Track Life

It was May 2nd, 2014 at Kuna High School and I had finally ran a race that I was pleased with after a season of frustration and defeat. I went into the 4A District III track meet with a lot to prove as I was the defending district and state champion in the 400m, yet had been beaten consistently by two other athletes from my district all season long. However, I had confidence that my training would lead me to breaking out and establishing myself as the best once again. And I did it. Not my best race, but good enough to get back on top. After defending my title in the 400m it was time to prepare myself to my next final, the 200m. After recovering from a grueling 400 just an hour or so earlier, I walked out onto the track and set my starting blocks. Still in my sweats, I got myself loaded into the blocks for a practice start to make sure I was ready to race. I got settled in, raised my hips into the set position, and took a few hard strides out of the blocks. As I turned around to walk back to my blocks I felt a pain in my ankle. Nothing major, but uncomforting nonetheless. But, I had two back-to-back races to run so I told myself it was no big deal and just ran my little heart out.

400m Final @ Districts senior year

7 days later I was on the track at Boise State ready to run my first race, the medley relay. At districts the week before our relay team had ran a full second under the state record and ran the fastest time in that state by a large margin, so naturally we were big favorites to bring home the title and a new state record. Usually once I step onto the track for a race I am confident and expect myself to run well. However, this day was different. You see, what I thought was an insignificant pain in my left ankle turned out to be debilitating to my running. Heck, just two days before state I still couldn't run at all because of the sharp pain, so I spent the entire week leading up to state not being able to run. Thankfully modern medicine is pretty sweet and a healthy dose of cortisone whisked away the pain barely in time for me to run, however not running all week long was definitely not ideal. So obviously I did not feel my usual confidence standing there on the track waiting to get passed the baton for my leg of the relay. As my teammate approached me everything went wrong. I left too late, didn't take off hard enough, and sure enough the baton went tumbling to the ground and we didn't finish the race. Well, that race didn't go as planned, I then ran a slow time in the 400, then I ran a crappy 200, then the 4x400 relay didn't go as planned. Sure, I walked away with two silver medals, but I felt greatly unsatisfied and like a failure. That meet was my last chance to do something big and run to the potential that I knew I had, and that all fell through the cracks because of a small little ankle injury.

Somehow my mother got a picture right as the baton was falling to the track... good timing (or bad timing?)!

Fast forward 3.5 years and I have set out to not let my track career end with disappointment and be left feeling like I never fully tapped into my full potential. Last semester after I got back from my mission I got in and talked to the sprint coach for the track team here at Utah State and expressed my desire to walk on and fight for a spot on the team and he gladly welcomed me into joining the team to fight for a roster spot for the competitive season that starts in January. So at the beginning of this school year I started my journey of adding a new uplifting chapter to my career to not be left feeling unsatisfied.

Unfortunately for me, I dealt with a foot injury throughout the summer that kept me from preparing myself for the coming fall training and playing a bit of catch up with the kids that hadn't just taken a 3+ year break from training. However, I still jumped in earlier this fall with nothing to lose. Sure, my fitness level may have been a bit behind, but luckily we worked pretty slowly into our training so I never felt like I was lagging too much. Even as our workouts started to amp up a bit I was always very surprised with my ability to keep up and run workouts right there with the rest of the guys and I began to build my confidence that I could run Division I track and be an asset to my team.

My foot had gotten much better and I had gotten to the point where I nearly didn't have any pain at all. The only pain I would ever have would be just a little bit or soreness after practice. I had probably nearly a month of having minimal to no pain before all of a sudden one Monday my plantar fasciitis decided to flare up with a vengeance! I had never felt even close to that type of pain in my foot throughout the 4 months I had been dealing with the injury so it was so strange for it to go from painless to nearly crippling basically over the weekend. My foot hasn't been the same since. I found a pre-practice treatment routine and a tape job that helps me not have much pain for my workouts, but I usually have quite a bit of pain after I get done with my workout, so I had to find a post-practice routine to help relieve that pain as well. Not an ideal situation, however I have been able to practice everyday and have been able to keep getting stronger and faster.

This is my trainer Megan. She seriously keeps me running through my daily pain and I cannot thank her enough!!!

One of the things that I missed most about track was being a part of a team. I realized right after I finished my last race at the state track meet my senior year of high school that I was going to miss my teammates and the relationships I built through track more than anything. Coming onto a new track team was a bit different. It was my first time being around all these new people, and a lot of our workout group is freshman, so it took a while for us to come together and become what I was used to. However, one thing that is so special about my team is the fact that even though most us are competing for a roster spot, everybody is each others biggest cheerleaders. Every single workout is filled with high fives and motivational chants which are honestly so incredibly helpful when you are about to pass-out and you are about to step up to the line again. I have never been on a team that has come together like we have here at Utah State to help each other improve and get better, even though we are each others competition.

This past Wednesday we had our annual Blue & White Inter-squad Meet. Not only was this our first chance to race, but this was our last chance to make an impression because cuts were to come just two days later on Friday. I had been feeling a bit unconfident in my chances of making it past cuts for a couple weeks leading up to the meet for some reason. I fell a little bit behind in a couple workouts and for some reason lost a bit of my confidence. So I knew I needed to show up and run a good race. Well, I did just that! I ran extremely well and actually ran a lot faster than everyone except for two really solid returners on the team who I ran about the same time as. Not only did I run well but racing for the first time in 3.5 years felt SO GOOD! I hadn't felt that rush and competitive spirit in such a long time and it made me so excited to start racing in January! I felt a lot of new confidence in my chances of making the team and was looking forward to competing for Utah State.

There I was Friday morning sitting in English class when I felt my phone buzz. "Oh no!" I thought. For some reason I just knew it was going to be a text from my coach, which would not be a good sign. Earlier in the week I had heard that coach would only meet with those people getting cut, so if you didn't get a text to go meet with coach you just show up to practice that day and that was the sign that you made it. Well, sure enough I pulled my phone out of my pocket and saw the text from my coach asking for me to come it to talk with him. I couldn't get in to visit with him for another few hours, so I had the privilege of sitting through two classes and some more time knowing that I was about to get cut before it actually happened. Once I finally made it to the offices my coach took me to a small meeting room and told me that they were cutting me from the team. Honestly I think it was harder for him than me. He talked about how his whole career is based on helping athletes and doing whatever he can to help them reach their potential, so it is extra hard for him to do the opposite of that to someone. It was hard for me to sit there and see his eyes begin to tear up a little bit and I could tell that he was deeply hurt to cut someone like me who came and gave it everything he had day in and day out.

Obviously it was extremely difficult for me. To know that I spent hours and hours every week in the training room, on the track, and in the weight room for three months only to be told I was not going to be on the roster was a pretty tough pill to swallow. It hurts when you are told you aren't good enough when you have put your heart and soul into getting better every single day. But, I was alright. I am so incredibly proud of what I did. Division I track is no joke and workouts were HARD some days. Just thinking about the fact that I came in after not training for 3.5 years and kept up each workout and came back day after day makes me smile and feel so dang proud of myself. Its honestly hard for me to describe how I feel because its hard to explain the personal growth that I went through over the last few months. I feel like an athlete again and have finally begun feeling satisfied after grueling workouts and felt a sense of purpose in my training. I feel competitive again and love working towards physical accomplishments. I remember praying at night about a week or so ago and having a few tears thanking the Lord just for the opportunity to have spent the last few months as a part of the Utah State track family and for all its done for me. Ultimately, at this point in my life I don't NEED track. I am thankful for the time I spent away on my mission learning what my life was really about. If I would have gotten cut from the team right after high school I would have been destroyed, but now I realize that my life has purpose and I have fulfillment in things outside of track. It doesn't define me like it seemingly once did and I am able to move on with faith and hope that it will end up being what is best for me in the greater plan that God has for me.

So, what now? What about not wanting to leave track feeling unsatisfied and not reaching my potential? I have committed myself to not quit until I am able to set a PR (personal record). Personally I think that even just after 3 months of training after a few years off I could run pretty close to as fast as I did in high school, so I am committed to keep training on my own and competing in a couple of indoor meets as an unattached athlete up in Boise come January/February. I plan to run a PR in the 400 as well as the 200 and then most likely hang up the spikes and call it a career. I honestly just can't see myself wanting to train any longer than then. I worked out Friday all by myself after I got cut and it was brutal. It is so hard to hit your times and push yourself that last stretch of an interval when you are all alone and tired. The mental aspect of training by yourself is excruciating and I just don't know if I can keep fighting that battle longer than a couple months. My coach did leave the option open to come back next year and fight for a spot again, but I do not know what my life will be like 9 months from now. The odds are slim, but I am not ruling out trying again next year.

I am sure there are many schools out there that would love to have me come run for them. I don't think it would take long to find a coach willing to get me on their roster. However, coming out of high school I made the decision that I was going to go somewhere that I wanted to go to school and then see if track would work out. So, I decided that I wanted to come here to Utah State. If track worked out, cool, and if it didn't, I was somewhere that I wanted to be without track. Unfortunately, I picked a school that actually had a legit track team that is competitive in a pretty decent conference, so I may have kind of shot myself in the foot there, but I don't regret it. Even though I have said that I would not leave Utah State previously and he knew where I stood, my dad reminded me when I called him to tell him the news that there would always be opportunities to run somewhere else if I decided that I really wanted to run, and I didn't even think for a second about transferring somewhere else. I have found a new home here and I ain't leaving it until I have to!

If you are still reading, cool. I was hoping to make this shorter than my previous posts, and I think it is juuuuuuuust a tad shorter, but still too long. So sorry.

What's Up, Homies?

Hey y'all… for some reason I feel like sharing a bit of a life update. I am in an English class right now and we are always talking about writing and I often think about writing blog posts, but I just don’t ever think about it outside of those 5 seconds sitting in class. But, here she goes. Btw... there are pics at the end. Thought I would let you know to throw some suspense in there. 

So I don’t know how many of y’all know what I was up to this past summer. I told people where I was going and what I was doing but I was pretty quiet on social media sites (outside of snapchat) throughout the summer so if you weren’t told you may have never been informed. So, I signed on as a salesman for a pest control company. After changing my mind more than once about where I was going to go to sell door-to-door I finally settled on going to Nashville for the summer. I was pretty darn jacked to go out to Tennessee and spend my summer out there. After school got out the first week of May I got to go home to Kuna for maybe a couple days before I had the great blessing of driving ALL THE WAY to Nashville by myself. Driving 25+ hours by yourself isn’t necessarily fun, however it is quite relaxing and gives you great time to ponder about life and enjoy the company of your thoughts and my boy Jesus. I left on Saturday evening and drove to my sister Elsina’s house in Utah, then got up on Sunday and drove 16 straight hours through the awful wasteland of southern Wyoming and Nebraska all the way to Kansas City where I rolled in at 12:30am, and then drove another 8+ hours to Nashville on Monday. Talk about a TRIP! Thankfully on Monday I had a teammate who was caught up with me in Kansas City driving in front of me with a radar detector, so we cut off a substantial amount of time while safely avoiding any sort of speeding violation! But still, it was awfully long.

We got to Nashville and it was sick. It seemed like a pretty rad place and we were all excited to get out to work! Selling door-to-door is an interesting job. I remember my first couple weeks were basically just a rerun of the beginning of my mission. When you first get out on your mission you basically are just lost and have no idea how to talk to people about the gospel and have moments where you just crash and burn. Well, that’s exactly the same beginning to door-to-door sales! My first couple weeks I had people all day long tell me something that just had me at a loss for words and caused me to just say, “Well, I hope you have a wonderful day!” and walk off their doorstep! It was basically every door actually… not gonna lie. Another thing about the early days of a mission is that each and every day is sooooooo long and you are just counting down the minutes until you are done. Same thing with sales. And then you get home and you realize that you are going to hit the sack soon and just have to wake up and do it all over again the next day. There is just no break!!!! It was literally a nightmare that you can’t escape! At least a mission is uplifting…. but there ain’t no upliftment with sales. It just breaks you and makes you really think about what you are doing with your life. However, you start to get in the flow of the job and it just becomes life for you. Is it ever fun? HECK NO. But its bearable and becomes slightly less of a nightmare. The worst is when you literally start having nightmares about selling pest control! I remember starting to have dreams about selling that crap and freaking out because I felt like I couldn’t escape it or get a break from it. Even after you get into the flow of it, it still seems like a living hell sometimes. Quite honestly it was the most difficult mental challenge I have ever had to face. Not to go into details about what all went on to protect people and the company… but we were placed into a terrible situation with little hope to succeed from the get go. Plus, Nashville turned out to be a very difficult market to sell in. So it was honestly just brutal trying to sell day after day. However, I am thankful for the opportunity I had to go out there. I learned a ton about myself and what I want in life. One thing I had to continually practice was the skill of overcoming mental blocks. There were days when I hadn’t sold at all in a couple days and I would be out knocking doors on a muggy evening just dead tired physically, mentally, and emotionally with seemingly no hope to sell an account after already knocking for 7 hours in that neighborhood that day. But in those moments I had to make a decision. Will I quit now and give in to my weakness? Or will I keep going to prove to myself that I can overcome my mental barrier? I would usually keep going. And then when that happened I would usually get really really really close to a sale but the stupid person just wouldn’t sign my stupid ipad!!!!! When that happens when you are already just broken down and it is the worst thing ever. Sometimes I would just go out off their lawn, crouch down on bended knees, rip my hat off, rub my hands through my hair and say a few choice words quietly before I stagger on to the next door. It was honestly so frustrating to work for probably over a dozen hours working your butt off and to not have made a single penny for your labor only to get SOOOO DANG CLOSE but still get nothing. It was far more emotionally taxing and difficult than anything I ever experienced on my mission. I honestly can’t thinkt of ever being as frustrated with how difficult missionary work was in West Texas than I would get quite often selling pest control. But, luckily I was a pro at getting last door sales! I can’t even count the amount of times that it was getting dark and I knew it was time to go pick up my car partners but had just one more door to knock before I called it quits and sold the person. It got to a point where my team lead would text me at like 8:00 with only about 15 mins to go and would tell me to work my last door magic to spank in a sale! And its funny that I usually would text him 20 minutes later telling him that I sold somebody on my last door. I guess I was rewarded for my hard work sometimes!

After working for a couple months I started to think more seriously about what was best for me and my life at the time. It was clear that my summer was not going as hoped for (as was nobody else’s on my team) and I was facing some other challenges as well. I had made the decision and was given the opportunity to run track this year here at Utah State. I had taken a bit of a break from training and was ready to get back into it about a month into my summer. However, literally the day after I committed myself to start training again I started to feel pain in my foot. I thought nothing of it that day until I got out of bed the next morning to some good stiffness and soreness. I immediately knew I got hit with a case of plantar fasciitis. Sure enough, I got into the podiatrist later that week and my self diagnosis was confirmed. So for those of you unfamiliar, your plantar fascia is the tendon that runs along the bottom of your foot from your heal to the ball of your foot. Sometimes because of this reason or that reason the tendon gets inflamed right at the heal and it tightens up the tendon along your midfoot and leads to scar tissue build up along your foot and up into your arch. Usually you can get it under control pretty quickly, but then you will deal with it on and off for a long extended period of time. Well, as a door-to-door salesman I was kind of on my feet all day every day so I could never really let it rest. I got in to see a podiatrist as soon as I could once I felt the pain and ended up receiving a series of 3 steroid shots into my heal that did absolutely nothing besides dull the pain for a few days. So there was a waste of about $500. Shoutout to Mom and Dad for picking up those payments. But after more than a month or so of dealing with irritation in my foot and not being able to train I knew I had to seriously contemplate whether or not to leave and get home to rest.

On top of the issues with my foot I was dealing with many other unfortunate circumstances that added much to my decision. I won’t go into any of the other dealings I had in front of me to protect everyone involved, but I was in sort of a mess. I had many long phone calls with my parents while sitting in the picnic area of my apartment complex out in the muggy heat of Nashville listening to the birds and crickets chirp and the frogs croak late at night. Long story short, I decided one Saturday that I was done and ready to go home and that I would be leaving the next day to start the LOOONG drive home. I was not looking forward to having the necessary conversations I had to have and the phone calls I had to make. But luckily everyone was very understanding and supportive of my decision, which was a HUGE relief after hearing about what some other kids went through when they decided to go home. I can definitely say that just trying to be a cooperative and understanding person and portraying good character through everything throughout the summer helped me a bunch when I decided to go home. It seemed to lighten the news a bit for everyone. But anyway, I felt so incredibly relieved when I finally made my decision. I felt the weight of the world just lift off my shoulders and float right on away the second I made up my mind. It’s almost like Jesus is real or something.

So just when you thought that I had my big break and got away from everything, let me tell you the consequences. Well, as a salesman that is paid off of strictly commission on accounts that are paid throughout the year, I didn’t get paid on everything upfront. For each of my accounts sold I would only receive a certain amount upfront and then the rest on backend checks later in the year. I was basically able to pay for my living expenses out in Nashville with my upfront pay, so I was basically left with nothing when I decided to come home, and by coming home before I finished my contract I forfeited all of my backend commission which was thousands of dollars. I definitely accounted for this throughout my process of deciding to come home, but I ultimately had to jump ship and cut my losses and become friends with the lovely student loans. It kinda sucks when you have plans to make enough money to be able to pay for school and everything for the school year upfront in cash and have enough to last you the rest of the year…. and then find yourself sitting there with only a few weeks until school and having less than $100 in your bank account (and that’s because your parents bail you out to help you get home because you have no money to pay for gas or anything). So I was super happy when my student loans came through and had money to pay for my life.

The rest of my summer was fun and such an emotional and mental relief. I was able to get away from the toxicity of my job in Nashville and was able to let myself unwind and figure life out for a few weeks. I was able to get into a trusted physical therapist who I had worked with before to get my foot actually treated. I was able to spend time with some of my friends and actually have a bit of enjoyable time to end my summer. I remember certainly not feeling like myself towards the end of my stay in Nashville. I had a friend tell me that he saw a picture of me and thought that I looked empty and not like the Reed he knew and almost reached out to me to tell me to get out of there (he told me this a few weeks after). I even remember looking at myself in my car mirror before I walked into my sister’s house in Utah on my drive home and hoping that she wouldn’t notice my empty and worn appearance. It took about a week or so of being home to feel like myself again, but I got there.

So here I am at school. Life is wonderful……. yet super confusing at the same time. I am kind of in a limbo state right now where I am still in a position of uncertainty about many things and yet starting to figure life out and what the future holds. One of the biggest things for me is the idea of being almost 22 years old and still having no direct course I want to take in life. I sit in class most days just hating general education and wanting to get on with school and my education, but then thinking how I don’t know what I want to study/pursue as a career. So that’s been fun. Still working on that. But sadly it seems to be getting worse every day so maybe I am not working on it well enough!

Like I said earlier, I am running track here. The boys team doesn’t have very many people returning (especially in the sprints/hurdles group) so there are a lot of us freshman (out of high school or rm’s) that are all here trying to earn a spot. Not many of us have a guaranteed spot so we are all trying to prove ourselves. I will say that it has been a bit of a challenge. After not being a competitive athlete for a few years it has been difficult to get myself to want to push myself physically like a high performing athlete again and have a competitive edge. I remember in high school I would complete a workout and feel satisfaction for having pushed myself and knowing I was getting better. However when I started training recently I just felt tired and worn out from my workout. It really made me question if I wanted to continue on with track or not. I felt like I had just lost the spark and that I just needed to move on in life. We are starting with only being allotted 8 hours of workouts a week and I feel like its just so time consuming….. and we haven’t even started our allotted 20 hour weeks. So I started with having some doubtful thoughts about it all even from a time perspective. However, we are in our third week now and I am starting to get into it much more. I am starting to feel that satisfaction and drive again. It definitely helps actually working out with other people as well. It had been forever since I was able to practice every day with people to push me and run with. All the workouts I had done since high school had been solo and it is a very different feeling running alongside others. Which speaking of working out with others, I am able to keep up far better than I thought I would. After dealing with injuries for so much of the time that I have been home from my mission I came into this school year feeling as out of shape as ever. But somehow my body has just pushed right along and been able to do the workout and keep up with everyone with ease. Our workout have honestly been fairly light and nothing too intense, but still. I feel strong and capable and have a lot of optimism for my ability to earn a spot on the team!

I have still been dealing with injuries, however. I legitimately spend more time in the training room than I do at our workout (not including weights). My foot was still bothering me for a while. I had been getting treatment on it a few days a week after practice up unit later last week. We decided to let it try to do some healing on its own because it has been feeling better, and I have hardly had any irritation at all the last few workouts. I credit that to my diligence doing my exercises every day to help it heal and strengthen! Right as practices were starting I was starting to feel some pain in my hip flexor, which seems to be a pretty typical thing for me. I have dealt with that basically my whole athletic career. I then started having IT band issues at the beginning of last week but I have been diligent in making sure I get it rolled out and treated after practice. Ugh, it just seems to be one thing after the other. And this is all on top of my months of recovery after tearing an adductor muscle after I got home from my mission. But I figure that it’s all just part of the gig. I feel like being injured comes with being a college athlete so I can expect more in the future (although I am really hoping to get healthy and stay healthy)! Anyway, so that’s that!

But, life is just fun. I thoroughly enjoy being here at Utah State and would highly recommend it to anyone and everyone! It is just the place to be. I love my roommates, friends, and everyone else that I am surrounded by. Utah State just pulls in quality people and has such a positive and friendly atmosphere that tops any other university in the area along with such an awesome culture that makes life so incredibly great while attending. If you are in college and not attending Utah State……. you need to transfer and get your buns here asap. You will never regret it!

God bless ya!

The Nashville North team at The Lost Cajun... SUPER YUMMY but not enough food for what you pay!

Sometimes you just have to entertain yourself while on the doors. Pretty sure I remember the dude that lives there come look through the window as I took this picture. Kinda awkward but I had no shame.

I swear on my life that Carrie Underwood drove past me right here at this exact location. Best moment of my life.

A "bucket" sale is when you lower your prices past a certain point. We were only allowed a certain percentage of our sales to be in the bucket. But on free bucket day, we could bottom out our prices and not have them go into our bucket! I spanked in 4 that day (but 2 of them cancelled).....

When your team lead takes everyone to the apartment pool instead of working for the first part of the day you get all the relaxing you can get. Yes, I got super sunburned.

J-Crane had a spider bite... or ingrown hair... or some other sort of growth... still not sure. Good night.

The best picture I got of the Nashville sky line. Wish I could have gotten a better one.

Saw Carry Underwood live at the Grand Ole Opry......... I still get the feels thinking about that night.

4th of July in downtown Nashville was nuts! Literally over 200,000 people in a very small area!

Nobody was ready for the picture except for Logan and Chad. We had a good time downtown!

From the roof of a building during the CMA Music Fest weekend.

Bike riding with Ridge was a good way to enjoy the end of summer!

We were just too dang lit for the 80's dance.

Julia and I met at a dance party and run into each other all the time whenever dancing and a party are combined.... very few people go as hard as us.

I guess Peter was the only one that made the frame... I could have sworn more people were in this pic.

Some of my homies at the first home football game!

Getting Home/Life at Home

Hey there, its just me again. This whole 3 part post thing is a bust, and I probably could have told you that when I told you I would be doing it. I was going to do one each Sunday but then last Sunday I was lazy and decided not to write because, well... I didn't feel like it. But, I decided I would give it a go today. (I wrote this intro exactly two months ago.... turns out I didn't give it a full go. But here I go again trying to make this thing happen.)

I was going to write a whole post about flying home, but because the 3 part post is now a 2 part post I will just write briefly about it. I had always looked forward to the moments that I would have way up in the sky flying home after my service had ended. I looked forward to the hours of pondering and reflecting what in the world had just happened. I assumed that the experience would truly be once in a lifetime. Well, it was once in a lifetime, because, well… I definitely won’t be making a plane ride home after two years as a proselyting missionary ever again. However, it wasn’t quite what I thought it would be like. I guess I need to stop expecting certain events to be a certain way, but it just wasn’t quite like I thought it would be. I thought I would be extremely sentimental and in a deep stupor of thought for the entire thing. However, I hardly cried. Once I went through security in Lubbock I seemed to be in this odd inbetweener stage if emotion. I was so so sad to leave, but yet I was ready to just get home. So my sentimentality was numbed by my readiness to get home, and my readiness to get home was numbed by my sentimentality of leaving Texas. I did, however, really enjoy flying over the north part of my mission (which I never served in) and thinking about the great land that was part of the Texas Lubbock Mission. At first sight West Texas is just about the ugliest piece of land you could find, but over the course of time I started to find great beauty in it. I literally can’t get enough of looking out over the Caprock that Lubbock sits on and look at the sky expanding over the horizon. Ugh, so amazing. You’d have to see it to understand. Anyway, I don’t mean to make anyone jealous because they’ve never been to West Texas so I will go back to my plane ride. My ride from Denver to Boise hit me in the feels a little more than Lubbock to Denver. As I walked through the gate to get to the airplane I nearly broke down in tears, it hit me out of nowhere. I guess I realized that I was boarding my flight that would take me to my final destination. It was apparently very overwhelming for me. Once on the plane I met a few people behind me that were ministers…… I guess some things weren’t getting left behind in Texas. Ahhh, just like old times. I was well trained for this interaction after serving in the buckle of the Bible Belt. Tore it up. All you gotta do is be overly nice to them and thank them for their service and you’ve just won. Not that it’s a competition, but being a Mormon missionary automatically gets you put into a position to get “observed” real easily. Not like an unrighteous observation, but I always wanted to make super positive impressions on ecclesiastical leaders of other denomination because they noticed us and what we did more than others. If I could give them a positive impression of myself, they would have a positive impression on the church that I represented on my nametag, and we’d be one step closer to religious unity among the 7,000,000 different denominations among the people I served. Large task, but I think I did my part in trying to spread common appreciation and love. Anyway, that has nothing to do with my plane ride. There was another lady on our row that we talked to a little bit (we meaning another missionary and myself). She was very nice and she would make comments about how excited our families must be and how crazy our lives were about to get. None of the people around us were members of the church, and they didn’t know too much about us missionaries. So they were all very surprised to hear about the fact that we hadn’t seen our families for two years. So they all had an eye on us and our emotions knowing the circumstances. I felt a lot of love from them! Before I knew it we were in the Treasure Valley and making our descent. I noticed a nice large neighborhood and thought that it was a part of east Boise. As I looked closer I notices a couple landmarks that looked familiar, and then right as it went past my window I realized that it was Kuna!!!! Sure enough, we started making the turn to set ourselves up to land! Seeing Kuna got me freaking a bit. But then I got an aerial view of Boise…. HOLY COW. I hadn’t seen anything like that in years (literally)! I saw a city of trees (some of which were changing colors) and get this….. MOUNTAINS!!!!!! I honestly didn’t think they were real for like, the first week home. No way. Not real. Must be some sort of illusion or something. Bull. But sure enough, they are still there today so I must have been wrong. We landed and everyone around me was just basically staring at me, or so I felt. I walked off the plane and walking through the gate got everything going. Here I was, just minutes away from the big arrival. I was trying to hold back tears as long as possible. I decided to sit down on a bench and take minute to think and to pray. I remember sitting there with some tears in my eyes looking at everyone walking by. One of the ladies that I had talked to on the plane walked by and we made eye contact for a few seconds. She gave me a little smile and kept walking. I don’t think I will ever forget that moment. I don’t know why, but that moment is still sharp in my mind. It’s one of those things that I will remember forever and cherish. I have a few of those small moments right there in my mind. Sometimes small simple interactions with people have the most lasting impression. Anyway, I said a little prayer and started my walk through the terminal to go see my family. Crazy stuff, man. I will leave that moment to your imagination. I won’t even try to talk about the reunion. I don’t know how to put that all into words. It was nice. Weird, but quite lovely.

I remember a moment on the drive home that will last with me forever as well. We were driving down Meridian Road after exiting the freeway, and I was looking over at the Kendall car dealership on the corner of Meridian and Overland and realizing that I was home and that I was ACTUALLY home. Up until then it was just like another transfer in my head. A very very different kind of transfer, but a transfer nonetheless. But I remember in that moment realizing that there would be no zone conference the next week, no morning sports the next morning, no knocking on doors that night, nothing. It was OVER. DONE. It hurt. Hurt real bad. But I just went on and was happy to be home, I guess. I remember driving through Kuna and feeling like I never left. I thought it would be weird to drive through my hometown, but it seemed just… regular, I guess. We stopped at Enrique’s Mexican Restaurant in Kuna for some grub on the way home, and we got our food and I remembered that it was weird to pray over your food in Idaho! In Texas you’d go out to eat and see people all over bowing their head and praying together before they ate. But guess what? You ain’t in Texas no more, Elder Ericson! Lame. I had the same experience getting home that I did driving through Kuna. I walked through the door into my house, and it felt like I had been their just a day or two previous. I was a little taken back. It all just makes me realize that my mission was really just a life of itself. It was two years long (which is quite some time for a 20 year old) yet it’s weird to think that it all happened. It was there and now it’s not. Sometimes I wonder if it even happened. I am a different person because of it and my life is much different now, but it’s like it never happened.

Probably the most emotional part of my day was later in the evening when I got released. I cried answering some questions from the stake presidency and as he released me, but the heavy hitter was the drive home. I cried for like 15 minutes straight after leaving that place. I just sat in the back seat of the car looking out the window with tears flowing. I was devastated to not be a missionary anymore. You don’t realize what it means to be a missionary when you first get called and set-apart, and then over the course of your mission you gain a gradual understanding of what it means. But since the growth of your understanding is directly parallel to your time spent as a missionary, you don’t really realize that you understand because it’s just normal life for you. But with my understanding, having the mantel taken away made me realize just how much I knew about what being a missionary was and how much I loved it. It was the worst. I didn’t want life to go on for a moment. I knew that life had so much in store for me and I was excited for that, but for a moment I wanted nothing more than to go back to my life of being a missionary. I still feel that way sometimes. When I think about what I could do as a missionary if I could go back and the life that I miss so much I sometimes wish life wouldn’t have moved on. But, I am thankful for the life I have now and all that I learned as a missionary that is helping me live a wonderful and amazing life now and for years to come!

So, I just took a two month break from this blog post. I guess I finally decided to finish what I started. What really has gotten me lately is when I hear about people keeping journals and I think to how awesome it is to go back and read my mission journals, but then thinking that I have no documentation of what life was like after my mission. So this in essence is my excuse for not writing in my journal. I would really love to be a good journal writer, but it just is so hard to do it, am I right? You know the struggle, I’m sure.

Anyway, I guess I’ll pick back up with this pup where I left off. I don’t really know where to start. It’s literally been two months since I last worked on this. So here we go…..

Life as a non-missionary has been great so far. The first few weeks after returning home were super wonderful. It is so wonderful to see people for the first time in seemingly forever and feeling their love and appreciation for your service. Every day seemingly I would see people and be greeted with a big hug and have such vibes of happiness sent my way. It very much so made me feel like a successful missionary. However, one problem was that I had the EXACT SAME conversation with every single person for like three weeks. “Oh my gosh!!! Reed (which was weird to be called Reed)!!!! So good to see you! How was your mission?”

“Oh man! It was the greatest thing ever!”

“How was Texas?”

“Oh man! It was the greatest thing ever!”

“How’s being home?

“Oh man! Its super weird and I hate the fact that I’m home half the time, but it truly is good to be home!”

--Awkward Silence--

“Well, it’s good to see ya, Reed! Welcome home!”

Aaaaaannnnddddd after three weeks of nothing but that exact same conversation I lost all ability to talk to people. I spent two years learning to be a phenom at talking to people and it was gone just like that. Seriously, after I got over the period of having that conversation I literally had no idea how to talk to people like a normal person. Lol it was the worst! Talk about a punch to the gut going hero to zero (yes, I know that is the opposite of the saying). But after a while of extreme application of the Atonement, I learned how to talk to people again… at least I think I did. I guess time will tell. On a side note, I talked on the phone the other day to a couple old fellas that I visited a ton in one of my areas, and I felt like I was tearing that conversation up and being the best former missionary ever. For some reason I can’t do that with normal people, but with people that I met as a missionary I can still chat it up like nobodies business. I’ll get there… one day.

Another fun thing about those early days of being home was trying to apply the principles I learned as a missionary to normal life. I am extremely thankful for a mission president who taught us about missionary conduct in a way that helped us realize that we weren’t following rules, but we were implementing principles that could be applied to any life setting. While discussing the topic of mission rules/principles at a meeting once we talked about how we in the Texas Lubbock Mission didn’t follow any “mission rules” but rather we apply principles. A missionary said something that I have written on the front page of my missionary handbook, “Mission rules end when you go home. Principles never end.” So as I returned home from my mission, I wasn’t expected to live the same standard of the principles I was as a missionary, so I had to learn how to apply the same principles in a different way. It was a very interesting process, and one that I still go through day by day and often struggle with because, well, life is tough! It was very tough having no restrictions to anything and not having a companion to keep me accountable. At first it was somewhat easy, if there was something that wasn’t inviting of the Spirit, I didn’t do it. I was still very receptive, responsive, and sensitive to the Spirit so it was easy to make strong in the moment decision without hesitation. Plus, I didn’t really have any interest in a lot of the things that distract from the spirit. I hardly watched any television or really meddle with any media for a number of weeks. I just didn’t care to partake. TV shows and movies just didn’t have any appeal to me. Plus, all music seemed foreign to me so I didn’t really care to listen since I had no clue what any of the words were or who was singing. So, I just listened to the Christian stations! But over time I started getting accustomed to those things again. However, I had to practice applying the principles to these things. Sometimes I messed up. I wouldn’t make the right decision, so I would have to promise myself to do better the next time and learn from the decision. Now, I ain’t saying I was listening to some hood rat stuff or watching some sort of trash, but I was trying to do the best I could to stay close to the spirit so some decision that may seem to be perfectly fine were a little not so good for me. And as I am sitting here typing this I am realizing I need to repent! LOL I ain’t being a bad boy or anything but dang I could do better. Couldn’t we all!!!

I think one interesting thing that I learned in the soon months after getting home was what it meant to continually build my testimony. On my mission, everyday was seemingly a testimony building day. Even the days when I felt like I didn’t do much (which was all the time) I still felt satisfied knowing that I went out and did the work of the Lord all day and didn’t quit when it was 100 degrees outside on my bike and I was completely worn out physically, mentally, and didn’t have much spiritual drive because of the exhaustion. I’ll tell you what, those days when absolutely nothing happened for me and my companion except for putting 20 more miles on our bikes' odometers were some of the best days I ever had. If you want to feel like you are pleasing the Lord, go out and work your butt off on foot and bike all day and have nothing to report but zeros. That my friends always had me going to bed knowing that the Lord was pleased with me. I can still to this day very vividly remember carrying my bike up the stairs to my apartment completely and utterly cleaned out of energy and just having enough energy to put forward one more step to the next stair, and then one more, and then one more, all the way to the top when I would just collapse in my apartment, and then starting planning and marking down zeros down the line for the day. It’s the days like those that make my memory of my mission so amazing. Sure, the amazing experiences were nice, the people were incredible, everything was amazing, but those days are what make me think back and realize I was successful. Anyway, what was I talking about. Totally got off track there. So yeah, the whole testimony thing. When I got home all of a sudden each and every day wasn’t a testimony builder. And all of a sudden I was exposed to things that posed questions to my testimony. Not that anything ever derailed it in the slightest, but it posed question to it. I remember one time specifically that prophets and apostles were questioned. I went to the temple the next day and asked the Lord to please confirm to me that what I knew to be true was indeed correct. Sure enough, the big man upstairs pulled through and I walked out of the temple that day with as much confidence that the prophets and apostles on the earth today are men called of God and when they work as leaders of the church they are inspired in all they do. Their council is correct, their decisions on behalf of the church are the will of the Lord in the time they are made, and they will not lead me in any direction but towards God the Father and Jesus Christ. The temple was huge for me when I got home. I made it a goal of going every week until I went to school, and I definitely fell short of that goal, but I definitely surely went a lot. It was such a rock for me. It kept me strong and kept my new life in perspective with my eternal goals and was a big influence on helping me remember who I have the potential to become in this life and in the life to come, which helped me have strength day by day to do good and stay close to the principles that changed me on my mission. I am so incredibly thankful for the temple and the blessings that it has brought me! I have been greatly blessed by the knowledge it has brought me and the man it has helped me become!

Another thing was helped me a ton was the Sabbath day! My goodness, I never knew how great the Sabbath was until it was a completely different day than the other six! I realized that on my mission everyday was basically the Sabbath in a real world sense. Sundays were good and all, but when I got home the other six days weren’t spend studying and teaching the gospel and weren’t spent doing nothing but the work of the Lord. All of a sudden I had six days that were testing me and trying me, and by the time Sunday rolled around I was definitely in need of an influx of the Holy Spirit! I just loved being able to go to church, take the sacrament and have a different experience with the sacrament than I had as a missionary, sit and listen to the lessons and take in the good word, and then walk out of the church doors feeling refreshed and ready to take the week head on. And then I had the rest of the day of course, and by the end of the day I would be locked and loaded and ready to go! I definitely grew a much strengthened testimony of the Sabbath in the months soon after I got home. On my mission I had more of a doctrinal/logical testimony, but it was able to be turned into a much more experience based testimony!

My oh my, I don’t know what to talk about next. I have a few other things I think I could talk about but I ain’t sure if they belong here.

I guess I will leave y’all with just one more experience I’ve had recently. It all starts in San Angelo, TX in November 2015. I received a heartbreaking transfer assignment to leave Odessa, TX and go to San Angelo. I was definitely excited to go to San Angelo as I had heard lots of great things about it. But Odessa was just so great and there were a few things that I was just really heartbroken to leave. However, I saddled up and rode on down to San Angelo. On the drive down to San Angelo I was told that there was a man in my area with quite the story. He had been married to a member of the church for 50+ years but had never gotten baptized. However, just recently before I got there he had accepted his first baptismal date EVER. So I was pretty excited. Well, turns out this man was just flat out difficult. He just couldn’t feel the spirit for the life of him. Nothing worked for this guy. I read the longest teaching record I ever saw on my mission for this man that was filled with highly spiritual experiences for all the people involves except for him! I soon found the same thing happening. My goodness. In the words of his wife, “HE’S A MULE!!! And you know what other word I could have used in place of ‘mule’!” Well, his baptism date was approaching and we sure as heck knew it wasn’t happening then. So we bumped that unit back to the 19th of December. That date just naturally turned into the 26th of December since his family was planning on being there for Christmas. You know, gotta take the two for one when you can, right? Well, that came and went. NOTHING. For a long time we spent our time over there trying to help him get his “answer”. Let me tell ya, that route had us all running in circles for years. It wasn’t ever going to happen! So basically we just tried to pressure him into getting baptized so that he could receive a witness that what he did was good after receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. Not gonna lie, the whole “pressure him” thing kinda worked. And in our defense we didn’t intentionally pressure him, it just kinda happened one day! It was all backed by scripture so it’s all good. After getting him all nice and pressured we were one day sitting there and were talking to Mac about what we should do going forward to help him since he sure as heck wasn’t getting any answers anytime soon. We were talking about The Book of Mormon and how that was going for him. He was reading it every day but wasn’t getting tons out of it. So, I had the idea to just come over and read with him and not worry about anything else besides just helping his understand what he was reading and apply it. So, we went that route. I remember sitting there and discussing his baptismal date with him as well one day and thinking, “man, he needs to do this himself”. So, I told ol’ Mac that he should choose his own baptismal date this time around. He had his mind made up two days later that it would be January 23rd. Fair enough. About two weeks prior to the 23rd we were having our chat with Mac about the whole ordeal, and I remember exactly him saying, “Well, I guess I need to get baptized…”. And just to say this, that wasn’t a brain blower for us. Mac said garbage like that all the time and then just say, “but I need answers.” So here we are, Elder Andrus, Mac’s wife Carolyn, and myself just chillin’ waiting for his follow up line. But after a few seconds Mac was still just sitting there looking at his iPad. So now we were starting to get a little anxious. A few more seconds. Nothin’. A few more seconds go by and by now I don’t think there was a heartbeat in the room minus Mac’s. I don’t know how long of a time went by before Mac looks up at us all and goes, “I guess…..”. It’s safe to say that there was definitely a few minutes of clarifying work done after his famous, “I guess….”. Hahaha typical Mac! Well, January 23rd rolled around and Mac was indeed baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints with a while chapel packed with people there to witness the grand event. Well, a year went by and it was the time for Mac and Carolyn to be sealed for eternity in the Lord’s house. I had the profound opportunity and pleasure to attend the ceremonies for Mac receiving his endowment and the two of them getting sealed in the Lubbock, Texas temple. It was kinda funny keeping an eye on Mac during the endowment ceremony because I knew just how confused the man was at the whole thing, just as we all are our first time! It definitely kept a smile on my face. When I walked into the Celestial Room ol’ Mac was standing right there and came right up to me and thanked me for helping him get there. I asked him how he felt, and he said that he felt good before we had a little laugh about him being rather confused at that point in time. Anyway, we then all made our way to the sealing room. My goodness, being a witness to Mac and Carolyn being sealed was incredible. Just incredible. It was definitely a bit different of an experience than most sealings, as the two of them have been married for over 50 years. It was really cool because the whole focus of the ceremony was specifically on the sealing, and nothing to do with their civil marriage. I guess that was the first sealing I've been to, so I have nothing to compare it to, but I assume it had a different feel than sealings usually do. After the ceremony they stood at the head of the room and we all walked by and hugged them and whatnot on the way out. Being able to look into Mac’s eyes and have him thank me sincerely for helping him be there that day was one of the greatest moments of my life. There was an 82 year old man (give or take a year) standing there after having just been FINALLY sealed to his wife of 50+ years, making Carolyn’s 50+ year dream come true. Knowing that I had a part in that process was extremely humbling as a missionary, and then once again extremely humbling when the whole sheebang was capped off that day with their sealing. I told Mac that all two years of extremely hard work were worth it if the only thing I got out of it was to be there with them that day. I know that there will be something tying us together closely in the eternities. They aren’t just a family that I had the pleasure of helping, they are eternally connected to me and will be part of my eternal family forever.

Well, I’ll wrap it up there. If you’re still reading, props to you. I probably would’ve peaced out a few pages ago. But here you are, wasting your life away reading my make-up journal entry minus the tear splatters.

I just want to share my still growing testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and his work here on the earth. I don’t get to share it nearly as much as I used to and I want to take any opportunity I get. I know that you and I have heavenly parents who have an incomprehensible love for us. Although it is hard to see, our Father’s plan is perfect and he is actively engaged with every second of our lives making his plan come to pass. “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” (1 Cor 13:12) I know that our perfect Father’s perfect plan is all centered on and is in action because of his perfect son Jesus Christ and that our elder brother knows us perfectly because of his individual suffering for you and I. “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.” (Isaiah 49:16) I know that he lives and will be our advocate with Father to overcome the demands of justice to allow us our promised eternal blessings. I know that the Lord has restored the fulness of his gospel on the earth today through a prophet. The restored gospel allows us freedom and gives us strength against the powers of the adversary. It cleanses you and me from sin, and it sheds light on the sometimes difficult to find truths in our world that we live in. I know that the Lord has worked through a continual line of prophets since the Prophet Joseph and continues working today through President Monson. Although imperfect in their day to day lives, the prophets and apostles are all men called of God and work under the Lord’s revelation to guide his children in these, the last days. Through my studies I have grown a profound love for the word, aka the scriptures. I love them, I love them, I love them. I know that The Book of Mormon is the key to coming to know the Lord better than by any other source. The teachings are profoundly correct and powerful, the stories are brought to life by the Spirit, and my soul is filled with light as I read the words on each page. I love the rest of the scriptures as well! I have found such truth and understanding throughout each book of scripture that the Lord has given us. I love the Lord, I love his gospel, I love his word, and I love his church!

God bless ya!

Btw... I don’t really have a plan for continued blog posts. I know I talked more about it at the beginning of this unit. I have some stuff I may get around to sharing at a later date. Not much more relating to my mission, but just life stuff.

I'M HOME!!!!!

Lubbock Temple with the McMunn's

Boise Temple after a rad sesh

I got to see Pres & Sis Heap in Lubbock!!!