Me and Quinny are currently taking a nap (while I'm not actually sleeping.. clearly) while Cars is having a meeting with her new Bishop to get her mission papers started (woot woot! Sister Carly Campbell here she comes!!!;) and Quinny took me I should go read a blog from Ally Fox the tattooed Mormon blogger.. I LOVE what she said.. I so identify. She said she started by saying she had a confession that I can say is every big as applicable to me today; "I am weak. I am far from strong. I struggle. But I am oh so happy. A real happiness." This REAL happiness involves feeling so edified, and loved when I don't deserve it, and learning and growing and that last part includes some messing up, and sucking, and realizing it and "trying just a little harder to be a little better". I think about my life right now and feel so incredibly grateful . Lately I can't stop feeling this way.. I keep realizing over and over again how blessed I've been to have all that my life includes. Even my most difficult trials are so trivial compared to so many strong, good people on this world.
Today there are so many happy things I have to be grateful about and I just can't sleep until I talk about a couple of them.
First, these girls are absolutely crazy amazing. They are good. In the most sincere sense of the word. They make me so much better just by being around me and not only that but they make me want to love myself because they love me! They remind me of those good things about me and make me want to always be the person they so graciously and insistently tell me that I am. They are strong, they are girls that I know will always be powerful enough to not only carry themselves but lift so many other people around them incidentally.
Second, I do love plainness. BOLD and simple words are wonderful. Political correctness comes second to truth. We need to be 100% disciples and it is ok to simply say that. Today our high counsel man said that "60% or C (if we got a grade for our study of scriptures) members probably aren't going to attain the highest degree of celestial glory. Bang. Loved that .. Not that that's doctrine but it's true. In this gospel we are asked to give ALL. We should be 100% in all that we do.. We are disciples and to be so truly much LIVE this gospel. We wont "give up, shut up, or let up until I have stayed up, stored up, and paid up for the cause of Christ. I must got till He comes, give till I drop, preach till all know, and work till He stops me (fellowship of the unashamed)". That means living our lives according to Christ's gospel with him as our captain and a willingness to work and to serve. It doesn't mean perfection... It means work and grace and leaning on the atonement and enduring.
Third, today relief society was awesome. I LOVE lessons that end up in discussions. Where I feel edified in a way that is directly tied to a group of people "meeting together oft.. To speak with one another concerning the welfare of their souls (Mor6:5)". We talked about the importance of standing up and being sure that we side with our savior in his exhortation to "pluck it out" when you're eye offenders you (metaphorically of course). Our god isn't an easy god.
We are to be "as wise as a snake but as gentle as a dove" in how we react to situations in which our standards our challenged. And just as surely as we stand up for our beliefs we remember that this gospel is about LOVE- when it is not represented that way it is the fault of the members not a lapse in the consistency or correctness of the restored gospel. We are not perfect people.. But "that's all God had ever had to work with". In our reactions we should she be LISTENING before we speak and LOVING before we teach .. We need to really seek to understand why people think and act the way they do. We need to lend the benefit of the doubt in our judgements of them and remember that we don't always know what their life has been like, what they have been taught or the opportunities they've had. Perspectives are so vastly different and we are all on different levels of individual progression. Ohh .. And there were some seriously bomb chocolate raspberry tarts made that make RS just that much better.
Fourth, there are people in Rexburg Idaho that make me really sad to leave (she won't be back to school till January). My best friend at school was truly a mercy straight from my Heavenly Father. This year of school was 100 times happier because I had amber with me. And even though I'll pick up Chas in 4 weeks from the airport to come visit me at home he is still the one reason I'm not completely happy to leave school for summer break.. He is my favorite.. Everything we do is more fun because with him!
Next, there are some seriously awesome people in this world. This weekend has been a blast! We have made friends with complete strangers and become best friends by the end of the day a good three times now. We have had the coolest conversations with people we just barely! I need to be more willing to talk to everyone and make friends all the people I meet. We met some fun people who made made playing murder for hours fun, and then met some guys who we went swimming with and then ended up running into some cool people who had us come boating with us! Wake boarding, surfing, and a ton of Doritos . We all at least got up wake boarding and surfing and are feeling the serous lactic acid pain this morning. I rode on my first train I can remember and went to a train covert (kinda punny.. Huh) ate some pizza and pulled an all nighter with good, fun people constantly since being here.
And almost lastly I am having soo much fun and yet my parents are so awesome that I am SOO excited to get all the way home to Las Vegas to see them. SO EXCITED.
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