Landscape

The idea for this post comes from an amazing lady that I have the privilege of calling friend. I went fishing with this friend and her family, enjoying the scenery and the company. As we were leaving, another friend of ours showed us her the pictures she had taken, one of which was a landscape picture. It can be hard to capture the beauty of this area because it is all surrounding, but the landscape option on the camera allowed my friend to get more of it. My other friend had tried to get some good scenic shots, but was jealous that this friend's had turned out so much better. Later, when we were in the car, this friend started to play around with her camera and realized that there was a landscape option on it. "There's a lesson to be learned," she exclaimed, "Whenever we feel jealous of something we just need to dig deeper inside ourselves and we'll find there's no need to be jealous!" I have been guilty of comparing myself to others and finding myself falling short. There is greatness inside of us all, if we dig deep, we'll find more than we realized was there. There's no need to compare, we're different, but we're different for a reason, Heavenly Father has different things that He needs us to accomplish in this life. As we rely on Him and learn from the examples from others, we can become more than we ever thought possible.

How to hike rim-to-rim

I recently accomplished a big goal on my bucket list. Hike the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim. Not only did I accomplish this great feat, but I did it in one day. The Park Service discourages people from attempting this, online I read several warnings "Do not hike this in one day". But with strong legs, a strong will, and most importantly, lots of water, I succeeded. It's common knowledge that water is vital to our survival. As a hiker, I've known it's important to stay hydrated. I get ornery when I'm dehydrated and don't have as much energy. Knowledge became more of a reality on this epic hike where I learned to drink as much as you can, especially at the beginning. So before we even started the hike, I drank 2 liters. I was also taught to not worry about rationing your water. We were told "Better to run out and already have it in your system, then to have extra at the end and be dehydrated." The wonderful thing about the Grand Canyon is that there are several places along the way where you can fill up with water. Our goal became to drink all of our water by the time we came to the next faucet. I wasn't very thirsty on the way down the canyon, and I probably wouldn't have hydrated myself had it not been for the wise leader of the group. I could have thought to myself "I've already had a lot of water, I don't need more." But, we knew the hike ahead would be long and hard, so we did all we could to prepare ourselves. In the scriptures we are taught that Christ is the "living water" and He invites all to drink of His water. But how do we partake of the Living Water? First we have to know what the living water is. When Nephi asks the Lord for the interpretation of his father's dream, he sees the fountain of living water and is told that it is a "representation of the love of God". To me, the love of God has everything to do with the atonement. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The atonement, like water, gives life. To drink living water is to apply the atonement in our lives. Not just when we need to repent of wrongdoing, but also to give us strength to become better. The more we strive to become like the Savior; to have our thoughts and actions be one with His, the more we allow his "water" into our system. We are also taught in the scriptures to "Seek the Lord early." That means now. We know life is going to have its ups and downs. Drink now and fill up as often as you can. The fill up stations might be compared to times when we fill up with the spirit. It could be a full-time mission, getting your endowment. Or even seemingly smaller things- a trip to the temple, General or Stake Conference, Sacrament Meeting, a good scripture study. Then rely on the water you've got in your pack. Live the gospel and the principles you've been taught. Doctrine and Covenants 63:23 reads, "My commandments shall be a well of living water".It does absolutely no good to have a camelback full of water and to not to drink of it. Likewise, we should be trying to find ways to apply what the spirit's teaching us to our everyday life. By doing this we're allowing the water to fill us. I was about two miles away from the top of the canyon when I came to the last place to fill up water. I was tired from walking all day, but I was hydrated and I didn't want to stop my momentum. I knew if I stopped to get water it would take me a little longer to start hiking again. I also figured that I had enough water in my pack to make it to the top. That was a mistake. About ten minutes later I ran out of water. Luckily I had enough water in my system to keep me hydrated. My mouth would get so dry and I craved water. I had an apple in my pack, but I wasn't hungry and an apple didn't sound appetizing. I finally gave in and grabbed the apple. It didn't satisfy me nearly as well as water would have. I would take a bit, suck out all of the juices. When they were all gone, I had the meat of the apple left. Usually I love apples, but that pulp was so dry and not fun to eat. I wonder if that's what it's like to not have the fullness of the gospel. Many churches preach the gospel, but don't have it in its purest form. Members are still nourished with liquid, but it's harder to get out and not as satisfying. I am glad I had that apple to sustain me to the top, but I'm more grateful I had wise leaders who taught to hydrate early and hydrate more often than you think.

The Uphill Battle

I know I've mentioned before how much I love biking, especially when there's great scenery to be enjoyed. Today was a day of said enjoyment. Of perfect weather, good views of the lake, of cruising over rocks and even some sand, followed by the nice challenge of the climb up the hill.
There's a few steep roads that connect the highway to town. I happen to live closet to the hill that has, by far, the least amount of traffic so when I need a good, challenging workout, that's where I go. Down the hill, and then back up.
A couple days ago a friend mentioned this hill to me. She said that once in awhile a coworker of hers will ride his bike down the hill, to work. According to her, he's a strong guy, yet he still struggles coming back up that hill and has to get off his bike and walk. When I heard this, I just assumed he was strong in other ways because you need different muscles to ride a bike than to lift weights and I've made it up that hill several times, but don't consider myself buff.
Heading back up the hill today, I started thinking about my friend's coworker. I noticed how quickly I had to shift gears down and down again. I wondered how many gears this coworker had and if he used them. I realized I wouldn't be able to make it up the hill without being able to shift to a very low gear.
It made me think about the gospel; about trials in our lives and how we handle them. As we rely on the Savior, some of the pressures and weight gets taken away; the atonement allows us to shift down so it's easier to pedal. Don't get me wrong, the climb upward is slow going and you have to be diligent. If you decide you're tired and stop, you'll go backwards or fall. We have to be diligent and do everything we can, but the Lord makes it possible for us to do so.
In biking up on the steepest parts of the hill, I've found it helpful to zig-zag across the road, making the path I travel, not as steep. It's a longer path, but it's sometimes helpful.
Using the road this way is like using other types of support. Friends, family, coworkers, etc., can be a great help in time of need. If I get off my bike in the middle of the hill, usually the only way to get back on and moving again is to zig-zag across the road. However, even if I zig-zag across the road, I still need to be in lower gear. We still need the atonement, we can't rely alone on the other support systems.
Knowing those few things about bike riding makes it possible to climb bigger hills. I bet my friend's coworker can make it up, he just doesn't know it. In our life, we know the Lord won't give us challenges we can't overcome with his help. The hills may continue to get bigger and more challenging, but that's because our spiritual muscles are growing and we need those challenges.
I love bike rides like today's where I step off my bike and feel what conquering the hill has done to my muscles. It makes me grateful for my bike and its many gears.

Pushing

An institute teacher told this story and I loved it so I decided to share:

A man was sleeping at night in his cabin when suddenly his room filled with light and the Savior appeared. The Lord told the man he had work for him to do, and showed him a large rock in front of his cabin. The Lord explained that the man was to push against the rock with all his might.

This the man did, day after day. For many years he toiled from sun up to sun down, his shoulders set squarely against the cold, massive surface of the unmoving rock, pushing it with all his might. Each night the man returned to his cabin sore, and worn out, feeling that his whole day had been spent in vain.

Noticing that the man was showing signs of discouragement, the adversary decided to enter the picture by placing thoughts into the man’s weary mind. “You have been pushing against this rock for a long time, and it hasn’t budged. Why kill yourself over this? You are never going to move it.” Thus giving the man the impression that the task was impossible and that he was a failure. These troubling thoughts discouraged and disheartened the man. “Why kill myself over this?” I’ll just put in my time, giving just the minimum effort and that will be good enough.

And that is what he planned to do until one day he decided to make it a matter of prayer and take his thoughts to the Lord. “Lord” he said, “I have labored long and hard in your service, putting all my strength to do that which you have asked. Yet, after all this time, I have not even been able to budge that rock. What is wrong? Why am I failing?”

The Lord responded compassionately, “My friend, When I asked you to serve me and you accepted, I told you that your task was to push against the rock with all your strength, which you have done. Never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it. Your task was to push. And now you come to me with your strength spent, thinking that you have failed. But, is that really so?”

“Look at yourself. Your arms are strong and muscled, your back sinewy and brown, your hands are callused from constant pressure, and your legs have become massive and hard. Through opposition you have grown much and your abilities now surpass that which you used to have. Yet you haven’t moved the rock. But your calling was to be obedient and to push and to exercise your faith and trust in my wisdom. This you have done. I, my friend, will now move the rock.”

At times, when we hear a word from God, we tend to use our own intellect to decipher what He wants, when actually what God wants is simple obedience and Faith in Him…



Read more at Story : Push against the Rock

Rose on the Gray

A couple of weeks ago I was wandering around the neighborhoods south of BYU campus, when I saw something that intrigued my mind. Along the side of an unattractive, brown apartment complex were rose bushes with stems browned and petals dried from the chilly weather. But, amazingly enough, those stems still had roses. And maybe it was just the lack of all other flowers this time of year, but these roses were beautiful: a deep, crackly red, with a dry yellow on the outside edges.

It surprised me to see such beauty on a snowless winter day; especially in a neighborhood of run-down houses and apartment complexes. True, if I had seen those roses on a glorious summer day, they would have paled in comparison to the beauty of the flowers around them, but on this crisp winter day, they glowed with a beauty all their own.

And isn’t life like that? Sometimes your circumstances make it difficult to *bloom at all, but in those cases, the smallest amount can go a long way. Even having the courage to stand there and say, “Just because it’s winter doesn’t mean I’m not going to bloom” can make a difference. And while your blooms at this time of your life may not be as beautiful as they would be in the summer, they are beautifully inspiring for being there at all.

So, when you feel that you are in the winter of your life, don’t be ashamed that you can’t bloom like your summer-time neighbor. Be proud that you’re strong enough to bloom at all.

*Bloom (verb): Pronunciation: /bluːm/

1. To bear flowers; to be in flower, come into flower; to blossom.

In defiance of the cruel climate, the rose bloomed beautifully all year.

2. To come into full beauty; to be in fresh beauty and vigour; to flourish.

The old woman, despite her gray hair and wrinkles, bloomed with a strength seen only in those who have lived long and hard.

3. To glow with warm colour.

Despite the harsh cold, the rose petals bloomed with color vibrant against their browned stems.

4. To give a bloom to; to colour with a soft warm tint or glow.

The girl’s cheeks bloomed with the seriousness of living.

** Pictures found using Google images. Definitions from OED online.

I love biking. I love that the feeling it gives me, the challenge of conquering the hills, and then getting off my bike, barely being able to walk and realizing that I had a good workout. Lately I have been missing my bike routes in St. George. I never tired of them while I was there. Yet I was already bored of the trails here. Most of the rim trail is too sandy for good biking and the only other road long enough for a good road would be the main road in town, which would be a lot of stopping at stop lights- not what I wanted.
Friday after school, I sat doing lesson plans in my room. The janitor came in to vacuum and mentioned how warm it was outside. I looked at the clock. 4:30. Why am I still in here? I thought. I decided that my work would wait for me, but the warm weather probably wouldn't.
I went home, got on my bike and headed to a back road that I thought might connect me to the road that went out the reservation. I'm still not sure if it does, but I found what I was looking for. The road I took eventually turned into a dirt road from which there were several trails I could take. The scenery was amazing, which makes the bike ride that much better. The trail didn't have too many sandy spots.
I still have a lot of trails to explore out that way. I was out on my bike for about an hour and thoroughly enjoyed myself. But what makes me even happier is knowing that there's more out there.
As I was biking, my mind started to wander. I'm studying the book of Isaiah in my institute class, so the experience of taking Isaiah from Brother King was fresh in my mind.
Before I took Brother King's class I had gotten to a point where I felt like I understood most of the essential doctrines of the church. I was still trying to apply them all to my life because I wasn't perfect, but I felt like I knew the scriptures. I decided to take a class on Isaiah because I wanted to be in a class where at least some of the students would be closer to my age. Isaiah seemed like a class that would scare away most freshmen.
I didn't realize how much this class would teach me. Brother King taught us that the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know. I thought I knew a lot, until I took the class. I studied the chapters before going, but always left class knowing I had missed so much in my study and I knew I hadn't even caught, much less understand, everything that had been taught.
Sometimes we think we've found everything that there is. I thought I had found all the good bike trails here. I thought I understood the scriptures pretty well. What I learned is that whenever we get to that point, it's time to look for new paths, new challenges. New classes, new bike trails, a new perspective. There will always be more to learn and to explore.

This semester at college I am taking my second semester of Latin. One thing I have learned from my study of Latin is the different tenses. There are six of them: Future, present, imperfect, perfect, future perfect, and pluperfect. Turns out, the perfect and imperfect are very similar. They are both past tense, and can technically be translated in the same way. However, there is one subtle difference: the imperfect tense implies something that was continuous in the past, while the perfect refers to something that is completed. For example: “He was sailing,” as opposed to “He sailed.” The first is an ongoing action, while the second is finished.

This makes me think of my life: As hard as I try to be perfect, I can never quite make it. I am imperfect, but that’s why I’m here. I’m imperfect because I’m living. If I were perfect it would mean that my life was complete. Finished. There would be no point to it. Because I am imperfect there is always something to work on, to strive towards. Something to learn, some way to grow. And that’s why life is such an adventure – because the learning never ends.

It’s not just people who are imperfect: life itself is inherently imperfect. Even nature, gorgeous as it is, has its imperfections. But it’s these imperfections that make it so beautiful, for without the bad we would not appreciate the good. It is the contrast between the two that makes the good so breathtaking.

So despite the difficulties they present, I am grateful for imperfections.

I’m even more grateful for the Atonement, because that’s what makes all my striving towards perfection worthwhile.

Trail Tales

The small town where I currently reside has amazing scenery. On one side you see a beautiful canyon, on the other, a blue lake surrounded by red rock. What's even better is the dirt trail on the outskirts of town. This is where I love to wander and take in the beauty of the surrounding area. The whole trail is 13 miles long, and I usually only do a part at a time. Just down the road from where I live, I can get on the trail by either going left or right. To the left is what I prefer to bike. The path is well used and there's not a lot of sand piles to ride through. To the right, is what I usually end up running on. There's lots of sand, which makes it harder to bike. However, I consider it the most beautiful part of the trail because of its background, the lake.
Recently, as I've wandered over these paths, my mind has focused on the actual trail. I had a feeling that there was something profound I could learn from the red dirt.
As I took my bike over some very sandy spots, I struggled to pedaled forward and laughed as my wheels turned back and forth. Sand is very tricky like that, trying to get you off-balance and turned around. I thought, "This relates to life, you've got to know where you're going so something like sand doesn't keep you from getting to your goals." That was a life analogy, but I felt like the trail had something more personal to teach me. Something that I needed to apply to my life.
Less than a week later, I was back out on the trail, the part overlooking the lake. I noticed several paths coming and going and decided I would explore them to see where they led. I wanted to see if any of these trails were better for biking. As I wandered, I soon realized that most of them led to pretty much the same direction. Each of the paths had loose sand, so the sand would be unavoidable. It really didn't matter which trail I took. In each, I would have the sandy parts to travel through. But as long as I was pointed in the right direction, I would reach my destination.
Sometimes in life, I get so focused on what path I'm supposed to take. I think that there's only one path for me and I have to figure out what that is. But that's not really how it works. If we know our ultimate destination, then there could be several paths that lead us to that destination. For example, when I felt like it was time to leave St. George, I prayed and pondered to know where the Lord needed me next. And now, sometimes I wonder where the Lord will need me next year.
The Lord can find work that He needs me to do wherever I chose to live. He can make use of us in whatever career we choose, whatever college we go to, who we choose to date and eventually marry, or town we choose to live in. Sometimes those seem like big decisions to us, but there's not only ONE right path. As long as we're searching for inspiration, making sure we haven't taken a wrong path. Any of those paths will work. That doesn't mean they won't be without trails and sandy places, but we just have to keep going forward, keeping our ultimate goals in mind.

Sewing Mishaps

Over Christmas break, in an attempt to keep myself from going crazy from boredom, I made a shirt. It was a lot less traumatizing of an experience than sewing normally is for more; I think I only cried over it once, and that was after a long day of cutting out the pattern pieces. Frustrating stuff, that is. Anyway, it made me think of my last experience with a large sewing project. It went a bit like this:

I had barely enough material for my shirt and couldn’t buy more. I (with a lot of help from my mom) had gotten the pattern pieces arranged just so, so that they all barely fit – including the slight alterations I was making to the neckline. I made sure to cut the upper part of the neckline first so that I wouldn’t forget that I was altering it, then went ahead and cut the other three sides . . . and zoned out and just kept going back around the fourth side, cutting the neckline back to its original position. Oops.

I noticed about halfway through what I was doing, but wasn’t too worried because I figured that my mom, amazing as she is, could fix anything.

“What can I do?” I asked, showing her my mistake.

She tilted her head thoughtfully to the side, about to divulge some perfect solution.

“I don’t know,” she said.

That’s when I began to freak out. But as my mom, amazing as she is, continued to examine my shirt, she came up with a brilliant idea.

“You could sew some lace along the top of the neckline. That should hide the cut. And while you’re at it, you could sew some lace along the sleeves as well.”

So I did. And you know what? It worked so well that I’ve had random people compliment me on this shirt that I messed up. You know what else? It looks fifty times cuter with the lace than it would without it.

I think mistakes are like that. They help you see ways you can make things so much better, whereas if you never made mistakes, you would just keep going, not realizing that while things are good, it is possible – with a little-lot help from you – for them to be simply amazing.

So, the moral of this story is: my mom is amazing.

Oh, and I suppose mistakes being a way to make things even better could also be a moral. Whatev.

New Beginnings

Sunrises are the best aren't they? Beams of light shine through clouds, dispersing the darkness and as the light paints the sky with bright colors, we hear it whisper the hopeful message, " it's a new day, a new start". Little by little we see our surroundings more clearly. Instead of dark shadows, we notice the beauty we are surrounded by. Campers come out of their tent in the early morning light, still layered in clothing and blankets, anticipating the rays of light reaching where they could feel of its warmth. I am reminded of sunrises because today is New Years Day. A day that many associate with resolutions and goals and a new start. I love new beginnings and being able to start fresh, but I don't think it has to happen just once a year. Can you imagine only experiencing the rising sun once a year? We can experience newness and reflection every week as we partake of the sacrament, and everyday as we take time to really study, ponder and pray. In the business of life sometimes you don't take time to see the sunrise. Especially when one happens everyday, it can become just part of the everyday routine. Guess that's why we also have special events like New Years to remind us to keep progressing. Here's to another great year!