My Background
My name is Jordan and I am a pretty happy person! I've had a great life growing up in Pleasant View, UT, where my large family and I lived on the side of a mountain. My family has a unique background where both of my parents had been married and having children before both of their spouses passed away. My parents met each other, got married, and combined their two families of five and eight children, making a "yours, mine, and ours" family, with myself being the "ours." I don't remember growing up with 13 half-brothers and sisters very well since they are all quite a bit older than me. I even have a niece and nephew who are older than me and a niece my same age. Christmases are an adventure where we need to break up the holiday in two just to visit mostly everyone. In short, I love having a big family and having so many nieces and nephews!
I have always had a love for music and started school choir in sixth grade. I continued singing until now and enjoy a variety of musical styles. In my sophomore year of high school, I took my singing a step further and joined in a community theater production of Bye Bye Birdie. After that, I caught the acting bug and fell in love with musical theatre, which is how I spent most of my time in high school.
My favorite color is blue, I have a strange obsession with glass, I'm a foodie, and I laugh really loudly. In fact, my laugh is what got me my first sign name, Elder Bark-bark (for Gardner), because my Deaf MTC teacher could feel my explosive laugh. I went for a long time without a sign name for Jordan, but recently got a sign name for my first name: J-bow-tie.
I have always had a love for music and started school choir in sixth grade. I continued singing until now and enjoy a variety of musical styles. In my sophomore year of high school, I took my singing a step further and joined in a community theater production of Bye Bye Birdie. After that, I caught the acting bug and fell in love with musical theatre, which is how I spent most of my time in high school.
My favorite color is blue, I have a strange obsession with glass, I'm a foodie, and I laugh really loudly. In fact, my laugh is what got me my first sign name, Elder Bark-bark (for Gardner), because my Deaf MTC teacher could feel my explosive laugh. I went for a long time without a sign name for Jordan, but recently got a sign name for my first name: J-bow-tie.
How I Learned ASL Being from a large family with many older brothers and sisters, I was able to start learning ASL while they took classes in high school. As I was growing up I would practice my fingerspelling, looking forward to the day I could take ASL in high school. I took all three years of available sign language classes in high school and had a dream of serving an LDS mission doing ASL. After graduating and preparing for my mission, my dreams were realized and I was called to the California San Jose Mission assigned to labor using American Sign Language. After an intensive six-week course at the missionary training center (MTC), I flew to California where I would live for two years. I had excellent teachers during my training, half of which were Deaf, and was trained in California by a CODA and a Deaf man. The congregation I spent the majority of my time with was the Fremont ASL Branch, which met across the street from the California School for the Deaf.
There were many opportunities for me to improve my ASL while in California. We would attend Deaf events frequently, host our own, be involved with community ASL classes, volunteer for DCARA, and most frequently, meet and talk with Deaf people from around the Bay Area. I gained a lot of friends and fell in love with the Deaf community, knowing that it will be a part of my life forever. While serving my mission, I was transferred to different areas and different language programs. I spent a lot of time biking in San Jose, driving all over the Bay Area, and meeting people from around the world. One of my favorite areas I was transferred to was near Monterey, in Seaside, where I covered a Tongan congregation. Occasionally, I try to speak my limited Tongan while I sign, but this usually leaves me confused and disoriented. After coming home, I have continued to improve my ASL by attending the Ogden Valley Branch (Sign Language) every Sunday, going to Deaf events, and beginning my ITP at Salt Lake Community College. |