June 19, 2016 

My first week as a Walmart Intern

My project for the summer is taking all of the Great Value multi-serve freezer meals and cleaning up the labels.  We are taking out certain products and trying to find substitutes.  It sounds easy, but everyday I find more and more problems with taking things out such as caramel color, etc.  

Walmart just got a brand new culinary innovation center with 6 kitchens just like this

At Walmart, we work directly with the manufacturers to improve the products.  There is no experimenting in the lab, like what we did at Litehouse.  We tell the producers what to change, they do what we say, and then we reevaluate the product to see if we approve of the results.

The Walmart gym is a great place for swimming, exercising, and waiting out the rush hour traffic so I don't go insane after work.  With the humidity, it's easy to get my sweat on.

We took an intern trip to a HUGE distributing warehouse.  Everything is automated, but the trucks are still stacked by humans.  Imagine stacking a trailer of hay on a hot summer day -- that's what it felt like in there

Hydrogen fueling stations for the forklifts

Scanning technology

Mom told me to take a picture with my luchbox (random), and my intern shirt.  Here it is.

One of my favorite parts of the week was when we got to here Greg Ferrin (President and CEO of Walmart US) speak.  He is a very business-smart man.  It's crazy how much Walmart puts into their interns.  They told us that they only want the best... at that point I tried to blend in because I am definitely mediocre in my food science capabilities.

Saturday was a blast!  We are in the 15% of mormons who don't have a temple within 200 miles of their homes.  Me, my friend Kristina (another LDS Walmart intern who lives in the room next to me!  She's awesome!), a disabled pokemon lover, and a chic-fil-a sandwhich maker loaded into a car with a counselor in the bishopric and drove the 3.5 hours to the temple.

It was a Gordon B Hinckley style temple :)  We even helped clean it after our session

Kristina and I -- Anyone have any smart bachelors around 30 who want an awesome wife?  She has a personality similar to Aly (Troy's wife).

Kristina and I wanted to take a walk after 7 hrs in the car and a 2 hours session, so we did a 5k walk up around the stadiums of University of Arkansas.  It gets dark early here -- around 8:45

Baseball stadium

Football stadium

                                     Here is a hall of fame coach as well -- Frank Broyles

My ward here in Fayetteville is tiny but super fun!  I love the characters that are in non-BYU singles wards.  There's even my old zone leader from when I was serving in Sparks Nevada!  We had a good time recalling mission stories :)  

Our Bishopric showed me this eulogy from a funeral earlier this week.  Do you notice anything funny about it?

Kristina, Myrissa (a girl from church), and I took a walk around the lake.  It was hot, but very beautiful.

dam view

nice tree

Well, that's all folks.  Week 1 of 10 is already over.  I'm starting to really like it down here :)