Thursday, November 19, 2009
ASL Project
I love to see the Temple, I'm going there someday. To feel the Holy Spirit, to listen and to pray. For the temple is a house of God. A place of love and beauty. I'll prepare myself while I am young...This is my sacred duty.
We are daughters of our Heavenly Father, who loves us, and we love Him.
We will "stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things,
and in all places" as we strive to live
the Young Women values, which are:
Faith
Divine Nature
Individual Worth
Knowledge
Choice and Accountability
Good Works
Integrity and
Virtue.
I love to see the Temple. I'll go inside someday. I'll covenant with my Father, I'll promise to obey. For the Temple is a holy place where we are sealed together. As a child of God, I've learned this truth. A family is forever.
We believe as we come to accept and act upon these values,
we will be prepared to strengthen home and family, make and keep sacred covenants,
receive the ordinances of the temple, and enjoy the blessings of exaltation.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Why LDS Women Stress
As Latter-day Saint women, we are practically obsessed with anxiously
engaging ourselves in good causes. Maybe it's subliminal.
Glancing through the hymnal last Sunday I noted that as sisters in
Zion,we who are called to serve are all enlisted to go marching,marching forward because the world has need of willing people to all press on scattering sunshine.We wonder if we have done any good in the world today because we have been given much and want to do what is right, keep the commandments,press forward with the Saints,choose the right,and put our shoulders to the wheel going where He wants us
to go.However, as the morning breaks high on the mountain top,truth reflects upon our senses,and while we still believe that sweet is the work,we also realize that we have work enough to do ere the sun goes down.
And thus we ask Thee ere we part, where can we turn for peace?
Monday, October 19, 2009
Personal Progress
Sorry this post is SOOOOOOOO LONG!! BUT its a talk I wrote that I'm giving at Young Women in Excellence tomorrow.... ENJOY!!
These are dark and perilous times. Where one can hardly step outside their front door without being accosted by immorality, lies, vulgar language, and the many other down falls of man. We are faced with these things at school, at work, at the mall, the movies, the store, and just hanging out with friends. So how in a world that is SO corrupt are we to be a light unto the nations. 1 Timothy 4:12 says,” Let no man adespise thy youth; but be thou an bexample of the believers, in word, in cconversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in dpurity.”
The church has given us, its members many road maps on this journey we call life. We have the Bible, Book of Mormon, True to the Faith, and General Conference just to name a few. Even with all of this the first presidency felt we, as youth, as young women needed more. And so Personal Progress was created.
I want you all to think back to your very first day in Young Women’s and how EXCITED you were to finally be with the “older girls”. Do you remember the first time the Sister over personal progress came to visit you? And that child like excitement and thrill you had of finally being able to participate in something so great and accomplish something so grand? Sisters…. How long did that determination to be the first one in your class to receive your medallion last?
A few years ago I pulled out of public school to do independent study. Now I know this was the right decision for me, but it didn’t come without its struggles. I remember daily feeling alone and lost. I wasn’t surrounded by my friends all day long, I didn’t have teachers there telling me how excellent that essay was or how good I was doing. It was just me. One day I was feeling quite lonely and I happened upon my personal progress book. And it was one of those “oh yeah I need to finish that” moments. So I half heartedly open my book. And after that everything was different.
From the section on faith where I remembered faith is much more than a passive belief. That I had to express my faith through my actions- by the way I lived. Then I read Moroni 7:33, “And Christ hath said: aIf ye will have bfaith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is cexpedient in me.” And everything got a little bit easier after that.
To Divine Nature and Individual Worth. Where I remembered that the worth of souls, that the worth my MY soul was great.
In the book One Bright and Shinning Hope it says,” You are very precious, each of you. You occupy a high and sacred place in the eternal plan of God, our Father in Heaven; you are his daughter, precious to Him, loved by Him, and very important to Him. His grand design cannot succeed without you.” And again I took a couple more steps in the right direction.
Then I trudged forward through Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works and Integrity. And with each activity and each project I noticed a change in myself. I was happier, I got along better with my family, and my friendships had improved. I no longer looked as service or going to church as something I HAD TO do but as something I WANTED to do. Something I knew would make me happier and bring me closer to my Heavenly Father.
I don’t know how many of you have read page ONE of your personal progress book. But it says.................... “You are a beloved daughter of Heavenly Father, prepared to come to the earth at this particular time for a sacred and glorious purpose. You have the noble calling to use your strength and influence for good. Your loving Heavenly Father has blessed you with talents and abilities that will help you fulfill your divine mission. Through personal prayer, scripture study, obedience to the commandments, and service to others, you can develop these gifts.
Use your influence to lift and bless your family, other young women, and the young men with whom you associate. Honor womanhood, support the priesthood, and treasure faithful motherhood and fatherhood.
As you participate in Personal Progress, you join with thousands of other young women who are striving to come unto Christ and “stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places” (Mosiah 18:9). Prayerfully choose goals that will help you cultivate feminine virtues, grow spiritually, and reach your divine potential. Take advantage of your time in Young Women by preparing to receive the sacred ordinances of the temple, to be a faithful wife and mother, and to strengthen the home and family.”
I received my medallion over a year and a half ago and I read that page for the FIRST TIME yesterday afternoon. But it describes perfectly what personal progress has helped me become and what it has made me strive for…. Because of Personal Progress and the Young Women’s Program I can walk by faith, I KNOW I am a daughter of God with infinite worth, I know how to make good choices, exhibit integrity, be virtuous, sow, cook, be a leader, study, love my family, enjoy service and try to be more Christ like.
All these things will help me in my future. They will help me meet my ultimate goal which is to be married in the Temple. And I KNOW it will do the same for you if you just take that little step and open up your personal progress book and finish it one activity at a time.
These are dark and perilous times. Where one can hardly step outside their front door without being accosted by immorality, lies, vulgar language, and the many other down falls of man. We are faced with these things at school, at work, at the mall, the movies, the store, and just hanging out with friends. So how in a world that is SO corrupt are we to be a light unto the nations. 1 Timothy 4:12 says,” Let no man adespise thy youth; but be thou an bexample of the believers, in word, in cconversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in dpurity.”
The church has given us, its members many road maps on this journey we call life. We have the Bible, Book of Mormon, True to the Faith, and General Conference just to name a few. Even with all of this the first presidency felt we, as youth, as young women needed more. And so Personal Progress was created.
I want you all to think back to your very first day in Young Women’s and how EXCITED you were to finally be with the “older girls”. Do you remember the first time the Sister over personal progress came to visit you? And that child like excitement and thrill you had of finally being able to participate in something so great and accomplish something so grand? Sisters…. How long did that determination to be the first one in your class to receive your medallion last?
A few years ago I pulled out of public school to do independent study. Now I know this was the right decision for me, but it didn’t come without its struggles. I remember daily feeling alone and lost. I wasn’t surrounded by my friends all day long, I didn’t have teachers there telling me how excellent that essay was or how good I was doing. It was just me. One day I was feeling quite lonely and I happened upon my personal progress book. And it was one of those “oh yeah I need to finish that” moments. So I half heartedly open my book. And after that everything was different.
From the section on faith where I remembered faith is much more than a passive belief. That I had to express my faith through my actions- by the way I lived. Then I read Moroni 7:33, “And Christ hath said: aIf ye will have bfaith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is cexpedient in me.” And everything got a little bit easier after that.
To Divine Nature and Individual Worth. Where I remembered that the worth of souls, that the worth my MY soul was great.
In the book One Bright and Shinning Hope it says,” You are very precious, each of you. You occupy a high and sacred place in the eternal plan of God, our Father in Heaven; you are his daughter, precious to Him, loved by Him, and very important to Him. His grand design cannot succeed without you.” And again I took a couple more steps in the right direction.
Then I trudged forward through Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works and Integrity. And with each activity and each project I noticed a change in myself. I was happier, I got along better with my family, and my friendships had improved. I no longer looked as service or going to church as something I HAD TO do but as something I WANTED to do. Something I knew would make me happier and bring me closer to my Heavenly Father.
I don’t know how many of you have read page ONE of your personal progress book. But it says.................... “You are a beloved daughter of Heavenly Father, prepared to come to the earth at this particular time for a sacred and glorious purpose. You have the noble calling to use your strength and influence for good. Your loving Heavenly Father has blessed you with talents and abilities that will help you fulfill your divine mission. Through personal prayer, scripture study, obedience to the commandments, and service to others, you can develop these gifts.
Use your influence to lift and bless your family, other young women, and the young men with whom you associate. Honor womanhood, support the priesthood, and treasure faithful motherhood and fatherhood.
As you participate in Personal Progress, you join with thousands of other young women who are striving to come unto Christ and “stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places” (Mosiah 18:9). Prayerfully choose goals that will help you cultivate feminine virtues, grow spiritually, and reach your divine potential. Take advantage of your time in Young Women by preparing to receive the sacred ordinances of the temple, to be a faithful wife and mother, and to strengthen the home and family.”
I received my medallion over a year and a half ago and I read that page for the FIRST TIME yesterday afternoon. But it describes perfectly what personal progress has helped me become and what it has made me strive for…. Because of Personal Progress and the Young Women’s Program I can walk by faith, I KNOW I am a daughter of God with infinite worth, I know how to make good choices, exhibit integrity, be virtuous, sow, cook, be a leader, study, love my family, enjoy service and try to be more Christ like.
All these things will help me in my future. They will help me meet my ultimate goal which is to be married in the Temple. And I KNOW it will do the same for you if you just take that little step and open up your personal progress book and finish it one activity at a time.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
life
Today was just one of those days. When the alarm goes off and you realize.... I'm freezing cold, whats going on here!??! I live in SOUTHERN California, not Idaho. So after setting, and resetting your alarm for later times you drag yourself out of bed. And realize you have the one sock blues.... Where you KNOW you went to bed with two socks on.... but now you can't find your left one to save your life. so you halfheartedly search, but to no avail. And then it turns into trying to keep yourself moving and motivated. You clean your room, do your daily scripture study, say your prayers, and go to eat. But you're not really paying attention to any of it. You're just going through the motions of life not caring what you do or what happens. Until you get in your car to go to work and all of the sudden something inside of you just SNAPS awake. And you look at the beauty around you, and you just feel SO alive. SO happy to be breathing and moving.
This past weekend was General Conference, and sadly I had work Saturday so I missed that session....But no worries Im making it up one by one. But Sunday, was amazing! Its so cool to be able to wake up, go down stairs, turn on your tv and listen to a Prophet of God. My favorite talk probably was President Thomas S. Monson's talk on service and charity.... It really struck me personally that even though I do my best to serve others and have charity I can do SO much more! So I went to www.lds.org to re watch this talk and they have the American Sign Language translation up, how COOL is that!?!? Here's the link for it...
http://broadcast.lds.org/genconf/2009/10/40/GC_2009_10_411_MonsonTS___ase_.mp4
So I've made this CRAZY DECISION to learn how to roller blade/skate. So i went to the thrift store today and got a pair of roller blades AND a pair of roller skates for a GRAND total of...................$8.05. How cool is that???
Anyways life is good, I'm just staying SUPER busy. And trying to prepare for the upcoming changes in life. But it'll all be ok cause everything happens for a reason and all I can do is trust and take life one step at a time. :)
This past weekend was General Conference, and sadly I had work Saturday so I missed that session....But no worries Im making it up one by one. But Sunday, was amazing! Its so cool to be able to wake up, go down stairs, turn on your tv and listen to a Prophet of God. My favorite talk probably was President Thomas S. Monson's talk on service and charity.... It really struck me personally that even though I do my best to serve others and have charity I can do SO much more! So I went to www.lds.org to re watch this talk and they have the American Sign Language translation up, how COOL is that!?!? Here's the link for it...
http://broadcast.lds.org/genconf/2009/10/40/GC_2009_10_411_MonsonTS___ase_.mp4
So I've made this CRAZY DECISION to learn how to roller blade/skate. So i went to the thrift store today and got a pair of roller blades AND a pair of roller skates for a GRAND total of...................$8.05. How cool is that???
Anyways life is good, I'm just staying SUPER busy. And trying to prepare for the upcoming changes in life. But it'll all be ok cause everything happens for a reason and all I can do is trust and take life one step at a time. :)
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Reading the Book of Mormon in 24 hours!
So after hearing a few stories of lds kids reading the Book of Mormon in 24 hours, my friends and I started talking about US trying it too. Well after a few months I decided ENOUGH is ENOUGH we're doing it. So I talked to a few ppl-got their input, picked a date and a time, and invited some friends.
Here's Who CAME:
Karissa Kartchner
Jared Allen
Katie Thompson
My LOVELY little sister
William Baker
and................... ME!
So at 7 am on August 12th all of my friends started trickling in... Once we all were at my house our cell phones went on "stun" and into the cell phone bucket. We started out sitting on my HUGE blue comfy couches, each reading a page... Needless to say that didn't last long. So throughout the day we'd read a column each, 2 verses, or 3. We stayed there for awhile but then we needed a change of scenery. So we moved into my dining room...And quite a few interesting things happened at that table....
1.While sitting there we realized we could stick 33 twist-able colored pencils in my hair... and they stayed.
(Here's what it looked like)
2.Karissa got all creative on us....
3.Brizzle decided she wanted to help
4.And we went a little stir crazy from reading about 5 hours....
After some intense math :P we realized in order to finish in time we had to read 25 pages EACH hour. So we'd have an hour where we'd be PERFECTLY on schedule. And the next we would find ourselves with 20 minutes left and 11 pages to read, we're some pretty talented speed readers. We read a few pages silently to ourselves once or twice, but other than that SOMEONE was ALWAYS reading out loud. For lunch Jared and I made hamburgers. Somewhere around Mosiah 27 (3 pm ish) Katie, Karissa, and I made 1-2-3 cookies. For dinner we had pasta. At 6:40 we had made it past the half way mark (Page 270) and we took the ONLY break. A 20 minute period where we didn't read. During that lovely 20 minutes of refuge Kt played the piano, I showered, and everyone else just chilled. But then it was back to HARD core reading.
Around 8-9 ish pm we had another reader join the cause
And then at 10 pm Sister Thompson brought us Slurpee's!! YUM! the Slurpee's and the cookies were the ONLY sugary things we allowed ourselves that day :)
We migrated ALL over my house. Couches, tables, floors,stairs, standing up and walking when needed, I did my postural solutions, Karissa bounced on the exercise ball, Jared and I had push up and sit up contests... ANYTHING to keep us awake.
Now around 2 AM staying awake GOT really hard. And we were ALL PRETTY LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPY!!! And tired and maybe even a little irritable. And im sitting there thinking to myself... "WHO IN THE WORLDS IDEA WAS THIS... Im SO tired I WANNA SLEEP! GRUMBLE GRUMBLE! oh wait.... it was mine... Never mind"
haha al francis?
So at around 3 AM when Sister Baker showed up and put the Pizzas in the oven. We were ALL pretty stinkin happy. And she in her motherly wisdom made us all stand up and walk around while she read to us for a few minutes. (THANKS Sister B!!) Then we ate some TASTY pizza that woke us up a bit...SO Sister B leaves and I start to get REALLY TIRED again. SO I say a silent prayer that I can stay awake... Well about 3 minutes after that I got the hiccups, and i had them FOREVER! and then my hiccups led to JARED getting them. Then Taylor falling off her chair laughing, and me RUNNING from the room(STILL HICCUPING) and laughing hysterically. It is SO hard to read when you have the HICCUPS! But hey... it kept me awake :p Thanks for not killing me guys, those hiccups where pretty annoying.... Around 4 am we lost Tay and Bailee to sleep....
But they were cute...and tired....so we didnt wake them
We SPEED read through Ether not even remotely enjoying the book of bloody death and destruction. Because we were dying off one by one....
FINALLY Moroni came around and we all sat around the table, and each read 2 verses to keep us coherent. The sun came out again and graced us with its presence... AND FINALLY, after Tay and Bailee once again graced us with their reading capabilities, we FINISHED at 6:36 AM.
We all looked at each other half asleep, gave each other some high fives and pats on the back. Then one by one slipped off into oblivion. Karissa drove home, Jared took Will home then passed out on my couch,Taylor and Bailee slept in the guest room, and Kt and I slept in my room.... And apparently I was a bed hog... Sorry KT!! And after about 4 hours of sleep I woke up, got dressed, and went to work. Delirious, but happy.
Start Time: 7:30 AM
Date:August 12th, 2009
Break: 6:40 pm- 7:pm
Food:chips, fruit chew things, salsa, fruit,1-2-3 cookies, wheat thins, burgers,pasta,slurpees, pizza, and WATER absolutely NO soda!
Finished: 6:36 AM
Date: August 13th, 2009
TOTAL READING TIME: 22 hours and 46 minutes!!
~~~What I Learned,Realized, Noticed~~~
-Get MORE than 5 HOURS of sleep the NIGHT before you start
-When Lehi had the Tree of Life dream 1 Nephi 8:21 says,"He saw numberless concourses of people, many of whom were pressing forward, that they might obtain the path which led unto the tree by which I stood." I wonder if he saw me.
-1 Nephi 11:6 says the Spirit "cried with a loud voice" How often is the Spirit LOUD? and we still don't recognize it?
-2 Nephi 27:11 I CANT WAIT!!!!
-So somewhere in Nephi he says that the Spirit revealed to him that the Saviors name would be Jesus Christ, and that was around 600 ish years before Christ was born. That's is SO COOL!!!
-Every time the Nephities go to battle with the Lamanites, or after they have almost killed them all. They ALWAYS gave them the option to yield up their weapons and live. Talk about MERCY and Christ-like love. Because it says AGAIN AND AGAIN "It grieved them to send their brethren to meet their maker unprepared"
-they use the word Betwixt A LOT
-what the heck does it mean to LOP SOMEONE
-reading the Book of Mormon straight through that fast makes the time line of it all make SO much more sense
-its so cool to see the scriptures where it talks about Joseph smith, Moses, Columbus, etc without saying their names. SO COOL
-The PRIDE cycle is RIDICULOUS I MEAN COME ON! WHY cant we LEARN!!
1.Spiritual Faith to Courage
2.Courage to Freedom
3. Freedom to Abundance
4.Abundance to Selfishness
5.Selfishness to Complacency
6.Complacency to Apathy
7.Apathy to Fear
8.Fear to Dependency
9.Dependency to BONDAGE
and it just happens again and AGAIN
-I want to marry someone like Moroni
-I want to more readily share the gospel with those around me
So yeah.... Thats my story and im sticking to it! Thanks to ALL my lovely friends who shared that AMAZING experience with me. Thanks Sister B & T for the food. And thank you Mom for letting us have this shindig at our house!! <3
Here's Who CAME:
Karissa Kartchner
Jared Allen
Katie Thompson
My LOVELY little sister
William Baker
and................... ME!
So at 7 am on August 12th all of my friends started trickling in... Once we all were at my house our cell phones went on "stun" and into the cell phone bucket. We started out sitting on my HUGE blue comfy couches, each reading a page... Needless to say that didn't last long. So throughout the day we'd read a column each, 2 verses, or 3. We stayed there for awhile but then we needed a change of scenery. So we moved into my dining room...And quite a few interesting things happened at that table....
1.While sitting there we realized we could stick 33 twist-able colored pencils in my hair... and they stayed.
(Here's what it looked like)
2.Karissa got all creative on us....
3.Brizzle decided she wanted to help
4.And we went a little stir crazy from reading about 5 hours....
After some intense math :P we realized in order to finish in time we had to read 25 pages EACH hour. So we'd have an hour where we'd be PERFECTLY on schedule. And the next we would find ourselves with 20 minutes left and 11 pages to read, we're some pretty talented speed readers. We read a few pages silently to ourselves once or twice, but other than that SOMEONE was ALWAYS reading out loud. For lunch Jared and I made hamburgers. Somewhere around Mosiah 27 (3 pm ish) Katie, Karissa, and I made 1-2-3 cookies. For dinner we had pasta. At 6:40 we had made it past the half way mark (Page 270) and we took the ONLY break. A 20 minute period where we didn't read. During that lovely 20 minutes of refuge Kt played the piano, I showered, and everyone else just chilled. But then it was back to HARD core reading.
Around 8-9 ish pm we had another reader join the cause
And then at 10 pm Sister Thompson brought us Slurpee's!! YUM! the Slurpee's and the cookies were the ONLY sugary things we allowed ourselves that day :)
We migrated ALL over my house. Couches, tables, floors,stairs, standing up and walking when needed, I did my postural solutions, Karissa bounced on the exercise ball, Jared and I had push up and sit up contests... ANYTHING to keep us awake.
Now around 2 AM staying awake GOT really hard. And we were ALL PRETTY LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPY!!! And tired and maybe even a little irritable. And im sitting there thinking to myself... "WHO IN THE WORLDS IDEA WAS THIS... Im SO tired I WANNA SLEEP! GRUMBLE GRUMBLE! oh wait.... it was mine... Never mind"
haha al francis?
So at around 3 AM when Sister Baker showed up and put the Pizzas in the oven. We were ALL pretty stinkin happy. And she in her motherly wisdom made us all stand up and walk around while she read to us for a few minutes. (THANKS Sister B!!) Then we ate some TASTY pizza that woke us up a bit...SO Sister B leaves and I start to get REALLY TIRED again. SO I say a silent prayer that I can stay awake... Well about 3 minutes after that I got the hiccups, and i had them FOREVER! and then my hiccups led to JARED getting them. Then Taylor falling off her chair laughing, and me RUNNING from the room(STILL HICCUPING) and laughing hysterically. It is SO hard to read when you have the HICCUPS! But hey... it kept me awake :p Thanks for not killing me guys, those hiccups where pretty annoying.... Around 4 am we lost Tay and Bailee to sleep....
But they were cute...and tired....so we didnt wake them
We SPEED read through Ether not even remotely enjoying the book of bloody death and destruction. Because we were dying off one by one....
FINALLY Moroni came around and we all sat around the table, and each read 2 verses to keep us coherent. The sun came out again and graced us with its presence... AND FINALLY, after Tay and Bailee once again graced us with their reading capabilities, we FINISHED at 6:36 AM.
We all looked at each other half asleep, gave each other some high fives and pats on the back. Then one by one slipped off into oblivion. Karissa drove home, Jared took Will home then passed out on my couch,Taylor and Bailee slept in the guest room, and Kt and I slept in my room.... And apparently I was a bed hog... Sorry KT!! And after about 4 hours of sleep I woke up, got dressed, and went to work. Delirious, but happy.
Start Time: 7:30 AM
Date:August 12th, 2009
Break: 6:40 pm- 7:pm
Food:chips, fruit chew things, salsa, fruit,1-2-3 cookies, wheat thins, burgers,pasta,slurpees, pizza, and WATER absolutely NO soda!
Finished: 6:36 AM
Date: August 13th, 2009
TOTAL READING TIME: 22 hours and 46 minutes!!
~~~What I Learned,Realized, Noticed~~~
-Get MORE than 5 HOURS of sleep the NIGHT before you start
-When Lehi had the Tree of Life dream 1 Nephi 8:21 says,"He saw numberless concourses of people, many of whom were pressing forward, that they might obtain the path which led unto the tree by which I stood." I wonder if he saw me.
-1 Nephi 11:6 says the Spirit "cried with a loud voice" How often is the Spirit LOUD? and we still don't recognize it?
-2 Nephi 27:11 I CANT WAIT!!!!
-So somewhere in Nephi he says that the Spirit revealed to him that the Saviors name would be Jesus Christ, and that was around 600 ish years before Christ was born. That's is SO COOL!!!
-Every time the Nephities go to battle with the Lamanites, or after they have almost killed them all. They ALWAYS gave them the option to yield up their weapons and live. Talk about MERCY and Christ-like love. Because it says AGAIN AND AGAIN "It grieved them to send their brethren to meet their maker unprepared"
-they use the word Betwixt A LOT
-what the heck does it mean to LOP SOMEONE
-reading the Book of Mormon straight through that fast makes the time line of it all make SO much more sense
-its so cool to see the scriptures where it talks about Joseph smith, Moses, Columbus, etc without saying their names. SO COOL
-The PRIDE cycle is RIDICULOUS I MEAN COME ON! WHY cant we LEARN!!
1.Spiritual Faith to Courage
2.Courage to Freedom
3. Freedom to Abundance
4.Abundance to Selfishness
5.Selfishness to Complacency
6.Complacency to Apathy
7.Apathy to Fear
8.Fear to Dependency
9.Dependency to BONDAGE
and it just happens again and AGAIN
-I want to marry someone like Moroni
-I want to more readily share the gospel with those around me
So yeah.... Thats my story and im sticking to it! Thanks to ALL my lovely friends who shared that AMAZING experience with me. Thanks Sister B & T for the food. And thank you Mom for letting us have this shindig at our house!! <3
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
GET OUT THERE
So here's my thing. Its SUMMER!!! Its time to have fun! Be a little wild, a little crazy, let loose! I don't know about everyone else out there... But I tend to get a smidgen bored during summer without the constant deadlines,papers, tests, etc... So seriously GET OUT THERE! You only get to be YOUNG once. Sing, dance, act, CREATE. Just don't waste your life away inside this summer! There is ONLY one you! So bless the world by being your AMAZING self!!
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
What is it to be an American
This is an essay I wrote for my 11th grade English class. So, today I went to class all excited to hear everyone else's opinions and feelings. I was shocked by the lack of patriotism, and the lack of understanding of how blessed we are to live in this nation.
What is it to be an American?
What is it to be an American? It’s a question that has been asked since this country was founded. Does it mean to be proud, to be free, and have boundless opportunities? There isn’t a set definition of what it is to be an American. It means different things to different people. To a refugee from the war ravaged country of North Korea this country would offer a sense of safety, and the ability to start anew. Such a person would have a very different view of what it is to be an American and live in America; compared to a cooperate executive who works on Wall Street. To me, an American is a person who wants something better, something more. In the Declaration of Independence it states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.“ Most people don’t understand the risks, lengths, and sacrifices that were made that led our country to where it is today. Being American means knowing that you have a great heritage, that people gave their lives for this country. Many people have heroic tales of ancestors who fought for what they believed in and suffered many afflictions. A story of such endurance in my family is that of Grandma Jo. Grandma Jo crossed the plains and had to bury her new born baby in the ice. She covered her child’s body with rocks for a grave, and while slowly driving away she heard the wolves scrap the away those rocks. Such is the faith and courage of our fore fathers. It means knowing that I have a father in the Air Force who has multiple times put his life on the line to protect his freedom, his religion, his family, and this country.
Being an American is the knowledge that there’s something else out there. That all reason told us we would lose in the war against Great Britain. It’s realizing that all of our fore fathers: Jefferson, Franklin, Hancock, Rush, Madison, Adams, Washington, etc believed there was a Divine intervention. In May of 1776 George Washington wrote a letter to Reverend William Gordon. In it Washington said, “The man must be bad indeed who can look upon the events of the American Revolution without feeling the warmest gratitude towards the great Author of the Universe whose divine interposition was so frequently manifested in our behalf…. In war He directed the sword, and in peace, He has ruled in our councils” We as Americans should strive to be better, do better, and do what’s right. We’ve been blessed with this free nation and it’s our job to keep it that way. An American is a person who isn’t afraid to shoot for the stars and stand up for what they believe in. Nelson Mendalah put it perfectly when he said, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." I am an American; I come from a long line of religious stalwart people. Who were pilots, engineers, military men, spies, teachers, leaders, friends, examples, laborers, mothers and fathers. Because of those before me I can worship my God.
I know that I have the same privileges as those around me, whither male or female. I can strive to be what ever I want to be; the sky is the limit. It’s the knowledge that if I don’t like something I have the power to change it. I can vote and petition, so that righteous leaders are elected. Being American is a blessing and a privilege. Thomas Jefferson said,” If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” This is what our country was founded on, what we need to uphold. Such statements remind me daily that I need to actively shape my future and do my best to help my country in the right direction. I will not be a lazy complacent citizen, I am American and the time is now.