Tuesday, November 15, 2011

"Lights Will Guide You Home"

Last Tuesday, my uncle Scott- my mom's sister Valeri's husband- passed away unexpectedly. Over the past week, all three of my mom's 3 brothers and my cousins all flew out here to help out and to be here for the funeral. It was really neat to see how everyone came together to support my aunt Valeri and her family through this time. It was really nice for us all to be together again- I haven't seen them all together since my grandpa's funeral 5 years ago. The weekend was filled with hugs and tears and some laughs as well just because my family is amazing. I am grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the opportunity we have to be comforted by someone that understands perfectly what we are going through. I am really sad for my cousins who just lost their dad. Two of them, Scotty and Shauni, spoke at the funeral and did an awesome job. It was a really nice service. Scotty and his cute wife, Aleese, sang my all time favorite song "Count, Thou Fount of Every Blessing." It was so awesome. I was bawling through the whole thing. I was impressed that they made it to the last verse before breaking down. The whole day was very bittersweet. I can't imagine going to a funeral not believing that we can see our loved ones again. It's hard enough doing without them for just a little while here on earth. I came away from this whole thing just grateful for the gospel though. I don't have a doubt that we will all see the people we love again and I am so grateful for that knowledge and the peace it brings during tough times like this. The gospel is true! :)





(Our family is tough- we can get through anything!)







Thursday, October 27, 2011

"I Just Wanna Run..."




So last week was a little crazy. On the 16th, my cousin Crystal and I ran "The Other Half" in Moab. That was a pretty fun time in spite of our detour that took us somehow into Colorado due to my cousin's instructions that "it's a straight shot".... We just wanted to take the scenic route I guess. I liked the course though. There were a couple hills, but a lot was fairly flat or downhill. At about mile 10, my IT band started bothering me a lot and I slowed way down. I was still able to beat my time from my last half though and finished in 2:14:20. Next time I do one I'm shooting for 2 hours or less, like my amazing cousin did this time. We'll see how that goes. The best part was that we got lost on the way home as well, so it ended up taking us about an extra hour and a half. We're not the best with directions...







Well then this past weekend, I got to go to Las Vegas to run the Vegas Ragnar. I'm not gonna lie, I did it for the super cool medal. You get a really neat one for doing two Ragnars in the same year. So I got to be on a team full of people I didn't know.





Driving down there to even start the race was a mess. There was so much traffic and construction that it took my mom and me 8 hours to get to Vegas from Salt Lake, and on the way we managed to have a piece of something flip up and dent the hood of the rental car and crack the windshield. Not cool. By the time we got there, we were both frustrated and starving and bawling. Ha not a good way to start a two day race. It ended up being ok though. We got to our hotel and made it the next morning in time for me to meet my team and go to breakfast with them. They were all way fun and super cool people. Mostly from California but one from Vegas and one from Washington.





We ended up having one of our team members drop out due to an injury and we almost weren't able to finish the race, but somehow we got through and finished Saturday night around 6:30. It was definitely an adventure.





It's funny how the harder things are, the more you appreciate being done and the better you feel about your accomplishments. I also really appreciated my parents going down with me and being so supportive of what I wanted to do. I am pretty dang lucky. :)








Thursday, October 6, 2011

"Everybody needs inspiration; Everybody needs a song..."

I realized a very long time ago that music means more to me than it does to a lot of people, but today I realized something else. I went to choir today- which lately has been one of the few things keeping me going- and the girl that was giving the thought for the day mentioned how the Savior can be our best friend. That wasn't the focus of what she was saying, but she said it. Well, it got me thinking that I'm definitely not to that point, and I want to be. Then I started thinking about why that's hard for me. If we have Him available to us and He is perfect, why would we not take advantage of it? Well, sometimes it's hard to think of your best friend as someone you can't see there. My mind then took me back to a conversation I had with one of my favorite mission companions. We were talking about prayer and she said, "Sometimes I feel like I just can't quite get through to Him." I think I feel like that a lot. Like I'll be praying and just pouring my heart out and trying so hard to feel like someone's listening, but I feel instead like I'm just talking to the wall. But then yesterday in choir we were singing this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70kdwGBv8fQ (it's good- you should check it out!)

As soon as we started singing, I just got this overwhelming feeling of peace and love and I knew Heavenly Father had been listening. "Just talk to your Father in Heaven. He hears every prayer and answers in His way. In time, He will answer. He will not fail us." -Richard G. Scott. (http://lds.org/new-era-2003-08-recognizing-answers-to-prayer?lang=eng&query=answers+prayers -Great talk!)

Anyway, I know that Heavenly Father hears us and I'm so grateful for that. We just need to learn to recognize the way He talks back. I am definitely going to work on that and on depending on Him instead of other people- even though sometimes that feels harder since we can't see Him. But He's always there, and that is pretty incredible.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

"Livin on Dreams and Spaghettios, Wonderin Where Your Life is Gonna Go..."

So I guess a pretty important thing to add on here is I finally got moved out again and am now living downtown right inbetween work and school. It pretty much couldn't be more perfect. I am now living with Jana (that beautiful girl in the picture on the left) and our other roommate Cassidy. They are both very cute girls and we get along great, although we rarely see each other.
Jana is currently working on her PhD at the U in Pharmacology and Toxicology (what a little smarty!) Life has been throwing her some curveballs lately (as it so often seems to like to do) and the future is kinda up in the air.
I guess I feel like I can relate to not knowing where my life is going right now. I feel like so much has been changing lately... I am doing everything I can to try to get into the grad program at the U, but honestly I have no idea what I'll do if that doesn't happen. I am typically the kind of girl that loves adventure and taking chances and going new places... but lately nothing like that feels right. The problem is, I don't know what does. Life is crazy. Nothing is stable. Nothing goes as planned.
With all this uncertainty and all these "unknowns" in the near future, I have been doing a lot of reflecting lately on what I want out of life and who I want to be. My number one goal can be summarized well in the words of President Hinckley: "We are not here on earth to see how important we can become, but to see how much of a difference we can make in the lives of others." What I want most, is for the lives of people that know me to be better because they did know me. I want to do anything I can to make the world and the people around me better. I feel like I have been focusing on the wrong things and not doing this very well lately. Time to refocus on this and make the changes I need to in order to become this kind of a person.
Another thing I have realized is that I have a whole lot of passion for the field I am going into. I want to do speech-language pathology and I want to do it well. I want to learn everything I can and be able to contribute something to this relatively new and growing field. The more I learn, the more I love it!
The last thing I'll mention that I've been thinking about is how grateful I am that we all have more potential than we are currently living up to. That means we can become better. Doesn't that give you a brighter hope for this world? It does for me. We don't have to settle for where we are, or even where we've been. It's possible to change.... and the possibilities are limitless. Each of us can become whoever we want to be. So the question is, who do you want to be?
"You are not you. You are greater than you." -Spencer V. Jones

Thursday, August 11, 2011

"Wipeout!"

Justin's amazing surfing skills
Ryan jumping the wake
My mom and me getting bounced like crazy on the tube
So I originally created this blog at the beginning of the summer and have posted nothing. I finally did something worth talking about. This week my family is down in St George for a blissful week of wakeboarding, tubing, surfing, and fun in general. My brothers are pretty much complete studs. Ryan can jump the wake like nobody's business and Justin is the only one that has successfully been able to get up and stay up on the surfboard this trip. Carly is the mastermind behind all the photography for the trip. It has been an incredible week. Among my favorite moments are riding on the tube with my mom- she always makes the funniest noises when she gets nervous on that thing- and riding on the tube with Ryan- he was going off in some British accent about how "these waves are big enough to sink the Titanic!" (which actually may have been true- they were ginormous!). I guess mostly I learned this week that my family is really cool and when we're stranded in the middle of the desert together for a whole week, we can have a pretty good time. I feel pretty lucky and anyone else that ends up in this family is going to be pretty lucky too. Welp, better get back to enjoying the last week and a half before school starts and reality hits again. :)