I'd Buy Brigham Young a Cheeseburger

In Utah this past weekend we celebrated Pioneer Day, which marks the anniversary of Mormon settlers' first arrival to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. It's one of my favorite holidays; I like it even more than the Fourth of July. A big parade marches through downtown Salt Lake, numerous religions hold special services, there are free concerts and a rodeo, and at night we shoot off fireworks.

Pioneer Day is a fitting celebration of the state I love to call my home. Utah isn't perfect, but it's a great place to live. And I owe much of that to pioneers from all backgrounds and religions, who gave the best of themselves to build this land and make the desert "blossom as the rose."

Great work, guys!
Image credit: The Odyssey Online

Sometimes I like to think about what I would show those Mormon settlers if they suddenly appeared today.

Imagine if a company of wagons wandered through a time warp on the vast plains of Nebraska and wound up in 2016. I think, like in the case of later struggling pioneer companies, the Church would sound a call to "go and bring them in." But today's rescue effort wouldn't send wagons of supplies: cars, trucks, and buses would retrieve those pioneers, instead.

I sometimes see myself behind the wheel of a carload of new settlers, zooming down I-80 as they clutch their seats, white-knuckled yet amazed, finishing in just two days what would have taken months with wagons.

It would take some getting used to.
Image credit: Ambulance GIF

For dinner I'd pick up a round of Wendy's Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers, and we'd find a Motel 6 to rest up for the next day's easy journey.

And I'd turn the heat up in Wyoming's early snows so no one has to lose a foot to frostbite.

In Salt Lake City we would ride the light-rail train to visit Temple Square, then head across the street to tour the 21,000-seat Conference Center. Of course my pioneers would have the best seats in the house for the next General Conference session, but they might be even more impressed to see the broadcast miles away at someone's home.

Then we'd sample all the awesome food they never had before. I'm talking burritos at Café Rio, pizza at The Pie, cheese fries at Leatherby's. We'd grab hot dogs at Smith's Ballpark while the Salt Lake Bees played, then finish off the evening with a bonfire up Big Cottonwood Canyon.

Oh, and hot showers for everyone!

What a time to be alive.
Image credit: Awesome Inventions

If the pioneers came back to life today, there's no end to what I'd share with them. But it's not to brag about my easy life. And it's not to make life too much easier for them, because the way they handled hardships is what makes my pioneer heritage so meaningful and rich.

I just want to show the settlers what they built.

I want them to see that everything they went through--abandoned homes, lost loved ones, mob violence, government hostility, harsh sun and bitter cold, starvation, illness, death--went toward something they would marvel at today.

I want them to see the way the desert has blossomed.

And I want them to know it started with them.

Local Man Completes Journey Around Sun

I usually try to keep a low profile on my birthday. It's not that I don't like the attention; I just don't want anyone to feel like they have to go out of their way to make me feel special.

But my friends and family have already done that on their own (they're so great), so what the hey--today's my birthday!

Image credit: Meme Generator

Just like on New Year's Day, when my birthday comes around I like to make resolutions and reflect on how far I've come.

And I've come a long way--literally.

Every year I've been alive the Earth has traveled 584 million miles around the sun. Today I complete my twenty-seventh orbit, putting me at 15.768 billion miles. That's an accomplishment.

And no, it doesn't look like this. I would know.
Image credit: Pics About Space

But wait, there's more! I get extra mileage from the Earth's rotation, too. My slice of the planet--approximately 40 degrees north latitude--is about 19,014 miles around, and I cover that distance every single day just by sitting here. That doesn't sound like much, but it adds up: in twenty-seven years of rotation (accounting for leap days), I've covered 187,516,068 miles.

So, not counting all the traveling I've done by foot and vehicle on Earth, I've already gone over 15.9 billion miles.

For a little perspective, Pluto is only 4.67 billion miles away.

No wonder I'm so tired.

In Ohio I Learned Nobody's a Stranger

The summer just before my mission, my family took one last epic vacation and toured LDS Church history sites across the northeastern United States. We visited the birthplace of the Prophet Joseph Smith in Vermont; the Sacred Grove in New York; the Priesthood restoration site in Pennsylvania; and Kirtland, Ohio, where the first Latter-day Saint temple was built. I don't remember a more faith-promoting road trip.

The Kirtland temple

I could say a lot about that vacation, but I want to talk about what happened in Ohio.

We rolled into Kirtland on a rainy Saturday evening. It was too late to do much sight-seeing, but there were lots of cars parked at the local LDS chapel. So we stopped in to ask what time Sunday services were . . . and my brother and I ended up getting invited to the youth dance that was going on right then.

Dances were awkward enough back home, where at least we had friends to lollygag with at the punch bowl. But we were thrilled to be included, and we hurried back to our hotel room to clean up and put our best clothes on.

The biggest surprise of the evening, though, wasn't that we got invited to a dance, but that we hardly spent a minute at the punch bowl before the local kids surrounded us. We made quick friends with both the guys and girls, and I had a partner for every slow song. By the end, we felt so at home among the youth in Kirtland that we even stuck around to take down chairs and tables.

Accurate.
Image source: LOLwithMe.org

We felt the same at church the following morning. Everyone went out of their way to come and talk to us. The bishop (leader of the congregation, like a pastor) and his counselors all made sure to greet us personally. Our comments were encouraged in the Sunday School discussion. We were even invited to stick around for ice cream after church.

And we weren't the only visitors to the congregation that day. An elderly couple from Utah and a family from Sweden received the same treatment we did. To the members of the Church in Kirtland, VISITORS WELCOME was more than just a default phrase on the chapel sign. They truly practiced it.

Image credit: The Salt Lake Tribune

Kirtland sees a lot of Mormon vacationers. The people there are used to hosting visitors and never seeing them again. When they welcomed my family and me, they knew we wouldn't be back.

And yet they treated us like we would be around awhile. Like we weren't travelers passing through, but neighbors who had just moved in. Like we belonged in their community, their congregation, their very hearts.

I never did see any of them again. But I still feel their genuine love whenever I remember the short time I got to spend with them. And that's the kind of thing I want to spread.

I understand why "stranger danger" is a thing. I understand that sometimes people hurt each other just because they can. That there are people in the world who take unfair advantage of the smallest acts of kindness. That sometimes reaching out can be a risk.

But what if we acted like everyone we met might stick around awhile in our lives? What if we saw the people we passed by as friends we haven't met? What if, instead of treating each other with suspicion, we tried a little love and generosity?

Hearts would change.

And with those hearts, the world.

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This post was inspired by a recent article by blogger Middleaged Mormon Man. It's a great read; go check it out!

Let's Let Each Other Enjoy Things

Amid the barrage of depressing news stories lately, it's refreshing to see media outlets report on fun things now and then. While some might complain that it's not "real news," I think our journalists do us all an important service by running stories on things like adult coloring books, Pokémon Go, and, most recently, the Nintendo NES Classic Edition. The comment sections of these stories show that many people appreciate this lighthearted approach to the world. But there are always a few party poopers in the bunch.

"People who do [or like] this need to get a life," some say. Or, another favorite: "These people need to  grow up/get a job."

"All these problems in the world and people are [insert activity here]."

"The world is the mess it is because adults can't take responsibility."

Then there are these delightful people:

"I don't understand how an adult can like [insert childish activity here]."

"Grown men at the [toy store/game store/arcade/etc.] are creepy."

"You like [childish activity]? What are you, five?"

Image credit: imgflip.com

Certainly, there is an argument for balance in life. Responsibility, moderation, fiber intake--these are all important things. But I'm not talking about that right now.

I'm saying it's okay for grownups to enjoy things children would like, too.

I surprise people sometimes when I tell them I still play with Lego. Notice that word: still. As if I was supposed to stop at some point and didn't get the memo, or disobeyed a social order, or something. At what age did I have to put my Lego bricks in the closet or on eBay?

Image credit: ifunny.co

But it doesn't stop at Lego. I love cartoons, picture books, graphic novels, Disney movies, video games--the list goes on. And I've raised the eyebrows of many a responsible adult for openly enjoying those things.

Well, I do a pretty good job at taking care of my family, staying up-to-date on bills, and getting involved in my community, but pardon me for having other interests than drinking beer and shouting at a television screen.

Geez, guys, get a life.
Image credit: The Odyssey Online

Really, though, who decided it was normal to wear a favorite sports team's jersey and hit the bar, but weird to cosplay at an anime or sci-fi convention?

Who decided it was okay to spend an hour watching Netflix to unwind after work but not okay to spend that hour playing video games?

Who decided I could build an engine in my garage but not a Lego sports car in my living room?

Here's what everybody needs to understand: We're not all athletes. We're not all entrepreneurs. We're not all mechanics or cooks or musicians. But as scary and dark as the world is, there's something in it for each of us to enjoy--and we need that now more than ever before.

So let's loosen our ties and let down our hair a bit. Let's all pour ourselves a bowl of Lucky Charms. Let's leave the numbers and charts and business at work and remember how to play.

Let's just let each other enjoy things.

The Real Reason I'm Not Playing Pokémon Go

I know I'm not the only one who ate, drank, and slept Pokémon in the late 90s and early 2000s. It was a defining element of my childhood. I watched the anime every morning before school, collected the trading cards, played in a local trading card game league on Saturdays, haunted fan websites (and built some of my own), and even wrote fan fiction. I made new friends and bonded with old ones over those elusive creatures, and I look back fondly on that whole period of my life.

My ten-year-old life summed up in one picture. Oh, nostalgia!
Image credit: Pure Nintendo

I never stopped liking Pokémon. But as the list of monsters grew more long and complicated, life got complicated, too. Like many of the interests of my childhood, I had to put Pokémon away for a while--but I always hoped to pull it out again.

One of the fun parts of having kids now is that I feel like I get another childhood. My toddler is as obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine as I was at his age, and I love watching it with him. He also begs to play with Lego almost on a daily basis, and it's hard not to join him (as if I ever needed an excuse to play with Lego). Eventually, I will introduce him to Goosebumps, Animorphs, and Harry Potter. It's been great getting to enjoy the things I loved as a kid without attracting the judgy glares of other grownups. And I'm discovering new things, too, that I would have liked if they had been around when I was little; why, just last week, I was flipping channels on the TV at the gym and almost stayed on Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood.

So naturally, I'm thrilled that everyone's been talking about Pokémon these past few days. If you live under a Geodude and have no idea what's been going on, a new game just came out--Pokémon Go--that lets people find and catch Pokémon "in real life." Which everyone has wanted pretty much from the beginning.

I can finally catch a Growlithe on my morning walk!
Image credit: The Verge

The game is pretty brilliant. People are getting up and walking--voluntarily--and discovering some cool and crazy things all around their neighborhoods. I've seen a bunch of Facebook events set up already for players to meet each other and search for Pokémon together. Perhaps best of all, hilarious social media posts keep on coming. I think I love Pokémon Go.

But I won't be playing it anytime soon.

I could say something lame (and true) like my phone has no memory, or I'm too busy, or I don't want to turn my phone's GPS on and have people tracking me.

But the real reason I'm not playing Pokémon Go is far more dark and lies buried in my childhood.

It was the height of the original Pokémon craze, and like so many other institutions at the time, my school banned the game and its merchandise for the well-being of its students. Pokémon cards were the first to go . . . but we knew how to get around that.

My friends and I devised a system that allowed us to trade Pokémon cards at school without the adult authorities seeing. First we left our cards at home and memorized our inventories. Then at recess or during our free time in class, we compiled written lists of cards we wanted and negotiated trades. We took home each other's lists and bundled the desired cards together, wrapping them in plain white paper to attract the least attention. When we went to school the next morning, we hid the little white packages underneath our coats, met at prearranged locations on the playground (which changed every day for security), and discreetly swapped the goods before the bell rang. Sometimes, just to be safe, we even left the rendezvous in opposite directions and arrived to our class line at different times.

We were ten and eleven years old. I'm pretty sure none of us had ever seen a drug deal; I guess it was just instinct.

And I never got caught.

But now that the Pokémon are real, there's no telling what I'll do. So it's just best if I stay off the streets, you know?

This would probably be me.
Image credit: Don't Hate the Geek

For the rest of you who are playing Pokémon Go, have fun and be safe. You're living the dream!

Boys Are Pretty Much Impossible to Name

My wife and I are expecting our third child in October--which kind of took us by surprise, so it was a while before my wife got in for her first checkup. For a couple reasons, the doctor couldn't give us a due date on this one without an ultrasound, so we got to see our new baby at the very first appointment. Exciting! But since we assumed it was still too early in the pregnancy, we weren't expecting much.

We were wrong.

"Would you like to know the baby's gender?" the ultrasound technician asked.

"Wait . . . what?" we both responded.

"Do you want to know the gender?"

"Yes! We just didn't think we could find out this soon." 

"You're farther along than we thought. And he's pretty obviously a boy."

At this my wife and I just laughed. It wasn't quite the kind of laugh you'd give a hilarious joke; more like excitement mixed with resignation. Kind of like the laugh you hear before someone goes psychotic, I guess. 

"Were you . . . hoping for something else?" the tech asked.

"Not necessarily," I said. "It's just we're already out of boys' names!"

The truth is, as much as we want to have a girl, we're elated that a third boy is joining our family. At this point we're pretty good at boys. And it helps that we don't have to buy new clothes! 

But names are so hard. We can't name another boy. We struggled enough just naming our first one. The day he was born, it was hours before I sent out the birth announcement because it took us that long to settle on what we should call him. His immunization card just says Baby Boy Cunningham (which we might actually use with baby number three). 

Our second child wasn't easy, either. Luckily we had the list narrowed down to two names by the time my wife went into labor: one name was for a light-haired (or no-haired) baby, while the other was for a dark-haired baby. Our little boy came out with a nice, dark head of hair, so we gave him the dark-haired name. Now, not even a year later, we get comments on how very blonde he is. 

We just can't win.

Our first two children started a pattern of vowel names, so we're kind of trying to stick with that in naming the next one. Do you know how few good boy names start with a vowel and don't remind my schoolteacher wife of students she's had? Sure, we could do the crazy Utah thing and go all Frankenstein on spellings, but we're not like that. Like, at all. 

We've looked to literature for inspiration, too, since our first two names are kind of literary. Tolkien's been a nice source lately. We both like the name Elrond, but my wife doesn't like the D at the end and I think it sounds dumb without it. So we're at an impasse there. My wife won't let me name our child Gothmog, but it doesn't fit with the vowel thing anyway. Azog the Defiler is on the maybe list, though.

Imagine the baby blessing!
Image credit: LOTR Wiki

Our toddler has been helpful in suggesting names: Percy, Skarloey, Rheneas, Peter Sam. They're all just engines from Thomas and Friends. We like the name Edward, though, and it's so cute when our two-year-old says it. But then we remember that people are either going to shorten it to "Ed," or they'll assume we're Twilight fans. Neither of those outcomes is acceptable. 

I do like the name Icarus, but I want to save it just in case we ever have twins (Heaven forbid). Then we can name the other one Apollo . . . because, you know, they'll be close.

Too soon?
Image credit: thinglink.com

Thankfully we still have a couple months before we really have to worry about names. But we're kind of freaking out already because we're at such a total loss. Hopefully our next baby will be a girl, because I just don't know if we can handle naming one more boy.

Once again, Seinfeld understands the struggle:

It Takes a Lot of Work to Build Something Extraordinary

I always love seeing pictures of my church's newly constructed temples. They're special places that are different from where we hold Sunday services; we make sacred covenants there--two-way promises with God--that unite us with our Heavenly Father and bind us to our families for eternity, making even death only a temporary separation. I feel great peace whenever I visit a temple, because it literally is Heaven on Earth--the House of the Lord. That's why my church strives to make every temple the most beautiful building it possibly can.

Today I've been admiring photos of the newest temple in Sapporo, Japan. I love it so much!

Image credit: Mormon Newsroom

Image credit: Mormon Newsroom

Image credit: Mormon Newsroom

It's amazing to think about how much work goes into building a temple. The temple in Salt Lake City, where my church is headquartered, took forty years to build. It was kind of a big deal.

Worth it, though.

In those days, Utah was a pretty isolated place. The arrival of the railroad in the 1860's helped, but for the most part, the temple builders could only use what was already here. So the famous gray stone of the Salt Lake temple walls came from our own mountains, painstakingly transported to the city by way of oxcart, canal, and rail.

The old quarry that supplied the temple stone is only about a twenty-minute drive from my apartment, so a few days ago I went and checked it out.

This is like looking at a baby picture, but for a temple. Awww.

The Temple Quarry path is an easy walk and provides a lot of neat information on interpretive signs. I loved getting some more historical perspective on the things I've always had around me.

Back when the Salt Lake temple was being built, workers drilled long holes into this mountainside, blasted chunks of rock away with dynamite, and shaped the stone by hand before sending the heavy load over twenty miles to the building site in Salt Lake City. There was nothing easy about it. The process today is probably quite different, but the latest pictures from Japan remind me that this principle has never changed: it takes a lot of work to build something extraordinary.

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If you're around the Salt Lake area and want a better appreciation for the temple, or if you're just looking for a nice, easy walk in the mountains, you can learn more about the Temple Quarry trail here.

That One Time My Parents Abandoned Me in Canada

If you ever plan on visiting Alaska in the summer, the best way to do it is to take a couple extra weeks off work and drive through Canada. Trust me. There's no shortage of breathtaking scenery along the way, and Canada is just wonderful. You can also really put that midnight sun to use as you push through the long miles between motels.

Did I say those miles were long? I meant reeeeally long. Like there are actually road signs all the way through the Yukon letting you know to gas up at the next stop because you won't find anything else for, like, ever.

16 kilometers is like the first level of Mario. They make you think you can survive before they throw the crazy stuff at you.

I learned that lesson the hard way. On the second day of our return trip from Alaska when I was sixteen, my family and I hoped to get a nice motel room in Watson Lake, Yukon, a hardy twelve hours from our starting point in Tok, Alaska. 

But there were no nice motel rooms.

There weren't even gross motel rooms.

They had nothing. Not a single room in the whole town.

So we kept going. But it wasn't as simple as just stopping at the next town; there were no towns. We drove through the night in endless forest, pulling over now and then so my dad could stretch his legs and stay alert behind the wheel. We were still far enough north that it never got too dark, so at least there was stuff to look at. 

Blurry pic, but this is about the darkest it ever got that night. Seriously, go north for your summer road trips!

After a grand total of thirty-two straight hours in the car, we rolled into a gas station in Fort St. John, British Columbia and were reasonably exhausted. While my dad filled the gas tank, I climbed out and told him I was gonna go use the restroom. He answered with a tired grunt.

Two minutes and one relieved bladder later, the car was gone. 

I approached the gas station attendant like everything was normal and my family hadn't totally just abandoned me. "You haven't seen a red station wagon, have you?" I asked.

The attendant grinned. "They left ya, didn't they."

We shared a good laugh, then after she let me help myself to an orange soda from the fridge, she came outside and sat on the curb with me. My new Canadian friend told me about her family, swapped funny stories with me, and planted the idea in my head to make my parents pay. "This is worth at least a dirt bike, or something," she said.

The gas station in Fort St. John--a reminder to me that Canadians are the nicest, coolest people on the planet.
Image credit: Matthew Cunningham

Twenty minutes later, my family found a motel in town and stopped out front to check in. "Nate, hold down the fort," my dad said.

Aaaaand silence.

"Nate?"

In the back seat, my brother groggily turned his head toward where I should have been--right next to him. "I don't think he's here...."

Long story short, I got a ton of Lego for my birthday that year.

I'd like to wish a very happy Canada Day to all my friends and readers Up North. Your land is beautiful and your people are good. If more countries were like you, the world would be a better place.