Lesson 12

This week, class was cancelled on Monday. Wednesday we mostly just talked about grading and assignments were due and the final. Afterwards we went through the categories of IDEA. It was a great feeling looking back and thinking about what I have learned in the past semester. It's so nice to be learning about what I'm going to be spending the rest of my life doing. I love my major and I'm so grateful to be learning what I am.

5 hours of Service Learning

I LOVED my time during service learning! For my five hours of service learning, I would go to the weekly activities on campus called "Hands" and "Life Skills" on Thursdays and Wednesdays. I was so excited the first time I went to Life Skills, because when I got there a girl named Katie showed up. Katie has down syndrome and is the sweetest girl you'll ever meet. I grew up in a little town called Aberdeen, Idaho and Katie used to live there! When I was in middle school we always did musicals together, she was in my young women's, and I even went to her birthday party that was a High School Musical theme and she danced for us and everything! It had been about 7 years since I had seen her and I was SO excited to see her. She even remembered me and we hung out the rest of the night. We played soccer with Jason and Katie kept getting frustrated because Jason was kind of a ball hog and he made all of the goals. So I really tried to uplift Katie and make her feel better and try to pass her the ball more so she could make some goals. And she did! Another highlight was the talent show prep and everyone showing their talents! It was awesome and they all did so good. Jason was hanging out with me and said, "so should I call you hot chick or girlfriend?" And I said, "call me Whitney!!" And he continued to say, "girlfriend it is!" hahaha. I love being with these kids who have special needs. It reminds me of all my kids in Ecuador that I spent 3 months with. They are such a huge piece of my heart. I love my major, and I am so grateful for their sweet spirits in my life.

Stuttering Experience 7/13 & 7/14

I have a lot of cousins who struggle with stuttering so I have been around it my whole life. It gets to the point where you don't notice it as much, unless it takes longer than usual and you get impatient. But because of this it was easier for me to pretend like I had a stuttering problem. When I did my learning disability experience in Walmart I also did this stuttering experience to a different associate. After the learning disability experience, this seemed so much easier and the associate didn't feel as bad for me as the first one did when I could finally ask where the cotton balls and candles were. In mountain lofts, my apartment complex, I stopped a girl and asked her how I get to World's Gym. I carried it on for a really long time and I could tell she was getting impatient, but eventually felt bad for me. When she was explaining it to me she kind of talked in a baby voice to me and went very slow, which frustrated me! Just because I had a hard time talking right didn't mean I was a baby and couldn't understand her. I was very frustrated afterwards and hoped that I had never treated my cousins or anyone else with a stuttering problem like that.

Learning Disability Experience 7/13

This was extremely difficult, whereas the wheelchair and visual was more of a laughing experience for me, this one was not. I had THE hardest time talking. I swear - every word I wanted to say when asking for what I needed at the store had an n or an l in it. I went to Walmart and needed foundation, eyeliner, cotton balls, and a candle. Well would ya look at that! Every single one of those had an n or l in it. So I ended up asking, "do you have a mop?" He showed me where they were and on the way there he tried keeping conversation with me. You could tell he felt bad for me and noticed some type of disability. When we got to the mops I realized I couldn't even say thank you. I was trying so hard to think of a way to say thank you in a different way and just decided to nod at him trying to say "thank you" through our minds. After that we went to Mcdonalds. There was nothing I wanted more than a mcchicken and a Dr. Pepper and I wasn't going to change my order, I had to find a way to say it. "May I have a mcchick?" "A mcchicken?" "Yes a mcchick." I'm pretty sure he thought I was crazy. "Dr. Pepper." "and a Dr. Pepper?" "Yes, Dr. Pepper." I hated it. I hated it all. I felt super inconsiderate the whole time mostly because I couldn't say thank you and I acted like I couldn't talk, which I pretty much couldn't. I have so much more sympathy for these kind of people now and I know this experience will help me have more patience with everyone I ever cross paths with.

Visual Impairment Simulation 5/18/15

This was WAY harder than I thought it would be and I probably struggled with it the most! Right when I got home I put the first one on and went to make lunch. Trying to be my healthy self I started getting what I needed out of the fridge to make a salad. It was a disaster! I missed the bowl when I tried to put the lettuce in and I spilled ranch all over the floor. My roommate was sleeping on the couch and I was having a hard time not screaming in frustration. Then even eating was hard. There was ranch all over my shirt so I had to go change my clothes which was also hard with the mask. Sometimes I couldn't tell if it was the lack of seeing that made it hard or just having a mask on. Sometimes I felt like the mask was what the huge inconvenience was haha. That was definitely the most frustrating part of the whole experience, the rest of the four hours I just hung around my house and talked with my roommates and did some homework which was also extremely difficult. We live in an apartment with a spiral staircase and my roommate was trying to throw my something from the upper level and I could not catch it to save my life. It ended up being a game that we played for a while and everyone would laugh at me. I wasn't too happy about it haha. Then I went and ran some errands with my roommate and I got many weird looks in walmart. It was honestly hard just navigating through. I always thought I knew what it would be like to visually impaired but I really had no idea. It was a different kind of hard than I thought and it made me gain a new appreciation for people who live with that every day.

Orthopedic Experience (Wheelchair) 6/1/15

My wheelchair experience was pretty crazy and WAY harder than I thought! My friend, Aspen, came with me just so I had someone to experience it with, but I think she mostly came for some entertainment for the day. We wheeled out of the Hinckley after using the elevator, which was way harder than I thought as well. The elevator fits a wheelchair but it's hard to navigate through that thing. The hardest for me was to go down the hill from the Hinckley to the MC. I was scared of rolling down the hill too fast and biffing it! We went and spent the day in the MC and I had some studying to do. When I went to the bathroom, my friends were laughing at me trying to get in the stall by myself. I knew how to "transfer" myself from the wheelchair because I am a CNA and worked with special needs kids in wheelchairs. Going through doors was super difficult too. Especially without the door opener. The highlight of the day was a girl who asked me how I got paralyzed. I understood that we weren't supposed to tell people that we were only in a wheelchair for a class, but I could not think of a response. So all I said was I'm not paralyzed and wheeled away. :) Going up the hill was surprisingly easier than going down! Overall it was a good experience and it was really good for me to understand how that life is.

Lesson 1

Doctrine, principle, and application is something I have learned a lot about in my time here at college. My first college class I ever went to, we watched a video of Elder Bednar talking about this concept. Yet, it's still something I struggle with completely understanding. From what I understood from Brother Cloward's explanation, doctrine is becoming as or equal to Christ and understanding the truths shown to us by God. The principle is what guidelines the prophets and apostles have given us to exercise those doctrines. The application is what we do: seek, act, have faith, be patient, etc. The Holy Ghost is our teacher, we must be open to the spirit and leading him guide us if we want to learn to the best of our ability and reach our full potential.