My Feelings on Why We Celebrate Easter Sunday

I am giving you my feelings on the month of April through the words of Joseph B. Wirthlin, a hero of mine, and through this painting of Eugene Burnand of Peter and John.

"I think of how dark that Friday was when Christ was lifted up on the cross. On that terrible Friday the earth shook and grew dark. Frightful storms lashed at the earth.

Those evil men who sought His life rejoiced. Now that Jesus was no more, surely those who followed Him would disperse. On that day those men stood triumphant.

On that day the veil of the temple was rent in twain.

Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Jesus, were both overcome with grief and despair. The superb man they had loved and honored hung lifeless upon the cross.

On that Friday the Apostles were devastated. Jesus, their Savior—the man who had walked on water and raised the dead—was Himself at the mercy of wicked men. They watched helplessly as He was overcome by His enemies.

On that Friday the Savior of mankind was humiliated and bruised, abused and reviled. It was a Friday filled with devastating, consuming sorrow that gnawed at the souls of those who loved and honored the Son of God.

I think that of all the days since the beginning of this world’s history, that Friday was the darkest.

But the doom of that day did not endure.

The despair did not linger because on Sunday, the resurrected Lord burst the bonds of death. He ascended from the grave and appeared gloriously triumphant as the Savior of all mankind.

And in an instant the eyes that had been filled with ever-flowing tears dried. The lips that had whispered prayers of distress and grief now filled the air with wondrous praise, for Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God, stood before them as the firstfruits of the Resurrection, the proof that death is merely the beginning of a new and wondrous existence.

Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.

But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.

No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, in this life or the next, Sunday will come."

http://lds.org/new-era/2008/03/sunday-will-come?lang=eng&query=sunday+will+come

The Madness of March

Is this the first year I have filled out a bracket? Yes, it is. Do I have SDSU and BYU making it to the finals and BYU winning with a Jimmer buzzer beater from a yard behind the 3-point line? Almost. If only.

This is the month we decide where we are going to spend the next few years of our life. Do we stay in Utah another two years? Or do we move away from BYU, possibly never to return except as a vacation spot. We are supposed to be prayerfully pondering this decision—but mostly, I think we are just trying to avoid it.

St. Patrick’s day? I don’t even understand why this holiday exists. No special candy, no gift exchanges, no day off from work…just make sure you have at least one speck of green on you so you don’t get pinched? And why green? Just because four-leaf clovers happen to be green? And leprechauns? Darby O'Gill and the Little People is the most frightening movie I have ever seen...except maybe the Dark Crystal.

Beware the Ides of March...Yes, Shakespeare is cool. He turned a random day in the middle of March into an ominous, foreboding, day to be feared.

Any other thoughts on the madness of March?

An Interesting Perspective on the LDS Mother Blogging Phenomenon

http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/01/15/feminist_obsessed_with_mormon_blogs

My friend and coworker, Kelsie, sent me this link and I found it very entertaining and interesting. Isn’t it funny that there are feminist woman, not of the LDS faith, who love reading these LDS mothers’ blogs? It is especially funny to me because I am LDS and I want to be a mother, but I am not really interested at all in any of these popular LDS blogs (except for NieNies) … I’ve read a few entries from some of them but they were never something I kept going back to…that I couldn’t get enough of. Why? I think it is because it is nothing new. They are describing life as I know it. I may not be a mother yet, but I want to be. And my home was and is a happy one. I have always felt loved and appreciated and supported by my family and friends. And I have always, even in the most difficult of times, been supported by my faith. So, though it is nice, from time to time, to visit one of these blogs and learn how to do a craft, etc., reading the day to day account of their life isn’t really something that entertains me (unless it is a blog of someone in my family and then it becomes very interesting to me).

Another thing this article made me think of was a trip Delys and I took to Salt Lake a few years ago. We went to temple square and visited some of the church history museums and had a grand time. In one of the museums, there was an exhibit that displayed accomplishments and stories from the life of each of the latter-day prophets, from Joseph Smith to President Hinckley. It was incredible to read about all that they did—all the good they accomplished. Nearby, was a room with an exhibit dedicated to the women of the Church. And honestly, it left us feeling a little disappointed. I don’t think I am a feminist in the way that the term is used in today’s world, but I do know the value of women and all they have and all they can offer to society and to the world. And this exhibit didn’t really show that for me. I think it showed a pioneer quilt and dresses. Things like that. And those things are fine. But after seeing the accomplishments of the Presidents of the Church, I wanted to see the pictures and hear stories about their mothers, the women that had nurtured these great men. I wanted to see Eliza R. Snow’s powerful poetry and writing displayed. I wanted to see Minerva Teichart’s painting of Esther. I wanted to see Lucy Mack Smith’s autobiography of her son. Not that the quilts and the dresses are not important. They are. But I feel like sometimes as women, that is all we see.

I believe that being a mother and a wife and a daughter is the most beautiful and fulfilling thing a woman can do in this life and the next. More fulfilling than any job that I have now or any job I may have in the future. It is fulfilling because it connects you to people in a way that you cannot connect to them professionally. It is fulfilling because it is permanent. It is fulfilling because you are needed and loved always and you need and love others always. No one needs and loves you like a child does. There is nothing else in the world like it.

And I can see then, how being a mother and wife, is a full-time position. Which makes it more amazing to me when you have women like Lucy Mack and Eliza R. Snow, and my mother and my mother-in-law who are not only raising their families, but who are consistently creating beautiful things and consistently contributing to their communities in the school systems and through community service, and simply by taking care of their neighbors. I am constantly amazed by what is accomplished by the mothers and wives and the daughters and single women that surround me.

Men, I am constantly amazed by you. I may not have children to support, but I do know what it is like to work an 8 to 5 job, sometimes an 8 a.m. – 10 p.m. job, on a day to day basis. But you do it, every day, because you love your wife and your children and you want the best for them. And you do it all, even when it is grueling or dull, and are still able to find fulfillment in it. And you do it for a lifetime. I know that I have gone on and on about what women can contribute, but it has always been clear to me all the good that men can contribute to the world as well. My father and father-in-law, and my brothers and brother-in-laws are living proof of it.

Everyone Needs to Watch This

Rachell told me last night that Josh Groban released a new CD so it is time for all of you to watch this and revel in the beauty that is Josh's voice:

All of you need to watch this

All of You Need to Watch This

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0REJ-lCGiKU&feature=player_detailpage

Geology, mostly.

This blog could be tricky. For some reason the pictures are showing up as text/code, so I am not sure what is what. I will do what I can though. I have recently had a host of "firsts," I think including this blog (first of this year). My other firsts are a little more noteworthy. For the first time I had to buy jeans with a 36 waist. Kind of embarrassing. I am going to revise that statement to say I chose to buy 36 for fear of not being comfortable, but could have handled 34. Anyway, that first led to another: my first purchase of running shoes. I decided I needed to do something quickly about this growing problem (pun intended). So I have been out running a couple of times, and it hurt. But I am probably headed to the Bahamas in April for a geology trip, so I need to be looking good. The third first is that I donated blood for the first time. I figure getting rid of a pound or two of blood also helps keep the weight down. I'll probably donate weekly. And I had no problem. Since I assume that only family reads this, I don't see a need to explain what kind of problem I might have had. Those are the firsts I had on my mind. There are probably some others, too.

The following is almost strictly geology related. If you are reading this blog and not interested in the geology pictures, I suggest skipping to the last picture for a good laugh.

I have started working with a professor that focuses on geophysics, and that includes seismic work. I have been going out into the field with him to gather data, and it has been cool. The next 5 pictures are from a trip to an old and massive landslide a couple hours south of Provo. One of the sweet things about this setup is that I get paid to be taught. Love it. This day I was clocked in for 14 hours.




This (above) is looking down on the landslide where we gathered data. If I remember the picture correctly, almost everything you see is landslide material.



This is our project site. It is a little bog that sits on the landslide. The idea is that we can shoot seismic and find where the contact point is between bog material and slide material. Then carbon dating of the bog material closest to the contact will give us a rough estimate on when the slide occurred.



Here we are laying the geophones and line to record the data. The phones are every two feet.



The way we get the data is by pounding on a steel plate. That generates a wave of motion that is detected by the phones. We hit the plate at every phone, somewhere around fifty times. That is why the professors bring students along. This guy hammering is a grad student in the class that my mentoring professor teaches. We were the only two students.



This is a picture of how the seismic data shows up on the computer. Not much can be said about this. More correlating data is necessary.



The above is a sweet shot looking towards Provo from Provo Canyon. Specifically from the Bridal Veil Falls fold in Provo Canyon.

The next four pictures are from a structural geology field trip. If you would like to know more, I can send you the write-up I had to do. I tried to put a link to it, but was unsuccessful. The pictures are kind of in reverse order too.



This is what we climbed up to see, the very middle of the hinge of the fold.



I hoped this picture would give some idea of how high we were. You can see the road in the bottom corner.



This is trying to climb a face up to the hinge zone. Only one professor in the department would even try something like this with 20 students.



This is where we climbed to, zoomed in from the road. End of field trip.



This sign says it all. This is Death Valley, a field trip from mid October. The next several pictures are all there.



This is a salt flat we were looking at.



This sign says Sea Level on it. I haven't zoomed in yet.



Sea Level zoomed in.



Devil's Golf Course, which is a badly deformed salt flat, more or less. It looks like it has been plowed. It hasn't.



This picture is to show the vastness of the playa lake we were on. A playa lake is a dried up lake that occassionally fills slightly.



These are magic rocks. If you look closely you can see a trail behind the rocks. Nobody knows how they move, although there are theories. Some of the rocks are fifty pounds or more. The trail indicates they move when the lake bed is wet, but there are no other marks (like foot prints) that could say how it is done. It has to be wind, although the conditions to move fifty pound rocks are hard to imagine. Another theory is aliens. You could google this.



Sand dunes in the valley.



Death Valley, from the top. I still don't know how to orient pictures. Obviously. Death Valley has the greates topographi relief of any location in the country. Meaning that the vertical difference over the horizontal difference is huge. The mountains on the other side of the valley top out at 13000 feet, and drop almost straight down, as it were. End of geology pictures.



This is on my birthday. Elin made a delicious strawberry-rhubarb pie. Really, really delicious.



Logan came home looking like this once during high school. More or less. Turns out I have very narrow shoulders. I'll say it is the angle.