BORED

So I started this new job. All the other accountants are so busy with the KPMG auditors here no one has time to really give me any work....so bored.

Price Round 2

So I promised Gini last summer that every night I spent on the road I would blog just to keep my mind focused and centered on more important things.

So I came back to Price with Savage. It was a great day, last summer I made a coordinator cry and so today I spent the whole day talking with her and auditing her again. It was a good way to get back into the trenches. It went really well.

I brought my fishing pole and as soon as we were done I headed up to Scofield to squeeze in a good trip. Needless to say it was a blizzard. There was so much snow I had maybe 100 ft of visibility. It was really coming down. I debated whether or not I should just skip it but I was already there so I got out and got skunked. It was alright because I love being up there no matter what. I also saw two big cow elk right off of the road that got me excited for bow season. I love the outdoors.

Life is good, it is rough right now missing my wife and sleeping in a bed all alone but I can make do for one night. Maybe she'll be able to turn the heat up and actually sleep at a decent temperature since she won't have to worry about my warm blooded body in the house.

Until next time.

Wow

So it has been a crazy ride these past two weeks. I have loved every minute of it, after delayed snowy honeymoon to Park City at an epic hotel I returned to my last week of school. Currently I have taken four of five finals. I am so excited to take the last one. I am also excited for fishing and I almost drove down today. I really need to go fishing. Anyways, life is good for my wonderful and beautiful wife Gini and I. We are still looking for a good place to live.

Mallory taught me how to have a memorable Easter. You study Christ's last week leading up to Easter. An apostle said, "The atonement didn't start in Gethsemane nor ended on Calvary." It didn't start at the triumphal entry either but it is a great place to start. So yesterday I gave an

fhe lesson on cursing the barren fig tree and today I read about Christ's parables about being a hypocrite. In Christ's greatest lessons they can be boiled down to one simple phrase I feel like.

Trust me.

He is the Son of the living God, the creator of this world and the Universe. He is all powerful. Don't just worship him at church, or just read your scriptures. But trust Him. When I learned this concept and I realized in my life I wasn't trusting Him as much as He was begging and pleading me to, and I started striving to do everything I could to trust Him more; my whole life changed. I still have a long way to go. Incredibly long. Like incredibly long. (Just ask my wife, I

have always wanted to say that ;)) But I know that if I trust Him that path will get shorter each day.

Life is good, last final tomorrow, great weekend ahead of us. I graduate on Friday. Babysit Garrett a little bit, and by babysit I mean totally load him up on sugar. Life is good.

What says Easter better than baby chicks?

Epic Week

I cannot begin to tell you how epic this weekend was and how awesome this week is gearing up to be. Friday night Mike got into town, and Saturday night Mallory did. I wish I could say I was surprised when I got home Saturday night and Mal and Mike were up watching Modern Family, while they both texted, played games on something, and carried on a conversation with each other. They obviously got all the multi-tasking skills from our family as Cathy and Gini will tell you Brian and I have none.

I am so excited Mallory and Mike could be here this week. I am totally destroyed that I have to take a test today so I had to leave early last night and be down here late. I hate that I have class tomorrow but nevertheless Mike and I are working on an epic night for the G-man. His life in Cache Valley will never be the same.

Yesterday, my mom had all the children and her parents over for dinner. It was so much fun. I brought Gini along. It was funny because the last time she met Mike was the first time Gini and I hung out. She met him for like 5 minutes that night and just introduced herself. It was good though because I was able to say hey Mike remember that one girl you met that was my friend, yea we are getting married. Really smooth conversation. Anyways, she was nervous because I guess everyone in our family talks about him and loves him and looks up to him or something. I personally don't know what is so great about him ;). She was afraid she was going to bless our family with another epic line revolving around pink thongs and putting them in people's faces. It went off without a hitch, although the whole swamp cooler/AC story did come out. Ask her about that one.

Life is good, general conference was amazing. Gini and I went to the Saturday morning session and we really wanted to hear from two speakers. 1) Elder Perry and 2) Sister Stevens, she is in Gini's home ward and we have spent quite a few minutes talking to her. She is such an amazing lady. Well we were blessed that they were the first two speakers Saturday morning. We couldn't believe it.

This post hasn't had a theme. I just felt like writing because life is so good right now. I ran out of space in my journal and haven't written in it lately and so things were bottling up. Life is way good just 6 more class periods before I check out for a week. I am so excited.

Final Decision

I have been on the phone with everyone today. We made our decision last night, slept on it, and I went to the temple this morning just to double check. We are confident we made the right decision by going with , drum roll, (scroll down)

Savage, we are staying here!

followup to patience

So just as I am telling myself to be more patient, my phone rings. Deloitte and Touche just offered me a job....details will be arriving shortly.

Patience

So I have been having a great time my last semester at BYU, being engaged and on the job hunt. Really great time. It just seems that everything in my life right now revolves around being patient. I obviously need to take a chill pill. This is easier said than done for a Phillips.

So the semester started off awesome, had some good job interviews lined up that all went REALLY well, lots of good connections, small world stuff, just really exciting. Let me run through them with you, they all are for the same job so it is even more fun.

1. Savage Services - the company I worked for last summer, I went in hoping for another summer job and they talked about a full-time offer. I was shocked at first and got really excited. Everyone, and I mean everyone, at this company are great people I never meant someone I didn't like. It was a really good place for me to work. So I had a slew of interviews with them and two and half weeks ago I had my last one. At the end of the interview some words were said that could have been construed as a job offer but I didn't want to put the horse before the cart. So I follow up when I haven't heard form them in two weeks. Come to find out they are still waiting to get approval on the job....okay.

2. KPMG - Southern California, sunny, warm, and best of all Disneyland right there ('Nuff said). Great company, and a really good career path. After my first round interview with them, they called me and had a phone interview about 4 or 5 weeks ago. The lady said two weeks, gave her her two weeks and emailed her and she said they were still figuring out hiring. okay. So then a week later I email a friend who works there and explain my situation. He says call me, lets chat. I do and come to find out they really are trying to figure out their hiring. They just won a bunch of contracts and are looking at how they'll staff them and whatnot. So he said be patient I won't let you down.

3. Deloitte - Washington DC, government consulting. Sweet gig. Deloitte attracts the best and brightest minds in the accounting world. They are known also to work those minds to death. On campus interview, invitation for 2nd round in Arlington. So I head out there two weeks ago. I am the only BYU kid in a sea of random NC colleges. It was fun though. GREAT interviews. Everyone was so nice. They said one week, now they say two. So I talk to a friend of Gini's who works in Salt Lake and he informs me that BYU is actually one of the early interview spots. So my second round was before a lot of first rounds. Anyways, just gotta keep waiting.

4. PwC - They have been one of my favorite companies for a long time; basically since I heard about them. First round on campus, goes great, talk to my friends in the Salt Lake office, they recommend me, talk to Gini's dad and he has a friend recommend me. Anyways, the lady calls at the first of Feb. and says she will email me over some dates. Nothing doing. On my flight home from the Deloitte interview, I am sitting in first class next to this young girl on her way to vegas for President's day and I see she has a financial accounting textbook. So I strike up a conversation,

"are you a student?"

"No, I am a professor"

"oops sorry"

"No I just got my PhD, in accounting I teach at West Virginia"

"Ohh that is cool I goto BYU" (everytime I say this to people in industry I just imagine their eyes lighting up and going ohh you go to byu? all awed and jealous; it never happens)

Small talk

"Did you work in industry?"

"Yea I started the PwC federal advisory practice"

LIGHTBULB - another connection; we chatted about it for a bit and then she fell asleep and I couldn't because I couldn't say no to the stewardess everytime she came down the aisle offering goodies, so after about a dozen diet cokes I was sitting pretty about midnight

ANYWAYS, so last week I get this email that says we'll see you at the office on the 4th of March...okay that works for me. Then on Wednesday they email me and say we need you to come out on Tuesday. So I am like thats fine it is your money. So I change my plane ticket from Thursday to Monday and I am just getting all geared up for it.

I know I have rambled, but this is it. They can all be summed up by saying, I need to keep waiting. So hard. I am getting married in a month. I am graduating in a month and a half. This is hard for me. I am a planner, I love mapping out my life. I learned though that I need to learn patience. I need to take every chance I can to learn patience and trust. I am very confident I will find a good job. I just wish I knew about it already so I wouldn't sweat finals ;) maybe that is why I don't know. Life is still good even though technically I don't know what I am doing in 2 months.