Snapshots of Life

I want to talk about two things in this entry. I think I'll talk about the mildly silly thing first, just so that I can end on a more serious note.

First snapshot.

I love taking pictures. Or rather... what I think would be more accurate to say is that I love having pictures. I love having pictures of friends, and preferably, I like having pictures of being with friends. Pictures are wonderful memories. And I'd do a lot of things, and go a lot of places just for the sake of a picture. I think my mother kind of raised me to be that way. Even though I wouldn't describe my mother as being big into taking pictures or anything... she understood the importance of memorializing things like family vacations. And maybe of course, it's just a factor of having 8 kids and needing excuses to get out of the car on family vacations. But in my family, we never just drove to our final destination when going on a long car ride. We would stop at random cactus' and rocks and cliffs along the side of the road and take pictures. That is something I hope to do in my family. Those are some of my favorite memories as a kid. Stopping to take random pictures. I'm pretty sure some people just don't get it haha. But it's something that will always be important to me. I remember driving around in California with some of my friends, and we passed a giant Kokopelli. And the moment I saw it, I knew I had to take a picture with it. I think we were on the way to a baseball game or something so they said we couldn't stop, but they promised we'd do it on the way back. And let me tell you, an awful lot of people have promised me that, we'd take a picture with something "on the way back" and it never happened. So when they went out of their way on the way back to let me take my picture with that Kokopelli, I knew I was loved! haha. If you know me very well, you'll know that I love my Kokopelli.

In high school I took a lot more pictures. I took pictures all the time to the point that I'm very certain that a lot of my friends lost patience with it. I guess we all feel a little self conscious when people take our picture, and I took their pictures a lot! haha. I tamed myself down after the good majority of my friends behooved me to do so. I guess that's a good thing, cuz now I'm like a big kid who has to go to work and be boring and such. And it probably wouldn't go along with the professional image to be taking pictures all the time! But I miss it. I feel very free, and very myself when taking pictures. And taking pictures of my friends has always made me smile. And having pictures with my friends makes me love them more I think. That sounds weird to say. I think for now my friends are happy I don't take so many pictures though haha.

Second Snap Shot.

Today, I would like to express my gratitude for the friends that Heavenly Father brings our way in this life. I have had a great many friends in my day. Most friends don't stick around forever, which is sad. But in their time, they bring a lot of happiness and a lot of memories. And that is extremely important. But there are people I'm confident I could always be friends with until I'm a little old lady.

I think that in a true friend... they see positive things in us that sometimes even we, ourselves cannot see. Sometimes I don't think there are a lot of reasons to love me. But that's why friends are there. Because they are able to see at least portions of us through Heavenly Father's eyes. True friends love us for who we are despite the silly things we may do or say and I think it's partially because of the light of Christ.. And they can be honest and blunt with us because somewhere in their hearts they know that we see them through some portion of Heavenly Father's eyes too. So no matter what they say, even if it may come off harsh, I know that person loves me, and therefore, there must be a reason why they are saying whatever it is. It's why we're more likely to listen to a friend than a stranger.

My friends have helped me more in life than I could ever imagine. I mean... I first wanted to be a good little molly mormon child because I saw the example of my dear friend Paula. She hates that I wanted to be just like her I think. Really I just wanted to have a testimony like hers.. haha. Many of my talents grew from friendships. The positive memories I have to look back on in life often come from friendships too. I've been given the experience to help others grow through friendships. Just the very experience of getting to see some small glimpse of how Heavenly Father sees a person, is a precious memory. I would even say that it's an integral part of my testimony.

The strongest motivator I have to be good, to be obedient, to be righteous... I wouldn't have if I didn't have friends. The thing that drives me to seek a testimony of the Gospel... the thing that gives me the confidence that there is a plan out there for my life that I must seek to follow... the thing that tells me I can be with my family for eternity because of the sealing ordinances in the temple... is love. I remember feeling so sad. I don't even remember what was so sad at the time. But I just wanted to cry. And one of my friends just held me and let me cry. She knew exactly what I needed in that moment. And it's because she loved me. And it's because Heavenly Father knew exactly what I needed in that moment. That's why he blessed me with that friend at that moment. He blessed me because I needed Him. He blessed me because He knows I need to know He loves me in order for me to endure the trials that come from trying to follow Him. That's why I follow Him. Because He loves me. And I learned what that love meant from my family, and from my friends. I learned through the bursts of love I've felt when praying. I learned when it was time to go back to work, and I had to say goodbye to my little boy for a day.

I love Him. Because He loves me. And because He loves me, He shows me the way to friends that will help me get closer to Him.

Anyway.. guess that's a random combo for a blog. But I did it. So there's no arguing about it.
I love Him. And I love memories!

(favorite painting ever!)

Spirit of Service

I was sitting in a meeting the other day. And it was a pretty relaxed meeting. We were prepping for another meeting. And I remember sitting there... admittedly zoning out for a minute from the contents of the meeting. I was feeling the spirit. And I was thinking to myself... why do I feel the spirit right now? We're not really talking about anything gospel related. I don't feel like I'm learning anything. And then I thought... is it possible to feel the spirit and not learn something? Generally speaking when I feel the spirit, it's testifying of the truth of something in that moment. And I was just sitting there thinking... there's nothing going on right now... nothing I'm learning... nothing. Why would I feel the spirit now? I thought about asking someone if they had ever felt the spirit but hadn't learned anything from the experience... but it felt just like such a ridiculous thing to ask. 

Well, today I was sitting in the meeting that that meeting was supposed to prep us for. And I realized what it was that the spirit was testifying to me. It didn't really matter what those girls were talking about. It didn't really matter what was being said, or what was going on. I realized that those girls had been given the calling they were given for a reason. They are meant to have those callings right now. And that was a powerful realization.

Admittedly, I'm not that spiritual of a person. Less spiritual than I have been. And at the very least, I could be far more spiritual than I am. And I should be. And I'm trying to be more than what I am right now.

Anyway... today I led a brief training for the members of the compassionate service committees in my ward. I will tell you that I felt extremely unqualified to talk about the topic. When I think back across my college days I just think of all the times that I was so much better than I am right now! Once upon a time I was a Visiting Teaching Supervisor. It was actually a bit of a weird calling, because I was realistically doing a lot of things the Relief Society presidency normally does, like choosing companionships and all kinds of things. But whatever. Anyway... I had such a strong testimony of Visiting Teaching that semester. I wanted all my girls to be visit taught. So when my girls reported that a girl hadn't been visit taught, or if they said that they hadn't been visit taught that month... then I decided that as their supervisor, I was like the back-up visiting teacher. So I was visiting over a dozen girls a month. I had been struggling with depression so much that semester. But Visiting Teaching saved me. And it wasn't my visiting teachers that saved me... it was visiting teaching. It was serving others because I wanted to love people. I made cookies every week to give to my apartment complex. I made homemade bread for people on mother's day. That semester, I learned that serving others brought me out of depression better than anything else ever could. So I did a lot of serving to make up for the depression haha.

Realistically typing it all out makes it sound pretty absurd. I mean... no one can keep that kind of thing up forever, right? But I wish I could. I know that nothing will ever make me happier than serving people.

Now for the weird part. I look back on that semester and think... I had such a strong testimony of visiting teaching. I know it saved me that semester... and indirectly, it saved me for several future semesters because of the friendships I made through it. But at the same time.. I really haven't had a testimony of visiting teaching ever since that semester. Even though I have the memory of having a testimony of it, that doesn't mean I've still been able to feel in the same life changing-acting kind of way. Realistically, I feel like I've been a pretty useless lump of a person for a while now service-wise.

So I kind of seem like an odd choice for Compassionate Service Chair. Or the person that's going to talk about the doctrine behind service. And I was really stressed out about it!

Anyway... I really don't know how to explain it... I didn't feel prepared to give that lesson at all. But it went so well. And as I was talking, I felt truth in the words of the prophets I was quoting.

I ended my lesson with the following quote... and I was explaining that this quote made compassionate service feel possible. This quote made me realize that we really can be just like Christ, because he did things that were possible. He didn't just walk on water or turn water into wine. His days were filled with small, simple acts of service that anyone could do. I could be like Christ. You can be like Christ. It's POSSIBLE. I dunno, doesn't sound so profound when I type it out... but it just felt very real to me.

We can pray for our hearts to be filled with love for others. And that love is what makes us want to serve people. Then we don't have to look for the time to serve people. We will just make the time because those people will be our priority, no matter what. And that is always my goal and aspiration when it comes to what I want to be like. Anyway.. here's the quote.

Don’t those small, deliberate deeds mean the most when we are hurting? The kinds of service that Jesus gave in his earthly ministry were often of this sort. Charles Henry Parkhurst described the Lord’s style of compassionate service this way: 

“Christ’s ministry, from Baptism to Ascension, … is mostly made up of little words, little deeds, little prayers, little sympathies, adding themselves together in unwearied succession. The Gospel is full of divine attempts to help and heal, in body, mind, and heart, the individual. … The completed beauty of Christ’s life is only the added beauty of little inconspicuous acts of Beauty—talking with a woman at the well; showing the young ruler the stealthy ambition laid away in his heart that kept him out of the Kingdom of Heaven; … teaching a little knot of followers how to pray; kindling a fire and broiling fish that disciples might have breakfast; waiting for them when they came ashore from a night of fishing, cold, tired, and discouraged. All of these things … let us so easily into the real quality and tone of [Christ’s] interests, so specific; so narrowed down, so enlisted in what is small, so engrossed in what is minute.”

I just wanted to say one last thing. Old people in the Church are always saying that our generation must have been valiant spirits to have come to earth in this day and age. That we each were meant to come at the time that we did, because we were built for it in a way. The idea that we were ready for what we would experience here. Well most of the time when people say that I just think "I don't feel very valiant." You know what I realized today? We can choose to be "as valiant" as we were in the pre-existence. It is a choice. It is an action. It's something we can commit to. Through prayer, obedience, commitment, and action.. we can be as great as we were, and as great as we are intended to be.

And the Lord puts us in a position to realize the things we need to realize.

Anyway.. the end! Hopefully that wasn't too boring!
loves