Did a good turn today

So....my mistake. I thought last week was my last blog entry but it turns out I need to write one last entry. So the assignment was to help someone out who is more stressed than I am currently. Who better to choose to serve than my fiance. Jenna has been working so hard to get everything ready for our wedding while I have just been down here in Provo focusing on school... She really has been doing SO much and I feel bad that school is taking so much of my time so that I can't help out with things as much as I should. I know she has been really stressed trying to get our slideshow figured out and so I cut my study time short yesterday and headed down to Draper so I could have extra time to help her figure out how to make the slideshow for the wedding. It was kind of a sacrifice for me but I was happy to do it because I know it really took a load off her shoulders.
Well, once again, thank you to all of my followers. I have a Twitter account now so check me out. McKay, that means you.

The Last Entry

Well, the time has come. I have decided to remove myself from the blogging world after this post and focus my talents elsewhere...South Beach perhaps. Actually, more like Kansas city. As I look back at this past semester, I can't believe I actually am going to survive it. With a schedule that consists of Accounting 310, ISYS 201, ECON 110 (with Kearl nonetheless), and MCOM 320, I definitely had my work cut out for me. Throw on top of that a church calling and being engaged and having my fiance not living Provo....yeah.... It was a pretty overwhelming semester. I am getting married 15 days and I can't even begin to describe how much I look forward to that day! I just need to fight through finals and focus for just a few more days and then I'll be married and it'll be summertime! I'm so grateful that Jenna has been so understanding of my busy school schedule. I'm the luckiest person in the world because I get to spend the rest of my life with her. :)
So, to all my fans...hang in there. Mckay, may life bring you the best. I wish you luck in your tennis and basketball career. Scott, it's been a pleasure being your roommate. Take care buddy. Thanks for making my bed over the weekend. You guys know where to find me!

Stay classy, blogger world

Love Jace

To all my fans....

I thought I would take a quick moment and dedicate this post to all of my followers out there who are faithful readers of my blog. You know who you are... In fact, I know who you are so I will make this personal and thank you each by name. Thank you McKay, and thank you Scott.... The only two people who read this blog besides the occasional MCOMM student who may skim over this. But to you, McKay and Scott, I say thank you. Thank you for your continual support and feedback on my blog entries. Knowing my audience as well as I do really influences my writing. As a gift to you for all you've done for me in my blogging efforts, I will continue to provide you with powerful, uplifting, and moving blog entries. Also, because I believe in having a personal relationship with all my fans, I want to tell you guys that you can reach me anytime if there is any topic you'd like me to blog about or if you just want my advice on anything. I'm here for you guys. I write for you. Don't forget that.

March Madness

Ya...so Kansas and North Carolina lost today which really screwed up the rest of my bracket. But hey, that's march madness. But I'm talking about a different kind of March Madness...not the NCAA. I've been experiencing my own March Madness just with life! I mean, I'm getting into the thick of all my classes, getting ready for a wedding in a few weeks, getting all my homework done so I can go to Sandy on the weekends, AND...to top it all off....My intramural basketball team is now in round 4 of the playoffs. It's been crazy trying to balance my time with all that as well as church callings and assignments and doing the Thursday's Hero program. I'd be lying if I said I find this sort of madness thrilling like I do the NCAAs... I wish I had more time to be with Jenna. I wish I didn't decide to take quite possibly one of the worst combination of classes as far as workload is concerned during the semester I am engaged. I can't wait for April 26 to come!! Then I'll be married, done with school, and I'll get to be with Jenna every day. She really is the joy in my life and I am so grateful for her. She is so understanding and patient with me. And she is so considerate too. She is always thinking about me and putting my needs first. I am so lucky to have her in my life!! I'm pretty sure she doesn't know about this blog, so I'm not just saying these things to score brownie points with her. But Jenna, if you are reading this, I love you!

Shady Mechanic

I took my car to a mechanic last week when the car just started dying while on the freeway and it turned out to be a bad fuel pump that needed replaced. Well, after they fixed the fuel pump they told me that the alternator needed replaced too. I thought that was a little too coincidental that the alternator would go out at the same time as the fuel pump so I told the mechanic that I would pick up the car and have another mechanic fix it. Well, to make a long story short, the shop my car was at called me and told me that our battery got stolen and that he had to replace it. After I picked up my car and took it to Autozone, Autozone said that the battery was 8 years old and that the alternator was fine. So..... basically I am filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. This shop I took my car to was really shady and apparently they have a history of stealing car parts and replacing it with older ones...

The Jimmer

Some might say that I go to extreme lengths in order to not miss a BYU basketball or football game. I would have to agree with that. I don't know if I've missed a BYU football game since I was 12 and Jenna and I are always having to figure out how to work in the BYU basketball games to our busy weekend schedules. But this year especially, you just can't run the risk of missing a game because you will most likely miss an amazing performance by Jimmer. Well, Last Friday I had a work meeting RIGHT during the BYU New Mexico game. I tried everything to get out of this meeting and considered just not showing up and asking for forgiveness later... But I felt like I really needed to go to this meeting. Well, it really doesn't surprise me that the ONE game I have ever missed just happened to be a career night for Jimmer, scoring 52 and beating the Lobos. It was hard for me to take in. I asked why. Why me? Why this game? What did I do to deserve this? But I have no bitter feelings about it; I just find it just comical that I missed that sweet of a game.... Oh well. Life goes on. That's probably the biggest and most valuable lesson I learned from having to miss the game.

THE WCC

So, last night I came home to my house in Sandy and was watching TV with my little brother McKay. We were watching BYUTV because they were showing the tournament championship game for the WCC. McKay and I were just making fun of the WCC (talentwise and because of the small gyms they play in) and I went so far as to say, "Dude, I guaruntee that the next shot doesn't draw rim" and just kind of laughed... Well, before I finish the story I just want you to understand the chances of this guaruntee actually happening. Airballs only happen like 2 times per game, IF that. So McKay just kind of laughed and said, "that would be so funny..." and we just waited to see what really happend. Well, a player gets fouled on a shot and goes to the free throw line. He's kind of a funny lookin' guy....wears a face mask and has long, nasty hair.... so we are already kind of laughing at the guy and then it happened. HE AIRBALLED IT! For some reason we just thought it was hilarious that after saying the next shot would be an airball, it actually happened. As if that wasn't enough, while we are laughing about the airball, the NEXT SHOT was an airball too!! We lost it at that point... What an insult to the WCC that I could just randomly guaruntee that the next shot would be an airball and it actually happened. Twice in a row.

Best Game Ever

Boy does it feel good!! We beat them Aztecs.  My favorite line I heard after the game was "Now San Diego State knows how it feels to wear a white shirt and tie and get rejected." I love it! I can't imagine how it would feel to be an Aztec right now.  Losing to BYU 3 times in a row, two of those losses being given to you as your only  two losses in your best season in school history and losing in front of the largest TV audience for a Mountain West game in conference history. Why does San Diego State consider us a rival? We beat them 9 out of the last 12 times that we have played them. But I must say that I do like Steve Fisher, San Diego State's coach.  He is a classy guy and gave BYU all the credit that they deserved. San Diego State, you got Jimmered. Twice.

Roxy

Gene Hill once said, "Whoever said you cant buy happiness forgot about little puppies." My, what a profound statement this is. On June 10, 2000, my dog Roxy became a part of the Nilsson family. After we got her, I had to agree with Gene Hill. Little puppies bring you an unspeakable amount of joy. I, like most people, have a love/hate relationship with my dog. I used to get so frustrated with her but I still couldn't help but love her. For example, she smells really bad most of the time, she sheds her hair on your clothes if she even touches you, she isn't potty-trained, she scratches on things that you wake you up in the middle of the night, and has horrible breath. Especially  in her old age, everything has just gotten worse. Now she has diabetes and needs two insulin shots a day just to keep her alive. Her eyes are cloudy and she's pretty much blind. She also has some warts growing on her... I guess the point I'm trying to make is that Roxy is a pretty sad sight to behold.... Everyone who sees her current condition feel so bad for her. At times I wonder if it would be best to just put her down! But despite all of her imperfections and disabilities, I can't help but love her still! When I come home from school on the weekends and walk in the door and see Roxy sleeping on the couch, I have to just go over and give her a big kiss and scratch her for a minute. I truly believe that a dog is man's best friend. My soon-to-be wife does not like dogs at all though....so we'll see if we can't work something out. ;)

This Weekend's Assignment

Our assignment over the weekend was to buy a drink for a stranger. Well, I'm not sure if I fulfilled that assignment but it IS possible. This past week I gave a few bucks out to some beggars. One of them was at the Cafe Rio in Provo and the other was standing at a freeway off-ramp in Salt Lake. The first guy at Cafe Rio was pretty interesting. He approached Jenna and me and asked us if we had any money. My first reaction was to say "no" and keep walking on, which is exactly what I did. But then I remembered that I did have a few dollars in my wallet so we turned around and I said, "Hey man, I actually do have a dollar for you. Make good use of it, ok?" I was expecting to hear him say thanks or something but instead he just started cussing us out. He seemed so nice at first but right after I handed him the money he was telling me how horrible I was for not giving him the dollar the first time he asked and just started saying a bunch weird stuff to us. So who knows? Maybe he bought a drink with that dollar... I do doubt that though.
The second time I gave out a dollar, which was by the freeway off-ramp, the experience went as expected. I rolled my window down and signaled for the man to come over to the car and he accepted the money with much gratitude and then waved to us as we drove away. I have a feeling that he used my dollar to buy a drink though. Well, regardless of how the money was spent, I feel good about giving a dollar to each of them. I wish I had more to give! I wish I would have just paid for some stranger's drink while I was at Olive Garden this weekend though. It is such a great feeling when some stranger buys you something! It happened to me at a gas station a few months ago. After I had finished filling up, I realized that the person before me had put their card in and got the station ready for the next person to just come and fill up. So I didn't even have to pay! Now, its possible that it was an accident and I bought gas with someone else's money who didn't mean to leave the pump station like that... But I like to think that it was just some nice person that felt like paying for the gas of the next person who drove up to that particular station. I was very grateful and plan on paying it forward.

The BYU vs. San Diego State game might possibly have been the best sporting event I have ever attended. It was so AWESOME. The only other game that I can think of that even comes close to this game is the BYU vs. Utah game in 2007 where it was 4th and 18 and Austin Collie caught the pass from Max Hall--that game was amazing as well. But the atmosphere for this game against SDSU was just electric! The entire game had a constant high-energy feel to it. And Jimmer put up 43!! The guy is incredible. I'm pretty sure this was a game where I will be saying to my kids one day that I was at that game. It was definitely worth the 7 hours of waiting in the cold to get a ticket. I didn't even really care how good of a seat I got for this game - I just wanted to be in the building for it. Now that there is so much hype buzzing around BYU basketball, the student line is getting longer and longer and you have to be willing to sacrifice even more time standing in line now if you want a really good seat to the game. I am going to try and make it as many of the remaining games as I can, but I don't know if I will be able to find 6 hours to stand in line before each game. BYU basketball rocks. I love BYU basketball and football so much! And men's volleyball, and men's tennis, and rugby.. 

Sayin' Goodbye to a childhood friend

I am at Chelsea's house right now saying goodbye to her because she is leaving on a mission this week to Rome, Italy. Chelsea was probably the first girl that I became friends with..haha. It all started in sunbeams. Anyways, its just really cool that she decided to serve a mission. Rome, Italy would be such an awesome place to serve. Being here and saying goodbye just reminds me about how I felt when I was in her position... It really starts to hit you that you are leaving when you say goodbye to people and realize you won't be seeing them again for two years. Also, my old friend Sam Casaday is here because he was also in my ward when we were really young. I love Sammy C! He's a funny kid. Sam and I have a lot of good memories together... alot of inside jokes. I'm sad that I don't see him much anymore. I'm just looking at him right now and all I can say is WOW. What a guy! Probably the lamest thing we ever did was sit outside of David Willardson's house for 6 hours waiting for him to get home.... We had NOTHING better to do. We just sat on the porch and ate soda crackers. Ok I'm done with this blog!

The greatest blessing in my life!

I am ashamed that this wasn't the very first thing I blogged about because this is the very most important thing to me in my life!! On Christmas day, after years of anticipation, I asked my high school sweetheart, Jenna Christensen, to marry me! It all started back in 8th grade... Jenna and I were in the same science class and became friends there. It wasn't until our sophomore year though that we told one another that we liked each other, and since then we've pretty much always been together and I have just anxiously awaited the day when I would finally get the chance to ask her to marry me.
Jenna is amazing! She is the sweetest, nicest, most sincere and loving person you'll ever meet. I am so grateful and feel so lucky that I get to spend the rest of my life with her. She has such a special ability to love people and help them feel loved. She is always considerate of others' feelings and makes a conscious effort to ensure that nobody is feeling left out. She has an incredible gift with people with special needs to be able to love them and understand them. It really is an inspiring sight to see her when she interacts with her friends with special needs. She just has this way of looking right past their disability and straight into their heart and is able to communicate with them in a way that most of us can't. She lives her life in such a christ-like manner; her testimony is expressed so strongly through her actions and just the way she has chosen to live her life. She understands her divine worth as a daughter of God and is able to see everyone in that same light and treats them as such. She never judges or speaks bad of others either. I love her so much for who she is and for the example she is to me. She is going to continue to do so many amazing things in this life and be a blessing to so many people.
I will share a story about something that just explains the kind of person Jenna is and why I loved her so much, even when I was 15. From 9th-11th grade, I suffered from some sever acne. It took me a few cycles of Accutane to finally overcome the problem, but I had to deal with it for a couple years first. This was a pretty tough time for me in terms of self-confidence and self-esteem. I knew I had bad acne and I knew that other people noticed it, and sometimes I got made fun of at school because of it. When my acne was at its worst was when Jenna started liking me. I was really confused...I always thought to myself "Why would she like me? My face is so gross to look at..." But I noticed something with Jenna that was different than everyone else. One thing I couldn't do while I had acne was look people in the eye when I would talk to them. I would see their eyes looking at my acne instead of back into my eyes and it just reminded me of how bad my acne was that people couldn't help but stare at when they would talk to me. So I would usually not look at people directly when I would talk to them just so I could avoid all that. Well, I noticed that with Jenna that when she would talk to me she would look ONLY into my eyes and never at my acne. Not once! And that's when I knew that she liked me for who I was and not for how I looked (obviously). Luckily my acne is gone now, but I learned so much about the kind of person Jenna was and the kind of heart she has from this experience. She looks past the outer layer in people and sees them all as children of God and treats them like it. I've never heard her say one negative thing about another person or ever use degrading language. She really understands her purpose here on the earth and finds the beauty in everything. She is so humble and full of gratitude for what she has and never complains about the trials she is faced with. She has blessed my life so much and has taught me so much about how to love other people.

Thursday's Hero

For my blog entry today I am going to write about my experience with the Thursday's Hero program that I help out with here at BYU. Thursday's Hero is a program that Coach Mendenhall introduced a few years back as a way to give back to the community. My job is to select the hero each week from the list of nominees and host the event, which includes giving the family a tour of the football facilities and introducing them to the team. It has been an awesome privilege to be able to meet the people we select each week and it's a very humbling experience to read through all of the nominations that are emailed to me and read of the challenges and adversity that these people are facing. It's hard having to select so few people from such a long list! I always look forward to Thursdays when I get to actually meet the hero in person because they are such amazing people. This year has seen quite a variety of adversity among the heroes... From people with special needs to people with cancer, to people who just recently lost their husband and father, to ordinary people who have suffered horrible accidents, they all exemplify faith, hope, determination, and love, and deserve to be recognized for their efforts. Being honored by Coach Mendenhall and his team is considered the greatest honor every by so many of the heroes and it's really neat to observe the team as they interact with the families and to see the time that Coach Mendenhall dedicates to this program. I am so grateful to have been assigned to coordinate this program; it's a very rewarding feeling for me to feel like I'm helping brighten someone's day. BYU's just awesome...

I'm a blogger!

Alright! I''m officially a blogger! It's time for me to see if blogging is something I will develop a passion for like many of my friends and family. As part of my MCOM 320 class we are required to create a blog and post a new entry once a week so to all of my followers out there, I will try not to disappoint! ;) I will try and mix things up and write about a variety of topics and maybe impress and and inspire you with a poem or two throughout the semester. If, by the end of this semester, I have more followers than just Aubrey and McKay (my little brother and sister) I will be pleasantly surprised. But we will see... maybe I will write a poem or come up with an idea or something that just becomes way famous! This blog could very well be the beginning of something great. I'm trying to be enthusiastic about my first blog, but I'm hoping that I will get better, more creative, and excited to write in my blog as time goes on. But for now, I'm finished because I've met all the requirements for the assignment so far. :)