The Healing Power, Passover, and the Atonement

It was a very good week. The sun has been shining all week and it has been fabulous. I am just so much happier when it is sunny. My week wasn't so busy and I am getting more hours in at work, which makes me very happy. Thursday was Pi day (3.14) and I had a TON of sugar. I had a pie shake which was delicious, a root beer float, a cupcake, a tiny powdered donut, and several slices of pie. But I was celebrating Pi day and St Patrick's day. I felt so sick afterwards. And I was pretty hyper too from all that sugar. After eating all that sugar, I don't think I want to eat sugar again for a month. Maybe two.

Friday I worked an awesome shift at work, but I'll explain that in a moment. Then I went and visited friends and we watched Say Yes to the Dress, Four Weddings, and Something Borrowed, Something New. Saturday was wonderful. I got to sleep in. Then I went to our ward's first non-FHE ward activity. We played ultimate Frisbee and ate a very big breakfast. I then went on the best bike ride ever. I followed the Provo river trail west all the way to the end. It was so far, I'm pretty sure I was in another city when I finally reached the end, but it was beautiful out and I had been determined to find the end of that trail.

I saw a snake in the middle of the trail as I was riding along (which made me very happy that I was on a bike and not walking) and I heard FROGS! There were lots of them! I couldn't see them, but I could hear them! Later I cleaned my apartment, did some homework while I attempted to tan but just ended up getting a sunburn, practiced the piano, and went grocery shopping. Then I had work at 10:00 at night, which was tiring but I got to eat some good food afterwards. It was a pretty productive day and also a very relaxing and fun one.

I have learned several things this week which have helped to strengthen my testimony. Today in Relief Society we discussed being a perfectionist and how this is an unhealthy look on life. I have been taught before that the problem with perfectionism is that you forget to apply the atonement to your life. You become so caught up in doing everything perfect, you forget that the whole reason we are here on earth is to make mistakes and then use the atonement to repent of them. While I have learned this before, I loved our lesson today because it reminded me that I should not only watch out for being a perfectionist in keeping the commandments, but I must be careful not to be a perfectionist in school. We are at school to learn and therefore make mistakes. If we didn't make mistakes in school, we wouldn't learn, we wouldn't learn how to be forgiven of those mistakes. So if I do not do well on a test, it does not mean that I am a failure at life, it is just the Lord giving me a weakness so that I can turn to him to become strong.

In my New Testament class, we also had a great lesson on Christ's healing power. I am sure many of you are familiar with the story of the woman who touched Christ's clothing and was healed. Our lesson gave new light to that story. The woman had an issue of blood. Somewhere (don't remember where) in Exodus, it says that a woman who has an issue of blood is unclean and anyone who touches her becomes unclean also. In my class we watched a video made by BYU about this story of the woman, showing her in a new light. In this video, everyone avoided the woman with an issue of blood. Because she was unclean, no one would touch her, no one would come near her. When someone accidentally caused her to drop and break her pot of water, rather than help her, they hurriedly left so as not to become unclean by touching her. The woman was alone and friendless as well as having this illness.

Then she hears the news that a man, Christ, has come who can heal you of your sicknesses. He can heal everyone. The woman anxiously tries to press through the crowd so that she can finally be healed. But she is turned away. "He cannot heal you," a man tells her. "He heals by touch." Because no one can touch her, she hurriedly leaves and seeks comfort in her home. She cries and calls out to heaven "why can he not heal me?" I was struggling not to cry myself. But then the woman stops crying as she looks at her clothing. Suddenly she knows how she can be healed. She hurries back out to the crowd and pushes her way through. However there are so many people and she cannot make it to the Master. She trips and continues to crawl through crowd. Just as Christ passes by, in desperation, she barely manages to brush his clothing with her hand. Christ stops, asks "who touched me?" and turns to find the woman kneeling in the dirt. She was healed. Not only that, but Christ picks her up, not afraid of touching her, and blesses her. It was beautiful.

This week my sister was emitted to the hospital due to complications of her pregnancy and she will be unable to go home until she has her baby. Which means several weeks. But I have faith that if the woman in the New Testament could be healed simply by touching the clothes of the Master Healer, my sister can be healed as we all reach out to the Lord and have him touch our lives.

Wow didn't realize that would be so long. And I still haven't gotten to the main thing I want to share! This week I learned about the Passover.

So for work on Friday, I was setting up for Passover, and when my shift was over, our Events Coordinator taught us about the Passover. She had us try all of the traditional, symbolic food. First we tried Matza bread. It is unleavened bread and is worse than a cracker. It has NO flavoring. It's kind of gross. And I don't know what that symbolizes. Then we were to try some bitter herbs and dip them in salt water. The bitter herbs represented the pain and suffering Christ endured in the Garden of Gethsemane and the salt water represented his tears. (I recognize these have different symbolism in the Jewish tradition.) We then had to try horseradish. If you have never tried horseradish, it smells like nail polish remover, and it absolutely burns your mouth. It is painful to eat. This represents the pain of sin, what we put ourselves through when we sin. Lastly, we ate some apple slices and grapes, sweet fruit, which represented the sweetness of having our sins forgiven through the Atonement of Christ.

Obviously the symbolism would be different in the Jewish tradition of the Passover, as they do not understand that the Passover was a symbol of Christ. But we the children of Israel do understand, and as the children of Israel, we too can participate in this ritual.

Our Event Coordinator then explained to us what the Passover was. The Passover was when the Angel of Death passed over the doors of the people of Israel. In order for this to happen however, the family had to bring into their house the first born male lamb and it had to be completely unblemished and without any flaw. They kept this lamb in their house for ten days. Our Event Coordinator explained that this lamb became like the family pet. They ate with it, they slept with it, they played with it -it lived with them. And at the end of the ten days, they had to take the family pet who was perfect and had done nothing wrong and who they loved dearly, and they had to kill it, spread it's blood over their door, and then partake of its flesh.

This all represents Christ. Christ, the first born, flawless and perfect, completely without sin. We bring him into our lives, we love him, and then He-who has done nothing wrong-dies for us and atones for us so that we can be forgiven of our sins, so that we can live again. And every week we partake of his flesh when we partake of the Sacrament.

This lesson gave so much more meaning to the Atonement and to the Sacrament. I never knew how beautiful the Passover was. I am able to appreciate the Atonement so much more now.

Well sorry for the very long post, but this is all very important to me and I wanted to share it. So happy Sunday and I hope everyone has a fantastic week.

Smiling

Well this week started off very busy- extremely so. But once I got past Wednesday, things calmed down. I was able to keep a very good attitude even as I staid up until almost one in the morning doing homework on Tuesday. Granted earlier in the day, I started to stress and freak out a little when I realized how much I had to do. But I decided to take a break from my homework and make biscuits  which relaxed me and I haven't really stressed out since.

Friday I had to get up super early so I could compete in Dance Sport. I only got to the second round, but I was dancing quickstep, which is a lot of fun. I had work that afternoon, setting up for Passover. I will be doing this for the next three weeks. It's a fun shift, but we are not allowed to get subs. Which normally wouldn't be a problem, I so need the hours, but I was hoping to be able to go home one of these weekends so I could go through the temple for the first time. But it looks like I will have to wait until April, right before finals, or wait until the semester is over.

Friday night I went over to a friend's apartment and we just sat and talked for hours. Saturday was a lovely day. I slept in. Didn't really do much. Then went and saw The Hobbit at the dollar theater with a good friend and then went back to her apartment where a group of us had a very nerdy but thoroughly entertaining/hilarious discussion about The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings/J. R. R. Tolkien. We then watched Beauty and the Beast and talked for hours.

I am finding that I very much enjoy not being in my apartment. Not that I have a problem with my apartment, but I feel like I am in it so much, that it is such a relief to leave and go see other people.

Well I set off the smoke detectors in my apartment today. I tried broiling chicken for the first time. I had no idea what I was doing and ended up filling the apartment with smoke. I've decided I'm not going to do that again. From now on, chicken shall be pan-fried. But the fact that I cooked chicken at all is a good sign, because I've been eating a whole lot of peanut butter lately. I hope you can't get peanut butter toxicity, because I seriously eat a lot.

Guess what I learned this week? Smiling is innate. It is not something we learn, it is something we are born: the reflex to smile when we are happy. Cool huh?

Also learned that I was one of only two people in my class who didn't think that their adolescent years was a time of storm and stress. My family has noted this about me too, how I strangely loved my middle school years, how I never really went through an awkward stage. I was just happy with life. I realized that it wasn't until I got older that school overtook my life and I associated myself with being an extreme "stressor." And as my professor was asking me why I didn't think my adolescence was a time of storm and stress, I realized it was because things didn't really bother me the way they do now. I assumed the best out of everyone. I didn't hate anyone. I didn't have a whole lot of friends, but I was happy with the friends I had. School wasn't hard, and when it was, of course I would stress a little, but I knew it would always turn out in the end. Things just didn't bother me the way they bother me now. Now if I get a bad grade on a test, I assume the worst, and feel doomed. It's interesting to see how much I've changed. And so I've been working on not letting things bother me any more. I hope that when the next round of midterms comes along, I will not stress out as much as I usually do, that I will maintain my happy personality that is more natural for me.

Because smiling is something we are born with, and stressing out about a test is something we learn to do. And if we are born with the ability to smile, I can only assume that it is much more important for us to do than stress out over tests, otherwise God wouldn't have given us the ability to smile even as infants.

So smile and remember that you are loved!

I hate being pore, but other than that life's good

Life's been busy, but life's been good. Last week took forever, but yesterday was great. I went running for the first time since winter began. The weather was beautiful! I so wanted to have a picnic, but had no one to picnic with. But if it is warm again this week, I am so going on a picnic. Yesterday I also made brownies and then went on a group date to see Wreck it Ralph. That movie is adorable! It was my first time seeing it. So cute and creative. Nothing very exciting other than that happened this week besides taking three midterms and working twice. I work so little hours it's quite ridiculous, but at least I get to eat really good food after most shifts. So long as there is food, I eat as much as I possibly can after work.

I am getting really tired of being pore. I'm sick of it. I've decided I never want to be pore again. I don't care about owning nice things, or living in a nice house, or owning a nice car, or buying expensive clothing. I don't care about any of that. I am just sick and tired of not being able to afford groceries. It was either Monday or Tuesday, I realized that I was still over a hundred dollars short for paying rent, and when I went to my cupboard, once again, all I had to eat was pasta. Pasta is not bad, but I had been eating nothing but pasta for the past couple of days, and I was sick of it and really wanted to go buy some food, but I didn't even have money to pay rent. And so I started to stress out and panic. I can not tell you how many times I have done this this semester, where I go to my cupboard, see the small amount of edible food, and start to panic.

I think something is wrong with me. Last semester I came to the realization that grocery shopping stresses me out. Well eating now stresses me out. I continue to eat, probably far more than I should, but every time I do (with the exception of pasta because I have plenty of it) I feel intense guilt, because once I consume that food item, I no longer own it. That's probably why I pig out after work, because I know that the food will just be thrown away if it's not eaten, and food has become more valuable to me than anything. I know, I know, it's a stupid way of looking at food. Sooner or later, it has to be consumed, and it's not a sin to eat food, but I still can't stop thinking "I shouldn't have eaten that. I should be stretching out my food, make it last longer, because soon I'm going to run out again."

It's a very unhealthy way of looking at life, and this is why I have decided I hate being pore and never want to be pore again. Anyways, that same day I panicked when I realized all I had to eat once again was pasta, I called my parents, they put money in my account, and I finally went grocery shopping for the first time since I don't know when. Occasionally, I'll go buy one or two items, but as I have said, shopping stresses me out, so I usually wait until my parents can buy groceries for me. It was one of the most liberating feelings! To be able to go to the store and say, okay there is money in my account, so I don't need to feel guilty. I can buy food and not stress about it. I have felt so much better ever since. Even with work and quizzes and midterms and papers, I am a lot happier knowing that when I come home, there is food in my fridge.

So usually I post something inspirational I have learned in my college journeying. Well, I learned that I hate being pore. Yep, let that inspire you. Other than that, besides being super busy with school, life has been good. I'm making friends, friends in my classes, friends in my ward, and friends at work. I'm getting super excited for my mission. And I am considering switching my major to Human Development after all since all of the classes I want to take are human development classes, rather than classes about the family.

That is my life. It is crazy and I am crazy, but it is a good life.

My reaction to my call

So I have had a lot of people ask me what my reaction was upon receiving my mission call. I think people wonder this mainly because of the fact that I am going to Salt Lake City. One girl told me sorry that I was going there, and if she had been called to Salt Lake, she would have cried. Well I've been thinking about it, and if someone would be unwilling to serve somewhere just because it is close to home, then they aren't serving for the right reasons. Serving a mission is not about seeing a new country or new culture. It is about leaving the Ninety and nine and finding the One lost sheep. Yes Salt Lake is close to home, and yes it is known for its large Mormon population, but there are still lost sheep there and they have every much of a need to be found as those in Europe or South America. That is what I am doing on my mission. Finding and bringing home the One lost sheep.

So what was my reaction when I read my mission call? It was this:

Am I excited? Yes. I am excited to share the gospel that I love with my neighbors. I am excited to learn Spanish. I am excited to share the Plan of Salvation. I am excited to the serve the Lord, and I am excited that the Lord has a plan for me and it includes the people of Salt Lake.

Well this is a short post, but here are some pictures of when I opened my mission call.

Baby Enoch is not camera shy. He loves getting his picture taken. So cute!

Friends and family waiting anxiously for me to open my mission call

Not the greatest picture of me, but here is me preparing to open my call.

Me with baby Enoch. He really thought the cameras should be on him and did not complain when I let him be in this picture with me.

My cousin Samantha and my Aunt Teresa on the phone with my cousin Kristin, narrating my every move as I open my mission call.

Finally Receiving my Mission Call and what I learned

Well I finally have my mission call :) Utah Salt Lake City West Mission, Spanish speaking. I leave May 22.

So last Friday, after going to a mission call opening for a friend, my excitement over the mission call returned.  The week began and I had a strong feeling that this would be the week that I would open my mission call. And everything seemed to be working out. I wasn't scheduled to work at all that weekend, yet the next week (this week) I would have a lot of work that I really can't afford to be getting out of. (I'm broke) So it just seemed perfect that my mission call should come that week and I could go home to Vegas to open it. However, that Sunday was Stake Conference, so I never saw my Bishop to ask him if my call was on its way. In a way, I was afraid of making any plans to travel to Vegas until I knew for sure I had my mission call, but there was no way of knowing. But I kept feeling I was going to open it this week. Finally I decided to take a leap of faith and assume it was coming, and plan on coming down to Vegas that weekend. Not long after, my mom asked my Bishop if my call was in the mail. He said it had been assigned the previous Friday but had received no confirmation that it was in the mail.

I was crushed when I found out. Week after week it kept being put off, and finally it felt like I would be getting this week, only to be told that it wasn't coming. I was perplexed. If they assigned it last Friday, why didn't they put in the mail? What are they doing with it? Holding on to it? I supposed that whatever feeling I had had all week was just my own wishful thinking, that it wasn't the Spirit telling me I was going to open my mission call this week. That's what hurt the most: thinking it was the Spirit, putting my faith in that, and that having that faith crushed.

Finally, after thinking it over, I decided to go home that weekend anyways, because I was out of food, and I really wanted to eat something other than peanut butter and plain pasta, as that was what I was eating for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

That night, after my parents had already gone to bed, my dad felt for some reason like he should go downstairs and check my mom's phone. He did and she had received a text from the bishop saying that he had just received confirmation that my mission call was in the mail. My mom immediately called me, and the moment she said that, I burst into sobbing tears. I think I scared my mom; she couldn't tell if I was happy or sad, or if I was even Celeste, because I went into hysterics, I was so relieved.

We figured that my call had been put in the mail that Wednesday, and so then the question was, would it make it to my house in time? Before going to bed, I read in the Book of Mormon about having a trial of your faith before experiencing miracles. Immediately I felt calm and decided to just have faith that my call would make it to my house in time for me to read it this weekend.

Well the very next day it showed up in the mail at my parents house. Which means it had to have been put in the mail much earlier than Wednesday. I was so excited. I knew with all my heart that I HAD felt the Spirit earlier that week telling me I would open my call this week, and I no longer had any doubts that that would happen.

Friday rolled along, the day Lexi and I planned to drive home...and it started to snow. Lexi was pretty nervous, but I was very calm. I knew we were going to make it home and I was going to open my mission call. And we did make it home safely.

So Saturday night my family came over, we ate really good tri-tip, friends and neighbors came over, and I opened my mission call. It was pretty unexpected. Salt Lake City. My dad guessed temple square, so pretty close. Everyone keeps laughing though that I am only going 45 minutes away from where I currently live. But I know this is where the Lord wants me to be, and I am excited to learn Spanish as I have been wanting and trying to learn Spanish for many years now.

And well, now I am back in school, in the middle of midterms and it's kind of daunting the amount of work I have to do this week. But I'll get it done. Because that is what I have learned throughout this, is that I have to have faith before God will show His power and give his miracles. I have also learned that I can recognize the Spirit, and I have to have faith both in myself, in my ability to feel and recognize the Spirit, and in the Lord that he will keep His promises.

Questioning my sanity right about now

I am doing so much better. I've still got a cough, but I don't expect that to go away for a long time. Still don't have the mission call yet. Crossing my fingers that next week will be the lucky week. At this point, I've kind of lost my excitement over the mission call to be honest. After waiting so long, I'm no longer thrilled. Just like, whatever, it'll come eventually. I've got this feeling like it's just never going to come. Like I'll just keep being told, not this week, next week. But not next week, the week after. And not the week after, but maybe three months from now. My Dad told me "don't worry, it'll come. It's like Christmas. You think it will never come, but then it does." Yeah, but Christmas has a deadline. You can't keep pushing Christmas back. Whereas my mission call is 3 weeks late and still not here.

On the bright side, the snow is melting! We are finally in the 30s and it is beautiful! Blue skies! I am SO glad for the warm weather, and the fact that I am feeling a lot better, and I got two letters in the mail today. I just took a test for Human Development, and had the odd experience of my score failing to show up on the screen, and questioning my sanity, wondering whether I had either forgotten my ID number, or somehow it showed up but I missed it. I seriously stood there for a long time wondering whether I had memory problems or vision problems. I finally went back up to ask why my score never showed up, and after a couple minutes of searching, they finally found my test and realized that it hadn't been scanned. Good thing I went back and checked or I might not have gotten a score for that test!

I am entering the midst of midterms, yet I'm really not freaking out about it like I usually do. I'm just taking them one at a time. Oh, and speaking of my Human Development class, it is absolutely fascinating! I cannot stress how awesome I think it is. I like to call my mom and tell her pretty much the entire lecture (even though the majority is stuff she already knows being a nurse) because I can't get over how cool it is. Like babies are built in with the ability to walk - walking is a reflex! I did not know that! What babies have to learn is how to balance their weight, that's why walking is difficult. And when babies are born, they can't see very well, only like 8-10 inches away from their face, which coincidentally is about the distance from your face to your arms if you are holding the baby. That's so cool! Haha I seriously could talk all day about human development. I kind of wish I could switch my emphasis to Human Development, but we were told in our Intro to SFL class that there's not much you can do with Human Development other than become a professor, which I don't want to do, so I'm probably just going to stick with Family Studies.

So yesterday, I was having intense sugar cravings. Like really really strong. Nothing sounded even remotely good, but bread and sugar. Finally, I gave in to my cravings and made sugar cookie dough. And ate it. Not all of it, but a good portion. Yes, I made sugar cookie dough just to eat it. I had no intentions of cooking that dough. I am so unhealthy. A little while later, I decided to weigh myself, since eating that much cookie dough is so unhealthy. Just to make sure the scale was accurate, I used three different scales. And they all told me the same thing. In two weeks, I have lost roughly 6 pounds. And no, I have not been trying. Well that explains the sugar cravings! I don't feel so bad about eating all that cookie dough now.

Well, today's my sister Allison's birthday, so I am going to get off so I can call her and wish her a happy birthday. Then I am going to go watch a mission call opening for one of my good friends Amber. Ta ta!

On the road to recovery

Well I am getting better. I am so bored of being in my apartment. I'm totally well enough that I could be around people, but most of my friends live a little too far for me to walk still. I walked to the Creamery last night. That was a terrible experience. I think I will have to wait one more week before I make an hour-long walking trip to my friends. If only the roads and sidewalks weren't covered in ice, I might be able to use my bicycle, but I fear that might be dangerous.

Speaking of ice, we had a ton of that on Thursday. If you are a fellow BYU student reading this, you will know exactly what I mean, but to my family from the desert, let me try to explain to you the anomaly that was freezing rain. It was below freezing...yet it was raining. I am quite used to having it snow and then melt as soon as it touches the ground, but this was the opposite. It was raining, and as soon as it touched the ground, it froze. Every sidewalk was covered in a layer of ice. BYU was a giant ice skating rink. We had no friction. And in case you didn't already know, I have to walk 30 minutes to get to school. But Thursday it took me an hour and a half to get to class (I was SO late). I was slipping and sliding all over the place. I fell three times, and the third time was the worst. Utah just loves to have these underground parking lots underneath apartment buildings with SUPER steep driveways. Well I slipped at the top of once of those, landed pretty painfully on my hip, my hat and umbrella went flying (for the third time), and I founding myself sliding down the driveway. I flipped over to my hands and knees and dug my fingers into the ground, trying to find something to hold on to, but there was nothing and there was no friction. I slid, crying from landing on my hip, all the way to the bottom. And then I was stuck down there. Because the ice was so slippery, I couldn't get back up the driveway! I hugged the wall trying to pull myself up the driveway as my feet continued to slide everywhere. A man came and helped me out of there, retrieved my umbrella and hat, and saw me safely to the street where there was less ice. Looking back, I now find it hilarious, but at the time I was in pain and I was still very sick from the flu. I had a paper due that day, and so I knew I had to go to school, but I still did not feel well enough to leave my apartment. Luckily, a woman gave me a ride to campus after that third fall.

I'm doing better now, but I am recovering very slowly. My body has started this sort of coughing that sounds like I am wheezing and honestly it sounds like I am barely coughing at all, but in truth I am coughing as hard as I possibly can. But there simply isn't enough force behind the cough to get the fluid out of my lungs. And yet, my body continues to try. So I cough...and I cough...and I don't stop coughing...and I don't get any relief...ALL NIGHT LONG!

But really I am doing better, I'm just complaining because I am tired of being sick. I want to be well already!

I made a most interesting connection the other day. So I haven't had much of an appetite all week. For a while I couldn't taste anything, and even now I still really don't have an appetite. And so I ate very very little for quite a few days in a row. Originally, the only thing that sounded good was bread. I craved a sandwich. And then I started craving fruit. And then I really started wanting cookies. Cookies, brownies, ice cream...any sort of sugar would do...but I didn't have any. And I figured it's unhealthy anyways. So I continued to starve myself. Then I saw something online that reminded me that when you starve yourself, your metabolism slows and your body really needs energy in the form of carbs. That's when I stopped and went "wait a second. Bread? Fruit? Cookies? I've been craving carbs all week. Oh. I think it's about time I ate something." So yep that was my brilliant discovery. Sometimes I amaze myself...mostly that I could be so stupid.

And that was my week. The take home message is don't starve yourself, and watch out for frozen sidewalks.
The end.