Patricia goes to the temple!

Patricia will receive her endowments this Saturday, 13 December. She is so excited about every aspect of the temple. After our bishop interviewed her today, he came and said, "good job". When I said thanks (not knowing why), he said "No really good job helping her get prepared. She is the most prepared new member I have ever seen." I must say that I was happy to hear that, but she is the only one who receives the credit for preparation.

Viscaya Museum

On Saturday we went and visited a house built in 1914 by James Deering who was the owner of International Harvester, the largest company of agricultural machinery at the time. The estate took 2 years to build at a whopping price of $20 million. 1000 workers worked on the house daily, which was 10% of the entire Miami population. Once the house was finished, he had a crew of 130 people to take care of the house, estate, and the farm where he produced his food.

The house was massive with 75 rooms that were decorated with furniture purchased from European castles and in some instances the entire room including walls and ceiling were brought over from European castles. He never married but had 10 bedrooms for his constant stream of guests. He lived on the bay, so people could arrive at his house either by ship, train or by car. Just imagine his lifestyle required the employment of 130 people!

Just for those interested in agriculture. the company that James Deering owned was International Harvester, which merged with McCormick. Later in the 1980s the company split into Navistar (trucks and buses) and Case International (tractors and farm machinery).

First time for everything

Patricia and I have been together for 15 months, and we went to the theater for the first time. I thought pretty crazy that after we have bee together 15 months we finally watched a movie. I guess we are not movie goers.

Patricia wanted to see it because all the young women at church and their mothers were talking about it (She is in the young womens' presidency). I knew nothing about the movie except a few reviews that I read that said that it was the biggest sensation among teenage girls and their mothers. I, not being part of either group, was rather reluctant to see this chickflick. I figured that I would be one of the sad group of men forced to accompany wives or girlfriends to the theater. However, the movie was not all that bad. I was glad that it was not overly sappy or stupid, and not satanic like many vampire movies are.

Word to the wise

No matter how mad you are at your computer, so do not hit it with your left hand while wearing a tungstun carbide wedding band. You only are left with a cracked computer monitor and wedding band broken in two.

Yes tungstun carbide is one of the hardest substances on earth next to diamond, but as I found out the hard way it is extremely brittle. Fortunately the place I bought replaced it. Whew!

Patricia's taking piano lessons!

I have not written for a long time because I don't think people want to hear about ecology, teaching, and writing papers. But what can I write about when that is all that we did for the last few months?

However, I do have new news today. Patricia started piano lessons! Patricia loves music. She always wants to sing songs. We sing a hymn in the morning when we get up. The most important part of the Family Home Evening is the opening and closing hymns. Now every time we drive in a car it is singing time. We practice and memorize hymns. (We memorized "I'm a child of God", "how firm a foundation", "love at home", "families can be together forever", "teacher do you love me?", and "morning breaks". I'm not really into music, but I am dragged into all the hymn singing. She is shocked that I grew up in a church and still do not have the common songs like "I'm a child of God" memorized, so she is compensating for this "slacker" attitude.

She wanted to learn how to play the piano, so that she can play the hymns. Also she would be able to teach our kids how to play piano some day. At first I didn't think she was serious about playing piano, but she practices all the time. We bought her a keyboard, practice music books, the church hymnal, and the primary music book.

Kayaking and a random cattle show

I found some pictures that I took in May when we went to the Miami Cattle Show and kayaking in the Florida Keys.

Kayaking through the Keys

As a wedding present, our then branch president gave us a kayaking trip (click on pic to see album) and dinner at an excellent all-you-can-eat seafood place. Patricia and I used his two-man, which means that I kayaked two people. Patricia helped every once in while. The kayaks had an interesting design; they had fins underneath that were leg powered. One can row, too, but the leg-powered rowing alone was very fast. We both really enjoyed the trip, and now a sea kayak is on our special list. You know that special list of things we would like to some day buy when we actually have money.


A little Florida Keys history
Our branch president is a Florida history buff, so he picked keys to kayak to that had historical value. On one key we saw an old village that was there until 100 years ago. Then we went to another key where there was an old village established by a wealthy ship wrecker. Ship wreckers were the people who would salvage ships that wrecked in the shallow waters around the Keys. They would take the crew ashore and then gut the ship. This was completely legal activity, and ship wrecking made Key West the wealthiest city per capita in the world.

A rich man's son Jacob Houseman from New York stole one of his Dad's ships and ship wrecked in the Keys. He soon saw that shipwrecking could be a lucrative business. He convinced the ship wrecker who salvaged his ship to hire him. He then sent out fliers all along the East coast, saying that anyone wrecked in the Keys should let Captain Jacob Houseman wreck their ship because he would give the captain 50% of the wreck. This was important to the captain of the wrecked ship because after wrecking a ship he would never have another job opportunity again. The owner of the cargo was covered by insurance, but the captain was out of a job for life. Half the cargo was a good retirement fund.

Jacob Houseman quickly became the wealthiest ship wrecker in the Keys. He bought and settled on Indian Key. During the Seminole Wars he became very worried about Indian attacks, so he employed a rather costly private army. After exhausting much of his financial resources on the private garrison, he decided to take a cheaper route of paying a bounty on Indian scalps. However, that which appears cheapest sometimes turns out to be the most expensive. The Seminoles became infuriated with the bounty and attacked the key. Most people on the key were killed, though Jacob Houseman and his family escaped. In the attack Houseman lost everything and soon after lost his life, too. He went to work for a ship wrecker and fell (probably pushed) between 2 ships and was crushed to death.

Pig racing and bovines
On the way home one day I saw an advertisement for a cattle show (click on pic to see album) close to our apartment with free admission. Free and close, I couldn't resist. Because Patricia was with me, she was dragged along as well. Patricia had almost no experience with animals outside of her dog, so this was all rather new for her. For instance, she had never been close to a cow, let alone touched one. She finally got up the courage to touch this Maine Anjou bull (thank goodness it humored her).

The cattle show had a pot-bellied pig race that was pretty funny. The announcer was excellent and made it sound like these pot-bellied pigs were the most elite racing animals in the race of races. In reality, the pigs jogged for the first 10 feet then dawdled around the back stretch.
All of a sudden one pig took off running as fast as its fat little legs could carry it. It was a good 40 yards ahead of the other pig when he stopped (no joking) six inches in front of the finish line. He stayed there until another pig almost crossed the line in front of him. Nothing more exciting than seeing pig win by only a snout.

It was interesting to see what Patricia found most interesting. One cow as we walked by started peeing, Patricia just looked at it wide-eyed, amazed. She could not believe that so much urine could leave any animal at one time. Afterwords she wanted to photograph a cow peeing, but unfortunately cows don't pee on cue.

Part III: The honeymoon

Our honeymoon was fabulous. We spent a one week in Itacaré in the state of Bahia. We spent the entire time going to beaches, hiking trails, looking at animals and plants, and eating excellent by Bahiana food. The Bahiano lifestyle is a slower chilled out lifestyle than São Paulo or the United States. They believe in relaxing, not working too hard, and enjoying the beach, or sleeping away the hot afternoon in a hammock. The climate has too seasons and warm and hot. Since it was winter, the weather was warm. Of course, Patricia was the only person in the Bahia that was cold. She would wear long-sleeved shirts at night because it was barely 80°F. She got spoiled having mild weather her whole life without the Arizona hot or the Colorado cold.

We both loved the place and rued the day we had to leave. It was so nice to spend some time there experimenting the local food, seeing beautiful places and nature, and meeting new people. We ate so much good food. Bahian food is very spicy unlike the rest of Brazil that does not know what chili or peppers are. However, their hot food does not hold a candle to some serious Mexican food, though it can light up the average tourist. All the food had local fruits, palm nuts, and fish or shrimp. Excellent stuff.

Here are the links to the pictures of the beaches and trails that we visited and animals that we saw.

Beaches

Honeymoon critters

Honeymoon general pics

Patricia's pics - For all you people who think that I am a crazy biologist. Now you need to see the types of pictures that Patricia takes.

Monkeys

Arvorismo - walkways through the trees

Rafting and cliff jumping

I'll put up a video or two once I get one ready. Patricia took numerous videos of beaches, people, and capoeira (Brazilian martial art and dance). I think that you all would like to see some serious Bahian capoeira.

Part II: The wedding

Throughout the week prior to the wedding we were finishing the final aspects of the wedding planning, while Patricia's cousin (the wedding planner) was organizing the wedding. Two days before the wedding that tents that were set up outside where the wedding was going to take place had not been constructed, though they were supposed to be set up three days before. Marlene (Patricia’s mother) was so worried and, of course, she let the owners of the wedding place know about it. They still were promising her that everything would be set up on time, but she wanted results when they're supposed to occur.

Patricia and I went to the place for hours before the wedding, to give the table assignments to Patricia's cousin. The tents tankfully were in place, and the tables were set up. Hovere, nothing was on the tables, and the decorations weren't finished. I must say I was pretty concerned. When we got there about 30 minutes before the wedding was supposed to start, everything was organized and the final workers were leaving. I was so surprised. I was so sure that they would still be frantically trying to finish the preparations. In the end everything was very beautiful.

As a time arrived we all waited in a room downstairs for this final instructions from the ceremony planner. I first entered alone to my music, which was a piece, which accented the two trumpets in the band. The Dad and Patricia's mother entered with their music. Afterwards the madrinhas and padrinhos (like best men and bride’s maids) and the flower girl entered. Finally Patricia and her dad entered to the music “the wedding march”. Patricia and her dad took a while to enter, and I whispered to her cousin (one of the padrinhos) that she was taking forever to enter. He told me that he had to wait an hour and a half for his bride to come because she's hadn't even arrived at the church yet. I decided having to wait 10 minutes was not too bad.

When Patricia entered, they had closed the curtains prior. As she approached the curtains, the curtains were opened. That was supposed to be the first time I see her in her wedding dress. However, I didn't see her for another minute when she was already about 15 feet away because there is three cameramen and another person taking photos in front of her constantly taking pictures. At this point I led her to the altar where our branch president performed the ceremony. The ceremony was more like a talk on the responsibilities of husband and wife and mother and father. He did an excellent job, though he was very nervous.

We sat in front while he conducted the ceremony. My toes fell asleep because tux shoes are horribly uncomfortable. I fidgeted as little as possible, but I could not help moving a little to try to restore feeling to my toes.

After the ceremony we had the waltz. This was the worst part of the whole wedding because I did not want to dance. At the last reception that I was at a told on of my friends that there would be no dancing at my wedding. If anyone started to dance, they would be kicked out of the reception. Look how things changed, I danced the waltz at my own wedding ... in a tux no less. It went well I guess, though Emily said I looked quite nervous and uncomfortable. At least I did not step on her dress. I was sure that I would step on her dress, she would fall down and rip her dress, and I would have to live with for the rest of my life. Thank goodness that nightmare didn’t happen!

There were ~270 guests at our wedding, and we said hi, hugged and kissed them all, a process that took four hours. I was so tired by the end. It was good to meet her side of the family - people that I wouldn't have an opportunity to meet any other way. Then as people left, they felt it appropriate to come and say goodbye to us, which meant we had to hug kiss and say goodbye to 270 people again I've never hugged, kissed and greeted so many people in my life. But that is a Latin wedding and par for the course.

In the end it was an absolutely gorgeous wedding with absolutely gorgeous bride, a very happy mother-in-law, and many excellent memories.

(I don't have any pictures of the wedding of course because I did not have my camera, but everybody's seen pictures of the wedding already so it's okay)

Patricia has a new bike!!!

I have been encouraging to her to do more exercise, and a good way would be to ride her bike to school with me. She accepted the idea, and yesterday we finally found her a bike. Of course, finding a bike for her is not simple because it has to be the right size, a woman's bike, and most importantly the right colors. We went to a three or four different places with no luck. On the way home from school I saw a bike store that I'd never seen before and found a bike that fit at least the first two criteria. yesterday we went there to check them out. After looking at a few different bikes, Patricia was only considering one of the bikes. The bike was not the right size, so the salesman had to go get another bite that was 2 inches larger. When Patricia asked him to go get the other bike she said that if it fit well she just go ahead and get that bike, though she showed no enthusiasm for the bike. The poor salesman was rather discouraged with Patricia and her apparent lack of enthusiasm. He didn't even want to go get the bike because he is so accustomed to people coming in so excited to buy a bike. He went and got the boss who turned out to be Brazilian. He was a great guy and quickly Patricia started to show more interest. Also the larger by turned out to be gray and white instead of black and gray, which Patricia liked a lot better. By the time we left Patricia was so excited about her new bike.

Of course, we had one more task to do. We had to find the right helmet, which meant the right colors and small enough to fit her head. We ended up buying a pretty pink and gray helmet that was made for an eight year old. So now Patricia is ready to bike to her heart's content (I hope it's a lot).

Life in a Married Ward

The last time that I was in a married Ward was when I was 18, living in Yuma. Patricia, of course, has never experienced anything other than our YSA branch. So in reality it is a new experience for both of us. I like having a complete Ward with children, youth, and old people. We have an excellent Ward. Patricia loves having children around. Today was fast and testimony meeting (because stake conferences next week) and Patricia loved hearing the three little girls and a boy who bore their testimony today. Even the mother with the three psychotic young boys who never stopped going crazy during sacrament didn't affect Patricia's opinion that children are all darling. this lady went up to bare her testimony, which meant two of her boys came with her. They were running around screaming, while the bishopric was trying to calm them down and in reality catch them first then try to call them. Patricia just thought that they were funny and cute. The rest of the church wanted to strangle them. It must be nice to be a new member of the church when everything is new and lovely. Everyone is so impressed with Patricia and her vibrant testimony.

I also enjoy not having a calling. In my previous YSA branch I was a clerk for the last 2 1/2 years and a teacher for 1 1/2 of those years, so church meetings were always very busy. An average Sunday was eight to nine hours at the church, but now I go for three hours only. Unfortunately but happily our Bishop has been prompt to give us new callings after only two weeks. Patricia is the Young Women's secretary. She accepted the callings promptly without even knowing what exactly she was accepting. However, today the Young Women's president explained the responsibilities of her calling, and luckily she is still excited. One of the young women is Brazilian and does not know English well. She is so self-conscious that she feels embarrassed to come to church. Patricia will be a big help to this Brazilian girl especially, but I think she will be an excellent secretary and an asset to the entire program. The Primary and the Young Women's organization duke it out for her, and I guess the Young Women's organization won.

I am the assistant clerk, which I think is an ideal calling, because I do not have the early-morning meetings and the responsibility of doing all of the reports. My principal responsibility will be maintaining the membership records, which is a large task in itself. The Ward clerk Has no assistant clerks, so he does as much as he can do himself, which is basically to take care of the financial records. I'm excited to be in the clerk's office again.

Patricia's two little kids

A fellow grad student decided to get rid of his bearded dragons, so he sent out an e-mail to the grad students offering them to whoever wanted them. Patricia got excited about the prospect of owning these lizards, so I sent him an e-mail right back. However, another grad student had already claimed them after just 10 minutes! Patricia was already excited about getting bearded dragon, so we looked into buying one. Then Patricia changed her mind and wanted to buy her own snake. This plan was short-lived after she saw my snake eat a rat. Normally my snake quickly kills the rat, but this time it took about five minutes. It was rather gruesome because the rat was bleeding through its mouth and nose, while it was gasping for air. After that traumatizing experience she no longer wanted her own snake.

Fortunately today I was talking to the grad student to claim them, and told her that she was just a few minutes faster than us. Now Patricia is going to buy one. She then said that we could have them if we wanted them still. She is the type that has many turtles, lizards, dogs, and many other types of animals, so she could do without two bearded dragons. Patricia was so excited.

Now Patricia has two new little amusements. They receive a mixture of love and torment or what Patricia calls kindness. As soon as we got them home, Patricia gave them both a bath in warm water. The female (on the right) was calmly sitting in the tub of water, but Patricia thought she wasn't moving around because the water was too hot and she was dying. She got so worried that she already killed her lizard. However, these lizards spend most of their time motionless, and the female was just relaxing and enjoying the bath. Thanks to Patricia they have a nice clean cage with a heat lamp and a UV lamp, and a little perch ... everything they need.

They produced a clutch of eggs last year, so I am hoping they will produce another clutch of eggs this year. Maybe in the next six months we will have another 20 dragons.

Part 1: Meeting the in-laws

(I placed the Botucatu and Avaré pictures on Picasa.)

The last few weeks before going to Brazil we spent all our time outside of work moving into our new apartment. The morning of the day we were supposed to leave for Brazil, we left the house at 7am to wash clothes and my car was missing! I could not find my car anywhere. Finally I found it parked blocking the entrance to the condo complex. The car was still warm meaning that at most a few hours before someone took the car for a spin and ditched it blocking the entrance. Thank goodness nothing was wrong with the ca, except the spare change container was missing. We counted our blessing that nothing happened. We then went to the school to wash 13 loads of laundry. Yes, nearly everything we owned was dirty. Fortunately were able use all the washing machines at the dorms, so 13 loads only took a few hours.

We packed for Brazil a few hours before catching our plane. Needless to say it was a frantic dash to get everything done. We did not have time to finish straightening the house or finish unpacking before leaving for Brazil. Thank goodness were able to get everything done the first week we were back in Miami.

I got to know another part of Brazil. Before I was in relatively small city of 750,000 people in Florianopolis compared to 20,000,000 people that call São Paulo home. We stayed in São Paulo from Saturday July 19 until Tuesday July 22. We were able go to church because it was conveniently ~10 blocks from the Vendramini's apartment.

On Monday Marlene (Patrícia's mother), Patricia, and I went shopping. To arrive at the shopping center required taking 3 subways. The subway was not that full of people because it was the winter holidays. If it had been a normal working day there would no room to stand let alone stand. Thank goodness because I wouldn't have liked to be packed in there like sardines without even space to raise my hand to my head. Shopping does not mean going to the mall and idly checking out the goods. Shopping in downtown São Paulo is outdoor mall of sorts. Each side of the road is lined with 100's of small shops, selling jewelry, tools, shoes, every type of pirated goods from clothes, glasses, and a myriad of other useless things. The streets are so full of people that we could barely move our arms let alone walk down the street. Marlene said that it is so nice to go shopping during the holidays and during the week because the place is nearly empty. I couldn't imagine how it would be if the place was actually full. I was holding the bags of goods with a death grip because the place is full thieves that can steal practically anything without any chance of being caught. For this reason I didn't take my wallet or camera (for this reason I do not have photos of the shopping area). Marlene was the only one with money, and she put it in a little pocket in the front of her pants.

The purpose of our trip was to buy shoes, belt, and tie for me and earings for Patricia. The earings are to be used with her wedding dress, so they were the most important item. We went to about 10 jewelry stores on one street before we arrived at a shoe store where I bought 2 pairs of shoes. Then we were off again looking for more jewelry stores. Most of the stores stuff for women (makes sense, considering who it is that goes shopping). The place was full of jewelry stores. We went to all of them trying to find one pair of earings! After going to 60 jewelry stores (60, no joke), we didn't find the special pair of earings. I thought that she was going to start all over again. I almost died because I was already so tired from walking and carrying bags the whole day, and I was sure Patricia was going to say that we would have to return to all the stores. Luckily she had bought one that she liked but wanted to still try to find one she wanted more. Thanks goodness we were able to go home finally. By the end of the day, I only wanted to sleep. While I slept, Patricia had to fix her dress. I was so happy to not be the bride.

The next day we went to Botucatu where Patricia's family lives. On the way we stopped at a place that makes everything out of corn. They had soup, ice cream, juice, and pie all made from corn. The ice cream was not bad.

The first thing we did was introduce me to Thor their dog. He is a massive English mastiff that is friendly to family and hates strangers. Luckily we adopted me into the family (I gave him frequent snacks to bribe him). Believe it or not, he loves fruits. I fed him papaya, watermellon, oranges, and bananas. I was hoping to have some relaxing days, but that was not on the agenda. There was still numerous things to resolve, people to talk to, and appointments to go to. Finally Friday we all went to Averé where Patricia's family has a vacation house on a reservoir. Unlike the West it is hydroelectric power that is the principal purpose of the reservoir and not water.

The first day we took the boat to explore part of the reservior, which is extensive. The temperature was around 70°F and Patricia and Marlene were wearing jackets and were wrapped in a blanket. On the way back the wind nearly froze them to death. The water was, of course, too cold for swimming (70-75°F). I don't like the cold, but Brazilians who don't have cold weather cannot tolerate the cold not even a cool breeze.

The next day most of her aunts, uncles, and cousins on her mom's side (total 8) came. I'm not accustomed to small families, but it is nice because the house wasn't too loaded with people. Patricia's family likes to eat, so I haven't felt hunger (or anything less than full) in 2 weeks. In Averé we ate so much that I began to think that I better start eating less or I wouldn’t be able to button my tux pants. Patricia's family is really cool and fun to be around. Of course, on Saturday we had a churrasco (Brazilian barbeque) with all the fixings.

I brought my camera and took ~850 pictures...mostly of birds. I took a few pictures of people, too. I was so excited at the variety of birds that I was able to see. I took pictures of probably 15 species of highly colorful birds. I spent 3.5 hours looking at birds in a small patch of trees next to the neighborhood. I had no need to go further because I didn't even see all the species there.

As soon as I can I'll talk about the wedding (Part II) and our honeymoon (Part III).

Moving adventures

First I want to start with a question. How long does it take to move from one apartment to another? If you had asked me that question last week, I would have said 1-2 days. I definitely would not have said 1 month. Well here is the little moving adventure that has consumed our lives for the first 3 weeks of July.
I moved out of my old apartment on 30 June. Patricia helped me move into our new apartment 2 days before. While I was packing boxes, Patrícia was cleaning. I could hear Patricia grumbling and giving me an occasional disgusted look. She said that my apartment was too dirty. She made it clear that our new apartment would remain clean from day 1. I won't argue that my apartment was spotless but it was not that bad. We packed everything in 16 hours on Saturday and moved everything to the new place on Monday. On Monday we just had to mop the floors in my old place and I could turn over my keys. Patrícia was quite the trooper and did most of the cleaning, while I packed everything.
Our new apartment is a large one-bedroom apartment with a carpeted living room and the rest is tile. The kitchen is rather large, which is a must for me. Also it has a balcony facing east for good plant growing. I plan on first putting my orchids there and starting a small herb garden. The place was furnished, which needless to say helped us out a lot. Patrícia said that she wanted to first clean the place before unpacking. I thought this was unnecessary as the place is usually cleaned when one moved out. Nonetheless Patrícia wanted to clean everything. I thought that we could give a quick clean and start unpacking the same day. Much to my sadness, the other tenant moved out the day before and did not clean the apartment well, though it was not filthy and definitely not to Patricia's standards. It only took a few hours to pack all the boxes and furniture and move it all into the new place. However, it took a week to unpack one box. First we scrubbed down the kitchen, which took 6 days. I was up until 1-4am every night cleaning, fixing stuff, and recaulking the sinks in the bathroom and kitchen. Both sinks were leaking, so I recaulked them. After doing that I decided to recaulk the shower too because it was in need, too. Man, it was hard to stay awake in my leadership meetings the next morning after sleeping only a few hours.
After cleaning the kitchen we moved on to the closets that we all in need of a good dusting. The dust here is not like Western dust. It looks like lint and is sticky. It only comes off after scrubbing. None of this dusting with feathers. One closet was full of our landlady´s stuff, which I had to repack because it was so horribly packed. Thankfully the condominium has storage available where we were able to store her stuff to free the closet space. I still think that it is rather discourteous of a landlady to leave personal belongings in the house she is renting out. We are renting a full apartment, not a part of an apartment. After clearing out and cleaning the bathroom, closets and bedroom that are all tile, we started to mop the floor. Mopping is defined at me on my hands and knees with a scrub brush and a bucket. I was in this position for nearly 4 hours. My legs, back, and arms were so tired and sore. The slightly beige, spectacled tile turned out to be pure white… go figure.
We are now in Brazil but we still have not unpacked everything. We still have to finish unpacking odds and ends and clean the living room, which has become a staging area. The place is looking really nice, and I hope that it will only take another week to unpack. I have never taken so long to unpack, but I am glad for Patricia's meticulous nature because I appreciate a clean house.

New evidence of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon

Here are some notes that I took during a talk the mission president of Ft Lauderdale, Pres. Reynolds (former director of FARMS) gave. The talk showed physical evidence that the Book of Mormon is legitimate. The evidence consists of Herbraisms, chiasmus, wordprinting, and geography.
Hebraisms are fossil references left over from Hebrew that do not translate well to English. For example Moroni 10:4 says "ask God if these things are not true". In English one does not ask if something is not true if it is true. However, this negative style of expression makes sense in Hebrew. Another example is the English usage of "if, then" in comparison to the Hebrew usage of "If, and" as seen in Helaman 12:13-21. Another example is plates of brass in Hebrew but brass plates in English.
Chiasmus is a style of writing that starts and ends in a parallel style and the main point is in the middle. Basically an ascent to a climax or focal point then a descent to the end of the story. By the predictable nature of the chiasmus the reader knows exactly what the principal point of the story is. Nephi loved chiastic writing style and used in all his writings. Other Book of Mormon writers did not use them. First Nephi is one large chiasmus made up of several large internal chiasmus. Nearly all stories written by Nephi are chiasmus. First Nephi chapter 1 is one long chiasmus & chiasmus answers questions that the words alone don't answer. Many ancient cultures use chiasmus. In Yugoslavia bards used chiasmus to remember oral histories. Also the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew cultures frequently used them. In the Old Testament there are many. However, chiasmus writing style was only discovered in 1850, while the Book of Mormon was published in 1830. Some non-Nephi examples are in 2 Nephi 29:13, Alma 36, and Mosiah 3:18-19. There is no better example of chiasmus writing than the Book of Mormon, and this writing is ancient.
Wordprinting is a statistical calculation to distinguish different writing styles and therefore different writers. Because writers have specific writing styles, what words are used and how they are used creates statistically detectable patterns. This statistical method is accepted in the scientific community. It was used to detect different writers of the Federalist Papers and the collection of the English philosopher Hobbs' work. The research found that the work attributed to certain Federalist Papers writers does indeed match their writing style. All of the writings attributed to Hobbs were separated from works published with his. Wordprinting identified 7 distinct writers in the Book of Mormon, but none of them match Joseph Smith or any of his associates.
Geography of the Book of Mormon is probably the best evidence. No one at time of JS believed that Arabian peninsula had inhabitable oases & mountains. Now it is known to be like Book of Mormon says. Three places found mentioned by Nephi have been found on the Arabian peninsula. First is the camp where Lehi first camped. The route Nephi followed was the only route one can follow because mountains border the beach. The traditional path used by Arabs and merchants in the spice trade was the trail on the east side of mountains. At this place Lehi described a small perennial stream (named the river of Laman by Lehi) in a huge, solid valley (named the valley of Lemuel by Lehi). This stream was said not exist because no streams empty into the Red Sea. Recently a small stream was found that does empty into the Red Sea because too small, so it goes underground when it reaches the beach. However it is perennial stream as explained by Lehi (1 Nephi 2:6, 8, 10).
Nephi said that Nahum was where Ishmael was buried. It was a place where their route went from south south east to directly east. French archaeologists found a large cemetery at this exact spot before WWII. They hypothesized that the cemetery was a common burial site that was used to bury people who died along the route. People were not buried in the sand along the way because the burial site would never be found again. That would explain why Ishmael was buried here. However this place did not have the name Nahum nor did any city in Arabia have this name. An Arabian tribe in the area for last 100's years called this place by name of name Nahum. In the mid-1990's archeologists found 3 altars (made during Lehi's time) at exactly the right place that have the name Nahum written on them several times. Archeologists say this is better evidence than all other evidence of the authenticity.
Bountiful, another place mentioned where Nephi built ships to go to the Americas, has mountains went all the way to the beach (1 Nephi 17:6), has running water, high quality iron ore (1 Nephi 17:7) is found in the mountains (1 Nephi 17:7). This place was found in Oman on the southeastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula. The area meets all of the criteria. Though the mountains and lowland areas are no longer forested because of deforestation and intensive goat-grazing, both the mountains and the marginal lowlands at the base of the mountains were forested. Today all are deforested and not allowed to regrow because of extensive goat-herding.
All these evidences leave the places where the Lehi's family crossed the Arabian Desert very clear. Along with the names Lehi, Alma, Nahum, and others, the story of Lehi appears ever more true by hard physical evidence.
Numerous speculations both published and unpublished have surfaced over the years to explain where the Nephite/Lamanite lands were located. At least 80 theories have been published. Some said that the lands north and south of the Isthmus of Panama is the Nephite land. Others thought bigger thinking that the land to the north was North America and the land to the south was South America and the narrow strip of land was Mexico and Central America. One far fetched idea put the Nephite lands were in the Great Lakes region. Even Joseph Smith speculated on their location after book by Stephenson & Cartwood about the recently found Mayan ruins on Yucatan Peninsula and Guatemala was a good place to start.
Any valid theory must include the descriptions found in the Book of Mormon. Any theory must have a narrow strip of land with the annihilated civilizations of the Nephites (600BC-400AD) & Jaredites (2,000 BC – 300 BC) to the north and Lamanite civilization (600 BC - longtime) to the south. Contrary to popular Mormon belief the Hill Cumorah is not where the golden plates were buried. It was the location where all plates that Mormon used were stored (Mormon 6:6). Also it is absolutely conceivable that Moroni walked to upstate New York in the 36 yrs from time he received plates from his father till time he buries plates in New York (In Mormon 6:6 Mormon gives the gold plates to Moroni in 385 AD and Moroni 10 was written about 421 AD).
As a side note, the story of Joseph & Oliver seeing Mormon's Cumorah in vision comes from 6 3rd- and 4th-hand stories of this experience. It appears that they saw the room in vision. The Book of Mormon promises we will receive all of these records in the last days. Also contrary to popular belief Moroni brought the sword of Laban and several other things, but the stone box only had the gold plates and Urmmim and Thummin.
A book written in 2000 called Mormon's map by John L. Sorenson calculated the distances between Nephite cities to determine the size of the Nephite/Lamanite nations.
1. Nephi to Zarahemla - max 180 miles
2. Nephi to narrow neck 340 miles max
3. Nephi to Cumorah 400 miles max
4. Max size Nephite/Lamanite lands 500 miles length & 200 miles width
Only one location fits description, and it was found 2-3 yrs ago. Olmec civilization is the first city- building civilization in the Americas and dates to the start of the Jaredites civilization and ends precipitously approximately 400 BC. The Highland Maya (pre-classic Maya) dates from 600BC to 400AD and disappeared suddenly. The Lowland Maya (pre-classic Maya) occurred during the same time and was large and had tribute kings (Lamanites had tributary kingdoms, e.g. Lamoni was a tributary king under his father, Limhi was tributary king under the Lamanite king). Also approximate population size of Olmec and Highland Maya civilizations as discovered from the ancient records and archeological findings matches neatly with the population size of the Jaredite and Nephite civilizations. The evidence that these civilizations were the Nephite/Lamanite lands is overwhelming. Pres. Reynolds then said that it is time to quit debating the location of the Book of Mormon lands and accept the fact that they are found.
President Reynolds (former director of FARMS) still had another hour of talk left when he decided to end because he was losing his voice and he had already talked for 1 hour and 15 minutes. He still had genetic information about the Native Americans and many other things that were unknown that have now been discovered (FAIR has a good article on this). As with anything that is authentic, time is on its side. As we learn more, the Book of Mormon will be proven by more and more evidence to be an authentic book of an ancient American people and that Joseph Smith translated the book as he testified and was not its author. Of course, the fact that it is scripture depends on the spiritual witness that everyone can and will only receive through the Holy Ghost.

More pics

I put up pictures from Santa Barbara, CA when I attended a research conference. Afterwards Jarom and I went hiking in Santa Barbara and visited Hollywood. Later I'll put captions o all the pictures.

Photo page

I decided to put up all the photo galleries that I have posted online so far. This'll make it a little easier to find them all.
Spring break
Bill Baggs Park
Fairchild Garden
Christmas 2007
Ellsworth family reunion 2007
Cody and Emilee's wedding
Cody and Emilee's wedding reception

Tire woes

We forgot to put on the blog about our tire experience when Joe and Dad came to town. While we are going down to Bahia Honda, I noticed that my car was vibrating a little bit and slightly pulling to one side. It wasn't that bad, so I decided to just wait till after spring break to fix it. However, it got worse on by the time we returned home from the Keys. It was so bad that the steering wheel was noticeably shaking. I was getting really worried about it, but it appeared that I was the only one. So on Monday we decided to go to Fakahatchee State Park to find wild orchids. My car was shaking the entire time, and I was getting really concerned. It didn't seem to matter what speed I was going it always shook.

Finally on the way back from Loop Road, I decided to pull over and just do something (I didn't know what but do something). Not knowing what else to do, we decided to rotate the tires to see if that would help. While changing one of the front tires, Joe noticed that the tire had a bulge in its tread. We put the spare, which is only a doughnut, to get back into town. The next morning I needed to take Dad and Joe to the airport in my car. I was so worried about driving 50 miles using a doughnut, thast I asked Patricia to drive us to the airport instead. However, not all the luggage would fit in Patricia's car, so we decided to take my car after all. I was not at all happy about it, but we had no choice. About one third of the way to the airport, another tire went flat! I couldn't believe our luck. We had a flat, a tire with a bulge, and we were still using the spare! Now we had to put on the tire with a bulge in the tread again and go extra slow to not cause any more damage. We made it another 10 miles, and the spare went flat. Now we are on the side of the freeway without any more spares. I have never been in a situation where three tires go flat on one trip! Dad and Joe had planes to catch, so they took a taxi to the airport, abandoning us on the side of the road. Thankfully our colleague was able to come and take us and two tires to a repair shop to get them replaced. Then we had to return with the two new tires, put them back on the car, and take the rest of the tires to have them replaced. In the end we took three hours longer than the expected and spent a lot more more money than we expected.

Moral of story: Don't buy tires from a Cuban on the side the road!

The Blog is Back!!!!!!

I decided to continue writing in my blog because I now have Dragon Naturally Speaking. It's a program that allows me to type without having to touch the keyboard. All I do is talk into the microphone, and the program automatically writes what I am saying. It is the coolest thing ever. I cannot believe how fast I can type because I don't have to worry about looking at the keyboard while I’m typing. All I have to do is talk as fast as I want, and it types as I'm talking. So now will have long, rambling, and boring blogs, instead of short, rambling, and boring blogs. We’ll see how it works. This is the first time I have used the program, so I am not good at it yet.

We will write blog entries but never seem to be able to post them, and so the last six blog entries are brand-new. Most of them have pictures, so just follow the delaying to my Picasa website and my homepage. if you have some time, check them out.

Research conference in Santa Barbara

Few weeks ago I was in Santa Barbara for research conference called Isoscapes 2008 where we learned about GIS and isotope-based models. It was at hotel on the beach. I got to see seveal of my old colleagues from Arizona and Wyoming. Also, I got a lot of good advice on my Colorado project where I am developing a model to calculate the isotopic composition of soil-respired CO₂.

After the conference was over, Jarom came up to visit me in Santa Barbara. We went to the beach, then we took a little hike through the hills surrounding Santa Barbara. It was your typical California hike, in that there was several people and surrounded by houses. However, the area was pretty and I saw three new species of birds. That night we went to Hollywood to see the Chinese theater where the Academy Awards are held. It was pretty cool because I have never been to Hollywood before.

Photos are coming!

Spring Break

I guess I can say a little bit about spring break now. Dad arrived the day before Joe, so we went to look for manatees in the canals near the university. I have only seen four manatees in Florida, but I thought that we could at least go and try to find one. To my surprise, we actually found three manatees, two cows and one calf. It was so easy to find these manatees that Dad thought that it was simply an every day occurrence. Also, just by turn of good luck I found a camping spot at Bahia Honda in the Florida Keys (Pictures on my webpage and on Picasa). It is really difficult to find a camping spot at any time of the year there, but it appears that someone canceled their reservation, and I happened to be online at the same time and reserved the spot. I was excited to go back because I had not gone there since September when Patricia went with me. We went to the same beach we had gone to before, but this time the water was choppy instead of the usual calm and beach was covered with seagrass, which was about 2 feet thick and probably 150 feet wide. I had never seen the beach like this before, so I guess everything is not perfect in paradise.

Of course, none of us except for Dad wore any sunscreen, so everyone was burned especially Joe. Joe was so excited to be in the sun after being in Seattle with no sun for several months that he wanted to soak as much sun as possible. He was burned from his head all the way down to his feet.

Next day we went to other side of the key, which was rocky and full of grass beds (fortunately no sea grass was washed up on the shore). Along the side of the beach runs a deep channel (visible in the Picasa photos). I never liked this beach much because of the rocks and grass beds. Patricia and I went snorkeling in deeper water in the channel. We were looking for fish and rays because we saw 2 large eagle rays (6 to 8 feet wide and about 3 to 4 feet long). (I put pictures of the rays on Picaca.) The tide was going in the direction of the channel, so it was very easy to swim further into it. The whole time that I was swimming in the channel where the water was probably about 20 to 25 feet deep, I had the feeling that something was behind me. I have already seen 2 sharks while fishing on the other side of the island, so I know that they are around. In addition, several people had alreeady said that they have seen sharks in the channel. Finally the thought of sharks started to really bug me, so I decided to get Patricia and leave the channel. Afterwords, I thought: ‘Why am I so scared of sharks when there were no sharks around us?’ Once on shore the dive master said that the channel is so full of bull sharks that he would not swim there. The day before he was swimming close to the channel, and a bull shark came close to him to check him out. Now I know why I was thinking that there is something behind me because there probably was! Patricia said later that she has no fear of sharks and was purposely going there to look for them. I don't believe that for one second because she's scared to death of little bugs, let alone sharks.

Later Joe and I went snorkeling in the shallow water on the rocky beach that is full of seagrass with no expectations of seeing any animals. However, the rocky shallows were full of fish, lobsters, sponges, sea urchins, anenomes, and many other little creatures. I couldn't believe how many animals were in the shallow water of only about 2-3 feet deep. We saw so many beautiful reef fishes and about 20 lobsters. Now I have to go back during lobster season to catch lobsters to eat. We saw a black sea urchins that were over a foot in diameter, and sponges that were about 2 feet tall and 2 feet wide.

After leaving the beach, we decided to go to Key West. Key West is the the key furthest from mainland Florida and the largest city in the Keys. We didn't stay there very long because it is very touristy, and none of us were too excited about doing the tourist thing. We stayed just long enough for Joe to get some gifts for his kids and Sam. At least now Patricia, Dad, and Joe can say that they've been to Key West because there really isn't anything special, unless you like clubs and tourist traps.

The next day was Sunday so we went to church where everybody were so amazed at how tall Dad and Joe were. After church we decided to go to Crandon Park on Key Biscayne and where there are a lot of iguanas. Unfortunately, we arrived in the evening when the iguanas were already sleeping. We found a few of the iguanas sleeping in branches overhanging the water. Dad had the bright idea of scaring the iguanas out of the trees and into the water by climbing the tree and jumping on the branches, and the rest of us were supposed to take pictures of the iguanas as they jumped from the branches into the water. But we were too busy taking pictures of Dad jumping around in the trees. It was quite the sight.

The next day we went to Fakahatchee National Park and Loop Road in big Cypress National Forest. We were looking for wild orchids, but there weren’t any good trails to walk on. We couldn’t see off the trail for more than a few feet because of the dense vegetation. In the end, we saw two species of orchids (I put pictures of the vanilla orchid and African spotted orchid on Picaca). Because it was so difficult to see anything through the thick vegetation, I decided to take a them to Loop Road. I knew Loop Road would produce a lot of animals, especially alligators. And as I expected Loop Road did not disappoint us. We saw an otter catch and eat six fish in front of us, at least 20 alligators, numerous birds, and one whitetail.

We stopped at a small ponds along the road that had alligators. There were eight alligators between 5 and 9 feet long in this small pond of about 30' x 20' long. Dad started throwing crackers to the alligators to eat, and surprisingly the alligators came really close to where we were standing to eat the crackers. (To see pictures of the alligators that we were feeding just look at Joe's pictures on Picasa.) Even though it looks like we were really close to those alligators and that we were in a very dangerous position, it is not as dangerous and scary as it looks.

We had a lot of fun seeing animals, swimming, and spending time on the beach. Both Patricia and I enjoyed having Dad and Joe here. So the invitation is open for anyone else who wants to come and visit us. Just remember that there is no place like Florida in the United States. If you want to get a personal tour of South Florida and all the interesting things that are here, you have to come in the next few years.

Are you all ready for the Derby??

I hope you are all planning to watch the Kentucky Derby this year because Aunt Sandra has a horse in the Derby this year!! (if you want more information check out my webpage.) His name is Gayego and he has never placed worse than the second and his five career starts and has earned more than $725,000. He is one to stakes races including the $1 million Arkansas Derby G2, which has produced four champions in the last four winners. Recent winners include Smarty Jones, Afleet Alex, Lawyer Ron, and the last year's Horse of the Year, Curlin, so for good reason and we should be excited about the prospects of having a Kentucky Derby winner this year. Gayego is the son of a sprinter, so he has never been considered a serious prospect for a classic race. However, he keeps winning races, even though each race is longer than the previous, and the Arkansas Derby, which was his last race, was nine furlongs. I think he has shown that he is capable of outrunning his pedigree. This is Aunt Sandra's sixth Derby starter, but she is never had a horse place in the Derby. Everyone keep your fingers crossed!

Bill Baggs Park

Bill Baggs State Park is a small park located on the south end of Key Biscayne, and is well-known for its beach. We went there last Saturday afternoon because Patricia had never been there and it is only a few miles from my house. One of the really cool parts of the park is that it has a very tall lighthouse that is well preserved. From the top of the lighthouse you can see Key Biscayne, Miami, and the surrounding Biscayne Bay. By the time we got there it was already late afternoon so we just went up to the top of the lighthouse to take pictures of the surrounding area and then will hike on the future else they have through the hammock (native tropical hardwood forests). I put pictures of both Fairchild Gardens and Bill Baggs State Park on both my webpage and on Picasa, so you can go there to check them out.

Fairchild Gardens

Like other big cities Miami is a concrete jungle, so thank goodness that there are botanical gardens to go to get away from the city. The largest botanical Garden in Miami is called the Fairchild Gardens and is full of tropical vegetation, ponds, greenhouses, and places to sit and relax. The garden is one of the best Gardens that I have seen. My favorite part is the green houses that are full of orchids, bromeliads, and ferns. The greenhouse is arranged like a large terrarium that you can enter instead of just looking from the outside.(I put pictures of the garden on my websites under Fairchild Gardens and a few pictures on Picasa.) I bought an ice cream made of black sapote fruit that tasted just like chocolate! I was so disappointed that something that looks so good could taste so bad. I ate more of it trying to convince myself that it was not chocolate, while Patricia who loves chocolate was trying to convince yourself that it really tasted like chocolate. If you get a chance to eat black sapote ice cream, you'll be so surprised that it is not chocolate. We have a membership and the garden is close to my house so we can easily go there for a few hours just to relax and get away from the city. At the garden they always have different activities going on such as the bromeliad show on the weekend that we went. Several famous artists, especially outdoor or sculpture artists, place exhibits in the Gardens. Right now Chulully has an exhibit of glassworks which is basically big piles of glass polluting the garden. I do not understand why people like Chulully because it just makes the guard and uglier because it just clashes with the vegetation and the natural beauty. However, the exhibit has been so popular that it has been extended three times.