I am a BYU student. I have facial hair. And I am surprisingly not judged for it. A few years ago, I would not have gotten away with it so easily. One of the first things I noticed upon returning to BYU after more than 2 years was the number of men with facial hair. There are lots of them, as I write this in the library I see three.
I am proud of my fellow students and professors for not staring at me, not judging me, and not questioning my worthiness.
This article (http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56042739-78/beard-beards-byu-church.html.csp) in the Salt Lake Tribune is excellent, it's everything I wish I'd written. It chronicles the Mormon beard's descent from encouraged to shunned. It made several good points:
1- Missionaries used to be REQUIRED to grow beards, it was considered more mature.
2- Jesus and God have quite the beards according to most Mormon art and accounts! So they would not be accepted as temple workers.
3- The standard only changed in the sixties when beards equaled hippies. This is no longer the case.

Hugh Nibley said in 1973: "The worst sinners, according to Jesus, are not the harlots and publicans, but the religious leaders with their insistence on proper dress and grooming, their careful observance of all the rules, their precious concern for status symbols, their strict legality, their pious patriotism... the haircut becomes the test of virtue in a world where Satan deceives and rules by appearances."

Hopefully whoever makes the rules at BYU will come around one day! The students and faculty are already way ahead of them. Happy bearded Easter!

I dreamed that I had to hold 6 white mice in one hand. They squirmed and stratched and 2 quickly fell out. It felt horrible. Like seething little furry snakes.

Maybe I'm trying to hold on to too many things at the same time? 

My class went to the cafeteria this morning to observe the eating folk.
Here is the result:

Your brown sack lunch
folded over with such perfectly straight lines
and your huge gut
folded over your belt with heaving curves
funny that the same food
in just one instant
can leave it's bag of order
and enter an inflatable jump-castle

BYU Honor Code Exposed

At last! Public proof that the BYU honor code is ridiculously out of touch with students. I love BYU, don't get me wrong, but I like free agency better.

Heard of the Facebook page "BYU-I Secrets"? The idea is that students can send secret thoughts and actions anonymously, to be posted to the now over 3,000 people who have liked the page.

It's an honest and sometimes painful glimpse of the sexual frustration, social repression, and sometimes depressing state of BYU Idaho's students. People criticize or comfort each other, act self-righteous or rebellious, and all around expose the disfunctional and Orwellian idea that a University, even if it's the Lord's, can control the thoughts and actions of it's thousands of very different students.  Take a look if you dare.

https://www.facebook.com/ByuISecrets?fref=ts

BYU Provo has one as well, though it is less popular.

https://www.facebook.com/ByuSecrets?fref=ts

Recife #2 - Traffic

I miss the buses constantly passing and making me feel like there was something enormous going on. Streets in the US aren't the same. They are sterile, planned. Obnoxiously accurate turns and angles make the thrill of driving feel like math. 

In Recife they are veins. Full of humans, horses, taxis, buses, pedestrians, and life, twisting their way through buildings, across bridges, past beaches, over and near the ocean. Buses give window to an array of human life, standing. It’s so different to stand as the world flies by. I don’t think any Americans really know what it’s like to look around as they travel, with no control, no hand on the steering wheel and no reclined seat.

That said, at least I don't have to wait 2 hours in traffic anymore :)

Recife post #1

I've decided to make a series of posts about my mission, specifically, about Recife. I think I do some about my gym too, but here's the intro for now!

Brigham Young once said that if a young man served a mission to see the world that he would come back sorely disappointed. He also once said that there were people living on the moon and sun. Bah! I refused to serve a mission with my eyes closed. I saw the world. Brigham Young only saw Great Britain and Canada, if he had served in my Recife he would have known better.

Experiencing another culture shoves your own up your nostrils. I learned what being an American meant, the good and bad. I questioned why I was a certain way, why I did certain things. I adopted Brazilian good and threw out American bad. I treasured American good and sorrowed at Brazillian bad. No leader of a country, no religious leader, no one, should be allowed to have influence in this world without having tried it. Without having another world purge themselves of their bad and fill them with it’s good. I believe God is God because he is of every culture. All that is good in Brazilians, Americans, and everyone was given to them by God. In some of the potions he made were added a lock of his hair, another, his toenail clippings, another, a tear. Here you go, take this talent, and share it with your neighbors. Learn from them in return. No one is given the whole ten talents.

Observations in the Library

Apples taste better unwashed.

College is the only place you can sleep in public without being a hobo.

Every time I see a woman with facial hair, I question the existence of God.

My mom freezes water bottles before going to soccer games, even in the winter, and we come back and they are still frozen.

People (especially women) hould high five more. High fives are perfect for people you don't know well enough to hug, but know too well to shake hands with.