Selling of Grandma's house

JoAnn and I were given Grandma and Grandpa Evan's house in Spanish Fork as an inheritance ten or so years ago and I have been renting it out since then.  On Tuesday, we closed on the sale of the house to a construction company that will likely build a couple more homes on the property.  

I have been working toward this for most of 2012.  I hired a surveyor who laid out a three lot subdivision, a small lot north of the house where Grandma Evans had her garden, and a larger lot on the east side of the property.  I worked with the real estate agent, Dallin Nelson,  who helped Nathan and Gloria purchase their house, to plan the subdivision.  I went through hearings with Spanish Fork city to get approvals and had lots of contacts with city officials to get the details right and meet city requirements.  I got the electricity installed to the lots.  I had dialog with several contractors who might potentially have installed lateral sewer, water, and pressurized irrigation lines to the two new lots.  

Once the new subdivision was approved and recorded with Utah County, a few weeks ago, Dallin began to market the places for sale, and a builder, Icon homes, came along and wanted to buy the properties as a package, as is.  So we sold it at a price that seemed fair to both of us.  My efforts to create a subdivision gave us a fairly good gain over just selling the house alone, but still will leave Icon with the ability to profit from their construction.  Selling it now means we won’t have to come up with money to finish installing the laterals (possible about $30,000) and I will never have to manage a rental property again in my lifetime.  I had lots of discussion with my tax CPA about whether to invest in another property to avoid paying capital gains taxes on the sale, but decided, based on his input, that the potential amount of these taxes would not outweigh other risks or advantages of putting the money in another rental property.

When the money for the sale actually appeared yesterday in our bank account, I was surprised at the great feeling of relief that came over me.

Van Noy 12, BYU Offense 11, SDSU 6

BYU's Kyle Van Noy--have you seen a greater game by a defensive football player ever? A blocked punt, causing a game-changing fumble and recovery for a touchdown, a pick-six, numerous tackles, hurries of the q-back, constant disruptions to the SDSU offense.  Wow, another game for the ages, for viewing on re-run Friday on KBYU.  The whole game was a Van Noy highlight reel!

Advisers of Young Men who are leaders

I had a great conversation with Quin about the problem that occurs repeatedly in the AP/YM programs, that the adults who are called to work with young men cannot seem to get out of the way and let the boys practice leadership.  Whether this is due to ignorance (never been trained otherwise), laziness (it takes more effort to prepare a boy to lead than to do it yourself), or not being able to stand to see things done in a less than perfect way (most adults know better than a boy how to plan, organize, instruct, etc.), the result is that opportunities for the boy to prepare for future leadership responsibilities is stifled.  We have heard a statement that reflects the desires of the general authorities and the goals of AP/YM program for the adults who have AP/YM callings: “You are not called as leaders of young men, you are called as advisers of young men who have been called as leaders of young men.”

Quin suggested that I look at a couple of videos on lds.org that teach that principle: One shows a young man conducting a Teachers quorum presidency meeting and then a quorum meeting.  I especially liked the presidency meeting, where the quorum president takes the presidency  through all their business and then at the very end turns to the Adviser (who until this time we have not seen and who has not said a word) and asks, Bro. ____, do you have anything to add?” as the video fades out.

It is interesting to me that the 15 year old quorum president, a big blonde curly-haired kid, confident but humble, is none other than Tyler Haws, of current BYU basketball excellence.  I was excited that his presence may make the message of the videos more persuasive to adults and youth alike.  I have been hoping to be able to use these videos to present this message in a training meeting in January.

Interestingly, as Wendy and I were on the BYU campus yesterday to buy something at the BYU bookstore, waiting to cross the street from the parking lot to the Student building, a fairly tall young man, with blonde curly hair, walked up to the stop.  I said to him, “You’re Tyler Haws,” and he said he was.  I explained that I was in a Stake YM Presidency and we were previewing the videos he made as a Teachers President about 7 years ago.  I thanked him for the power in those videos to help us promote good leadership training and experience for young men in the Church.  He thanked me in a humble way.  He said that when they filmed these meetings there was no preparation or rehearsals–he was asked to just conduct the meeting the way that he normally did.

Another eagle in the family

I am proud of Justin who had his eagle board of review this past Thursday and is now an eagle scout.  I was amused at the preparations his ward made to help him do well at the board.  I saw a 2-page paper that someone had prepared that contained a list of possible questions that an eagle board might ask.  Justin and Scott had gone through the list, and Justin had answers ready.

How would you answer this question: "If Scouting wanted to add another point to the Scout law, what would be your recommendation?"  After I hear from several of your as to your response, I will tell you what Justin's recommendation was.  I thought it was quite astute.