Conclusion....for now.

Well, I have to admit, blogging is not that bad. I actually think I will continue in my spare time because I really don't keep a journal. The problem is spare time. This semester I took 17 credits and 7 of them were math and engineering classes. I've definitely learned my lesson of how much I can actually handle. As you can see I've only done the minimum amount of blog entries required for the class, but it's not because I don't like the blog. It's a great way to easily record your life through pictures, videos and text. I've learned that although I have all of these experiences and thoughts stored in my head, one day they will be gone. I want my kids and wife to have a record of funny times, great lessons learned and things of that sort to go through as I get older and lose my memory. My wife has taught me that visual rhetoric really does matter. The way colors go together does affect the attractiveness of a piece, whether it be art of text. I do know it's important now, but I still need some practice with it, as you can probably tell. One thing I liked about the blog was being able to record feelings and thoughts that are sometimes hard to express. There isn't always an appropriate time to talk about lessons learned in life but if I post them on the blog then my children and wife may read them at their own leisure. I guess now I'll conclude my conclusion (ha ha). Overall I liked the blogging experience and I am glad I was forced to do it through an assignment. I would never have tried it out because I figured it was only for girls. Thanks Sis. Steadman for helping me find something new that I like to do and that will help my posterity in the future! 

The Hula-Hula Air Engine with Custom Flywheel

This is my final project for the year in Mechanical Engineering 172. It's called the "Hula-Hula Air Engine". The above is a video of how the real engine works. We built every one of the parts in groups of four in our class in less than a week. The previous two posts show pictures of assembled and exploded views with my custom designed flywheel. I am pretty happy with my progress in this class. Our teacher recently went to a conference in Florida for engineering companies and educators to see the latest in engineering programs. After seeing presentations from engineering professors from Purdue and other elite schools our professor proudly returned to tell us that the students in our class are more advanced in engineering design programs than any other students in the world at our level of education. The fact that we were able to model this engine, assemble it and provide engineering drawings for each part shown is a great success. I love the engineering program and can't wait to apply for the program after this semester!

Final M.E. Project Assembled

Final M.E. Project Exploded

President Uchtdorf's "Your Potential, Your Privilege"

Pres. Uchtdorf's talk greatly impressed me and thousands others during the Priesthood Session of this conference. The strongest rhetorical device that Pres. Uchtdorf used was the story that he started out with to create pathos, grabbing the attention of the audience. He began his talk with a story of a man who was going on a cruise. The man had saved up all of the money he could in order to go on this cruise. Because of his poverty after finally paying for the cruise, he packed one of his suitcases with canned beans, crackers and powdered lemonade in order to have food for his trip. He didn't want to have to waste money on the ship paying for food or activities so he stayed in his cabin and ate out of his suitcase the whole trip. At the end of the man's voyage he was asked by a crewman which farewell party he would be attending. When he heard this he realized that all of the activities, the mouthwatering food and the farewell party were already included in his ticket price from the beginning of the cruise. This story captures the attention of all who listen to it. Everyone can relate to the way the man must have felt when he heard that news. Not everyone in the world has gone on a cruise, but everyone can appreciate the regret the man must have lived with knowing that he lived far below his privileges. That was exactly the point that Pres. Uchtdorf wanted to illustrate with this talk. He went on to compare the man living below his privileges on the cruise to men of the Priesthood living far below their privileges. Pres. Uchtdorf, throughout the rest of his talk, focused on three ways to not end up living below our Priesthood privilege. His organization of introduction, three main points and conclusion greatly increased logos for the audience because we could follow easily and take notes without getting lost or having to backtrack. All in all his talk was amazing. The Spirit was very strong. Because of his pathos creating story at the beginning of his talk, he automatically had the attention throughout his message. He also made his talk easy to follow through his organizational skills enhancing logos. He grabbed our attention and then laid out a beautiful message that the Spirit could testify of .

My Wife is a Trooper!

My wife is such a trooper! She was sick all the night before and all the day of the wedding. She was really sick. She threw up during her bachelorette party the night before and all night long. For about half of the wedding she was in the bathroom throwing up. The times that she could muster the strength to keep it down she would come out and greet the guests. Everyone thought I was lying when I had told them that she was sick in the bathroom. She came out smiling and beautiful. She stood up straight and never missed a beat. Her dress had a corset-like feature that put extreme pressure on her already nauseated stomach, but that didn't slow her down. She walked around with the happiest look on her face even though she was sick as a dog. We had practiced a dance a couple of times before the wedding that she really wanted to do for our first dance and she did it! I'll post a link of part of the dance so that you all can see how well she performed while being sick. She did all she could to make the wedding worth while for our guests and family. No one could even tell she was ill. The only people who knew were her friends that helped her in the bathroom and our families. Everyone else was told but they still couldn't tell. She's an amazing wife and going to be an amazing mom!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/video/video.php?v=824927217259&comments

Family Traditions

I Love family traditions! They are so bonding and they always create great memories. My wife's family gets together every year around Christmas to have a "gingerbread house" contest. I put that in quotes because as you can see we actually use graham crackers and they aren't always houses. In this case my wife made a manger with Jesus and all the animals. I made a circus tent and some of her other siblings made structures such as the BYU football stadium. We all start out with all of the ingredients, or "construction materials", laid out on the table. We have all sorts of treats: marshmallows, gum drops, candy canes, skittles, m&m's, licorice, starbursts and frosting. Her father announces the time to start and we all begin. Frosting is flying everywhere, graham crackers are being sawed, marshmallows are squished into form and most certainly everyone is sick of eating the sweets within the hour. Then all creations are recorded on camera and a winner is chosen. Her dad is the judge and because he is a big BYU fan, usually not the most excellent construction wins. You have to cater to his taste as a judge. I can't remember if we one this year or not but it certainly was fun and we will always be able to talk about it together as a family. We also get to look forward to the next competition each year as we gather together to enjoy each other's company. I can't wait to introduce our future children to family traditions so that we, too, can grow close together through family activities!

Getting Called

Wow! It seems like so long ago. I remember waiting, what seemed like an eternity, to get my call to serve a mission. I was so ready to get out of the house and do something. I had graduated in 2007 but I didn't turn 19 till July of 2008. I didn't quite have enough money to go to school and save enough for the mission so I just decided to work full time and save as much as possible for college when I got home. After working for a year with no real progress in life except the bank account, I felt like I wasn't accomplishing anything. We had only been in Arizona for my senior year of high school and the few friends I had made were on missions or in college. I worked from 6:30am to 6:30pm five days a week and got home in time to eat dinner, chat with my parents and go to bed. I wasn't really tired after work but I just had nothing to do. Once the big white envelope came in the mail I was so excited I could hardly breathe. First of all, a big white envelope meant it was a mission call not a we don't need you letter. Also, I just was so happy that finally I had received my ticket out of boredom. My older brother was in Monterrey, Mexico on his mission and wasn't going to be home until the end of January 2009. With my family gathered around me, I opened the letter and began to read. I kind of skipped to the location part because that's the exciting part when you are waiting to serve. When I read Iowa Des Moines Mission my family had a bunch of mixed reactions. Most of them were kind of disappointed because I was going to one of the states, but I was overflowing with joy! I was just so excited to serve that I didn't really care where the Lord wanted me to go. My mom took me aside and tried to console me by saying that it was going to be ok and that Iowa is just as cool as Mexico. I was way surprised that my family thought I was so shallow. I said to my mom that I was just excited to leave the house and go serve the Lord. I had already known that the Prophet and the apostles received revelation from God. I didn't doubt my assignment and as long as there were people in Iowa then there was a need for missionaries. I was quite aware that before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ the whole earth needed to hear the message of the restored gospel. There were people in Iowa that needed to hear it just as bad as people in exotic places. In retrospect, I know that there were specific people prepared for me to come. I know that I was prepared throughout my life to bring the blessings of the gospel to specific people throughout Iowa and Nebraska. Most importantly, the Lord not only was mindful of His other children when He sent me to Iowa, but also of me. Because I served in the Des Moines Iowa Mission at the exact time that I did, my wife and I were able to see each other serve and we were able to have a strong friendship long before anything in regards to relationships could occur. I love the Lord and know that He inspires His leaders here on the earth. We need to follow their counsel with a firm testimony that God directs His church.

Mission President and Mission Mom

As you probably know by now, my wife and I served in the same mission and before you start thinking like that, it wasn't like that. Anyways, our mission is a great bonding glue for us now that we are married. We can talk about the same investigators, the same areas and most importantly the same mission President and mission Mom. They truly were our parents out there in Iowa. They loved and took care of us throughout our missions. We loved them as parents. They taught us and guided us through the Lord's service. I feel a special bond to my mission President's wife especially. She had to deal with me a lot with injuries. I didn't really get injured often but when I did it wasn't just a scrape on the knee or a sore throat. I broke my leg about three months into my mission. Just as I was healing up from that I injured myself yet again and both times it had to do with stairs. After leaving a teaching appointment, I was walking up some stairs and walked right into an air conditioner hanging out of a window. After staples to the head in the hospital and a little narcotics, I was back to normal. When I broke my leg I had fallen down a flight of twenty-one steps. My mission president finally said to me, "Elder Yorgason, are you done getting hurt yet?". Well of course I was. I didn't like getting hurt. They also didn't like me getting hurt. We were their children out in the mission field and we could truly feel their love. I'll forever be grateful for the examples they were and still are to me in my life. Even without all of the spiritual lessons they had taught me, I still would appreciate them the same just because of the love they showed to me unconditionally and completely.

What I learned about Adult Stem Cell Research

Most people think of destroyed embryos when they hear about stem cell research and frankly, that offends most of the religious world. The stem cells that most think of are called embryonic stem cells. These embryonic stem cells are in fact harvested from embryos and said harvesting does result in the failure of that embryo. I by researching academic journals and government records have found that there is another kind of stem cell research going on that, to my surprise, is not widely known. This research is called adult stem cell research. With adult stem cell research you don't have to destroy an embryo to harvest the stem cells. As you can probably imagine, adult stem cells are harvested from adults. As adults we have certain areas in our bodies where stem cells are stored to repair that area of our body when we are hurt. For instance we have stem cells in our bone marrow. There are many other areas in the human body where stem cells are stored. These stem cells can be harvested just like embryonic stem cells without the effect of destroying an embryo. In fact, not only can these adult stem cells be retrieved morally, but recent research shows that they also can be changed to fit the needs of almost any cell in the body. Stem cells taken from adults actually produce results. Throughout my studies I of people recovering over 70 percent with terminal conditions

and/or diseases. There were two accounts of spinal injuries leaving people permanently handicapped. In both cases they now have feeling in their legs and can walk for certain distances. That's not all! A doctor testified in a US Senate hearing that he has patients recovering from Parkinson's disease due to the transplantation of adult stem cells.  In all, I learned that in general, stem cell research gets a bad reputation among religious people because adult stem cell research is widely unheard of. Most people think of embryonic stem cell research when they hear of stem cells, but the truth is that adult stem cell research is actually more successful, completely harmless and not one step behind embryonic stem cells in potential ability to heal. Moral of the story: Adult Stem Cell Research is the way to go!

Response to Brandon Davies Suspension and BYU Honor Code

I am very proud of the way Brigham Young University has handled the Honor Code issue with Brandon Davies. I am not personally aware of what the Honor Code violation was and do not plan to search to find out. All I know is that he admitted to violating the Honor Code and he was suspended from playing basketball for the rest of the season. The reason I am proud of the way everything was handled is because of the timing of it all. BYU was about to play the only team that they had lost to in the Mountain West Conference and only the second team they had lost to all season. Brandon Davies is a key player for rebounds and posting up down low. Also because of the defense that he draws to the center he opens up the perimeter for jump-shots and Jimmer's famous three-pointers. Needless to say Davies plays a huge role in BYU basketball. Most important of all, the team had two season games left and the performance of BYU's team in the last two games of their season would determine their seed in the NCAA tournament. The seed of an NCAA team in a tournament can greatly affect how far they go because it determines the teams they play. Notwithstanding all of these seemingly very important factors, BYU put honesty and integrity ahead of fame and fortune. Davies was suspended as soon as the coaches were made aware of the violation. This was very hard on the team in many ways. They had no practice time to be able to get used to not having Davies down low. As we saw from the next game against New Mexico, our team was pretty shook up. Now, BYU could have kept Davies on the team till the end of the season and throughout post season and honestly i think we would have performed a lot better. The timing was not only something to be proud of but it was almost perfect for the media. Not one news station would have cared if we were 16th seed and one of our players got suspended. The fact is we were working our way towards a possible 1st seed in the NCAA tournament and everyone's eyes were on our team because of the performance of Jimmer. Because BYU acted promptly and honestly, being true to their own Honor Code, the whole world was able to see what our school was about. We aren't only about winning championships, having the highest GPA, having the most records or sending out the best employees into the workforce. At Brigham Young University we are about honor. We sign our names to an Honor Code and expect to be held accountable to it. Attatched is a link to the BYU honor code for anyone who wants to see it.
http://saas.byu.edu/catalog/2010-2011ucat/GeneralInfo/HonorCode.php#HCOfficeInvovement

Family Conference Notes/Goals

• Daily acts of service and end of day reporting
• Involve kids in service
• Focus on the positive and don't judge the person, judge the acts
• Have a picture of a temple in each room
• Have our children know exactly who they are and where they come from at an early age
• Church music, singing and scriptures always in the house to make it more comfortable for our children who just came from Heaven
• Teach consequences of sin that come naturally, from the Lord, and from us
• Start and keep Celestial traditions