The Teacher Learns More and Other Service Stories

This weekend was probably the best weekend since coming back to Provo.  (I challenge someone to try to top it.)  I volunteered a few months ago to be a Y-Group leader for Summer New Student Orientation (NSO).  This past weekend, I put on my blinding yellow T-shirt and walked over to campus to meet the 20 freshmen which I would be introducing to campus, along with my two other leaders, Bryan and Lizy, and the freshmen peer mentor, Lyz.

Red 1; aka Group Red Thunder

It was honestly the most amazing experience.  I learned more about myself, my goals, and what I needed to do than our students did, I'm sure.  We attended Education in Zion, which is awesome.  If you haven't ever gone, go.  Now.  My favorite character was Lorenzo Snow; There are two paintings in the gallery facing each other which Lorenzo talks about.  The first is a picture of the Kirtland, Ohio temple entitled "The Temple, A Holy School" and the second is a picture of Brigham Young Academy (now the Provo Library) entitled "The School, A Temple of Learning".  Just the connection between those two paintings was enough to make me stop and think. Truth is truth, no matter what the source, and we value and uphold truth.  So many people sacrificed to bring forth both the temple and BYA (now BYU) and each is sacred and holds a special place in my heart.

Something which we discussed with our students was the definition of success.  How do we measure success?  What is your definition of success?  Someone said "Getting all A's."  Okay.  So if we apply that standard to the rest of the world, 90% of the population is the opposite of success: failure.  That's pretty dismal and depressing.  If we define success as becoming president/ruler of a country, 99% of the world is a failure.  So what is success and how do we find it?  Here are my thoughts:

1. You can't measure yourself against anyone else except yourself.  Each person has different strengths, weaknesses, and talents.  We're not all meant to succeed in the same way, otherwise we'd all have nice cars, nice houses, and plenty of money to last.  Besides, you can only succeed at being you.  You can't succeed at being your neighbor because they're better at being them than you are, just like you are better at being you than anyone else is.
2. You decide what is means for you to succeed.  If succeeding to you is owning a mobile home and flipping burgers at the local Mickey D's, than I hope you achieve that dream and live it to it's fullest.
3. If you give anything less than your all, if you are not committed to your success, if you don't give it your best shot 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, then you will fail.  Success does not require your attention or your best; it demands it.  

To me, at this point in my life, success would be three things:  finish college, open my own business, and get married (not necessarily in that order).  If I am not committed to finishing college, then I won't.  If I am not committed to opening my own bakery and shutting down all my competitors, then I will have wasted my time and I won't accomplish anything.  If I don't really want to get married, then I won't try and I won't find the right fish.

I'll save some other points from our discussion for other posts ;] They were good points and we had some good discussions (at least I thought we did).

The best part of the BYU Incoming Freshman Class of 2012 and their amazing Peer Mentor and Y-Group Leaders

I know I had an awesome NSO experience and I can't wait until next summer to do it again!! I hope my students also enjoyed it and got more than free lunch and a campus tour out of our service towards them. :]