Centennial Post

Fellow readers, this is my 100th post on my blog. It will have been almost exactly three years since I started my blog. When I first started my blog, I thought it a little silly and didn't know how long it would last. It has become a lot more than what I expected it to be.

It is a place for me to be funny, quirky or serious.

It is a useful tool to help document notable and not-so-notable times in my life. 

It helps me update friends and family, that may be far away at the moment, on things that are happening in my life. 

It is a creative outlet. 

It is a piece of my personality.

A lot of things have happened in my life over the last three years. My blog definitely does not cover everything that has happened. You don't need to know everything that has happened. If you did, I would have reached 100 posts about a month into starting this blog.

I love all of your support and comments. They really do make my day and help me feel that there is someone out there reading this.

I definitely do not have any specific theme running through my blog, unless you can call 'awesomeness' a theme. So, I want to try and sum up the important things in my life for this centennial post.

First, I have an amazing family. I don't post a lot about them because I'm a little bit selfish. I like to keep them all to myself because they are so amazing. They are the most influential reason of why I have become who I am today. And that's a good thing. I love who I am.

What's left of us at home. The other two got married.

Second, I have amazing friends. So many things that have happened on this blog have been in the good company of friends. They inspire me. They uplift me. They make me want to be the best that I can be. I love my friends and I hope they know and feel that I do. 

Third, the best medicine really is laughter. There is nothing that heals like a chuckle or a smile on the face. Suddenly, our worries are behind us and we're feeling better. I really do believe in living a happy, funny life. That doesn't dismiss the hard times or the serious things that happen, but it does make them just a little bit more bearable. It's just too hard for me to be serious all the time.

Fourth, I am really blessed by my Heavenly Father. He has given me more than I really deserve. I can go to Him anytime and anywhere. He is always there, ready to listen to me.

Fifth, I'm grateful for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its teachings. I have based my life off of these teachings. There is a peace and spirit that is brought into my life because of this and I have quickly learned that it is something that I would not want to live without.

Lastly, I really am a devilishly handsome young man. I was a lady-killer from the very beginning.

I wish I looked this good now

Elder Christofferson

How lucky is this? I come to Vienna for a semester and an Apostle comes over to talk specifically to the Viennese church members. Elder D. Todd Christofferson came to visit this last week and it was a really neat experience. First of all, I didn't have to fight through crowds to see him, talk to him and shake his hand. He quickly was able to make to rounds and see every person in the building that desired to do so and shook everyone's hand. 

As a young adult, I had the opportunity to see him twice. He was at the young adult Family Home Evening where he gave a lovely message about prayer and the importance of consistently doing the small and simple things. Here were a couple of things that particularly stuck out in my mind as I was listening to him.

:: The best kind of prayer is the kind that is led by the Spirit.

:: Mention specific blessings and not just a generic thanks for them all.

It's hard sometimes for me to have my prayers led by the spirit, especially after a long day when my prayers are inevitably led by how tired I am, which then leads to a generic thanking of the many blessings that I received that day. So, basically, Elder Christofferson really nailed my praying patterns and I'm trying to fix that before he finds anything else to get me on. 

Who could not love this man? Seriously.

The next day, we also had a fireside with all of the members in Vienna at which he spoke. He told us about what President Monson asked him to do during his visit. He says that President Monson is very brief and only has a few things that he wants to get across. All the rest is up to his judgment and how the Spirit directs him. 

The first is the importance of marriage. He said that "the women take a risk marrying the men." Well, I guess that no young ladies have been willing to take the risk with me. Maybe someday.

Another is the importance of family. He really stressed doing the small things such as reading the scriptures and praying together. He promised that if we tried to do these with our families, we would create a bond that will sustain us through the hardest time that are sure to come our way. He mentioned Family Home Evening as a great tool to teach and instruct children, as well as a time to simply just spend time with each other. He quoted that "sometimes it's just a family fight that begins and ends with prayer." I thought that was pretty amusing. I'm blessed to have never had that kind of experience with family home evening at my house (Thanks mom and dad!).

He then addressed "What is our message?". This is a tricky question to be asked by people. He came up with the very simple answer of  "Come and see." The best way to learn about anything is to experience it first hand. 

The last thing that President Monson asked him to talk about is the importance of the Holy Ghost. If we are worthy of the Holy Ghost and are sensitive to his promptings, we will always find ourselves on the right path. He mentioned preparing ourselves each Sunday to partake of the sacrament. By preparing ourselves, we are setting ourselves up to receive help and inspiration from the Holy Ghost. Preparation is key to any spiritual guidance and revelation.

Searching for Beethoven

I set out in search of Beethoven's grave. Feeling determined, I hopped a train and started on my way. I sat and pondered what it was going to be like to see his grave. He's one of my favorite composers and has had a huge influence on my musical growth. I have been learning pieces by him for years. Through high school, he was, hands down, my favorite composer and I couldn't get enough of his piano pieces.

As I came closer, I got onto a street car to finish the last leg of my journey. I looked up at the map to check how many stops it was before I arrived. I stared a little puzzled for a moment as it suddenly dawned on me that the last four stops went to the same cemetery. Where was I to get off? I could be wandering for hours. I didn't let it worry me too much as I thought there would be plenty of signs pointing me in the right direction. After all, it was Beethoven.

I decided to just get out at the first stop and head right in. I looked left, right, up, down, backwards and frontwards just to find that there were absolutely no signs. I probably should have checked out a map of the cemetery before I left, but where is the adventure in that? I began walking down long stretches of road just checking out this amazing graveyard. I just decided that it couldn't be that hard to just stumble upon his grave in this maze of thousands of graves. I was in awe with the grandeur of some of these grave sites.

I soon realized that I probably wasn't going to simply stumble upon Beethoven's site. Luckily, there wasn't anyone around on a cold, gray, snow-threatened afternoon so I couldn't ask for help. I tried to find a map of some sort but I failed to find any. This didn't get me down, however. I was willing to take an adventure in any form that it was offered to me. I just kept moving forward with the thought, "this is going to be completely worth it" in the back of my mind.

Out of nowhere, a beautiful, enormous green dome emerged from the trees. I forgot about the cold and the walking and Beethoven and was drawn towards this giant building. As I came around the corner, I beheld this.

The clouds started parting and for a moment, I could see the sun trying to break through. This only confirmed my desire to go inside. I hurried my pace and made my way to the staircase. The Friedhofskirche. I went up the stairs and tentatively opened the door, not knowing whether I was allowed to enter or not. I closed the door behind me and found myself in this beautiful church.

I wasn't hear too long before my eyes reached heavenward. Up above, I saw the sky I have been longing to see for days.

I sat and stared at the ceiling, being completely captivated by the bright, contrasting blue and gold. Symbolism of the sun, moon and stars came rushing to mind beholding this scene. After some time, I began looking around, hoping to find someone that could be sharing this wondrous moment with me. Alas, no one was in sight. I listened intently in the silent chapel for any signs of life... Nothing...

I began looking around and investigating. I found hidden in a corner an elevator. I hesitatingly pressed the button, worried some alarm or something would happen not allowing me to enter. The elevator came down, opened up and I stepped in. I looked for special key or card access to actually make the elevator go somewhere, but couldn't find anything. So, I pressed a button with a big, long German word next to it. Up I went. After I walked out, I left the elevator and went through a door.

The next thought that came into my mind, "could I get over to the organ?"

Dang.

The door is locked. I headed back to the elevator and pushed some more buttons. I began my descent back down to where I was before. The elevator kept going down and down with no end in sight. Finally, it stopped and I exited into what is the crypt of the church.

There were several grave sites down here, but one in particular that caught my attention. It was massively huge, obviously for someone of great importance to this church.

It belonged to Bürgermeister "Doktor" Lueger. It seems that he was a very influential man, however, he was not liked by all people because of his anti-semitic views. There was one person that adored him because of these views, the Austrian Adolf Hitler, who took these views to an unimaginable extreme. This is, sadly, the end of Lueger's lineage as he was a bachelor his entire life.

An interesting feature of this church is that there is a window, or a "veil," that separates the chapel from the crypt. I found this to be very interesting.

I love all of the symbolism that can be found in religious and sacred places. Symbolism takes something important and that has meaning and somehow makes it even more meaningful.

There were many beautiful things that I found on my personal tour of the Friedhofskirche, including this stained glass.

But by far, my favorite discovery was this sculpture of the Christus in copper. It was beautiful. I love statues of the Christus. For me, it really means a lot. It is a portrayal of the living Christ, bearing His wounds of the crucifixion for all to see. It symbolizes everything that Christ did for us. But most of all, He was resurrected. He overcame that death which comes to us all. It is a symbol of hope and love. He overcame all so that we do not have to fear.

Eventually, I did find Beethoven, but I'll have to save that for another day.

Talent Show

Welcome to the vicarious experience of the Vienna Young Adult Talent Show! I'll be with you guiding you through the amazing events of February 4, forgetting names and all other sorts of important details. Let's begin, shall we!

Meet Rebecca and Keily. They performed Adele's Someone Like You. Rebecca's English is awesome when you talk to her and when she sings, you would never know that she was Austrian! And Kiely nailed that piano part. 

Look at that concentration! It's no wonder she nailed every note on that page.

Meet girl and boy. :) Don't worry friends. I didn't forget everyone's name. Just these two. And maybe a few more to come... We'll see. I should really just find out their names. This post will be so boring without them.

Ok. Take two. Meet Tasia and Arnold, aka. Arnie. Tasia hails from Idaho but speaks perfect German (so jealous!). She also sings quite lovely. Arnie is going to law school but also plays the piano. He also sang this time around, which he said was not his best talent. They sang a duet from the movie Tangled  and then The Prayer (the one made famous by Josh Groban).

:: Sidenote :: Check this out regarding Josh Groban.

Meet Julia and Michelle. Julia plays the violin and Michelle plays the piano. They played fantastic piece. It was called the Israeli Concerto by George Perlman (Don't ask me how I remembered that because I didn't. I just asked my group. They are smart).

Yes. That is how it's done. Beautiful.

Then we had an improvisation, or rather, a comprivisation. 

Meet Peter. He's from Bratislava. He just sat down and made up a piece. Low notes. High notes. Pedal point. Everything needed for a successful composition.

Meet the best looking man in Vienna (other me: subtle Zach. me: Thanks. Humility and modesty are high on my list. other me: right). I played Fantasy for Horn by Malcom Arnold. At least my horn was shiny. That distracted everyone from the mistakes.

Meet Teancum. He solved that Rubik's cube in 1 min 7 sec. Before his mission, he could do it in about 20 sec. Amazing. I have never conquered the cube. Bucket list.

Meet Aly. She plays... the... cello? Umm... I did not know that. Wait! Look below! Quick!!!

Meet Aly and Christina. That's better. Aly is on piano and Christina is on Cello. They brought to us an amazing piece of American musical culture. From the west coast in California to the U.K... (wait... that's not in America) they played a mash up of pop tunes from Katy Perry to Coldplay. Thank you America!

Meet David and Raphael. David was easy to remember. So was Raphael. All I needed to do was think of the Ninja Turtles. They performed a hilarious skit using solely sound effects. They rode horses (above ground and under water), flew off cliffs, had a showdown with guns... need I say more?

Meet Liberty. Or should I say LiB3RTy (looks like one of those verification words). He laid down some tracks that he composed and rapped his heart out about the church and love, two staples of the rap world. He even had us put our hands in the air. And we did.

Meet the Three Amigos. I have absolutely no idea what their names are and I am now too lazy to find out. They performed a skit all in German. Do I know what was going on? Nope. But I laughed at appropriate times when everyone else was laughing. All I understood was the amigo on the right repeatedly said, "Ich bin soooo schön" (I'm soooo beautiful).

I hope you enjoyed your vicarious talent show! 

Pumpkin Carving

For our ward's home evening, we did some pumpkin carving. So, I grabbed all of my cool little pumpkin saws and tools and headed over there. Upon arriving, I raced over to the tables to find my pumpkin (yes. Raced. I was pretty excited). This is what he looked like.

It basically stayed this way for about half an hour. I just couldn't decide what to do with it. I didn't want to do the classic triangle eyes sparse-toothed smile. I wanted something awesome. Something hip and screaming 21st century. I needed something people would like and laugh at, but at the same time, strangely relate to. 

That was a very productive half hour of thinking. Better than anything I've done in school so far this semester. Pretty sad. Finally, I came up with the idea of all ideas. I was going to create an "emotipumpkon." "Genius!" I thought to myself. So, I plotted everything out and started carving.

;)

The flirtatious, winky face. Perfect. I was really onto something here, so why stop at just one emoticon? I thought of another.

:P

The goofy, stick-my-tongue-out face. My pumpkin was getting better and better as time went on. But two emoticons wasn't going to be enough. I needed a third.

XD

The squinty-eyed, mouth-wide-open, excited face. Best. Pumpkin. Ever. Now, I just needed to make sure that it was mine so no other could take credit for my take on 21st century digital culture in pumpkin format. 

Z

The best letter of the alphabet. Z. I'm particularly proud of the serif font I used (I debated for a good five minutes whether to make it serif or sans serif). This was now unmistakably my pumpkin. 

Now, for the emotipumpkon in all of it's grandeur. 

XD   ;)   :P

Z

Salt Lake City

Since school was really crazy this last semester, I didn't blog about anything. But now it's summertime and I'm back!

I love going up to Salt Lake. It's just a fun place to be. During the semester, I had the chance to spend to weekend up there for LDS Gerneral Conference. I had an amazing time with friends up there. We basically just spent our time listening to the general authorities give talks, eat food, and spend quality time talking and laughing.

I took my camera up with me, but didn't really get to take too many pictures. I have a couple that I'd like to share with everyone.

This one was taken from the apartment balcony where I was staying. We had a small view of the Salt Lake Temple and Conference Center. They are both such amazing and beautiful buildings.

This is one of my favorite pictures I took while there. It's really difficult to get any picture of the temple without other huge buildings intruding. So, to cut them out, I just took a picture of the upper half of one side with the angel Moroni perched up top. Since General Conference, which was the first week of April, I have had the chance to go through this temple twice since then, once just this last weekend. It is an amazing structure and it's beauty is hard to describe. The best part about this temple, or any temple for that matter, is how peaceful it is inside. It truly is a special place.

The "Me" Monster

How many of us out there have been plagued by the "me" monster? I'm sure at some point, all of us have. I know I have, especially these past few days. I this, I that, me this and me that. It happens to the best of us.

These past few weeks, in our church meetings, we have talked a lot about serving others. Of course, my initial response is, "no way can I find the time to serve others. I have so much to do that I can barely take care of my self." The thing is, that is exactly what the "me" monster wants us to think. He wants us to think that we are the most important, the number one. However, this goes against the teachings of the Bible and everything that Christ stood for. I'm sure that Christ could have played the "woes me" card, that I so often play when I'm overwhelmed and in need of strength and help. The fact is that in times where He could have done that, he served and helped others. Because of this, our Heavenly Father provided for Him and gave Him the strength he needed to progress.

We had a great lesson in Sunday School that came from the book Ezekiel. Three verses in particular stuck out to me. It was Ezekiel 34: 2-4. These verses are regarding the leaders of the church and how they should be watching over their flocks (respective callings and congregations), but they are neglecting to do so because of everything they are doing for themselves. There was a comment made that really hit me. She explained how this also applies generally to everybody, where the flocks are all those around us with whom we may come in contact everyday. When we focus on ourselves, we neglect everyone around us who may need help, even if we ourselves are seeking help. What occurred to me, after this comment was made, was that when we are able to help others when we ourselves are hurt and seeking help and guidance, that is when our Heavenly Father puts someone else in our path to serve and help us. Purely focusing on ourselves and our immediate needs does not bring us all that much happiness, as has been proved by these last few days in my life.

Of course, we are all busy. There is no denying that, especially in this modern world. Service rendered does not have to be huge and require hours of our time. It could be a smile or even a brief conversation. This is something I need to work on. There are so many opportunities for service that I miss because I'm thinking too much about me, my schedule and everything I have to do.

For everyone that made it to the end of this, I have a treat for you. If you have ten minutes, listen to the most beautiful piece of music ever (link below). I'm sure there is other beautiful music out there (actually, I'm positive there is), but this piece moves me and ignites something deep down in me. This is the beauty of art. It does something to you. It calls upon emotions of all kinds. This, however, is another topic of discussion I may touch on in the future. I hope you enjoy "Fratres II" by Arvo Pärt (If this does not move you, you have no soul, or I'm just a little weird).