It Baffles Me...

I've been seeing these little polls make their way through the facebook ranks for a while, and each time it makes me wonder a few things...

1. How many of the 502,091 people (that's over half a million, for those not good at math) who responded to this even know who Carol Anderson (author of this particular poll) is?? There have been many other similar polls, this was just the most recent.
2. If you don't know her (or the author of the specific poll you're answering), WHY do you respond? It can't be that you want someone who isn't even your friend to keep you on her friends list. Think about it people, you're telling someone you don't know not to unfriend you, which she can't do anyway because you're not even on her list.
3. Do you hope that your current friends will see this and not unfriend you? I can't speak for all your friends, but that's not what goes through my head when I see people respond to these. Is your current relationship with those on your friends list so fragile you feel this will save it? Instead, why not try doing things like, oh... I don't know... contacting them? Post on their wall. Send messages. See how they are doing. 
4. Let's say, for the sake of argument, she was on your friends list. If this is the criteria on which she bases her friends list membership, is it a big loss if she drops you? This is right up there with vaguebooking and the "I'm going to post a self-depreciating status so everyone can tell me how great I am" posts. 
5. 8,191 followers. Seriously?? It's that interesting you want to see how it turns out? "I've never really liked Carol, so I want to see how many of her friends want to stay" You have a pool going at work and you've got $10 riding on "I LIKE TURTLES" to come in the top 5?

So, can we all just agree to let these polls die? Resist the urge to click. Stay strong. When you see them get recycled again, just keep scrolling through your news feed until you find something worth reading.

Boo-Yah!!

Come with me on a brief journey...

March 9, 2011 - Jesse gives me my first kettlebell workout. The intro nearly kills me, but I'm still excited to start.

March 11, 2011 - Praying for death. I tried it on my own with a 16kg bell and ended up with oxygen deprivation (seriously) and wasn't really back up and running for two days afterwards.

Aug 29, 2011 - After a great get-away to Kalispell with Dawn and our dear friends, I'm back in the kettlebell saddle and on a workout program with my very own 12kg bell (26.4lb). Jesse swings around 20kg and 24kg bells like they were made of styrofoam and I'm struggling with the 12kg.

Sep 17, 2011 - I graduate to my nemesis, the 16kg bell. This time we meet as equals.

Fast-forward a little (I don't remember exactly when I got the 20kg bell)... I fall off the wagon for a while, then get back on. Then off... then on again. Which brings us back to the present, and this...

That's right, my brand-new 24kg (52.8lb) bell. Twice as big as the one I started with. Within minutes of bringing it home, I was putting it through its maiden voyage, which is why my arms aren't working very well at the moment... I can't make it look easy like Jesse does, but I can give it a run. I believe milestones should be celebrated, so I celebrated with about 25 minutes of various exercises to see where my new benchmarks were. Monday begins the process of trying to exceed those benchmarks and set new ones.

A couple of weeks ago, two people I trust asked me if I was working out (if I didn't trust them, I would've dismissed their comments). My first thought was, "How scrawny was I before???" I really don't see a difference in myself yet, and believe me, I'm looking. I don't think there's a guy alive who doesn't flex in front of the mirror. I feel different; I'm usually more positive when I'm working out regularly and I feel better physically and mentally. But (to me anyway) I don't look different. 

Anyhow... I think the post-workout sweating has almost stopped (although my arms are still quivering . The good news is I didn't need oxygen after this workout!

Grandpa's Funeral

June 13th was a difficult day for me. I was in Edmonton for the week on business and I found out in the morning that my Grandpa Wynder wasn't doing well and then just after 1:00pm he passed away. Somehow I held it together long enough to get all my work done on Wednesday before I had my break-down on Thursday morning. 

Some of my best memories growing up were of spending time on the farm with Grandpa and Grandma. Who doesn't love getting up at 5:00am to milk cows? I used to think rocks grew on farms, because we kept having to pick them out of the same fields over and over again. Moving the irrigation lines, cleaning out the milk barn... Unlike my cousins who learned how to drive a tractor at 5yrs old, I didn't learn until I was about 15, which spared me from a lot of early morning harvests. My fixation on Chevy "farm trucks" (preferrably blue) can be traced back to time spent with Grandpa. I remember going to see Empire Strikes Back in the theater with Grandpa and Grandma (I don't think they liked it as much as I did), but we did enjoy watching Disney's Robin Hood together.

So, when I was informed I would be doing the Plan of Salvation talk for the funeral, I had mixed emotions. I enjoy public speaking with the right topic, but to have to speak at Grandpa's funeral was a bit nerve-racking. As I prepared, there were a few parts which didn't really click for me, no matter how hard I tried and on Monday morning, I was still wondering how I'd make it work.

Grandpa's brother Curtis was asked to talk about Grandpa's childhood and early years (for 2 minutes). Instead, he spent 17 minutes talking about the plan of salvation. I was crossing whole paragraphs out of my talk as he was giving his and suddenly it made sense why it wasn't coming together for me.

Anyhow, here's the talk as I had prepared it. The parts in red were the parts I had to cross out to avoid being repetitive. 

Let me start out with a disclaimer and some background: I remember when Mike got home from his mission and there was time leftover after he reported in sacrament meeting. The bishop thought it would be a good idea to ask Grandpa to come up and bear his testimony to fill up some of the extra time. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a shorter testimony. It took longer for him to walk up to the pulpit than it did for him to speak while he was up there. Growing up, I learned that if there was a chance something was going to get emotional, Grandpa kept it short & sweet. I inherited his tendency to get emotional when speaking, so you may have to use your imagination to fill in the gaps if I have to wrap this up abruptly.

I imagine if Grandpa had to give this talk, he’d stand up here and say, “There’s a plan of salvation, and we’ll all be resurrected after we die.” And then he’d sit down again and that would be the end of it. Right now, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

Why do we get talks about the plan of salvation at funerals? I don’t think this is intended to be a time for teaching as much as it is a time for comfort. I don’t expect to say anything new that you haven’t heard before, and hopefully you don’t expect that from me, but I hope we can feel the peace and reassurance which comes from the Spirit.

I tried to think about what were the most comforting aspects to me of the atonement and plan of salvation.

Jesus and Lazarus

The story of Lazarus has been comforting to me, not because Christ demonstrated his power over death but because of the two words found in John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” I can tell you, if in this aspect only, I have been very Christ-like over the last few days. Jesus knew he would raise Lazarus from the dead, but still wept. I don’t know why he did, but it has been in those moments when I have felt the strongest comfort and peace from the Spirit. Maybe he wept as part of the baptismal covenant spoken of by Alma to “mourn with those who mourn.”

Why is the atonement so comforting to us? One of the biggest comforts to me is the knowledge that there is nothing we can experience in this life which Christ hasn't already experienced on our behalf. We may think sometimes that we are alone. President Henry B. Eyring taugh, "It will comfort us when we wait in distress for the Savior's promised relief that He knows, from experience, how to heal and help us... He could have known how to succor us by revelation, but He chose to learn by His own personal experience." ("Adversity", April 2009 General Conference)

When you go home, I want you to try an experiment to help understand what Christ voluntarily went through for us. Take a hammer, then use it to hit your thumb as hard as you can. This way, you'll have more sympathy the next time you run into someone who went through the same thing. Then take something heavy and drop it on your foot, you never know when a friend or family member will do that and you want to help them in ways you couldn't without having already experienced it for yourself.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught, “We can confidently cast our cares upon the Lord because, through the agonizing events of Gethsemane and Calvary, atoning Jesus is already familiar with our sins, sicknesses, and sorrows. He can carry them now because He has successfully carried them before!” (“Yet Thou Art There”, October 1987 General Conference)

Part of the atonement which we seem to overlook at times is how Christ "has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows..." (Mosiah 14:4)

Alma taught that Christ "...shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions ... of every kind;...

"... and he will take upon him [our] infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy,... that he may know how to succor his people according to their infirmities." (Alma 7:11-12)

This scripture became more powerful when I learned what the word 'succor' means. It comes from two Latin words: "sub", meaning under, and "courier" meaning a runner. The word succor literally means to come from below to run to someone's aid.

I have a friend who lost her mother and father within a few years of each other. People would come up to her at church and say how they knew what she was going through because they had also lost a parent. While they may have known what it was like for them to lose their mother, they couldn’t know what it was like for her to lose her mother. But Christ knows. It is comforting to know there are no depths I can reach that Christ hasn't already conquered, and he knows perfectly how to comfort me in my trials. He knows what it feels like when I lose a grandfather, not because he lost a grandpa, or knows someone who lost a grandpa, but because he already experienced my pains personally so he would lovingly know what I would need when the time came for me to go through it myself. That is comforting to me beyond my ability to express.

The Aramaic word for atonement also means "a close embrace". This brings to mind Lehi's statement of being "...encircled about ... in the arms of his love." (2 Nephi 1:15) and Mormon writing of being "clasped in the arms of Jesus" (Mormon 5:11).

The Resurrection

There's a scene in the Star Wars movies where young Anakin Skywalker has to say good-bye to his mother. "Will I ever see you again?" he asks. "What does your heart tell you?" she responded. When death separates us from those we love, we never have to ask, "Will we ever see you again?" The Spirit speaks to our hearts a resounding and comforting, "yes!"

Alma taught us, "[Christ] will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people..." (Alma 7:12)

"The soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul;... all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." (Alma 40:23)

I have never met anyone who has been resurrected. I don't even know anyone who has met a resurrected person, but I have had spiritual confirmations of the reality of Christ's resurrection. This is a tremendous comfort to me because it means I will be resurrected. It means my grandparents will be resurrected. It means there will be a day when we will again embrace all those we have lost to death.

The Gospel covenants are a comfort to me. The sealing power of the priesthood has been restored, which means even though death may separate us from our loved ones temporarily, the bonds of family cannot be broken. Grandpa and Grandma were sealed together in the temple and were faithful to their covenants, which means the sealing power binds them to each other and to their children.

Elder Russell M. Nelson taught, "Under God’s great plan of happiness, families can be sealed in temples and be prepared to return to dwell in His holy presence forever. That is eternal life! It fulfills the deepest longings of the human soul—the natural yearning for endless association with beloved members of one’s family. " (2012 April General Conference, Thanks Be to God, Sun. Morning Session -  Russell M. Nelson)

  

Going to Hell… to teach

I spend a lot of time in the car for work, so I often listen to conference talks, BYU devotionals, and other Church-related speakers. One speaker talked about how he was sure his father was in Hell. After a short pause, he added “…teaching those who haven’t heard the gospel yet.”

We read in Section 138 of the Doctrine and Covenants, “…from among the righteous, [the Lord] organized his forces and appointed messengers, clothed with power and authority, and commissioned them to go forth and carry the light of the gospel to them that were in darkness, even to all the spirits of men; and thus was the gospel preached to the dead.

“And the chosen messengers went forth to declare the acceptable day of the Lord and proclaim liberty to the captives who were bound…

“…the faithful elders of this dispensation, when they depart from mortal life, continue their labors in the preaching of the gospel… among those who are in darkness … in the great world of the spirits of the dead.” (D&C 138:30-31, 57)

So, when I say Grandpa is in Hell, I mean it in the best possible way. Brandon posted one of his memories of being Grandpa's home teaching companion and how they went each and every month and how Grandpa was very concerned about the families they visited. Now that he is freed from mortal pains and frailties, I can’t imagine him being any less diligent right now. I can see him and Grandma on another couples mission together, teaching others about the gospel which was so very dear to them. Just imagine getting that mission call, “You are hereby called to serve in the Hell, Spirit Prison mission…” Whew, at least it wasn't Saskatchewan, that was a close one!

So, yes, there is a plan of salvation and we will all be resurrected.

Aunt Vada told me on Sunday night that I wasn't allowed to make anyone cry. I'm happy to say I made it through my talk without tears (I didn't make it through DeVon's or Brandon's talks though), and I don't think I made anyone else cry either. I turned out that most of the talk I prepared was for my own benefit. 

I Don't Always Workout...

I saw this on the interweb and it made me laugh. Partially because I know people like this, but mostly because I could easily be that person. 

I know so many people who actually do work out on a regular basis and have earned the right to post and brag a little. I have cousins and friends who run, on purpose. 5km, 10km, half-marathons, full marathons, triathlons. Some who ride bikes for 50-100km (or more) every day. When they post on Facebook, by golly they've earned it. Me? Umm... "I did 5 minutes of Kettlebells this morning and I'm exhausted." To me, that just seems like one of those "fishing" posts where someone puts up a self-depreciating status so everyone they know can chip in and tell them how wonderful they are.

So, every time I get the urge to let the Facebook community know that I did 4 pull-ups before crying like a little girl, I picture my post showing up right after someone who deserves to post. 

Friend: "Whew, just got in from riding my bike from Magrath to Taber and back. I'm a little tired, but I'll be better after breakfast."

Me: "Eight reps and I can barely move my arms..."

This is why I'll never be on the motivational speaking circuit. So as a favor to everyone, I'll spare you the details and disturbing mental images of my occasional brushes with fitness. It turns out, walking through the exercise room doesn't count as regular physical activity.

Adventures in Ikea

My sister gave me a shopping list (and money to go with it) for a few simple items she wanted from Ikea. Since I would be in Calgary and Edmonton this week (both have large Ikea stores), I figured it wouldn't be a problem. After all, how hard could it be to pick up a chandelier, 4 packs of plastic cups, and a swing? Clearly, it's been a while since my last trip to Ikea.

Remember the scene in Harry Potter where they set up the small tent and everyone goes inside to find a spacious, nearly palatial, setup with multiple rooms? That's what Ikea seems like to me. It might look large on the outside, but it's much bigger on the inside. The only thing worse than trying to assemble Ikea furniture and deciphering the instructions is trying to navigate through the store. Theseus had an easier time finding his way through the Labyrinth at Crete.

I start out on the second floor because I vaguely remember the kids' stuff being up there, somewhere. In retrospect, I should've seen warning signs in the number of bewildered looks from people wandering around against the flow of traffic indicated by the not-so-helpful blue arrows on the floor. I think the staff sit around at the company Christmas party and watch the store security videos to laugh at everyone wandering around lost.

I found the plastic cups relatively quickly, which gave me a false sense of hope. At this rate, I should be out of here in 10-15 minutes, tops. Not so much. This is when they start springing helpful signs like this one...

They should just put up a sign stating, "Now you're really screwed. It doesn't matter which way you go, you'll never again see the natural light of the sun." So, my only options are the showroom, or the showroom tour. Fan-frikkin-tastic. I guess I'll go to the showroom

Those bedroom displays they have set up? They aren't showcases, they are rest stops assembled by frantic shoppers trying desperately to survive after being stranded for days. They're like the emergency stations on the way up to Everest. I think one of the displays had "Donner party was here" carved into the wooden side-table

Hmm, there's the restaurant again, which means I'm going in circles. Oh look, the helpful and easy-to-follow store guide...

So I still have to find a swing and a chandelier. There's no point in asking staff for directions. The only Swedish I know was gleaned from watching the Swedish Chef, which is less helpful than you might think ("Weer de hellen es der wayen ooten?").

Feeling fairly confident these items aren't on the 2nd floor, I finally found stairs down to the main level where I eventually stumbled across the lighting section and found the specified chandelier. Two down, one to go. More wandering, some crying about possibly never seeing my family again, and a short bout of hysteria later, I found the bulk furniture section, which means I've been through the whole store and haven't found the swings yet. Crap-tastic.

Do you know what they installed before you get to the checkouts? Touch-screen terminals where you can search the catalog and the computer will tell you where the item is located. Do you know where this sort of information would be helpful? At the FRIKKIN ENTRANCE!! Turns out, the swings are in the kids' section, which means I have to go back upstairs. Oh, joy.

So, back through the fire swamp, past the lightning sand, and just after the flame spurts there is the kids' section. Where are the swings? On the wall beside the stupid plastic cups. I was going to use my phone to send a photo to my sister to see if this was the kind she wanted, but there's no signal. If you see a group of women gathered around in Ikea, there's probably a really good deal on something. If you see a group of men gathered together, there's a strong possibility they've found a small hole in the store's shielding where they can get faint signals on their smartphones. "If we only had a Heisenberg compensator, we could remodulate the phone frequency to intermittently fluctuate the signal in order to bypass the dampening field from the shield generators."

So, if by some miracle this gets uploaded, it means I must've found enough of a signal to contact the outside world again. Tell my family I love them and I miss them terribly. I'd ask for someone to come find me, but I don't want anyone else to be lost on my account...