I am too good of a diver

On Saturday, we took all the kids to the community swimming pool for an afternoon swim.

I love going swimming and I love diving off the diving boards.

I decided that if I wanted to solidify my status of "coolest resident mentor of all time anywhere in the universe" I need to do a monster squirrel dive off the high diving board.

I got a running start on the diving board and arced through the air in a perfect squirrel dive.

I imagine my dive looked something like this.

It turns out that my dive was a little too good.

When I hit the water, I immediately shot to the bottom and slammed my face/forehead on the floor of the pool.

It hurt. A lot.

This picture is a fairly accurate representation of

what happened.

(Note: I was NOT diving in the shallow end of the pool. I dove in the designated diving area where the water is 12 feet deep.)

I got to the edge of the pool and noticed I was bleeding from my head. I got out and was escorted into the first aid room. While cleaning up my head I found that I had a 1.5 inch long vertical cut above my forehead.

I initially decided not to go to the E.R. because I felt ok, I just had this cut on my head. But when the cut wouldn't stop bleeding after a couple of hours, I decided to go to the doctor.

Fortunately, I didn't get a concussion or break my neck. All I needed was two staples to hold the incision together while it healed.

Can you see the staples?

Given my history of head injuries, I'm incredibly grateful I didn't break anything or get a concussion.

I've also decided I need to wear a helmet everywhere I go.

Swimming at the North Pole

Last Saturday we took all the participants to Chena Lake in North Pole, Alaska.

Swimming in a lake in North Pole, Alaska?

You better believe it.

Really it was an awesome day. I got to chill on the beach, swim, kayak, and have a BBQ at a nice lake in Alaska. And I was getting paid to do it. It doesn't get much better than that.

Chena Lake

Plus it was sunny and warm outside. A definite plus. Who knew that I just had to come to Alaska to work on my tan?

My father is fantastic

There are few (if any) men that I admire, love, and respect as much as my father.

Happy Father's Day, Dad.

I love you.

The sky is bigger in Alaska

Really, I think it is.

Today is my day off and I don't know what to do with myself. It's weird actually having some free time. I already went to the farmer's market here in town (it was pretty small and I didn't get anything) and went to eat at a great local diner. My plan for the rest of the day is to do laundry, run 2 miles, write this blog, and read 3 chapters in "Brave New World".

I have a new co-clan leader. His name is Victor and he's the man. He just graduated with a degree in social work from the university of Hawaii. He's only here for about 3 weeks but he's great. I think I'll learn a lot from him and the experience he has.

Every night our clan (named after the state bird, "the Ptarmigans") has a meeting where we do a thermometer activity. The thermometer is an activity where participants reflect on their day and decide how they can improve the next day. So you draw a thermometer on a big piece of paper and have students rate their day on the thermometer (100 being the best day of your life, and 0 being the worst). Then students say why their day is where it is, and what they are going to do tomorrow to make it better.

To be honest, the students haven't been too thrilled about this activity, but we're going to do it every night and hopefully they will learn that if they want to change their life, they have to change their behavior.

Fortunately, this activity has been beneficial for me as well. Every night I set a goal in our clan meeting and then I report back the next day how the goal went. So I've been setting goals for reading and exercising. It's been great.

In other news, a girl in the program told me how she went out and killed a seal a few months ago. It was amazing.

Here is a picture of me riding a wooden fish here in Fairbanks. There is a similar fish down in Sterling which I have also ridden. Perhaps I should make it my goal to ride all the wooden fish in Alaska.

Upward Bound

I've been in Fairbanks almost two weeks. Crazy! Time is flying by.

I'm to the point now where the kids are feeling more comfortable around me and I am really getting to know them. For those of you who are just tuning in, I'm working at a summer camp (the Upward Bound Program in conjunction with the University of Alaska Fairbanks) that helps teenagers from rural Alaska and/or lower income families. The goal of this program is to motivate these kids to go to college, better themselves, and better the villages they're from.

UAF: the university where Upward Bound is held.

These kids are amazing. And I don't feel like I should call them kids for many of them have more life experience than I do. Some of the struggles these young adults face are incredibly difficult. We have a few students here from a small village of about 1,000 people. There was a murder/suicide a few months ago in this village that devastated the community and directly affected some of the students in our program.

Substance addiction is another problem these youth face. Some of our students face tobacco addictions. We went out on one of the first days of the program to get nicotine gum for a student who is trying to quit.

I've never seen such crippling homesickness as that experienced by some of these students. A few of these students have never left their village and coming to a huge city like Fairbanks is a difficult experience(who would have ever thought Fairbanks would be considered a big city??) A few nights ago I found a male student in the stairwell sobbing because he missed his family. He was incredibly depressed and decided to fly home this morning. Other students are similarly homesick and are intimidated by the world outside their village.

Despite these challenging circumstances, the vast majority of the students are here to succeed. And it is so incredible to be a part (albeit a small part) of their success. Many are trying to do well in their classes and when I ask what they want to do after high school, the most common response is that they are going to go to college. Some even know what topics they want to study in college.

We are also having a ton of fun. Seriously, I can't believe I get paid for some of the stuff I get to do with the kids. For instance, last night we went to movies (I went with the group to see the new X-men; it wasn't that great.) and then went to a park just to run around. It was great! They all enjoy trying to teach me how to say native words because I can't say any of them (they keep telling me that you need to use the very back of your throat and your nose when speak; I don't understand what that means). I get to play basketball and go to the gym almost everyday. Hopefully I can get in shape!

Anyway, things are great up here. It's challenging but incredibly rewarding.

I'll try to take some good pictures and upload them so you can see some of the great people I'm working with.

2 Years Home

Four years ago today I went into the Missionary Training Center to prepare to leave on my LDS mission to Alaska.

A mission is an incredible learning experience that transforms your life and changes the way you think about the world. Since I've now been home as long as I was out on my mission, I've been thinking about what I've learned in the two years I've been home. Here are a few thoughts.

• Life doesn't get easier after a mission.

I remember thinking while on my mission, "I'm going to have so much free time when I get home!" Yep. That's not true. Granted, my schedule is much less rigid at home, but that doesn't mean I have less to do. It also becomes a challenge because many different activities compete for your attention and sometimes it becomes difficult to prioritize what is actually most important.

• Goals are really, really, really, important.

While serving a mission, you hear the phrase "Set goals, make plans" about 45 times a day. I've found that I still need to do this. If I don't set goals of what I want to accomplish and when I want to accomplish it, nothing gets done. This is for everything: school, exercise, dating, careers, etc.

• Acne doesn't magically disappear when you're in your twenties.

I thought it did.

• Flexibility is good.

It seems like every long-term plan I've made has changed as time progressed. Not that my goals have necessarily changed, just my step-by-step plan of my life. I think John Lennon said something like, "Life is what happens when you make other plans." Sometimes I stress so much that things aren't going according to my "plan" that I miss some very worthwhile experiences. There are lots of stressors in life that are simply outside my control.

• Don't speed in western Nevada, central Utah, or anywhere in Willard, Utah.

Those cops don't let anyone off with a warning.

• Marriage is important.

I'm not married. I'm working on that.

Now I have the opportunity to be back in Alaska serving the people here, albeit in a different way. It's amazing how reminiscent this experience is of my mission and how much I'm loving it. I've decided I'm going to approach this whole experience exactly the same way I approached my mission; I'm going to try to forget myself completely.

First few days in Alaska

Greetings from Alaska!

I am finally here and I made it safe and sound. I'm currently in Fairbanks, AK and I have a few minutes before we head out for breakfast.

The first few days here have been interesting. I arrived Wednesday morning around 2:00 AM. Then started work at 8:30 AM. It was a tiring day.

My official title is a "Resident Mentor," or RM. (This doesn't stand for returned missionary, I've been thrown off a couple of times when people say things like "A few years ago, two of the RMs were caught drinking in their rooms.") I help make sure that the kids get to their classes, are in bed at a reasonable hour, don't have alcohol/tobacco, and plan activities for them to do in the evenings when they aren't in class.

At least, this is what I'm supposed to do. The kids start arriving today. The past few days we've been living in the dorms, getting ready for the kids to arrive: setting up an office, checking the rooms, etc. It really hasn't been that stressful so far. We have had a lot to do, but it isn't very stressful.

The other RMs are great. The other RMs are Eliza Chadwick (I know her family from my mission), girls named Victoria and Kayla who go to school here, a guy named Yang (he's Hmong) who goes to school in California, and an Alaskan Native named Ralph. Ralph is in his 40's and has been working with Alaskan most of his life. He's from a tiny village (Buckland) up by Kotzebue Alaska. They are all a great staff and I'm excited to work with them.

Also, there was a girl named Janice who was here. Her and I were assigned to work together with a certain group of kids (They call it a klan. It consists of 2 RMs and a group of about 10 kids). Anyway, Janice's mom was in town so she got permission to take the night off and see her. Well, she never came back. We waited around the whole next morning and she never showed. She won't answer our phone calls. We went and checked her room and all her stuff was gone. Apparently she got freaked out and ran away. So hopefully I have a co-klan leader or I'll be in charge of the klan myself.

Well, I've got to run. The kids will be here in a couple of hours. I'm nervous!