Flashback Friday

It’s been too long since I’ve updated this thing.  I’d like to blame it on the fact that my MacBook died about a year ago and I no longer have the luxury of countless hours of free time during my graveyard shift, but the fact is that Amy worked her TEE (Technology & Engineering Education) magic a couple of months ago and resurrected my laptop .  So really, I have no excuse other than the dreadful downfall of us Hansen kids-laziness. :/

I feel like there is so much that has happened since my last blog post. I don’t know why, but I feel like my life is a lot more eventful than the typical 26 year old.  This could be due to the fact that I am VERY easily entertained (I mean you kind of have to be when you don’t get out much as a kid and you spend every weekend with your 5 sisters pulling pranks on neighbors or throwing water balloons at incoming cars) or the fact that I constantly put myself in interesting or unusual situations at times.  So, in thinking of where I could possibly start, I thought it would be a nice casual-Friday post to bring back a blast from the past.  A couple months ago, my friend, Aubrey (who for some reason is one of my bigger blog fans/followers; or at least she pretends to be haha) came in town from New York and one night we went out to eat along with some other mutual friends at the local Malt Shoppe.  While there, the smell of grease and the fear of having my clothes and myself smell like grease (which happens to be one of my biggest pet peeves) must have tailspinned me into a posttraumatic stress trance.  It so happens that 8 years previously I actually worked in a very similar atmosphere, at the Creamery on 9^th, while attending my freshman year at BYU.  I then began to relate my various “hood-rat” stories and my “3 strikes” associated with my near termination.  I was kind of hesitant to blog about these follies of my youth, but Aubrey has been bugging me to document the ordeal on here, if nothing else for my posterity’s sake. Haha. So, without further ado, I present this flashback Friday.

As a freshman at BYU, you couldn’t have picked a more happening place to work than the Creamery on 9^th.  I mean everyone and there mother (and grandmother) literally went there.  It was especially the place to go for all freshman with meal plan cards, because you were able to buy groceries, grab a bite to eat at the grille, and/or go on a date to get ice cream.   It just so happened that my dorm room door was no more than 50ft from the Creamery, so it was only natural that I would land a job there.  Before moving my way up to primetime working the grill, I first began my college working career as an early morning janitor there.  I worked Monday-Friday starting at 7 a.m.  My shift was 4 hours long and by 8:30 a.m. I almost always was done with my daily chores.  I often spent the remainder of my time taking a nap on the men’s restroom toilet and/or getting my daily workout in while doing sit-ups and pushups in a locked bathroom stall (I promise it wasn’t that gross because I had already mopped and cleaned the bathroom and the stall was nice and spacious because it was handicap friendly :) hahaha). 

Now, on to the good stuff! After one semester of waking up daily at the crack of dawn, I got upgraded to 1^st class (aka working the evening shifts at the grille).  Work could not get any better.  I worked with one of my roommates on a 4-man team while my other roommate worked register at the grocery in the same store.  Let’s just say we had a little too much fun.  Sometimes we would just throw the football across the store with my other roommate at the grocery register.  However, mostly time was spent just hooking up friends with extra fries and larger-than-normal scoops of ice cream or spending the night flirting with our freshman lady friends that would come in to see (use?) us. Haha.   In fact, I still remember one of my favorite pick-up lines.  We had an ice cream called “Bishop’s Bash” and whenever a cute girl would ask what was in the Bishop’s Bash I would reply, “Chocolate, pecans, caramel, a little consecrated oil…” Usually they laughed or chuckled.  One time, this backfired on me when giving this response to a mom when asked what was in the Bishop’s Bash.  For the record, I was not trying to “pick her up”. It got so trivial that I would tell anyone who would ask what the Bishop Bash “recipe” was.  Anyways, she demanded to speak to my supervisor, and she chewed me out for being sacrilegious and she let me know that she did not find it funny.  In return, my supervisor just gave me a “slap on the wrist” and basically said to make sure that it didn't happen again. 

Speaking of being disciplined, I am reminded of the “hamburger incident.” One day at work we accidently made an extra hamburger.  I asked my Team Lead what we should do with it and she said to just give it away to a customer.  We made an announcement on the store intercom that anyone who wanted the extra hamburger could come and get it at the grill.  After a few minutes of waiting, I realized that no one was coming.  “Sweet! Free food,” I thought. I then asked my Team Lead if we could eat it since no one wanted it and I was shocked when she told me I couldn’t and that we had to throw it away.  “Throw it away?!? Yeah right,” I thought to myself. I then told her I would go “throw it away” in the back.  After taking the plate to the back I realized that it was not a good place because it was out in the open and an easy place to be spotted.  I then had a genius idea to retreat to my “quiet place” from my previous semester’s janitorial home-the Men’s Restroom! hahaha.  So there I was: apron on, hamburger in hand, standing near the sink, making sure the coast was clear to enjoy my free meal.  As I was taking my first bite the store manager walks in and sees me! I was caught, red hamburger handed! Wait, me get caught? I’m too good for that.  I played it off like it was no big deal. I placed the plate on top of the paper towel dispenser, washed my hands, grabbed the plate and walked out like I knew what I was doing. I then took the hamburger to the next best place where I thought I could eat in peace--the walk-in freezer! Hahaha. I then proceeded to eat the burger in the freezing peace and quiet and then I returned to work.

All was good until two days later I heard over the intercom, “Freddie, to the back office.” I meandered my way through the grocery aisles to the back office where the manager told me to take a seat.  He then asked me, “Do you know why I called you in?”  Wow, talk about a million-dollar question.  I was thinking of all the possible things that it could possibly be.  My mind was racing and sifting through all of the possible reasons: “I eat the gummy bears from the ice cream topping display, I let the little kids play on the intercom microphone, I don’t have my food handler’s permit, I planned an employee party after close that consisted of playing Super Market Sweep, I hooked my friends up with food...

Finally, I determined it best that he tell me in case I confessed to something that he didn’t know about.  “I have no idea,” I said. He then reminded me of our encounter in the bathroom from a few days prior.  How could I have forgotten? I mean, I guess I thought I played it off quite well, but nonetheless there I sat getting chastised for violating who knows how many health codes and store policies.  Maybe he would have cut me some slack had I told him I didn’t even have my Food Handler’s Permit; so in reality I was innocent? Nah, probably not the best idea.  I then was informed that if I made one more mistake I would receive my third “strike” and be let go. Apparently, he had marked me up for my first “strike” the one time my roommates and I showed up one night on one of our days off and hopped the counter, scooped ourselves ice cream, and left. We didn’t want to wait in the super long line in front of us.  Whoops. 

The last month of the semester I was constantly on edge, paranoid that I was going to get rung up for my last mishap.  I even laid off the amount of times I would sneak gummy bears from the topping displays.  I couldn’t take the stress anymore, so a week later I put in my two weeks notice.  Sometime during this period my roommate and I thought it would be funny to ditch work on the same day to leave the two other girls, who at times underappreciated us, alone to man the grill, ice cream, and register.  That didn’t go over too well.  My supervisor then informed me that I would have received my third “strike” but since the semester was almost over and I had a few days left that he would just let it go. Looking back, I realize I was really immature, but again grant me amnesty; I was a young mischievous lad. 

p.s. Shout-out  to my sister/best friend Sarah.  Happy Birthday!!! Love ya!

How do we honor mothers, ours and others?

So last week I was asked to give a talk in church on Mothers Day and thought I would just record this tribute to my mom. Love ya mama xoxo.

Good afternoon brothers and sisters. As you might have guessed, my topic has been connected with the themes of the other talks given this Mother’s Day on that of Mothers. My specific topic is “How do we honor mothers, ours and others?” In preparation for this talk I was thinking of some kind of intriguing story or funny joke to tell. However, the only thing that kept popping into my mind was “yo mama” jokes. Since that’s not happening, I’ve decided to scratch that idea and just get on with my talk.

Ironically, this is the 3rd time in 5 years that I’ve given a Mother’s Day talk. I’ve come to the conclusion that our bishopric and past bishoprics can see right through me and they all know that I’m a “mama’s boy.” It’s true—I am a “Mama’s Boy.” In fact, when I was in 7th grade my Language Arts class was given the assignment of making a “mentor doll” in honor of a mentor in our life. I know what you’re thinking; making dolls is more of an Arts and Crafts class assignment and not a Language Arts project. I promise, it didn’t seem that weird at the time. Plus, there were some other assignments that went along with this mentor project including poems and other writing assignments. So anyway, it turned out that I was the only boy in the class that chose my mother as my mentor, instead of a dad, athlete, or other influential male figure. I am proud to say that to this day, she is still my mentor and friend.

I understand that there may be some of you here today who perhaps have lost your mother or might not have the best relationship with them. I want you to know that the following message today is just as applicable to you in that we all have mother-like mentors or role models in our very own lives and the topic is not just on honoring our mothers, but other mothers as well and womanhood as a whole. Our church teaches the sacredness of motherhood and places it as the highest honor in human life. In a General Relief Society Meeting held some years ago Mary Foulger stated:
“We all stand in “awe:” at Mary’s assignment to be the mother of the Lord, but women, too have been called to be the mother of future gods. A humble responsibility and blessing. The very purpose of creation depends upon earthly mothers to bring His children unto eternal life.”

D&C 64:33 says, “be not weary in welldoing, for ye are laying the foundation for a great work” Indeed, there is none greater. President Heber J. Grant said, “Without the devotion and absolute testimony of the living God in the hearts of our mothers, this Church would die.”

We know from the 10 commandments that we need to “honor thy mother.” So, how do we honor mothers, ours and others?

A famed officer from the Civil War period when asked to name the incident of the Civil War that he considered the most remarkable for bravery, said that there was in his regiment a man whom everybody liked, a man who was brave and noble, who was pure in his daily life, absolutely free from dissipations in which most of the other men indulged. One night at a champagne supper, when many were becoming intoxicated, someone called for a toast from this young man. He arose, pale but with perfect self-control, and declared: “Gentlemen, I will give you a toast which you may drink as you will, but which I will drink in water. The toast that I have to give is, ‘Our mothers.’”
Instantly a strange spell seemed to come over all the tipsy men. They drank the toast in silence. There was no more laughter, no more song, and one by one they left the room. The lamp of memory had begun to burn, and the name of Mother touched every man’s heart.

Men turn from evil and yield to their better natures when mother is remembered. As a missionary there’s a saying to "be the missionary that your mother thinks you are” I propose that the way in which we honor mothers is by being the son or daughter they think we are. One certain way each can honor mother is to live the truths our mother and/or motherly role models so patiently taught.

President Hinckley once gave a talk entitled, “Lessons I learned as a Boy.” I wish to join him in my purpose of showing ways in which we honor mother by living the truths they taught.

The first lesson I wish to share is of Service and Charity. It is no mistake that the Relief Society motto is “Charity Never Faileth.” My mom is constantly serving. She has always been one to not only give rides to church for investigators and recent converts, but she also fellowships them. Growing up our house was known as “Hotel Hansen” because my mom was continually hosting random guests that needed a night or two to stay.( and in some instances-months!). I have also seen her selflessly give up her bedroom, and instead sleep on a blowup mattress in the hall. Another story that comes to mind was once while at an inner-city Burger King drive thru, my mom began chatting with the teenage boy at the register and she got to know him a little bit. After finding out that he had a lot of brothers and sisters and came form a less fortunate family, my mom grabbed my little brother’s X-BOX that happened to be in the car, and asked him if he thought he and his siblings would enjoy it. The young man's face lit up and gladly accepted it.

Joseph F. Smith said:
"Charity, or love, is the greatest principle in existence. If we can lend a helping hand to the oppressed, if we can aid those who are despondent and in sorrow, if we can uplift and ameliorate the condition of mankind, it is our mission to do it, it is an essential part of our religion to do it"

Not only is my mom great at giving service but she’s also a little too good and volunteering her children to serve. Some examples include: volunteering my sisters for babysitting in the neighborhood and church. She would also sign me up to go work with the missionaries. Once, I remember coming home from a long day of work the summer before I left on my mission and before I had time to eat or rest she told me that she told the neighbor I would come help move some furniture for her. Just a few weeks ago, my little brother updated his facebook status and it read, “Some random lady just called and asked what time would be good for me to cut her grass. She said mom told her I would be more than happy to do it. REALLY MOM?!?!?” hahaha. That made me laugh when I read it and it made me happy to know that my mom was teaching my youngest brother just as she had taught each and every one of my siblings to serve. I am truly grateful for the lessons that were instilled in me while growing up and for the most part to this day it comes as second nature. A great way for us to honor mothers is by doing that which they do so well—Love and Serve.

Another lesson I learned as a boy was to not pass over things for the next person to do and to leave things better than you found it. I recall one Saturday morning (or maybe it was more than one), my sisters and I were all woken up and directed to meet my mom in the guest bathroom downstairs. Supposedly one of us had forgotten to replace the toilet paper on the empty toilet paper holder. I guess this was a recurring incident in our household. My mom then made each of us take turns putting on the toilet paper roll then taking it off and repeating it 10 times. I know that may seem weird, but it was a simple message that has stuck with me. Do not pass over things for the next person to do. I also recall when on vacations my mom would not let the maids pick up after us during our whole stay. She would make us make the beds and tidy up. Who does that?

In The October 2011 Priesthood Session President Uchtdorf said:
“This very hour there are many members of the Church who are suffering. They are hungry, stretched financially, and struggling with all manner of physical, emotional, and spiritual distress. They pray with all the energy of their souls for succor, for relief.
Brethren, please do not think that this is someone else’s responsibility. It is mine, and it is yours. We are all enlisted. “All” means all—every Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthood holder, rich and poor, in every nation. In the Lord’s plan, there is something everyone can contribute.”

Brethren, please let us not pass over problems that we can help with. Let us not assume that it is someone else's roomate, friend, neighbor, or hometeachee. Let's man up and take responsibility.

In closing, I would just like to share examples of two exemplary representatives that we can learn from of what it means to honor women. The first, is our current prophet, Thomas S. Monson. We are all aware that as a young bishop he brought it upon himself to visit each and every of the 80+ widows in his ward during the holidays. He literally lives, as James states, a “Pure religion” by “visit[ing] the fatherless and widows in their affliction.”

D&C 81:5: reads “Succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees.” Elder Wirthlin stated:

“At the final day the Savior will not ask about the nature of our callings. He will not inquire about our material possessions or fame. He will ask if we ministered to the sick, gave food and drink to the hungry, visited those in prison, or gave succor to the weak. When we reach out to assist the least of Heavenly Father’s children, we do it unto Him. That is the essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

President Monson has been a great model of how we should honor mothers/women. The last and greatest example I would like to talk about on how to honor mothers is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. During the last moments of his mortal life while on the cross, Christ sees his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by. He speaks: “Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother!”

Of this scripture, President Monson says,
“From that awful hour when time stood still, when the earth did quake and great mountains were brought down—yes, through the annals of history, over the centuries of years and beyond the span of time—there echoes His simple yet divine words, “Behold thy mother. As we truly listen to that gentle command and with gladness obey its intent, gone forever will be the vast legions of “mothers forgotten.” Everywhere present will be “mothers remembered,” “mothers blessed,” and “mothers loved”; and, as in the beginning, God will once again survey the workmanship of His own hand and be led to say, “It is very good.”’
“May each of us treasure this truth: One cannot forget mother and remember God. One cannot remember mother and forget God. Why? Because these two sacred persons, God and mother, partners in creation, in love, in sacrifice, in service, are as one.”

Testimony (We can honor mother by living the truths they so patiently taught.)

Free Bunnies!

So last Friday night I got a little bored and talked my roommates out of going to bed in order to engage in a prank for our newly acquired roommate, Brett. We felt like we hadn’t truly “initiated” him into our apartment yet. I recalled a funny prank that a coworker pulled on me a couple years ago, when she placed an ad on ksl.com for a killer deal for MY car without me knowing. I remember how confused I was leaving the temple that day and seeing that I had about 10-15 missed calls and texts of people asking to “check out” my car. haha. Luckily, I was able to diffuse that bomb before it escalated and went home and removed that advertisement from the web.

We decided to do something similar with Brett, but I wanted to incorporate Easter since it was coming up in the next couple of days. I noticed that there was a category for “Free Pets” on the classified page on KSL and so I came up with a brilliant idea to give away FREE BUNNIES (from Brett) the day before Easter. Hahaha. Here is the advertisement that I posted:

I got the following text that next morning from Brett: “ALRIGHT. Who put my name and number on ksl advertising for pet bunnys?! I have had to disappoint three mothers already lol.” I played it off like I didn’t know what he was talking about. He had work from 8-12 that morning and when he got home he stormed in all flustered and confused. It was hilarious! You would have to know Brett to fully appreciate his histrionics in times of unfortunate circumstances. *side note: One night he had come home shuffling in the door shivering and barely able to speak. He had just returned from driving home through the canyon for an hour and a half, where he had given a Fireside on his recent return from his mission in England. He must have still been in the moment of being back in England because he got pulled over for driving on the wrong side of the road! Hahaha. He went to roll down the passenger window, but the officer came to his window so he had to roll down his driver side window. Not that big of a deal, if it weren’t for the fact that his windows don’t roll back up. Hahahaha. Poor Brett. He drove all the way back in the snow with both windows rolled down. His story and reaction that night was priceless! This is just one of the many funny Brett stories of unfortunate events. Haha* Anyways, back to the bunny story--on his walk home from work he had received 7 calls alone! Hahaha. My roomates and I still played it cool as if we didn’t know what he was talking about. He said there were tons of moms wanting the bunnies. The phone calls started rolling in starting at 6:40 am. He said that "Creepy Carol" woke him up letting him know that she WANTED two of his bunnies. She didn't even mention his advertisement so he told this "pervert" (so he thought) that she had the wrong number and he hung up on her. By the third call he realized that it was too big of a coincidence that people thought he was some kind of generous bunny breeder. Haha.

My favorite call he received, though, was Marco (from Tropoya? Haha). He wanted too many details on the bunnies from the message that he left. The way he sounded, I’m pretty sure he wanted to have a nice Easter bunny meal. It was so funny listening to all these ladies leave all these “flirty” messages trying to insure themselves of a pick from the litter. So anyways, I finally cracked and couldn’t stop laughing from hearing him relate all the calls he got. He got over 50 calls! I don’t think he knew how to take down the ad, so I just updated it to “sold.” Brett took it really well (I think) and we are able to laugh about it now. On a related note, check out this more elaborate prank that Amy’s coworker and his friends did (they even made the news):