Dear BYU,

Christ wore University of Utah colors.

 

That is all.

Nobody Said It Was Easy . . . No One Ever Said It Would Be So Hard

I hate making decisions.  I hate the finality of it.  I love keep my options open.  I hate closing the door.  I hate the whole process.  The not knowing.  The wondering "Am I sure this is right? Am I sure I'm not making some huge mistake?"

Of course I'm not sure. Most of the time there is no surety. If I was sure this choice would be super easy.

And I hate it when the choice is between two good things.  Why can't it always be black and white, good and bad, right and wrong, yes and no?  Why does it always have to be between white and a slightly different shade of white?  OK and OK?  Right and right in a different way?  Maybe and Maybe? How are you supposed to choose?

And why is it always feast or famine?  I pray for a long time for something, doesn't show up, doesn't show up, doesn't show up . . . wait and wait and wait . . . then BOOM! I get two (or more) good choices as an answer to said prayer.  I only needed one answer!  Two answers just complicates my life even more! Life's never that simple is it?

I know, I know.  It's a learning, growing experience.  I'll be thankful for it later.  It's life.  It's adulthood. Sometimes everybody has to choose between two good choices.

Awesome weekend

This past weekend was amazing!

First my roomies came down to the sunny south to visit! They came early in the morning so we could play before I had to work that afternoon. We ha breakfast at Dennys and while we waited forever for our food we talked and laughed and caught up on old times. After breakfast we went to walmart to make a care packet for one of our awesome roomies who wasn't able to make the trip. While there we browsed through walkways super collection of $5 movies, played with the toys (so many tangled toys!) we stopped and smelled the candles, looked at the fake flowers, and took pictures with lamp shades on our heads! Yeah we're super silly! I had so much fun and it brought me back to last year! I love and miss those girls so much! I want to go back to my home away from home with my family away from family!

After work my family and I played an epic game of monopoly. I won for the first time ever! Yeah I kicked their butts! I was so happy!

Then on Sunday I got a ride to church with my super handsome neighbor and his friends sat by me during sacrament meeting. This is the first time since moving down that somebody has sat with me during sacrament and it meant more to me then they'll probably ever know. Then I taught my first Sunday school lesson. So intimidating! There were so many people in my class! I don't think I made much sense during my lesson I was kind of all over the place (it was kind of like random thoughts with Kelsi guided by the lesson manual and the spirit). And I was shaking like crazy during the whole lesson!  I learned a lot while preparing for the lesson, I just don't know that I was able to transfer everything I learned to my huge intimidating class. But it's over (for a week at least). I guess this is a chance for me to develop a new talent for teaching?

Thoughts From The Book Of John

I've been reading the Book of John a lot for my Institute class and for my new calling.  I've really enjoyed studying it and I feel like I've come closer to understanding my Savior.  The main thing I have noticed through my reading is just how amazing Christ treated everybody.  I've also started noticing how often the people He taught asked "Who is this?".  Most at first would start just seeing Him as a Jew.  Some came to respect Him by calling Him Sir.  Slowly some of them would recognize Him as a Prophet.  The next step that only a select few would take would be to see Him as Christ.  I think that we today are the same way in the way we see the Savior.  Before we can see Him as the Christ we have to get to know Him, study Him, and get our own testimony.  It takes time and only some people are willing to take that time to go through all the steps.

I Am a Child of God

So cute!  A little cheesy, but still so cute!  Made me smile!

Addiction: You Will Be Freed

Another amazing Mormon Message about the powerful atonement and the hope that it brings.

The Civility Experiment

I watched this recently and I really enjoyed it.  I am in the process of confronting my own prejudice and judgements of others and realizing that I was wrong.  It takes a lot to realize that your pride is causing you to be a hypocrite and judge others but I hope to work on this just like she is.

So I got a new calling....

I'm only going to be in the ward for the summer...

Yeah, my records aren't even in the ward yet...

I guess that's what happens when the Bishop is your neighbor and has known you since you were 12...

The calling?

Gospel Doctrine Teacher.

Yeah.

I'm more than a little intimidated by this calling...

And the people I'll be teaching...

I guess I'm getting out of my comfort zone?

But I am excited to take this summer to learn more about my Savior and to learn more about the New Testament.  I love reading the words of the Savior and learning from the miracles He performed and from His life.  As I read about His life I feel such love and hope.

Negativity

This post was hard for me to type and I'm not sure if I'm going to publish it.  If I do be kind.  And I'm sorry it's really long and rambling.  But I had to get it out somehow.

I had an epiphany last night as I lied awake in bed trying to fall asleep but mind was going a million miles an hour.    I realized that I am an extremely negative person.

Really.

My brother had pointed this out to me a week or so ago when he told me I was cynical.  I brushed it off at the time.  But I thought about it and I really am.  When anything hard or unpleasant happens in my life I tend to face it in a negative way.

When I was little and in the hospital and getting poked and prodded I wasn't one of those happy, optimistic little sick kids you hear about who smile and get through it with no problem and no tears.  No.  I kicked.  I screamed.  I cried. I fought with all the energy I could muster.  It was like a life or death, fight or flight situation. I tried to manipulate (but that never really worked very well). I even considered bolting for the door, but that never seemed very likely to work.

 When we moved down to the Sunny South I was not happy about it and I made sure everyone knew, for a whole year.  I refused to see anything good in the situation, hoping that maybe if I did a good enough job making everyone aware of how much I hated the situation I was in they might change it back to how I wanted it.  That didn't work.  I just made myself miserable for a few years.

I give up on things that are hard for me.  You know things that I suck at like: Handwriting, Sports - of all kinds (seriously, soccer, baseball, basketball, tennis, and any other sport I've ever tried), and social things, you know, like dating.  I'm not the patient diligent type who works on my weaknesses until they turn into strengths.  I just say "Forget this" and go on to something that I enjoy more and can actually do well at.

I'm motivated by my fear of failure.  Really that's why I do almost everything.  I try really hard in school because if I don't I'll fail at school and I'll have to work at McDonald's and live in a box for the rest of my life, which would then make me a failure at life.  I can't handle failure.  If I fail then I'm even more worthless and hopeless and helpless then I was before.

Fear of pain is another huge motivator in my life.  It's why I'm so cautious and never take any risks if I can help it.  Even silly risks like riding on a roller coaster, because there's always this fear in the back of my mind that something will go wrong and I will end up hurt.  Not dead.  Hurt.  My fear of pain doesn't just extend to physical pain, I fear social and emotional pain as well.  That's why I'm so shy, especially with people I don't know very well.  Fear of pain.

My brother likes to point out that I very judgmental and critical of people.  And I am sometimes. It's something I struggle with.  But what he doesn't realize, what no one realizes, is that I'm much harder on myself then I am on other people.  I love to listen to Taylor Swifts song Mean especially in my car where I can turn it up as loud as it'll go and sing my heart out.  I'm singing this song to myself, because I'm very mean to myself.  I'm my own biggest critic.  I hate myself a lot of the time. I also like to sing Pink's "Perfect" another song that describes my life in so many ways.

It's time for this negativity to change.  I'm trading in pessimism and cynicism for optimism. I'm trading in doubt for hope.  I trading fear for faith.  I'm trading in negativity for positivity.  I'm trading in failure for success.  I'm trading in pain for healing. I'm going to try to make the best of my situation even if I don't like it very much.  I'm going to try to work on my weaknesses and turn them into strengths.  I'm going to try to be less introverted and closed to people and more extroverted and open to others.

It's time for a change.

Because life is beautiful and I have been blessed.  It's time for me to recognize those blessings and to take the time to be grateful for them and enjoy them like I should.  So here's to change.  Here's to taking responsibility for my life, for my "energy" as Oprah said on her final episode.

Getting my voice heard

Right now I'm listening to the Beatles "Revolution".  I've been watching and listening to Les Miserables especially the songs "Do you hear the people sing?" and "Red and Black".  I've had a horrible day and I'm frustrated with myself and the whole world around me. 

I have a feeling this is going to be a ranting post.  I hope I don't offend anyone but this is really how I feel at this exact moment in time.

I don't even know where to start.

I have watched elections that I haven't been able to vote in and I've watched the government make mistake after mistake after mistake.  I have always learned that here in the USA we are ruled by the people for the people.  Is that really the case anymore?  I just don't know anymore.  I have been told that majority rules but what happens when the majority becomes silent?  Or becomes so loud that they can't even here themselves anymore?  Many people that I have talked to have become so dissillusioned with the political system and feel like there is nothing they can do to change everything that is happening in the world that they disagree with.  I mean what can I and my friends and family do?  We can vote.  We can write our representitives.  We could protest.  But really none of those things will do a whole lot of good at this point.

I think that part of the problem is the two party system.  I think more people should vote third party.  The democrats have become so liberal they are conservative and the republicans have become so conservative that they're liberal.  I agree with about half of what each party stands for and I think both parties have some really flawed thinking.  Half the problem is that they won't compromise, they are all too worried about being right and getting whatever is on their agenda passed rather than focusing on what is good for the American people and what the majority wants and needs.  This is a huge issue.  It's what causing our country to go downhill.  In the Book of Mormon it talks about how the majority of people will usually want what is right, so it's up to our leaders to listen to the majority.

Another problem is in fact the internet.  Don't get me wrong, I love the internet it can be helpful how easy it is to get information.  The issue is that it makes it so easy for everyone to put their ideas out there that there are so many voices and so many putting out their opinions it's virutally impossible to unite people.  (And yes I understand the irony of me writing this on my blog.) Everyone is so busy speaking, yelling their opinions that no one is taking the time to listen.  We as a generation need to remember to use our ears and mouth proportionately. 

If you look throughout history, it is always the young people who bring about the necessary changes in the world.  The American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Civil Rights, they were all started by college students.  Adults my age.  But now people my age either don't care or feel like there is nothing they can do about it.  But I think that we need to stand up for our country and for what is right. If we don't stand up, who will?

Basically I want to be able to tell my children and grandchildren that I stood for what was right, that I didn't sit by passively and let the world change around me for the worse without trying to make a change for the better.  I want to make sure that the world is a better place when I leave it then it was when I got it, then it is right now.  Whether it be politics, standing up for the family, or just plain standing up for what I think is right, whether or not it's popular, I just want to be able to stay that I stood up and had my voice heard and counted for.

Sorry this post is kind of rambling and I don't know if it made much sense, but I just had to get it out there.

Faith

I remember back when I was a little girl and I had such wide-eyed faith and hope and belief in everything working out perfectly.  I miss that girl.  I'm working to be more optomistic about how life is going to work out.  I have decided that I need to have more faith in myself.  I need to have more faith in the fact that I will get married, whether it's when I'm in my 20's, 30's or beyond, it's going to happen.  God keeps his promises.  I just can't determine the timing for the blessings. It's really become a matter of faith because I have no evidence that I'll ever get married or even get a date, but I'm trusting God.  I have faith that marriages not all marriages end in divorce.  And sometimes even the girl who seems unlikely to find love, does in fact find it.  It may not be the happily ever after love of the fairy tales, love songs, and chick flicks.  I have faith in the fact that I will find love at some point.

Complicated Random Ramblings

Sometimes I wonder why life has to be so complicated. But I guess I know why.  Sometimes I just wish that I got a straight answer from my prayers.  That's not usually how it works for me, but it would be nice if that was how it worked.  Somethings that I am doing in my life feel so right, but at the same time I have no idea where it's going to lead me or how it's all going to work out.  I guess that's where faith comes into play.  I know where I want to go, I just don't quite know how to get there. I'm a "big picture" person not a "detail" person.  My roommates and I have been studying about Lot's wife and how the real problem for her was that she wanted to stay in the past.  And I think to a degree that's true for all of us.  It comes down to having the faith to believe that Heavenly Father has better things planned for me in the future, even though the past and the present is pretty good.