Meet Landon

I walked by the Student center one day on the Snow college campus and saw an event going on. It was one of those boring ones where people come to recruit summer employees for the.. you know.. summer. Anyway, one booth wasn't advertising a job at all, it was just a volunteer thing. Well, because of that booth I am going to do the volunteer thing and teach English in China. I leave on August 25th.

It's ok, I've done this kind of thing before when I was sixteen, except now I am 20 and I am paying for it myself... ... ...well... actually I am hardly paying for it myself at all. In fact, 90% of the money I have now was all earned by a brother of mine. Landon.

Meet Landon (who is on the left. Cade is on the right). Both of these little saints have been working all winter and summer helping their two siblings fulfill their dreams, but Landon is the oldest and has not stopped yet using all the strength he has when I need him most. Before helping me out, these two have already sent their eldest brother, Bridger, to New York City to fulfill his dream as a ballet dancer. He needed money to attend the Bolshoi Summer Intensive program.

Meet Bridger (on the left. Anatoli, who is his teacher, is on the right). Bridger is now 18 and has been told he can go pro in a year or two. He studied with Anatoli in Maryland. He literally wouldn't be where he is without his two younger brothers.


In the last three months we have been able to save up to 2,520 dollars from cleaning windows, painting fences, babysitting and other little jobs here and there people have been so willing to give us. "If you are working this hard for what you want, you deserve anything you get," one woman said to me after giving me a job placing her new flowers in her flower bed.

But from all of this, Landon has earned nothing much for himself. He even has a job cleaning horse stalls down in Provo and gives his checks to me. He wakes up at 5:00 some mornings and rides home on his bike smelling like horse crap. This kid has been raising thousands of dollars for his two siblings with nothing but a thank you (which we don't give him as much as we should).

He once spent all day with me working on a farm building a fence in the heat to give me the 150 dollars he would earn that day. We came home exhausted and I couldn't help but feel terrible for taking the check from him, but we earned 300 dollars that day. He was tired and bruised,but never complained or showed disappointment about not keeping the money he had truly deserved to enjoy for himself.

I work as hard as I can myself on the jobs we get, but I often put myself in his shoes and wonder if I would do such a thing... no, I don't think I would; I see too much into the future to realize that money can get me a lot of things I need or want. Landon doesn't dwell on the future as much, he stays in the present and focuses on what needs to be done in the present, even if he knows he might not benefit much from it. I have had many conversations with people about Landon's manners and kindness. The conclusion has always turned out to be that he doesn't worry about the stupid things the common 15 year old boy would worry about. He lives to help others live, and that makes his life seem beautiful. He doesn't care to be famous, rich, or handsome. This is what I (and many others) have seen of him so far.

Thank you Landon. I Love you.