Love Letters and Other Heart Warming Things.

I follow this blog called A Blog About Love.  It is a husband and wife couple who share their story, after two failed marriages (one from each of them) they fell in love over email, set up by a mutual friend and were eventually married.  They are an inspiration, and I love them. (I secretly want to be them, but I recognize that that would be weird...so I want to be LIKE them.) A few days ago they shared an excerpt from a book filled with letters. 


In the book, Steinbeck: A Life of Letters, there is a collection of letters written by John Steinbeck to family and friends.  Among this correspondence is this beautiful letter written to his eldest son, Thom, in 1958.  Thom had recently confessed to his parents that he had fallen desperately in love with a girl named Susan, while at boarding school!  (ahhh...)   

New York

November 10, 1958

Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning.  I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First -- if you are in love -- that's a good thing -- that's about the best thing that can happen to anyone.  Don't let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second -- There are several kinds of love.  One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance.  This is the ugly and crippling kind.  The other is an outpouring of everything good in you -- of kindness and consideration and respect -- not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn't know you had.

You say this is not puppy love.  If you feel so deeply -- of course it isn't puppy love.
But I don't think you were asking me what you feel.  You know better than anyone.  What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it -- and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.
The object of love is the best and most beautiful.  Try to live up to it.
If you love someone -- there is no possible harm in saying so -- only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.
It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another -- but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I'm glad you have it.
We will be glad to meet Susan.  She will be very welcome.  But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to.  She knows about love, too, and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don't worry about losing.  If it is right, it happens -- The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Love,
Fa

***********************************

Is there a better way to describe love?  Have you felt this way?  I'll let you in on a little secret...I am feeling it.  That is another story for another post.  I hope that today you feel love, a love full of goodness, an outpouring of everything good in you.

There is nothing better than knowing you are giving the best of who you are to something or someone.  Be the love you want, give the love you wish for, but most important, BE HAPPY WITH WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW.  Things can always get better, but they can also get worse. And trust me, it has taken me years of stumblings and heartache to recognize good when I see it.  When you find it, you'll see what all the fighting was for.

I bet you never saw that one coming :)

TMFH: Techmology

The world is over when my phone is broken...And I'll probably cry until its fixed.

Its always in the last place you look!

Everybody has done it.


You lose your keys, your glasses, the last piece of bacon-its a tragic experience!  And you look all over for it. Try as you might, you just can't find it anywhere.  It is that awful feeling-that feeling that you will never sleep again for fear that you and your treasured item will be pulled farther and farther away from each other.


Isn't that the worst?


And then of course when you DO find it, someone will inevitably say that age old adage (which yes I did just look up to make sure I was using that word properly) 'Its always in the last place you look!' You will of course think to yourself, 'Thanks idiot, who in their right mind would keep looking after they found what they were looking for?' but on the outside you say, 'I know!' and bat your eye lashes and hope that they don't see through your desire to slap them.


But the point of my story is that you always find things in the darndest places.  My mom used to lose her glasses all the time (pre lasic eye surgery) and would find them...on top of her head.  


Enter point of this post.


I have been pondering and stressing over a decision and some situations in my life for a few months.  Stressing because of course matters of the heart are always so dark and twisty and complicated and pondering because, well, matters of the heart are meant to be pondered.  You don't need to know the specifics of it, but needless to say I was really wanting to figure it all out.  I had prayed about it, I had thought it out in my mind, and still, nothing.  It was driving me insane.  So late Saturday night after a much needed conversation, I started a fast to figure it out.


Now I don't talk about my calling very often on here, but I am ward party planner.  It used to be my dream calling, but right now it is the number one adder of stress to my life.  It is so hard to plan for things in my ward where one week we will have 20 people at something and the next week 30-50.  UGH!  So we had an awesome sacrament meeting, great Sunday School and then I assumed my position in the kitchen (spare me the bare foot and pregnant jokes) and go about making baked potatoes for everyone...due to some slight miscalculations I was stressed all afternoon so I didn't really break my fast properly and I wasn't really in any mood to receive revelation or answers.  Looking back, I would have probably had a hard time deciphering answers at that time anyways. I went home that night and took a breather before going to party it up watching the Super Bowl at a friend's house.

This is me in the kitchen being stressed...and taking a picture. It makes sense.

Post Half Time, mid-sentence, the spirit slapped that answer in my face so hard.  The funny thing was, it had been staring me in the face for WEEKS, but I guess I just needed the right perspective.  Well there it was, BOOM, perspective.  And once I knew, there was nothing that could have stopped me from doing the right thing, so I did it.  


I am so glad to have the gift of personal revelation, and especially for the Holy Ghost.  I don't always recognize it, I don't always know when I'm following it, but I'm trying.


Besides, its always in the last place you look.

TMFH: Those days

On those days when everyone keeps talking to me about the one thing I just can't bare to talk about and I am upset and come home all weepy eyed and tell you all about it, I don't want you to fix the problem.

I want chocolate and a tight squeeze.

Nothing more.

Oh my job...

I will often have my students 'trade and grade' because it makes my life just a little bit easier when I am grading quizzes. (Obviously I don't do this for Tests)

Today I found this on a paper...

I wrote on his paper: Do not write anything more than your name on the paper you grade.  Kevin's parents do not care that you are a 'triple O.G. gangster' or your thug status.

Kids these days.

TMFH: Sacrament Talks

The day before I give a talk, you are basically my slave.  Feed me, listen to me, scratch my back while I'm pondering and make sure everything and everyone else leaves me alone.

Its what Jesus would do.

Things Worth Waiting For...

Remember that one time when I blogged about kissing?

Yeah me neither. This is a dad warning...aka dad, unless you want to hear about my kissing history, you should probably stop reading. Continue reading at your own risk.

I am not patient.

Fo'real.

I get annoyed when the person in front of me takes forever checking out and I get pretty perturbed if the person behind me in line at security ends up getting through the pat down before me. Did I also mention I'm super mature. Cuz I am.

When I was 16 years old, I met a pretty awesome guy, who's name will not be mentioned, mainly because I don't feel like asking him if its okay to write about him. But if you're reading this, Hey! How's it going? Anyways, as most boy/girl 16 year old relationships go, we started dating. He was practically perefect in every way, kind of like the male version of Mary Poppins, or Sherry Bobbins, or Mark Wahlberg ( in which case he would be the Mormon equivalent to him since they are both already male...) but there was just one problem- his parents had promised him $1000 if he made it his entire four years of high school without having his first kiss.

I don't know if their motivation was to keep their kid out of the back seat of a car, or maybe it was one of those things that you say to someone knowing full well that you'll never have to make good on the promise because it is completely unattainable ( like telling me you'll pay me $1000 to not be sarcastic for a week or to wear outfits and makeup my mom picked out for a week. It sounds like easy money, and then I realize what that entails and I give up all together). Anyways, they promised him this money and as we started to spend more time together and hold hands (gasp!!!) the more I kept thinking, "their is no way I'm going to cost this guy a thousand bucks"

I mean, don't get me wrong, I hadn't kissed a whole lot of boys up to that point, but I had kissed a few and was pretty sure that I was a pretty decent kisser. However, I didn't think that kissing me was worth a thousand dollars. So we must have spent more than two months of our dating period just hanging out and holding hands. If I remember correctly we would email each other throughout the week and then see each other on the weekends and it's probably the most I knew about any guy I dated from the time I was 14-20. We had excellent communication, we laughed so much, had tons of inside jokes and I think I made him love his full name for the first time ever. Eventually we did kiss, but it was after we were both emotionally invested ( as much as one can be at 16) and we both knew what we we're getting into.

Fast forward 12 years. Here I am on the verge of my 28th birthday. I have seen A LOT of boyfriends come and go, kissed a lot of frogs since then, and a few weeks ago I find myself on a date where a guy tells me he doesn't kiss for three months of knowing a girl and I think to myself, "can I even do that??" at the time I thought I was totally justified in thinking that he was a total square, but as I have had time to reflect over my Christmas break, I have thought about this a lot. (I did also hang out with 16 year old wonder man and remember why I thought he was amazing and kick myself for screwing it up all those years ago...not that it wouldn't have ended anyways, but I pretty much slammed that door shut in my own face...twice)

While I am not an advocate for waiting extended periods of time to kiss (ie waiting until you get married), I think there is something to be said about being patient, letting life happen!  Are we really so focused on progression that we can't let life happen, naturally?  Is it that important to us that we 'get results' that we can't be calm??  And I'm not just referring to kissing (I know dad, you are so proud).  Change happens gradually, so can we really be upset if nothing happens after day one of our Kanye West Work Out Plan (don't google that) or if we don't learn to stand up on a surf board the first three times we go (or four...or five...or six)

The point is BE PATIENT!!  Learning and progressing and growing are all processes. I think a small part of me has always chosen to ignore how infinitely connected patience and faith are.  Faith is believing in things without seeing them.  Patience is the continual belief in something until you actually have the proof.  And then the faith converts to knowledge.  Its like math...without the numbers.  I am no good at the patience part, but I feel like lately, that is what Heavenly Father has wanted me to learn.  Patience with myself as I learn and stretch and do hard things that hurt and are uncomfortable for me.  Patience with my students as they learn and stretch and do hard things that hurt and are uncomfortable for them.  Patience with those around me who are struggling beyond what I know or understand.

The growth at the end of all of that patience is something worth waiting for.  I am worth waiting for.  That exciting moment when you figure something out after months of agonizing, or you finally stand up on that surf board or run that race and do well.  THOSE THINGS ARE WORTH WAITING FOR!! Because when the answers, or relief, or whatever it is you feel like you need comes, it means so much more, because you waited for it.

But basically what I'm saying is I am not allowed to get mad if I don't get kissed on the first date.