Creation: Choose your Media

In the last few weeks of my Book Arts class, there was much talk of which forms we were going to use for our final projects. Some people decided on the traditional folio form, while others chose to create a book in the very loosest sense of the word (see the following for clarification on that last category: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_Yam_(artist%27s_book, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brian_Dettmer_New_Books_of_Knowledge.jpg). On the description card that was to accompany our final projects in the library display, we had to indicate the media we chose to use to create our projects. The media and the form were to be rooted deeply in the significance of the project.

The word "media" is one of those words that keeps the same meaning but has a different significance in every genre, generation, and general subject category. Media are the tools people use to create and communicate. In a workshop I attended this morning, we talked about influences of "the media," referring to music, TV, movies, commercials, and other techonologic forms. We can certainly discuss the negative in media today, and we often do so.

Providing examples of good media, the man leading the workshop showed us clips of a movie with good values and a movie that exposed the behind-the-scenes of fahion/pornography media. Then he clicked through his presentation to pictures of nature. "The earth is God's media," he said. "It is the expression of His creativity." His creativity comes in the perfection in nature, the scenes that take our breath away, the elements that keep us alive, and the places we seek to be uplifted, enjoy solitude and receive inspiration. And here is my interpretation: If we are training to be like God and use our creative powers as He intends them to be used, we will follow the hints of nature as the results we're going for.

To create is to have power. I'm spending lots of beautiful time with my new niece, Genevieve Harmon. It's recently struck me that God trusts us enough that we're given the God-like power to create life. Women are even given the power to sustain it for the first little while.

To create is to use our talents. We have the potential to create every day. I feel blessed that I am wordsmithing text every day to be used by the Humanitarian and Welfare projects of the Church. Grounded firmly in the simplest of doctrines, my writing is meant to communicate the joys of service, the fruits of faith and action, and the miracles that come from hand of the Lord and through His earthly servants.

To create is to give.

So folks, choose your media. Choose the media you use for inspiration and entertainment, and choose the media you use to create. But choose wisely; what we are exposed to becomes our preparation for the bigger and better things we are destined for.

Is this real life?

You know those times when you are positive that things are too amazing to be true?

Like today, when I:

- interviewed a Creole-speaking man over the phone about his inspiring journey toward self-reliance
- opened my eyes to wake up and my room was still clean!
- looked over at Mike driving us to the library and squeezed his hand as we listened to Mexican radio
- taught my co-worker a few weeks worth of digital photography class in less than 30 minutes
- got positive feedback on my article

His Side of the Story

by guest blogger Michael Wesley Olson

Kathryn has done her customary brilliant and thorough job in telling our story. The only thing I can add are the feelings that were going through my mind at the time. I never once thought that I would be blessed enough to find a girl as genuine or as beautiful as Kathryn Harmon. Since returning home from the mission I served in Japan, I had seen many different girls, and none of them seemed to have IT, you know. I began to think that I’d have to compromise my values if I wanted to marry. I never dreamed I could be lucky enough to marry someone with both brains and beauty, someone I could really connect with. The girl of my dreams. My best friend. And this is how it all started…

I began preparing to study abroad at the BYU Jerusalem Center. I had my heart set on visiting the Holy Land for a summer semester. Little did I know that the Lord had other plans for me. He carefully led me into a different path. Several factors combined to hedge up the way and I began to realize that I was not going to make it to Jerusalem. I still had the itch to study abroad though, and after a few talks with Heavenly Father I walked into the U’s Study Abroad Office and began looking at the England pamphlets. One thing led to another and I found myself in an information meeting for the London program. I looked around the room and to my dismay I didn’t recognize anyone. But that was okay because I was feeling adventurous. After all, I had just signed up to fly to a foreign country.

Then my eyes landed on a face I had seen before. Hark! It was the cute girl from my Shakespeare class. She’d caught my eye a few times in class and I had wanted to talk to her, but alas I am a terrible conversation starter and could never come up with a good enough excuse to begin a conversation with her casually. “Um, hey,” *clears throat, “do you like… things…” Gah! *buries face in hands; these scenarios would always play themselves out in my head during class. But now was my chance. It was my time to shine! Our instructors had said that we should form travel groups to make traveling easier. I had my conversation starter.

“Hey,” I said to Kathryn as my palms began to sweat, “d’you want to form a Shakespeare travel group?” I was nervous and my words must have slurred together I concluded, especially since a confused look had overtaken Kathryn’s face. I tried to clarify by explaining that because we were in the same Shakespeare class we should form a travel group together.

In my 24 years of experience whenever I had found the courage to talk to beautiful woman it had always ended the same way, rejection. So I suppose it wasn’t much of a surprise when she said that she couldn’t form a travel group with me because she had other travel plans already. She’d be staying in England the whole summer to do a program in Cambridge as well. So I went on my way and prepared for an unforgettable trip to London.

We talked a few times after that in our Shakespeare class, which made me glad I had at least broken the ice in our earlier meeting. But again, nothing much came of it. She was a beautiful girl who was out of my league and I was just an aspiring radio talk show host with a fan base of six.

But in London she really began to impress me. My roommate and I began making plans to go to church. I was sad because it looked like we were the only two planning on going. On our way out of the collage we were living in we ran into a few more that were going to the LDS church as well. So we went together. We got to the church as sacrament meeting was starting and we sat in the back. It wasn’t until after the meeting was over that I saw her. I saw a couple of familiar faces in a sea of unfamiliarness. It was her! Kathryn! The girl I had always thought was cute but never really ever thought I had a chance with.

I was very impressed when I saw her at church. If there’s one thing you know about a girl that goes through the effort of making sure she knows where and when church is in a foreign land it’s that she has a good relationship with Heavenly Father. That, or she was tired of her singles ward back home and wanted to meet a hunky Englishman. But seriously the fact that she would chose to go where the spirit is rather than take Sunday off while she was abroad told me a lot about her. This was a girl worth getting to know.

I spent the next few weeks getting to know Kathryn as we traveled to Bath, walked around Stratford-upon-Avon, saw Shakespeare’s plays and took in the beauty of the English country. I gradually began to notice that I had a little crush on Kathryn. “This is no good,” I thought. I had come on this study abroad for an adventure and to strengthen my love of literature and Shakespeare. The thought hadn’t even occurred to me that I would meet a girl and fall head over heals for her. I had become disenchanted with dating recently when it became apparent that I was going to need to compromise myself in someway. It seemed to me that every cute girl I talked to seemed to think it was okay to bend a moral rule here or there; questionable forms of entertainment or less than modest clothing. That is why I was so surprised to meet a girl like Kathryn. I was beginning to think that girls like Kathryn didn’t exist. She is beautiful without trying to be, and she’s modest about it in every sense of the word. She wears nice clothes that show she respects herself and her body.

It wasn’t until the incident at the National Theatre in London that I knew I loved Kathryn, at least in a small way. Our travel group had taken a tour of the theatre and then a bunch of us stayed after to watch one of the shows. The group chose a show they thought would be good. It started okay, but things got uncomfortable quickly. I felt uncomfortable. I looked down the row of faces in our group and saw Kathryn on the end. She looked uncomfortable as well. That was the last scene before intermission. I suggested that we could leave and get ice cream. Kathryn looked relieved, and we left. The group left with us but as we left the theatre and walked along the Thames River I knew that I had found a choice daughter of God and that I would do anything to protect her physically and spiritually.

After we were both home and started dating my love for this beautiful girl grew more and more. Then, two months in, she surprised me by telling me she was getting a feeling that she needed to serve a mission. This hit me hard because I was falling deeply in love with this girl and the thought of not having her in my life was more than I could bear. I prayed for the strength to do the Lord’s will. I didn’t want to come between her and fulfilling a calling from Heavenly Father.

Several months went by, as did many hard conversations with Heavenly Father. She didn’t think it would be fair to ask me to wait for her, nor did I feel it appropriate to do so. The decision was reached that we would continue to date and see where we were emotionally in 18 months.

My love for this girl continued to grow as she prepared herself to serve the Lord. Then she met with the bishop and stake president and gradually felt more and more like she wouldn’t go. She told me and needless to say I felt guilty of unintentionally manipulating her into staying. She assured me that she felt that it was a prompting from the Lord. I’ve always trusted her to do the right thing when it comes to spiritual promptings.

I’ve never felt more love for Kathryn than the night we babysat my nephews—in particular when we were putting Joseph and Nathan to bed. She sang them songs from the primary songbook, and a spirit entered that room in a way that I’ve never felt before. I can’t imagine raising a family without Kathryn, nor would I even want to try.

Well, I think Kathryn covered anything I may have skipped. In summary: Yes I did have a crush on her all through our study abroad in London and yes the hug I gave Kathryn just before flying back to America was a little awkward, but that was only because I get self-conscious around pretty girls I have a crush on (Kathryn's sidenote: I think he was also giving me space because though I liked him, he knew my heart was still somewhat engaged elsewhere). And now looking forward to the future I am so lucky to get to spend the rest of my life and eternity with the girl I had a crush on, my best friend. I can talk to her about anything and everything. We go biking together, we play games together and we go on picnics together. I don’t know what I did to deserve the blessing of her in my life but I’m certainly not going to waste it. We will serve together, go on missions together and raise a family together (and a pretty darn cute family too, thanks to Kathryn’s chromosomes).

I love you Kathryn, and I can’t wait for Oct 6, and every day after that.

Kathryn's footnote: See why I'm marrying him?

To Genevieve Aisling Harmon:

We've been anxiously awaiting your arrival for a long time now. You've brought your parents so much joy as they've prepared for you to join their wonderful family in Connecticut. The David Harmon family had tears of joy as we sang this to you over the phone earlier today on your 24-hour birthday--it's one of my favorite lullabys:

"Through your eyes skies look brighter
Grass more green clouds are whiter.
When you're close cares grow lighter,
We're glad that you were born.


Through your eyes hills stretch higher.
When you smile you inspire hearts to sing in a choir.
We're glad that you were born.


Born to laugh, born to dream
Born to spread your light.


Through your eyes we see clearer
You bring God so much nearer.
Life has grown so much dearer,
We're glad that you were born."

I can't wait to meet you soon!

Love,

Auntie Kate

Recent Radio Tastes and the MTC

I would like to know whether you're as intrigued as I am that my current radio tastes alternate between the two following genres:

1. Christian Pop
2. Spanish, with a pretty strong nod to Mexican

I mean, how can you resist "you are my Li-i-i-ght" and "eres mas linda que la rosa"? No se.

In other news, I've been spending some quality time with the future Welfare Services missionary couples lately. Monday, I went with them on a tour of Welfare Square, and I spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday at the MTC. I felt extremely funny about being practically the only one under 50 eating in the cafeteria who was neither wearing a missionary badge nor had ever served a mission. On Wednesday, it was especially odd to see all of the new missionaries. At least I wasn't the only one who looked lost.

These were some major highlights of the adventure:

1. I got to drive a beautiful and new company car down to Provo both days.

2. I really enjoyed seeing all of the senior missionaries either take delight in or be completely befuddled by their new iPads. Actually, I mostly just enjoyed the senior missionaries themselves. How can anyone not enjoy New Zealand and Canadian accents and answering all kinds of questions about my fiance at lunch?

3. There really is an incredible spirit in the MTC--a feeling that convinced me that I'd be back sometime about 40 years down the road. With my companion. My eternal one. Maybe we'll go to Myanmar (I learned that it's pronounced without the 'r') and help the Myanmarians (?) build clean water wells. Maybe Mike will be a temple or mission president in Japan! We'll just have to see.

Fourth time's the charm

I wondered if the women sitting at the front desk in the Church Office Building recognized me when I walked up to them last Tuesday for the fourth time in 7 months to say the same thing I had said three times before: "Hi, I'm here to meet with (fill in the blank) on the (fill in the blank) floor." As far as I could tell, they didn't.
 At least this time I ventured below the 23rd and 24th floors and rode in the southern elevator to the 7th floor.

Last September 17th, I walked into the Church Office Building for the first time and rode the elevator up to the 24th floor with my future fiance to attend an information session for the Church magazines internships. Pretty soon after applying for the internships, I found out that I didn't make it.

A week or so later, I applied for the Church Publications Editorial internship and went the second time to the Church Office Building to take a proofreading test on the 23rd floor. I didn't get that internship either that time or when I tried a few months later. That brings my count to 3 tries. (I'm not even counting the time I applied for the FamilySearch internship and didn't make it past the application.)

Welfare Services, located on the 7th floor, is where I tried a fourth time to work for the Church and where I succeeded for the first time. The offer letter began, "On behalf of the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ("Employer"), I am pleased to offer you employment as an Intern, Editorial - Welfare Services." I didn't even know this position existed until a little over a week ago, but I'm pretty sure I've now exhausted the Church writing/editing internships option and found the jackpot--the zenith of all Church internships.

How exactly could it get any better than not only talking to people with inspiring welfare success stories but also writing them in such a way that people around the world curious about the Church's welfare program (like the UN and the Church around the world) see them as inspiring and successful too? I'm really not sure it gets any better. Or harder. Or more humbling. Or more overwhelming. Or more fulfilling.

One of the first things my interviewer said to me after looking at my resume was, "God must expect great things from you." I couldn't agree more. Did I get here by myself? No way. Anyone who knows what's happened in my life for the past little while can see that a Divine Power exists--One who knows my innermost desires and dreams. England, Study Abroad Office, Deseret Book, an incredible fiance, graduation...

and now all of this. God must expect great things from me.

How it all happened...part 2

I know you've all been waiting for this with an anticipation that can hardly be soothed by anything but maybe the permanent residence of a Sprummer season in Utah. So I will finally rescue Mike and I from the utter agony of the mission/marriage decision, especially since we all know, well, what happened. But, as the post title suggests, we all don't know just how it all happened. **If you want to skip over the details and get to the good stuff, there are pictures at the end**

If you will allow me to be serious for a moment, I'd like to explain why this decision is such an issue for many young women. Before I experienced it, I always imagined that there would be one clear, correct option for this choice. Anyone who experiences this decision knows how hard it really is. Since girls aren't required to serve missions, it usually takes an affirmative answer to prayer or a strong feeling/desire to seriously consider serving a mission. And that was the case for me. That kept me going to mission prep and going to various appointments to complete my mission papers. I knew it was my choice and that I wasn't being forced into anything. Something that helped was the feeling that I didn't have to choose between a mission and Mike. I had his support 100% for whichever decision I made. I felt so strongly about both options, so it ultimately came down to those elusive, vague, and hard-to-understand desires of the heart.

But that could take up another 800 posts. The point is that with a little help, I slowly figured out those desires. And that's what brought me to being picked up and twirled around by Mike outside the stake president's office where we had received some spiritual nudging and counseling to get married. Now.

I have wonderful parents--parents who are concerned that I live a good life after I leave their care. Because of this, Mike and I found ourselves putting together a marriage budget before we had even received approval. Apartment shopping for October in March, and mock grocery shopping and insurance research for two makes the marriage decision very real. Many people knew we were getting married before we were engaged because of the asking around we were doing, but we figured that many people suspected anyway. I would actually recommend this process to anyone getting married. It was such a relief to know that we wouldn't starve once we got married, and it's always good to send out apartment-seeking, job-seeking, and insurance-seeking feelers far in advance.

We'd already been ring shopping, so once we got the thumbs-up from my parents, we moved fast. I'm such a curious stinker, so I knew when and where Mike was going to propose. He tried to keep it all secret, but a combination of his and my being anxious to be engaged made that a bit difficult.

The engagement story should really begin in London's Hard Rock Cafe. Remember how everything great starts with London? This is no exception. In that historic restaurant, we were talking about some of our favorite/dream dates, and I mentioned that I liked going to Barnes & Noble and reading children's books. Calling on his incredible memory, Mike took me to the Gateway Barnes & Noble soon after we started dating.

Well, the evening of April 1st found us back in the children's section of the very same Barnes & Noble. As we listened to some songs Mike knows I love (and some of our favorite dancing songs), he read me Oh, the Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss. Man, he was nervous--he was messing up words (and I was correcting him--shameless!!) and skipping pages. On the second to the last page, he read, "You'll move mountains, kid!" He closed the book, got down on one knee (not a very far distance--we were sitting at the little kids' table), and said "Kathryn Suzanne Harmon, will you move mountains with me?"

Now, I was very aware of which day of the year it was. And, knowing in advance that this was going to happen, I had ample time to prepare a proper April Fools response. But alas, when he knelt down and opened the box to show me the ring that was more beautiful than I had been remembering, every witty response I had concocted was replaced with a squeal, a hug, and a "Just to be clear, my answer is YES!"

So here we are, soon to be the Mr. and Mrs. Mike Olson. We have big dreams that include little bikes for our kids, writing and making children's books, jobs with the Church, jobs with the BBC and Cambridge University Press (not too realistic, we know), supporting each other in church callings, graduate school, building a home library, serving missions, building a strong family, serving others, and so much more. One year from now, we'll probably have modified plans. We don't know what the future holds, but we do know that life will be filled with love, challenges, family, and adventure. October 6th, here we come!