I Rejected Somebody at Olive Garden

Alright, this weekend was quite fun! On Saturday I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in my friends Senior Composition Recital. He write such wonderful music and I'm so proud of him! I was part of a choir that sang his song "The Road Not Taken". The words are taken from Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken"; it was wonderful!

After the recital a couple of my roommate and I went down to IF and ate at the Olive Garden; here's where we get into the silliest story EVER! So, we were told that we would have a 35-40 minute wait; however we decided that we were going to eat there anyway! It ended up being ten minutes, so we were really excited! We went in and our waiter introduced himself to us. His name was Nicholas and, not going to lie, he was pretty attractive! So, we were looking through our menus and we ordered our food. While we were waiting we had salad, soup, and breadsticks. The breadsticks went fairly quickly and Nicholas asked us if we wanted some more. He went to grab us some more and as we waited another waiter came by. He stopped and said, "Did you ladies want more breadsticks?" We responded that our server, Nicholas, was grabbing some for us. The waiter made a face and said "You should tell him that you want the other Nik to be your server because he isn't doing a good job!" I looked down at his name tag and saw that he was Nik (*Note: this guy was always pretty attractive)! I shook my head and told him I didn't think I could do that! Nik continued to encourage me to do it, just to see Nicholas' reaction.

Nicholas came back just as Nik started walking away. Nicholas gave us the breadsticks and started filling the salads. Nik stood by me and waited for me to say that Nicholas was a horrible server! I shook my head at him because I wasn't going to do it. Nicholas was a fantastic server and it would be lying if I had said otherwise! Nik then put his arm around Nicholas and said,

"You know Nicholas, these ladies  were just telling me that you are a horrible server and that they want me to be their server."
Nicholas reacted really well; I was having a hard time not laughing (in fact, I'm quite sure I was smiling the entire time). Nik looked a little deflated and said "You didn't react the way I thought you would." They then proceeded to talk about how "chill" our table was. My roommates and I had just been having a discussion about what which super hero was our favorite and why. So I decided to ask them who their favorite super hero was.

"Well, our favorite how? Like, who would we want to be? Who's the most heroic?" I hadn't thought about it that deeply, so I just said which super hero they'd want to be.
"I'd want to be Iron Man! He's rich and he has an awesome suit!" was Nicholas' answer; remember this guy is the one who was assigned to be our waiter.
"Well, I was going to say Iron Man; but since Nicholas said it, I'll say Batman! He's also rich and he gets to drive around ridiculously cool cars!" was Nik's answer, he was not assigned to serve us. I added that Batman has Morgan Freeman and that's pretty sweet! Before they split to go they told us that they wanted us to keep coming up with questions.

Well, we couldn't finish our meals so we didn't end up staying that much longer. Nicholas came and asked us if we wanted to get some boxes for our food. We did, so he went to grab some for us. When he came back he started asking us where we were from and just started making random conversation. Nik came over too and joined in the conversation. After a few minutes Nicholas came over and said, "Okay, one of the questions has to be "what's your number?"!"
I responded, "Really? Our next question was: 'If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?'. We wrote it on a piece of paper and put it in with the receipt."
"Ooh, that's a good one. I would go back to the Dominican Republic."
"Did you serve your mission there?"
"Yes I did!" Nicholas continued to talk about how beautiful it was there and everything. Nik then came around the corner and asked if we were staying for desert (he had tried convincing us to buy some only moments before). We replied that we weren't. Nicholas gave me kind of an expectant look, but I didn't say anything.

As we left I laughed to Amaris and Alisha about how Nicholas wanted us to ask for their phone numbers! They were shocked! "We didn't hear him ask that!" Anyway, to make a long story short (although I'm sure that I'm too late for that), it was decided that Nicholas was suggesting it to me and not to the entire table. This morning, I feel incredibly foolish for not having picked up on that! Even as I write down the events and conversations, I feel incredibly naive and oblivious! If that had happened to anybody else I would have seen it! However, I didn't see it when it was happening to me! And that's my story about how I rejected somebody at the Olive Garden (on accident)!

Collegiate Singers with the BYU Singers Concert

I'm so ashamed that I haven't written about this concert yet . . . but, better late than never, right? On March 8th and 9th I got to go to two of the best concerts I'd ever been to! It was the BYU-Idaho Collegiate Singers combined with the BYU Singers! Holy wow! I went to both of them (yes, I'm that cool) and both had such powerful spirits! Collegiate is getting ready to go to Africa at the end of the semester and so there were a lot of African spirituals which were done incredibly well! It was so enjoyable watching Collegiate up there dancing and getting into the music! Both concerts can be found here: March 8, 2013 and March 9, 2013. There is one song, though, that touches me every single time the Collegiate Singers sing it. It's called "I Will Rise" (this particular arrangement is by Alex Boye, but the choral part is the same). The message and words to this song are absolutely amazing!!! The words go like this:

"There's a peace I've come to know 
Though my heart and flesh may fail 
There's an anchor for my soul 
I can say "It is well" 

Jesus has overcome 
And the grave is overwhelmed 
The victory is won 
He is risen from the dead 

[Chorus:] 
And I will rise when He calls my name 
No more sorrow, no more pain 
I will rise on eagles' wings 
Before my God fall on my knees 
And rise 
I will rise 

There's a day that's drawing near 
When this darkness breaks to light 
And the shadows disappear 
And my faith shall be my eyes 

Jesus has overcome 
And the grave is overwhelmed 
The victory is won 
He is risen from the dead 

[Chorus:] 
And I will rise when He calls my name 
No more sorrow, no more pain 
I will rise on eagles' wings 
Before my God fall on my knees 
And rise 
I will rise 

And I hear the voice of many angels sing, 
"Worthy is the Lamb" 
And I hear the cry of every longing heart, 
"Worthy is the Lamb" 

[Chorus:] 
And I will rise when He calls my name 
No more sorrow, no more pain 
I will rise on eagles' wings 
Before my God fall on my knees 
And rise 
I will rise"

If you want to listen to the Collegiate Singers sing it (which I highly recommend; you get to hear three phenomenal soloists) it's at the very end of the concerts. They did them as their encore pieces and it was powerful! That song has been my favorite ever since I heard them sing it earlier this semester. My favorite part is: "Jesus has overcome, and the grave is overwhelmed. The victory is won, He is risen from the dead! And I will rise when He calls my name, no more sorrow, no more pain."

There are several reasons why I like this song: one, it testifies of Christ rising again. It testifies that Christ lives, now! The second is that it testifies that I will rise! I will rise; I won't feel any more pain or sorrow. The third reason, it's a call for me to rise. To stand as a witness of God "at all times, in all things, and in all places." (Mosiah 18:9) I don't know when God is going to call my name, so I must be ready to rise at any time. The fourth reason I love this song so much is because it testifies to me that Christ cares for and is constant. The first four lines, I feel, states it best: "There's a peace I've come to know; though my heart and flesh may fail. There's an anchor for my soul, I can say "All is well!" This line states that my heart and flesh might fail; the reasoning is because I am human. God is not human; He is God! He is the anchor for my soul. Because I know He is always there for me, no matter what I'm going through I know that He is there; I can say "All is well!"

*Random thought: if God is my anchor, then I will not and cannot drift or stray because of worldly things. That anchor keeps me in the same spot. True, I might be tossed to and fro, but I will not be moved! So cool!!! Maybe that's why it's so important to have our anchor be God, who is stable and unchanging. Humans aren't stable (no offense) and we change with the seasons, the fads, the people. "God is no respecter of persons." (Acts 10:34)

Brother Brower told the Men's Choir that these two concerts would be "life changing"; he was right! I know that I have changed, my testimony has been strengthened, and I am excited to accept the invitation to rise when God calls my name! To my wonderful Collegiate family who was so willing to share their beautiful and powerful testimonies with me, I thank you! Thank you for being an example to me of somebody who has stepped forward when Christ has called your name! You are all wonderful, beautiful, and inspiring people (the same goes for the BYU Singers, but I don't really know them as well)! Again, I thank you for changing my life for the better! :)