Latter-day Saint Commentary from the Pacific Northwest - Rocky Mountain Sunshine Podcast

https://anchor.fm/goyeforth Hello friends! I just wanted to give an update to our last episode where I asked you to stick around and that I would not hang up my podcasting hat just yet. I took some time to think about the show and what I wanted to do. I consulted my good friend I prayed a lot about it, I consulted with my wife, and also my good friend Shawn Rapier, multiple times. And I’ve come up with a new podcast called “Go Ye Forth”. It’s a 24-hour non-stop pun podcast.  Just kidding.  It’s actually a podcast where I speak with returned missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and hear about their experience as they served all across the globe. So there might be wee bit of Rocky Mountain Sunshine here and there, but for now, check out “Go Ye Forth” because I’ll be posting episodes there more often. So until next time, Cheers from the Pacific Northwest! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rocky-mountain-sunshine/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rocky-mountain-sunshine/support [https://anchor.fm/rocky-mountain-sunshine/support]

* I am happy that you are joining me today for the 1 year anniversary of the Rocky Mountain Sunshine podcast. How has a year already gone by? Crazy! * Here are some statistics that you may find boring, but I’ll share them anyway. * My top listened-to episode is still # 19 where I do nothing but talk about all the cars that I’ve owned. What this tells me is more of you like cars that you let on apparently. * The majority of our listeners are in the USA but here are my top 10 outside of the U.S.: * Australia #2 - Gu-day mate * UK # 3 - Ellow * Germany # 4 Guten talk * Indonesia # 5 - Halo * Netherlands # 6 - Goeden dag * Saudi Arabia # 7 - Marhaban * Canada # 8 Hello and Bonjour for the french Canadians * Mexico # 9 - Hola * And # 10 is Brazil * France is # 19 _ Bojour mes amis! Why are you all the way down to # 19? Pourquoi es-tu au dix-neuf ? * Estonia is #23.  “Tear-ah”.  You can do better Estonia!  #23? * The Czech Repulic is my least listened to country, except for all the countries who don’t listen at all.  I’m looking at you Iceland! * What else can I tell you about our listeners? 64% listen on Apple Podcasts. 5% on Spotify. It goes down from there to a variety of other podcast platforms. * The age group that listens to the podcast the least is age 23-27.  Or as I call it, the age group that apparently does not like puns. They tuned out quickly. You must appreciate a good pun to be a listener. * I have really enjoyed learning over the past year how to podcast. I got a lot of tips from my buddy Shawn Rapier along the way. He’s always a great resource and has helped. * Tune if for more! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rocky-mountain-sunshine/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rocky-mountain-sunshine/support [https://anchor.fm/rocky-mountain-sunshine/support]

* Today is a special episode where I have a guest. I have my good friend Mat Hyder joining me over zoom!  As an introduction, Mat was a former neighbor and ward member when I lived in Highland, Utah. We served in a bishopric together. * He is a wonderful father who will soon have a missionary heading out. * He is a pediatric nurse at Primary Children’s Hospital. He would visit often when my son Xavier was up at Primary Children’s for several months. * Mat recently started a podcast that has nothing to do with medicine and has everything to do with Mayberry. * He is also a faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. * It’s a fun episode, so without any further delay, let’s get into it! Welcome to the Show Mat Hyder! * It’s great to have you on and even better just to have the opportunity to catch up! * Mat and I were neighbors in Highland Utah, and Mat still lives in Highland and is probably trying to repair all the damage that I did. * Isn’t it crazy how much the world has changed even since I lived there in Highland? * We didn’t zoom much unless it was you zooming by on your motorcycle. * So I was trying to think when was it that you moved into the ward in Highland?  Oh yeah… * Well, I’m jumping the gun here. We’ll get into your podcast later, but first let’s get to know Mat. Let’s take it back a twitch. * You talk about this a lot on your podcast but tell us about where you grew up. * Where do you fit in with your siblings? * Were you raised in the Church? * What was it like growing up outside of Utah and being a member of The Church? * Were you always active? * Do you think it’s harder or easier for kids to grow up in the Church in Utah or outside of Utah? * How is it that you became such a big fan of John Denver? * I was guessing that you were leaving on a jet plane, you didn’t know when you would be back again. Or maybe you were heading to a country road, to take you home, you noticed some sunshine on your shoulder and thought, I should look up this John Denver guy! * And now you are here, with little rocky mountain sunshine on your shoulders. Does it make you happy? * I had the John Denver Christmas album with the Muppets. * He was on with the muppets a little too often. I think he may have been a muppet who just went solo. * Did you ever see him in concert? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rocky-mountain-sunshine/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rocky-mountain-sunshine/support [https://anchor.fm/rocky-mountain-sunshine/support]

Have you already been to Port Angeles? So if you’ve ever been to Port Angeles, you most likely came here via car. There is a ferry that comes from Victoria in Canada, but I’m guessing most of our listeners don’t live in Victoria. Although there are worse places to live! So you get to Port Angeles, by car, and there is one highway that gets you here from Seattle or Portland. It’s the 101.  The 101 is a great highway, much of which is just a two-lane highway, so you just go the speed limit. People out here on the peninsula are just more patient drivers. You just go with the flow and you’ll get to the destination. You get out to Tacoma and Seattle and the aggressive drivers start to show up. As you drive out here you feel like you are leaving a lot of the city life behind, and you do. Silverdale will be your last stop for most of the big stores and that’s definitely the closest place to do much shopping other than the Walmart in Port Angeles. You’ll pass through Sequim, which looks like you should pronounce it Sea-qwim, but it’s Skwim.  Sequim bay is beautiful. There is a popular casino there. We kept hearing that they had great food at the restaurant, but my experience there would say otherwise. They have some live music, and we actually went and saw a cover band. So we have that going on. If you need anything from Costco, you’ll want to stop in Sequim. It’s only another 20 minutes to Port Angeles. Now I’ll give you a little hot tip. If you want to go somewhere for breakfast in Sequim, you want to go to the Oak Table. In fact, if you want to go to breakfast in Port Angeles, it’s worth the 20 minute drive to Sequim to go to the Oak Table. Just trust me. They have a german pancake that will knock your socks off. Just outside of Sequim, I think it’s called Carlsborg, is a Chevron station.  I get gas there, and they have the only self-serve diet coke fountain drink anywhere close that tastes good.  For some reason the other one or two around, and there aren’t many that have diet coke in a fountain drink, but those all taste off.  Something is not calibrated and nobody is bothering to fix it because apparently, I’m the only one who can tell the difference. Between Sequim and Port Angeles is a little restaurant that looks like a house. It does not look like much from the outside, and the inside seems like you’ve entered into a restaurant in the 70s, but if you have a hankering for some good crab cakes, this place won’t let you down. It’s called Dupuis, but I think the locals call it Dupees. The next stop down the road is the outskirts of Port Angeles. You’ll see the Deer Park Cinema. I suppose they are open. We haven’t been since before Covid hit. It’s the only movie theater anywhere near us. When you google things like closest theater near me, google always suggests Victoria, which is a one-hour ferry ride to Canada and is currently shut down due to Covid.  After passing Deer Park Cinema you go through an S-curve. It’s a dangerous place where there have been several accidents even since we moved here 3 years ago. They finally put a cement curb and median in the middle. I don’t know why it took so long. But as you go through this S-Curve you have one of my favorite views of the mountains in Port Angeles. It’s always picturesque unless there happens to be fog, which we do get sometimes. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rocky-mountain-sunshine/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rocky-mountain-sunshine/support [https://anchor.fm/rocky-mountain-sunshine/support]

Welcome to the show, everybody! I’m recording from the lovely town of Port Angeles, Washington. I’m still on a high from General Conference. There were so many good talks and several which I definitely want to go back and study more. Well in today’s episode I take you way back to the early starts of my career in sales. I’m talking way back folks. So dust off your atari and sony walkman because we are heading to the 80’s. So let’s get to it! Do you ever think back to when you were a kid and just say to yourself, “Boy I was a weird kid!” No? That’s just me? I have these memories of things that I did, and I just shake my head. Like one day there was an ice cream truck driving through the apartments where we lived in Midvale, Utah.  I had no money, but I wanted an ice cream. So I rode my bike and chased him down. My bike’s name was Coyote 9 by the way. What? You didn’t name your bike? So I went up to the door of the ice cream truck to talk to the keeper of the ice cream. I asked if he’d trade me an ice cream for my watch.  Seriously! What was I thinking? Luckily he said, “No.” I was in little league for a couple of years. I was really bad at baseball. I think that my mom and grandma probably wanted me to do some type of activity because I didn’t have siblings and I probably drove them crazy. So for a couple years I played for the red sox little league team in Midvale. For some reason, we had a fundraiser. I don’t remember why, but we sold chocolate bars. I remember asking my aunts and uncles if they wanted to buy a chocolate bar. I think my mom had some co-workers buy some. I even went door-to-door to some close-by neighbors selling them. I don’t remember the candy bars being very good but that was my introduction to selling. I picture myself like Russell, the kid from the movie “Up.” Reading from a book, “Good - afternoon. I - am - Jason - and - I - am - in - the - little - league. Will - you - support - our - team?” At some point, I started getting this magazine called Boy’s Life.  Did you ever get that magazine? Was there an equivalent for girls? I don’t know, but I really liked it. They had the 10-year-old boy’s interest dialed in. I read it from cover to cover.  For you youngsters out there, we had no youtube, no Disney Plus, nor google, so yeah, a magazine for boys was the bomb dot com. Tune in to hear the rest! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rocky-mountain-sunshine/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rocky-mountain-sunshine/support [https://anchor.fm/rocky-mountain-sunshine/support]