Around 1993 about 6 months after my family moved to Huntington Beach, CA I finally joined them. I moved into a 3 bedroom apartment with 4 other guys and had a lot of fun living the "dorm life". I made lasting friendships with those guys who I am mostly still in contact with today. I am always grateful to Phil, Dan, Raphael and Steve for taking me in and letting me make a fresh start. It was not the cleanest place but it was cool. What was even cooler was that the apartment next door to us had 6 girls living in it. All of us were LDS and went to the Huntington Beach 8th Ward. The first 3-6 months I keep pretty low. I was really worn out from doing too much in Long Beach. I needed to recharge my batteries and just work on "me" for awhile. Soon they called a new Bishop to the ward and Larry Johnson changed my life forever. Bishop Johnson saw the value in not what I was but what I could become. He helped me to grow spiritually and to get to the temple. Around that time my Dad also invited me to live at their new home which was a lot of fun and had a pool! We had pool parties every Labor and Memorial day with over 100 young adults! Not only would their be people in the pool but in the living room, family room, in the garage with the ping pong table or across the street at the park. The ward had a lot of fun activities, break fast, family home evening, the Christmas dinner dance and the huge monthly dances. But besides the fun stuff the leadership also made sure that we were feed spiritually with great Sunday school, Priesthood/Relief Society, Institute lessons etc. Even though I still made mistakes I was able to grow into the kind of man that would be a honorable husband and take a wonderful girl to the temple. And that is exactly what I did on September 7th, 1996 when I married Elizabeth Brown for all eternity. 
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