Time For School

Thats right the reason I came home has finally gotten here. I left Virginia 2 months ago to come home and finish school, over the course of those two months I have been wondering why in the world I ever wanted to come back here, no offense, but it hasn't been the easiest 2 months of being home. On Wednesday I start what hopefully will be my last semester at COS, I haven't gone to see a counselor yet but that is on my list of things to do with in the first week or two of school, and with any luck I will be graduating at the end of May, but with my luck I probably wont be able to quite yet, I guess we will see soon. I am not looking forward to having to go to the class work, the homework, or the grades, but I am looking forward to having something to do, and something to get me out of the house on a daily basis. So let the count down to the last day of the semester begin, 69 days and counting.

Temple Favorites

I know its bad to have favorites for somethings, and for somethings having favorites really doesn't make since, and one of those things is the Temple. It doesn't make much since to have a favorite Temple, but a lot of people too... At least I do, but I guess for me its not so much that it is my favorite, but I have more connections to it then what I do to any other Temple. My Temple is the Albuquerque New Mexico Temple. Before this Temple was built people from Albuquerque, including my family, had to travel to Mesa Arizona to attend the Temple, I remember going to Mesa several times when I was little so that my sisters and their youth group could do baptisms. When the Temple in Albuquerque was announced everyone was so excited, including me even though I am sure that I had no idea how special it was that we were getting a Temple. Every Sunday after the announcement of where the Temple would be built the 6 of us would pile up into the car and go see the plot of baron desert turn into a huge hole in the ground the eventually turned into a beautiful building. I was able to go through the open house and walk all around the Temple, and when it came time for it to be dedicated I went with my parents to the stake center to watch the broad cast. When I turned 12 the Albuquerque Temple was the first that I did baptisms in.
So I am curious what Temple you have a special Connection to.

Whats in a Raisin

Growing up in an area where agriculture really didn't exist makes you... and by you I mean me... completely and totally unaware of how much work goes into make sure that we can have raisins. I personally have never been a huge fan of raisins, I like them sometimes, but not very often. After moving to the Central Valley of California I have learned, through hard manual labor, that raisins are a pain to make. About 6 or so years ago I was introduced to the grape vineyard, the church has one vineyard for all the raisins that they send around the world to help those in need of food, and lucky for me this vineyard is within 2 hours of where I now live. When I was 13, just moved out here I learned about the vineyard the hard way, it was 2 months after I had moved here and I was planning on spending that Saturday at Disneyland... my dad had other plans in mind and informed me that we would be going to pick grapes... This was a completely different concept to me... I obviously thought grapes picked themselves or something, but the idea of getting up at 4 in the morning to go and work hard was not in my vocabulary, but waking up at 4 in the morning to spend time at Disneyland was. So the Saturday came and I learned all about picking grapes and by the end of the day I never wanted to see another grape again in my life. The rows in a vineyard go on forever and ever, and when you have to stop and stoop and pick grapes and spread them on sheets of paper and pick out the leaves by the time you get the the end of one row you want to be done, but by the time you get to the end of the 4th row you are ready to go back home climb into bed and sleep until morning. For the first couple years of living here picking grapes was all I knew about the vineyard, once a year they would get up in sacrament meeting tell us we are going and we would go, sometimes for mutual as well, but then I learned that after we pick the grapes we have to roll the grapes, this by far is the best part about going to the vineyard because it is the easiest thing to do, but you just go up and roll the paper with the grapes on them in to little packages then continue on and thats it your done in an hour, see why I like it best? But last year I again learned that there is still yet more to do when it comes to making raisins... Pruning. Yes it doesn't get as cold here in California as what it does in other places but you see pruning takes place in the first part of January... meaning a day like today, which means you are working outside in the cold for hours. There is also a special art to pruning grapes, you can't just snip snip and go on to the next one, no you have to practically become one with each plant you come in contact with, carefully decide which branches you want to keep, cut of the other ones, make sure that the baby plant doesn't have and and then tie the branches to the wire... Lots of hard work but apparently if done correctly it will make the picking of the grapes easier and in turn make pruning the next year a bit nicer... regardless of easyness it still has to be done in the cold... and yes this is what I did today, I went down the long endless row that is assigned to the Visalia 7th branch and I undid ever single tie that I put in and that others put in last year so that the people behind me could come in and chop away. I didn't really want to go and kept looking for good excuses to make it so we didn't end up doing it today, and then I always felt guilty... The Lord promises those that work in his vineyard that they will receive blessings, but I don't think that it includes blessings to those that whine and complain the whole time. Someday I may enjoy going to the Vineyard, so I can receive those promised blessings, but for now I will continue to grow, hope that I can put a smile on the faces around me by joking about not wanting to be there and of course work hard. So next time you eat a raisin it will have a completely different meaning to you... unless you, like me, have worked hard to makee them.