C is for Country Music

This semester is packed full of methods courses, such as teaching math, teaching social studies, teaching reading, and teaching writing-to name a few. In my writing class, our teacher firmly believes that of we are going to be effective writing teachers, then we have to be writers ourselves. Because of this, we have a short quick write every class, where she poses a question or the beginning of a sentence and we respond. I thought I would use this post to show off some of my favorite responses. 

This first one was a descriptive writing that Rachel, Kayla and I did about a parade. We were given the word parade and were told to come up with various descriptive words that we could use to describe the parade without actually saying parade, and then we were told to write a story about it. This is what we came up with-

"During the hot summer, the whole town gathers on the cool grass to watch the glimmering instruments as they move in unison down the center lane. Amid the shouting and cheering, the sirens begin leading the slow procession through the city. As the colorful floats, glittering in the sunlight pass by, tired parents watch their laughing children greedily snatch up the sweets thrown on the rough pavement. Large hands lead sticky fingers away from the smells of the wet pavement and the musky crowds."

That day we also came up with things like " A damp towel is a useless as soggy bread," and "A damp towel feels like wet socks after a jog through the woods, the woods, oh the woods."

One of my favorite things that I have written in this class (the one that bring it back to the letter C) is this one. The prompt we were given was "If my life was a song it would be..." This is what I came up with. 

"If my life was a song it would be a country song. It would be one that would make you want to dance. Full of happy times to make you giggle and sad times to make you quiet, my song would be one that would make you look back longingly to the past, while still allowing you to look forward to the future with hope."

So, if your life was a song- what would your song be?

B is for Beautiful. You are Beautiful.

This post is written specifically for my little sister. As the oldest girl in my family,  my goal as my sister grows up is to be the older sister to her that I wish I had growing up, the one who was supposed to tell me all of these things.

However, the things that I will be writing about in this installment can apply to everyone- even boys!

A few years ago I took a family finance class here at Utah State. While in the class one of our assignments was to figure out our net worth. For those of you who don’t know how to find your net worth, in simple terms, you take everything you own and add up how much that is worth, then subtract all the debts you have and wham! That’s how much money you are worth.

As a poor college student, sitting down to do the assignment proved to be discouraging and upsetting. The most expensive thing that I owned was my camera, and possibly my laptop. I had a $200 championship water polo ring, but other than that, I didn’t have anything of value. Those few hundred dollars didn’t even begin to make a dent in the student loans I was currently racking up. Suddenly, I was worth nothing.  As a woman, I had grown up with media shoving their idea of a worth while woman in my face constantly, and according to my net worth, I didn’t measure up.

This assignment made me start to think about the idea of self-worth and body image. Why is it we tell the girls who have the expensive haircuts and designer jeans that they are the important ones? That they are the ones who have the most worth? How is this supposed to make the girl sitting in the corner in with the supercuts haircut and $10 walmart jeans? Is she not important? Does she not matter? Is she not beautiful as well?

Sydney, (and all of the rest of you reading this) YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL.

As a daughter of God, a princess of the most royal king, created in His image, there is no way that you can not be beautiful. President Utchdorf has given numerous talks on this subject. One of his most famous, the one about the Forget-Me-Not, although aimed at Relief Society sisters, has important applications for every woman (and man, of course) no matter their age. Heavenly Father loves you. He is always aware of you, of your hopes and desires, of your sorrows and trials. He does not look to earthly things to determine your worth, but rather, He looks inside of you.

Recently, President Utchdorf gave another talk, this time in the General women’s session of the October 2014 conference. While his talk was focused on living the gospel joyfully, he did say this- “Do you suppose it matters to our Heavenly Father whether your makeup, clothes, hair, and nails are perfect? Do you think your value to Him changes based on how many followers you have on Instagram or Pinterest? Do you think He wants you to worry or get depressed if some un-friend or un-follow you on Facebook or Twitter? Do you think outward attractiveness, your dress size, or popularity make the slightest difference in your worth to the One who created the universe?” None of that matters to Him. It doesn't matter if you carry hundred dollar purses, or if you wear sweatpants all day. 

Because you are a child of the most high God, you are infinitely precious in His sight.

And, you are beautiful.  Don’t any of you ever forget that. 

A is for Always.

Always. 

Snape said it. Whitney Houston sang about it.  Everyone is searching for it.

Talking to people is always so fascinating. No matter what you talk about, no matter who you talk to, there is always the underlying theme of forever and always. They may be talking about love. They might not be. You could be talking to a completely random stranger about their likes, their dislikes, but it's always there. It's clear that everyone is searching for something that will last forever, something that will always be there.

How interesting do you think it would be for many people to learn that they already have something that will always be there. Something, that no matter what they do, will always be there. No matter how many mistakes they make, how many times they try and fail, will always be there?

Always.
That's the promise our Heavenly Father gives us for His love. Always. And yet, we are often slow to believe this. I have often wondered why this is. If we are all searching for our always, why would we not believe that our Heavenly Father would always love us? How powerful the grasp of Satan, to make us believe that we have sinned more than our Father's perfect love can forgive.

The scriptures are full of examples of our Father's unfailing love. The parable in Matthew of the prodigal son is an amazing example. My most favorite and the one that really drives home this point in my own life, is the story of Alma the Younger. After all he had done, all the sins he committed, our Father in Heaven STILL loved him. In Mosiah we read that because of his sins, Alma was wracked with the pains of his sins, he sorrowed so much that he wished he could die, that he could be banished from the presence of the Father, and yet, even still, the Father always loved him. He never stopped. Finally, after having repented of his sins, Alma was filled with immense joy, that he remembered them no more and was filled with a marvelous light. (see Mosiah 36)

How comforting this passage has been in my own life. There have been times when I have sinned and have allowed the devil to drag me down into that awful hell, full of grief and pain. There have been many times that I have cried out in pain, believing that the Father has forgotten me, that there was no possible way that He could ever love me again.

Oh, how wrong I have been, The Father has always been there. He has always loved me.

We do have our part to do though. We must not run through this life thinking that it is okay to do whatever, because the Lord will always love us. While the knowledge that the Father will always love me is what brings me peace and allows me to start each new day with a hope for the future, I must do my part and repent of all of my wrong doings. And while that is not always easy, it must be done. It is the knowledge that there is nothing I can do, no level I can sink to, that the infinite light of the Savior and his atonement can not find me, can not reach me.

In April of 2012, Elder Jeffery R. Holland gave a talk entitled "The Laborers in the Vineyard". This talk entered into my life at the exact moment that I was struggling with this concept the most, further proving that the Father is ever mindful of me. I had not told anyone of my struggles, and as ashamed as I am to admit it, I had not prayed about them wither, and yet, this talk came at a critical and important time.

This is only a small, simple part of his talk, given at the very end, and yet, to me, it is the most important part of the entire talk. I'll let Elder Holland do the talking, because he can say things in ways that my simple words could never begin to do justice.



Always.