Summer Joy

Hey all. I thought I would send an updater your way. :)
First of all, I graduated!! I always thought that I would never feel ready to be done with my education, but it felt so right and so fulfilling to look back at all that I have done at BYU. It just feels great.

Wahooo!!!

I already mentioned in a previous post that I have a job teaching at Mountain View High School in Orem starting in the Fall. I am super excited about it. But I needed something to fill my time (and make some dollars) for the summer. I was thinking about looking for a job when God intervened. He literally threw the perfect job for me out of heaven.
See, one day, I was sitting at home and noticed I had a missed call from my professor at BYU. I called him back and he told me that BYU had a job opening and were looking for someone to fill it ASAP. The job was for a local teacher to do research for BYU for the summer. The teacher would be paid their teacher salary to work full time for the summer, and also get a $1200 budget to buy equipment for their classroom. What is not to like? They asked me if I wanted the job and I said yes. What a blessing! How often do people just have jobs thrown at them like that!
Just like that, I got a summer job. I am working in the Extreme Ultraviolet research group. The short explanation of what I do is fix equipment and clean it. The longer version is that we want to figure out what materials reflect Extreme Ultraviolet (XUV) light the best. The problem is that XUV has so much energy that it is absorbed by everything. And it is hard to make (the light, I mean. As well as the mirrors). A girl I work with is working to make the mirrors, but mostly I am the handyman in the lab that is working to fix broken equipment. I am working to make the plasma work (it worked today!) because that is our source of light. I am getting good with wrenches, troubleshooting electronic connections, soldering, and making vacuum seals tight (we have to be under super low pressure because air absorbs XUV).

Me taking the plasma chamber apart to clean it. The big black
 part is where we reflect the light off of stuff. This monster
of a machine is my life.

That probably doesn't make sense, but really, I am not doing very much physics. I am enjoying myself, though. It is also nice to have an 8 to 5 job.
My calling is the Temple Preparation teacher, and I LOVE IT. I don't have news about that, but everyone should go to the temple. It is the best. :)
Oh, big news: my beloved little brother is getting married.

I approve. I always thought it would be hard to have my brother get married, but Stephanie is amazing. She is a great match for my brother. I feel completely comfortable around them and I am happy for them. Life is changing! What an exciting day!