Big Decisions

This part of my life is so intense. I feel like every time I make a huge decision about my life, I have another big decision to make immediately afterwards. Being a 20-something means that you are always moving, always changing, always DECIDING.

I spent the first half of fall semester desperately trying to figure out what it was I was supposed to be doing because I knew there was something missing - I finally figured it out and turned in my mission papers.

But ever since I got my call, I have had to worry about what I will do after my mission.

Here is a secret. In my papers, I BEGGED to leave at the beginning of May, directly after finals. I wrote about how badly I needed to be back in time to be ready for student teaching.

When I got my call, I was happy beyond belief. But that big JUNE 19TH did put a damper on things.

It means that I have to have everything for my student teaching all set before I leave and that I will be immediately thrown into teaching 5 periods a day, for the first time, when I get back.

My program asked me to decide as soon as possible where I wanted to student teach TWO YEARS FROM NOW.

Before I decided to go on a mission, I had big dreams of student teaching abroad, or at least out of the state. Now, the reality is that I will be coming home to absolutely no money, no job, possibly no car.....and definitely not enough time to leave the country again by the time spring semester begins.

Another secret: I worry about this every day.

Every day I worry about what my life is going to be like when I come home. So this morning I thought, what am I REALLY worried about? I am worried that I'm going to be horrifically poor, that I'm going to have to spend another winter in Cache Valley, that I'm possibly going to end up living at my parent's house while I student teach. I wanted to do my student teaching somewhere "cool" and now that probably won't happen.

But what am I REALLY worried about?

That my life isn't going to turn out the way I dreamed it would.

I'm worried that I have suddenly veered so far from my original plan that I have no hope of living all of my dreams. And that is ridiculous.

Let's think about this. In high school, what did I want? What were my dreams?

I knew that I wanted to teach and that I wanted to help people tell their stories. I wanted to travel. I wanted to do humanitarian work. I wanted to feel like I was contributing meaningful service. 

So here's the thing...I am already living all of my dreams.

For three years, I have been blessed with a job where I get paid to talk about writing. Over and over again I have been giving opportunities to teach - through multiple jobs, at church, while traveling, and in my classes. 

I traveled to the area of the world I always wanted to travel to, and the projects I did there fit my talents and personality better than any projects I could have planned on my own. 

Every week, I am volunteering with service-learning scholars, the STAR tutoring program, Storytellers, Friends of the Elderly, SAAVI and Alternative Breaks. I've spent my college years exactly the way I wanted to. 

I've gotten to go on so many trips with friends and family, and I will be going on a service trip to Hawaii in just a couple of weeks.

I've lived with different roommates every year and have learned different things from each one. I love the people I live with and I love where we live. I live in a lovely college town where there is always something fun going on.

My sisters are my best friends, I have a mom who laughs instead of panicking when I tell her that I literally only have two hundred dollars left, and a dad who will do anything to support my dreams.

My life HAS turned out the way I wanted it to...and there's still a lot left of it. My mission DOES fit into my life dreams, I just didn't know that's how my dreams would be realized. And....

The decision I have mostly come to is that it makes the most sense to student teach right here in Logan. That is hard for me to admit, but that is what feels right as of now. 

Bottom line: every day I have to remind myself that everything is going to work out, but it will! 

A Weekened at Home Means....

Raquetball, lunch at the taco truck, 

Beatles Rockband, Sparkler cake and presents, 

painting the little girls' nails, shopping for Rachel's 

Sweethearts dress, dinner theater at The Desert Star, 

Thai food, Lauren's NAL match, and lots of singing in the car.

Going home is always a good feeling, especially when it's been a while. And when it's pretty outside and I have new music, the drive through the canyon is one of the best parts.

 It was a nice change of scene to be home for a few days, especially to celebrate Abbie's birthday! I couldn't ask for a better sister or friend, and I am very impatiently waiting to find out if we will be going into the MTC on the same day! Everyone cross your fingers.

I took an extra day off and started working on my Visa for Australia...and who knew how stressful that would be?! I WOULD get called to the most difficult country to get into. But it's pretty exciting, I'd have to say.

Also...we had a flood in our basement last month so I spent about 4 hours moving everything I own from the living room back into my bedroom.

I ended up throwing away 8 bags of my stuff. I sometimes have a hard time letting go of things, but it was about time I threw away that giant box of notes from junior high. There was something very freeing about putting all the things that used to mean so much to me in the back of a truck and letting it drive away.

Onward and upward!

My Favorite Beaches

I have had a very lucky life because my family loves the ocean. Living in a landlocked state has actually been a blessing in disguise because it causes us to seek out new beaches and plan new beach trips every year.

Lots of my favorite memories with family and friends have to do with beach trips! Life is just better on the coast.

One of my favorite things about the ocean is that it looks different every single day. Every beach has a completely different feel to it, and each individual beach has different colors and vibes depending on the day. Some beaches are better than others. Example...I'm not really that fond of any beaches in the L.A. area. And some beaches, like Mission Beach or Carlsbad, are gorgeous but far too crowded.

So, here is a tribute to the top 15 winners. My favorite beach towns and beaches:

15. Outer Banks, North Carolina

I have fond memories of staying in the Outer Banks! The fact that Rachel threw up in the car on the way there is not one of them. North Carolina has that Atlantic Ocean warm water, without the crowds and cheesiness of Orlando.

14. Cape May, New Jersey

This one wins the New England adorable factor. There's nothing else to say about it.

13. Virginia Beach, Virginia

Virginia is for lovers! I loved walking up and down this boardwalk with an ice cream cone in hand.

12. Ocean City, New Jersey

This is where I learned to boogie board. Of all our beach trips, Ocean City may be the place where we spent the most time actually in the water. These waves are perfect for playing in. We even had one day where it was pouring rain and the water was still nice.

11. Monterrey Bay, San Francisco, California

This water is freezing, but the rocky shores, sailboats, and bridges are beautiful. Plus, this is where are the sea lions are!

10. Indian Beach, Oregon

The colors here were phenomenal. Of course this isn't an ideal swimming spot, but the fact that the forest goes right up to the coast is breathtaking. Standing on top of these cliffs and then walking o the beach was amazing!

9. La Jolla, San Diego, California

San Diego is world famous for its beaches, and La Jolla has some of the prettiest ones. More than once, we have watched 4th of July fireworks from La Jolla beaches and it's just perfect! La Jolla also has a lot of really fun tide pools to play in.

8. Temple Beach, Laie, Hawaii

Okay so...I don't know if this is actually called Temple Beach, but it is the one you can see from the Laie temple. It is gorgeous, and there was hardly anyone on it, at least when we were there. Look at those palm trees! This is one of those beaches you can walk down for a long time without running into a cliff or something.

7. Jax Beach, Jacksonville, Florida

One reason I prefer Florida beaches to California ones is because in Florida there is plenty of beach for everyone. The East Coast doesn't have the rocky shores that the West Coast does, so the beaches just go on forever. Jax Beach is a lovely place to swim, and it also has a beautiful pier and boardwalk. I love this beach at all times of the day, but the best is the sunrise.

6. Coronado Island, San Diego, California

Another favorite SD beach! I have been to this beach with my family, high school friends, and college friends, and loved it every time. It is home to a gorgeous hotel and lots of fancy people. The beach isn't half as crowded as Mission Beach, and I think it's a lot prettier.

5. This beach in Pago Pago, American Samoa

This beach may not have a name, because it's more of a cove, but American Samoa was breathtaking! This is near the harbor, so there are lots of really pretty boats around, backdropped by these amazing mountains. The water was perfect, but it was kind of strange to swim in because the waves were going both in and out.

4. Waimea Bay, Oahu, Hawaii

Probably my favorite place in Hawaii. The "jumping rock" has enough room and enough different heights for everyone to be jumping off from different places all at once. Let me take this moment to point out that every beach we went to in Hawaii was completely different and I liked them all for different reasons. Like...some had tons of turtles swimming in the water. But this one was the prettiest to me!

3. Savaii, Samoa

Savaii is an entire island, not the name of a town or a beach, but since we were only on the island for about five hours, I have no idea what the name of this beach is. One of the cool things about Samoa is that you can swim out into the ocean forever and it never seems to get deeper. This water just feels so different than any other ocean water - it's cleaner and it really feels silky. Plus, the reef creates a million different colors of blue.

2. Sinalei, Samoa

The south side of Upolu has tons of amazing beaches, but we went to this one the most. It had great snorkeling and only like six people on it at a time.

1. Breezy Point, Chesapeake Bay, Virginia

There is nothing really that special about Breezy Point. It's actually not that great of a beach. BUT it was the first one I ever saw! And thus began my love affair with the sea.

A Poem for a Friday

Sorry to be blogging every second.

I used to read poetry a lot. I collected the ones I liked into a binder that I still have in my room, and I tended to read them when I felt confused about my life. A lot of people think that the purpose of a poem is to confuse you, but to me they have always represented clarity.

I don't have a lot of time to read for fun anymore, so I rarely curl up with a book of poems, but every once in a while I come across something poetic that makes me remember why I read so much poetry in high school. Poems give me the same feeling that floating in the ocean does; the rhytym of waves picking me up and putting me back down.

Today I came across one of those small gems. This poem is by Anna Akhmatova, a Russian Modernist poet. For some reason it just spoke to me today so I thought I'd share!

You will hear thunder and remember me,
And think: she wanted storms. The rim
Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson,
And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.

- "You Will Hear Thunder" by Anna Akhmatova 

Streams of Mercy Never Ceasing

This post is dedicated to my Aunt Lori Jeanne Bronson. When I woke up this morning, I realized that I have never written about how her life and her death affected me. I owe her at least that today!

Our Aunt Lori never had her own children, and other than the years we spent in Virginia, my sisters and I were the nieces who lived nearest to her. So we were spoiled. She always got us the presents our parents refused to buy, like Ferbys, or anything else that made obnoxious noises. (She also let us help her with her pet birds - I remember how chaotic and it exciting it was when the birds were flying around the house.) My family moved back to Utah just a few days before my birthday, so I didn't have any friends to celebrate with. Lori took me out to dinner and to the mall to pick out anything I wanted. That is just one memory, but that's how she was. She loved to treat us to things.

She was there when we were born. Lori especially liked to talk about the day my sister Rachel was born - how it had been a rainy, gloomy, morning, but as soon she as she got the phone call to hurry over to the hospital, the sun came out and a huge rainbow filled the sky and curved right over the hospital where Rachel was on her way!

When I was in ninth grade, Lori was in a coma in the hospital for a long time, after complications during surgery. This was a really hard time for our family. My youngest sister (who has Lori's middle name) was just over a year old, and "Lori" was one of her first words because during that time my mom was taking her to visit the hospital almost every day. I clearly remember our extended family praying together in Lori's hospital room right before she died. I was the youngest person there and it was my first experience with death. When my aunt passed away, the hardest part for me was seeing the adults in my life break down and fall apart.

My sisters and I sang at my aunt's funeral, which is still one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I wish I could say that because it was a Mormon funeral we were all really happy, but that's just not the case. I remember scaring myself by how much I was crying and being afraid I would ever be able to stop. I looked over to my mom for help, but she was just even more upset than I was.

Last Saturday I sat in the Logan temple with my mom as she escorted me through for the first time. She told me that before I was born, she and my Aunt Lori had sat in the same room as my mom acted as her escort as well. That was probably the most special part of my temple experience.

This morning I was remembering what my mom talked about at Lori's funeral. She talked about how life is the greatest gift God has given to us, how we each have our own beautiful life to spend as we wish.

During the same thought, I remembered a day about 9 months ago when I took a spontaneous drive to the Ogden Cemetery  to talk to my Aunt Lori about loneliness. My family was at church, and I never told them I'd gone to see her.

Because of the beautiful life I've been given, the gift my mother was able to focus on at her sister's funeral, I am not as sad today as I was 9 months ago. I have been unspeakably blessed by opportunities I'd never thought I'd have and people I never dreamed of meeting. Today I have been blessed with the feeling that my Aunt Lori knows that. That she knows I'm happy now, and she's proud of the life I'm creating for myself.

My family and I know that Lori is merely in the next room. I like to think that she checks on us from time to time, but that mostly she is busy having adventures.

We love you Aunt Lori!

 "And we ask thee, Holy Father, that thy servants may go forth from this house armed with thy power, and that thy name may be upon them, and thy glory be round about them, and thine angels have charge over them;

 And from this place they may bear exceedingly great and glorious tidings, in truth, unto the ends of the earth, that they may know that this is thy work." - D & C 109

I'm so grateful for my parents who came to Logan on Saturday to take me to the temple! I was blessed to go through with another future missionary who was there for her first time as well. She is on her way to Honolulu, Hawaii, where her family is originally from, and even though I might never see her again, I will always remember going through with her because of how kind and happy she was. (And because of her mile long name.) Before our session, one of the temple matrons talked with the two of us about the blessings promised to missionaries who go through the temple and she read us the scriptures above.

I feel blessed that my dad was able to be in the temple with me immediately after returning from Mexico where he announced the new MTC in Mexico City. Thinking about that event and seeing so many future missionaries in the temple helped me focus on the good news of the gospel that is being spread all over the world.

My advice for someone going through the temple for the first time is to focus on this:

The temple is where we learn how to go home.

Don't worry about anything else. President Packer said, "Be at peace. You are going to the temple." You have a loving Heavenly Father who wants you to come home to Him. If you know that, you've already got it figured out. Peace and love! 

Fiestas and Stuff

Last weekend started out with a disappointing Aggie game and Pizza Pie karaoke night to recooperate. Two of my favorite Logan pastimes, minus the disappointing loss part.

Friday was my dear Alicia's half birthday! We wouldn't do half birthdays at our apartment if it weren't for her. She is probably the sweetest person I have ever met. I mean look at that smile.

That night I helped out at Hillcrest Elementary's Around the World fair. Reading stories about Kenya. Because that is my expertise. Okay.

Followed by a girls' date to the gymnastics meet.

Saturday was pretty important because I took the Praxis exam.

This test determines whether they will let me student teach or not/ whether I can be a real teacher.

Let me try to illustrate how much unncessary anxiety I had over it.

One time at a staff meeting we had a training on what to do if there was a shooter in the building. The man in the video we watched kept saying, "Tell yourself: I will survive."

That voice and that phrase were going through my mind on my way to the test.

Drama much? I'm just glad it's over!

That night consisted of more Aggie basketball...

Fun times as always, but...another loss. Come on, guys.

After the game we had to distract Neil for a while before his surprise fiesta. He acted like he was surprised, but I am still skeptical about that since we were horrible at hiding it.

Alicia made probably the best fiesta dinner ever....

...and then we had some cheesy fiesta type activities like a pinata and pin the tail on the...burro.

We will miss you Neil! The apartment is already quite a bit quieter with you gone!

Don't do any Beatles-y things without me!