Why do you believe in God?

I have always had a belief in God.  I believe that we are his children, that he loves us, and that he has a plan for us to return to live with Him and our families again.  This belief has brought me a lot of peace and happiness over my life.

It helped me so much, that for two years I chose to spread that message.  During those two years, and since, I met so many amazing people!  They came from many faiths and denominations, but all had been impacted by the beliefs in God(s).  I loved talking to them and being able to hear how that belief had blessed, or changed their lives.

I love learning about people, and what they believe.  I have taken world religion classes, and continue to enjoy learning about what people believe and why.  I have not been able to have these discussions as regularly, so I thought I would write this blog post today to hear what you have to say.

In my studies I have found it interesting how much we all have in common.  How you can look around the world, even in some of the most remote places, and find a belief in God.  I know that this is a very personal topic, but I would love it if you would share with us your belief.  I would also like to know how your belief in God has helped you in your life, how you came to that belief, and how it may have changed throughout your life.  You are also more than welcome to post why you do not believe.

I am also very aware of all the bad that has been done in the name of God throughout our history.  This is not a post to discuss that.  Personal attacks will not be tolerated from either side, and will be deleted.  It is a shame I even have to post that. This topic is just something that has a big impact on my life, and I would love to hear how it has impacted you.

David the Basketball Player

Story written by one of my 4th grade students, shared with permission.
Dedicated to my teacher: Mr. Horan
Written by: Name removed for privacy

Once there was a person named David Joel Horan.  He was a teacher.  He loved sports, especially basketball.  He was really good at basketball and liked to play it.  But he was a teacher, and that was about to change.

Chapter 1: D-Will
One day when David came home from teaching school he changed in basketball clothes and got in his car.  He was going to the park.  He was going to play basketball on their basketball court.  Later while he was playing basketball, the famous basketball player D-Will saw him playing basketball.  D-Will thought it was really good, he told David that he had a good chance for being a famous basketball player like him.  David was way way excited when he said that.  A half an hour later David went home.  He called all the family members he had.  They were all excited too!

Chapter 2: A Phone Call
The next day while David was eating breakfast his phone rang.  When he answered it, the person on the other end was D-Will!  D-Will told David that he needs to go to the Jazz Stadium at 6:00 PM that day to try out to be on the team!  At 5:53 PM he arrived at the stadium  At exactly 6:00 PM he tried out for the team.  At the end of tryouts they said he made the team!

Chapter 3: The End
So he played on that team and he thought it was way fun!......but he missed his class especially (The Author)! The End.

Glad I wasn't one of the Jazz fans booing DWill this past week, thanks for helping me make the team!  I also am glad that I arrived 7 minutes early to the stadium.  Maybe I could still teach my class via Skype or something.  I really would miss them! -Dave

#DaveWeek Wrap Up

"Whoa, you guys are overwhelming me, and I'm not easily overwhelmed" -David Locke

I could easily say the same thing.  I am not often surprised, I rarely overreact, or get too excited.  But this week there was a surprise around every turn, and it was definitely exciting!

Two of my friends, Lauren and Elyse, hadn't seen me in a while.  So on January 7th, Elyse wrote that the next week would be dubbed Dave Week.  Lauren added that maybe we could even get #DaveWeek trending.  I agreed, and #DaveWeek was born. Little did we know what #DaveWeek would soon become.

Sunday night we got together for dinner.  It was nice to eat and play games.  There were about 8 of us, and it was a great time.  At the end of the night we planned what we wanted to do each day.

Monday: Half off appetizers at Applebees.
I showed up at 9:00, and met my friends there.  They also invited a few people from their ward and it was fun to make a few new friends.  One of the guys walked up to me and said, you are @downrightdave?  It is a real pleasure to meet you!  I felt like a celebrity!  I got home around 10:00 and started getting ready for bed.

I checked my Twitter account, and it was going crazy!  Somehow all of my friends, and many more, had started tweeting funny things, and adding #DaveWeek onto the end of them.  It began to go viral in SLC and made it all the way to #1.  (Trending basically means that a group of people, within a given area, and given time, are talking about a particular thing.)  So between about 10:00-Midnight, more people in SLC were talking about #DaveWeek than Alabama, LSU, or anything else.

Tuesday: Jazz game
You can read all about this day here: http://www.downrightdave.blogspot.com/2012/01/daveweek.html
It was easily my favorite of all the days.  Since social media was a key ingredient to #DaveWeek, it was kind of funny that the people who got most excited, and that we got to meet, were the media people.  One highlight was when David Locke recognized me, even though he had never met me in real life before.

What began as us finding cheap $5 tickets, that were on the very top row, turned into a series of miracles. Security let me go onto the court, we got our picture taken on the halftime set, made it onto the background of the postgame, and got pictures with both the TV, and radio announcers.  Plus the following morning David Locke gave #DaveWeek a shout out on his podcast.

#DaveWeek also trended in SLC for the second night in a row, making it up to #3.  It even went national, and international.  Although those tweets would not have helped it trend in SLC.  It was amazing how many people were joining in, asking what was going on, and wanting to be a part.

Wednesday: The Chocolate
Since the point of this week was because Lauren and Elyse wanted to see more of me, most of our activities did not originally include large groups of extra people.  It became obvious that a lot of people wanted to be a part of it, wanted to meet me, and were just looking for crazy fun things to do.  So we devoted this day to them.  The Chocolate did a great job of making it special for us.  They even sent out this tweet earlier in the day:

We had a great turnout, and I was really impressed by their delectable desserts, as well as a really well run business.  They will definitely be included in future #daveweek plans.

Thursday:  Bowling
My roommates and I are in a bowling league.  So between that and watching some great TV shows, like Parks and Rec, I enjoyed a more relaxing day with two of my best friends and my brother.  I love doing crazy  and random things, but I also like to just chill at home sometimes too.  This week was tiring, and it was nice to unwind a little bit.

Friday: Dinner at Cafe Paesan, Shirts
One of our friends who had contributed quite a bit to getting #DaveWeek trending hadn't been able to make any of our activities.  She threw out the idea of meeting at Cafe Paesan for dinner, and so we did.  After dinner four of us went and made #DaveWeek shirts.

Saturday: Movie, Dinner, and Broom Hockey
The three of us went to go see a movie.  After, Elyse made us a delicious dinner and we went to her YSA ward activity, broom hockey at 7 Peaks!  We had enough people there for two games, and the people we brought with us were enough to make up one team.  Team #DaveWeek may not have won, but we had a ton of fun!  It was nice of their ward to let all of us join in and play with them.  They were super nice, and I quickly made friends.  It was just what a YSA activity should be.  I also ran into some old friends that happened to be there that night.

Finale: Sunday/Monday
Since Sunday was more of our planning day, and today was a holiday, we kind of extended #DaveWeek a little bit.  One of our friends happened to be in town from Las Vegas for the weekend.  We weren't able to meet up with him on Saturday, so I had thought I wouldn't be able to.  Late Sunday evening, who happened to show up at my house, but him and four of my friends!  We decided to go to iHop, (ha ha, I had to leave that after I wrote it) and spent our early Monday morning enjoying a lot of laughs.  Seriously, anything is funny at that time of night.  It was a great finale to a truly amazing week.

I woke up ready to relax when my mom called and asked if I wanted to go to lunch with them. I did so, and then we went bowling.  It was nice to have some family time after running around like a crazy person all week.  I was a little tired of eating out, but I will never say no to someone paying for me to eat.  After bowling I came home, ready to start that relaxing I had looked forward to.

So immediately my phone rang, and several of my life long friends said they were going to the grand opening of Buffalo Wild Wings.  There was an hour wait, so they put our name down, came over to my house and hung out for a while.  After 45 minutes we went over there, and waited another half hour or so.  It was super good, and I expect it will get my friends up to Lehi more often.

Tonight I will conclude the festivities by doing my favorite thing, playing basketball.

It has been a crazy week, and even though it is over, it seems like my life will never be the same.  It is amazing what a simple idea, some initiative, and the world's greatest friends can do.  We have already started thinking about next year, and fitting in everything we thought of that didn't fit into this week.  If my calculations are correct, this weeks activities included 39 specific people, plus all of those at the ward activity, in the bowling league, Jazz media, plus whoever comes to basketball tonight.  There were still many more I wish had been a part of it, and many who were at more than one activity.  #DaveWeek was used over 600 times on Twitter, trended twice, and will be something I will never forget.

All of this was done without any personal invites, just through the use of social media.  Thank you to all of you that took interest, came to the activities, and made me feel like I was King of the World!

#DaveWeek

You know how people say that dreams really can come true?  Believe it! 2012 has been such a year.

It began one day as I found out that three of my friends were invited by Greg Miller, owner of the Jazz, to join him on the front row for a game.  As I read their blogs, I was amazed at what an amazing man Greg Miller was and thought how amazing it would be to have something like that happen to me.  You can read their accounts here:

Clint: http://www.theutahjazzblog.com/2012-articles/january/inside-the-utah-jazz-carrying-the-torch.html
Diana: http://www.utahjazz360.com/diana/sitting-court-side-with-greg-miller/
David: http://www.utahjazz360.com/davidjsmith/dreams-come-true-thanks-to-greg-miller-and-the-jazz/

I began to think of the "dreams" that have come true for me in my lifetime.  Since their posts were Jazz related, I thought about the time Karl Malone and his brother, taught my brother and I how to fish at a local boat store. There was a big group of people at the event and Karl and his brother each picked 2-3 kids out of the crowd.  Karl picked my brother, and his brother picked me.  They then gave us a quick personal lesson, a free Karl Malone fishing pole (Yes he had his own line of fishing gear) and signed autographs for us all.

Then there was the time my dad won tickets for us to watch John Stockton break the steals record.  We got a special certificate to show that we were there.  Luckily he got a steal that night! Usually the only game we got to go to was the free one with Jr. Jazz, so this was a real treat!

My favorite story would have to be the time I got John Stockton to sign that certificate.  My dad took us to watch the end of a Jazz practice and John had been the only player on the entire team that wouldn't stop to sign autographs for us. There had only been about 6-10 people there, but he wouldn't do it.  So my little brother and I waited outside in the parking lot of Westminster College for John Stockton to leave the gym from the locker room.  Of course he was the very last one out of the gym. Even though we were the only two there, and both little kids (our parents were within sight), he only agreed to sign if we would walk with him to his car so he didn't have to stop.  (Yes this was a dream come true, he is still easily my favorite player of all time)

I can now add #DaveWeek to the list of dreams come true.  Last week two of my friends told me that they missed seeing me.  They wondered when I would be able to get together with them again.  They decided to dedicate this entire week to me, and to call it #DaveWeek.

The week is only half over, but it has surpassed even my wildest dreams and expectations.  To keep this from getting too long, I will just briefly talk about my experience yesterday at the Jazz game.  You can check out the rest of the week here: http://downrightdave.blogspot.com/2012/01/daveweek-wrap-up.html

We got to the Jazz game an hour early and were able to go down onto the court.  Right as we got there Jeff Hornacek walked by.  I'm not someone who is shy, so I quickly asked him if I could get a picture with him.  Even though he was on his way out, he stopped.  He said, "wouldn't you rather get your picture with Enes?"  We said, "No, we would rather get one with you."  He gladly obliged, and was on his way.  I have always had a lot of respect for Jeff and would have been happy if this was where the story ended.  But it isn't!

We went to our seats, which were on the very top row and enjoyed the first quarter.  Several more of my friends joined us and they brought some of the most amazing signs I have ever seen!

Before halftime, we went to go watch the half time report.  Alema Harrington and Thurl Bailey saw our signs and looked at us inquisitively during their report.  When halftime was over Alema came over to ask us what #DaveWeek was all about.  He was super nice and asked us if we wanted to come on the stage and get a picture with him.  Obviously we said yes.

Wait, it's not over yet!  After the game we went down and got Matt Harpring to sign our posters.  Even though my head was not on a stick, he still thought it was a pretty great.  Not only did he play football, but it turns out he is also quite an artist.

Having had the most amazing night, we began to walk up the stairs to go home.  Except who should we bump into?  David Locke!  He may have been the nicest one of all, I was very impressed that he took a few minutes to talk to us.  He was even in the middle of doing his write up for the game.  He cared enough to even ask us for our names, although when I went to introduce myself he said, "Oh, I already know you!" (From Twitter).  

He then gave us shout-out the next day on his podcast.  Listen specifically from about 1:10-1:52. 

I may have been on the top row, instead of the front with Greg Miller, but this week has truly been a dream.  Plus, I already met Greg Miller about a month ago.  (Although you can invite me to come sit with you anytime Greg!)

So dreams really do come true, and #DaveWeek may have been my greatest one yet!

The Last Leaf

Between four years of seminary, many years of Sunday school, and preaching the gospel for two years, I have seen my fair share of church videos.  There is one particular video called The Last Leaf.  It is a story about a girl that is sick and about to die.  She finds motivation to keep fighting as she looks out her window and sees a dying vine.  She decides that she can make it as long as it still has leaves.

When I visited my family for Christmas, my dad told me of something that reminded me of this video.  He told me that in our garden there was one rose that had survived the recent wind storms, and cold winter weather.  When everything logical says it should have been long gone, it wasn't.

In many ways this flower is like my mom.  When the winter winds, and the cold times have come, she keeps hanging on.  Like this flower, she is a symbol of a great life, and one that continues to bless all those that see her.  It's been a rough year, but one that I am very glad we have had.  I look forward to many many more!

I have posted The Last Leaf below for anyone interested.