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!