Gray

So in titling this post I had to pause and decide if I should use 'grey' or 'gray'.  For some reason I'm much more partial to 'grey' but the "traditional american spelling" is 'gray' so we'll stick with that.

So in (approximately) 10 days and 22 hrs BYU will host (presumably) nationally ranked Oregon State in BYU's annual homecoming game.  This is a special game because BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall is a graduate and former assistant coach of Oregon St.  Also it will be the cougars first real test since barely loosing to Boise St. and the first of three huge and difficult games that make up the meat of BYU's schedule this year.

Finally, it is also the first time that BYU will not wear white, or blue as their primary color.  I'd like to say that BYU has been a uni-staple, but between 1999 and 2004 they went a little crazy with uniform ideas, but in 2005 settled back down into the tradition.  This month all that tradition gets a little tweaking with a (jumping on the bandwagon) black out.

In the uni-watching world we call this BFBS, and black for black's sake is generally frowned upon, as is grey for grey's sake, or pretty much using any color that isn't one of your team's official colors.  But I don't care, these uniforms are gonna rock.  Why? because I said so.  While this comes as a surprise, it's not quite as jaw-dropping since the idea was leaked back in April.

All this thought of BYU uniforms makes me want to compile an awesome database of their uniforms... but for now I'll leave you with the beautiful pictures of BFBS.

You're probably wondering why I called this post Gray, well it's because of this beauty.  That grey with the blue!  ohh it is soooo good!!! I LOVE IT!  if they did one thing right here, it's the use of grey.  boom.

Sunday Edition : Hymns

Today in church we sang four hymns that have strange but significant meaning to me personally. I thought it was pretty amazing that ALL of them I have a special (if not strange) connection to so I decided to write about it.

Three of the hymns have connections to my mission, first God Speed the Right. A line in this song, "If we fail we fail with glory" meant something to my MTC companion and he mentioned it a few times, in a testimony once I believe, so it always reminds me of him. Next was We Sing All Hail, which has a particular line, "... and bruised the serpent's head" which is in reference to God's promise to Satan given at the fall of Adam, "and he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." (Moses 4:21) Meaning that Christ will have power over Satan. This line was brought to my attention by one of my favorite people in the MTC, and when I sing this song I always think of him. Finally, Gently Raise the Sacred Strain, became one of my favorite hymns in the middle of my mission when it mysteriously became stuck in my head, and I studied the words and learned so much about the importance of the sabbath day. I used the hymn as the basis for a wonderful talk I gave a few months later.

The fourth song we sang wasn't a mission related song, but has even more meaning.  #166, Abide with Me was sung as the closing hymn at my grandpa's funeral in January, 2006.  Since then I has been one of the most special hymns in my life, and I will never forget it's importance since I almost cry any time I sing it.

I'm a Mormon

The Church published this today.  I'm mormon and I'm proud of it, more than just proud of it, I love being mormon!  I really liked this info-graphic and I think it's worth sharing, so here it is.  

Some of the things I love the most about being mormong is counting myself among those who pray daily, attend church weekly, and know more than most people about the Bible and religion in general.  Also I love how much I get to learn about Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.