Finally Finals

My sister's blog title about how long it had been since she wrote made me realize that I am way behind on updating ya'll about my life. Since its finals week I don't really have an excuse for not writing (see TEE week). My last update was about yearling winter weekend. Not a lot has happened since then but what has happened is noteworthy.

For Spring Break I went to Washington to visit my sister and her family. My parents and brother drove up from Utah and we all spent the week hiking, going to the park, beach and just enjoying the company of each other. I actually remembered my camera one of the days so there are a few pictures of our hike.

A break for the kids on the way up.

Everyone on the way back down.

Some scenery.

Such a beautiful place.

A few weeks ago we had Spring Fest. The tradition of a holiday to celebrate the season was born last year on a rainy, cold weekend and this particular weekend was just as cold and wet (so much for a nice spring celebration). Different companies and entertainers come in and set up booths to sell their wares to the corps of cadets. The most popular booths are the massages (partly cause its a free massage, partly cause they have a heater), the Oakley trailer (hauled by the truck below) and (new this year) the Benchmade booth. I could spend a fortune on cool knives. Other cool ones included the snake guy and a game that monitors brainwave activity and moves a ball accordingly. Whoever pushes the ball into their opponent's circle wins. There was also a human statue there. He was dressed as a plastic army man and was probably one of the best human statues I've ever seen.

PVC pipe bazooka

Oakley truck

The last thing to update everyone about is a visit from Elder Holland. This past Friday Elder and Sister Holland came to West Point. Elder Holland was the guest speaker for the West Point Chaplain's "National Day of Prayer Breakfast". He addressed all who chose to attend the breakfast at 6 am. These breakfasts are built around the Army Values and this year's topic was integrity. One interesting point he made is that integrity and integer are related words and both mean whole. It is important, he stated, to be a whole person, not fractured.

Later in the day he and his wife ate lunch with the LDS cadets here. I was fortunate enough to sit next to him at this meal and the conversation was amazingly normal. Deep down we all know the brethren are just normal people but it was fun to see that first hand. I was expecting religious topics but instead he wanted to know about us, what we are doing for the summer, what life at the academy is like, etc. It was comforting to see him like that.

The final activity for the day was a fireside for the branch. We started with a brief history of the church at West Point (Brigham Young's son was the first LDS cadet and was set apart as a missionary before coming). Next we had a firstie (senior) talk about his experiences here and how it has impacted his testimony. Then a cadet choir sang "Lead Kindly Light". I was going to be a part of this choir but my ear was messed up from a bad SCUBA dive (oh yeah, I got certified since I last wrote too) and I was afraid that my voice would be too distorted in my own ear to find the pitch. Then Elder Olsen, our area seventy, bore his testimony and Elder Holland spoke. He had not topic and just stood up and said what was on his mind, which happened to be about the power of an individual. He told us a story of a young elder's quorum president from a stake in Idaho:

The stake was being dissolved and a general authority was visiting to oversee the reassignment of wards to other stakes. They were going ward by ward asking for the presiding authority from that ward to stand and receive the assignment. They got to one of the wards and nobody stood up. After a long pause this elders quorum president stood up and said "I guess I'm the only one." At this statement the visiting general authority pumped, shoved the stake president out of the way and yelled into the microphone, pointing at the man: "What did you say?!"

The entire congregation froze in stunned silence. The elders quorum president didn't know what to say. Finally, after the general authority asked his question a few more times, the young man, probably in his late 20's or early 30's stammered "I think I said I'm the only one here." "That's exactly what you said!" shouted the general authority. The elders quorum president was slightly relieved at this affirmation but still nervous about being pointed and yelled at by an authority from God.

By now the stake president still hadn't gotten up and was quite comfortable hiding under the piano and the rest of the congregation was slowly sliding under the pews to escape the wrath. The general authority shouted at him asking what that meant. The elders quorum president was lost but eventually figured out what the authority was getting at. "I guess with God one is many," he stated timidly.

"Yes, thank you. Never again say you are the only one."

Elder Holland went on to expound on that saying that rather than shyly saying "I guess I'm the only one" when the Lord calls on us, we should salute and report confidently "I'm here. I don't know about anybody else but I'm here Lord." It was a very powerful talk and he had us all rolling on the floor laughing for most of it. Pictures of day's events can be found here.