Recipe #1

I had this idea to occasionally blog about the food I make, since I don’t really make food. If all goes well, there will hopefully be more of these someday, because that means that I’m cooking a bit more. This potential series will cater to college students like unto myself, who may have small means with which to create the nutrients necessary to live that sort of life. 

Behold the first installment: my signature meal. My friends really like to tease me about my food tastes, but they just don’t try them, so they don’t know what they’re missing.

Are you searching for a simple, healthy, low-budget meal? Try the peanut butter and jelly and cheese sandwich! Sound weird?  Go ahead and try it, and send it back to me if you aren’t satisfied. I dare you. [The pictured brands are the best, in my humble opinion.]

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Semester/ Life Conclusion

·      “Our faith must be alive. It cannot be just a set of ridged beliefs and notions. Our faith must evolve every day and bring us joy, peace, freedom, and love. Faith implies practice, living our daily life in mindfulness. Some people think that prayer or meditation involves only our minds or our hearts. But we also have to pray with our bodies, with our actions in the world. And our actions must be modeled after those of the living Buddha or the living Christ. If we live as they did, we will have deep understanding and pure actions, and we will do our share to help create a more peaceful world for our children and all of the children of God” –The Living Buddha, the Living Christ, p. 136

It’s true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLO0DrlvLX4&feature=colike

I wrote earlier about how I’ve been studying world religions, specifically Buddhism. I just read What the Buddha Taught and Living Buddha, Living Christ, which are excellent, and it’s really got me thinking about our church. I know I already wrote about this, but these are further thoughts.

Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus. No question. It’s been really interesting to learn about when Suddharta Guatama became was visited and became enlightened, or when Guru Nanak had his vision before founding the Jain religion, or when the Holy Spirit appeared to Mahavira, but when Heavenly Father and Jesus appeared to the boy Joseph Smith, they brought him the true and living gospel that has the FULLNESS of truth that we need to return to them, and there is life after death.

Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, and He really lived and died for us, and He knows each of us personally, and is the head of our church today. He loves us. He is real.

We have all this knowledge that so many don’t have! We have a prophet that speaks to us directly from Him! We don’t have dozens of break-offs of our religion because of various doctrinal discrepancies, because there is nothing missing. I’ve found many truths in these other religions I’ve studied, and it really has been very educational.

There is truth everywhere, and we can most definitely learn and benefit from those of other faiths, and by seeking truth everywhere, but we have the only complete and full truth. And we need to share it! AND I GET TO DO THAT IN 7 MONTHS!!!!!

Our church is perfect, and it is perfect because Jesus is the head of it. I’ve loved reading about the structures of other churches, and the different ideas they had for proper order and hierarchy, but everything about our church is exactly right. The people are imperfect, but the church is perfect.

There is no doubt in my mind that ours is the true church. I know it with all my heart. I have a lot to learn, and I’ve learned a lot from these other religions, and gained respect for each of them, but I would love to be able to add to their beliefs in the same way they’ve added to mine. Eternal life in the Celestial Kingdom with our Heavenly Father is a lot more exciting that Nirvana, which is essentially a state of simple existence/ nothingness. I’m down with Celestial glory. And we know how to get there!

I’m starting my papers as soon as I get home, which is in 2 weeks. Oh yes. Here I come. I hope I get to interact with some Buddhists, because I owe them a lot. I’d like to talk to some Jains and Sikhs as well. They are really wonderful people.

Hana Hou!

 Hana Hou
(Hawai’ian Pidgin ) Translates as “Do it again” ; “One more time”. 
An appreciative response to an event: usage similar to “Bravo”. Often as an exclamation.

Last night, I went to one of the most amazing concerts I’ve ever been to. My friend Clayton and I got tickets to the Honolulu Symphony, and I almost died when I saw the program. They were playing the Eroica Symphony, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Rhapsody in Blue, and Pictures at an Exhibition. Yes, it was incredible. The pianist was phenomenal, and I was actually the first one to stand up after the Rachmaninov, because I was so moved. 
However, as impressed as I was by the Gershwin, I chose not to give him another standing ovation, because I hold that gesture sacred. Clayton, on the other hand, said he felt rude not standing along with the rest of the audience, and it got me thinking about how different our expressions of appreciation have become. What if something is absolutely and breath-taking-ly surreal in beauty? How do we differentiate between that and an excellent performance? Do we jump on the stage and bestow 5 leis upon each player and give them all free tickets to Disneyland? 
Truth be told, I don’t know if many people really can differentiate. If they enjoy it, or maybe even if they don’t, they’ll stand. If they hate it, and it’s the absolute worst performance they’ve ever witnessed, they might grudgingly get to their feet and clap along with the rest of the audience. But music is music, and whatever.
Oh, no.
As pictured above, we have grown to value individuals like unto Justin Bieber more highly than artists like unto Queen. WHY? Oh, maybe because our ears can’t handle more than a 4-chord song with a whiny voice, coming from a boy that looks like a 14 year-old girl.
Sorry about that. But I do think we need to do some serious reconsideration by way of what we value.
It seems that a lot of the goodness in this world gets mixed in with everything else, and then we just get a big bowl of melted ice cream, and you can’t pick out the cookie dough bits or the peanut butter trails or the pralines, or the strawberries, because it’s all been stashed together for so long that you wouldn’t be able to recognize those individual delicious ingredients. Many people haven’t even been introduced to flavors like Sweet Cream or Praline Pecan or German Chocolate Crunch or Haupia. They’re just living life with a melted container of Western Family vanilla with brown sprinkles and peanuts. And it’s all in the same carton, so how is anyone supposed to stand up and cry out in ecstasy at the cascade of flavor from a single, life-changing bite? They can’t, so they just give every bite “2 Thumbs up!” and call it a day.
You know, the same thing applies to modesty and life styles and all kinds of other things, but I’ll stop here, since this has already gone on long enough.
Bottom line, I don’t believe in giving a standing ovation for any old average performance. But I do believe in giving a huge one if the performance is completely spectacular. That’s all I ask. Let’s encourage greatness, and stop celebrating mediocrity. 



Superwoman

My mom is Superwoman. Do you want to know why? Let me tell you a story.

One upon a time, about twenty-two years ago, there were two college students, a boy and a girl, and the girl was in about the same life position I’m in right now. She was an Elementary Education major at BYU. Then the boy came home from his mission, and they ran into each other in the RB. The rest is history.

If you didn’t guess, they got married! She got further into the education program, but nine months after they were married (in the Salt Lake temple, in April. It snowed.) a baby came along. Just perfect timing for the girl be doing her student teaching! That in itself is a big deal, because I can tell you that student teaching is extremely stressful and time-consuming– some of my single friends doing it now are on the breaking point– but the bigger deal is those previous nine months. The baby literally almost killed the girl, caused living hell, and almost kept the her from graduating. But she persevered! She graduated! And she stayed at home to raise her baby as much as she possibly could. She read to her, and sang to her, and played with her, and taught her about Jesus, and set the greatest example of the kind of woman her baby should become that any mother ever has.

The next twenty years were pretty crazy. When the baby was two, she had a seizure, which was the first indicator that she had epilepsy. This entailed expensive health insurance, countless doctors appointments and medical bills, expensive medicine, and eventually a major brain surgery. The girl, who had of course become a very wise woman and mother, was with her baby, who was by this point almost a grown-up girl, literally through the entire process– at every single doctors appointment, from that first seizure, up to the very last day she was in the hospital after her surgery. There was never a single minute during those twenty years that she wasn’t serving her baby girl.

Guess what? The girl is my mom, and the baby is me! Because of my epilepsy, I wasn’t able to get a drivers license, so my mama had to drive everywhere, including early-morning seminary, summer cross-country, concerts, and about a million times down Timpview Drive for everything. She also always kept the house clean, and made good and healthy meals everyday. She practiced the piano with me everyday, even when I complained and threw my theory books on the floor next to the piano. And she never ever ever complained a single time. Ever. Oh, and she also raised three other girls.

Now you must agree with me when I say that my mama is Superwoman.

If I didn’t have a testimony…

I’m in a Mormonism and World Religions class right now, and so far we’ve studied Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. Each religion has interesting doctrines and philosophies, each has important values to teach and ideas to consider, and each has been enlightening to learn about. (hahaha that was a pun. Enlightening, get it?)

At first I found it fairly easy to judge them, because I’m very confident in my own beliefs (yes, I do have a very firm testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel of JESUS CHRIST),
and could easily spot the doctrinal differences and maybe compare them in the wrong ways. But that only lasted like a week. The way my class is structured invites us to discuss the doctrines of the different religions, and then put a Latter-Day Saint light on them to further our understanding. Interestingly enough, the early history of Jainism started in a way very similar to our’s, not unlike Joseph Smith’s First Vision.

I’ve especially enjoyed learning about Buddhism, because the Buddhist teachings just really resonate with me. One thing that the original/ Supreme Buddha, Siddhartha Guatama, said after he first became enlightened, was, “I am neither an angel or a saint. I am awake.” Interesting, eh? The goal of the well-known Buddhist meditation exercises, which I’ve been doing on the beach early in the morning for my class, is to become awake. I love that! I love the idea of coming to your most natural and self-controlled state (this means literally only thinking about your breathing. Nothing else. This is harder than you might think.) and seeking knowledge in order to gain enlightenment. It feels so good.

HOWEVER. Although I’m intrigued by this and all the other religions I’ve studied so far, they all have something missing. It occurred to me just a few days ago. They don’t have a living prophet who continues to give them revelation and guidance! They also, of course don’t have the same scriptures we do, that just happen to contain the fulness of the living gospel. The Hindu scriptures that I’ve studied so far are actually very interesting. But I’m just observing the huge difference that came to me.

In the end, if I didn’t have a testimony, I would love to practice Buddhism. But I do have a testimony! And that’s that. I can still meditate, and work on ahimsa, and, more than anything else, develop understanding and compassion that will help me understand others, so I can share my gospel with them, and they can share their’s with me. I think we’d both benefit immensely.

Oh you know, just food

Remember how I wrote about the cleanse Madison and I did? Well, be prepared to be impressed: I consumed nothing by 100% juice for an entire 3 days. She went longer than me, but my parents’ concern, as well as my great desire to consume the expensive food of which I had been deprived for so long, as well as the tantalizing cereal bar my bishop gave me, pretty much forced me to return to the old meal plan. And by that, I mean cheese and peanut butter and strawberries. [You’d be amazed at the concoctions these three foods can produce. Strawberries were on sale at Foodland.]

This return to food brings me to what I think is one of the greatest ward traditions ever: Linger-Longers. I don’t know why the 1st ward never had these, but they are awesome. And if your Polynesian bishop has a Polynesian wife who makes very delicious food in very large quantities, then you are set for an entire day. And if your Polynesian bishop also comes to FHE, and brings good food to that, you have another meal or two provided.

So you’re a college student. So you have a slim budget. So you find yourself searching for any method of obtaining any source of nutrients to satisfy your natural cravings. These are methods that have been proven to provide/ conserve enough food to keep a student alive and well:

1. Go on a juice fast… (I didn’t have to buy groceries for a week!)
2. Linger-Longers (if you have morning church, this is enough for the whole day)
3. Fast Sundays (this makes your food supply last at least one day longer!)
4. FHE (depending on the assigned ward member, this could take the place of one of more meals)
5. Left-overs from Break-the-Fast (another amazing ward tradition that somehow got skipped over in the dear Oak Hills 1st ward)
6. Bread heels at the end of the day from the Seasider (This could apply to many other locations. Just find out where they give out free food at the end of the day. You’d be surprised.)
7. Watch for sales!
8. Certain types of home/visiting teachers pay dividends very nicely

TO DO Summer 2012

1. Sunset +Teds
2. Diamondhead
3. Dole plantation
4. Ala Moana + craziness
5. Stairway
6. Chinaman’s Hat
7. Skydiving
8. Shark’s Cove
9. Aulani
10. Waimea Falls
12. Pounders
13. Zoo

The Cleanse

I want to be healthy. I want to honor my temple and take care of it. I want to be able to run marathons all my life.

But I want to eat what I want to eat!

Unfortunately, what I want to eat doesn’t necessarily coincide with my previously stated desires. I mean, it does on some levels. For example, I love Mexican food. And everyone knows that Mexican food is extremely healthy. I also love pretty much all fruits except bananas and blueberries and papaya. Pretty much. And the list of healthy foods goes on. *Please note the healthy cheese in this picture.

But then I also like other foods like ice cream and pie and pizza and pie and spam musubi and pie and nutella crepes and pie.

So I find myself in a predicament. In my 20 years, I have learned that the aspect of my life of which I have the least self-control is my eating habits. Food– really good food, that is– is on my top 3 list of Greatest Things On This Earth. And if you have a polynesian bishop, who happens to make excellent food for his ward on a regular basis, sometimes you just have to support your bishop and your ward and consume the delectable spread of deliciousness. You know what I’m saying?

What I’m trying to announce is that Madison and I are on a juice fast, and I am dying. That’s all. I’ve grown to love carrot juice. Coconut Water is pretty good, and V8 makes me sick.

Check back with me in a week, and we’ll see if I’m still breathing.