am now serving in the El Camino YSA Branch and guess what?!?! It's  a singles Branch and my companion is Sister Rudd!!! She's amazing at teaching and really effective and she used to be a Sister Training Leader. So I am grateful for this wonderful blessing to learn from her. I feel like Heavenly Father has answered my prayers. Kind of Lately I've been praying to know how I can become a more effective instrument in my Heavenly Father's hands and unlike the beginning of my Mission it's not as clear to me now as it was before the areas where I can or needed to improve on. But now since being with Sister Rudd I am just learning and recognizing left right and center all those things I can and need to improve on. The other interesting thing about this transfer is that Sister Rudd is going home in 2 weeks!!!! So I only have 2 weeks to learn all there is to know about this area and it is a Stake that we cover. So I am learning that Heavenly Father allowed me to learn about Harbor City (a ward) in 2 weeks and because he helped me to do that and come to love that! I know that he will help me to understand and learn El Camino Branch and this Stake (Torrance North) in 2 weeks:) Here we go. I have come to learn so deeply how vital and so important it is to look to the Savior and live. I am learning to look to him and trust in him 1 hour at a time and sometimes one minute at a time.

 

The El Camino YSA Branch is Great! I am really grateful to be here. We have a lot of converts and most of them within the past 2 years. We also have a lot of Recent Converts that were just baptized previously and have gone less active. It's really sad but I know my Heavenly Father loves them and is aware of them. Yesterday was my first Sunday there and it was really great!!! actually it reminded me of the YSA Branch in San Jose. It's really nice to see things from the Missionary's perspective in the Singles Branch. I feel like at times we tend to play match making LOL:) I am really excited to serve here a little nervous but I know that Heavenly Father called me here for a reason. It's really easy to become friends with the Members here but Sister Rudd has drilled it to me this weekend that I need to use that being friends with the member and channel it to helping them with their Missionary work. Last week we visited a Less Active named Daniel he's 19 and was just baptized last year I think! He is awesome. He used to be in a Gang but now recognizes how much he feels so much better and lighter being able to walk the Streets and not feel like someone's after him. We committed him to come to church and yesterday he came to church!!! and he also came with his Neighbor and his Neighbor's Mama. That was so Great!! to see them all walk in:)

 

I love you!!!

Sister Koroitamana

August 2, 2014

I am currently at the Capitola Beach. I am chilling out, watching the bags of two Japanese foreign students that my family are hosting. They are pretty cool. This past week has been my first week of the summer break. It has been pretty good. I got in a couple days of work. I started working on designing my cousin's house. My brother has the calling to organize service opportunities for the branch, and we served the grandma of Adrian.

     The Japanese students are fun. The two Japanese students are teenagers about to start high school, and their names are Tamoya and Keiji. Trevor downloaded the new Puella Magi Madoka Magica movie. We have been wanting to watch this movie for a while. It is a full length animated Japanese film. Puella Magi Madoka Magica is hailed as one of the greatest science fiction cartoons. It is super deep, and I don't understand it. It spoke about the Law of Cycle. We invited the two Japanese boys, and they were not into it because I don't think that they knew that it was in Japanese. They said that they were only interested in watching the opening scene. When we started watching the film, they wanted to watch the whole movie because it was in Japanese. The movie was a lot less comprehensible than the anime because it was based on different theories of science. No being able to read each subtitle makes it more confusing. On Saturday, I took Tamoya and Keiji to the beach. Keiji really enjoys the beach. When we arrived, I just let them go play and do whatever they wanted because they are very good friends just about to be freshman in high school. I sat with their bags. Sitting with the bags, I was left sitting next a big Polynesian family, and I did know if it was more embarrassing for me or them because they threw a Frisbee, hitting me in the head almost twice. They offered me a beer for compensation, but I resisted. I wanted to take a picture of Keiji and Tamoya. When I went looking for them, I ran into a BYUI alumni, recognizing me as a student from there because I was wearing a competitive sports champion shirt. He actually studied construction management like me, and he works at Swinerton. He asked me about looking for internships, and I said that I plan to intern with an architecture firm. The guy was named Sterling, and he graduated in 2004. Swinerton is a general contracting company, and they actually did a seminar at BYU Idaho. When I finally found Tamoya and Keiji, they were worried about their stuff, so I had to take a quick picture and go back to my sitting position, guarding the bags. We played monopoly in the evening with my Japanese brothers. We have had many foreign students stay with us, and I always have a brotherly relationship with them. Tamoya and Keiji barely understood what was going on, and I kind of took advantage of it. I like letting people think on their own while dad persuaded them not to trade me property. My family has developed the ability to complete both Monopoly and Risk games in one night. You may not believe this. Trevor and I had a similar value of property, and dad was being too conservative in playing as usual. My father really likes the orange properties. My family thinks that those properties give an unfair advantage, so we decided that the houses should cost 200 dollars each.  I out bid him for his last property needed to have the whole set of orange property, when it was up for auction. That limited the competition a little. He started investing very late in his property, when he finally purchased it from me. I did not have any property to develop, so I gave Keiji the necessary property for him to have the complete set of the yellow properties. I also bought a purple property for like 800 dollars from him for fun. He was kind of out of it. He invested a little in the yellow properties, and he wanted to go to sleep early. When he quit, he decided to give me all his property. Now I had a heap of property to invest in. Trevor had a lot of potential too, but the property that he won was mortgaged, and mine was not. It was a fun game.

     The job opportunity was interesting. We did inventory work for Outdoor World. I was really slow the first day of work. I only scanned about 1300 items while my brother heard that other employees had more than double the amount of items. There were a couple teenagers that Trevor and I hung out with during lunch. Taylor, the girl, is a junior, and Kyle, the boy, is a senior in high school. They are both really cool. Taylor got me into Instagram because she doesn't have a Facebook account. I love people, and I realized that I will be able to follow my friends more closely while I am away with the app. My second day, working inventory, was much more successful. I actually finished the section that I was assigned, and I finished my third section in a fashion that surprised the person that hired us. Taylor and Trevor were nearby and humored by his astonishment.

     Before the semester ended, my cousin, Shaundra saw my Revit architecture work, and she wanted me to help her design her home. She gave me her ideas. The main floor plan is inspired by a house featured in the Design Build Magazine. I don't think that the floor plans look normal, since it has very limited information, but I am working with it. The image is also very small. The house is very luxurious. She asked the master bedroom to be about 250 square feet. I feel that I am a very inefficient architect because a bed covered most of the room. The house has many weird angles. I think that the angles make the master bedroom hard to effectively use. The master bedroom is about 280 square feet, and that will probably make the entire house much larger than requested. Working with a client is interesting. The information on the house is very limited. I only have some exterior pictures of the house, and the floor plans. Shaundra said that she has been developing her vision for the house for over 5 years, and I have been able to see this from her Pinterest. Here are some pictures of the house. The progress of this house has slowed down because Sterling from Swinerton galvanized me to put together my portfolio for applying for internships.

I saw that in many of the images that Shaundra was impressed with in her master pin board. She liked a lot of big windows, so I put this huge 16 foot long double glass side-doors. 

blurry floor plans

The master bedroom is the red section. You can see the bed takes a lot of room.

I heard the word decal a lot in my class, and I did not understand that it was inserting image in a model until the end of the semester.

How do you like the nightstand lamps that I found on Revit City? I think that it matches the bed somewhat well. The material of the lambs are not shown well.

    Last Friday, we help Adrian, a member of my branch to serve his grandma. She doesn't have much help. We helped trim her yard plants mainly. We also took out a couple tree stumps out of the ground. I learned how to prune a rose bush. Humphrey, a member of the branch, saw me pruning a rose bush, and he trimmed down a rose bush a lot, but I pruned the bush how I was taught. Humphrey was very knowledgeable and a good leader.

    I want to add a series of pictures that I got from a run. I told a friend from school about a traiil from high school that goes to a Buddhist monastery. Here are the pictures of that.

Runner's discount :)

sorry i havent written in two weeks

sorry i havent written in two weeks but i expirienced a miracle with my brother writting me, thats been fun.

 

so lets see whats new. this week we found 7 new investigators! one family of three, a pair of brothers, a young mom, and the husband of an investigator. yesterday we were packed with lessons all day it was a miracle.

so we are still teaching the martinez girls and they are not going to be ready for the 9th so we pushed their date back to the 23rd, we asked them why and it is because they dont understand the book of mormon, even thou we read with htem everythime we go see them, it is not hte same because they need a guide at home teaching them how to lkive the gospel, os we had a little heart ot heart with the mother, about the importance of daily scripture study and family prayer, and bearing tesrimony to them of the truths of the gospel. she agreed. the girls are so smart and ready we did a re run fo rthe interview for batism and they believe everything they even talked about the importance of everthing like having a prophet and living hte commandments. We need to send y'all a picture of them, they are so cute! Their mom told them to pay more attention to the lessons and not be so giggly because the gospel is serioius stuff and they shouldnt be laughing so much when we teach them. then the girls told us that it is our fault because we make them laugh too much and  so we jokingly started acting serious, then they sat up straight and leaned in towards us, and were stroking their chins as if they were thinking and had straight faces on trying not to laugh, and we tried to teach them more seriously but it didn't work the whole situation was too funny.

 

so the women we are teaching who stays at home with her kids is reallly cool she is our age, and she grew up cathholic but she doesnt know anything about Christ or even how to pray. so its kinda cool because then as sh does those simple things like pray and read she will feel a big differenec in her life and her mind will be filled with understanding and she will feel the need to come unto Christ more fully. we taugh her the restoration and committed her to pray about it and she said she would, she gave a beautiful closing prayer and she thanked us for teaching her and resolved some of her concerns and for showing her how to pray , because now she will do it more often. she is very sincere.

 

next family was a family that i tti'd on the street once and went to try to teach htem a few times but were never home, so one night we had no planns and we had former investigators on our back up planns, so we decided to go visit, it was around 8:20 pm and we knocked and no one was home, but as we were about to leave they showed up back from their walk, so they invited us in, at first, not gonna lie it was sort of aquward, but then we just asked them questions and then the mom started telling us the issues she is having with her concieted son, who thinks he doesn't have to lift a finger because he is too handsome, and  he is only 11!! haha anyway more towards the end of our How to begin TEaching we started talking about church and all the fun things that the kids  will learn. He and his little 6 year old sister were super excited and begged their parents if they can go to church and they were totally fine with it, it was such a cool lesson because we got to ask them about what they want to learn about and we learned about their doubts and why they dont go ot a church, so now we know what to study for them for our next  lesson. our plan is to have the kids go, they will love it and this will then persuade their parents to come to church, it's brilliant!

 

if i sound like a TEXAN its not my fault it was sister Vargas :)

we are also teaching an amazing women who was a refferral from a member and thanks to her rightoeous example she wanted to learn more about the book of mormon, we  had a fantastic lesson at the members house and wow. the member taught her the ministry of christ the resroaraiton of the prieshood the book of mormon, the church's history, the first vision emma smith a whole bunch of stuff and even re comitted  her to pray about the lessons to see if they are true, so she said she will this was all after the lesson about the gospel, but becaue she made the comment about "it doesnt matter what churhc you go to as long as you have faith and live it its ok" my companion ans i were just so impressed and were glad she did in a beautiful confident was. it was amazing!! so we are hoping that she can feel better and recover from her lupus so she can come to church

He has returned!

by Isidro Zapata

One, two, three three, two, one he has risen death could not hold him and death lost its sting Jesus God's only begotten Son the only Perfect one who loved those who turned away Jesus The Perfect One gave his life away For You & Me First Love, Grace, & Forgiveness so let go of everything that keeps God at bay Jesus endure a painful Death cause he loves You more then U can Ever Believe so Unlock your Heart So U can finally See The Books will guide you to all the Love You will ever Need Jesus will never leave You when You are in NEED You have a Empty Space Within you that U Try to fill it everyday but nothing ever works so you turn to another but they have the same need so U walk away with a Empty Heart so just turn your Heart to the One Who is capable of meeting this human need and finally be at peace and erase the wrongs U have done and become like our Father and forever be bless to be with our families forever & ever Amen

Au Lomani iko!

Hi!!!!

This week has been so great. We have definitely seen so many miracles in our area. About 2 months ago we had ran into Michael Moe. He was sitting by himself in the dark outside his house and as my companion and I walked by we decided to talk to him. ( We were trying to find another investigator in his area) We learnt that he was Part Thai and was living his Mom and Brothers. It was kind of difficult to understand him because he was big ( I mean like Laughing Samoans Big) and his words weren't clear. But he was willing to meet with us again and learn more. He had also came across Missionaries in the past. Two times after we met him we called his house one day and his Mom told us that he was in a Coma he had had a lung infection and he couldn't breath. We prayed for him and finally got permission to visit him in the hospital. Last week on our way to go by and see him we felt prompted to stop by his Brother's house to ask for directions before we go so we did. On our way there we met his Brother and as soon as he saw us he told us that Michael was back at home!!!! We were so happy! it was a Miracle that he was ok and that he still remembered us. We had a great visit with him. He is now learning how to walk Steadily again and is still breathing through a tube. He can't talk just yet so we've been doing charades with him.lol:) I am so grateful that we listened to that prompting and that he was still so willing to listen. He recognized that he wants to come closer to God and Change for the Better. I don't have any pictures of him yet but I'll send it to you as soon as I do. 

Also this week we had 2 new investigators ( people that we're teaching)  at church their names are Destiny and Cassell. Destiny is 19 years old and comes from a kind of sad background, She and her Mom were evicted and they're now living with her Aunt. She was once atheist and always blamed God for everything. Just recently she's become more open to the possibility of there being a God. When we met with her she just took in everything we shared with her. And she agreed to come to church. She had an OK experience it was all new to her and she's still open to learn more. Cassell is an interesting and funny one. He is a 70 year old African American Man. He is soo funny!!! We have wonderful Members willing to help out and serve with us, One of them Brother Carl Fonoimoana was super willing to pick Cassell up for church. It was perfect and totally inspired because we had been praying to know how we could help our investigators to church and it was such a blessing because We like Cassell we had no idea that Brother Fonoimoana too had done some time in prison in knew exactly what it was like to be in Cassell's shoes. That was a miracle:) Cassell enjoyed church and yesterday's Sunday School was one of the funniest Sunday Schools I've ever been to. It was kinda crazy too because as the teacher was teaching Cassell would give comments and sometimes just ask random questions. My companion and I were like Oh My Goodness what have we done?!?! Then some one in class said something about "you Can lead the horse to the water but you can't force the Horse to drink it" then from back Cassell said "then get a Donkey" hahahaha weilei!! everyone just busted out laughing!!! It was a great Sunday School and we are really excited to continue to teach Cassell:) he's got a long way to go but his got a willing heart. Please pray for him. 

I am truly grateful to be here and to be learning all these things and learning to come closer to my Savior More. I came across this talk this week that I wanted to share with you: By Elder Packer

"Save for the  the exception of the very few who defect to perdition, there is no habit, no addiction, no rebellion, no transgression, no apostasy, no crime exempted from the promise of complete forgiveness. That is the promise of the atonement of Christ.How all can be repaired, we do not know. It may not all be accomplished in this life. We know from visions and visitations that the servants of the Lord continue the work of redemption beyond the veil. ¹⁷This knowledge should be as comforting to the innocent as it is to the guilty. I am thinking of parents who suffer unbearably for the mistakes of their wayward children and are losing 
hope."

How have you been lately?  How's your Family? How are you? 

Au Lomani iko!

Sister Koroitamana

July 13, 2014

This week has not been as stressful unlike the past couple weeks. My Business 101 class ended last Wednesday. That class was a hybrid online and on campus class, and these classes have a lot more work required than a normal on campus class. A few special things happened this week. I was chosen to be a BYUI coach for the Fall of 2014 Cross Country. Malcolm Hong, an administrator of LDS Single Friends, approached me as the administrator of the Mormon YSA Blog Spot to share the best content to their followers. The track banquet was put on last Thursday. My ward went to a retreat this weekend. I didn't stay the night because I had work to do modeling a replica for my Building Information Modeling class. I had a date with a girl named Camille. She Is the most virtuous and adorable woman that I met. I don't know, if I should write a paragraph on our relationship. It's too early. I hope that it develops well. We went to listen to the touring series of 18 songs newly composed by Daniel E. Gawthrop. That is pretty much the week. I believe that completed the last Architecture 100 test. Another exciting thing is that I was taught how to make my walls on REVIT textured according to the materials that it is constructed with. I am also reviving the Mormon YSA Blog Spot. My list is going on and on. Building a miniature house for my Framing systems class, I cut the sheathing for underneath the gables, and it turned out to be something funny.

One thing that I feel is that I always tell my roommate a story of achievement or failure each day. This week was full of successes. A story of a jog this week was something that I am proud of. I ran at least 3 times this week. On one of them I saw a girl as if she was on a run, but she was walking. I encouraged her to run, and she joined me. Our conversation was good, and it turned out that she insists on running each day even though she is injured. She is from Utah, and she usually gets injured because she doesn't run in the winter, and she has very high expectations for herself, when she starts in the summer, running as much as eleven miles. Did I say that I love teaching people? I asked about her philosophy on running, and she did not have any. She has a lot of peers that are avid runners, and she hears a lot of their knowledge about running. I taught her proper running form. She said that it is too much to think about, and it is because you are changing your bodies' running habit. I simply it to focus on landing on the balls of one's feet, and everything else will come naturally, if one understand proper running form. A runner’s feet should land below them; although, there is a philosophy that runners lengthens their stride by pushing his feet and leg placement forward. Momentum is built by pushing your body forward. Pushing forward comes from pushing your leg backward. If one lands on the front balls of their feet with the purpose to press backward, minimal momentum is lost, and impact is limited or redirected. When a runner lands on his heel, momentum is lost, and the impact is on the bone, ligaments, and tendons.

     I have been chosen to be a cross country coach! It was confirmed last week in an email, and I had a meeting with the coordinator yesterday. Yesterday is actually Wednesday, the 23rd of July, while the journal entry began on the 13^th of  July. My influence and input is being felt for we counseled together. The main input that I put in was that I realized that the times of practice for each of the teams are in the evening, and it will get in the way of Family Home Evening. My suggestion was to meet all three of the teams together at 5 pm, since most Family Home Evenings are held at 7. Coincidentally a coach named Clairie was taking Naomi's space in her apartment yesterday, so I asked for her phone number. It is going to be interesting, figuring a good way to meet all three teams together. Maybe we should just go for a long run. Maybe we should go out for a 20 minute run to see the fastest runners duke it out.

     It has been a few weeks since Malcolm Hong has recruited me to join the LDS Single Friends Facebook page's administration. Working with Malcolm has been interesting because his tone is serious and semiprofessional. Today is the 24th of July.  I share two weekly articles from the single adult bloggers that I follow every Wednesday, which was yesterday. I keep the content that I share serious because it is his environment that he has cultivated in the page. I am currently on a flight home from Salt Lake City, Utah to Oakland, California. I say semiprofessional because he conducted an interview with me, and he wanted to edit my responses to answer in a way that he would like me to answer his questions. I have done many interviews, since I explored the profession of journalism, and I learned in my education that an individual is not supposed to influence the replies of the person that the one is interviewing. I refused to follow is editing skills because it is my voice. I am not going to say what he wants me to say in an interview. He insisted on me changing my replies, but I expect a high integrity in his effort of professionalism, teaching him journalism skills. I told him that journalist always edit out the parts of the interviewee's replies. If he wants more words of mine to work with, he can ask for me further questions for me to expound. He didn't need me to rewrite my answers. I expected him to write an article like normal journalism, quoting sections of my replies, but he edited out the parts of my replies. He kept the format as if it was my words. I told him that if he wants to skip parts of my interview put a '…'. I use to work aggressively to promote my page like him, but I nearly was expelled from Facebook for my efforts. I could continue because things cooled off, but I felt kind of spammy in my aggressive promotion. A new thing that I am doing is adding vloggers content from Youtubers to the Mormon YSA Blog Spot. I plan to introduce the most famous Youtubers that I found this weekend. I will probably continue exploring the social network more, but not now.

     The Track Banquet was disappointing as the rest of the season has been. They only had brownies and ice cream. It is usually bigger and actually a meal. Many of the rewards given out to the participants in Track and Field did not make sense. All of the coaches got recognized, and the people in my team were praised for being examples of the spirit of Ricks. These athletes were not even the fastest nor did they take admirable leadership roles. They were just average runners.

     The retreat for my ward was nice. It built a greater unity and fellowship among the members. We did ropes course type activities. The activity that I did had a pole that I climbed up; then, at the top I was expected to jump of letting the ropes carry me down. Most everyone before I climbed up the pole had little problems; however, I figured out how to climb up it effectively. When I reached the top, fear struck my soul because to stand on it. I had to push up with one foot on a wiggling pole, which was about twenty feet tall. It took me more time to develop the bravery to stand on the top; then, it took me to climb up the pole. Most everyone after me showed weakness too. The activities after were chill, but I don't have anything to say about them.

     I have been working on replicating a vacation home for my Building Information Modeling class, and I did not realize how much skill is required. My first attempt to do rendering of building that the class modeled were simple, but it took a lot more time for this second building. I did not give much time to the practice of lighting and rendering after I developed the exterior, interior, landscape, and arranged the entourage. I change what I replicated from

And it ended up like this. The abstract chandelier was new for people to conceive, but I would expect people would imagine it after thought. Some tips that the teacher gave me on the final rendering is to put interior lighting on to make the house more warm and inviting. He also said that I should put more mullions in the big arching windows because it would be hard to manufacture such a big piece of glass; plus, the glass might break because of the tensile stresses on the corner. I held the dishonor of displaying the interior as an incompletely rendered image because I could not figure out how to fix the background image. The teacher was going to grade the pictures on Wednesday, so he let me fix it. The problem that I had was that my background image would move from the expected draft rendering. The background image was placed in a different location according to the different pixel density of the rendering. 

You can see by the picture that the background picture is still funky. I thought that the landscaping was in the way of the picture, so I hid it from the view. I also forgot to hide the grass, so you can see that too.

Here is the landscape that I designed. These last two picture were the final rendering that I entered for grading for my class.

Here are the pictures that I got of my group building a miniature house. We worked together well, and our culture didn't take things too seriously. It was chill, and we enjoyed our time together. The sheathing story that I mentioned before was fun. Sheathing is nailing up the exterior finish material. I cut all the wood, covering the walls just below the roof and on the gables. When I was cutting them, I decided to cut them all at once instead of one at a time. When I returned with all the boards cut, I realized that I didn't number them, creating a puzzle for myself to know what boards go to which wall. Figuring out how the boards fit together was fun.

I have been building the Mormon YSA Blog Spot more, since we partnered with the LDS Single Friends. I am exploring other sources for more sources to share. I now have so much content that I am currently overwhelmed. I am following many people to let their examples share the Gospel with how they live their lives. I found this one guy named Jason Celaya that teaches dance, choreographing the cheerleaders of the Jazz NBA team once. I am unsure if I should quit sharing the content that is not popular. I may have too much content. I think that it is better to be inclusive and liberal showing the lives of the single adults than show only a few bloggers. If I am exclusive, I have an unknown agenda. My objective is uniting and promoting people's faith in Jesus Christ by promoting his disciples' blogs, for it is their personal ministry and example. One YouTube musician named Tiffany Alvord just celebrated getting 2 million likes on Facebook and 2 million subscribers on YouTube.

 I wrote this while I was hanging out at the beach, waiting for my two Japanese foreign student brothers yesterday, which was the 2^nd of August. I will tell more about them in the next entry. I understand that jumping around in time is kind of confusing. I even wrote twice about how I am building the Mormon YSA Blog Spot with about a two week gap between them.

Post Time!

"[It's Post] time, go and grab your friends. We'll go to very distant lands. [Elder Lopez and the reader] the fun will never end it's [Post] time!"
-Adventure Time theme with the Lopez twist! 

That joke...

Not too long ago, I wrote a post about the Spectacular Spider-man which had to do with Morality. The only problem with lessons and Pop Culture is that sometimes, multiple sources teach the same lesson and morality and choosing the right is a lesson so nice I'm gonna teach it twice. "That's probably for the best cause that Spider-man one wasn't one of your better ones..." Yea, I guess I *got caught in a web with that one!* "Sigh..." Well, anyway, everyone, much like Dr. Who, loves Adventure Time so I thought, Why not?

So I haven't seen many episodes of this show either cause it's rather strange... "This coming from the man (Elder) who watches a show about colorful singing ponies..." How'd you know they sing...? "... I may have seen one or two episodes..." Hehe... Well anyway, the one I wanted to talk about is an episode called 'Goliad.' Some of you might have heard and/or watched this one. If you haven't, just know, it's weird... But I guess I can't talk. "Judge not, that ye be not judged." Looks like MLP isn't the only thing you've been studying up on. "Give me a break, school's out..."

So, 'Goliad' finds Finn and Jake doing their usual thing around the Candy Kingdom. They come to find out that because of Princess Bubblegum's brush with death, she decides to make an heir to the Candy Kingdom to rule in her stead. In comes Goliad. So using her DNA, Princess Bubblegum create Goliad and has been awake for 83 LONG hours teaching it to be a good ruler. So, much like any one of us would be, she is exhausted. Finn and Jake, being the good people they are, decide to give Princess Bubblegum a break and offer to teach Goliad what it means to be a hero and a good leader. Which isn't exactly the easiest thing to learn but that is neither here nor there.

See? Goliad. It's the giant pink one.
Told you, weird...

Eventually, due to a mishap that involved an obstacle course, yelling and all sorts of cartoon mayhem, Finn and Jake take Goliad back to Princess Bubblegum who tries to reason with Goliad stating that leadership is about helping one another, kind of like a bee and a flower. Goliad counters stating that the bee cares not for the state and well-being of the flower. Princess Bubblegum realizes that Goliad has been corrupted and needs to be disassembled. Goliad can read her mind cause, of course, Adventure Time. Long story short because I'm focusing too much on the worldy and not enough on the Spiritual, Goliad tries destroying everyone but Princess Bubblegum, using a hair she got off Finn, creates another candy sphinx named Stormo.

Goliad tries reasoning with Stormo saying that together they can rule but Stormo simply screeches and the two engage in an epic psychic showdown! Pretty much they just stare at each other for all time and eternity.

So because Stormo was created Finn's hair, he inherited Finn's heroic qualities which is why he opted to do good rather than join the forces of evil. It's also why he chose to sacrifice himself to keep Goliad in check for all time and eternity.

So. What can we learn from this? "You mean besides the fact that your skills in summarizing are shoddy at best?" Okay... Besides that. "You tell me." Well, we're talking about morality and there is a reason that that one sentence up there is in bold. It also goes back to all those Christ like elements I spent forever talking about. It's all about choosing the right. You see, in today's day and age, we face tons of decisions. Some are easy, like whether you should mix Sprite with Orange juice for your daily breakfast. (The answer is a delicious yes.) While others, are slightly challenging, like whether the ugly tie that has what looks like popcorn designs on it go well with khakis. (It doesn't.) But we still face those really really hard decisions like, whether I should stand up for what I believe in, even in the face of adversity. (That one is a yes, but sometimes you'll feel hard pressed to say it.) I read a scripture in the New Testament the other day that about sums it up. 

He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

                                                                                                        Matthew 10:39

A picture of heroism! At least,
I think that's what it is...

The only reason that the day was saved was because Stormo, who inherited Finn's heroism, was willing to sacrifice all he had to help and because he was strong enough to face the trial that was corruption, he gave his life to keep Goliad forever in check. So pretty much, try to be heroic like Finn. "Or you could try to be like Jesus..." Oh yeah, that one's definitely better. Try to be like Jesus dear reader because if there's one person who knows more about sacrifice heroism and Love, it's definitely Jesus. "Hallelujah!" 

Harry Poster

This post brought to you entirely by, Elder Storey! (With inserts by yours truly)

"You're a Wizard Harry."
-Hagrid (Pretty much the only quote I know and has nothing to do with the post...)

I think we're due for a good
fast forward...

Hello dear readers. Today we are going to talk about Harry Potter. Ever since I was a little kid I have loved Harry Potter. "Yeah?" Remember that little boy that looked at you in amazement as you told him he was a wizard? "Yeah!" Well we're not going to talk about that today. "Talk about anticlimactic..."

Fast forward past the three headed dog, the killer tree, the giant snake, the soul sucking demons, and the crazy deadly wizard Olympics, now during Harry's six year at Hogwarts Harry desperately need to get a memory from professor Slughorn. He try's everything he can think of on his own and nothing works. Finally he decides to use a magic potion (that's not a metaphor it is literally a magic potion) that will give him luck. He thinks it will magically make Slughorn want to give him the memory without him having to do any work. He expects it to change his outward circumstances to make them easier to deal with. But the potion doesn't do that. It give him the thought that he should go see his friend Hagrid. On the way there he runs into Slughorn and he comes with Harry to Hagrid's. All through the course of the night Harry gets subtle impressions on the next step he needs to take and by the end of the night he has obtained the memory he so desperately needed and which had seemed impossible to get. It is the same with us and our Heavenly Father.

We all have trials and challenges in our lives. We have all had those times when we have done our best and it not been enough. That is when we pray. Some of us may think that God isn't answering our prayers because our trials don't go away. We may think that since our outward circumstances didn't change our prayer wasn't answered. The part we overlook is that sometimes God lightens the load and sometimes he strengthens the bridges. Sometimes our load doesn't get any lighter, we get more strength and endurance to carry it. The outward problem doesn't change our inward capacity to solve the problem is increased.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:9).

We may not understand why Heavenly Father doesn't just take the trial from us but if we trust in him and know that he has our best interest at heart we will be able to face trials as they come knowing that our Heavenly Father will help us through it.

See? Look how happy Harry is to have read and learned that!

And if YOU want to write for Light's, Camera, Lopez! and bring the gospel in a funny pop culture related way, send me, Elder Lopez a message on Facebook! Are you a missionary who wants to help out but can't message other missionaries? Write a comment below saying you're in!  

Heya Love!

Yesterday after church Sister Greer went to try and visit one of our investigators -Rozana- to try and have her come with us to a fireside last night. On our way there I felt prompted to stop and try to see another investigator named Sheri. Sister Greer was so great she willingly helped me to follow my prompting although it didn't really make sense to go Sheri's home when we didn't have her Gate Code to go in to her apartment building. We went anyway and sure enough the Gate was locked. We stood by the Gate for a while and tried calling Sheri's phone. She didn't answer so we waited for a little while longer in case someone might open the Gate from inside. While waiting a lady with a scar on her Brow and mens' sneakers too big for her walked up to us and asked if we were with a church. We said we were and explained who we were. She introduced herself as Michelle and said that she was a victim of Domestic Violence and was running away from the man she was with. She said she'd been running all night from Long Beach ( the next City over)  and she was scared for her life. She explained that a couple of years ago she had put this man in Jail for all these horrible things he had done to her and to other girls and that he just got out of jail and the Police didn't protect her like she thought they would. She was so scared and she broke down crying and she told us her story. We could feel the fear that she had for this man. She cried as she told us all that he had done and it was so sad to know that most of the girls he had hurt didn't live to tell their story. Michelle said she ran away from him with nothing but the clothes on her back and no shoes. She shared how he threatened to murder her and even showed her how he would do it! Oh My goodness  it was like hearing a horror story or something you'd see on CSI except this was real life. My companion and I were both so sad and scared for Michelle. We took her to the car and it just so happened that I had put an extra pair of shoes in our trunk and she was the same size as me. So we gave her shoes and my sweater and some food. We prayed with her and really just felt helpless because there was really nothing more we could do for her. Last night I thought a lot about Michelle and being in her shoes. I was reminded of how Nephi felt in the Book of Mormon when people were just so wicked and evil. I was really in awe at how the world has become. It was so sad. 
I am grateful for that experience though because if we hadn't listened to the spirit we wouldn't have been able to help Michelle and share our testimonies with her. I know Heavenly Father will look after her. Please pray for her.

This week we've seen a lot of Miracles in our area. 2 Months ago we had went on a break with our investigator named Walfred. We all felt like that was needed so that he could decide for himself what he wanted and strive to live the Gospel on his own for himself and not for us. Then last week Walfred called our Ward Mission Leader - Brother Clement and told him that he was ready to come back to church and take this step.That was truly a Miracle and a testimony builder for me to know that Heavenly Father is always mindful of his children regardless of whatever circumstances they're in. I am so glad that Walfred has decided to take this step for himself and not for us. He is a Blessing!!!! 

Since being here I've come to love Jacob 5 in the Book of Mormon so much!!!! I love knowing that this is the Lord's work and it is truly a spiritual work and that we truly do labor with him. I am grateful to learn this and I am excited to continue to labor with him. This last week another Former investigator named Lauren also contacted us again after 3 months of no contact with her. She was now willing to let us come over and help her and teach her. We went over with Alex one of the Young Women's and had an amazing lesson with her. She loved it and it was great to feel Alex's testimony. Lauren and her Baby girl Chloe came to church yesterday and loved it:) 

Love you Heaps

Sister Koroitamana