Scott Chester

If I never have to sign my name again it won’t be too soon. i think my hand still hurts from having to sign all those documents! I signed all the closing escrow docs today. It took almost an hour and a half to go through the ream of paper. She made me sign everything with my full name which I never sign either, so that added extra confusion to the ordeal. The docs I signed seemed to indicate that escrow would close Monday and I would take possession Tuesday. That seems a little fast for me to believe, but I won’t complain if we close early.

I think the ham radio class went well this morning. We didn’t get through all the questions, only about 3/4 of them so either I need to talk less or we need to extend the class. I wouldn’t really want to go much longer than we did, but maybe it could turn into a two day class with the exam on the second day after we finish up and so forth in the morning. I was also thinking about offering the class at my house instead of the stake center so we could do lunch there and maybe be a bit more comfortable. I could argue it might be too comfortable, but it could save me the effort of lugging things to the church and maybe they could actually see a bit more in the house situation.

i came home and worked on continuing my packing & cleaning. It still continues to amaze me how much stuff I have kept for years that should be have disposed of a long time ago. I also found it interesting how much easier it is to throw things away when you’re moving than it is on a regular basis. When you have to think about packing, moving, unpacking and continuing to store something, it suddenly seems a lot less valuable. I am slowly making progress, although it seems like a task that is going to take forever. I’m sure once I actually have a date confirmed or as we get closer it will start really coming together.

I slept in till like 9:30 or 10 this morning, it was amazing. I don’t even know where it came from. I was awake at 5 something like usual and then next thing I knew it was after 9:30! I immediately jumped out of bed to be lazy watching TV while eating breakfast. I spent what little I had left of my free time looking at houses and pondering things to teach elders quorum tomorrow. I also enjoyed our left overs from Ruth’s Chris last night and then went to the Boys and Girls Club Auction to take pictures. I also got to try and play computer technician, but wasn’t able to solve the software problem Larilyn was having.

We talked tonight at FHE about setting goals. It was said that a goal not written down is just a wish or hope. I think I’ve long known this is one of my problems. I think I’m afraid to set goals because I am afraid to not measure up to them. I know that we have to set measurable and attainable goals, and further that they need to be challenging enough to motivate and yet not so challenging that they seem unreachable. Or maybe I am afraid of actually letting my dreams come true and obtaining my goals.

I was pondering this morning what I need to do to better practice what I preach. This could probably help me become a better teacher. I know at the office I could probably show more work ethic while still trying to keep things light. Outside of work, I’m not sure how to be better off the bat. I’m sure there is room to improve and maybe that just means opening my mouth more instead of always letting someone else do the talking.

Work went fairly well today. I’ve been doing really good lately at staying on top of my email and my to do list. I have been checking things off like mad which is great. I love leaving with the sense of accomplishment for the day instead of thinking of all the things I need to get done the next day. Of course, I also love being stressed with tons of work and would rather have a busy day than a quiet day at the office. I guess that is where a nice mixture comes in.

We had a pretty good fast & testimony meeting today. Impressively, we even ended on time! There was a lot of pretty powerful messages shared and inspiration throughout the day of continuing to do better. Zach told a story of a student who was struggling in school. When his teacher read the comments of teachers previously, she learned that he used to be at the top of his class, but the death of his mother made him fall behind. She was able to really begin teaching the student and turn things around for him. We talked in branch council about not being comfortable with where we are, what we are doing and the church in general. Brother Kowallis said that when he was growing up he was not allowed to use the word can’t. He says that the word his kids won’t be able to say is comfortable. I realized during branch council that I have gotten too comfortable in the church, in the branch, in my callings. I haven’t been looking for ways to improve and have just been coasting along. I need to change that as I know in some ways I have not been pushing forward, but have instead by slipping backward at times and in some places. I haven’t been attending as many of the activities lately, and probably haven’t been giving my support to those in the branch as much as I could. I know that I haven’t been very good at meeting new people and lifting them. I hope that I can work on this and that once I get a place in Murrieta some of these things (attending activities) can become easier.

We also talked about adding some more courses this summer. I think we’re going to add a Teaching the Gospel Course and make the Marriage and Family relations course a weekly option. We talked about changing the name of the marriage class to just Family Relations or Communication something or other as it seems the word marriage scares people away. I’ve learned a lot in that class in the past and think it is hugely important for us all to learn as much as we can about communication because almost all of us are failing in one way or another. I’m looking forward to both classes and just need to work on finding some teachers.

We seem to have been talking a lot lately about marriage. Tara (Tata) was trying to convince me the other day that if I don’t have a date on Friday night, I should be at the singles dance as I need to get married. Batch was like wo, let’s work on courtship and dating first! So true! In any event, Sister Dowden had a blog on it the other day and it has just generally been on my mind a lot lately. I’m clearly still working on being the right person and figuring out exactly who that is going to be.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about my list - that Sister Rodriguez got me started on. I really haven’t been able to come up with much and yet I remember talking with Tara about this on the way back from the DR in November. These are the things that I’ve come up with over the weeks:

• Musically inclined, a.k.a. can play the piano. I think one of us needs to be able to inspire and teach our children to love, understand and ideally be able to play music.
• Faithful. Of course she needs to be faithful.
• Follow leadership. This is a big one that is hard to put into words. No one should be overly submissive, yet we all need to obey the words of wisdom and commandments that are given to us. It was said recently that the number one reason we should have food storage is obedience to our prophet. That is a great example. Another common one is that of the limit of one pair of earrings. It was said, we should obey.
• Communication. Since communication is the number one problem I believe everywhere, she/we need to be good in this area. Most of our time will be spent in communication of some sort, so we will need to be able to carry on a good conversation as well as be ready to work out our problems or concerns as they arise instead of bottling them up.
• Outgoing. Someone with whom we could make a great team and accomplish goals. I don’t mean that she has to be a cheerleader, just that she won’t be so much of an introvert that we sit at home talking about all the great things we could be doing instead of getting out there and doing them.
• Smart. Of course blondes are fun, but we need to be reasonable and make sure the job gets done. (I’m not trying to say anything bad against blondes or state any preference here, just going for some light humor.) On that subject, she should be:
• Frugal. It’s great to go out and have fun, spend money where it is needed, but we also need to agree on when it is time to stop. We need to live within a budget and agree on expenditures. We can’t go buy diamond rings and a great home theater system in the same week. A lot of this comes back to communication too, yet this one is more focused on if she is constantly needing the latest expensive item. At the same point, she should be OK with nice things and not be a total cheapskate.

I discovered one more today. We should have a similar view of the Sabbath, church attendance and what is appropriate to be done, i.e. how we should spend our time. In my mind, the whole day belongs to the Lord (actually, all of our time does). On Sunday, we should not complain about church meetings and extra things when we really have nothing better to be doing. I’m not pushing to be in church from 9 a.m. to midnight, but if the Church is going to go to the effort of producing a fireside and bringing it to us, we should make the time to watch it instead of playing games. This is a matter of good, better and best and I think we should be doing the best possible at all times. I have nothing against those that are doing good, I’m just stating my opinion and desire for that daughter that I would want to marry.

I’m sure there are more things that I am missing. Any ideas?

Well, it’s late, so I should stop here.

Today was good. It was quite different from the normal Sunday. In fact, I never made it to the Dowden’s! I had no meetings before church which was good because I enjoyed sleeping in and then spent time getting ready for teacher development tonight and making signup sheets for break the fast. Church went well, but our numbers seemed low. We had good lessons throughout the block, then had Frank’s baptism which was great. Shortly after that it was time for dinner and our class at the Rodriguez home. I was thinking about ditching out on branch prayer - I had told myself I was going to come home and do something productive like write to Tara - but Larilyn wanted to follow me to Sister Baca’s. Being that I knew I should be at branch prayer and that she wanted someone to follow, I decided to go. It was good, I’m glad I went.

I think our class went well tonight. We really just had an ongoing discussion regarding teaching and fortunately I didn’t have to talk much at all. I was happy with the outcome, but I was a bit disappointed in the lack of attendance. The problem is that the teachers who really need to be there are the ones that don’t come. We’ll have to find another way to reach out to them. Any ideas on how we could improve or how we could get more to attend? We’re already including dinner and while I know Sunday is a busy day, almost every other day of the week has something on it already so I doubt it is any better. I guess I’ll just have to extend more personal invitations to everyone next time around.

I’m interested to see what this week will bring. I have a feeling that things are going to get kind of crazy, but I guess only time will tell.

Today was good. It was very full, but it was good. I woke up early for a Sunday to spend some time really preparing the lesson for Elder’s Quorum today. I think the lesson turned out well due to lots of great participation from others. I really didn’t do much, which is the way that it should be and instead was able to lead what I thought was a good overview of the chapter and discussion amongst the elders. Now if I can just come up with things for the other upcoming times I need to talk or present a lesson I’ll be doing good.

The fireside tonight got cancelled and our branch conference got pushed back a few months so things changed around quite a bit today. Beyond that we had great lessons and good time in fellowship. Jim and I went and home-taught Kim which was nice and was a good conclusion to the lesson today on becoming more like Christ. We need to continue to raise the bar with home teaching and many other aspects.

I’m missing the Knight Rider movie that’s on this evening, so I’m going to have to wait until Saturday night to catch it again. I think it is time to upgrade to an HD DVR. That means no ReplayTV and I’ll probably end up with the cable companies DVR so I have one less device. I guess the cost would be about the same in the end as what I’m paying now, so why not, right?

I’m hoping I can truly get back to work this week. The last few weeks just seem like they have been filled with too many sidetracks to really be doing what we are there to do. I’m going to focus on getting back on track here and pressing forward this week. I’m going to start by getting a good night’s sleep.