Those that bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves

In the words of Homestar Runner, "Tendafoot, can you tell me how to get the most out of life?"

Over the past week or so I have been feeling incredibly insecure with relationships, school, work, everything really. The last week has also been an immensely spiritually uplifting one. The two completely contradict one another which is a little disturbing to me. I think that with all of these church related activities I have been involved with Satan has been working extra hard to pull me down, sadly enough I've let him.

I would much rather think about the spiritual side of things though so here's what I was up to last week....

Tuesday: IWA, our chapter is so big this semester and I absolutely love it. I'm really looking forward to meeting all of the new girls and making some new friends. Everyone seems so cute and nice and I think we will have so much fun this year.

Wednesday: Institute, I absolutely love my institute class. Bro. Harding is my teacher and he is simply amazing. He makes class so enjoyable and he makes you think. Something that has been on my mind that he brought up was how Sariah, Lehi's wife, had 'supposed' that her sons had died in the wilderness and wouldn't make it back. Instead of having faith in the Lord she went ahead and supposed something had happened. I do this every single day. I am constantly supposing, or telling myself that certain things are going to happen.
...I'm going to do horrible on this exam.. I must not be good enough, smart enough, pretty enough.. this is going to be so scary...
I have realized that I need to stop supposing all of the time. Not all things will turn out how I predetermine them to. I need to have more faith that I am a wonderful daughter of God and am capable of achieving great things. I need to stop psyching myself out.

Thursday: I went to the Logan Temple with Mandy and we did initiatories. I have not done those since I had my own done, over five years ago. Why I never went and did these wonderful things before I will never know. The spirit was so strong and it was so great to hear these blessings and to do this work. I am truly grateful to Mandy for suggesting that we do these.

Saturday: There was a Relief Society enrichment thing that I went to. The theme was, 'Who am I and what do I want to become'? There were four different speakers each talking about a different subject, eating healthier/exercising, something about how to do your make up, setting goals which I loved and will expound on in another post, and the main speaker, Sister Waterson, spoke on pushing forward. The spirit was amazing and I couldn't help but bawl. Sister Waterson read a quote from Peter Pan that I loved, "Those that bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves". How true this is. When we are feeling down thinking how awful things have gotten why don't we serve our friends, our neighbors, family members, a perfect stranger. I know I feel so wonderful when I am able to help someone, whether it be something big or simply putting a smile on their face. Why are we constantly overlooking this and only thinking about our own trials. Heavenly Father didn't expect us to go through this life on our own, we are suppose to help each other along the way. Anyways back to the goals speaker, I really loved this part of the day as well. She spoke about how we are suppose to learn wisdom from our goals. How little we actually think of that. I use to make it a goal just to make it through to the next day, but I never thought about what I learned from that, what wisdom came from actually accomplishing this. So I have begun to make goals, some small some big. You are also suppose to write down how you expect to accomplish these goals. Also all of your goals should lead to the ultimate goal of Eternal Life. I will post my goals on a different post so I can constantly add to it.

Sunday: Church of course was wonderful as it always is. In Relief Society we talked about friendship, one of my favorite topics. I have had some pretty amazing friends in my lifetime and I know that I will continue to make more and I look forward to it. In Sacrament they spoke on Family, my absolute favorite topic. It was so great and spiritual, then Calen decided to pop some silly putty really loud and then got it stuck in the Hymn book, lol!! Anyways, so later that evening Jordan and I went to the CES Fireside broadcast. Sister Dalton, the Young Woman's General President was the speaker. She is such a great speaker and she spoke on being virtuous. The most wonderful thing about our religion is the knowledge that if we mess up that we are able to repent and be forgiven of our transgressions through the atonement. Christ suffered for each and everyone of our sins and all of our sorrows. He knows what we have gone through. He gave everything he could possibly give so that each of us would be able to return to our Heavenly Father and live with him in the Celestial Kingdom. We are capable of being Gods and Goddesses ourselves if we only choose that path and work to obtain it.
Virtue at all costs, without Virtue there can be no Victory.

Well, this is certainly my longest blog to date and I'm pretty sure that no one will have read this far and that's alright by me. I love to write, it's my way of getting things off my mind and sharing my thoughts even if it is just to myself. Just looking over the week I've had I will probably leave work go home and bawl just because I am so thankful for what I have been given, for the wonderful spirit I've felt, for the family and friends I have, most of all for the knowledge I have and the person I am striving to become and know that I will become.

So for the moment I am going to attempt to forget about the insecurities I feel and try to see the bigger picture. Try and see if only for a moment what Heavenly Father sees in me, and yes then bawl some more.