Scattering Sunshine

Today I just want to talk about how blessed I am. It's not something I ever talk about enough, but today is a great day and this is the stuff that's on my mind right now.

Weakness vs. Rebellion

"The Lord sees weaknesses differently than He does rebellion. Whereas the Lord warns that unrepented rebellion will bring punishment, when the Lord speaks of weaknesses, it is always with mercy."

Helaman 5:12

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall. --Helaman 5:12

Shout out to all the men in my life (and a few women too!).

1. My dad--he raised me to love others, to be smart, to work hard, and to live my life the way God asks me to. He gives me everything I need, and he actively looks for ways to help me. He takes his job seriously, and it shows.

Why I Still Don't Like Driving

Yep, time for another mission story! This was actually one of the most spiritual experiences I had, even though it didn't involve someone we taught or anything like that.

Just another testimony.

I feel bad, guys--I keep meaning to write more on here but life has been crazy lately. Not because of the mountains of things I have to do (there isn't really a lot going on right now); mostly just because it's been a little bit of an emotional roller coaster for the past few months. But I've felt a shift start to happen, literally just in the past few days, where I've been able to see that I'm making progress and to recognize the hand of the Lord in everyday events. I'm starting to feel like I can write something uplifting again. I don't know, maybe I should've been trying to do that all along...but I'm doing it now, and I think it'll help. And if it helps someone else too, even better!

Genius.

I served a mission.

I taught. I learned. I changed. I helped. I laughed. I cried. I walked. I ran.

I lived it, but above all, I loved it. Without a doubt, it was a time that I won't ever forget.

What Coming Home Feels Like

It was 5:30 am when my alarm went off--probably the earliest I'd woken up in over 18 months. My luggage was already gone, and I tried not to wake my companions up as I walked back and forth from the bathroom to the closet. I put on my last set of clothes and did what I could with my hair. I'd felt okay for the past few weeks--even with hearing so many people tell me how well I'd served as a missionary, hearing other missionaries tease me about how much time I had left, and knowing we'd probably have to drop our main investigator soon if he didn't make any more progress. But this morning it was so early, and I felt so tired and overwhelmed, that I sat in the bathroom and cried. In that moment, it felt like my world was ending and everything I'd come to love was slipping through my fingers.

The Pajama Sessions part 1

This morning my sister and I were listening to music and we happened upon the Chipmunk version of "Deer in the Headlights" by our bff Owl City. Then we had an idea....

http://youtu.be/1SbJRnwmDzQ

Stay classy, y'all.

Just a thought.

Memories come out of the woodwork of this town--brought on by a street, a room, a song on the radio--and settle on me one by one like so much weight on my shoulders. That sounds more negative than I mean it to be--the memories can make me sad, but they can also make me smile. Coming back to this place reminds me that I've been alive. That I've lived a life, or at least the beginnings of one. That I've already learned a little bit, and that I won't have to start completely from scratch.

At the same time, it's overwhelming to come back to a world you thought you knew, only to find that the world and the person you left behind just aren't there anymore. It's all for the best, but one tends to flounder a little before finding their feet again. I'm still working on it.

Sometimes I hear a song I don't know yet, and the lack of memory attached to it is relieving.

Welcome to the world. :)

From the Mission: D&C 100:5-8

One day on my mission, my companion and I were at the home of a ward member for dinner. We sat down and she gave us our food, and then she sat down to talk with us. She started to tell us about one of her adult daughters who had been making some wrong choices. After describing some of the problems they'd had (all of which were pretty significant), she told us that she had told her daughter to leave, and that she could come back once she was willing to follow the family's rules again. After telling us all this, she stopped and said, "Hermanas... ¿Hice mal?" (Sisters, did I do the wrong thing?)

She looked at us, waiting for an answer. My companion was still learning Spanish, and I knew she hadn't understood everything in the conversation. I don't remember what I said, but I think it was something about how she has the gift of the Holy Ghost, and that the decisions made for her family are between her, her husband, and the Lord. I think I also said that as long as she followed the guidance of the Spirit in her times of need, He would direct her on the best way to help her family. It was one of those times when I had no idea what to say, but the words were given to me in the very hour that I needed them. In Spanish, no less!

Every so often I had experiences like this, and they were good reminders of our Heavenly Father's love in even the hardest of times. After a few weeks, her daughter came back and agreed to make changes in her life. In the time I was in that area, I watched the gospel change the life of this family. That opportunity was a gift from my Father for which I will always be grateful.

The Salmon of Doubt + late night + internet access =

This is one of those nights preceded by yet another unproductive day made more unproductive because you felt yucky the whole time and so you took something with caffeine in it around dinnertime, not remembering until immediately after that you haven't had caffeine in a long time and therefore you were in for a long night... so you got to bed around 10:30, played solitaire for an hour, got out of bed to change into pajamas, picked up a Douglas Adams book, and felt so tired you didn't even giggle as you started reading it and then you were caught in that between stage where you weren't awake or asleep--your eyes couldn't focus so well--so then you reached for your new smartphone and checked Facebook again...(spoiler alert: nothing really changes on there after midnight) and then decided to write a blog post that won't sound anywhere near as good tomorrow as it does right now.

Good night, all.

p.s. Anne says hi.

I AM AN RM.

Yesterday I went back to my old singles ward, and luckily my friend Janessa was there so I didn't have to hide in the corner.  I'd forgotten how LOUD young single adults are!  I'd been looking forward to church all week, because I've felt so unproductive for the last little while and I neeeeeed something to do.

The only point of this post is to tell you that in Relief Society, in the middle of the lesson, the girl teaching asked how many of us had served missions.  Janessa's hand shot up, along with about half the room.  After a second of hesitation...my hand went up too.  Whoa.

This is AWESOME.

A Discourse on Summer

If you could pick one song to sum up everything that is "summer," what would it be?  Can any one song, poem or picture really capture the running-through-the-sprinklers, driving-with-the-windows-down roller coaster that goes from May to August?

As it turns out, summer can be seen as a unique psychological phenomenon.  On the surface, it's one big long party where you can stay up as late as you want to without worrying about homework.  But may I venture an analysis of the deeper level of summer?

Yes?

All right, then.

Dream House

Every day on my way to work, I pass by a bunch of old buildings in downtown Ogden.  If you've ever been there, you know what it looks like--rundown old pawn shops, bars, taco stands, autobody places, etc. surrounding a more civilized area (a few blocks square) with a train station, a few nice restaurants, and lots of little stores with over-the-top window displays.  In this area of town, the buildings are taller (3 or 4 stories) with stores on the bottom and apartments on the top.  These are classic big city apartments, complete with rusty old fire escapes, roof access, narrow staircases leading down to the street, and numerous windows.

If you really knew me...

You may have seen these videos popping up all over Youtube for a while now.  I'm not really into video making--I feel much more comfortable with writing--but I wanted to try it anyway.

Kids today.

A random wrong number conversation that ensued yesterday afternoon.  I kept it up because she was so much fun to mess with.

Cookies

Last week my roommate and I were at the local library.  They always have tables full of used books on sale for a dollar or two each, and I always look through them.  Until that day I'd never been able to find anything interesting to buy, but this time was different.  I was almost done looking when I found a book by one of the best writers of all time:

Words=the best toys ever

A wonderful thing that happened last week: the Kolob Canyon Review vol. XX was made available to the general public.  I've read the entries so many times through the editing process that I thought I would be bored with the end result, but what happened was exactly the opposite--we had so many talented writers submit their work, and they just keep getting better and better the more I read them.  And now they're all bound up in a 170ish-page literary journal (ISBN and all!) for the world to see.  This book is so much cooler than a few pages stapled together, which is all I've been a part of in the past.