Fight in my High School's Hallway

Probably one of the best examples of social order being lost that I’ve experienced happened while I was in high school.  I can remember the event very vividly.

It was my sophomore year of high school, and for the most part things seemed to be going alright, at least for most of us.  However, one of the kids in our school was having a rough time in his life.  The hard times in his life led him to be pretty angry and obstinate about most things, and this particular day I’m thinking of he was pretty angry and pretty obstinate.

My best friend had never gotten along with this kid very well (to be honest, I don’t think many of us got along very well with him).  One particular day, apparently some unkind words were exchanged, and they started fighting in the hallway during regular class time.  I was in one of the rooms right next to where they started fighting.  Everyone heard the noise from the fight starting, and within seconds all of the students on that floor were out of their classes and watching the fight.  We all gave them just enough space to fight, and the fight probably only lasted for a minute or two.  Quickly after the fight began, it ended.  If I remember right, no one stepped in to stop it, it just ended on its own with both students walking away.

What was remarkable to me was how the teachers were helpless to stop it.  We all decided that we would just watch the fight and let it happen, and the teachers (and all of us really) felt powerless to prevent the fight.  It was an eye opener to me to see how just two students could decide to fight and make it very difficult for there to be any order.  How safe are we really if social order can be broken down by just a few people?

Disaster in Baños

It had been a long and great two years. My parents had flown into Guayaquil to pick me up from my two year mission. I had dreamed of this moment for long time and when arrived it almost didn't seem real. I remember seeing my mom's happy face when I met her at the bus station and it is memory that I will always treasure.

For the next couple of days we went around the city seeing places that I had served in and touring the surrounding areas. We then we flew into Quito and made our way to Baños. The city of Baños is located at the base of a volcano and it is famous for its waterfalls and for its hot springs. I had always wanted to go there because just four years earlier my parents were there picking up my brother who had also served in Ecuador. They had always talked about it and told us how beautiful it was.

While we were there we decided to stay at a hotel that was owned by a German couple that was located high up on the mountain. The next morning, when we woke up we noticed that it was pouring rain so we decided to stay indoors. About twenty minutes later, we heard a loud crash and we felt the floor beneath us start to shake. We all sat there for a couple of seconds not sure what had just happened. Then after a couple minutes, we began to hear screaming and siren.

We quickly jumped in our car and drove to see if someone was need. When we arrived to the source of the sirens we found nothing but chaos. To our astonishment, there had been some volcanic activity and the debris had completely destroyed a nearby village. There was about one hundred people there trying to get the village but the police were not letting any closer. Everyone knew that the police were just doing their job but it didn't matter these people were just concerned about their families' wellbeing. Tensions were high and it looked like at any moment it could break out into a scene of violence.

Before things got too out of had, we decided to head back to the hotel. It broke my heart to see these people and the concern and fear on their faces. The next day, we found out that many people had lost their lives from this natural disaster. It is a moment that I will never forget and was a confirmation to me that in times of disaster social order can disappear.

Chaos on the Streets of London

I was standing with three of my friends at the bus stop for Bus 144—not a typical bus for us. It was just before 19:00 and we were running very late. Being Americans, we didn’t know we were about to enter London Rush Hour for the very first time.

A Most Eventful Meet

I’ve always been prone to freak accidents. Once, in fifth grade, I got a black eye from PE golfing, and I’ve even had a paper cut on my eye, but the oddest accident-and-injury pair I’ve ever experience happened at a swim meet my sophomore year of high school.

Local Branch Revolution

The Church and the missionaries had only been in the country for a few years. The members were all very young in the gospel, and most of them very poor. The first native branch president had recently been called, and one of the first things he was charged to do by the mission president was to reform the welfare and fast offering system in the branch. It had begun to get out of control with well-meaning senior couple missionaries serving as branch presidents writing checks they probably shouldn't have. Unfortunately many of the members had become converted to the gospel of welfare support rather than the gospel of Jesus Christ, and as the new native branch president (who understood more than foreign missionaries about what help was necessary to sustain life in the country rather than a certain lifestyle) began to make changes to how assistance was given to members many of them became angry. Side note: We need to remember that these people had grown up in a communist state where everything was given to them by the government.

One day, right as sacrament meeting was beginning, the unhappy members stormed into the church building during opening announcements. They were carrying a petition that they had written in which they stated that they were going to force out the branch president and put in their own branch president (the leader of their little revolution, who promised them more welfare money). They were going to read their demands over the pulpit, and they even had camera equipment to film the whole thing. We missionaries were so stunned by what was going on we hardly knew what to do. They definitely did not train us on this in the MTC. We escorted our investigators out of the building and tried to undo any damage that might have been done to their fragile testimonies. The senior couple missionary jumped up and grabbed the sacrament table cloth by the four corners and just carried the sacrament trays full of bread and water in a heap out of the chapel. Most of the members who were not with the revolutionaries followed us missionaries out and went home.

We left the dissenters alone in the chapel to read their petition or whatever, and for a moment they thought they had won. They were now in possession of the building, and as far as they knew they ruled the branch. This was to be short lived, however.  Side note: They probably got the idea to do this from watching the new president of the country, who had just done something similar, in which he stormed the president's office with a large host of his men and basically kicked the president out of office and took command of the country. He had the support of most of the country, since most of them were angry with the president and didn't support him anyways, so it worked out. When we told our mission president what had happened he got on the first flight to where we were and held a branch conference early afternoon on Monday. With fiery indignation he put the dissenters in their place. He preached the word of God with power and authority and made clear the order of God's kingdom. He eliminated all welfare support to the branch, and a few members were excommunicated. Most of the others never came back to church. For the next long while church attendance was basically the missionaries, a few investigators, and the few awesome, solid, converted members we had. From that experience I gained a deep appreciation for "boring" sacrament meetings, and awesome mission presidents. To be honest, when it was all happening I thought it was the end of the church in that area, at least for a long time, but it was all over rather quickly because of the power and authority of the mission president, and the church was able to eventually grow stronger from it all.

Seattle & Snow: "A No Go"

             

The northwest corner of the state of Washington is known for many things, one of which is its weather. For a good nine months out of the year you can expect it to rain at least once every week. Natives to the area are so used to the precipitation it does not seem to bother most of them… until the temperature starts to plummet, conditions are just right, and a rare occurrence takes place creating absolute mayhem: snow starts falling. Because snow is so rare in this part of the country Seattle and most of the surrounding cities are very ill prepared for this type of weather. Worst of all are the roads which, after a good hour or two of snowy conditions, become indistinguishable from a demolition derby event.

                I witnessed one of these destructive events first hand as a missionary for the LDS church. Two other missionaries and I were driving a van and attempting to drive up an unplowed snow covered hill, which rounded around the bend to top it all off. Cars were literally stacked bumper to bumper, the brave (and yet ignorant) continued to try and make their way through the mess of cars, completely ignoring any sensible driving laws and painted lines on the road. We were jumping out of the van attempting to brace our van as it slid down the hill, nearly hitting a woman’s car. To top the day off a semi came and jack knifed down the middle of the hill, proceeding cars falling suite like a life size game of Tetris with cars as the building blocks.

 

                No longer do I ever complain about traffic laws, or other roadway authorities. Without them driving would be… well… not driving.

The Night I Lost It

Social chaos stirs from disagreement, and typically disagreement stems from a discrepancy in two aspects of human nature: emotion and logic. I experienced this myself when I was twelve.

October 31^st 2001, Julian and I went trick-or-treating, by ourselves, in his upper-class urban neighborhood. Sound harmless? Well, that night it wasn’t.

I'm Gonna Kick Your [Trash]

From: Take a Knee

Sometime near the end of the season, he let me know how he really felt. During our warm up stretches, he looked at me and said, 

"After the season's over, I'm gonna kick your [trash]" 

(trash wasn't what he really said).

Lord of the 99

Once upon a true story, my parents went to the temple two hours away from our home.  The sad tale started much like any other:  there were some goodbyes, some hugs, and kisses.  However, as the wheels of my parent’s car turned out of the driveway, the glint in my sister’s eye made my blood turn cold.  It was as if a switch had been flipped in her mind.   Gone were the warm smiles, gone were the sweet promises to be nice, and appeared the horrifying terror of the abyss. 

Not so extreme

What do I think of when I think of Chaos? I think of two-year olds!

I used to work at a daycare in a room of two-year olds. It was a hectic and crazy job but I loved it. The kids were wonderful but if left to their own devices, chaos would break out. I remember one particular day when I was heading to work. I was still in high school at the time so it was late afternoon when I got there. I walked in the door and could hear the roar of crazy little children. I clocked in and started walking to my classroom. As I was passing the other classrooms there was much noise coming from them. As I continued on I realized that most of that uproar was coming from my class room of hyper two-year olds. I wondered what the other teacher could be doing with them to rile them up so much. As I opened the door a couple of them ran up to greet but the rest were making messes, yelling at each other, biting each other and more. Where in the world was the other teacher?

I looked around for the teacher and found her sitting in the corner reading to one of the kids. I could tell she had, had a very long day and had given up at trying to control the wild two-year olds. I immediately got to work. I split up the kids that were attempting to bite one another or just yelling at one another and occupied them with different toys or books. I picked up to soothe those who’s feelings had been hurt and were crying. I started cleaning up as I walked along so the room didn’t feel so cluttered. I sang songs to calm the children down and read a few books to the ones who were feeling tired. After a while the other teacher looked at me and almost with a grasp breathed the words. Thank you.

Toddlers aren't the best at recognizing who is in charge, but in this situation they didn't really need to know. The other teacher who has authority over the class gave up and things broke out into utter chaos but when I got there being another authority figure in this situation was able to distract the kids and entertain them without them even realizing it.

Supervisors Do More Than Just Sit Around?

Great minds think alike. What does it mean when they don’t think alike?

When I started working at subway several of us were thrust into the thick of things and we were supposed to figure things out. We had a paper giving us a list of things that needed to be done, but no instructions on how to do them. Each person had a different opinion, and each person knew his or her opinion was the right one. When someone tried to take authority and govern the others, we would shoot them down and someone else would try to lead. But with no true leader, we were running around with our heads cut off.

That first night it took us over an hour to close. The next time we worked we had a better idea what we were doing, but we still didn’t have a leader to direct us. Several jobs were done multiple times because of lack of communication, and some didn’t get done because nobody wanted to do them. I mean after all, when it is cold outside who wants to go pull all the bread out of the freezer, go down a steep ramp, and put it in the fridge? Once again it took us awhile to finish.

This is pretty much sums up what
it felt like happened to our supervisor

The next time we had a crew supervisor. It was one of us from before, but now he was invested with authority. We respected his authority, did what he asked, and finished work much earlier that night. There were no arguments, it was just follow what you are told so everyone can get out of there as quickly as possible.

Who knew, supervising was more than just being paid to watch others work.

Stop Smokey! Start a Fire!

Smokey the bear, our favorite forest fighting friend, has crafted guilt-inducing messages for years. His goal: to convict our consciousnesses and cause the cessation of careless human fire management. Indeed the horrific images of decimated forests coupled with cute depictions of cuddly forest creatures serve his purpose well. By the time a boy turns twelve and enters the ranks of the boy scouts he is firmly indoctrinated by Smokey the bear. I myself subscribe to his views. But I haven't always.

Out of Paradise

The view from my first apartment.

Growing up in Utah Valley didn't present a lot of opportunity for social unrest. It did, however, set the stage for a more dramatic transition when I arrived in the middle of Mexico City as a missionary. Riding in the car to my first area was an interesting experience. I had never seen so much graffiti. It was dark when we arrived and all I could hear all night were dogs barking and what I thought were gunshots. (They actually were fireworks for a celebration taking place.) I couldn't believe that people lived like this! Everything seemed dirty and chaotic. But the real crowning moment came a little later.

The Mexican people love their holidays, especially Catholic traditions. Some of these can make you as a representative of a different religion somewhat uneasy. We tried to avoid processions and otherwise big celebrations as much as possible. Though one day we ended up running into one. Certain "pockets" of the city are small, traditional pueblos that were swallowed by the city sprawl and have essentially retained their identities for the most part. Searching for an address led us to one of these areas at the same time the whole community was celebrating in the street. We cautiously moved through it with no problem, but the place was completely overrun and out of control. After returning from the address, we walked past the same spot. The party had stopped and most of the people were gone, but the site was a mess! Trash littered the entire area. I couldn't believe that the police had done nothing to control the celebration or enforce that the party-goers clean up. I don't think any local authorities were even around.

Living in a different country with different customs and lifestyles show me that authority is expected to behave differently by different people. My experience at home was that authority controls and maintains order and cleanliness. For certain parts of Mexico City, the authority only showed up in "really difficult situations" but allowed the people to act how they wanted in most cases. The definition of chaos as well can be relative to the culture. Large parties in the street are normal in Mexico City but are considered a disturbance in our local Utah society.

Zap, Crackle, Pop

Suddenly, I collapsed.
My coach, just a few feet away, ran over. Another across the gym rushed to her side. The other ushered the rest of the girls into the locker room. Somebody called the paramedics. They were only two minutes away, but you can't wait two minutes when your student's heart is no longer beating.

The two coaches started CPR; the girls in the locker room started to pray. Two minutes later, the paramedics were there; they stuck the shocky-shocky pads to my chest and let 'em fly.

Zap.

Didn't work. They charged 'em up again.

Zap.

In the meantime, the school office called my mom. In typical junior high administrator fashion, they spoke so calmly over the phone that my mom thought she would arrive to find me propped against the gymnasium wall, smelling salts under my nose.

Things were a little different.

She arrived to see the paramedics wheeling me out on a stretcher. They drove me to a hospital. They helicoptered me to another hospital. My lungs had filled up with fluid from the trauma. They dunked me into a medicated coma. I vibrated on a breathing machine for the next four days, a tube hanging from my greenish, half-open lips. My friends prayed. My family prayed. My ward prayed.



Then, on Friday, I woke up.

With a sigh that echoed like an avalanche through my little social world, the chaos subsided. We were amazed with what we saw when the smoke cleared.

A cloudy February day and a muddy track, which made the students practice inside. Coaches and doctors who had stepped up and acted with haste and precision. Paramedics who had done the wrong thing, which turned out to be the right thing. Love and care from the school administration.

And suddenly, it was very clear that a higher Authority had been above it all.

Dismay at Disneyland

My family and I visit Disneyland every year to reconnect with our inner child. Walking through the theme park, an almost enchanting feeling comes, inspiring us to just love life! From the attractions to the music and even to the music that they play all induce happiness to the guests. However, not all of my experiences with Disneyland have filled me with delight, some have filled me with horror.

Shake it Off

In February 2011 I was on my mission in New Zealand. I was serving in the second largest city called Christchurch on the southern island. This city is a decent size, with tall buildings in its city center and many shops and homes surrounding it. One morning my companion and I were driving on one of the main roads and started to notice everything shaking around us. Everyone stopped, and office buildings with lots of glass windows started to shatter. The shaking kept going for a few minutes and roads started to flood and sirens started to sound. We later found out that it was a 6.3 magnitude earthquake that had just hit this city. Many buildings had crumbled to the ground, 185 people died, and thousands injured. Lots of screaming and panicking was going on around us right after it hit. We had no idea what to initially do.

We abandoned our car and went on foot to locate other missionaries and help others along the way. There were many people running around like crazy, chaos was definitely present. We tried to calm down a few people, including a man who needed to get to his wife and child. We were able to give him our bike so he could get there faster. We felt that official authority did not exist in that moment because there wasn't a whole lot that could be done except for people to help each other. I would say whoever wasn't panicking was able to step up and help others. As missionaries, we did our best to usher people to safety.

If everyone was in panic mode, no one would get helped and chaos would destroy everyone. Because we had faith that God would protect us, we were able to step up in an authoritative role and try to restore order to those around us. It was a humbling experience and one I will never forget.

The Snowpocalypse

I am from Georgia. About as South as you can get in the United States, before hitting Florida (which we don't count as the South, anyways.) As you can imagine, it rarely snows where I'm from. (You can imagine my shock when I first moved to Utah.) And when it does snow, due to the lack of of snowplows, salt machines, and any other gadget that would help clear up the roads, the entire city, nay, the entire state, shuts down - even for just a small flake or two. Georgia has still had its experiences with a few bad snow storms - the city shuts down, grocery stores are ravaged, and the greater Atlanta area looks mostly like a ghost town. In these instances, Southerners, who don't know what to do about snow that actually sticks to the ground, tend to freak out about where their next meal is going to come from. If the roads are blocked and the stores are empty, how are they going to get food? (Shameless plug for food storage.)

Last year in 2014, Georgia experienced one of the worst snow storms in the state's history. "Tuesday's storm, the beginning of mass hysteria," "Ordinary commutes turned into chaos and confusion," were only a few of the headlines that graced the papers that week, and the storm quickly gained the name of the "Snowpocalypse." Atlanta's few major highways were all closed due to dangerous and icy conditions, and after being stuck on the roads for more than 24 hours, people abandoned their cars and literally started walking along the side of the highway to seek shelter. The city was compared to a scene from the hit TV show, "Walking Dead."

I was at home visiting and happened to be with my mother in a local grocery store, where we saw two women start to catfight over what was left of the milk in the dairy isle. When the first slap was thrown, my own fearful mother quickly grabbed my hand and we left. A store worker ended up breaking the two women up, but no one else said anything because everyone was in the same boat. They were all desperate for milk.

Though the weather conditions in Georgia were bad at that time and everyone had to stay in due to the major traffic jam on the roads, I knew eventually it would clear up. It scared me to think how crazy some people could get over minor things when they thought the world was going to end, or more specifically, their world. This mob mentality seems to be prevalent even in some of the nicest, hospitable, small Southern towns like Dacula, Georgia.