Scott Chester

So I’m a few days behind. I had thought that my trip to Maui was going to be filled with boredom and lots of relaxing time. As you can see, I haven’t even had the time to write, or maybe more correctly, I’ve been too tired to write. I’ve learned that there is no point in taking books or movies on trips with me as I never end up reading or watching them. I finally read a chapter of one book while we boarded the airplane on the way back, but that’s the book that I always have in my laptop bag anyway! The other three books I brought and none of the movies even got looked at.

I learned how to surf on Monday. That was interesting, but painful. I was able to get up a few times, but got tired of it pretty quick. You certainly use a lot of muscles that I haven’t worked in a long time surfing and that just became too much for me. I thoroughly enjoyed just sitting on the board watching the waves go by and taking in the scenery though.

At some point I explored the pool and found that the water in it was not very warm, so I quickly decided there were better ways to spend my time.

I spent most of my time it seems just exploring the island and taking pictures. I could have easily spent a few more days on Maui and would have loved to have gone to the other islands as well. I guess I have a list of things to do for the next time. I need to give more details about things, but here are two final thoughts to leave you with tonight. First, I ate at entirely new restaurants the entire time I was there except for the morning I couldn’t find anything other than McDonald’s for breakfast. I even tried new things which is even more adventurous for me.

And finally, the road to Hana was amazing. It was so breathtaking and beautiful. The road would narrow constantly and just be one lane - as in not enough room for two cars to pass each other. That kept things interesting, but it was so worth the few hours. It was totally like a rainforest down there. The humidity was so high that water was condensing on the sides of the air conditioning vents in the car. I had to keep the windows down because the a/c couldn’t dehumidify the air enough for me to see where I was going. It was hard to get shots along the way because there weren’t many places to pull off the road. There were a bunch I wanted to get on the way back, but at one point the tire pressure sensor in the van started complaining and I didn’t want to get stranded hours from civilization, especially with the hunger mounting and my departure flight quickly approaching.

I must admit that I was too exhausted and lazy last night to write, so this will have to do. I spent most of the day traveling. It was about six by the time I got checked into the hotel and time for the first activity before I was even settled. P.S. I was starving! It took about an hour to get our luggage from the flight and then we had to wait for the bus and so forth, it was ridiculous! Next time I’ll ship my luggage and rent a car so I can skip some of the waiting.

The flight was actually pretty good. I scored an empty seat next to me which is second best to having a friend there. I really wish Tara had been in that empty seat. it was a long flight. I got to watch both Journey to the Center of the Earth and Wall-E. I also tried to do some soduku on the flight, but wasn’t having much luck. I hope it was because I was being distracted with the movie, but it may have been that my brain just wasn’t working.

I rented a car this morning to go to church. I first had to get my massage appointment rescheduled, but Carla was nice enough to handle that for me as always. She took my appointment and is getting me a new one later in the week. I was totally worried about lds.org having the wrong information in the meetinghouse locator, but I decided to go with it. I drove past the local meetinghouse which started at 9 to the one on the south side of the Island which was supposed to have the YSA meeting there at 10. Well, there was another ward finishing up fast and testimony meeting there when I got there. Another couple asked me if I knew what was going on. A local member told me the next ward started at 1. The sister missionaries found out for me that the YSA meets at the stake center (back by the airport) and that the next ward was a Tongan ward. I decided to try out the stake center. I got there just after a ward had started and just missed sacrament. I stayed through their testimony meeting and Sunday school when I found out that the YSA ward did meet there at 10 and was going on simultaneously. I then stayed for another sacrament meeting so I could take the sacrament.

In that final meeting, I met another couple from Northern California who is vacationing in Hawaii. They told me their GPS had directed them wrong and they finally found the stake center two blocks from their hotel or ship (I’m not quite sure). I realized that clearly the adversary didn’t want me to take the sacrament today. It all started with the spa, then Enterprise didn’t have cars, i showed up at the wrong building (at the right time), and then just missed it when I showed up at the other building. I knew I needed to stay and take it. I was going to just take the sacrament and leave after, but I felt that I needed to stay for my third fast and testimony meeting today. I almost got up to bear my testimony even, but people seemed to be rushing the stand, so I didn’t go.

I think this was one of the most powerful meetings I’ve ever been in. It was definitely worth it and I was so grateful to have been there and to have finally been able to take the sacrament. How wonderful it is that we can travel to the corners of the earth and yet come Home every Sunday in worship. I did really feel at home in that stake center of our Lord’s Church today. There was something special and I don’t mean the people saying aloha. The congregation would say aloha back to anyone who said it from the pulpit. That was strange! We don’t do that anywhere else that I know of. Normally it is only a one way communication.

After church I saw a fire just after it got started on the side of the highway. I called it in and then started taking pictures after I realized it was growing. I got quite a few and some good ones I feel. I came back to the resort and posted the pictures and was reminded again that I need to backup and cleanup iPhoto.

We had our welcome dinner tonight. I got to see Jim & Susan and meet their son. I had dinner with them and I think we are going to hang out again throughout the week. I haven’t seen the couple from SLC that we had last year. Unfortunately I can’t remember their names to check the guest list. I guess we’ll just have to see if I can find them. Where’s Tara when I need her?

The Luau was pretty cool. The Samoan fire knife dance was amazing. I don’t know how that guy was able to do what he did, but I’m sure he doesn’t have any hair left on his body. There is probably/definitely more to say, but I’m so tired, I need to get to sleep!

On my way back to the resort from church this afternoon I came across this fire on the side of the road that had clearly just started as there was no one on the scene. I called it in and then later pulled off to take some other pictures. When I looked back I saw that it had grown substantially and decided to go back and check it out. Here are some pictures:

Tomorrow I leave for Hawaii. I will be traveling alone, even though I found lots of interested people today. I thought I had publicized a month ago that I was looking for people to join me, but I guess I didn’t do a good enough job. In any event, maybe I will be able to enjoy some alone time and get some things done I haven’t been able to do for a while. I’m not sure what all I’m going to do out there though activity wise. I want to travel to the temple, but I’m figuring it would probably end up costing me $300 by the time I do it. I will probably go see Scott & Desoree one of the days, and that is going to probably cost about the same. Maybe if I spent the night with them I could catch a plane to the other island the next day and make a round trip of it. Of course, it would be a little strange to be in a $300/night resort/hotel and not go back to the room to sleep!

It appears that we have emerged victoriously! It was only by a narrow margin though and there are still votes to be counted, but with 100% of precincts reporting and we have a 52.5%, I think we are safe to say we won! I think they still have to count the absentee ballots which I guess could take up to a month.

I totally slept through my alarm this morning and was a little late to work, but it felt so good. We had a 53′ FedEx National LTL truck deliver a 2′ x 2′ x 2′ box to us today. The packing slip says it was sent on a pallet. It gets even better. Inside the box was a 3″ x 3″ x 10″ box without even any packing material! I think they could have sent it US Mail! I have pictures for the fun of it. I’ll have to post them later.

I enjoyed a quiet evening at home tonight. I bought Melissa’s plane ticket, watched some TV and talked on the phone. I really was pretty much just lazy tonight. I was able to talk Melissa into coming with me to Maui. I don’t think she has realized yet that this means she is stuck with me for the bulk of the week. I wonder when she will figure that out! The flight I’m on jumped to $1800 today, it is absurd. I booked her on a flight that was $570 by the time I got it booked, but was $360 or so earlier this afternoon. I guess I still haven’t learned that it pays to book flights early.

I discovered that my website is #4 for yeson8 and #5 for proposition 8 text. I’m sure I’m in the top results for other searches as well. The daily visitors on my site have about doubled over the past month. I’m sure it will die down here again soon.

I’m sure there was something else I wanted to write about tonight, but I need to get some sleep and stop writing. Good night to all and thank you for your support!

Well, it is going to be too close to call tonight. As of 10:25 p.m. we’re looking at 29% of precincts reporting with 52.3% supporting a YES vote on Proposition 8 to protect marriage. I truly hope that our efforts will have been enough. I pray that the difference will be made up for us. I think we made our best efforts on this and I hope we emerge victorious in the morning and the coming days.

The fight has gotten really nasty in the last day. The home invasion video was so absurd. I called most of the Los Angeles and San Diego television stations on my way to the temple at 5 o’clock this morning and left messages for the advertising directors imploring them not to air the video. Since I wasn’t watching TV most of the day, I couldn’t tell you if they played them or not.

I had a good time at the temple this morning and was happy I was there and not somewhere else stressing about this proposition. I got to go through a session and then officiated for one. It was kind of nerve-wracking to officiate, but I heard I was a winner. Of course I have some things to work on, but I’m sure I can get it down shortly. I’m really bummed to be missing my shift next week. Sadly, I’m not looking forward to this vacation, but I’m sure after a few days I’ll be able to enjoy myself. It’s been a while since I’ve had some real time to myself I guess. I even looked at flights again tonight and they are too expensive now to consider bringing someone along. Actually, I guess that is just my flight. There are some other ones with a stop in Honolulu that could work I guess and maybe even some from SAN. I need to figure out that game-plan tomorrow. This may be your last chance, so speak now or forever hold your peace!

I also need to get to sleep. Didn’t I say i was going to get some sleep once this prop 8 thing was over? Well, I guess it isn’t over quite yet, so I haven’t broken any promises.

I can’t remember the last time that I had so much time in the morning before church. We set our clocks back an hour today, so I got an extra hour of sleep kind of and then didn’t have any meetings before church. I spent some time working on church things and also was blessed to be able to spend some time just pondering. I felt impressed to review my patriarcharcal blessing this morning and spent some time reminiscing the trip to Punta Cana last year with Tara. I remember how excited I was and how we totally had the time of our lives there. I leave for Maui this week and I am not looking forward to it. I can’t believe that I’m going to go to Hawaii for my first time all alone. I’m sure I will still be able to enjoy myself somewhat, but there is just no way of it comparing to the week that Tara and I had last year.

I’ve found myself really missing Tara this week actually. I’ve been pondering on her a lot. I think Cynthia reminds me a lot of her. They have a similar physical appearance and share many great qualities. I’ve also been feeling guilty about not writing her since before general conference. I did send her the postcard not from Minneapolis, but that doesn’t count much. I was planning on sending her a gift a few weeks ago and haven’t done that yet either, so I’m getting myself down and frustrated with that. Hopefully I can call this week and schedule something for Friday morning. I did write to her this morning which was great. I need to do that more for myself than I think I do for her. There is just something about writing a letter - or even a card - that I can’t seem to capture any other way.

I hadn’t looked at those pictures from the DR for some time now and am so happy that I took the time to make the book. I really need to do that more often. It also made me think of all the great pictures of friends that I need to print and hang.

I cried today when Andrea spoke during fast and testimony meeting and am doing it again now. She said that she had lost friendships over this prop 8 thing, but that she had learned so much and her love for the Lord had grown because of it, at least in my paraphrased version. What a fight this has been. I still can’t get over that 9% of our population is causing so much turmoil for the other 91%. A heavy price has been paid for this - our freedoms - just as it has been done so many times before. Was the war in Heaven something like this? I don’t think I’ve lost any friends over this matter, but that just makes me think that I have been too coward to act. I’ve been too afraid to really stand up for what is needed and need to learn from her. She also shared that her two best friends were her mom and dad and that touched me so much.

I had been thinking this weekend about sharing my testimony. Much like Andrea, I had kind of secretly been wanting to be called up in the last few weeks when people have been called to the stand. I had been thinking about what to say and trying to come up with something to share that could help someone else. I’d even rehearsed things in my head, but when I got to church it was all gone and while I felt that I could get up, I didn’t feel the need to. Maybe I’ll have the opportunity soon. This week really has been very spiritual for me. I feel like I was on the right track a lot of the time and I learned so much. Maybe it was the lack of sleep that brought me closer to my Heavenly Father, maybe it is the election drawing near, I don’t know. What I do know, now especially more than I did before, is that Proposition 8 needs to be passed or this fight is only going to get worse. What I don’t know is what the agenda is from the other side. I discovered last night that all the married rights they say they are getting from being married versus a civil union don’t transfer to other states and aren’t acknowledged by the federal government. They won’t say that they want to teach this in school and many people say that they don’t want anything about marriage taught in schools. So what is their agenda? I don’t know. I know that we can’t let 9% of America take away the rights of the remaining 91%. I know that temple marriage is ordained of God. Families can be sealed there together forever, not just for their mortal time on this earth. If prop 8 fails, this right to marry in God’s temple could be challenged. I know that the gospel is true, that Jesus Christ did atone for our sins, that he does live and reign today. His church is run by His prophet on the earth today, Thomas S. Monson. President Monson is supported by his counselors in the first presidency and the twelve apostles of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. These men have spoken as the mouthpiece of the Lord that we need to do all we can to make sure this measure passes. We may not know what is to come if it doesn’t, but I can assure you that they are aware of the dark and dreary place that we will be in if we continue down the slippery slope we are already falling down.

I really wanted to watch the CES fireside tonight. I was ready for the spiritual uplifting from it and was ready to learn even though I knew we were supposed to cancel all activities until after the election. I was fine with watching it by myself and then doing a public performance later. Clearly, my thinking was wrong because for whatever reason I was called in to the Dowden’s for tech support before even leaving the stake center today. They were having problems with their wireless and I was stuck there the entire time supporting people in making calls and getting computers running to do so. I’m sure now that is where I needed to be today; I just had to conform my will to that of the Father’s.

I just turned off about an hour ago in branch prayer. Megan even asked me if I was about to fall asleep and I had to say yes. I am so exhausted. This fight is starting to take it’s toll on me in the final hours and I need to stay strong. I’m anxious to see what this week will bring and looking forward to hopefully being victorious on Tuesday. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen!

I’ve just been so exhausted lately I haven’t had a chance to write. Thursday went well with class and so forth. I tried the Twin Cities Grill Thursday night. It was really good and well worth the wait. I’ll definitely going back there. It wasn’t cheap, but it was good. I had a delicious steak for a little less than one would pay at Ruth’s Chris. I managed to miss the first few minutes of CSI back at the hotel and then kept getting interrupted during it. I also watched whatever weird show was on after CSI and then just about fell asleep on the couch.

Friday morning went well as we tried to wrap things up with the class. I passed the written exam and now just need to complete my project. I made it to my flight ontime and it was another full one. I was kind of hoping it would be oversold and they would be looking for people to bump, but of course it never happens when I could actually take a later flight. I sat next to a woman who was coming in on vacation for a week with her daughter and we talked for a while. I eventually decided to try and get some work done, but it was just too hard with the laptop. I then started watching Amazing Grace, but only got about 30 minutes into it before I was asked to cease and desist for landing.

LA Traffic actually wasn’t that bad coming back home as it only took me about two hours once I got to my car. It did take me an hour to get from the gate to my car which is a joke. Nonetheless, I’m sure in this case it was better to take the direct flight than having a layover somewhere else along the line.

It turned out that something was wrong with the recording of the Price is Right, so we didn’t get to see Krystal. One of her other friends apparently has it recorded and is going to transfer it to DVD for her though. I was really looking forward to getting home to see it, and was quite bummed that we couldn’t watch it.

I woke up super early Saturday morning and couldn’t sleep. After playing on the computer for an hour or so I decided to go back to sleep. When I got up the second time I enjoyed a bowl of Crispix and then watched a few things off the DVR before I got started with cleaning the house. I was thinking about going to the temple to makeup for Tuesday, but realized I just had too much to do. I did make it down for the baptisms though. We were way short on people, so I’m glad I went and am very thankful for the help we had from others last night as well.

After the temple, the group that wanted to come straight home decided they wanted to stop at In-N-Out to grab something quickly. I mentioned that if we were going to do that, we should go to Fuddruckers and I got everyone on board. That probably happened because when we got there two people ordered something other than a hamburger which they clearly couldn’t have gotten at In-N-Out! It was apparently homecoming for Mira Mesa or some other area schools and they thought we were there for Homecoming since we were somewhat dressed up. Brother Clark asked me if I was class of ‘08 and I just laughed and said yep! I just want to know what the two of us guys were doing wit the three girls.

My counselors finally got called and set apart today. It will be huge having their help and I’m hoping we can figure out who our secretary is supposed to be and then we can really get this home teaching thing whipped into shape. It sounds like we aren’t going to be swapping the hours, so we will be stuck without the guys from mission prep. It sure would be nice to have them, but I guess we will just deal with another challenge.

President and Sister Clegg spoke today. Other than President going way over, it was good. He spoke about sexual morality, coming clean using the atonement and damaged goods. He relayed a story that hit me about a missionary who was planning on marrying his girlfriend after he returned. Shortly after he left she got into some trouble. After she left the other guy and went through the repentance process with her bishop she was pronounced clean again. This elder though didn’t see it so clearly. He had saved himself for her and he thought she was damaged goods. President Kimball (?) told him that he just didn’t get it. She has been made clean through the atonement, her sins have been forgiven. Yet, this elder struggled with that as I expect many do.

I went over to the Dowden’s tonight to post Mandi’s video of us trying to swallow cinnamon. Maegan also challenged me to a game of Blockus. I had never played before and didn’t do so well. I tried to get Cynthia to help me, but Maegan kept coming up with reasons she couldn’t. Eventually, Maegan gave up and everyone worked to finish off my pieces as best we could.

I’m so exhausted, I’m thinking about just going to bed and not even writing tonight. I really need to not stay up so late! I’ll try and keep it short. I’m still enjoying the beautiful colors and weather out here. Still learning a lot in class and having fun here.

We went over to the Mall for dinner at some Italian place which was really good. I came home (is it bad that I’m calling the hotel home?) and worked. I had to do payroll and figured I’d try and take care of some other things while I was in there. I really don’t have anything life shattering to share, so I think I’m going to call it quits while I’m ahead and before I get sidetracked.

Good night!

Hello again from beautiful Minneapolis. Things are cooling down here and starting to get really beautiful. It probably is a good thing I didn’t bring my camera, cause I’d probably be outside freezing right now trying to take pictures of something. Heck, I probably would have gotten lost exploring and needed to geotag my pictures to find my way back.

I’ve been learning a lot. I don’t think I had ever really grasped how powerful this stuff is. I’ve known about a lot of the features, but I think I always figured you needed more to make things work. We haven’t even gotten into NetMax and have only been playing with the cards in the RL amps. I’ve been starting to ponder what I’m going to do for my project. It makes sense to do a real job that we have coming up, but I also kind of want to tackle the church buildings as they are pretty complicated for a ceiling speaker system. I’d like to see what I come up with before seeing how they actually do them and see if I’m any good.

I went to the Mall of America tonight for dinner. I was going to try the Twin City Grill, but they had a wait so I decided to try Kokomo’s. I had their tidal wave fettuccine alfredo. It was good, but definitely not the traditional dish like from Macaroni Grill. Next time I’d probably try the Bahama Burger.

I came back to the hotel and watched What Happens in Vegas. I thought it was pretty funny and of course believe that people can work to love each other once they get their mind straight. I don’t understand why it is so hard for some people to see sometimes. I guess we all have problems seeing what is right in front of us.

I did the WM 6.1 update on my phone tonight as well. So far it seems like things are working.

Now, as usual, I’ve been up too late, chatting online. Thanks Melissa!

We had the concluding session of stake conference this morning. I got there about 45 minutes early and the chapel was already full. I knew I should have kept sleeping this morning! I can’t think of anything major that I learned from conference today, but I was thinking about the testimonies that people kept bearing. I totally kept thinking last night I was going to get called up, so maybe that’s why I’ve been thinking about it so much lately. I probably don’t give mine often enough, which is also probably why it isn’t very eloquent. I did enjoy conference even if I was a bit squirmy in the hard seats. I think I’m going to bring my own recliner next time!

I high tailed it out of there to get things finished up for the trip. I really didn’t like having the business trip on my mind during conference or really having to deal with it today, but sometimes things have to be done. I think I learned some patience though and that things will work out on the Lord’s timeline, mine isn’t important. It did seem like I kept hitting things talking about keeping the Sabbath day holy and such and I felt like I was really letting the Lord down today. There are probably bigger things I should be worrying about, but I guess it’s a start.

In any event, I had a good drive to LAX and made it there with plenty of time to go. I had thoughts about calling people about home teaching, but I didn’t feel the airport was a good place to be doing it so after a few calls I stopped. I also remembered I needed to send out the branch weekly email which sidetracked me too. The flight ended up being overbooked and they were looking for people to bump. I guess since we had a full flight, we were able to get going early and there was practically no wait for takeoff at LAX. We ended up arriving almost half an hour early which is great since it’s after midnight here now. I sat next to a doctor and we talked for a good portion of the flight. We talked about prop 8 and what is already happening. We really agreed on a lot of things which was pretty cool.

The hotel here has improved since last time. I guess the remodel did them good. They’ve got new suites with 32″ LCDs, granite countertops in the bathrooms, a good size work area and more. I’m impressed. Let’s just hope breakfast has improved as well. If not, I’ll be hitting up the IHOP again. Well, I should get to sleep as I need to be up in less than 6 hours, I think. Maybe I should find the itinerary again and double check.

Yesterday seems like it was so far away now. I didn’t get to sleep early like I was hoping to last night. I totally felt like I was getting ready for my first day of school. I kept finding things that I needed to do or things that needed to be prepared. I also really wanted to watch the first episode of Knight Rider, so I did that which kept me downstairs until 9:30 or so with everything else I kept finding to do.

Things were great this morning. I got to see all the secret rooms of the temple, except for engineering and the roof access. I think engineering was the one place I really wanted to go. Maybe I can apply for a job there.

I was pretty tired by the time I got to work today. We did accomplish one major thing and that was spending lots of my money so I can go to Maui in November. Now we’ve got the first trip, so we can buy in additional ones or figure out something else.

I think I’m going to cut out early tonight and hopefully catch up on some sleep from my restless night last night.

I’m really tired, so I should make this fast which means it will probably be really long. I think I’ve been fighting something all week now which has just been bringing me down. Maybe Krystal needs to find a new human garbage disposal or I need to find somewhere else to lay blame as she probably has nothing to do with it.

Work was alright today. I still have a lot to do tomorrow, so it is probably a good thing that I’m most likely not going to San Francisco this weekend. I discovered that there are tons of people coming to Connie & Michael’s thing, so they wouldn’t miss me and Brooke’s dad is coming into town to spend some time with her this weekend. Looks like I’ll be picking a new weekend which will allow me to spend more time doing the things I need to be doing around here. Frank should be moving in on Saturday as well, so it would probably be good to be here for that.

I went to the Murrieta Chamber Mixer tonight. It went well. I met a few new people. Although not quite the number I as hoping for, it was good. I learned about a wedding venue in French Valley that I hadn’t heard of before and will have to come check out.

It was great to have institute back again finally. I missed it last month! I needed to have read ahead and reviewed so I was better prepared though tonight. After instiute, Maegan and Larilyn came over and had dinner and then birthday cake. Zach came over and joined us and we talked about making calls for this weekend as well as home teaching. We have a lot of work to do to help our branch get 100% home teaching this month.

I really need to get to sleep!

Today was a bit quieter than the past has been. Granted, that was probably only because our email was down for part of the day and we have yet to receive some of those messages.

We had a BBQ tonight at the Clegg’s. It was fun, but I spent all my time taking pictures and debating if I should go to San Francisco this weekend.

Since Connie & Michael are having their anniversary party this weekend, I thought that maybe it would be a good time to come up and see Brooke. Of course, we have a few things going on here as well that could use being dealt with, I was thinking a good weekend away could be good for me as well.

Sounds like I’m probably not going this weekend, but will soon. And I think I’ll have to go back in the spring to see Wicked!

I just learned that Krystal’s airing on the price is right is the week that I’m in Minneapolis! What are the chances of something like that happening? The other thing is that since she wasn’t going to be here, it probably wasn’t going to be a big deal, but now that she is staying, it probably will be a big deal and I’m going to be 2,000 miles away. I guess I’ll have the opportunity to watch it earlier though since I’ll be two hours ahead.

I was informed that Maegan is coming over for her birthday celebration after institute tomorrow night. I guess I have to bake a cake.

Did you like my random thoughts? I think my brain must have shut down or something. Maybe I got up too early this morning or maybe I’ve just gone into shock from actually making a real breakfast (french toast) this morning when it was still dark outside.