"Come and See"

In my scripture studies recently, I came across a phrase that was repeatedly used: “Come and see.”  This phrase appears twice in the first chapter of the Gospel of John.  First, right after Jesus is baptized and his divinity is testified by God the Father and John the Baptist, some of John’s disciples approached Jesus and asked where he lived.  His reply: “Come and see.”  Later, when Philip tells his friend, Nathanial, about having found the prophesied Messiah and that he lives in Nazareth, Nathanial scoffs and asks if anything worthwhile can come out of a town like Nazareth.  Philip’s response: “Come and see.”

It struck me as I read that this is a perfect approach to missionary work.  A coworker asks a question about the Book of Mormon?  Give them a free copy and challenge them to read it for themselves.  A neighbor asks where you go to Church dressed so nicely every Sunday morning?  Invite them to attend with you.  A friend asks about what the deal with that big fancy temple is?  Invite them to attend the visitor’s center with you (if one is available).

This very topic was discussed by Elder Bednar in the last General Conference, so it shouldn’t be surprising that these particular words stood out to me.  Even so, discovering the significance of this phrase for myself, rather than hearing a lecture (even one from an inspired man of God), meant that the lesson is much more personal and memorable.

In closing, I encourage everyone to remember the words of the Savior and, when the opportunity presents itself, invite.  Our responsibility is to share the Gospel with those around us; after that, the words of the Lord and the power of the Holy Ghost will do the rest.

Missed Entries

You may have noticed that for the last two weeks in a row, I've missed Wednesday's post.  I was ruminating on the matter and I think it's related to my being sick.

You see, normally I go to the gym between four and five days a week, and because I need to work certain muscle groups on certain days, I need to keep track of what day of the week it is.  To put it another way, to make sure I pack the right gear in my gym bag the night before (I head to the gym on my way home from work), I have to know what routine I'll be doing, which is dictated by what day of the week it is.  All of that reviewing helps to keep me on schedule on ye olde blogg.

But when my body decided that even thinking straight was less important than testing to see if my face could function as a faucet*, I had to stop exercising and just recuperate.  The good news is that I've finally stopped feeling like a homunculus, so I'll be heading back to the gym tomorrow.  Hopefully that means that I'll stop pointlessly missing the middle-of-the-week post.

*It can, but you don't want to drink what comes out of it.

New to Me

On Tuesday of this last week, I bought me very first car.  Every car that I've ever driven has either belonged to someone else or was a gift to me from someone else.  I've never bought a car on my own.  Until now.

Ian has been very kind in helping me out with having something to drive, but I've had multiple repairs done on the Echo and, since the car was in his name, the payments I was faithfully making weren't even helping my credit rating.  He recommended that we look into getting me something better, something that could be in my name, and something I could actually afford.  So we looked around and found something that fit that criteria.

The other criterion was that it had to be as small as possible.

It really is an exciting experience owning my first car.  Yes, technically I don't own it yet since I'm financing it, but it's in my name and I am financing it, which are important distinctions.

Not only is this previously owned car new to me, but the experience of buy a car is new as well, and it's great to finally go through it.

Laughing at Our Own Misfortune

At work on Tuesday, I was invited to go to lunch.  Since I'm on a budget, I take my lunch to work, but I decided to join in as a way of building comradery with my coworkers.  It was my boss, someone temporarily visiting from the Brazilian office, and an intern.  They've been getting lunch together for the last week, so it was nice of them to invite me to tag along.

Before we went to the restaurant, he had to make a stop at a print shop -- our office does have pretty good printer, but they needed something nicer for an upcoming trade show.  Well, the employees at the print shop were both lazy and incompetent: we asked for them to print the pieces we needed, so they directed us to the self-service printers, despite not knowing how they worked.  It took three times as long for us to do the job with their help than it would have if they had just done the job themselves in the first place.

The rest of the lunch break was spent talking about the lousy experience we had had.  It wasn't all complaining, either -- a lot of jokes were made and we generally had a good time sharing the experience together.  For this reason, I was happy to have accepted the invitation to go to lunch.  Yes, half of the people involved won't be here very long, but this experience is now something that my boss and I can look back at and laugh together.  I like this job because I'm really growing professionally, but it's nice to also be more comfortable socially with the people I work.  If one of those people happens to by my boss, well, that's certainly not a bad thing.

How I Breathe Now

I'm sick.  My sinus is so stuffed up, I have to flush it with a neti pot twice a day just to be able to breathe normally.  What's a neti pot?  Behold!

Is it weird?  Yes.  Does it work?  Also, yes.

The end result is that I feel like I just came from surfing (without the enjoyment of riding some waves) and I can breathe through my nose again.  It's worth doing if you're sick and I recommend it to anyone who has congestion issues.

Now good luck getting that image out of your head.

I am Become Death, the Destroyer of Punctuation

On Friday, I asked my boss if the company had a standard on serial commas or sentence spacing.  She wasn't aware of such standards, but she encouraged me to check in the marketing style guide.  To no one's surprise, there was no mention of punctuation or spacing at all.  When I told her this, she asked me to make a decision that the company would go by, at least in North America.

While this may seem like an inconsequential decision to make, I felt really overwhelmed.  I felt strongly that one person should not be able to make that decision on their own.  When I've had a question on these things in the past, I've always had a company standard to refer to.  The standard isn't usually unique to the company -- the Chicago Manual of Style is often employed -- but it's still something that's been established.  Yet here I was, asked to make a decision that would affect all other documents from that time forward.

I went back through the marketing style guide and found a couple of examples where serial commas could be used and weren't, so I used that as my standard.  I also inferred that the standard was a single space between sentences, so that was another decision I didn't have to make.  I was certainly relieved.

I doubt anyone outside of a technical writer or a devoted editor would really care about something so small, but for me, it was a nerve wracking experience.

Social Outcasts: Defined

In yesterday's post I used three different terms: nerd, geek, and dork.  While it may have seemed that I used these words interchangeably, they each have distinct meanings, at least to me.

Nerd.  Someone who is interested in academic pursuits, has extensive knowledge in their field of study, and is motivated by the pure enjoyment of the subject.  For example, because I have an English degree and work as a technical writer, I qualify as an English expert, but because I like reading, writing, and having grammar-based discussions, I'm an English nerd.  (Original meaning: Nerd first appeared in the Dr. Seuss book If I Ran the Zoo as a fictional type of animal.)

Geek.  Someone who has strong interests in their hobbies, usually involving forms of entertainment, sometimes to an obsessive degree.  For example, because I have extensive knowledge about comic book characters, particularly Superman, I'm a comics geek -- or at least a recovering one.  (Original meaning: Geek was a slang term for "freak" or "fool" and at one point "geek shows" were attractions at carnivals wherein a person would eat the heads off of live chickens.)

Both of these terms involve the labeled person spending much of their time with their particular interests.  That often means that they don't develop their social skills to the same extent as their peers.  While they usually aren't socially savvy, nerds and geeks don't have to be social outcasts, unlike the next entry.

Dork.  Someone who is socially inept and easily embarrasses either themselves or their more socially adept friends.  For example, because I sometime times laugh extremely loudly at inappropriate times, I can be a bit of a dork.  (Original meaning:  Archaically, a dork referred to a whale's penis.)

As you can see, while these three words do have some overlap, they each have a specific meaning.  And the fact that I laid it all out so explicitly probably makes me a bit of a dweeb.

Teenagers, Unplugged

On Wednesday evening, I participated in a Teacher's Quorum activity by being a driver.  The activity was that, as a Quorum, we went and visited a couple of less active members to invite them out to some future events and activities.  No one was home at either house, but it was good of the boys to make the effort.

While I was driving, I got hear what the boys in my car were talking about.  I ended up with the nerdy kids, which was weird.  As someone who was definitely a dork in high school, I thought I'd be able to join in on their conversation.  Well, not really.  They talked a lot about video games, which are fine, but since I don't usually spend my entertainment time with that particular medium, I didn't really know what they were talking about.  Then they started talking about cartoons, which I have at least a cursory knowledge of most animated shows, except for anime, which is what they were talking about.  I asked a few questions here and there and tried to be involved, but it soon became clear that I was being out-geeked.

While all of that is fine (I guess), I am concerned that they spend too much time online, especially one boy.  The internet is full of terrible things, but I'm more worried about them not developing social skills - an area in which these boys appear to be delayed.  Life is hard enough to navigate normally, but it can become a bit of a nightmare if you don't have the right social skills.

One of my goals while I'm serving in this calling will be to help these boys feel more comfortable offline.  I don't think that's the main reason I have this calling, but I do think that it's one of them.  And as someone that is still a nerd but much less of a dork, I think I'm just the one to do it.

Simply the Best

Last Friday, I presented a document that I've been working on for a project at work to that project's manager.  He really liked it.

Let me back up a bit.

One of the problems that I was brought in to help solve was a lack of uniformity for product instructions.  I approached the problem like any good technical writer by doing research.  I reviewed every single instruction I could find, looking for good and bad qualities alike.  Once I had a pretty good idea where things stood, I looked online for instructions produced by other HVAC companies, to see if they had any better examples of how to do things (answer: not really).  Then, I searched for the writing standards to be used within Danfoss.  While there is a writer's guide, instructions are not addressed at all.  So, seeing as how "writer" is in my job title, I decided to write an instructions standard.

I hadn't realized that I hadn't told the project manager that I was writing an instructions standard, but I guess I hadn't because when I presented to him what I had completed, he was really impressed, both with what I had produced and the fact that I had decided to even write it.  Now, this particular document is far from finished and I'll need to talk with other subject matter experts before we're ready to make the standard official, but I'm off to a good start.

This is just another example of how much I like this job.  I was presented a problem, was given enough flexibility to do things my way, and was given positive feedback when I gave an update to the project manager.  I feel like I'm gushing about this job like I'm the company's founder, but it really is that good.  It's nice feel some job satisfaction for a change.

Advancement

Yesterday was Stake Conference here, which meant that perspective Elders who were ready to be advanced in the priesthood were presented to be voted on.  One of those presented was Samuel.

Samuel has grown a lot during his time here in our ward.  He's given his first talk, he's held his first calling, he's blessed the sacrament for the first time, and he's learned a lot about the gospel.  Now, he's received the Melchizedek Priesthood.

I stood in the circle, along with the current Bishop, his home teacher, a former member of the Bishopric, with a member of the Stake Presidency - who was the Bishop when we both moved into the ward - acting as voice. I was honored to be invited to participate, but otherwise it was a fairly mundane experience for me. For Samuel, it was life-changing.  After the ordination, he told me that when the words were being said, he felt the spirit stronger than he had ever before, even to the point of filling his entire body.  I then told him that once he was reunited with his children and they are of age, he'll have the opportunity to baptize and confirm them.  His was response was a genuine and enthusiastic "Wow!"

Having Samuel as a roommate has not always been easy, but I'm glad that I invited him to stay with me nearly a year ago.  We've gotten to know each other very well and even though we don't always see eye-to-eye, I know that it's been a good experience for both us; his ordination is just the most recent example of that.

Epic Burn

On Sunday, I taught the lesson in Teacher’s Quorum.  Before I began, I officially introduced myself and asked all of the boys to introduce themselves by saying their name, what they do for fun, and what their favorite subject in school is.  I saw some themes emerge: everyone said that they like playing video games and most of the boys liked science best.  However, one boy said that his favorite class was tech design.  I didn’t know what that was, so I asked for more of an explanation – it’s a basic intro to mechanical engineering.  That’s when the following exchange happened:

Me: That’s sounds pretty cool.  That wasn’t a class when I was in school.

Quorum Member: Yeah, but they didn’t have computers when you were in school, either.

Everyone: OH!

[Someone in the group]: Epic burn!

Me: Actually, I when I was in middle school, I was one of the few kids with a computer at home.

Quorum Member: I was just kidding.  I just had to take the chance to say an epic burn.

Me: It has to be true to be a burn, son.

Everyone: OH!

Quorum Member: [looking impressed] Man, he just undid my epic burn.

I don’t plan on making a habit of playfully trading insults with the members of the Quorum, but this time seemed appropriate and no one’s feelings were hurt, so I think it worked.  That said, I won’t be repeating that kind of behavior in the future.

The Ugly Side of America

Samuel experienced his first real encounter with racism recently.  At the job he was working at, he was berated by his boss for talking back (he was trying to explain something that he did, but it was seen as back-talk).  Some of his coworkers told him that he was mistreated because the white manager always talks differently to the minority employees.  They told him that the best tactic is to simply agree to avoid conflict.

Samuel came home angry, but mostly confused.  He told me that in his native country, people judge others based on where they are from or what family they are a part of, but not because of how they look.  Plus, he told me that he thinks of me as his brother and I've never treated him differently simply because he's from Africa, so he just assumed that all people thought the same.  That is to say, some people are good and others are bad, but you judge them by what's in their heart rather than the color of their skin.  His bigoted boss was a real shock.

I am saddened that Samuel had to experience something as terrible as racism and that it took coming to the US to see it firsthand.  However, the restaurant he was working at has closed down, so he won't have to deal with that pig-headed boss.  Not only that, but he's already lined up his next job, this one run by a member of the ward, which almost certainly means that he won't see racism like he so recently did.

Again, I'm really disappointed that Samuel had to go through what he did, but I'm happy that I was able to be a good example and proof that just because one white person is a bigoted creep, not all of us are.

In the Proper Order

I've mentioned before that I strongly feel that my job with Danfoss is the job that I moved to Maryland for, but I've been thinking about that lately and I've decided that everything that's come before was also important.

I moved to Maryland in March of 2013 and stayed with Ian and Amanda while I looked for work.  The following May, I start my job at RJM Engineering.  I immediately started looking for a place of my own and I move in the next month.  I chose a place near to my work to allow for an easy commute.

By moving into my apartment, I became a member of my current ward where I met so many good people and made life-long friends, including the Simciks.  This ward is very important to me and the people have all been very supportive and I don't want to move when my lease is up, even if that means a shorter commute.

After my job at RJM ended, I got a job in Baltimore with Prometric.  To simplify my commute, I signed up for an EZ-Pass, an electronic toll-payer.  By using the EZ-Pass, I saved time and money when I took a particular toll road each day.

After my contract was cancelled with Prometric and I went through a dark period of unemployment, I started working at CAS Severn.  There were some ups and downs while I was there, but I learned a lot, especially with regards to communicating with my bosses and managing my stress.

Finally, I got the job at Danfoss.  It's a job that I was only qualified for because I had built up my work experience as a technical writer.  It's also a job that I better understand how to do because I had learned a lot at the shorter-lived jobs.  And yeah, I take the same route as I did to Prometric (though my exit is much farther away), so having the EZ-Pass was an important step, too.

So while this is the job I moved to Maryland for, I wasn't ready for it until now.  This is just another example of the Lord's wisdom in the way our lives unfold.  I'm really happy that I obeyed the prompting to move out here to look for work and I eagerly await what the Lord has in store for me this year.