Life's Patterns

"The Lord commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and...they shall learn in their own experience who He is." Albert Schweitzer

These past several months I have been reflecting on the difficulties that life's challenges bring us. Mostly because I am surrounded by many tough things as I watch co-workers who I have worked beside lose their jobs because the company can not afford to keep everyone there, and the knowledge that this very thing could happen to me. As I listened to the rumors that go flying around and the fears that my co-workers express I again am so grateful for a Prophet and Apostles who receive revelation from our Savior Jesus Christ for our times right now! They constantly remind me in who I can trust. They remind me of the hope that I am able to have and realize that I will not be left alone. These quotes below and above are some that have brought, hope and peace into my life amongst turmoil and possible strife.

"One of the challenges of this mortal experience is to not allow the stresses and strains of life to get the better of us - to endure the varied seasons of life while remaining positive, even optimistic."
"In our search to obtain relief from the stresses of life, may we earnestly seek ways to simplify our lives. May we comply with the inspired counsel and direction the Lord has given us in the great plan of happiness. May we be worthy to have the companionship of the Holy Ghost and follow the guidance of the Spirit as we navigate this mortal journey. May we prepare ourselves to accomplish the ultimate purpose of this mortal test-to return and live with our Heavenly Father" ~ Elder Tom Perry - Apostle of Jesus Christ

This is My Year!

At the beginning of 2008 amongst all the different activities where we talked about New Years resolutions and goals for the new year, I remember as I pondered what sort of things I wanted to do this year I had the feeling "This is MY Year!" That very phrase penetrated my thoughts and heart . I will let you draw your own conclusions as to what hopeful ideas sprang to my mind from that phrase. ;) This year has come to a close and, I will be honest, the hopeful idea that came I am nowhere near accomplishing the idea that shall not be named :) Sorry feeling a Harry Potter moment!

At the close of this year I have been reflecting on this past year and the awesome thing is that, this has been MY year! I feel like I have had one of the greatest years!

It all started off with an awesome room mate who helped to make this year exciting, fun, and full of so many learning and growing experiences. Elizabeth you rock!


I was able to date an awesome guy for a few months, I have been able to serve the Lord in callings that have strengthened my testimony and love for others! I was challenged to read Jesus the Christ and I felt like I had many life and faith changing experiences as I read from those pages and my testimony of the Savior grew even more!

This summer ROCKED!!!! I was able to travel to 3 National Parks around the country! First stop was the Grand Canyon in June. Elizabeth (my roomie) picked me up from the airport in Arizona and we drove down to the North Ridge of the Grand Canyon. What an experience!! Great Bonding time and even got to meet fellow travelers of the trail. There is some sort of bond that is felt as you are hiking a canyon and you come across a stranger. You know that you are both on a journey that will be physically challenging but well worth it! It is like you become automatic friends as you cross each others paths along the way. There was one group that we found was doing the same hike as us. Which was 16 miles round trip. Down to the river and back to the top of the ridge in one day! We went down the South Kaibab Trail and came up the Bright Angel Trail.

We had gone 13 miles by this point, hence the finger adding a 1.

At the end of June I was able to travel back to the beautiful state of Oregon where I served my mission! :D I went for a framily, yes I spelled that correctly, wedding and then traveled around the state for a few days. While there I went to the beach and Crater Lake National Park.

Starfish

This picture is for my fro, Jason, from my framily!

I love Waves

Crater Lake

Oregon Sunrise

In September Elizabeth and I traveled across Texas 8 hours, and we started in the middle of the state and it still took us 8 hours :) Yeah the state is pretty big! Elizabeth and I traveled to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Where we hiked and set up camp on the mountain, I might add we had the whole mountain to ourselves!! It was pretty awesome. The next morning we went the rest of the way to the top and enjoyed the view from the Tallest peak in Texas!

Do you see that step compared to her knee?

The end of this year was packed with some great lessons through experience such as the Lord can do anything even if it seems impossible and having hope and being optimistic in uncertain times!

I love what Elder Rasband said in his Conference address in April 2008. He said, "As experiences accumulate in our lives, they add strength and support to each other. Just as the building blocks of our homes support the rest of the structure, so too do our personal life experiences become building blocks for our testimonies and add to our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ."

That is what this year has been for me. Through all of my experiences I have felt how it has prepared me for whatever is to come in this coming year. It has been the end of a season and beginning of a new.

Bring on 2009!

Life just doesn't get better!

It seems that everyone, well almost everyone is blogging about their Thanksgiving week. I must say I had a great one! I had the whole week off from work and I only had classes on Monday and Tuesday. YAY!

Wednesday I went to the temple in San Antonio, then that evening traveled the whole 45 minutes home and spent the next several days with my family! What good times we had.

This was our first Thanksgiving with my new Sister-in-law and she fits right into the family. We give her hard times but that is a sign of love. :) I can't forget the Turkey Bowl. I showed up thinking that I might sit on the sidelines with my little brother who had a cast because he had previously broken his arm playing football. But there were not that many people that showed up to play so I joined the team with my little brother and can I say my brothers rock the field. Seth and Benjamin. I would say that I did, well that really would be a lie. But I still had a good time. Even my little brother who is 11 and in a cast scored the last winning touchdown of our last game. And these guys didn't go easy on him, pushing him down even, I felt my big sister protection coming out a little wanting to punch the guy out but I resisted and rather threatened instead. :)

That night we watched the Texas and A&M game. I was the only one yelling and screaming as my little sister lying right next to me was sleeping through it. It was a fun game to watch as A&M was wiped clean off the field. Later I found out that two of my good friends had been online watching the game together and I wished I had joined in with them to comment on what was happening in the game.

Friday was my sisters birthday! The big 15. Oh my, I have come to realize that it is on my brothers and sisters birthdays when I feel like I actually age. So my sister knowing this little bit of knowledge kept on taunting me with the fact that she was going to be 15. I wanted to treat her like a princess on her birthday so we got all dressed up in Formal dresses and went to the movies to see Twilight. That is the movie she had wanted to see. Neither of us have actually read the books. The movie wasn't brilliant and at the same time it wasn't terrible. It just was. We showed up to the movie theater both of us feeling a little embarrassed, though I was trying my hardest not to show it. :) I told the guy we wanted to see Twilight and he said, "It's a good movie but you didn't have to get all dressed up for it." If I want to get dressed up on a random day don't I have the right!!!! I let him know it was my sisters birthday and I wanted her to feel special. He said ah, and I am sure talked about those crazy girls with his co workers who were all dressed up going to the movie theater. To bad I wasn't in Austin. I could have just said I was doing my part to Keep Austin Weird! Unfortunately Bastrop, TX does not have that same slogan. Darn it!

Saturday night was awesome. I got together with a bunch of girls and one guy and we watched the OU vs. Oklamhoma State game. We spent a lot of our time debating who we should actually cheer for, knowing that we did not want to cheer for either. I finally decided to cheer for good plays. We decided we wanted OU to win but only by a few points 3-4 would have been grand. It was like that until about the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter when all of a sudden Oklahoma State left the field and OU decided to take advantage. They played a good game up until that point. But it was still a good time, laughing and realizing how funny it was that here we were a bunch of girls watching football and wondering why only one guy was there? Does that seem right. You would think Football and girls would bring in the guys? :) Let me tell you that one guy is one of the smartest guys I know. Plus it was great food!

One of my friends is absolutely hilarious, she takes regular life and tells a story about it and she has you laughing like crazy. I think she would make a great stand up comedian.

Stand up comedy:
Have you ever been to a Football game with girls?

ShaRay: Kari and Wilber are enjoying married... Stop him, Stop him!!!
Carina: Yeah!... What about Kari and Wilber?

Carina: Are Marquel and Braden dating? Whoooooooo!
Tarsha: TOUCHDOWN!!!!! They seem to spend a lot of time together?
Elisa: 2 point conversion YAH! They have been on at least 6 dates!
Marcus: What did I get myself into?

;)

So my week in a nutshell Football, Food, Family, and Friends! I don't know if a week can get much better than that?

Thank you to the Men 2 Nephi 1:21

I want to say Thank you!

Thank you for being virtuous! Every day we are surrounded by those who would turn our innocent words around to being dirty, indecent, or negative. We are surrounded by vulgarity that brings us down instead of lifting us up. I am grateful for those men who shun those unvirtuous things and allow me to feel safe and comfortable as I am in their presence.

Thank you for honoring the Priesthood which you hold! There is nothing that is a greater blessing than having honorable Priesthood friends and husband, someday or today.

Thank you for standing in holy places! I am so grateful for when I go on a date that it is to places that I would feel safe in. Places where I have consequences of good and not evil.

Thank you for being aware of entertainment!

Thank you for keeping the Sabbath Day Holy!

Thank you for Home Teaching!

Thank you for Serving!

Thank you for searching your scriptures!

Thank you for your meaningful prayers!

Thank you for your faith in Christ!

Thank you for following the example of Christ!

Elder Christoffersen said it best. "Good men sometimes make mistakes. A man of integrity will honestly face and correct his mistakes, and that is an example we can respect. Sometimes men try but fail. Not all worthy objectives are realized despite one’s honest and best efforts. True manhood is not always measured by the fruits of one’s labors but by the labors themselves—by one’s striving." Let us be Men, November 2006 Ensign pg. 46-48

Thank you for striving!

Thank you for being Men!

LIVESTRONG

I am participating in my first 5K on October 25th! It will be an exciting day. Not only for me with accomplishing a short term goal I set for myself, but for those who are trying to fight against cancer.
The word LIVESTRONG has a powerful meaning to me. Not only in fighting against cancer but applying it to any battle that we come across in our lives. To me it is setting goals and attaining those goals that you have set for yourself to better yourself! I have personal experience in living strong with setting a goal to lose weight and become more active instead of sedentary. This will be my first 5K I have ever ran. 3 years ago I would not have been able to do this. I would appreciate your support as I go and LIVESTRONG for myself and all of the other battles that people around the world are fighting! This to me is not only about raising money but about proclaiming to the world the ability we all have to LIVESTRONG in whatever we desire! It is about the ability to change, to not be a victim of circumstance, but to rise above and be strong.
The Lance Armstrong Foundation unites people to fight cancer, believing that unity is strength, knowledge is power, and attitude is everything.Through the dollars and awareness that we raise, we can inspire and empower individuals, and we can make life better for the more than 10 million Americans affected by cancer.
If anyone is able to donate and would like to here is a great place to do it at!
https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=262612&supid=234017143

Am I really known?

So Facebook has a "fun" little application where you can be compared by your friends with their other friends.
Hmm....
Why do I have this application?
Do I really want to subject myself to the knowledge that I am #3 among all of my friends ranked the craziest. Luckily I lost a place, previously I had the Number 1 and 2 spot.
Or do I want to know that I lost 2 places as being most entertaining.... and 1 place as best public speaker. Great this happened right after my lesson in church on Sunday! Hmm is that saying something.
The only one I agree with is best shopping companion having lost 1 place, if you know me, you know I don't like shopping so I do not make the best shopping companion. Though I guess that would all depend on who I was going shopping with. If it was a girly girl, she would quickly drop me, if it is a guy, well then I might be his favorite girl shopping companion ever, since I don't want to stick around and walk up and down every single aisle in the store!
Honestly though, this comparing people thing is just pretty much pointless. The times that I have gone through and compared, most of the time I am comparing facebook aquaintances and I don't know them well enough to know if they would skip out of class or not. I also adopted my friend Jason's idea of family or framily :) trumps everything. When it is a good thing and a family member shows up or someone that might as well be my family, they are inevitably chosen.
I probably get an e-mail at least once or twice a week telling me that my rankings have changed. Normally I delete it! I should really just go in and tell facebook to stop sending me e-mails on this thing, but I don't feel like sifting through all the mumbo jumbo to turn it off. So I will just keep deleting those and get excited when I see 10 new messages in my inbox, only to find that they are all Facebook drama.

A Day of Delays

God will allow you to be taught a lesson.


Choices affect the way things happen in our lives! Last night I chose to stay up late watching a tv program. I knew I shouldn't but I wanted to watch it, so I did. Before you get the wrong idea it wasn't a terrible show, it was just bad timing. It kept me up late, so when my alarm went off this morning I did not want to wake up. I chose to hit the snooze and laid in bed for a few extra minutes. Yet again another not wise choice. This put me getting out late. It wouldn't have been so bad except that there was more traffic than normal. Earlier there had been accidents on the lower deck and it caused back-ups all the way back to where I get on the freeway. I got to school and was able to find a parking space, which I was actually surprised about. But I ended up walking into class late. Not a big deal for this class, but I am still not a big fan of walking in late. I have to walk in front of the teacher who is already lecturing. The class period went by fine.


Then I had my next class. I enjoy this class, we are learning about the muscles right now, more specifically just the basics of the roles they perform. Eccentric and Cocentric movements in the muscles. Later we will be getting into more of the individual roles of each muscle. But today in the beginning of class my eyes were burning and wanting to shut because last night I chose to stay up. After a while it went away, thank heavens.


Class was over and it was time for me to head off to work. Normally I pack myself a lunch and eat on my drive to work, but I ran out of time this morning, so I was going to quickly stop at a fast food restaurant and get some food to eat on my way to work. I pull up to the drive-thru and order. I get to the window, they take my money and then I proceed to wait. They then ask me to pull up to the yellow line. Whoever designed the layout for the drive-thru did a poor job, or did not think about the poor souls who would have to pull ahead and wait on their meals. I pulled up to the specified yellow line and again wait. Then the person behind me wants to go, but I am blocking there way. I pull out as far as I can without leaving the restaurant but still they are stuck. What I am gonna do? I want my food, and I already paid for it. That is another thing I think i should get my food before I give them my money, or at least at the same time. The girl behind me starts honking her horn. K, not the best way to get on my good side. I hate horns. I know she was frustrated, she wanted to leave, well so did I. I got out of my car and let her know I was waiting on my food. I was losing my patience by this point. I wanted to tell the employee forget it, give me my money back, I don't want your food. Mostly because of the lady behind me honking her horn. One of the employees came out and now asked me if I would pull out of the restaurant and go wait in this other area. Feeling frustrated, instead of venting to the lady of the injustices :) I peeled out of the driveway, and whipped around. I avoided a verbal confrontation with the lady, but my actions were not commendable. I waited a little longer and finally they brought me my food. As I am sitting in the car I know I am not responding well to this situation. It is not even that big of a deal, yet I am making it the problem of the century inside myself. When the lady brought me my food, I know my face was upset, but that is how I was feeling, I was having a hard time of changing that, I tried with my voice to be calmer than I was on the inside and said Thank you, and Have a good Day!


At times in my life I have been very aware of how my anger affects me physically, not just the expression of anger but how I feel inside. I have had experiences of how to release the anger and feeling as the tension I have inside is released. It has been very interesting. Also a choice that can be made.


Now I was running late to work. I would probably make it just right on time instead of a few minutes early. As I am driving along on the normal road I take, today it has been decided that they are going to do road work. Only one Lane is open. I have to stop and wait so that my side of traffic can go. And it doesn't happen just once but twice. I continue on to work, now knowing I am going to be a few minutes late, and one more detour comes up, requiring me to go around a block.


At this point I am laughing to myself thinking how funny it is that I am hitting all of this opposition. All because of a choice that I made last night affecting the delays I had in my day. Had I brought my lunch, yes I would have hit the detours but it would not have mattered, I still would have gotten to work a few minutes early. I would have avoided my impatience at the fast food joint. I wouldn't have been so tired in my class, and I would have made it to my first class on time. Plus I also find I tend to be less patient when I am tired because I am more focused on my needs of just wanting some sleep, and whatever other need pops up, that I forget to think rationally.

Lessons and thoughts I had:

O be wise; what can I say more? Jacob 6:12

When opposition is coming I am so quick to say Satan is messing with me today, How often am I causing my own opposition to occur by the choices I have made?

In reading Jesus the Christ today in between my classes I read about the Rich young man asking the Savior what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. The Savior tells him what he lacks, but the young man feeling overwhelmed by the sacrifice walks away. Talmage then turns the question on the reader, What do I lack?

Such a great question, if we find out how are we going to respond. This is a question that was on my mind and has been well answered.

Since writing this post and before actually posting it I had a great lesson in Relief Society on Elder Uchtdorf's talk "A Matter of a Few Degrees" from the April 2008 General Conference. I was able to correlate my thoughts that I learned here with that talk, in how I was put off a few degrees in the direction I was heading because of the choice I made.