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| I am sorry for the incredible lack of paragraphs in this little thing... |
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| I always did Jake hands |
Hi, my name is Jacob Duane leTaverner Winterfeldt. I was born in Clinton, Iowa. My family moved to Clio, South Carolina when I was three. This is my young childhood. I remember cutting go-kart track courses into the thick brush on our property with my dad and then he would time my fastest laps. I would do it over and over and over again to try and continually best my previous time. Also, I had a huge field of mud where I created cities and worlds for my countless action figures, ranging from Ninja Turtles, G.I. Joes, Power Rangers, Transformers, and many others.
I had and helped build four tree houses on my property out there in that country, one of which I secretly made inside of a huge magnolia tree with my best friend at the time Mat Gaines. No one other than us two knew that that tree house existed because the outside of the tree was filled with leaves and flowers from bottom to top and the inside was mostly hollow. We had a pulley system that we made to lift tools and other supplies up and down that we made from a box of gears and rope I was given by my dad. This place was where I had the two best dogs any kid could have ever asked for, Baby and Chewy, two goof ball Rottweiler’s that on more than one occasion saved me from the nasty stray dogs from across the field. Tell me, have you ever seen two Rottweiler’s tear into a pack of stray mutts? I have and it is insane! It was from my view on a number of occasions like watching a tornado of claws and teeth tearing and ripping through another tornado of opposing claws and teeth. They never lost a battle to say the least even when they were outnumbered. It was the best childhood any boy could have asked for. But sadly one day when I was about ten I found out that I was going to be moving to a place called Clearfield Utah. This was devastating for me. How could I leave my dogs, my tree houses, my go kart, and my fields of mud? I did not have a choice.
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| Baby and Chewy |
After watching Homeward Bound I was certain for years after I had moved that Baby was on his way across the country to find me. Chewy at this time had gone the way of all the good ol’ country dogs and disappeared one day never to be seen again. But I finally one day, and who knows how long it took me to realize it, but I realized that Baby wasn’t ever going to show up. As heartbreaking as that was I finally did manage to move on and make new friends in this strange new land. I became friends with the kid across the street, Chris Pion, the first kid I ever legitimately threw a punch at. He was much bigger and stronger than me, but I saw the fear in his eyes when he pushed a few too many of my buttons one day and I let him have it. I’m a scraper like my dad, so don’t mess with me for reals! Anyway, this new place I found myself in was where I found an affinity toward a number of new things, including the Utah Jazz, neighborhood night games, Pokemon, and skateboarding.
Clearfield is where I had my very first girlfriend ever, Lindsay Harrison. I didn’t ever say one word to her other than asking her if she would be my girlfriend. I didn’t want to do it but my other good friend Mika Groat forced me to. Long story short we did not have a very long relationship, but I still found it fascinating that girls liked to write silly messages in chalk on the sidewalk in front of my house, saying things like “You’re cute,” and “We like you,” surrounded by hearts and other funny, girly things that I can’t even think of right now, eventually though my family moved once again to an even stranger place called Provo.
This place, completely unknown to me at this young time in my life was destined to hold events that I would compare to the greatest stories of all time. This is where I made the friends I’m going to have for the rest of my life. This was the place where I learned what it meant to live, and I learned what it meant to die. I learned what it meant to love and I learned what it meant to lose everything. This is the place, where always I will call home and never forget no matter where I end up. Provo is my city.
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| Provo, bow before me! |
I moved to a little cul-de-sac from where my destiny bumped me into my best friend that I currently have right now, Joe Slinker. At this time I was in my early years of skateboarding from my ghetto life in Clearfield,(Chris sold me my first skateboard for five dollars, the board was spray painted black to look like grip tape but there was no grip whatsoever) and what did I find in Provo? I found a group of kids that skated right there in that neighborhood who also went to church and scouts. That group did indeed include Joe Slinker, Taylor Thomas, Alek Soulberg, Mike Muirhead, Danny Johnson and some other kid whose name escapes me at this time but was the lone star kid in the group who disappeared early on and is surrounded by young mystery and childlike lore, you know what I mean… anyway, We all became really good friends in many different ways. Joe was the kid who strove to be the popular one through his goofball antics. He found that he was kind of goofy early on so he used it to his advantage. Taylor was the kid who never washed his hair and slowly developed his grungy, emo like personality, he liked screaming bands… Alek was by far, at least at the time the kid that enveloped the essence of what it meant to be cool. His skating style was second to none in his lazy like, don’t even care that I just tre flip a six attitude. He was the coolest one by far. The last I heard of him though, he got his head run over by a car and has slight brain damage now:/hmm… anyway, Mike, along with Danny were the trouble makers, both of them have long rap sheets, including but not limited to, fights, high speed police pursuits, alcohol use, drug use, petty theft, and even armed robbery. I’ll not say much more than that, I think you get the picture… And then there was me, I was the homeschooled kid.
There is not much more to say than that. I was the one that everyone knew at Provo High but no one had classes with and didn’t understand why. I was even in the year book one year. Despite being homeschooled, I was pretty popular and I’m not sure why. Maybe it had to do with Joe. One of my fondest memories of growing up together is him coming over to my house at like six in the morning and throwing heavy metal objects at my lifeless lump of a body underneath my mounds of blankets and pillows. He often times made me get up and go to school with him, and I would go to all of his classes with him and follow him around wherever he went. I pretty much did go to Provo High even though I was homeschooled. I love the man with all my heart, however if Joe was just slightly more aggressive in his demeanor I would have sat his butt out on the dirt more times than once that is for sure. I just can’t assault a kid as sensitive as Joe. He is very sensitive despite his persona of being care free. I love him and always will, but it’s very difficult for me to want to be around him all the time. We have quite a past that I’ll not go into very much detail, but at the same time it is that colorful past that I think has bound us together as best friends forever. I’ll always be there for him and I know he will me, because our friendship hasn’t just been tested once, but it has been through the fire many times actually, and that is the very reason he will always be my best friend no matter where either of us end up. We recently had a much needed conversation, you know, the one that happens with your best friend maybe once every two years or so. Yeah, it happened recently and I apologized for the fact that the only two girlfriends I’ve ever had, (not including Lindsay) were his girlfriends first. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal since I think he only dated Katie for like a week, and he’s had like fifty girlfriends…
But anyway, this elusive figure Katie… What to say about this era of my life is very difficult to understand, and very trying, in how I need to write about it. I fell in love with Katie whose last name I’ll not mention for certain reasons… when I was fifteen. We fell in love with each other, I became an integral part of her family. I had brothers for the first time, since my immediate family only had girls. I was like a son to JoAnne and Mitch. I particularly know that JoAnne was very fond of me and I really considered her my second mother. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen years old and we were never separated and just loved each other so much. We combined our money and bought an Australian Sheppard as a week old puppy we named Sydney, but I just called him pooch. This dog didn’t replace Baby by any means but I love pooch very much.
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| Poochy poochy poochy poochy! |
I had an amazing girl, a great family, an awesome dog and I had never been happier in my life. I went on my mission which just so happened to be my home town of South Carolina too! I was in awe when I found that out, and so excited.(Katie guessed it…) I left the love of my life in May 2006 to go and serve my fellow brothers and sisters in the Columbia South Carolina mission. It was really amazing, at first… I did everything I could for as long as I could, and even though I consider my mission one of the most incredible experiences of my life, truthfully, and with no sugar added, it was like hell I will not lie. It pushed me to the point of breaking in so many ways, and I'm not even talking about the time I was hit by a car and thrown into traffic, or even the time I came down with a mysterious disease that the doctors couldn't fix, or even the time I almost lost my pinky finger!
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| ...blood... |
No, those things were easy.
I still remember vividly that day when I opened the door to my apartment, funny looking, goofball companion behind me, Elder Lewis, and pressing the messages button on our phone. We had two messages; one was from my Mission President, Pre. Brailsford, and the other was from my mom. The next day I was in the mission office, the day after that I was home. Right now I’ll not go into all the events that happened that caused me to have to go home, that is for a different day, but through all of the drama and tears of that incident, yes, Katie was still there, just as beautiful, and loving, and understanding as she’s ever been. It was May 2007. Exactly, almost to the day of the month I served one year of my mission, nonetheless though we were still very much in love and I knew that she wanted to get married. I however, even with her there by my side comforting me and loving me, I fell into a deep depression from coming home early. Long story short I fell away from the church and I knew it broke her heart but I just didn’t have the desire or passion I once had, or love for life as I used to. She stayed by my side though trying as she ever did to spark that fire in me again to go back to church but I just didn’t. Every Sunday I would see that subtle, yet heartbroken look in her eyes when she asked me how church was while I told her in reply that I had not gone once again. A year went by and still I declined in my personal standings, but not did I ever think I would ever lose my love and my family until one vivid day in yes, May of 2008. This day would spark a series of what I consider remarkable events even though they were horrible. I woke up on this fateful day in May vividly as from a nightmare and a thought that had never once entered my head before blanketed my consciousness. I knew in that instant of awakening that I was going to lose Katie and her family, and I knew it was going to happen very soon. I won’t tell you of why or how I knew because even though this kick started the darkest period of my life, I consider the events that followed incredibly sacred. To this day I believe that God showed me this thing before it was to happen so I could understand and find in retrospect, though little, some meaning to it. I think He knew that if I did not have some type of understanding of it before hand, I truly would have died from grief. So what did I do even though I had this underlying knowledge that I was going to lose her? I kicked it into high gear and went back to church and tried everything I could to stop that dream from happening. But I found out in an unreal, surreal, unbelievable way that it couldn’t be stopped no matter what I did. It’s just like how the movies depict this type of things, and I experienced it in real life. May 2008, June, July, August, September, October, November went be and we were still with each other and we were still telling each other that we loved each other, however, on the 26th of December, 2008, one day after her birthday I got word that Katie had gone on a date with someone else, and right then and there I started to literally see every minute detail of my dream start to come to fruition. It was unbelievable to say the least. Another, grueling and long story short, February of 2009 she was engaged, and yes once again, that May she was married… in less than six months I watched the only girl I had ever loved and my entire family dissipate before my eyes. And in just about a year from the time I knew I was going to lose her, the same time frame even in the month of May that I had served one year of my mission. I fell into a state beyond depression; I fell into a state of incalculable grief. I didn’t know it was possible for a soul to hurt as much as mine did. My heart wasn’t just broken, but my mind was broken. I didn’t understand and it simply did not register in my head how people I’d loved for nearly seven years of my young, growing life could simply say goodbye to me in such a short period of time. That darkness that overwhelms the soul plants seeds of death in the mind when this type of thing happens and makes it tremendously sick. I experienced things I think most can’t comprehend. The only peace there was to be had I found within the Temple.
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This picture taken by me on the Eagle Rock trail above the Y
symbolizes to me what the Temple means. It is titled
Passion and Purity,
the two most important parts of love |
I however, at this time was not worthy to enter the Temple so I went back to church and Became worthy. I embraced the church with all of my heart as if it were the very thing that held my spirit to my body, and I went to the Temple everyday for months. Sometimes I would be driving away from the Temple and turn around and go back because that darkness didn’t hesitate once I was in the world and not in a Holy place. This is the only thing that I found any peace in, and then one day, as if an angel whispered in my ear, I was inspired to write. So I bought a laptop and I wrote, and that is all I did all the days long while I curled up in my blanket outside on my swing staring up into the stars searching for that peace I once had. I spent whole nights out on that swing, finding not sleep, but just words that came out from my depths that needed to be written. There is so much more that happened in this time frame but simply cannot be written in this brief recollection of my life. This is when I found my underlying, undeniable, undying faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. No matter what, the church is true no matter how many storm clouds gather, and that is my poor, yet powerful testimony of it, and I will never deny it no matter my incredible shortcomings, because I simply know it is. I became irrevocably changed and in some ways paralyzed in every aspect of life since this event, and it has been unbelievably hard trying to learn how to function in real life since. There were times when sleep was so elusive I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or if things were real. I hallucinated night after night seeing sometimes amazing things, and other times horrible things. Things you can’t imagine and I can’t describe. I took sleeping pills just to get a wink of rest but they caused me to experience night terrors on a daily basis, and sleep paralysis other times,( that is when your eyes are open but you are asleep and you can’t move, but you are conscious of the waking world, and my dreams crept into that waking world as I was unable to move and they haunted me and tormented me while I tried to scream for help but was unable to.
Though I truly felt as though I had died on more than one occasion I found that I continued to exist regardless, even though I felt as a ghost and still do often because of that experience. That is how ghosts feel, they are searching for wholeness because they are not whole, they are empty and void of life, and that’s what I was, utterly empty but still existing and nothing more even though I grasped tightly to the church. The church became my life, literally my life it was for that period in time of needed rescue. There was one night, it was particularly bad and the first night that I had actually considered taking my life. I wrote a horrible letter to Katie’s mom Friday night, drove to my singles ward parking lot and let my tormented and darkened mind take over my thoughts as I sat all night in that car. I didn’t know what I was going to do and I don’t know why I went to that church parking lot, but when the sun started to rise, my phone inevitably started to ring. JoAnne called, my mom called, nearly all of my sisters called, Katie called, but I didn’t answer any of them. I sat there and listened to all of their terrified and concerned messages pleading for me to call them back. I didn’t. I just continued to sit blankly staring at the back of the passenger seat head rest. After so much longer I noticed people walking in and out of the church building. I hadn’t even noticed that other cars had come and parked. I got out of my car and walked into the building not knowing at all what I was going to do, say, or find, but as God as my witness I found the elders quorum president of that singles ward, Adam Walburg. I must have literally looked like hell and he asked if I was alright. I don’t really know what I said but he eventually he took me aside into a side classroom and talked with me for about an hour. He ended by giving me a blessing, and truthfully I don’t think it helped my state of being at all because I was just that messed up at the time. And this is when I started to work really closely with Adam in the Church. After meeting with and getting so much help from Bishop Bunnel I was shortly called to be first counselor in the Elders quorum presidency of the Lehi 31st singles ward. Adam is one of the select people whom I considered helped save my life. Over this short period of time before he turned 31 and had to leave the singles ward we became very close and he shared with me some very sacred experience that he had, and I shared with him as well. I’ve not seen or heard from him since he left but he is an eternal friend of mine because of what he did for me.
One day though during this time period before Adam had left, Joe, my best friend called me up one day and said, “Dude, you want to go to Disney Land?” I said, “Yeah.” And this trip to Disney Land ushered in a new era of my life which I might write about and post some day in the future, but for now you will have to settle for those three words that I have, by the power vested in me by me united together for time and all eternity and officially designated and declared them as one…one word that is. And that word is …tobecontinued… until next time my friends. I’m sure this experience will only be a speck of dust in comparison to what is a head of me for the rest of my life here on Earth, and in the eternal life hereafter that will inevitably come.
Here are some other pics that I didn't incorporate into my story above that I like.
yeah skateboarding! and epic hair!
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| Sister Brailsford, President Brailsford, Elder Winterfeldt |
Who the heck's idea was this...?
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| Me staring off...into the Future! |
