alexnhicken.crypto 2.0

2023.06.04

This past week Jessica and I attended a couple family reunions of sorts. Monday was Memorial Day, and getting back to a blogging routine took some time on Monday morning. I forget what day that I struggled with it. It may have been Sunday, but my emoji Yat reference weblink was not working. I had to settle with adding the blog link on the Yat page, which allows me to share my sole on-fungible token on Ethereum. All my other Ethereum non-fungible tokens are on Polygon. I don’t believe that I have ever truly bought a non-fungible token yet. Yat tells me that it is valued at over 200 dollars; good to know. I was able to achieve my goal to post on my blog daily except for Friday. I got home from serving at the temple about ten post meridiem. I decided to let myself have one day to play Yu-GI-Oh: Master Duel because I realized that I always wish that I never completely forsaken a hobby. I told Trevor that I wish that I still produced podcasts and my world news blog, ran, and played in a local community concert band. I actually intended to post on Friday night, and I couldn’t resist playing Master Duel. Next Friday I plan to leave my Nintendo Switch in the car until Saturday morning. I do little things like this to manage addicting things like social media. I don’t have my social networking applications on my personal phone. I have a separate phone for all my distracting apps, and I leave it at home.
My blog post appear to be received well. People actually react to my Instagram and Facebook Stories, and my uncle-in-law Daniel Ledesma related to my endowment officiating post, mentioning it to me at this weekend’s family reunion.
I say that they are family reunions of sorts because the Rosas family hosted a barbecue for Memorial Day, and we celebrated Grandma Ann’s eightieth birthday this yesterday. Both of these events were chaotic at first, and I didn’t feel confident conversing with people until they settled down a little. I am more comfortable in personal relationships than groups.
At the barbecue, Jennifer Rosas settled down pulling out her art resources and materials. I immediately went to talk to her because I intend to get back into art after I catch up on my blog, which I should be caught up today. She said that she wants to get some commission work, and Annah Ledesma jumped into the conversation, saying that she needs a display produced for her business.
I started listening to a lot of videos for beginner artist. I watched them a second time to write down some notes. I will summarize them. Digital Art seems to be caught up in the hardware a lot, but the acquisition of these products are not truly the foundation of art. I thought that digital painting may be a different path of digital art, but drawing is typically done to lay the groundwork for an art piece. When I start drawing again, I will probably need to learn the computer program, and how it interacts with my hardware; however, I noted these important software concepts. Tablet calibration includes spacial synchronization with the monitor and drawing tablet. The corner of the tablet should mean the corner of the monitor display. Pen pressure is also a must to figure out. Pen pressure is like comparing the piano and organ. Piano plays louder the harder that play on it. Organs have the same volume no matter how hard that you press on the keys. Pen pressure allows the program to recognize how hard that you are pressing on the drawing tablet. The canvas size should be 4K, meaning four thousand pixels. They recommend to print at 9 or 10. I don’t really know what this means it may mean quality. Layers are useful in digital art. Start with a shape layer; then, create an inking layer. Lighten sketch lines. I have written about hardware calibration and setting up the canvas. I will move on to concepts and terminology of actual drawing, but they’re still more basics to understand with art software. Don’t use smoothing. Smoothing reduces the need of dexterity, meaning the program will record less of your input; only use it if you dexterity is impossible to develop. Don’t use round brushes. Square brushes have a better edge. Talking about brushes, brushes should be hard, meaning the edge of more sharp. A soft brush has edges that fad until the edge. Soft brushes can be good for shading. Jitter appears to be a term that may have a mixed understanding. One artist said to turn off jitter as another said to have a slight opacity jitter, meaning that the line will get more see through the more soft that you press your stylus on the tablet. A couple ways to cheat strictly coloring within an area, which we are learned in coloring book, is by using alpha lock on a layer or paint within a selection. Alpha lock may have a different term in various programs. If you want to rotate or drag your canvas, space bar seems to be the universal button. It may be more drag than rotate. Zooming in a great tool, which is unique to digital art. If you don’t think that you have the dexterity to draw a smooth long line, zooming out can help. Reducing the amount of lines to create an image is important, and zooming out can help with that too. Draw big! Don’t get too caught up in the very small details that may not even be noticed zoomed out. Alt appears to be the universal button for color picking; furthermore, color wheels are superior to sliders.
The foundation/fundamentals of art are the following: Perspective, Gesture, Construction, Anatomy, Color and light theory, Story telling, Composition, and Design; however, sketching needs to have a purpose. A digital painter recommended to paint with shapes not lines. Start with two values; then move up from there. Artists should start with basic shapes and modify from there to make an identity based on the fundamentals. Perspective establishes the angle in which the object is viewed. This angle is chosen by deciding the vanishing point of the shape. Gesture is the natural movement of a creature or object. Construction is the details of the object. How is it built? What are the parts required to create the object? Anatomy is similar construction, but it is more particular to living things. It must be learned. Color and light theory is self explanatory. I don’t think that I need to go in a definition the terms are understandable to a layman. Story telling in an image is obvious too. Composition is where you put objects in the image. Design is how one makes the composition appealing.
There is a lot to learn, and the establishment of your art education’s sustainability is important. One can easily be overwhelmed or burnt out. One should start with a goal. Have an overarching goal, and many short term goals. Have the goal be specific and compelling. Keep it in mind consistently. Give yourself a timeline and schedule short term goals.
One morale principle is not to compare yourself to others. A practice recommended related to this is to not throw away or delete previous works of art, so you can study your previous work and see your progress. You should worry if the quality of your work got worse within a year.
The practice dexterity appears to be the starting point to learn drawing. Start by drawing circles and parallel lines. Draw using the least amount of lines possible. Learn to sketch quickly. References help one develop design skills, a library of creativity. Draw using references.
A starting point to learn is good, but how should one learn art? The Art Learning Method was explained as follows: There are two method one for beginners and the other is more advanced artists. Beginners should copy what you see. Study what you copied’s fundamentals. Draw it from imagination. Repeat with new perspective after learning. Advanced artist should construct what you observe. Study what you observed’s fundamentals. Draw it from imagination. Repeat with new perspective after learning. Draw what observe. Don’t draw just to copy. Observing is more than seeing. Observe references with an educated eye.
Self-educators who teach others accelerate their learning. Learn deliberately without distraction. Understand the 80:20 rule. 80% of results is a result of 20% of causes. Focus on what is most impactful. Don’t get too caught up in the details.
I have a note to block in colors, but I don’t really know what that means. Block in colors appears to be something that I need to study.
That is the start to my foundation, learning art again.
Yesterday we celebrated Grandma Ann’s eightieth birthday. She is Jessica’s grandmother. It was well organized. It was a surprise birthday. It was so surprising that there were many waves of surprises based of the distance that the various families traveled. This series of surprises was designed to give the grandmother is opportunity to hug everyone. After hugging grandma, we had family photographs. Some families came with quality cameras, and some people took pictures with their phones. John Ledesma, the oldest son, lead the program after dinner. He read the testimony of his father, and how he met their mother; then, the opportunity was given for everyone to share a message to their mother and grandmother. It was a cherished sight to see all the cousin catch up and commune with each other.
In my more comfortable personal conversations, I got to know Olivia Rosas. He told me about her art and books that she works on. She loves dragons. She told me about three books that she wrote. She carried about four cards that are part of the Demon Slayer anime; I believe. I told her about my card hobby. I actually bought a display for my cards earlier that day, and Olivia said that her cards typical fall down when she sets them on display. I told her about by science fiction book.
I also spoke with David Ledesma, learning about his profession in the sheet metal industry. I worked for a sheet metal company at one time; but a different division. I also spoke to one of Aaron’s daughters to learn about Oklahoma. She said that they need to keep track of the weather, and seek shelter in the tornado closet regularly. She didn’t recall a time that they had incurred extra expenses after a tornado.

2023.06.25

I had a goal to start practicing art once I catch up on my journal, but my productivity at home is limited. I am usually happy if I accomplish one thing after work. I have developed a habit to give my attention to Jessica once I get home.
The main thing that has happened recently is that I helped Jessica catch up on recycling. The house is more clean. It has been my focus recently to develop these habits.
Jessica and I went to the Utah Art Festival and the Salt Lake Farmers Market over the past couple weekends just looking at all the booths. I actually got a picture with Jessica that she was finally happy with at the art festival.

We ran into Hayley and Austin Lopez at the farmers market. Jessica and I also ran into Hayley months ago. Hayley is Jessica’s half sister. We were actually walking into a Target store at the exact same time. I was looking for a community to join at the Utah Art Festival, but there were just a lot of artists there, trying to sell art. I think that the booth that sold the most product was a puppet stand. Many people walked around animating their furry puppets by them to appear as though they are walking too.
My new assignment in the Jordan River Temple as an ordinance worker is to assist the person that gets the initiatory going. I realized that my callings take me away from performing ordinances, and my position at the initiatory will be for three months. I haven’t served the sacrament for months because I count the people attending the meeting, and I am probably not going to do any in the temple either. I thought that this situation is unique.
I have learned to keep my Nintendo Switch in my truck until Saturday morning to manage my relationship with Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel. I only play the game on that day. I do the same thing with social media. I keep it on a separate phone from my personal phone to limit its distraction in my life.
I also participated in two events/festivals in Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel these past two weekends. The themes were Legacy Academy and Synchro summoning. I played Counter Fairy. Counter traps have not aged well because most are triggered with the word “when,” which can easily be played around, so that was an odd realization. I played Ghoti in this year’s Synchro Festival. There may have been three already. It took my several duels to learn Ghoti. Maybe my opponents were weaker over time. I don’t know, but the deck did much better than my experience with Counter Fairies the previous week.
I posted a few weeks ago on Twitter that I have typically regretted forsaking past hobbies. I said that I wanted to balance my life around them more. These hobbies would be running, world news blogging, music, art, Yu-Gi-Oh, podcasting, and so forth.
I have started micro-blogging the world news with the Door+ app. I collect their crypto coin too. My goal is to get three thousand, so I can export them to my non-custodial wallet. The pace that I collect the coin changed the projection of my goal from decades to about a year. The Door+ gives coins for viewing news articles. If you use my referral link, that would shorten the time drastically. https://doorcoin.com/refer/?r=9123Hick
My goal is to play music instead of sing for Family Home Evening. I think that singing is awkward without a piano with just the two of us. Jessica and I finally opened our musical instruments from high school a couple weeks ago. We just need to get some things to clean and maintain the instruments before we start playing them again.
Another thing that happened is that we celebrated Victoria’s birthday. She is also known as Stephania. I mentioned that Trevor is dating her. Jessica and I have a joke that we may start a cake delivery company because we traveled so much moving with our wedding cake during the first year of our marriage. It is tradition to eat your wedding cake after the first year. The reality is that we forgot it at an apartment when we moved for an internship. We have deliver cakes to other events, and we delivered the cake that Trevor bought because he had Jessica’s friend make the cake. At the party I dueled Stephania’s brother in Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel. I knew that I would lose because he plays Sky Striker, and they are very good against Dinomorphia because they have a link monster that can attack directly. I almost played around her twice, but he negated my second attempt. It was good to meet her parents, and somehow Jessica and I were the Latin dancing experts in a Venezuelan home. It was good to get to know Stephania’s parents.

2023.07.02

This week I actually have stories to share. I actually played the Yu-Gi-Oh: Trading Card Game. I have a miracle story to write about from the temple. I have a four day weekend because of the Fourth of July, and the wards of my chapel met yesterday for a lunch. I also hung out with Trevor in Saturday evening.
Trevor started hanging out during the week with a couple coworkers, who play Yu-Gi-Oh, and I joined them on Monday. I let Jason look through my bulk, and take whatever cards that he wanted, since he is getting back into the game. I was slightly worried yesterday that he may have taken some of my most valuable cards. The last time I went to a Yu-Gi-Oh event. I put all my most valuable cards in my deck box to possibly trade or sell, but when I looked in my deck box it only had my cards from my TCG Legacy Packs and my Cyberstorm Access cards; however, I looked through my bulk box, and I found all my most valuable cards. I played two matches on Monday. I defeat Tristan easily, and I defeated Trevor too. I had a harder time against him because he main-decked Lava Golem. I played the match defining duel last night after we opened his StarCrossed cards.
The temple miracle story is this. I was assisting at the initiatory, and a brother came in looking to serve with his father, who is serving as an ordinance worker. We thought that he didn’t show up, but it appeared that he was late because the son said that he saw his father’s car outside. Although he was not assigned to serve at the Initiatory, he showed up about ten minutes later. I told him that his son came to serve with him, and he is in booth two. The father didn’t know that his son came. He asked if he could serve with him, and I permitted it, telling him to send out the ordinance worker that he is replacing. Both the son and the father thanked me for the opportunity. I told the father that “It is definitely a miracle.” The miracle showed God’s guidance of the work in the temple by the Holy Ghost.
One thing that I never imagined happened yesterday. At the Fourth of July barbecue I walked through the potluck line seeing homemade kimchi, and I exclaimed my excitement to find the person who made it standing in front of me. She invited me to eat her kimchi pancakes. I was even more excited. I never heard of kimchi pancakes. It was tasty.
Jessica and I was asked to lead a doctrinal discussion in Sunday school. It turned out that we were going to do it three times. We got better each time that we conducted the conversation. The first attempts were a little rough. I learned that Luke 24:13-35 can be an analogy to teach Sabbath day worship. As we commune and talk of Christ, the Lord will come and teach us. When we depart from communing with each, we should invite the Savior to come and abide with us, taking him to our homes.

2023.04.16

The past few weeks have been uneventful. Jessica came to hang out with Trevor and I, and she met Trevor’s girlfriend. Jessica really likes her, but I will refer you to Trevor to catch up with him. I can’t assume any lasting relationships in dating. When they get married, I might write about her. We played Unstable Unicorn, which seemed to be like the Uno games that I play, taking forever.
The following day was Easter, and the leadership of the church decided to reverence Easter, having only one church meeting, as we celebrate Christmas. On that day, we went to a local Thai and Laotian language ward. Trevor joined us, and we were surprised that English the majority of the time. Only one person gave her speech completely in Thai.

2023.05.14

Another month has gone by. The only major thing happening is developing very slowly. I have fully realized that people renting their apartments don’t care about their tenants; at least ours doesn’t; furthermore, their business model is unsustainable for their clients. People are lucky if they get a raise each year to accommodate inflation, but rental companies don’t raise their rental rates based on inflation. They raise it based on the valuation increase of their property. I don’t want to be a nomad, moving whenever I am priced out of an apartment. It doesn’t make sense to move to another apartment complex because they will do the same thing; therefore, we are planning to buy a house. Fixed mortgage rates don’t increase. I believe that businesses should be keen on aiding their employees to buy a house to get out of the joke of renting apartments.
My life’s focus the past month or so is to prepare for the Odgen Half Marathon. A couple of my coworkers were inspired to do it, inviting others to join them. In my preparation, I have found that my body has gotten weak. I have been sitting at a desk, quantifying scopes for our estimator, for over two years at JWright Companies. My feet hurt when I attempted to run. I theorized a way to strengthen my feet without running, and it is by walking on the balls of my feet. I see people doing this naturally, and I expect that their feet are naturally stronger than those who do not. I have a week until the event, and my feet are sore from walking on the balls of my feet. I am resting them, hoping that I have strengthened them enough to the past two weeks. I worked out using the elliptical to limit the strain on my feet. My goal for the half marathon is to be strong enough to run it without feet pain, getting back into running shape, but my coworkers have higher expectations for me because I am an accomplished runner. I need to run it at least two hours. I hoped that my feet would not be sore by tomorrow, but it seems that I will need to continue to work out on the elliptical until they recover. I feel blessed because the temple presidency was inspired to do maintenance on the temple, closing the temple starting last Monday. I will not need to work late on Friday as an ordinance worker and be ill prepared to run the half marathon the next day. My coworker in the temple is actually running the event too.
I still play Yu-Gi-Oh. I finally thought of a way to raise the ceiling of my decks power, which I am testing in the Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel. The idea is to take advantage of the engine more because Dinomorphia Therizia sets a trap card from the deck each time that I summon her and Diplos mills a card, which can generate card advantage, which I can control, if I use their in archetype traps of Brute and Sonic. Rexterm limits monster effect activation, and Sonic and Reversion can limit spell and trap activation. The new trap of Intact is very needed. I have eight counter traps to negate monster effects to protect my fusion traps which can be bricks because Solemn Strike requires a minimum of 1500 LP, and Rebirth of Parshath requires that I have a counter trap in hand. Intact negates monster effects obviously, which I can search with Therizia. One thing that is nice about Dinomorphia is that it doesn’t depend of drawings or searching to add cards to their hand, which can make a deck fragile. My deck is fragile enough as it is. Intact finally came out in the TCG. I haven’t designed a deck implementing my new tactics. Trevor and I went to the preview event for Cyberstorm Access. I didn’t pull one in the five booster packs that I got, but Trevor got one; however, Trap Tracks and Time-Tearing Morganite may be good additions to my deck, since my latest deck list doesn’t use hand traps. Trevor sold one of the Time-Tearing Morganite cards for five dollars. I pulled one, and Trevor pulled a second one. The TCG format is different for Dinomorphia obviously compared to Master Duel. I keep playing Master Duel to keep up my skill of the game; although, Trevor doesn’t play Master Duel.
This weekend Trevor and I bought a box of the Yu-Gi-Oh 25th anniversary legendary collection, starting a series of box battles. Trevor has been working late, so we haven’t gone to locals in a while. I didn’t pull any well known old staples.
I have a family event to write about, but I want write about a boring thing that I finally figured out. An email address is foundational to people experience on the internet, and the email service that one uses may appear to not matter, but you are at the mercy of the service provider. You don’t own your email address. I have been seeking to own my email address ever since I purchased my Unstoppable Domain, and I finally found a reliable email service, which is called mail3. Unstoppable Domains are also means to access web3, and mail3.me appears to be the most reliable way to use email with blockchain owned domains on web3. I have been updating my email address wherever I can.
The family event is the wedding reception for Arrie and Seth Belnap. Arrie is Jessica’s cousin. On that day I went to an Anime Expo, which I seem to have forgotten to write about. Jessica was supposed to come to the expo, and hang out with Trevor, Stephania or Victoria, and her siblings; however, she required me to drive home from the event early to pick her up to drive down to the reception. Jessica procrastinated preparation, and we ate dinner, using our Applebee’s gift card that we won at the prom, during the reception expecting dancing and that it was going to last longer than an hour. We arrived about an hour late at the closing of the event. People at the event mentioned that it was cold, and they performed a Viking tradition instead of dancing, so we would have been cold and hungry if we didn’t eat out. Jessica was comforted because she wore a purple sweater, which matched a blanket given to Arrie. It was good to catch up with the Ledesma family. We met David, who is Jessica’s uncle, and his new wife. Jessica’s grandma came late too, arriving only a little before us.
The Anime expo was cool. I am not into modern anime or popular old anime. I mainly went to get Tara Sands’ autograph because she voiced Makoba in the Yu-Gi-Oh anime. I had her sign my deck box. She said that she has never signed a deck box before. When I arrived, she spoke at a panel with another voice actor of Pokemon. They didn’t believe in the unconventional voice acting of the anime, thinking that the franchise would fail. My coworker came too. Isaac Gomez also went to Trevor’s birthday too. He seems to have more connections/ friends here, so I didn’t hang out with him too much. My CEO Jeff Wright was also there, and Isaac called me over to get a picture with him. Jeff was there for networking with the voice actors because a company of his runs FanX. I was about to identify with another Yu-Gi-Oh enthusiast at the Cyberstorm Access preview event because he got autographs of voice actors at nationals last year.
Another thing that we did last week is a game night, which was more like a game evening because we started playing about 6 PM. Trevor had me buy him the two games of Azul last week, so we played it. I won last time that we played it, but Jessica pulled ahead this time, winning by a long shot. The risk of getting negative points doesn’t appear to be important. The game is interesting because you basically playing three games at once. Azul is a tile game.
I got sick as I wrote last time, and I got a substitute by trading shifts. The week that I served my substitute’s shift; I also volunteered to serve as an usher at the traveling Tabernacle. I was puzzled to learn that the church was supporting the project, but it is actually a mission of the church. The traveling tabernacle informs people of the ancient Israel’s tabernacle from the perspective of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I can now say that I served at the ancient as well as the modern house of the Lord. Our ward went last Monday to attend the tour. It was informative. The main thing that I learned is a story that I not emphasized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which by memory is the following:
The tribes of Israel were not hearkening to the word of God and jealous of the House of Aaron, desiring to serve as ordinance workers in the tabernacle, and the tribes were told to bring branches, and blossoms would grow on the branch of the tribes that will serve in the tabernacle. Blossoms only grew on the branch of Aaron, and that branch was kept in the Holy of Holies.
The ward gathered for refreshments of cookies and ice cream after. It was good to commune with the saints. We mainly spoke with a couple that Jessica and I minister to.
Another thing that I forgot to write about is that Jessica and I were asked to speak in Sacrament meeting about the recent general conference. I said the following:

Good morning, brothers and sisters. I am grateful for this opportunity to talk to you today on the topic of the recent General Conference. I actually have had a topic in mind for a general conference speech if I had an opportunity to speak in one for a long time. It is inspired by Ezra Taft Benson’s well known talk “Beware of Pride”. I would like to bring awareness to the Natural Man. A few speeches in the previous general conference condemned contention in any form.

Since there are oppositions to all things, man was blessed with the Light of Christ, but man was also cursed with the Natural Man. King Benjamin taught that “the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.” President Eyring said, concerning the Light of Christ, that “there is reason for optimism: it is that the Light of Christ is placed in every newborn child. With that universal gift comes a sense of what is right, a desire to love and be loved. There is an inborn sense of justice and truth in every child of God as he or she comes into mortality.” The natural man is also inborn into every child of God; furthermore, as each member of the Godhead and his legion of angels inspires man to do good; Satan and his legion inspires man to do evil.

In the beginning, Lucifer sought to take away agency of mankind with his opposing plan to Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation, and he still seeks to persuade man to not believe in their agency, for Ezra Taft Benson taught.

“Pride is essentially competitive in nature. We pit our will against God’s. When we direct our pride toward God, it is in the spirit of “my will and not thine be done.” As Paul said, they “seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.” (Philip. 2:21.)
Our will in competition to God’s will allows desires, appetites, and passions to go unbridled. (See Alma 38:12; 3 Ne. 12:30.)” Satan leverages the Natural Man as a tool to reign over us.

The most poignant thing about the Nature Man is our desires, appetites, and passions become dangerous because the Natural Man inspires man to accomplish these desires with the least amount of effort possible. I will share a few examples to explain myself. It may be tempting to rule over our relations with friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors with anger and fear. How much effort does it take to be angry? President Russell M. Nelson taught the following about anger:

“Anger never persuades. Hostility builds no one. Contention never leads to inspired solutions. Regrettably, we sometimes see contentious behavior even within our own ranks. We hear of those who belittle their spouses and children, of those who use angry outbursts to control others, and of those who punish family members with the “silent treatment.” We hear of youth and children who bully and of employees who defame their colleagues.
My dear brothers and sisters, this should not be. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are to be examples of how to interact with others—especially when we have differences of opinion. One of the easiest ways to identify a true follower of Jesus Christ is how compassionately that person treats other people.”

Sarcasm is another great example of the natural man. If someone needs to learn something, a sarcastic person would say the opposite thing to them. The first definition of sarcasm is “A cutting, often ironic remark intended to express contempt or ridicule.” The word comes from the Greek σαρκασμός (sarkasmós) which is taken from σαρκάζειν (sarkázein) meaning “to tear flesh, bite the lip in rage, sneer”. This does not sound wholesome. It sounds like this prophecy in Joseph Smith’s translation of Matthew 13 as follows:

“In that day, before the Son of man shall come, he shall send forth his angels and messengers of heaven. And they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them out among the wicked; and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

Relationships require effort. M. Russell Ballard taught that “Nurturing these important relationships is a choice. A choice to be part of a family requires commitment, love, patience, communication, and forgiveness. There may be times when we disagree with another person, but we can do so without being disagreeable. In courtship and marriage, we don’t fall in love or fall out of love as though we are objects being moved on a chessboard. We choose to love and sustain one another. We do the same in other family relationships and with friends who are like family to us.”

This is also an example of Satan trying to persuade us to not believe in our agency, choice, or covenants. Marriage and sealing covenants in the temple are not spontaneous moments of emotion. The process of the marriage courtship, preparation, and decision may be easy to forget as it may be a time of our lives long since past, but we need to remember our choices and covenants. They are eternal covenants executed between Heavenly Father and his mortal children.

Before I move on to another insight, I would implore you to retain your agency, and yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit. When an individual gives into the Natural Man, they explore the depths of wickedness, where many evil spirits entice you down paths that are limited in their choices or options. It is tempting follow the Natural Man because the achievement of our vain desires require the less effort, but it is very destructive. Let us hold to our true and valiant desires of eternal life and remember our covenants.

I will close with another insight that I learned from Ezra Taft Benson’s talk. This also relates to falling out of love and divorce. Pride divides, and humility brings unity. I will repeat myself as the simple sentence may be easily forgotten or not heard. Pride divides, and humility brings unity. It is easy to sense division. The “silent treatment” as Russell M. Nelson mentioned is a form of division. Whenever I see division in my life and family, I know that Satan is attempting to destroy my family and life, and I need to take action before my life and family spin out of my control. Ullises Soares expounded on this principle, saying the following:

“As disciples of the Prince of Peace, we have been instructed to live with “hearts knit together in unity and in love one towards another.” Our beloved prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, recently stated, “Contention violates everything the Savior stood for and taught.” Our prophet also implored that we do all we can to end personal conflicts that are currently raging in our hearts and in our lives.
Let us consider these principles in view of Christ’s pure love for us that we, as His followers, seek to have for one another. The scriptures define this kind of love as charity. When we think of charity, our minds usually turn to generous acts and donations to relieve the suffering of those who are experiencing physical, material, or emotional difficulties. Still, charity is not only related to something we donate to someone, but it’s an attribute of the Savior and can become part of our character. It is not surprising that the Lord instructed us to clothe ourselves “with the bond of charity, … which is the bond of perfectness and peace.” Without charity, we are nothing and we cannot inherit the place the Lord has prepared for us in the mansions of our Heavenly Father.”

I will close by testifying that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored by the Prophet Joseph Smith, and the priesthood authority has been conferred upon him by John the Baptist, Peter, James, and John. The power of God is truly manifest in priesthood ordinances and covenants. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

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The congregation received it greater than any of our other speeches. Many people came up afterwards expressing gratitude for our speeches.

2023.05.28

It has been a week since the Ogden Half Marathon, and Heavenly Father granted me according to my prayers. I said that feet pain may be unavoidable, but please bless me that my feet will not be injured. I worried about plantar fasciitis. On the Monday before the event, I did as I wrote two weeks ago, testing the strength of my feet as I hoped that my strength training paid off. My feet didn’t hurt, but they felt tired only after running three miles. I rested my feet for the entire week to ensure I felt well rested and my body is peak condition; however low that peak is in my physical fitness. On Monday, I counseled with my coworkers about preparation. The Vice President is actually an ultra marathon runner, and he recommended carb loading, starting the dinner two days and lunch one day before race. I told my coworkers that I intended to drink forty ounces of water before the race and carb load to be prepared. The carb load meal of choice was pizza because it has a lot of sodium to help me absorb and retain more water in my body. My coworker also recommended me to eat Honey Stinger Waffles, so I planned to eat them for breakfast. I followed my plan with exuberance.
Trevor was surprised that Jessica and I can both eat half of a sixteen inch pizza as we attempted to have a game night on Thursday night. I also ate a person nine inch pizza on Friday for lunch. I said that I would run the half marathon if I could carpool with my coworker. One offered a place to stay for the night before, but they both flaked on me or didn’t keep my agreement seriously. I asked another coworker for a ride, and he couldn’t take me either. I told my wife that I am not going to do another event like this again because it is too expensive. The race entry fee was about one hundred fifty dollars alone. Please I was compelled to get a hotel room because I needed to get my race bib the day before at an athletic expo, Jessica wanted to attend, and I didn’t think that I could prepare well physically and mentally before I race if I drove up the morning of. I also don’t want to figure out the maze to drive to the starting line with all the road closures the morning of the event.
Buses delivered athletes to the starting line beginning at four forty-five anti meridiem. I can’t sleep in the morning of events where I need to get up early. I woke up at three anti meridiem. I was able to find a hotel room the night before the event. My wife was surprised because I found a vegan restaurant very close to the finish line, and I walked from the restaurant looking for hotels. I purchased a bag of mini Honey Stinger Waffles because the bulk quantity was more affordable than buying the larger waffles. The calorie count was over seven hundred. Preparation appears to be very important to me in running events for a smooth race. I will probably write less about the race than I am about the preparation.
When I get up the morning of, I decided to drink water before I attempt to reduce my bowel load in the restroom. My water bottle was sixteen ounces, and my exuberance lead me to drink three bottles, totaling forty-eight ounces. At work when I drink forty ounces, I don’t feel too hydrated, so I embraced my exuberance. I didn’t want to run with my phone; plus, I retrieved a racing bib for my coworker. I didn’t want to leave for the starting line in the last minute as my coworker was expected to, so I planned to leave with the first wave of buses at four forty-five. I got dressed, wearing sweatpants and a cycling wind breaker because I knew that it was going to be cold in the morning and I knew that the weather would not be too hot. I rested and ate my Honey Stingers until I got Jessica to walk with me. I had Jessica give the race bib to my coworker, who was Isaac Gomez, who I probably mentioned previously and hung out with a number of times. The only object other than my clothes that I wore was my hotel key. I told Jessica to meet me at the finish line about nine anti meridiem. I gave my phones at the bus stop. Jessica and I left at four thirty to walk to the bus stop, and I drank another sixteen ounces of water, finishing my bag of Honey Stingers as we walked.
I was on the second bus to arrive at the starting area. As I sat on the bus, I felt that I needed to urinate. I peed about five times or more already at the hotel. It was good that I arrived with the first bus loads of people. I didn’t have to wait long in lines. It was getting a little ridiculous on the bus. When I arrived, I peed in a portable potty, and I walked straight into another one after. I don’t feel that I drank too much water; although, I urinated another five times at least at the starting area. I think that my carb loading and food that I ate prepared my body to retain hydration and nutrition despite the sixty four ounces of water that I drank before four forty-five anti meridiem. I walked around to keep warm at the starting area until the starting of the race. I saw all my coworkers, but I kept walking around making sure that I felt ready to race. I found the pace runner for the two hour finish, and I started with that group.
When the race started, I went out slow running with the pace group. I intended to run with them for about five miles at least, but I felt that the pace runner was running too slow, leaving them after two miles. I ran at about seventy percent effort. I was competing with myself as I later found out my coworkers of Ben Park and Telford Myers were also competing with myself. My competitive spirit had me run to each bend of the road. People may think that I am zigzagging, but I am actually reducing the distance of the course. If I ran on the outside or inside of the road the entire time, the distance that I ran would have been longer. I took it easy on the down hill. My average mile pace was eight thirty until my legs started feeling sore and fatigue about the ninth mile. I slowed down a lot. I didn’t attempt to take any water until about the eight mile, and I barely got a gulp of water from the cup. I did take gel from a military serviceman about mile five. When I slowed down, I thought that drinking Gatorade would help me, so I grabbed a few cups, but it didn’t help that much. There was a timer at the 11.9 mile mark, so the last mile felt extra long. It said one hour and forty-seven minutes, and I knew that I had a chance to break two hours. I didn’t have a kick. I didn’t walk the entire time except to drink Gatorade. I looked exhausted. My coworker said that I had a lean based on pictures. When I saw the finished line timer, I saw that I had about a minute approximately one hundred meters out for the finish. I speed up slightly to achieve my goal, and I crossed the finish line at 1:59.37 (one hour, fifty-nine minutes, and thirty-seven seconds).
I didn’t see him, but Ben Park came in after me about ten seconds, but his chip time was four seconds faster than mine. Jared Burton, our Vice President, was a “proud pop (or pup), seeing our results. Ben had to use the restroom a few times. Telford vomited about mile eleven after a failed attempt to eat a Guu, and Nathan got food poisoning of sorts. We all ran well. I think that my preparation allowed me to run without breaks, crossing the finish line first.

When I finished the race, I just went to restore my nutrition and electrolytes. I drank about four cups of Gatorade and ate probably three bananas & an orange. Jessica saw me snacking, and I caught up with her. She arrived in time to get a video of my finish as well as a picture. Jessica joined me in the festival, but I lost her. I walked around a little with the intention to wash my hands because a booth oddly had bread lathered with butter, which was not toasted, so it tasted off.
When Jessica and I found each other, I saw someone, pushing a child on a cart, wearing a shirt that said to vote for Chris Barragan for mayor of Ogden. I recognized the name, and I mustered what extra energy that I can to caught up to him. I never ran so much that I was extremely sore at the end of the event. Chris Barragan taught seminary when I attended high school in California. We exchanged numbers with the intention to catch up. His wife was with him, and Jessica was recognized too. The interaction was quick. I was too exhausted to be excited or naturally give him a hug. After showering in the hotel room and packing up, we went to Chris Barragan’s wife’s bakery, which is called Brookey Bakes. They were not available to meet or catch up, but we did eat their quiche.
My feet did not feel like they were injured which I was grateful for, yet they still hurt. My feet started to feel normal about last Friday about five days later. I walked around gingerly, struggling with soreness for a couple days, but all my coworkers recovered within a day or so because they stuck to a running program more than me. I needed to think out of the box for my preparation because my feet have gotten weak. I intend to continue running, but I don’t want to run another marathon; although, my ultra marathon Vice President challenged me to a race. A race is not worth paying five hundred dollars for.
In the evening of the marathon after a nap, Jessica and I went to Stake Conference. Stake conference as well as my scripture study and the Holy Ghost gave me the courage to stop playing Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel. My last day was not a good experience; maybe because I was not motivated to play. I lost a DLvl in the world championship finals qualifiers and a duelist rank. Jessica asked me about how to love someone, and I said that you spend time with them; embrace their goals, aspirations, and hobbies; as well as something like get to know them without judgment or expectations. Be interested in their life. Jessica has been suggesting that we go trail running until I find a beautiful scene to draw, which would be my dream profession. My goal is to practice digital art. I am attracted to digital painting. It appears to be an alternative path to digital art than the typical character drawing; although, I do like drawing people. My plan involves catching up on my blog, which seems random, but I also love writing. I have written a lot more than I have drawn in the past decade or more. I will post once a day until I am caught up because one post, covering more than one year, would be impossible process.

2023.01.08

I have made some notes on Whoop, so I will have some idea what happened over the past twenty days.
During the week before Christmas, I helped Isaac Gomez, who is my coworker, put together his deck for the draft tournament. This was a Monday. We didn’t play test the deck until the thirtieth. He learns quickly. He forgot to attack one round, which led to his loss probably.
On the Tuesday of that week, I updated Jessica and I’s draft decks. I recall begging Jessica to play a round with her deck, but she refused to play. I played a few rounds by myself.
On Christmas Eve we planned to go to a local Yu-Gi-Oh tournament, but Trevor wanted to move that weekend. We didn’t finish moving until after midnight. Trevor stayed the night, and we had Christmas together the next day.
On Christmas Day, I was set apart as the Assistant Ward Clerk over membership. The blessing was so simple that I can easily remember it. It was that I would have everything that I need and do my calling well.
Trevor joined us for church. It felt like a classic Hicken Christmas. I got all the cards that I considered using for my locals deck.
Trevor and I actually made it to a local Yu-Gi-Oh tournament on New Years Eve, but Trevor forgot his deck because we were in a rush after watching Avatar: the Way of the Water.
Jessica had a gift certificate for the movie theater, and it was hard to convince her to go watch the movie. We didn’t even end up using her gift certificate, but Avatar: the Way of the Water was a great movie, a very family oriented film. All the alien tribes were lead by a mother and a father. I think that the story was good, and the characters were well developed. We made sure to watch it in RealD to enjoy the cutting edge technology and graphics.
I worked all week on ratios and my side deck in preparations for locals. I transitioned to a new format, so I watched a lot of videos to learn of the Yu-Gi-Oh Trading Card Game format. I won my first match. I played against Dracoslayer with their new support. I lost the first duel, and my opponent surrendered the second round because I took control of his floodgate. In the third duel, we ran out of time on my turn. I won by summoning Vaylantz Genesis Grand Duke with Power Bond, giving him 5000 attack. He sided in an extra deck card to inflict a bunch of effect damage, and he tried to sneak in a win by doing a second turn of effect damage, but time ran out on my turn, so he gave me the win to me. I lost to Spright in the second round. It was my first time ever dueling Spright, so I played foolishly with my hand traps and so forth. The duelist was a great player who actually won a regional. I played Kashtira in the third round. I actually won the first duel! No one knew my deck, so people asked about it a lot. My opponent was a little intimidated by it because I played around his barrier statue flood gate. I had dimensional shifter in the past two matches, but I didn’t know when to use them. I finally used him in this round. In the second duel he locked me out of playing by limiting zones that I could use. We tied during the third duel.
My record was one loss, one won, and one tie. Kashtira is not full power yet, so it was not meant to be a competitive deck.
I cleaned Finley tank on New Years Eve. We were planning to go to sleep early because Trevor was partying with his Chic-fil-A coworkers, but we stayed up to 11:30 PM. I figured that we might as well stay up to see the new year. I used the last half hour of my year to clean his tank. The following week Finley looked as if he just wanted to be left to die. I would check on him every day. Finley’s death was not sudden. We saw it coming for a while. I found a good angle for his house, so he couldn’t hide. He died on Tuesday January third, 2023. I consulted his original own on his age, and he was about two and a half years old, so he didn’t die young.
I arranged a birthday celebration for Trevor Hicken with Joshua Day to meet on Thursday, but it was not well planned. I intended it to be a casual gathering, but it was a little too casual because I forgot to think about dinner; furthermore, we arrived late. Josh was not left without food because he brought pies. He made an exceptional key lime pie for Trevor. I was surprised that some other people planned to come. Isaac actually joined us. He played tested his deck against my wife and won. I helped Josh make a deck, which was actually functional. My wife’s draft deck was not functional the first time that I dueled Trevor with it.
I got the assignment to be an endowment officiator this month. I was a little rusty, making only one visible mistake.
Today was my first attempt to record attendance in the Millcreek 5th Ward as an Assistant Ward Clerk over membership. I met with the previous assistant ward clerk last Wednesday for a little training.
Oh. Jessica and I were running into many excuses to not go to CrossFit, and she rarely went anyways, so I convinced her that we should quit CrossFit. On Monday evening I purchased a open box laptop at Best Buy, which turned out to be mislabeled, so we had to go back the next evening. I was able to run on Wednesday. My body was so weak after the holiday season that I only had to do a thirty minute warm up jog to reach my optimal strain according to Whoop.

2023.01.15

This week was somewhat progressive. Life changes.
Some simple changes in my life has to do with Crypto assets. Since we are in a bearish season, I was looking into buying a Substrapunk, the CryptoPunks on Polkadot. I was also looking into my Kusama NFT. I was informed that my non-fungible token’s blockchain was upgraded, and my link to see the NFT quit working on my blog; in other words, I was exploring Polkadot/Kusama. The newly upgraded blockchain/website recommended an app to view my assets. It is called Nova. I am now able to see many of my assets on that app. I had to track my assets on the CoinMarketCap app before, manually putting my assets into the app, but Nova shows most of my Polkadot/Kusama assets natively without me entering them. I can only see my Kusama NFT in the Nova app; however, since my Nodle Cash assets quit updating on my work phone.
Last night I reinstalled the app, putting my wallet with the rest of my assets on the Nodle Cash app, and I am able to see the Nodle Cash NFT on the app from the Crowdloan. When I installed Nova app on my phone, I transferred my Nodle Cash assets, which I have been mining on my original wallet to my main Polkadot wallet. That is my Crypto quality of life update.
During Trevor’s birthday party the previous week, Jessica asked his about his future plans for the year. Trevor said that he would like to practice video editing, possibly making a profession out of it. I realized early last week that we can reboot the podcast, if Trevor does the video editing and runs the YouTube channel. I asked him, if he would like to do that. He said that all that he needed to do to reboot the podcast is set up his bed frame, which my coworker thought was an odd requirement.
Kyler is up to joining again. He has expressed several times that he misses the podcast. He posted on Twitter a cloud link to a podcast theme song, which he has been producing for me, but the link was not working when I get around to looking at Twitter.
I got the new Vaylantz support cards early last week. It changed my deck from an RNG deck to a search deck. I took out hand traps from my Yu-Gi-Oh Official Tournament deck from last year. It seemed to have so many more options. I dueled Trevor during the third round, and he was surprised that it took all six of his interruptions stop me. That duel was lame.
I dueled some high level decks like Tearlament, Spright, Ishizu during my first round and Sky Striker Runick during the second round. The second round is a little annoying because I realized that the duelist was ignoring some rules of Runick like skipping battle phases and the requirement to summon the Runick monster in the extra monster zone. I told him that he couldn’t summon the monster in the main monster zones, but he challenged me. The monster card didn’t say the requirement, so I didn’t have that text to back me up, but the spell says the requirement. I lost all three rounds. It seems that I need hand traps in this meta.
I sided cards for the first time, and I realized that I should just keep the cards that I sided in the main deck. I will have to test it this week. Trevor and I were considering how to upgrade my deck, and I think that I need to add more powerful extra deck monsters in my deck. A pure Vaylantz extra deck is not cutting it. I do have other extra deck monsters, but I didn’t intent to use them.

2023.03.05

It has been almost two months, and I finally am getting control of my life. It was a ironic because I helped Trevor move from Lindon to Lehi, and he misplaced his Nintendo Switch. He told me on Friday that he found his Switch at work; then, I replied that I actually decided to leave my Switch at work because it is too distracting at home. On Saturday nights I would get home late even after midnight after a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament and hanging out with Trevor. I got tired of my exhausted dysfunctional lifestyle, deciding on a new one.
One odd situation happened a couple weeks ago when I arrived super late on a Saturday night though. When I was driving into the parking garage, a sister drive in behind me. I turn out of the path to let her pass, but she parked in the spot next to mine. She got out asking for help because she was trying to help her friend, but the friend is not answering the phone to let her in. I told her that I can help her, but you would need to move to another parking spot because I can’t park with her parked next to my parking spot because I drive a work truck. The story is simple after that. I just took her up the elevator and dropped her off on the floor of the friend. It appears that my late life had a purpose.
Yesterday Trevor and I went to West Jordan to play Yu-Gi-Oh, and I debuted my new deck there, and a Branded Despia player had to Ra’s Disciple me to secure his win. He was afraid of losing. People started watching, and one guy said that he knew that I was playing Dinomorphia. Only they would play so much Solemn cards. They asked me to reveal my set cards, revealing my Dinomorphia Frenzy. I would have won, if he didn’t snipe my Solemn Warning.
After the tournament a couple friends surprisingly wanted to duel us. Trevor debuted his new deck; although, the friend wanted to rematch his old Marincess deck. I bought my Psychic End Punisher last night. I dueled a Dragon Link guy who had two side engines that he used to defeat me, since I didn’t let him use his main Rokket Dragon cards. He was afraid is Rexterm too, but he sided in a spell that destroyed my win condition.
Serving in the temple last Friday was nice. There has been a lot of changes in the temple recently, and I am learning the changes of the initiatory this month. The words of the clothing ordinance is very different, but the phrase “who is dead” has been removed from all the ordinances, which is a hard habit to stop, since I had used it for more than ten years.
February was my last month, training as an endowment officiator, but the endowment was changed too, so our training has been basically thrown out. I was performed well as an officiator in January until the last week when an elderly woman fell. Several people rushed to her as I stood back listening to her if additional help is needed. The sister of the witness couple was a nurse and sat down quickly after assessing her. Her husband did the same. The elderly woman had two granddaughters, comforting her after we restarted the session. We completed the session, and the husband wanted to be expedited through the veil. My assistant previous asked me if I thought that we should call for help, and he left to get help. The trained security team went to assess her in the celestial room. I was informed after that I acted in error because not calling for help did not represent the church well. It was interesting because we recently had a levels emergency training a couple weeks ago, and the temple president’s training did not match. He said that if we can manage the situation it is level 1. If we can’t manage it, it is level 2, and security should be called. I heard from a distance that the elderly woman had a condition, but I wasn’t told directly and I didn’t discern the words spoken at a distance. There has been some emotional difficulty processing these experiences of transition and training. I believe this not serious fall of the elderly woman was an important part of my training. I can’t trust that the pedestrian assessment was accurate, and I should have called the trained professionals. I don’t feel too bad for letting the elderly woman fall because the temple president candidly said that during the day during a winter a couple weeks ago, they struggled to open the temple, and everyone, attempting to prepare it, fell; furthermore, the heavy machinery operator fell off the machine, breaking his collarbone.

2023.03.26

I appear to only have a few stories from the last entry for the past couple months, but they were informative. The two main things that I can write about, adding to the last entry summarizing two months, are the following: JWright’s 2023 Las Vegas Trip, and my ministry to the Millcreek 5th Ward. You can tell that I talk about more important things to talk about when I summarize months compared to a couple weeks. I wrote a list above, but I will delete it. The intend to write about the following to get caught up for this entry: my new less distracted routine; adult prom; my attempt to prepare for visit my grandparents, who recently was put in a rest home; my minor cold; my aspirations to be a content creator, being cut down again; and ordering my Dinomorphia side deck with the TCG Player app.
The changes to the temple ordinances were implemented when I was in Las Vegas for the JWright Company trip. I didn’t mind throwing out all my endowment officiator training because I was rightfully about to watch the beautiful changes in the endowment as an assistant to the officiator. Some ordinance workers were just attending the session without doing proxy work.
The JWright Vegas Trip was fun. We arrived on Wednesday. Jessica joined us, and we were driven to our hotel in a limousine. We had a 15 dollar room allowance to buy food. After dropping off our stuff in our room, all we did is find a place to eat where we can use our allowance. We just ate at a burger place. Jessica wanted to get selfie in front of a cool sign, but it was lite, and the lighting didn’t work for pictures or at least our cameras.
Thursday was the training. We attended a training for about six hours. I basically did the same thing as last night, deciding to get breakfast at a hotel own place. I got a Danish pastry and a slice of pizza. I thought that it would be easy to find the training hall, not giving myself enough time. Jessica joined me last minute for breakfast, and was running to my training located in an unintuitive location. My boss called me to direct me.
I seem to be part of the show because there was a form to fill out and a bingo. I said that I hoped that the Las Vegas Raiders were going to win the Super Bowl that weekend, and two bingo squares had to do with me. One required them to beat me in a foot race, and the second required them to buy me a Las Vegas trinket. I only had to race one person. They were hoping to have me race multiple people to race me tired. I got two Las Vegas trinkets at the company dinner. At the training, they read a couple fun forms to get to know people, and mine was one of them. The company dinner was very nice. I sat across from Gary Hicken. I was finally able to have a good conversation with him after working at JWright for two and a half years. I sat next to Breck and his wife, who said that he mentions me a lot. There was a salad buffet, and meat was served Brazilian style. After dinner, we stayed up late, watching the Uncle Drew movie. I would rate it a seven entertainment wise. It seems that seven is universally known as average. The story was good but shallow. The character development was good.
Friday was chill. The company bonded over Top Golf. We took the long route walking to the place, and I stopped to see a man standing with one leg and a crutch. I was going to donate to him money because I had five dollars cash on me. He was actually raising money to build a local Buddhist temple. He gave me two bracelets, asking for ten dollars, but I only had five dollars. We arrived late at Top Golf because the GPS was confusing, but we walked in with Isaac. We coincidentally walked to a crosswalk at the same time. I surprised him. Jessica was resistant to play at first. I only got one good swing. I had to persuade her diligently, and I finally got her to play with a compromise. I realized that there are targets very close to the line of fire, so I told her to try to chip shot the ball at the close targets. She finally agreed to it. She did so well that she beat me in points, and she started aiming for further targets. After Top Golf Jessica and I worked on completing some of the bingo squares. We went to the Bellagio Fountain and their botanical garden. That’s about it for the trip.
My ministering companion is Tanner Short, who is actually the nephew of Kevin Short that served with me in Jamaica. It took us several months, but we finally get something rolling. We mainly serve two people. Sister Thompson is a beloved mother of an active son in the ward, who I am good friends with. She said that she would like to go to the grocery store to buy flowers, since her groceries are typically delivered to her; however, when I asked her if she would like the go later in the week, her reply was “why?” I am still working on a time to take her out. She is about the age of my grandparents. The Magalhães are a faithful young couple in their late twenties on the path to careers at a university. We are still working on organizing a group date. One was planned for this weekend, but the patriarch did not confirm until the day of, and I am recovering from a cold. I seem to be caught up as of last entry. I will get to this entry’s topics.
My new routine is working well. I only play Nintendo Switch on the treadmill as I work out after work. It worked out well for the first week, but the Duelist Cup is happening, which had me stay later than usual, and I set off the alarm as I left. At least it doesn’t keep me up late at home.
Joshua and Martha Day invited us to go to an adult prom, and it coincidentally coincided with Jessica and I’s seventh anniversary. The pictures that we got from the photographer are not social media worth or worth to be viewed by other people, so this lowly blog may be the only place where they are published. They show that I was able to convince Jessica is try cane rows. We arrived ninety minutes late, and there was a raffle. Everyone got a minimum of one ticket, and we had an advantage to win. Seeing everyone entries, we chose the least filled jar for the highest probability to win. When we met up with Josh and Martha, we told them our strategy. Martha cheered for us, when the raffle was announced, and she called it correctly. Jessica would have felt more nervous, if Martha did not cheer for us. She was grateful for her. If anyone, reading this, knows how I participated in dances from my youth, you would be surprised that I looked like a normal person on the dance floor. Martha and Josh are my witnesses. You can ask them about it if you don’t believe me. I can only dance if I am following Jessica because she loves dancing. Martha attempt to inform me that my grandparents were put in a care facility, but I told her that I am intending to get updated on my vaccines before I visit them.

I have been feeling the possibility that I may be getting sick for a few weeks. Ordinance workers have many very close interactions with people. I am exposed to many people. I will write about my ambitions, but one reason that it was shut down is because I got sick. The senior project manager returned from a vacation on Monday, and he called in sick the next day; then, I got a fever that night.
I realized this past week that I had a good opportunity as Battle Spirit Saga was launching in the United States. The launch event was in Las Vegas. The opportunity is that I wanted to start a card game media business, being a founding YouTuber of Battle Spirit Saga. I had to let it go because my team was not united. I was going to create the content. Trevor was going to do the video editing, and Jessica was going to run the social media channels. She agreed to it, but she wanted me to tell her what to spell out everything for her to post. A social media business requires a lot of work, and each member of the team need to pull their weight. I didn’t want to drag Jessica along in the business, so I had to let the opportunity go. It appears that many husbands may have to let go of their ambitions, when they are married to conservative wives. My business was going to be called Dragonbolt Gaming. The cold that I developed was the nail in the coffin for my Battle Spirits Saga YouTube idea.
On Thursday night I had idea to convert my Dinomorphia into a Counter Fairy deck because the deck is horrible when time is running out in a Yu-Gi-Oh match. Counter Fairies can nullify the life point cost of counter trap; furthermore, they can give me life points, when I activate counter traps. By the way, whoever has the most life points when time runs out in a match wins. I downloaded the TCG Player app, ordered the cards, and established a card selling business there called Dragonbolt Gaming. Yesterday I logged in all the cards that I think has value above ten cents; although, it took all day. I only have one card that has potential to be a good sell within a few months.

2022.10.23

This week marks a change in my work relationships. It is nothing big, but I have squeaky shoes, which helped me be identified as I walk around. This is nice because I am very quiet, and I can sneak up on people and surprise them by accident. I have had these shoes for about two years, and the shoes are starting to hurt my feet. I bought new shoes yesterday. They may need to give me a little bell to carry around, so I don’t surprise people. One of my many nicknames is Squeaky.
The shoes that I got are of the Xero brand. Jessica discovered the company. It helps her because shoes are typically made too thin for feet. She highly recommends them. She thought that I can only buy them online, but I found them at REI.

2022.11.04

I finally made the invitations. They are personal, so they were not digital and generic. My little brother and I were thinking of having a Yu-Gi-Oh Tournament for our birthdays because we have been playing Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel for most of the year. The reception is good so far. I realized that Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel is hard to get into as my coworker is enthusiastic about it, but he hasn’t gone very deep in the game; therefore, I bought a card pool of one thousand cards last night, so we will all be on a level playing field depending of deck building skills. The tournament may extend to the following month.
I need to start writing notes on each day as reminders of my days on my Whoop app again because I remember having a lot to write about a couple weeks ago, and I missed last week.
I joined the Stake Choir last week. The chorister is very professional. We decided to hang out with Trevor on another day of the week other than Sunday to get to sleep at a better time. We hung out with Trevor Friday night since the temple is closed for maintenance. We played a game that he bought a long time ago. It is called Trails.

2022.11.27 Thanksgiving

It appears that I missed a week. All I remember about the week before last is that I delivered Finley, our fish to Trevor, and he helped me organize the Yu-Gi-Oh cards for our birthday tournament, staying up late, because he pre-ordered the new Pokemon game. The pick up time at GameStop was ten post meridiem.
I finished entering all the cards into a spreadsheet yesterday. Jessica was worried that we would only received eight hundred cards because the package had two boxes that said four hundred count. We ordered one thousand cards, and the final count is over one thousand one hundred.
Jessica and I are visiting my parents for Thanksgiving. They took us out to eat Friday and Saturday afternoons. We went to a Hawaiian restaurant on the Santa Cruz Wharf, which is called Makai. My stomach did not like the food, and I chose a mediocre dish. I don’t like it when a dish is defined by a sauce, and I fell for the trick again. I wanted a Tamarind dish, but the tamarind was resigned to a sauce in a small cup. I have a pet-peeve about American food defining or depending on sauces to be appetizing.
I ate barbecue from R&R a few months ago at work, tasting the meat without the sauce to see if it would have a good texture and flavor, but it didn’t. The texture of the meat was actually better the next day after microwaving it, eating it with the barbecue sauce. I told my coworkers about it, and they thought that I was odd for disdaining American food (Aren’t you American?). I was raised by a Thai mother, who put a lot of effort into flavoring a dish; furthermore, she would be offended if someone would modify the flavor of the dish by a sauce like barbecue sauce.

I enjoy receiving a well thought out dish that is presented well and is eaten without jumping through hoops. For example, the dish that I received at Makai was half pulled pork with a sauce. The other half was rice in the shape of a cup, some macaroni and cheese, and the Tamarind sauce in a small cup. I had to jump through hoops, and my family was wondering about my method of eating. First of all, I had to eat the macaroni and cheese because I couldn’t mix the rice and the pulled pork together, since the plate was full of food; then, I had to eat half of the pulled pork because the ratio of rice and pulled pork would be odd. Also mixing the pulled pork and rice was odd because their texture and shape didn’t match; then, after all this hassle; then, I could pour the sauce on the food, which barely tasted like Tamarind. The dish is not presented, thought out, or flavored well.
Trevor made me a Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, and it was an example of a well thought out dish. Large mushrooms were cut into long slices to match the long asparagus. The steps to eat the meal was not an obstacle course.
On Saturday my parents took Judy and I for our birthdays to Phil’s Fish Market. It recently moved to Castroville. We actually like the new location. It feels more “homey” and personable. The quality of food is the same too.
One thing that was unique about Makai is that they had the floor rotating about the bar.
After eating at Phil’s Fish Market, I received a voice mail from a stake high council member, and he said that he wanted to talk to me concerning a stake calling. When I told Jessica, I faked fainted for fun. She is excited to hear about the new calling. She looks forward to the vacation ending. Our bishop did say that God had something great in mind for me during Tithing Declaration.
The Hicken Thanksgiving had normal Thanksgiving foods. We also had guests which was nice.

2022.12.11

I finally started taking daily notes in my Whoop app this week as I wrote that I should many times. This week was actually note worthy, but I don’t really remember the previous week well. Let me try to recall it.
The previous week was my preparation for my birthday. We flew home on Wednesday. My mother loves shopping for us, so we can have what we need. Jessica and I don’t really shop for ourselves. Many of my clothes this past year have been deemed unwearable. I had only five sets of tops to wear for a while, and I ripped my second warm winter jacket recently after hanging out with Jesse Kaupert.
Jesse has been inviting me to go bowling, but the first time that I met with him he hurt his toe, so we just caught up at the BYU Dairy. I took the train down to Provo because I didn’t want to deal with the snow. Jesse drove me back to the train station. We had a funny moment with Apple maps.
It lead us to a wrong way. The road appeared a little sketchy, but we drove down it. There may have been a second sign that made it funny, but there was a sign that said that we go down to Christmas light display, a haunted house or something, making the moment feel like a start to a suspense film.
When we arrived at the train station, I saw that the train was sitting there. I ran, so I won’t miss. As I jumped off a curb, I didn’t know that its height was taller than normal curbs, and I fell on my face. It was good that I had a beard, so the scrap on my chin was not noticeable. My jacket was torn from the fall, if you don’t remember why I went on this tangent.
I worked on making a spreadsheet, listing all the cards for my Yu-Gi-Oh draft tournament birthday party. I found out that probably no one looked at it, but I got the most use out of it. My final draft of the deck worked as intended, comparing it to my original deck plan. I worked on it as if it was my full-time job during Thanksgiving.
The flight home was good. I got no stories for that, but Jessica and I played Sudoku. She made suggestions on a puzzle that I would not have finished as the flight was coming to a conclusion. I checked the correct answers, and she was correct.
When I got home, I went to work with not much to do, and my Vice President told me that I have to rework a Trimble model. He explained to me how he would like it to be reworked, and I know that he has been wanting models to be done a specific way, but the previous Trimble model person ignored his method. He was very happy that I finally am practicing his way, since the other person was doing their method for years. My Vice President is not overbearing. Be believes in self-discovery. If his workers don’t understand him, he won’t pound it into them. Last Wednesday or so I concluded my day with applause because I completed the model how he instructed me. I got a “medal” for my good work, and he said that I am the “employee of the week.” We don’t have employee of the month or week officially.
When we pick up Finley, our fish, from Trevor, I was concerned because it didn’t look like he was eating. When I was cleaning his tank, I saw a lot of his food left over. Jessica discovered that his activity may be low because he is cold. These fish are from Southeast Asia, and their room temperature is between 75 and 80 degrees. Our heater doesn’t work, so I wrapped the tank with a warm blanket at nights, and it actually helps keep the water warm. Finley is doing better, moving around more. I haven’t seen him eat yet though.
I haven’t wrote about how we acquired the fish. My coworker’s children were not getting along with it, so he brought it to work. My boss doesn’t like the fish smell, and he told him to get rid of it. Since he wasn’t going to bring it home again, he offered it to me.
My “stake calling” is to be an assistant ward clerk. There is typical two assistant Ward clerk one over finance and the other is over membership. I went to Sacrament; although, I had a fever and a runny nose to stand as I was being sustained, but I wasn’t sustained.
Jessica is currently at the Stake Christmas Devotion to sing, since we participated in the stake choir. It actually starts in about thirty minutes. I am not singing in the choir tonight because as I said; I am sick.
In the temple last Friday, I read first Nephi chapter nine. The last verse is very powerful to read. It says that Heavenly Father “hath all power unto the fulfilling of all his words.”* I actually wrote a note last week during fast Sunday, which is applicable to this segment. ‘Heaven Father’s work is based on the faith of Man.’ Heavenly Father knew that people/Satan would seek to destroy the work of publishing/translating the Book of Mormon, so Heavenly Father asked Nephi to write another more spiritual oriented record of his people. This record was used to replace the lost manuscript of the Book of Mormon, ensuring that the book cannot be proven to be the work of man, for the lost record could be shown to contradict a retranslation if it is altered.
Oh! I have another story about losing my iPhone. My mom gave us some string backpacks, and I thought that it would be useful to carry our workout shoes to not track dirt and water into our CrossFit gym. I have learned previously that string backpacks can tear easily, but I trusted these brand new ones. When I arrived home from the gym, I found that my backpack was torn, and my phone fell out of the torn part of the backpack. I thought that I was dumb because I turned it off. I couldn’t find it with the “find my” notifications. I turned off my phone because my battery was no high, and it runs out quickly. The phone being turned off seems to be inspired of God because someone found it the next day in some weeds. I think that the situation was intended to bless her too. When she turned on the phone, my work phone was notified that my phone was located, and I called my phone. I told her to call my wife, whose phone number I put on the phone. In the conversation of my wife and her texts, she revealed that she was broke, and she would like a reward of forty dollars. I was fine with that. It seems like she needed it. My wife met her at the local library, retrieving the phone. My phone would have died if I left it on.
I realized that I didn’t write about the actual birthday party. It was a little frustrating because Trevor wanted to do a day’s worth of work within the time of the party while I was reviewing Yu-Gi-Oh with people. He wanted to replace cards that were unusable and buff archetypes. Trevor can be stubborn, so I was a little passive aggressive to express my perspective. We would not have completed the draft, if my friend had not had more people skills than me. He rounded everyone up to sleeve cards and get the drafted started. We were barely able to complete draft. I put together my deck.

My people skill friend is named Michael Flindt. We did a exhibition duel to show people how to play, and I lost during that duel, playing Marincess. If I knew the deck, I would have won, but I only played the deck once in Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel. Michael played his deck, which was almost ten years old. He put his draft deck together, and we dueled. I won. Austin Lopez, my half brother-in-law, chose a card that I wanted, and he gave it to me for my birthday. White Night Dragon was the card, which inspired my deck, and my deck functions as I planned. Michael played an Umi deck.
Yesterday Trevor and I play tested our draft decks, and his deck appeared to be a functioning combo deck, and I lost. I played him again a second time, and I won against him with my dragon deck. He is playing a Fabled/Naturia deck with a small Krawler engine.

2022.06.26

Almost two months has gone by. I think that our life was so busy because Jessica and I had a calling to teach in the Primary. Jessica actually got a new calling in the local church ward’s Young Women’s Presidency. Since she has a new calling, I call myself a retired substitute primary teacher. Life is simple somewhat.
I have been missing some of my church meeting the last couple weeks because I actually catch COVID-19. I didn’t know that I was sick with it until Wednesday the eighth of June. All my life I was lead by the example or expectation to go the school and work everyday. I actually never missed a day of school through K-12. I took some online quizzes to learn about myself last Friday because I was feeling foolish and unintelligent, since I got four other very important roles of the company that I work sick. We all worked remotely for a couple weeks. I learned that I am not a fool in the quizzes.
I don’t like IQ scores because it defines intelligence to narrowly and specific, when one’s intelligence is individual and different for each one of us. IQ scores measure how fast people can learn, and it doesn’t measure aptitude, logic, or if they can live a thriving functioning lifestyle.
Kyler is active still making music. He shared with me some of his work recently. I am happy that I purchased him a PC. I wish that everyone would have the opportunity to practice their passions.
I am thinking of resuming the Your Friends in the Gospel podcast, since I don’t have to prepare Primary lesson, but the last couple nights were late ones.

2022.07.03 Fourth of July Weekend

This week has had a focus on preparing or planning for the Fourth of July. I was asked what I will be doing for the holiday weekend during our weekly estimating meeting on Monday. I said that I intend to watch Top Gun: Maverick.
We did watch Top Gun: Maverick yesterday evening. Jessica said that the original is a 7 out of 10, and the new film is a 9. I think that everything is great in the film; characters, story, action, and the ending wasn’t too short.
I have a story. I was feeling a lack of purpose on Friday evening. I only live for other people, which is fine. Serving at the temple, I was told that I was not needed at a veil, and I was also told that I was not needed for my next assignment as an initiatory worker because there were not enough patrons, so I had an hour to kill. In my sad state, I was walking up to the level of the temple where the veil ordinance is performed, when I realized that I haven’t explored the sealing level of the temple. The Jordan River Temple is unique because the sealing rooms are on the second floor, when they are usually on the third level. I walked around viewing the sealing rooms and the paintings. I heard a sealer performing sealing ordinances, but I couldn’t hear the words very clearly. I wanted to hear the words to remember them. When I was near the end of my exploration, I visited the sealing office, and I met a sister, who asked what I was doing. I told her my situation, and she said that I might be able to serve as a witness. Two couple came with sealing ordinances to perform for family, and neither of them were sure whether they were going to be able to perform them because they needed a witness. I love serving at the temple because following the spirit is easier there than in the world. I was told three times on Friday evening that I was not needed for ordinance work, but these two couples needed me. I was asked to baptize a boy recently named Lincoln, and I write in a note to him to seek to follow the spirit because you will bless people in ways that you don’t expect or intend to. I was able to listen to the sealing ordinances, and I was reminded to counsel and labor with my wife, and preside in my family with righteousness and genuine love.

2022.07.24

These past few weeks have been the same as usual. I am still playing Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel with Trevor. Yesterday was my grandfather’s 95th birthday, and I hung out with Trevor on the way home to Murray from Heber City at Lindon. He recently got a lot of powerful water monsters, so he might look making a deck with it. I can write a lot about Yu-Gi-Oh, but there are more knowledgeable and skilled people, playing the game. My comments are meaningless.
The Fourth of July was nice. Joshua Day loves Pokemon, the trading card game, and we were able to play with his decks. Martha Day was enthusiastic about teaching Jessica; although, they expressed disinterest previously. Trevor grilled Beyond Meat burgers, and we provided the condiments and buns. After we enjoyed firecrackers.
My coworker quit the estimating department, so I have to do all the quantity take offs. We were asked to bid a project that is very difficult mainly because the drawings don’t make it convenient. Most of my coworkers are taking tomorrow off of work as it is Pioneer Day today, but the difficulty of the bid is forcing me to work tomorrow.
This past week was hard because of Jessica’s depression and related afflictions, and Friday was a sad day for me. When I served in the temple, I was asked to participate in a prayer circle. Prayer circles are special prayers, but they are very similar to a normal one. They are done at the conclusion of an endowment session. The main reason that they are special is because we have prayer rolls that people submit names to pray for who are sick or otherwise inflicted. I always put Jessica’s name on the prayer rolls. When I participated in the prayer circle, I cried because my efforts appeared to be in vain, and how can I ever be comforted if Jessica is committed to her weaknesses. The experience at the temple seemed to be an answer to my prayers because things stabilized over this weekend. I try to write very tactfully, but she will not like me mentioning her. This is why I don’t write much about Jessica.
I participated in Primary as a substitute teacher for the first time. The Primary has improved a lot. Singing time was an incredibly planned session. My participation in the class was minimal.
Grandpa’s birthday was chill. He can barely see or hear. It was nice to catch up with my uncles. One of my coworkers in the temple knows Bruce. I mainly caught up with Glennalee’s family. I represented the family of David because Trevor was working, and Jessica was participating in Young Women’s’ baptism. She fearlessly accepted the role to play piano during the time that the girls were getting dressed after their baptisms.
She has grown a lot, since I met her. It took me more than a year to convince her to join a ward choir. She is even driving on highways comfortably. She wants to drive me to see her grandmother in Saint George all by herself. She has grown a lot, yet she has a lot more improve in her life.

2022.08.07

Today is a fast Sunday. I hope that I will have time to record a podcast today, but I want to write about the past few weeks. I mainly want to write about this week. As I have said previously Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel, the video game, is an activity similar to my old podcast with Trevor to keep a close relationship with him; however, it keeps my life consistently unnotable in an eternal sense.
My last 3D takeoff did not pass the smell test, so I hope that my 3D quantity takeoffs at work are accurate. Work has been slightly more stressful since my coworker quit the estimating department. I hope that my work maintains the accuracy as before; although, I am doing the 2D and 3D takeoff for each project now.
The topic that I want to write about is my service as an ordinance worker. I am not writing to brag, but I am writing to express my faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The main focus of my work has mainly been in the initiatory. I treat each ordinance as if I am performing it for someone that has never experienced the ordinance before, for the spiritual person of which the proxy work is performed for is there, and I want them to have an instructive edifying experience. The initiatory ordinance may an unknown or obscure because it is most intense. The entire presentation depends on the ordinance workers unlike the endowment ordinance; although, the endowment is a more intense experience for the patron. I was told many times that I did a good job yesterday in the initiatory, but the peak of my experience was my service for a young man. He seemed unsure of himself, but the instructive nature of the ordinance, which I embodied, made him sure of himself and the ordinance; I believe. When I concluded, confirming the anointing for a final time for him in his proxy work, I had a moment with him. He stood up, shook my hand, and said thank you. The sincerity of a moment that he found to express gratitude can be easily be forgotten or seem unnecessary in the typically rote nature of the ordinance. I don’t know if I should progress to be an endowment officiator, but I seem to be an initiatory specialist. It seems that God recognizes it, and keeps me working in the initiatory, which I also appreciate. Every person that participated in the session of initiatory said that I did a good job.
Last week was Jessica’s birthday in which I actually planned a party for. I made a slight mistake, so the surprise was less. When Jessica witnessed the communication of the mistake, she said that she was surprised. It was supposed to be a guacamole party, where guest brought guacamole, and I also made guacamole, but no one made or bought guacamole. The guacamole that I made was eaten before the party since Jessica didn’t know to save it. Hayley Lopez, Jessica’s half sister, wanted to thrift shop for Jessica, so my plan to surprise Jessica was not going to be typical. Hayley was going to reserve our attendance at home, so we don’t go out and about doing chores by saying that she has a gift to give her at the time of the birthday party. Annah Ledesma, Jessica’s cousin, suppose to come slightly earlier, and say that wanted to catch up since she is local, but she was late. She, asking to catch up, suppose to get us to be in the lounge because Jessica would refuse to let anyone in our messy apartment. I told Annah to ask if we could meet in a lounge, which I reserved, when she refuses. Two families, who said that they would come, had things come up. It was a good thing that Martha and Josh Day came on time. Annah coming up was the only real surprise. She came with no-bake cookies, and we played a bowling type game, which she played before, so she obviously beat everyone. The intention was to go dancing after but we didn’t end up going; however, we did have a delightful time catching up with Annah at a restaurant after the guacamole party without guacamole. It was more like a nacho party. Trevor Hicken, my little brother, joined us at the Indian restaurant. Annah had such a good time that she invited us over for a movie or game night, but it was late.

I will now compose my thoughts on Repentance on the next segment of my series of podcast episodes, explaining the principles and ordinances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Hi,
I am Alex Hicken, the Host of the Your Friends in the Gospel Podcast. This episode is the second of the series, explaining the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as listed in the fourth article of faith.

“We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

Repentance is simply the process of developing Godly holy attributes. There are many steps and commandments to practice, and it can be intimidating to consider changing your perspective and lifestyle. Forming my thoughts for the podcast last night, a question came to mind. Is it worth it?

One thing that I love about repentance is that it involves forgiveness of one’s mistakes. I don’t know how I would live with the guilt of my sin without the healing power of the forgiveness of God.

The life that one has before practice the Gospel of Jesus Christ may be completely different, but it will be a life of communion with God. A person, practicing the Gospel, will have a close relationship with Heavenly Father, and he will prepare a blessed happy life for the individual. The difficulty of life is still apparent, but your perspective, lifestyle, and life preparation will be much more resilient.

The blessings and happiness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are only a sample of the Eternal Life’s fullness of joy. The life that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ is preparing for us in the eternities is beyond mortal comprehension.

I considered the question “Is it worth it?” because Satan is trying to make the world so distracting and attractive that we forget the possibility of true joy, which is found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am not saying that your life is not joyful. Human life is designed to be happy, but there can be more joy in life, when one practices life after the manner that the designer of life intended, and a life led by God can also bring opportunities that one cannot conceive because Heavenly Father is above all things.

Jesus Christ made it possible for us to be forgiven and guilt free by consecrating his life to the will of Heavenly Father. His plan was for Jesus Christ to be a mediator for men because they are a fallen people. They cannot be resurrect as immortal people or be forgiven; unless, Jesus Christ obtains the power over death in the time of earth, and he atones for the sin of all mankind. Jesus Christ did fulfill his mission on Earth.

The ordinance part of the principles and ordinances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ qualify us to have the mediator to Heavenly Father at the last day. Repentance is required to prepare for “baptism by immersion for the remission of sins [and] laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

On judgement day, man h

2022.09.11

Another month has passed by. Life should be considered private, but my life has become more stable. I have been writing about my boring life without the podcast, but it has actually been unstable for some time. It has become more stable because my wife is more consistent than previously.
I have a few temple stories. When I was presenting at the veil, I saw a sister, a fellow ordinance worker, with a name tag, saying Jamie Burgon. I grew up with Brad Burgon, being a relative as he is my father’s second cousin. I also served with him when he was the branch president at the Ocean YSA Branch. It turned out that Brad is her uncle.
About a month ago, a brother recognized me as Thomas, my older brother. He was his home teacher.
I have been meeting with a brother for a month just naturally eating dinner before our shift. I am being trained to officiate endowment sessions, and the shift coordinators were inspired to have the brother that I have been developing a friendship over the dinners to be my mentor and trainer to officiate endowment session in the Jordan River Temple.
I have another good friendship with a coworker in the temple. He fostered a child, and he is in a situation that he might lose the son, if they choose not to adopt his newborn sister, who was born with tumors on her heart and brain due to the mother’s drug use. He wants some assurances from God on a decision to adopt or some assurances of her health from the doctors. I asked him on Saturday, if he considered giving her priesthood blessing. He hadn’t. I bore testimony that God knows what is going on with her, and he can guide him in a Priesthood blessing. He took the discussion to heart. I put her name on the temple prayer rolls, hoping that she will have the opportunity to live a fulfilling life.

2022.09.25

Somethings worth writing about from the past couple weeks is that Jessica has had a focus on attending the temple, and we finally made it yesterday. I rarely feel the Holy Ghost actually burn in my heart, but I did during the endowment session that we attended.
I am actually being trained to be an endowment officiator. This process is actually very formal and good. I feel like it is a calling, which I will fulfill like a sealer the next six months or so. The first three months are training; then, the following three months the newly trained officiators are mentors.
I watched the officiator very closely, and he did very well. I was able to watch especially close because Jessica and I were the witness couple. We have never been a witness couple before.
I have tried to go to sleep early the past week, but there is always something going on compelling me to go to sleep late. I also want to rest and prepare for general conference this coming weekend.

2022.10.09
The past two weeks has had a more spiritual focus somewhat. I wrote last time that I have been “called” or assigned to be an endowment officiator. Last Friday was my first time officiating in a few years. It went well. I didn’t mess up anything meaningful. My mentor helped me occasionally.
General conference was last weekend. I always have a goal to try to stay awake the entire time, but I failed at that this session. I was successful at that last conference though. On Sunday I planned, and we prepared three meals. I cooked pancakes for the first time. I left my bread yeast at Trevor’s place, so I couldn’t bake bread today. Another goal that I have is to review the current General Conference speeches before the next conference, and I always fail at doing so, but I just started the goal anew. Materializing my intention, I am inspired to follow an invitation from a talk in church recently. In the Gospel Library app, there is an option to make a plan or a “goal,” and I am now off to a good start.
I am happy to say that I have been able to keep up with the “Come, follow me” literature curriculum. This is incredible for me because I haven’t been able to keep up with literature curriculums most of my life, since I have struggled with reading disabilities or dyslexia.
The third volume of “Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” came out recently. These books are amazing. I have read/listened to the previous two, and I am going to begin reading the third as I wait for my wife to conclude her Young Women’s presidency meeting.

2022.10.16

My focus this past week was preparing for my officiating of the six forty post meridiem endowment session of the Jordan River Temple. My goal was go to sleep earlier to be rested, ready, and awake during the session since there are times when the patrons are watching a film in the dark. As I attempted to go to sleep earlier, I prayed that I can have the spirit of God as I officiated to represent him well, and that the company may feel his love.
The session went well. One person thanked me for a good session, and another person thanked me for the prayer that I gave. The officiator’s assistant used to say the prayer, but the officiator does everything now. The shift coordinator stopped me later, telling me that my prayer was so enlightening or comforting that a patron told him about it. He had a good cry when he was touched by the Holy Ghost. I am not saying this to brag. I am just recording my life in my journal. I didn’t do anything of myself to be impressive. I sought to follow the spirit in the prayer, and the Spirit of God was doing his work on the patrons, the people whose names were on the prayer rolls, and their families.
I am seeking remain humble to retain the Spirit in my service in the temple.

Yesterday was fun. I was telling my co-worker on Friday that I want to go to a massive corn maze, and my cousins invited us to a pumpkin patch. Pumpkin patches in Utah have a whole experience which is way beyond what I grew up with like slides down bales of hay. This pumpkin patch went way beyond the massive corn field maze. It had three mazes, and it was so well prepared that people would most likely figure it out without a map. This is mainly because it is very loopy. I was thinking of attempting the small maze without the map, but I didn’t want to get lost.

2022.05.01

It is hard to believe that it has been four months, since I have written in my journal. A couple things changed in my life. The two main things are that I serve in the Jordan River Temple as an ordinance worker, and the new hobby that I have with Trevor is that we play Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel. The game makes time go by fast, and it also make life feel a little meaningless. I use to journal and make a short daily note about life in my Whoop app, but I quit doing that because I don’t want to have a journal about my Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel play.
The Jordan River Temple is the most beautiful temple that I ever worked in. I say this because it has unique stain glass windows going up the walls, making it sparkle at night. I think that seeing them in the building is odd, but the night view of the temple makes it extraordinary.
The work of the temple of more production oriented than I have ever seen. It took me a while to realize why because it seemed that some positions of the temple are a waste of time, but the temple conducts an endowment session every twenty minutes, and each session is mostly full of people. The wait is not long between each endowment session. There is an interesting culture because there are so many sessions going on at one time that the clocks, indicating progress of each session, does not have a panel for the time; therefore, clocks are hard to come by in the Jordan River Temple. People need to have watches.
I got back into the routine very quickly as it had been about two years since I did ordinance work. They give a new schedule monthly, which is also unique. I have always received assignments weekly in other temples that I served in. I finished my training in a few weeks, since I served in temples for more than ten years now as an ordinance worker.
I finally joined the Rebble Alliance; the group of people maintaining the Pebble watches, since Fitbit shut the company down. Jessica started working and wearing my Apple Watch to wake her up in the morning, which was my excuse to get a second smart watch. When my Pebble watch Classic arrived, it’s battery was dead. Since I would have to practice soldering to replace the battery. I joined the Discord Community, and I met a guy, who refurbishes and sells Pebble watches there. He is very community oriented because he answered my question, when I posted about the state watch, when it arrived. He only charged me 35 dollars to replace the battery, which typically costs about twenty bucks just for the battery, and it included the return shipping; furthermore, he sent me a few free accessories, when he sent it back in the mail. It should arrive about Tuesday. The guy is definitely not going it for money. He only sells refurbished watches for sixty dollars. I bought my dead Pebble watch Classic on EBay for ninth dollars.
I still follow the development of the Polkadot blockchain. I invested an a couple more parachain auction projects. One is another passive income projects and the other in an NFT exchange. The passive income project allows people to contribute their TEE hardware processing power to implement cloud computing. The project is called Phala Network. When I looked up the project name, I realized that I invested in a third project called Litentry. It is a decentralized identity project. The NFT exchange called Unique is the second crowdloan that I was thinking of. They have a NFT project called SubstraPunks, which are the CryptoPunks of Polkadot, which I was tempted to purchase. I want some proof that I invested in the original parachain auctions of these projects. There is a NFT project called Polkapets to help bring about awareness of Polkadot Projects. I was considering joining the crowdloan of Polkadex, but the NFTs looked so cheese. Also, their decentralized exchange screenshots, showing their product, did not impress me. I was trying to get an NFT of the Phala project, but I missed it. The top 1500 contributors got them. It is only the beginning of the blockchain of Polkadot. I think that the value creation is underestimated for the long term. Wouldn’t it have been nice to invest in the beginning of Bitcoin or Ethereum?

Some other things that we have done is that Jessica and I went to a Senior Capstone Dance performances of Utah Valley University, which tickets Jessica won on Instagram. The performances were not that impressive. About half were good, and the other half were subpar.
We enjoyed a few events with the Day family of Martha and Josh Day. We went to Corvis’ birthday. We joined Martha’s family for Easter, and Trevor and I had a game night with Josh. Trevor bought the biggest pizza that I have ever seen for the game night. It was like 26″ in diameter.
The Primary class today was good. They kept busy. I felt a little bad because one child cried because he did not have the resources to complete a project, but we worked it out, and he was able to complete the project. We got a new primary presidency today, and Jessica realized that we have been in the primary the longest; then, I realized that we are the oldest people in the Primary.
In December I wrote about rebooting the ‘Your Friends in the Gospel’ podcast. I think that I could record a podcast, but it was intended to be recorded on Sunday’s typically. Jessica and I prepare our Primary lessons mainly on Sundays; furthermore, Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel is probably a distraction. Kyler is making a theme song for it. Maybe I can record a quick thought on Saturdays. Kyler said today or yesterday that he would finish it soon. Maybe I can post again with the new theme song. I said that I am starting a series of episodes explaining the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I only have time to write now because Trevor flew to California this morning. We typically eat grilled cheese sandwiches at his place on Sunday evenings. I also said previously that I would probably not have sustainably produced the Very Hicken Bros podcast without Trevor. The reboot only lasted about a month, and I forgot write that Trevor and I quit podcasting during these past few months. I am pretty sure that the last episode that I wrote about in the last post was the last episode that the Very Hicken Bros produced.

2021.12.12

Last week was my birthday weekend, and I was so busy that I did not have time to write in my journal. My Whoop subscription has two major things that it helps me with. It helps me not work out too much, and it has a notes section to remind myself about something special for each day. I would have a hard time remembering the past two weeks without it.
On Monday the 29th of November, Jessica wanted to set up our Christmas tree after our Family Home Evening lesson. I was distracted during the activity because NoName Nerd was giving out free NFTs. My distraction was contagious, and the experience of putting together the Christmas tree had a more shallow feeling than it could have.
The NoName Nerd Community NFT project is like many other NFT projects, having 10,000 unique versions. This project has 10,000 versions of the NoName Nerd mascot, which looks like a stereotypical superhero. They are going to be revealed on December 15th, which is the coming Wednesday.
For the past two weeks, Trevor has had errors with his audio recording Android apps on his Chrome, so we may be missing two weeks of the December monthly highlights episode. I haven’t been too interested in news the past few weeks, not having news articles to discuss in our podcast.
I experienced two crypto scams recently. An app called cmorq was claiming to give away NFTs for new users, if I do a transaction on the platform. The apps method to add wallets was not standard. They allegedly gave me five dollars of Matic currency, but it had no transparency to how I can access the cryptocurrency. They were punctual about answering customer support questions until I asked for transparency about the five dollars “investment.” They claimed to be able to replace your bank, but they pitched being a intermediary service between your non-custodial wallet and bank, which is not DeFi. I don’t think that they really gave me five dollars. It was fictitious.
My second experience is a little scary because I asked the Clover Finance about how to coordinate the Lucky NFT tickets because they were fifth place in the auction at that time. A seemingly random of the channel messaged me privately, answering my question, but he recommended that I “validate” my Clover account to whitelist it to receive my Crowdloan awards. I never heard of validating accounts, but I gave it a try. The website appeared official as part of WalletConnect, but again it did not follow the standard method to access my wallet, claiming an error and requesting me to manually enter my wallet seed phrase. It is a good thing that my Clover and Binance Trust Wallets don’t have any meaningful assets. The website didn’t work, and I entered my seed phrase. I tweeted them about it, but they didn’t answer.
Binance.US itself is an iffy website. It asks for very personal KYC information specifically your social security number, and it errors out in the account application process. Their customer service is horrible, claiming that there is a PDF application to manually have your account approved, which the document can’t be found anywhere. Binance is not a trustworthy blockchain, but it has a lot of money making opportunities; therefore, it is used a lot. People have to be careful about their information, and I have not been until these three learning experiences.

Friday, the eve of my birthday, was a special experience at work. I had a happy birthday sign above my desk, but that wasn’t the special situation. At work, the Vice President’s birthday was celebrated by giving everyone in the office a “Happy Birthday Jared” shirt, ever since than I covered his name with duct tape, replacing it with the current birthday person’s name. One coworker tried to mock me with another line beneath his name on his birthday, writing “You are the best coworker ever!” This mocking attempt failed because many people have gotten pictures with me, feeling that they are the best coworker ever. Another thing needs to be explained in the picture as well. A cardboard cutout of Marilyn Manroe is wearing one of the T-shirts. The cutout was acquired for the CEO and president’s birthday because he performed a musical number for the President of the United States of America. There was visible peer pressure and appreciation as people wore the t-shirt, covering the Vice President’s name with duct tape, and writing my name and “You are the best coworker ever!” Some people wrote other saying like the following: Best Rice Eater, You are the real MVP, You are the best little brother, and you are very sneaky. I shared what happened with my wife, and she said that I need to get pictures. I was surprised to text her about ten minutes later that I did not have to orchestrate that. My coworkers did. My Vice President wrote that I am very sneaky on his shirt, and he had a goal to sneak up and surprise me. His second attempt got me very good. I have squeaky shoes, so I am not as sneaky as before. My coworkers made my birthday special.

On my birthday, I started putting together the November highlights episode, but I did not finish it.
I also received equipment from Jag Industrials called SenseCap on my birthday. It is used to mine the Helium cryptocurrency. The currency is issued for a service similar to Nodle, providing Internet to Internet of Things devices. I am hosting on of their devices, which they sent at no cost to me, saying that they will give me twenty percent of the rewards. I got about one and a half dollars so far. Jag Industrials gets about four times that, which would be six dollars. This is all passive income. Six dollars in one week is not a lot, but that would be about three hundred dollars a year without any work. I have not mentioned that the currency should be inflating too. If I owned the device, I would be getting five times the amount of HNT, and I witnessed the set up process, which is very easy. I might save up to purchase one. Jag Industrials did mention that they had to register the location on the network, costing about maybe seventy dollars
I am a part of the Unstoppable Domains Twitter family on Discord. They released a new product in a Beta state, enabling their users to attached an NFT onto a domain. They also announced a big giveaway for participating by sharing your attached NFT/domain connection. It appears that the Unstoppable Domains Twitter family is losing steam because their effort has reduced. There is no word on the big giveaway. My NFT attachment was a failure because the filter placed on top of the picture was placed on the thumbnail on my video NFT that I minted. The thumbnail doesn’t like good.

My crypto passive income efforts are not appreciated. I have been banned from WiFi at work, and my Helium Mining has reduced significantly because the ideal place to put the equipment is at the window. Jessica did not want the equipment in the window, requiring the blinds to be slightly opened, when my mother-in-law is visiting. I had five mobile devices mining Nodle Cash. Two of them were “paused,” sending me a sign.
My service, teaching the primary children, have not been going well; mainly because editing takes a lot of time, and the lesson preparation is procrastinated

2021.12.19

This past week feels like two weeks. On Monday I cleaned the entire apartment in preparation for Mercedes’, my mother-in-law, arrival. She is staying with us approximately twenty-five days. We actually picked her up that night. I had to take a day off from work to get the place in order.
Tuesday was Mercedes’ birthday, and we ate at a buffet to celebrate. I would rate the buffet as slightly below average like a 6.9. The place is called Paradise Buffet. I give it that rating because the food’s quality of texture, flavor, and freshness is subpar. I did enjoy myself.
My life feels more simple with more family at home.
Thursday was odd because I didn’t feel that any of my articles or life experiences were worth sharing on the podcast after a disappointing delay of the podcast from Wednesday to Thursday. It is good that the podcast team is committed. I submitted that I did have a couple quick topics to discuss.
On Friday evening, I went to Jonathan’s Jewelry because they gave me a hundred dollar gift certificate. They did have some items under one hundred dollars, but in order to purchase an item that appears high quality. I used the gift card more like a 75% discount.
My first experience with the Whoop Strap 4.0 was not good. It arrived with dead batteries, and it took a few hours to charge which was not ideal because I opened it late at night. It appears to have wireless charging or there is not metal connector on the new charging mount device, and it did not work until I removed the layer of fabric, not wearing the device of my wrist. The Whoop straps are designed to be able to be charged and worn at the same time.
Saturday was a long day too. I got up and helped a couple move, but we left early when it appeared that it was going to be an all day thing. We had a lot to do.
We went to print the week’s primary activity, drop off our compost, Smith’s to purchase Christmas gifts with a gift card given to me at work, watch Spider-man: No Way Home, grocery shopping after hanging out and dinner with Jasmine and Lucas.
“Spider-man: No Way Home” was a great movie, but I think that the premise of it is excessively exaggerated. I don’t think that the Daily Bugle has the influence to instantaneous inform the entire population that Spider-man ‘murdered’ Mysterio.

2021.12.26

Life was too busy to write in my journal during the holidays. The Rosas family kicked it off on Sunday, the 19th, with a lasagna dinner. It was good times. Jasmine and Lucas left early as they frequently do, but Jasmine got talking to Arrie in the middle of the hallway. I didn’t want to interrupt their conversation, so I was somewhat stuck in the dining room alone until Elizabeth came to talk to me. We talked about milk for some reason. We hung out in the living room once the hallway was unblocked. There was a lot of talk about dating. This age of Internet dating is odd. I seem to be part of the generation that did use dating mobile phone apps.
I pitched the Wisdom: an Audio Community app on the Very Hicken Bros podcast months ago as an opportunity to leverage your expertise, and get paid to answer questions from audience members. The Wisdom app has changed from that vision to be an audio chat room/ Tiktok type app. Truly is another app that actually implemented Wisdom’s original vision. People would pay a dollar or your minimum asking price to answer a question via a video selfie within thirty seconds. I like being an early adopter because I got the username @alexander on both applications.

(A list of things that I did not have time to write about.)

Recorded the podcast early
Picked up my parents at the airport on Wednesday night
Minted 5 NFTs and checked out Cmorq again, transferring a free NFT that I got there.
Watched encanto
Won Settlers of Catan
Won Animal Crossing Monopoly
My viral birthday video peaked at 40,000 views
Last podcast
Work truck windshields suck. Drove to Heber Thursday night
Finally played the Scooby Do game
Won settlers of Catan again
Visited Kim Graham
New Ward building
Trevor’s birthday/Ocean Branch Reunion
Joined CrossFit on Tuesday
First timed workout
Finished training
Benjamin’s birthday
Dropped Mercedes at the airport
Stake conference

2022.01.16
Last Sunday, I beat Trevor again in Pokemon.
I forsook Pokemon during the week to focus on preparing this week’s primary lesson.
Reading Genesis after reading Moses felt pointless because the Book of Moses from the Pearl of Great Price is a true translation.
Nodle and several other Polkadot projects were left on the dust by Hydra. I hope that Nodle has a plan to achieve the eleventh slot of the blockchain.
Thomas finally replied to my text after a couple weeks. I have been trying to get him access to his Unstoppable Domain, but he appears to have given up.
Jessica joined me four of five CrossFit sessions this week because she doesn’t like timed workouts, which was not that bad.
Jessica spoke in Sacrament today, and I took lead in the Primary class. We both did well in our duties. I was extra prepared for the little children, but I worked with the older children.