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!

Over the summer I had the opportunity to visit Yellowstone National Park with some coworkers. As we were driving along, Heidi, our unofficial tour-guide, mentioned the great forest-fire of ’88, and from there began to talk about the health of the trees today. One thing she said really struck me. In essence:
“The trees now are too close together. Because of this they are able to protect each other from the wind, but that in turn keeps them from becoming strong, and then it’s easy for them to be destroyed by little things such as beetles. When they’re farther apart, they’re less protected from the wind, and so become stronger.”
At least that’s how my brain, always searching for symbolism, remembers what she said. But it made me think: sometimes, when life gets hard, it might seem like we’re on our own. Like there’s no one there who can help us. And while we can always turn to God, I believe that he will only help us as much as we absolutely need. Life is supposed to be difficult; to be so hard we’re not sure how we can make it through. But those are the times when we grow the most; when we’ve been pushed so hard the only way to make it through is to be stronger than we thought we were – and so we become stronger than we used to be.

I remember my first month of college. My first month of living on my own. No parents and only one person that was not a new acquaintance. As much as I loved it, it was so difficult. It was stressful. Really, really stressful. But it taught me to be independent. I learned to be responsible, to be self-disciplined, to get along with roommates. It increased my confidence exponentionally. There was never a time, throughout that whole month – or since then, for that matter – when I was not happy with my decision to move out on my own.

Life is hard. But it’s the hard times that enable us to learn and grow like we were sent here to do. And as we learn to deal with these hard times, our confidence and happiness grow. It is the hard times that make life worth it.

Dead End?

This past weekend I had the opportunity to hike Buckskin Gulch with some amazing friends. While hiking through one of the world's longest slot canyons, we came upon a spot where, looking ahead, it seemed there was a dead end. Our limited vision showed no signs of the canyon continuing. However, we had faith and continued walking towards the supposed "dead end". As we did so, we found the canyon curving sharply to the right. It indeed continued, opening more beautiful canyon to our eyes. This happened a few more times during our adventure and I couldn't help but think of the scripture 1 Corinthians 10:13, that the Lord would "make a way to escape". I thought about how sometimes you feel like you're doing all you can to move forward in life, but the future doesn't look the way you think it should look. You wonder what you're supposed to do, why the Lord's put a "dead end" in the way. If you stop moving forward, trusting in the Lord, you'll never see the escape, or the way that the canyon curves to allow you to progress in the journey. During Relief Society on Sunday we were talking about Paul's conversion. As we read Acts 9:6, I noticed how the Lord only told Paul to go to the city, He didn't tell him the whole plan. So it is with us. The Lord gives us line upon line, one step at a time. Once we get there, He can tell us more. I think if we were to hear the whole plan it might be a little overwhelming.

I came across this commercial a day or so ago that demonstrates our need to move forward. Trapped on an Escalator - YouTube. When we find that things aren't going the way we think they should, maybe we should re-evaluate what we can do. Sometimes the Lord expects us to find our own solutions because we have the ability to make the difference. The Lord can work miracles in our lives, but sometimes we're waiting so much on those BIG miracles that we miss seeing the small miracles- the power that He's already given us and our ability to make our circumstances better. So keep moving forward!