The Book of Mormon

We have already made multiple posts about our 2015 goals. Well, here is another.

One of the goals we made was to be better about our companion study, which was reading the Book of Mormon. This goal consisted of two parts: reading a minimum of a chapter every single day and to finish the whole book before our one year anniversary at the end of August. We have exciting news--we succeeded!

Sadly, we did not actually read a chapter every single day. We missed one day this year :( but there is always room to improve!

We have loved starting out each day in the Book of Mormon and we want to testify that it really is true! No book will bring you closer to Jesus Christ than the Book of Mormon. If you haven't read it yet, we strongly encourage you to do so and we would love to get you a free copy.

To learn a little bit about the Book of Mormon, go HERE or visit mormon.org :)

And finally, everyone should read or listen to this amazing talk about the Book of Mormon from Jeffrey R. Holland, called Safety for the Soul.

“I ask that my testimony of the Book of Mormon and all that it implies, given today under my own oath and office, be recorded by men on earth and angels in heaven. I hope I have a few years left in my “last days,” but whether I do or do not, I want it absolutely clear when I stand before the judgment bar of God that I declared to the world, in the most straightforward language I could summon, that the Book of Mormon is true, that it came forth the way Joseph said it came forth and was given to bring happiness and hope to the faithful in the travail of the latter days.

My witness echoes that of Nephi, who wrote part of the book in his “last days”:

“Hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, … and they teach all men that they should do good.

“And if they are not the words of Christ, judge ye—for Christ will show unto you, with power and great glory, that they are his words, at the last day.””

 We have also been better about doing our personal study each day, and it has blessed our lives as we learn more about this gospel and God's plan for us. Some of the topics we have studied recently are patriarchal blessings, the organization/timeline of the Book of Mormon, prayer (we had talks on the topic), and the temple endowment.

We have decided that next we will study the four gospels and possibly the whole New Testament. We are excited to learn more about the life of Christ!

Fourth of July in St. Louis

We had an amazing Fourth of July weekend.  We found out that there were $50 round trip flights to St. Louis from this tiny little airport in Fort Dodge, so of course we had to take advantage of them. I used to live in St. Louis during my junior and senior year of high school (this is Dustan typing for once) and Ellen had never been there, so we decided to go!  I had work off Friday the 3rd and Monday the 6th, so we left Thursday night for St. Louis. The airplane we flew on there was hilarious!  It was a little crop duster that only seated 8 people.  The pilot was in the main cabin with all of us and there was no co-pilot (is that even legal??).  The nice thing about the flights though is that there was so much leg room!  Also, the seats reclined clear back!  So I loved them as I like to sleep the entire flight anyway.

Yes, that is the front of the plane.

We had so much fun in St. Louis! We stayed with Blake Dorton (one of my high school and college buddies) and his family the whole time.

Thursday night after flying in we ate at Steak 'n Shake for old time sake, and then got to bed early to get ready for a long day Friday which was great!

Friday, we woke up to waffles which Blake's mom made and then went straight to the City Museum which isn't anything like a museum at all. It's basically a 10 story jungle gym made out of scrap metals and junk.  You can climb up in the walls and through caves, there buses hanging over the side of the building to climb in and even a 10 story slide!  It was a blast!!

The ten story slide!

Pictures do not do this place justice

After a quick lunch and some pictures by the St. Louis arch, we headed over to Busch Stadium for an evening Cardinals game. It was a great game even though the Cardinals didn't pull out a win (we're convinced it was because Blake was there... he's bad luck).  After the game, they shot off fireworks at the stadium and we headed home for the night.  It was a great start to our weekend.

With our buddy Blake, happily third-wheeling all weekend

We filled our fourth with American activities and an unhealthy amount of meat. :) We slept in late enough that we started out our day with lunch at a barbecue place where we had pulled pork sandwiches.  After lunch we had a blast at the batting cages and playing mini golf. I came away from the batting cages with a new blister and a new-found respect for Ellen's softball skills! She couldn't miss! Also, you can't celebrate the fourth without a barbecue out in the sun! So we headed over to the Stanley's to swim in their pool and eat burgers.  So much fun!  It was really fun to see some old familiar faces and introduce Ellen to them as all.  I love showing off my wife :) Immediately after eating burgers, we went back to the Dorton's place for a hot dog eating contest.  I won with 6 hot dogs in 10 minutes (for the record, it was not worth it.. so full!!!) I gained a lot more respect for the winner of the Coney Island hot dog contest who ate 62 in 10 minutes.  GROSS!!

Dustan really enjoyed the hot dog eating contest

Sunday we went to church and caught up with some old friends and hung around the Dorton's place.

We finished out our trip strong on Monday by visiting the Science Center and the Zoo (everyone should visit if they are in town, because they are FREE).  We almost missed our flight because it took so long to lure Ellen away from the animals (she loved the polar bear exhibit).  We didn't really almost miss our flight, but St. Louis does have an awesome zoo :)

We built the arch! The St. Louis Science Center

After the zoo, we got ridiculously full at Fitz's on bottomless root beer mugs and toasted ravioli and headed to the airport.

Apparently St. Louis is famous for its toasted ravioli? It was delicious 

The Dorton family and our tower of root beer mugs. We drank about 16 altogether!

I wish I could say that our flight back was uneventful, but we made it halfway back to Fort Dodge (again in a tiny crop duster plane) and ended up having to turn back around because there were tornadoes in the way. So we spent one more night in St. Louis, and made it back in time for work Tuesday morning. Such a good weekend!! :)  We love taking trips together and making memories.

Fort Dodge, Iowa

Our Summer Home!

This summer we are living in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Last fall, Dustan interviewed with Koch Industries and got an internship position for this summer and we took the offer! We were hoping to be placed in their headquarters in Wichita, Kansas--Fort Dodge was actually ranked third or fourth on where we wanted to be placed. And to be honest, we were a little trepidatious about moving to this small little town in the middle of nowhere. And after vacationing in Jamaica, we did not want to move out to the midwest and start real life again.

Fortunately, I got to postpone starting that real life a little longer than Dustan. We drove from Denver to Des Moines, Iowa on a Thursday so that I could catch a flight to Salt Lake City, Utah on Friday. I had a wedding to go to! One of my great friends, Kayla, was getting married in the Salt Lake Temple and I had the great privilege to attend her beautiful sealing to Thomas for time and all eternity. I loved seeing my Utah friends again (even if it had only been a few weeks), and even got to hang out with my dad who flew in to attend the sealing as well. I hadn't seen any of my family since Christmas, so this was a real treat!

Congratulations to Kayla and Thomas!

The original three roommates--Summer, Kayla, and I! Now we're all married :)

Daddio and I

Meanwhile, Dustan spent a couple days with his cousin and her family in Waterloo, Iowa. He had the chance to see his cousin Brianna's husband Josh get baptized and see some family as well!

I flew back to Iowa, Dustan picked me up from the airport, and we drove back to Fort Dodge (where my awesome husband had surprised me and already unpacked everything), and we officially began our summer in Fort Dodge!

View of Iowa near Des Moines

We are living on the Iowa Central Community College campus in the apartments. Dustan only has a 20 minute commute to work each day. Here's a quote from him about his job, previously written in an email:

"I’m actually enjoying my job. It’s not as technically challenging as I had hoped, but I’m learning project management skills. I’m working for Koch Fertilizer making Anhydrous Ammonia and Urea Ammonium Nitrate (two chemicals used to fertilize crops). My project involves improving 67 pumps. Basically, the pump reliability needs to improve, so I’m implementing a system that will keep the lubricating oil in the pumps pure and uncontaminated. I presented my design to the engineers last Friday the 19th and got it approved, I’ve found vendors to sell me all the parts I need, and now I just need to hire someone to come put all my improvements on--this involves scheduling when the pumps will be available, etc… So it’s really a project management type role. So that’s work."

Gotta love the onesie work uniform!

I have my advanced writing class to do online this summer, so I opted to just get a part time job to pass some of the time. I am working as a secretary for the Fort Dodge Community Foundation and United Way (a mouthful, I know). I spend my time filing, making labels, typing up papers and excel spreadsheets, answering the phone, and reading the newspaper. I can't complain. The only thing that is killer is having to drive Dustan to work everyday (we only have one car)--so I end up driving almost a total of 2 hours every week day.  

So a little bit about Fort Dodge: It is so much more green than we expected! And more trees---we thought there would just be corn fields as far as the eye can see. And there are a lot of corn fields, but intermixed with clumps of green trees, brown rivers, and small lakes. One thing that we have really liked so far is how much the community does around here. It seems there is some sort of festival going on within the county every weekend. Unfortunately, last week there was was a tractor festival. Getting around town was a chore, having to follow literally hundreds of tractors that were taking up the road. Welcome to the midwest ;)

A view I see on my way to work every day

View near Fort Dodge

A second thing we are a bit excited about is the work to be done in the church. The ward we are attending covers a lot of area, but is still quite small. A family invited us over for dinner a couple weeks ago, and they live on the outskirts of the ward boundaries--a 45 minute drive one way to church every week! There is a lot of sacrifice in this ward that we respect. Because the ward is so small, we got callings our second week there. I am the sunbeam teacher (meaning the Sunday school teacher for preschool age children) and Dustan is the Elders Quorum Secretary/2nd Councilor. We are excited to fulfill these callings and get to know the ward better! We are grateful for all the kindness they have shown us already--especially with all the meals!

Sunday best in our backyard at the community college

We are looking forward to the adventures we are going to have this summer in a new place together :) Along with these, we will be spending a lot of time thinking about our futures and what will be happening after we graduate from BYU in April. We have a few different options: scope out job offers this fall and take an offer for after graduation, Dustan could go to grad school, or Koch may even offer a position at the end of the summer (if they like Dustan). There are decisions to be made and many prayers to be said about them.

I was lucky enough to score two free tickets to an annual concert in Fort Dodge, called Shellebration. Who knew such a small town in the middle of Iowa could get the famous classic rock band BOSTON to come play?! Even though Dustan was a little sick, we had a great time at this chill, outdoor concert. I may not know Boston songs too well, but Dustan was loving it! And on this same day (June 26) we celebrated 10 MONTHS OF MARRIAGE. Yay!!

And I got to go to my first rodeo! I have decided that even though I will be crushing his dreams, Dustan is never allowed to bull ride. It looked terrifying. I thoroughly enjoyed tracking down a cowgirl hat and we had a great time stomping our feet and whistling :)

Here in Fort Dodge they have started a group for all the interns to get together, learn, and have some fun. So every couple weeks, we get to go out to lunch, attend seminars, and do some fun activities. The activities we have had to far are visiting a winery and paddling around the lake in a dragon boat.

Touring the winery but of course avoiding all the wine. 

And finally, here are a few pictures of other things we have done so far, including (but not limited to) camo, a short trip to Wichita, games at the park, Jamaican fruit, a farmers market, the Koch family picnic, game nights, and church talks. Coming up soon on the blog are Fourth of July festivities in St. Louis, camping, and the Nauvoo pageant!

Rockin' the camo

Dustan's favorite fruit of all time is Jack fruit, which we thought was only in Jamaica. But we found it an an Asian market in Wichita!

Grilling at the Koch family picnic at Kennedy Park in Fort Dodge

Market on Central (downtown Fort Dodge)