More of my Responses and papers

So here are some more assgnments and projects that we have had.


This first one is a compliment assignment where we were asked to compliment 3 people and at least one of them had to be a complete stranger. It turned out to be a very interesting assignment so here is my writ up on it.


Compliment Assignment
19/01/10

This assignment was such a good experience for me. At first I thought it was going to be really awkward and difficult for me because to give a totally random stranger a compliment I thought would be one of the weirdest experiences of my entire life. But it didn’t turn out that way this weekend. I was able to compliment three people successfully without any awkward results I actually really liked the results that I received I actually ended up having an absolutely amazing weekend.
So after thinking praying about who I would like to compliment this weekend I just decided that it would be best if it were a legitimate compliment and not something that I had planned. I really wanted it to be something that came to my mind in the moment and not something that I just had to do for an assignment. So I prayed that Heavenly Father would do what he has always done just give me the opportunity to help others and just provide me with a chance to sincerely compliment people that I met and who I already knew.
I decided that I could compliment one of my mission friends, Jon Monson, who I had just recently come in contact with. He invited me over for some Brazilian food because we were both craving it so much and we had the chance to sit down and talk, catch up and just eat so much we felt like we were going to explode! I found myself wanting to let him know how great it was to know him and how wonderful he had made my mission experience I think he really appreciated that and we were able to have fun and strengthen a friendship that has been absent from my life for a while.
Now the stranger that I complimented was an older man as I was going to work. I was really stressed out with my wedding, guests, pictures, work and homework that I was just not having a very good day. But when I got out of my car there he was a friendly smiling old man with and expression that I could only describe it as the loving grandpa smile. He immediately asked me how I was doing and told me how wonderful it was to run into a friend like me. I just looked back at him and expressed my thanks to him that it was so refreshing to her a friendly voice that could relax me and make me feel much better. His name was Dave Watkins, he was the realtor for my building where I worked. We had a short conversation where I discovered that he knew a good majority of my family and recognized them as a wonderful, strong and upstanding family for who he had great respect. I felt so good and realized the great blessing I have in my life to be a part of my family and to represent such a well known name that is respected by many to be a good family. So as usual the Lord answered my prayers and gave me two chances to really give heartfelt compliments and not only to bless someone else’s life but to also have mine so richly blessed in the process too.
The last person I complimented was my fiancé, Jacqueline Dustin. This weekend I just looked at her and thought about how happy I was with her, I lucky I felt, how much I truly loved her and how excited I am to spend the rest of eternity with her. Then I just said it to her. We ended up having a long conversation of how we felt about each other and we even retraced our relationship in which I was just reminded of every reason I fell in love with her. Honestly, I loved her more and more each day and with this compliment and conversation that resulted from it I was so amazingly happy that this weekend just passed with me floating because of how happy I was to be with her. With every compliment I tried to give I was blessed by the Lord with so much more that I had given. This project totally made my weekend.


Another assignment that we had was to listen. We were instructed to work on our listening skills by better listening to someone that we wanted to improve our relationship with. It worked, I listened, realized my listening flaws and tried to fix them.



Me Listening
15/03/10

For this assignment we were instructed to choose a person that we would try to listen to better. We were told that it would help our relationship with this person. The person that I chose to listen to better was my fiancée Jacqueline Dustin. I figured this would be good for our relationship because lately the stress of the planning for the wedding, school, homework, health and work was really starting to weigh down on us and cause us some arguments that we really didn’t need at this moment. So our relationship was suffering from a lack of or misunderstanding of communication.
When I started this little listening project I realized that listening was actually really hard. I had previously thought that it would be easy because I am always with her and in my mind I was always listening to her. But it turned out to be a little tougher that it seemed. So I decided to try and recognize all of my listening problems that I may have for the first couple of days of the listening week and what I found out really caught me off guard in what I had been expecting. I caught myself trying to talk while she was speaking. I always wanted to interrupt her in the middle of her stories, or give my opinion in the middle of our discussions. I had a lot of problems with listening. I was constantly thinking about what I was going to say before she had even finished the sentence. I even noticed that when she was talking for a long period of time I would only remember the last part of the conversation because I wouldn’t really be listening until the very end of the conversation. I had so many listening problems! I couldn’t believe how many problems I had with listening. Especially listening to Jacqueline who I loved! I really couldn’t believe my ears. They just wouldn’t listen. I realized I had a big communication problem that I needed to fix. So I decided to really try to listen to Jacqueline and follow what Sister Embree’s had told us that if I listening intently and attentively that it would help my relationship.
So beginning more toward the middle of the week that I had chosen to really work on my listening skills and try to fix all of my problems that I had been noticing at the beginning of the week. This wasn’t going to be as easy as it had seemed in the beginning of the assignment. I began to listen more to Jacqueline, like really listen to her and not going to lie it was really hard. I had learned earlier in class attentively listening to a person and staying aware of the content in the conversation takes a lot of energy and effort from the listener. I began to improve my listening skills by first trying to minimize the number of times that I found myself wanting to interrupt her in the middle of her conversation. After I was able to do that I found out that the amount of time I spent planning my response or anticipating the flow of the conversation was affected as well because when I focused on her not interrupting her I was not thinking about my response I was actually listening to her. Then on top of that, even though I was very mentally exhausted by this I managed to begin to listen to the whole conversation. When I finally put all of these elements together I found out that I was not only in tune to what she was saying but also the emotion that was behind what she was saying. I think that I was much more open and responsive to her content messages and also more attentive to the relational messages that she was sending as well. I felt that I could understand her needs more and more as time went on and I was really trying to fulfill her needs when I would hear and recognize them.
In conclustion I felt that Sister Embree was right, that effective listening actually helped me to improve my relationship with Jacqueline. I intend to try and continue to listen attentively to her throughout our relationship and marriage. I may not be able to be attentive all the time but I think it is like praying or learning how to play a new sport. That the more that you practice and work at it the better and more natural the action becomes so I think that I can really increase the time that I can effectively listen to her and be attentive in the conversation. So I guess you can say that I have a new lifetime goal to add to my new list and not only will I do this with Jacqueline but I think that if I can better my listening skills I can apply them to school, work, future kids and all parts of my life.




This next assignment was a response to a very touching story that we read for class.

Response to: “A True Story” by Paul Villard



Response to “A True Story”
23/03/10

Here is a perfect little story about two people who needed each other, but never knew the true extent of their actions for a long time. First, a young boy whose childlike innocence and need for attention drew him to his family phone to talk to the operator who he named “Information Please”. After the first encounter with “Information please” he went back to ask information about everything. Feeding a pet chipmunk, studying arithmetic, planning adventures to distant places and even comforting him when a family pet died. This little boy grew up with this clear, tender voice giving him all the information he needed fulfilling his needs when he needed someone to just listen to him and council him when he was in need. Eventually the boy moved to another part of the country leaving his best friend behind that he only knew as “Information please”.
Years later this young boy had grown to a man attending college and yet still reminiscing about his old friend the operator. He was grateful for her patience in always listening to him and helping him find the information that he needed. Then when he was passing through the part of the country that he had grown up talking to the operator he decided to call and see if his childhood friend and mentor were still there. When called and asked for “Information Please” he heard the same clear and kind voice that he had talked to all those years ago. It turns out “Information Please” had a name, Sally, and she was just as excited to talk to the once young boy who had unknowingly made her life better. Sally didn’t have any children and always looked forward to him calling so that she could somehow give council to a child that she didn’t have. They both didn’t realize the extent of their actions all those years ago. He would have grown up all the same and she would have continued to be an operator and yet their presence in each other’s lives had such an impact that once older friends became reacquainted very quickly forming a new friendship. Then one day the boy called his old friend only to hear that she had passed away weeks earlier. But she had left a message she had once given to him before when his pet canary had died, she told him, “Paul, there are other worlds to sing in.”
This story for some strange reason had a very great impact on me. I don’t know why and I don’t know how. I just felt happy for Paul and Sally that they both had each other when they needed someone. It may seem all coincidence or by chance that good fortune comes across us and/or others. That luck just happens to play its part in giving us needs that we have and that the game of chance favors us in the exact moment we are unconsciously looking for something or someone. But in this case, to me it was something very different, something that wasn’t just by chance or coincidence, but something that was influenced by some divine plan. We have a God, a Heavenly Father so to speak that is our ultimate mentor and comforter because we are his children. He knows us so well that he gives us gifts like this operator or like a little boy calling you every day that in the moment may seem so simple that we don’t realize their impact until later in our lives. It comforts me to know that He is watching over us and He knows exactly what we need when we need it and it is by his divine plan for us to be happy and He will help us anyway that he can. You may ask why then do bad things happen? Well, we all make our own decisions and sometimes bad things happen because others choose so and in turn it has a negative influence on our lives. But bad things happen to help us learn and grow and even direct us. The reason this little boy went to talk to the operator was because he had hit his finger with a hammer and needed someone to talk to, someone to comfort him because no one else was home. So what did he do? He called the operator and consequently began a friendship that was more than beneficial to the two of them. So when we act in our lives and things happen, good things or bad things, how do we react? How do we take these little moments seem like nothing and yet could shape our personality in who we are and who we will become? I like to think that I would always be aware of these moments but I know I can’t be, the best I can do is to be observant, listen to others, help them in service, and be a positive influence in this divine plan. This was a wonderful little story that I enjoyed greatly. Its stories like these that give us happiness to know and remind us to be happy and share happiness wherever we go.


And this last assignment we were told to identify some of our communication conflict patterns or conflict Rituals. After we had to describe one of our conflict rituals that that had a positive influence on our relationship and one that had a negative influence on our influence.





Your Conflict Rituals
25/03/10

In my relationships I have experienced a lot of conflict rituals. I have noticed the patterns and process, but I never quite knew what they were and how to explain them. It’s funny to me because in my relationship with Jacqueline I think that we both know what our rituals are and we have adapted our personalities and attitudes to our conflict rituals so that we benefit from them instead of suffer.
When we first started out our relationship our communications was suffering. We would talk a lot, even up to 4-5 hours per day, but yet when it came to our first conflicts we started to set the conflict rituals for our fights. First, the main subject that would trigger a conflict was the topic of my ex-girlfriend and if I still had feelings for her. Second, the behavior that probably triggered the most conflict was my defensiveness and this probably sent her the wrong message that maybe I did still have feelings for my old relationship. Third, she would withdraw from me and become very quiet then I would become frustrated because I couldn’t communicate with her at all so I would remove myself from the situation and leave altogether causing us to both feel alone, angry and hurt for a lot longer than we needed. The ritual ended by usually both of us agreeing that it was too hard to fight and much easier to just let go of the subject, but it kept coming up and kept having a great negative effect on our relationship.
Luckily she was taking an interpersonal communications class and she recognized our conflict rituals and explained to me that we needed to change the way that we reacted to conflict in our relationship if we wanted to actually progress and not just try and forget about important topics that hurt us. So to fix our problems when a subject came up like my ex-girlfriend, or affection or other guys we wouldn’t withdraw from the situation, but take a step back think for a moment and why we were fighting and instead of becoming quiet she would address the problem and instead of me withdrawing from the situation I would end up holding her closer which was actually what she really needed and what I really needed in those moments. We would come to actual conclusions instead of just ignoring the subject for a short period of time. I’m so happy that we were able to get out of the negative conflict ritual and replace it with a more positive constructive one because since then we’ve been able to save ourselves a lot of grief and pain. My relationship has benefited greatly from finding positive conflict rituals with my soon to be wife Jacqueline Dustin.


I know you'll be reading this Jacqueline and i love you so much:)