It's when I discovered that I was born with mild to moderate autism and have made a big difference in the world because of it.
I was born on this day. I didn't quite learn a lot of things, I didn't even learn how to communicate. But when turning seven I learned to speak but only by quoting from movies and then I learned at age ten to talk in a real conversation.
When I became a toddler, I never spoke much just like my mother, father, and siblings expected. I was pretty different. I would rather be in my underwear and watch my favorite kid show, Barney and Friends. I became so engrossed in watching that because my mother was hoping that the TV would help me understand and start talking. Unfortunately, even if I quoted from movies, I still had no idea what those communications were supposed to mean.
Sometime later, my mother still couldn't figure out what was going on with me. One time she took me to a speech therapist to test my hearing abilities in a chamber. I was put in it and I heard speakers calling my name. I turned around when my name was called and saw toy cows on top of speakers. Right when I saw the second cow, it gave out a loud moo and started moving. I was feeling so scared of the sound of it and how it moved, I wanted to get out of the chamber before it did anything else. A few years later, I went to school. It was the first time that I ever rode on a school bus. My siblings were quite jealous of me, because they never got to ride on a bus to school, just like I did. I sometimes waited on the bus to get other students on and take them to the school. When I started the second grade with a special Education teacher, she told my parents that I was being diagnosed with autism.
A couple of years had passed and I started to have more younger siblings. I didn't know much about them at first, but once I got used to it, I started liking my siblings. One time, besides watching Barney and Friends on the TV, I liked going out on the trampoline playing with a hose. I thought that water was really fun, but once I had a bath with my younger sister, Kiylee, in my parents' bathtub in their bedroom, I didn't know that water can be harmful until the helicopter came to take Kiy away to the hospital. It all turned out okay.
Another few years later, I graduated from elementary school and I started to understand a lot of things, even though I'm autistic. First, I joined a sport called Pee Wee League Football for kids. I played football for seven years in the Pee Wee leagues and then on my last year, when I started trying to join the high school team, I had Kienbock's disease, which means a wrist disorder from birth. I was a bit sad that it meant that I couldn't play tackle football anymore. But I had to find another thing that I would be good at, like playing in the Marching Band.
Then in order to make me autism feel like I'm a normal person, my mother signed me up for Boy Scouts to earn some merit badges. For seven years since eleven years of age, I earned all the merit badges in the program and became famous to be the first Autistic Boy Scout to earn all 132 merit badges. I've been put on the news like KSL, Fox 13, CNN, and the Deseret News newspaper. I was on Autism blogs and websites all over the world.
I wanted to mention it at first, but that would ruin the whole part of the story. And besides, this is the last date when we have a lot of siblings. I have 12 siblings who were born on various dates and years. My first sibling, Kira was born on November 1, 1984. And my last sibling, KoriAnne was born on October 7, 2010. There are four of us brothers and I have eight sisters. That's a big family with that many siblings, but we love each other.
After my accomplishment with the merit badges in the Boy Scouts of America program, I was a senior at Bingham High School. I learned a lot on everything I could in order to graduate, especially pass the required classes Bingham had for each student. I graduated from Bingham High school in 2012 and I moved on to college at SLCC. They gave me lots of scholarships and now I've been attending UVU since Fall of 2015
I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I was called to serve a Church Service Mission to Seminary/Institute of Special Need Children. It was a blessing for me so I can learn and love the children who are attending there. It was kind of sad that the mission was over, but I've learned a lot of things so I can become what I've wanted to be in the future. A Special Need Seminary Teacher.
At Salt Lake Community College (SLCC (pronounced Slick)), I've been called as Graduate of Excellence, because I've written my paper about my life with autism and to tell everyone at SLCC that I can accomplish things, even if I may go through all the hard times, like earning all the merit badges in the Boy Scouts program.
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