The Greatest Adventure Yet!

Well, needless to say it's been a long time since I last posted. My travels have taken me near and far but it's time to have an even more exciting adventure than riding elephants in Thailand or snorkeling in the Philippines. I know everyone is going to ask about how this all happened, so I decided I would blog about it, and refer everyone here when they ask. It's just easier that way. haha.
In January my cousin Jake and I decided to plan another Southern Utah trip and this time we recruited Paul. I became good friends with Paul after our trip (especially since he saved my life). After talking with Paul about what all guys talk about when camping (women) he brought up a girl that he knows named Maren. He told me all about how Maren was in his ward and she was really into the outdoors. Immediately my interests were peaked but... she had a boyfriend. Oh well, I thought. She should still come around if she wanted to. Our crew of friends is always down for hanging out with new people and sharing our ideals. I kept bugging Paul about inviting Maren to come to stuff that we did but she always had stuff going on. Eventually, we had a Cowboy Poetry Campfire Sing-A-Long Extravaganza. A couple times a year my friends and I gather a group together around a fire pit and sing classic songs (lots of Neil Diamond) and read cowboy poetry (provided by Noel). This time Paul broke out his dutch ovens for some peach cobbler too. And best of all... Maren came! It was a quick meeting, lots going on around the fire. ( I was taking care of the firewood and getting coals for the dutch oven). Maren didn't stay too long but it was really cool to at least say that we met. It wasn't long thereafter that Paul and I organized a clean-up service project in Farmington Canyon. Maren, being the outdoors lover that she is, came to to our service project. Again, not a great chance to talk to her but I did a little bit. We had another such project the  next week and I was getting more and more brave to talk to her. The problem still remained, she had a boyfriend. After a few weeks we found out the boundaries for our ward were going to change and I would have to go to a new ward in Farmington. This turned out to be a great thing because Maren was in my ward! Paul had also been a great friend and told me that she broke up with her boyfriend around the same time. It was a perfect set-up. The ward changes were truly inspired! After a ward prayer I did the thing that guys fear most... I asked her out. In person. It was a bit scary but she said yes! That week we went on our first date to Koko's Kitchen. She was amazing! I had such an easy time talking to her and she was even game for trying vegetarian sushi! Did I know then where things would go? No. But I knew I was willing to find out. The following weekend Paul, Jake and I went on another trip to Southern Utah. We made it back in time for me to go to a fireside that Maren was at. I tried talking to her after the fireside but she was surrounded by five guys! I guess word spreads quickly when the best girl around become single. I wasn't too daunted though, I knew we had a connection on our first date and it wasn't only one-sided. We went out a few more times, I introduced her to the rest of my friends. One night, while a bunch of us were at dinner at Setabellos, I got a text from a friend sitting across the table from me that read "Jeff, you should date her!" Dayton and his wife Emily also said the same thing after meeting her. I really wanted to but... I knew I'd be leaving for China in a short time. I wasn't exactly in an ideal situation. I knew I wanted to date Maren but I also knew I'd be leaving. How unfair it would be for me to make things official with Maren then take off to go to school 7000 miles away in China for 7 weeks. I left things undefined but knew if our connection was real (which I knew it was) it would transcend the time difference and the ocean that sat between us. Before leaving, I gave her my favorite book "The Alchemist". The main character in the book is traveling through the Sahara Desert in search of his "Personal Legend" that he had a dream about. He dreamt that he would find a treasure buried in the sand near the pyramids. After much hardship and learning he was getting close to the pyramids when his caravan stopped at an oasis. There, he met a girl that he fell in love with. He decided he would give up on finding the treasure and stay with her. She told him no. She wanted him to complete his Personal Legend. She knew she was already a part of him and wouldn't allow him to give up because of her. (By now the parallelism should be quite clear) I considered sticking around for the summer to see what happened with Maren, but I knew she wouldn't want me to. She read the book in three days and we talked while I was in China. I asked "So, do you get it?" She said "Yea, I get it". And from there things just kept progressing. We talked nearly everyday. I then read a book called "Aspire". Each chapter of this book is about a single word, it's power and meaning. Each word also describes a characteristics of certain people. At the end of each chapter the reader is asked to think of a person in their life that exemplifies those characteristics and tell them about it. For each chapter, the first name that came to my mind was "Maren". I knew things were getting serious. I began to pray about it. I felt so calm and at peace. I knew she would be my wife one day. Not long before I came home I stopped by the shop of an old Chinese man I had met in Beijing in 2008. I had him make a scroll for me that read "家庭是永恒的“. This translates to "Families are forever". I got home, and the next morning got in a van with Maren and a bunch of strangers and headed to Wyoming, the first stop on our way to Outdoor Nation in Denver. While in Wyoming Maren and I spent some quality time kayaking on a lake, hiking to a waterfall and watching the sunset. After the sun had set and the rest of our group decided to head back to camp Maren and I decided to stay up on the high rock that we had all been sitting on. Once we were finally alone I reached in my pocket and said "Maren, the Vibrams aren't the only thing I got you in China" (I had gotten her a pair while I was there) she gasped softly and said "Oh, Jeff...". I pulled out a small jewelry pouch that had a necklace and bracelet. I couldn't tell if Maren was relieved or disappointed. ;) I said to her "I really really like you" and kissed her. She kind of laughed and we talked about how great it was to be back together again after my 7 weeks abroad. The next night, in Denver, I asked Maren to go for a walk with me down to the beach of the state park we were at. There, we sat and talked about life. I told her, for the first time, that I love her. She said it back and I said "well, I think we both know where this is going". As we were walking along the beach back to camp I got on one knee, looked up at her and said "Maren, will you wait for me while I tie my shoe?" It was absolutely hilarious! I laughed all the way back to camp! Maren was laughing too... haha.
So I knew I was in. The only problem was, I didn't have a job, a car or any money. How was I to buy a ring? How would I get a place to live? Rationally, getting married wasn't making much sense. So I prayed and prayed. I knew things would work out eventually. On the 25th of July, Maren came to my house for a family party. She met Mike, Becky, Adam and their kids. They absolutely loved her. That night, by what I think is pure inspiration, she told me that I didn't need to take her ring shopping because she wanted to use her grandmother's ring. I was sold. My prayers were being answered and I knew that it was going to happen soon.

Her mom talked to me the next evening while we were watching Maren play in her softball game. She gave me her number and said I could call her whenever I wanted to go get the ring. I went the next day and picked it up. We talked for a few hours and I knew I was going to be so happy to be a part of her family. I planned a proposal for the next week. Maren and I had been geocaching on the 25th and had a great time doing it. So I decided to set up a geocache and propose there. The trick would be surprising Maren. She was very inquisitive and investigated whether or not I had the ring. The week after I got the ring we were planning to go to King's Peak. So I told Maren that I needed to talk to her dad and meet her sister before we left. I let her believe that it was going to happen while we were backpacking. It was a pretty good plan, but it only got better. Maren went to look for the ring and noticed it was gone. She asked her mom where it was and her mom said "Maren, I'm sorry but I thought Jeff would be getting it soon so I went to have in cleaned. It should be back in a couple weeks". It was perfect! Maren laughed because she thought my plan to propose at King's had been thwarted. Wednesday night that week I asked Maren if she wanted to go to bbq at a friend's house. The plan was to meet with Katherine and get some supplies for our trip before going to the bbq. So I went to SLC with Katherine where we met Maren. While shopping I told Maren that I'd rather just take her out on a date instead of going to the bbq. She loved the idea. We went to Setabellos together. She brought up the story about the ring being cleaned and I acted completely shocked. I told her that I had planned to get it the next day and propose at King's. She totally bought it. Meanwhile, I had my friend Sean setting up some flowers, the box with the chinese scroll, and ring at Farmington Pond (where we first met) I asked Maren if she wanted to go find some Geocaches and I took us to Lagoon Trail. It was getting near dusk so we had to hurry but we found one cache and I told her the next would be at Farmington Pond. As we were nearing the pond Maren said "Hey, this is where we first met!" I said "Maren, there's some places in the world where events happened in my life that had a huge impact on me, this is one of them." She looked over at the table and said "Are those flowers?" I skirted the question and kept walking towards them. Then she said "Is that Sean's car?!" I said "No, Sean is off doing something else tonight" (quick side note. I had to call Sean from the car on our way back from SLC because I forgot to let him know when we finished dinner) She opened the box and pulled out the scroll with a note I had written. She looked at the bottom of the box and didn't see the ring box there! So I slipped it out and as she was looking at the scroll on the table I got down on one knee. She started to walk away and said "Don't tie your shoe!" I grabbed her hand and said "No, seriously! Maren, will you marry me?" As I held the open ring box up. And obviously, she said yes! It WAS Sean's car. He came out of his car where he had been hiding, taking pictures of us. It was the perfect surprise. Maren had no idea I had the ring and she was totally shocked with the proposal. It couldn't have gone any better. Especially because I get to marry the most amazing woman I have ever met. She will always push me to pursue my Personal Legend and I couldn't be more lucky to have her as my wife. I love you Maren. 

Proposing

Us right after I proposed, with the scroll.

My First Geocache!

The day before I left for China a friend of mine stopped by to see me and we took a friend of his to a park in Farmington to find a geocache. What is geocaching? It's a wold wide treasure hunt! By using any device with GPS and having the proper program loaded on (in his case it was an iPhone app) a person can find a hidden box or small container with things inside, a log book to sign and sometimes an item that needs to be taken to another cache. Watching this guy look for the cache was pretty entertaining and the thought came to my mind "This is something I want to get into." So now I've got an iPad with GPS and an app that will allow me to find geocaches worldwide. I told my girlfriend Maren about this game and she was totally stoked about doing it too. This last Monday night before a family BBQ we looked up a cache less than 1/4 mile from my house. We headed in that direction and spent 10 or 15 minutes trying to find it. The description wasn't very detailed but we knew what we were looking for was very small. I'm sure we looked pretty ridiculous to everyone passing by in their cars but we were having a great time being outside! We eventually found it in a very tricky spot. It was really small and the logbook was pretty hammered and I forgot to bring a pen to sign it but our first experience Geocaching together was a complete success! I can't wait to get out there and find another!

Another 7 Weeks in China

This blog has been stagnant for quite a while. I was never able to finish up posting about my last Asian Adventure last year and I've since been on some incredible journeys. Most recently I went back to China to study Mandarin for 6 weeks at Nankai University in Tianjin. This was a great experience for me and fulfilled a dream of mine to study Chinese in China. While I was there I saw two different sections of the Great Wall of China. For those traveling to the Great Wall I would highly recommend visiting JinShanLing as opposed to any other section of the wall. This section has had very little restoration and is much quieter than the restored, popular section BaDaLing. We also spent time on the wall in Tianjin by long boarding one section. I can now say that I've longboarded on the Great Wall of China! I'll do my best to keep posting some more of the adventures I'm having which will include backpacking trips, hikes, or even just geocaching around Farmington. To steal the words from one of my favorite movies...
ADVENTURE IS OUT THERE!

China: KTV

A big part of Chinese culture is KTV or karaoke. One night after I was feeling better we got together with Ana and Jason (a fellow American) and went to a KTV at the university. We sung our hearts out to tunes from various American pop artists. They even had some Michael Jackson. We got our groove on and sang until our lungs burned. Great night.

China: Beijing

Dayton and I scored some first class tickets to Beijing on an overnight train. Compared the trains in Thailand, we were in heaven. We were assigned a compartment with 4 beds that had a closing door. This was a luxury because on other trains it's usually open compartments with 6 beds (3 to a bunk) and you can hear everyone in the same car as you. We sat comfy in our compartment and we got two businessmen for bunk-mates. After a long night on the train we arrived in Beijing early in the morning. Our hostel that was recommended to us by Ana was located on the opposite end of the city. Beijing has an incredible metro system that is super cheap to use. One trip costs 2 yuan or about 30 cents USD. We bought a ticket for our station and made our way to the platform to await our train. The trains arrive every 2 minutes or so in Beijing so you never have to wait long. The problem however was cramming onto a train. We happened to arrive right in the middle of rush hour so every train was packed with people. There are workers on the platform who's soul job is to push people onto the train and make sure the doors shut all the way. They were literally shoving each other to get on the train. Dayton and I decided to wait for a train without so many people, especially since we had our packs with us. So there we waited, on the platform, for another hour. We really enjoyed watching people try and squeeze onto the trains and the look on their faces when they made it on was as though they had accomplished something great! Sheer disappointment came over them if they didn't make it on. We finally got tired of waiting and decided to just go for it. We found a car at the end of the train with fewer people and we pushed and shoved our way through the doors onto the train. After making a transfer we soon got to our stop at the Llama Temple. Our hostel was somewhere in the back alleys behind the temple so we did the only thing we could do, we just started walking around looking for it. We finally happened upon it and got our room. I was so happy to finally have somewhere quiet to lay my head down for a little bit. This hostel became our home for the next few days. We first started out in a private room with two beds and our own bath but we decided to save some money and go into the shared room. There is a hostel organization throughout China that a traveler can become a member of and with their membership card saves a lot of money on rooms. I got the card so to stay there was really cheap. In Beijing we went to Tian An Men Square and to the Forbidden City. These are both places I had been to before but it was really cool to go back and see them again. Everywhere we went Dayton would be asked by local Chinese if they could take a picture with him. His light hair and light colored eyes melted hearts of the young and old everywhere we went. One evening while making our way to the McDonald's downtown for some soft-serve we ran into some girls that started talking with Dayton. They wanted to "practice English" with us. I was pretty skeptical and tried to shake them off but they were persistent and asked us if we would have some tea with them. Dayton was pretty stoked about the idea and I decided to follow. We sat down in a fancy tea house and the girls ordered the tea. We watched as the waitress performed a small tea ceremony and then we sat together and talked while sipping the tea. After some good conversation the waitress brought the bill which totaled (if I remember correctly) about $300. It was as thought he veil had been lifted from my eyes and I saw exactly what had taken place. These girls had coerced us to this tea shop to give them business. I looked at Dayton who obviously felt horrible, as did I. I started thinking of solutions. Option A: We could make a run for it. Option B: We could just fork over the money and be done with it. Option C: We all pool money together. I told the girls that Dayton and I didn't have enough money to pay for it and we would not be paying for all of it. It was their fault for ordering such expensive tea. They looked just as upset as we were but part of me believes it's all part of the show. The girls took the better part of the bill with whatever cash they had on them. Dayton and I pooled about $50 or so between the two of us but the girls weren't satisfied. They said there was an ATM around the corner where I could get more cash. I looked at Dayton and Option A was sounding pretty good. The way were were seated at the table though, Dayton would have had to crawl over a girl to get to the door. Then I was afraid we'd become wanted as criminals so Option A was no longer an option. I went with one of the girls to the ATM. As soon as we walked out the door I let her have it. In Chinese I told her that what her and her friend were doing is evil, disrespectful to her and to her country. That foreigners come to China expecting hospitality and warmth and she is giving a bad face to the entire country by doing what she does. (These are all things that really matter to the Chinese)It worked. She was on the verge of tears and hopefully that conversation helped her decide to quit taking advantage of foreigners. I got the extra cash, paid the bill and we left. On the train ride back to the hostel I felt so angry, I felt like I could never trust anyone again but then this strange feeling came over me. I realized that not everyone is that way, that I needed this experience to learn forgiveness and tolerance. Even when people deliberately take advantage of us we ought to forgive them. Moral cultivation isn't a part of worldly society anymore. People are often at eachother's throats trying to get ahead. Those of us who know that taking advantage of others is wrong out to change the world through example. The anger left me by the time we got to our stop for out hostel and now Dayton and I only laugh about the situation because we learned a valuable lesson that day. Next stop: The Great Wall

China: Xiangtan

Dayton and I left Guangzhou for an extremely long and slow train ride to Changsha where we planned to transfer to Xiangtan where I had taught English for 5 months in 2008. On the train we sort of huddled together because it was really cold, especially coming from hot weather in Thailand. After a few hours on the train some people got curious about who we were and started talking to us. Some college girls practiced a bit of English with us and asked us what our plans were. We started discussing things in Chinese and they said that the train station that we were headed to had been closed down and suggested that we get off a station earlier and get a taxi instead. So with their help we found a taxi and were soon on our way to Xiangtan. Once we arrived at the university we had to wait a while before my friend Sara would be done teaching classes. I met Sara while I was teaching there and she was still there and offered us her extra bedroom. She had a roommate Ana and they both welcomed us to their apartment and were super kind to us. We had a great time staying with them but after a few days when we had planned to leave I became very ill. For the next week I was in bed battling a cough and fever which seemed to never want to go away. After about a week though I was feeling quite a bit better and Dayton and I went roller skating together. As soon as we walked in a guy on roller skates about our age came up to us and asked Dayton (in chinese) if he wanted to roller skate with him. Dayton agreed, thinking they would just hang out on the rink and was surprised when this guy grabbed his hand! I wish I had my camera so I could have gotten a photo.
The week in Xiangtan was a very humbling experience for me. I was really stoked to follow our plan and see a lot of China but 1 week in bed taught me to be patient and reminded me that I'm human. After I felt a little better we got our packs and went to the train station to buy tickets to Jiang Jia Jie, a national park. When I was almost to the window I had a distinct feeling that we should board a train to Beijing instead. I talked to Dayton and he agreed, the next thing we knew we were on a first-class overnight train to one of the largest cities in the world. Next stop: Beijing.

Almost forgot this...

Dayton took this photo at our hostel in Bangkok. The picture says it all. HAHAHA!