Missions and another great example

Just last week one of my best friends, big Al got his mission call to serve in Novosibirsk, Russia. i'm not sure when he's leaving but that's irrelevant. I'm almost the age of a missionary, in fact i'll be 19 in 552 days exactly! which sounds like a lot but it's pretty much a year and a half. I'm way sad that he's leaving because i'm pretty selfish like that but i recognize how big this is for him and how hard he's worked for it. He's always had a seemingly insatiable thirst to learn language too, so this is an awesome opportunity for him. I spent most days of my early childhood at al's house and one thing I remember was that when his brother Eric was on a mission in Brazil, Al would write him at least once a week and would always talk about how he wanted to be a missionary. Even as a kid Al knew he wanted to serve a mission and now he's doing it! go rock it Al! You know I'm praying for you!

Peace,

Jaden

Just one great quote to think about

1. "You will make a lousy anybody else, but you are the best you in existence. You are the only one who can use your ability. It is an awesome responsibilty." -Zig Ziglar

an unorganized first post and a little brother finally getting it

Wow, christmas has come and gone and left us with some awesome gifts (the laptop that i'm writing this blog on!) but even more awesome memories. This was a christmas of mixed emotions for me, i was recently involved in a well publicized prank and i received thirty hours of community service. While doing a small fraction of my hours on a habitat for humanity house i realized how spoiled i am and we all are, i've probably come to this realization before but this time i am making a conscious effort not to forget it! but enough about my small epiphanies, i read on a blog once that someone wrote a small paragraph about everyone in their family and that inspired me to get a blog. i feel like my family is too amazing to go unblogged about. But instead of writing little small posts i want to devote one post to each member of my family, so here it goes.

Jesse

holy smokes i don't even know where to start, i feel like i could write a book on how to be the best big brother ever because i've got a perfect blueprint. I pretty much owe all of my interests and skills to him. he played basketball so i played basketball, he played the cello so i played the cello, just apply that principle to everything i'm good at. One thing Jesse is really good at is being his own person, he doesn't just do things because other people do it, some people call it stubborn, i call it strong.

Last august when it was time for school to start i had a pretty tough decision to make, i could either stay at Springville for my senior year with all my friends that i'm super comfortable with, or i could go to maple mountain and try and make more friends... and i may or may not have liked a girl there. i only had like two weeks until school started so i had to decide quickly, anyways this decision made me super stressed and a little bit sad. Jesse was the first to notice that i wasn't myself and just talked to me about it, he said that your friends will be your friends if you want to put in the effort, regardless of which school i sit in. that was pretty big for me, i learned that all things aren't logical, sometimes you like things just because. but perhaps the more important lesson was that either thing you choose can be incredible if you make it incredible, which is one thing i try to remember whenever i complain, which unfortunately happens a lot. i feel guilty for only writing this much because i've got some serious respect for jesse but i have to start brainstorming for Lynzy's post... and it's almost midnight.

peace,

Jaden

three great quotes to think about

1. The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own arm.-swedish proverb
2. Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.- Oscar Wilde
3. Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.-Winston Churchhill