I thought being a Christian was about following rules and going to church and being good all the time, but this girl helped me understand that it's about having a relationship with God. That was where things shifted for me.

I think I've done a pretty good job of not compartmentalizing my life. I take my core values and I live them out at home like I would in my snowboarding like I would at church with my friends.

You’ve got to fight for that connection with God all the time no matter what you're going through in life. I'm growing up. I'm maturing. But I definitely think that the backbone of this is the freedom and creativity I have without the fear of failing. If I fail, what's going to happen? Nothing. I'm not looking for my self-worth in the sport.

I strongly believe in that saying, "People don't care what you know until they know that you care." That's been my goal and objective - to love people well. That's something I can bring to this community.

It's funny. I competed against a 13-year old girl at the Winter X Games. I looked down at her birth date and it said 2000. I was like, "Huh, I wonder if she even knows what Y2K is?" But I guess I've just been able to build a foundation.

2006 Games -by then, my identity had started to shift. Before that, my identity was in snowboarding. That's how people knew me and that's how I knew myself. That's where I got a lot of my self worth. That began to shift and I started to understand that I didn't get my worth from people or from the things that I did. It was from Christ. If I hadn't had that shift in my life, I think my world would have come crumbling down.

Make your relationships more important than your accomplishments .