Genki Gold

"Where are you from?" I get asked day to day to day. "Murray, Utah!" I reply. I smile through it. I am really proud of my hometown. I just never understood the nationality qualification when it came to making friends in Utah. "But where are you from ?"  I've about had it with this question. I'm from Utah. I was born and raised here. What more do I have to do to be a United States citizen? According to the law, nothing. My mother and grandmother are American citizens. They answered questions that most people that are naturalized citizens can't. (Proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRkFDcX_72c ) You'd think that a basic understanding of American history would make someone more American. But instead, just the slightest accent, the slightest curl, a mole, a nose, a lip, or bodily hair can "give yourself away" to the real  Utahns.  A new nationalism sentiment is on the rise. It's about as complex as ger...

All I hope now is that this boy also recognizes the mercy and grace of  God. President Hinckley's finishes this way: "When all is said and done, when all of history is examined, when the deepest depths of the human mind have been explored, nothing is so wonderful, so majestic so tremendous as this act of grace when the Son of the Almighty, the Prince of His Father's royal household, He who had once spoken as Jehovah, He  who had condescended to come to earth as a babe born in Bethlehem, gave His life in ignominy and pain so that all of the sons and daughters of God of all generations of time, every one of whom must die, might walk again and live eternally. He did for us what none of us could do for ourselves-"Think of that next time you want to take on "an entire project" by yourself-"I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Eternal, Living God. None so great has ever walked the earth. None other has made a comparable sacrifice or granted a ...

Man oh man do I love this. My blog has been so much fun to write! It has been a relief to write these things down. Even when I wrote about sad things I was always significantly happier afterwards. I posted sensitive and private things, but who knows what privacy is in 2017?? I hope that I have opened your eyes to a new perspective if I haven't accomplished the impossible task of convincing you to agree with me. I really just write to express myself and thus feel like my opinion is validated. This is not my final blog, just a reflection. I love your comments, please keep them coming.

I wasn't going to join in. I thought I was late in the game. I actually thought the world wouldn't benefit from my story. I did not want to weigh the world down with another depressing story. But when, just before Thanksgiving, there was a Twitter altercation between Olympic gymnasts, I knew I had to let this skeleton out of his closet. If you don't understand Twitter, in order to read these tweets chronologically, you have to start from the bottom: It seemed, to most people, that Gabby Douglas was insinuating that women who dress immodestly are asking to be sexually harassed. It's the classic "If you roll in the mud, you'll only attract pigs" argument. I hope that as I share my story, this phrase will die and nobody will believe it ever again. I was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I say this honestly, so you can know the full story. In no way was the Church at fault for what happened to me. There was nothi...

Every time I leave the house, I prepare myself to die. With every attack, whether it be by knife or bomb or car, I realize how close I am to death when I leave my house. Adults and children have been murdered at concerts, church services, in schools, airports, and movie theaters. There is no safe place. But there's no fun in staying home in order to be safe. So I just embrace the idea that I could fall victim to any crazy person who decides to strike on any day. I try to live every day with few regrets, lots of intact relationships, and courage in the case that this day is my last. Who knows what the source of mass killings are. Would attacks decrease if gun regulation changed? If all Muslims were banned? If there were metal detectors at every door? I don't know. This is not a political message I'm trying to share. This isn't even really a solution. This is about how I deal with a fallen world. I don't know about you, but I am underwhelmed with the quality o...

"[A] s ye are   desirous   to come into the   fold   of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—" Mosiah 18:8-9, Book of Mormon Last Sunday, Tim Ballard put on a devotional for my Stake. If you don't know who he is, he's an LDS man who used to be a politician but is now a philanthropist working with Underground Railroad. This is a non-profit organization that rescues kids that are involved in human trafficking.  The crowd that gathered under his name topped any stake conference I have ever attended. It almost made me sick ...

Last week, at the Texas Roadhouse in Taylorsville on 5400 South, around 11:30-12:00 a firetruck and ambulance pulled up into the parking lot. It was Veteran's Day weekend, so there were a lot of elderly veterans eating there, because they were offering a free meal to all those who served. It was cool to be surrounded by them. The ambulance made me anxious. I am an aspiring journalist, but foremost a student so I spend my free time recording video and trying to sell it to other news outlets. This day, however, recording this elderly man who was likely a veteran be carried out on a stretcher without a shirt on was so jarring and sad it was difficult to continue filming. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyHfBL5DKyU Every single time my professors of BYU have given me a movie to watch as an assignment, I grow more and more grateful for them. "Five Broken Cameras" is a documentary about the conflict between Palestine and Israel. The videographer o...

Do you tend to eat out or at home? Christmas Dinner at Home I recently read an article called "Of Ketchup and Kin: Dinnertime Conversations as a Major Source of Family Knowledge, Family Adjustment, and Family Resilience." It reminded me of a blog post I wrote while I was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The article talks about how meals at home can help children develop, but my points are much more guttural. Granted, this blog post was about my companion and my relationship, but if you just replace her pronouns with those of your family, I think you'll see why you oughta stay in for meals. "Today marks day 19 of a 3 week period of eating out every single day. During this period we might have eaten two meals at home. This doesn't count breakfast, but I don't know a missionary who counts breakfast as a meal. Regardless today we're fasting and I'm feeling like I could float along on cloud nine and fast...

You have to be a little messed up to like horror movies. Halloween 2011 For my dad, he saw The Evil Dead very young. I watched my first scary movie at 3-years-old (AGAINST THE VOLITION OF MY PARENTS. I had a bad babysitter. I have great parents). It was Scream, a movie that I would be perfectly happy never watching again. Your first scary movie will  always be the scariest. Yet, I brag about it to others. My first scary movie defines me as a person and I'm proud to share it. I'm proud to say I watched first slasher film as a toddler. I couldn't help it then, and I can't change it now. When I watch scary movies, I jump and flinch and shriek with the rest of them. But aftertwards, I am completely unaffected by the horrific images I have just seen.  "It's just a movie, " I would tell myself and then slip into a peaceful slumber. Then, a good friend of mine that I admire very much told me that she's bipolar and manic depressive...

I do not meditate. I do not do yoga. I watch comedy shows. This relieves my stress. A well-thought out comedy sketch comes highly recommended to those stressed out students, high strung parents, and exhausted professionals. One has to be clever to be a comedian. Stephen King once wrote that writing is like telepathy. He would agree that joke writing is also telepathy. If a comedian couldn't read your mind and force the inception of an idea in your mind, they would not be funny. The whole point of being a comedian is to convince someone of something in order to induce laughter. A bad comedian tells jokes that nobody understands, and speaks on a different plane from his audience. Instead, a good comedian convinces you of something, gets you on his side so that you feel comfortable laughing with him.

I've added an important extension to Stephen King's quote. It is officially the tried and true quote. My research paper was about YouTube. I titled it "YouTube: The New Media for News Media" and grew very fond of it. I showed it to as many people as I could and I am sure I will continue to show it to more people. I loved this paper because it had a purpose: I wanted to publish it. Even now that I've turned it in, I know it is not my final draft because I still want to publish it. My passion for journalism motivated me to write the paper, but my determination to contribute to the field in some way became my discipline. This is way I am a volunteer research assistant to a journalism professor on campus. I don't have to be. I certainly don't have the time to be. But I'd like to make a contribution to this cause that I love so dearly. Refworks was a huge help. Never have I been so organized before. It was also divine that I learned about it weeks before...

Humility: the most allusive characteristic. Once you think you have it, you actually aren't humble at all. Humility is desperate, hard work Doctrine of humility stems from The Great Commandment. Matthew 22:37 "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." What is love? 2 John 1:6 "And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it." Preach My Gospel is a manual for LDS missionaries. It has rules, routines, counsel, and inspiration. There is an entire chapter on Christlike Attributes and how to achieve them. One of these is humility. PMG p. 120 "Humility is willingness to submit to the will of the Lord . . . When you humbly trust Him and acknowledge His power and mercy, you can have the assurance that His commandments are for your good. You are confident that you can do whatever the Lord requires of yo...

“You all know that you’re going into a dying business?” my journalism professor chuckled as he surveyed the class. He continued into his lecture for the first day of Intro to News Media, and I was present but not listening. I would compare it to when Santa tells Ralphie in A Christmas Story that a Red Ryder BB gun could “shoot your eye out.” I did not want to believe it was true. Yet it very possibly could be.                I love current events, am I a great anomaly? My journalism class was quite full, particularly so for an evening class. All my friends did not seem less informed, if anything they seemed more informed.  But my professor was telling me my passion is going to fall on deaf ears? I am studying the most popular forms of news media because I want to know if what media consumers like in order to help fellow news media students know how to revive journalism in the future. That's a big paper. So far, I ...

"I wish I had time to read! I have too much homework" a girl shrieked at me during the third hour of my shift at work. Hi, nice to meet you. I am the antagonist to all your excuses. I am currently enrolled in 17.5 credits, I typically work 12-20 hours a week on Brigham Young University campus as a secretary for the Communications: News and Media department, I volunteer for three hours a week, I cook homemade meals at least five times in the week and I still have time to read. I am not bragging I am not saying I am better than anyone. But as a college student I must write, and if I must write, I must also make time to read. I got the title from a quote out of Stephen King's "On Writing" which I read in my free time. Doesn't this parallel make sense? Am I wrong to desperately cling to my reading time? You know, I am only going to get busier. I don't think a crying baby will work around my reading schedule. So I made some goals to help me read better...

My soon-to-be husband (unbeknownst to me) Rob and I had just descended from the Y Mountain in Provo, Utah. He had opened the door for me and let me shiver from inside his Chevy Cruise and was walking around the back of it when a boy approached him shyly. I was watching from the rear view mirror suspiciously, but when they seemed to be carrying on a conversation I couldn't help but turn around. Rob ducked his head level to the window and mouthed: They need our help. When we followed the boy we saw a sad sight. A teenage girl obviously distraught because two of her tires were flat. We were happy and eager to call AAA or anybody, but she this only made her more nervous. She had taken this car out for this drive while her mom was out of town, see. Two of her friends had tagged along. Her mother had no idea and she wanted to keep it that way. We ended up calling somebody anyway to bring two spares. As we waited, Rob jumped up and grinned. "Who wants hot chocolate?" We all d...