I'm ALIVE!!

The beauty of the gospel, in my opinion, is that each of us is allowed to learn lessons at different times.  For example; if I had had to learn the 'be mature' lesson before I was allowed to progress in any other area...I would still probably be stuck on the 'be mature' check-off point. Sure I would be working at it, striving to be better, but in the mean time, all of these other teaching opportunities would be wasted on me because I would only be looking and focusing on 'being mature.'

I realized this week that the Lord has been trying to teach me, for a VERY long time, how to make good choices the first time.  I won't go into too many details, but there was a point in my life where I would choose what I wanted over what I thought the Lord wanted. (See waiting to turn my mission papers in for 6 months, even though I had gotten some pretty serious revelation that I needed to go, because of a boy...stupid!)  The beauty of repentance is that it is always available to those who are willing to seek after it, but wouldn't it be better to just do things right the first time?! Of course it is.  But most of us don't learn that way.  That is why we have agency, and that is why the atonement was necessary.

I heard a quote when I was younger that has always stuck out to me.  It said something along the lines of 'Our lives are made of every day choices that will one day show what we truly believed.'  I always thought it was catchy.  I think I even wrote it on a piece of paper and put it on my wall so I would remember it.  But only now, in my mid twenties, am I seeing how that correlation between the small choices and my happiness really are.

In a talk called Choices by President Faust, he similarly equated our happiness to our ability to choose.  He said:

In this life we have to make many choices.  Some are very important choices.  Some are not.  Many of our choices are between good and evil.  The choices we make, however, determine to a large extent our happiness or our unhappiness, because we have to live with the consequences of our choices.  Making perfect choices all of the time is not possible.  It just doesn't happen.  But it is possible to make good choices we can live with and grow from.  When God's children live worthy of divine guidance they can become 'free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon.'


That is one of my favorite scriptures.  So I am choosing to act for myself this week and not be acted upon.  I am choosing to run that extra mile even though I know nobody but me will know the difference.  I am choosing to not be 'reactional' but rather choose my mood and not let my mood choose me.

Because 60% of the time, it works EVERY time.

Oh that? That's just my survival shuffle.

My last companion in the mission field was a cross country runner for USU.  She helped me drop about 15lbs before heading home. (I could have used to drop about 15 more, but hey, at least it was an improvement).  I loved Hermana Johnson for more than just her ability to inspire me to run.  She was one of the most pure hearted people I have ever met.  She was stubborn as a mule but not afraid to admit when she was wrong.  She was awesome.

The thing that I found so amazing about her is that she LOVED to run.  For her birthday, we got up a half hour earlier than normal so that we could go on this mega long run and tackle this hill (that was most definitely out of our area...) and so that she could just get out there and stretch her legs.  We ran hard and fast and when we got to the huge hill, I was about to die.

This is us on our run.  Look how chubby I was...yuck!

This is when she taught me about the survival shuffle.

It is basically just moving your legs like you are running even though you are going slower than a running pace.  It allows you to rest, but to not let yourself give up and walk.  I love the survival shuffle.

I am a mere two days away from my first solo half marathon.  The only other time I ran a half marathon, I ran with my dad who helped me to finish without stopping.  This new race is going to be really different because I will be by myself.  I have a great ability of talking myself out of things I really want when I am tired or feel like it is too hard.  I am so very worried about this in the race on Saturday because I REALLY want to finish this half by myself and be able to say that I did just as well as when I ran with my dad.  I am more scared then I ever remember being about anything, but I am trying to look forward to the race regardless of my fear.

I was looking up things online about different running techniques during long races and I came across a phrase that has stuck with me this week.  The advice for the runner was simple: Think that you can.

President Faust gave a talk back in 2002 in priesthood session called I Believe I can, I knew I Could.  While most of it applies to the use of the priesthood, there were a few things that stood out to me.  First he said, 'At times all of us are called upon to stretch ourselves and do more than we think we can.'  This experience is not unique to me, nor to this time.  ALL of us at times are going to be asked to do something that is seemingly impossible, but will help us prove what we are made of. (I know I wasn't really called upon to run this race, but bare with me.)

President Faust went on to say the following:'The Lord entrusts all of His servants...with spiritual talents.  The Lord, who endows us with these talents, tells us: 'I believe you can. I believe you can.'

So if you happen to be in the crowd on Saturday, and you see me running by, don't be surprised if you see my lips moving and hear the words 'I think I can.'

And don't be scared if I look like death...thats just part of the survival shuffle.

Nintendo and the Easter Bunny

Yesterday was my good buddy Rob's birthday and for his birthday, we celebrated the day before with a surprise party including but not limited to a little Rockband.  Rockband may very well be the only video game that I can even semi play...and if you saw me play drums you might just beg to differ.

Over the years I have thought a lot about why it is that I stink so badly at video games, and I realized the other day that the person at fault is...The Easter Bunny.  

The Christmas I turned ten or eleven, my older brother got a Nintendo gaming system.  We were all really excited about it.  Strategically Santa had left my older sister a Game Genie or something like that.  It was a universal cheat...not that we really needed it since the only games we had were Duck Hunt, Super Mario Brothers, Mike Tyson Knock Out and some game that had to do with fighting Ninjas.  Regardless, we were in kid heaven.  Christmas break was spent playing the Nintendo.  I wasn't any good of course so level 1-2 of Mario Brothers was about as far as I got, but my older siblings plowed through like they had been playing for years. And in all actuality they probably were since they were old enough to have friends who also had Nintendos.  We were a bit behind on the video gamer trend. I would watch my older brother for hours as he got past level after level and got closer to eventually beating King Kupa.  My parents I am sure were just grateful to get us all to keep quiet for long periods of time.  Having five kids may not seem like that big of a deal if you come from a big family, but we were a very energetic group.  I'm sure at times it felt to my parents as if they had 15.

The one thing my parents probably did not expect was my little brother, who was three or four at the time, to also love playing Nintendo.  He of course couldn't play very well...at least I think he was, but he would often fall asleep playing the game.  A few times my parents even caught him, in the middle of the night, curled up in a ball on our play room floor with the remote control in his hand and the Super Mario Brothers theme playing on repeat.  This was a bit disconcerting to my parents who forsaw a life of couchpotatoe-ness and were afraid to raise a nerdy child.  So they did what any parent would do.  They came up with a deceiving plan that would make sure the Nintendo was gone without having to look like mean parents.

Easter is an exciting time of year for little kids.  Besides Christmas, it is the most exciting holiday as you wake up and go on killer scavenger hunts looking for baskets and hidden eggs. (Hopefully your parents will remember where all the eggs are hidden so that  you do not have to go through what we went through one year, finding an egg, very well hidden by my dad, a few WEEKS after Easter. :)  We woke that Easter morning anticipating the hunt for eggs, candy and our individual baskets.  Imagine my little brother's surprise, when his basket was hidden in plain sight, right where the Nintendo had been placed just the evening before.  Imagine his further astonishment when there was a note attached to his basket from the Easter Bunny.  I do not remember the specifics of the note, but in essence it said that the Easter Bunny had left Jaden's basket in exchange for the Nintendo.  I remember him saying distinctly, 'He stole it?!?' to which my parents just nodded their heads and said yes.

For months after that, if anything we liked went missing, we would simply state that the Easter Bunny had taken it.  It was as if he transformed from a happy little rabbit spreading cheer and candy to a dirty thief.  He was the most hated of all of the holiday representatives.  Years later as I was rummaging through old things as we packed up our house to move I found our old Nintendo.  I had long since realized that it was my parents, and not the Easter Bunny, who had taken it, but I had not known its true fate.  I learned that my older siblings were actually in on the deal and were allowed to know its whereabouts and when the younger siblings were asleep or gone, they were allowed to get it out and play.

I laugh at how creative my parents are and were back then.  I wonder how many other things like this were done to keep my parents sane and to help us kids be better...and less annoying.  

I wonder what happened to my old recorder?

I bet the Easter Bunny took it. :)

A little laugh

I have plenty to say about going to Houston, but I will save that for a serious blog post.

Knowing that there are people in my ward who read this blog, I am still going to share this hilarious situation.  If you know who I'm talking about...just be a pal and don't tell!

So at the beginning of February, I went on a date with a guy in my ward.  To say the least it was...pretty awkward (lets just say I got pushed up against a wall in an effort on his part to seduce me.)  Anyways, we never went out again, though a few weeks ago he sat next to me in church, and proceeded to put his arm around me and rub my arm.  It was as if we were dating.  But we weren't.  I believe that was the last time that I really spoke with him.

This morning in ward council he announced that he was engaged.  To a girl.  He has supposedly been dating for three months. I laughed

You do the math. :)

Deep in the heart of....ah who'm I kidding I hate Texas

Sleeping in has been a horrible habit to get into during the week where everything is due.  Unfortunately my body has decided to be terrible lately.  I have no energy...I haven't even run this week! And of course this is the week that all teachers assign things because they think that they are being so clever in assigning things two weeks before the last week of the semester and nobody else is as clever as they are to assign things.  Yeah, thanks,  I have a billion papers now to write because you are 'so clever'.

So this has been the week of big little changes for me.  A few months back I talked about doing my student teaching in D.C.  I was all set up to go, all excited to go...I even had my first day of school outfit picked out.  (A little premature you say? Well...you're probably right but a girl has to get excited about something okay.)  A few days ago I get an email stating that I would not be able to do my TELL (Teaching English Language Learners) practicum (mini student teaching) in D.C. and was I aware of that and would I be doing it in Utah next winter.  Um. No.  That was not my plan.  So I start making phone calls and sending emails and come to find out that, basically, BYU hates me....

Okay they don't hate me but they do not want to budge on this one.  I was pretty upset.  I came home and went to a friend of mine's apartment to vent.  This is about how this went down.

(embrace for a long period of time because he gives good hugs)

ME:I can't go to D.C.

Alex: I'm sorry.  That sucks

ME: I am so mad right now

Roommate 1: Maybe this is God telling you you aren't supposed to go.

ME: You are not helping

Alex: Yeah I think he may be on to something.

Me: You are not helping

Roommate 2: Yeah, look at it this way, you made a decision and Heavenly Father is basically telling you its the wrong one!

ME: You guys suck.  Don't play the God card.  I want to be upset.

Alex: We are just sayin, you have options.

So I have been weighing out my options.  I can go to Houston, do my student teaching and my TELL practicum at the same time no problem.  But Houston just doesn't sound as exciting as D.C.  and it wasn't the plan.  I talked to the coordinators today and they said it wouldn't be a problem to switch to Houston, but I don't know that I really want to go there.  The upside to going there is that there are a lot of jobs for teachers there and they start you at $45,000 a year...which is pretty good for a teacher right out of college.  Student teaching there would be good because it would give me a sense of what Texas was all about without committing me to teaching there for life.

Or I could stay in Utah.  Which I discovered, much to my own shock, is what I consider a cowardly move today.  I said it out loud and realized that that is my big stigma with staying here.  Because me staying here is me having no faith.  Its the part of me that says, 'You can't leave Utah, you aren't married!'  Its the part of me that my parents agree with and the part of me that I hate the most.  Perfectly mormon people get married out of Utah all the time.  I don't need to stay here...do I?

I can't help but think, and shame on me for thinking this, that this would all be so much easier if I had a husband who's life could help scaffold mine.  I know I know, not this again.  But honestly, when you have a teaching degree and no husband going to school or working or whatever, when you graduate you can LITERALLY go almost anywhere.  And if you haven't noticed, the U.S. is kind of gynormous.  

So where do I go??  How do you choose when both options are good and neither are inherently 'wrong'?

"In life ALL must choose at times.  Sometimes, two possibilities are good; neither is evil.  Usually however, one is of greater import than the other.  When in doubt, each must choose that which concerns the good of others-the greater law- rather than that which chiefly benefits ourselves- the lesser law.  The greater must be chosen, whether it be law or thing..." - Elder John A. Widtsoe

I guess I'll make a pros and cons list.

What I learn in the war chapters

I have been trying to be extremely consistent in my scripture reading lately. (I know, didn't I learn that on the mission?  Well the answer is no, I got good at it on the mission, but unfortunately when you get off of a bike, no matter how good at riding it you are, you can't get anywhere on it.)  Ever since my little brother went into the MTC (he leaves today for Indiana...you'd think he'd call but he didn't) I have thought about things I want to be better about and scripture reading and sincere prayer are high on the list.

Last night I read Ether 11 which is just a seemingly unspiritual chapter amongst other geneological chapters that don't really teach you really rich deep doctrine that make you believe that the church is true and that your life is so much better having read.  I also read a little in Revelations (which I don't understand at all) and didn't really think to much about what I read because I was more excited to almost be done with the New Testament and excited to start the Old Testament.  I said my prayers after that, got into bed, and promptly fell asleep.

This morning as I was in the shower I randomly started thinking about what I had read last night. (that hardly ever happens, I am not that spiritual...and I rarely wake up early enough to shower before class) I realized that even though I don't participate in wars, I could relate my reading to what is going on in my life right now.  When it talks about 'making war' I could substitute 'gossiping' or 'being offended'.  When it says that 'prophets came' and 'prophesied of the destruction of the people except they should repent and turn unto the Lord and forsake their murders and wickedness' I can think, 'bishops and priesthood leaders came and gave talks about the deterioration of a good life except I should repent and turn to the Lord and forsake my cursing habit and my habit of judging others.'

So even though I have been told my whole life to liken the scriptures unto my own life, I just now figured out exactly what that meant.  Excuse my friend here, she is a little slow.

List of grateful

I don't do this too often, so I thought today being such an important day in my heritage (just kidding I have no idea what St. Patrick's Day celebrates but I'm Irish and Scottish so I pretend it is important) I thought I would write down a few things I am grateful for.  Thanks Lucky Charms.

*My Ipod shuffle- I remember running my first half with my Ipod classic and how the arm band straight rubbed me raw...it hurt.  I am glad in our society we are constantly trying to make things smaller. (I'm leaving this one wide open.)

*The Provo/Jordan River trail- Yesterday I was supposed to run 6 miles.  The thought of running 6 miles on a tredmill made me sick to my stomach.  Thanks to this trail, I didn't have to!

*My Ironman Triathalon watch- I still have to work out the kinks but for the most part, you keep me from whimping out on my runs.  Thanks for measuring my steps.

*The teenage kids who wrote on the trail- I was getting pretty tired on the last mile back to my house, but I was entertained as I ran by nice little notes in chalk on the trail.  They said things like, 'You are fat.' and 'Giving up is for skinny people.'  Genius.

*Honky Tonk Ba Donka Donk- Say what you want about this song, but when you are running, it is a good pump up.  Trust me.  Who wants to be known as the girl with the honky tonk ba donka donk?  Not me.

*A little brother on a mission- I had to throw this one in here because I think about him every day and I am so grateful he is on a mission.  I can't wait till he gets out of the MTC though so that my urge to just walk up there and see him will be unwarrented.  I live a block away.  Its ridiculous.

Happy St. Patty's to you all.