I want to tell you about someone named Abinadi.

I may not do justice to this great man's story, but I sure can try.

Abinadi was a faithful servant of the Lord, and like most servants of the Lord, he wanted to share what he had found in knowing the Lord and His goodness -- he wanted to share the joy that can only come through the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Unfortunately, those the Lord needed him to share the gospel with were not so keen on gaining said joy.  They didn't want to hear this craziness about how they were an iniquitous people and how they would suffer if they did not repent.  They were prideful.  They thought they were on top of the world where nothing could touch them.  They weren't doing anything wrong.  They were just perfect the way they were.

Shortly thereafter, their oh-so-great-but-not-actually-so-great king, King Noah, heard about this blasphemous Abinadi and his preposterous prophecies.  He more or less took an "Off with his head!" sort of approach to the situation.  Abinadi fled, but a couple years later came back in disguise to continue his efforts to help these people.  The people continued to stick up their noses at him and continued in their desire to have him killed.  To add fuel to the hate-fire, Abinadi added to his prophecies that their "perfect" king would experience death by fire.  That was no beuno in the eyes of the people.  They brought this man to the king and told the king of  his irreverence.

The wicked king and the evil priests of his court showed no mercy.  They interrogated Abinadi.  They sought to make a liar out of him.  They sought to make him dig himself into a hole from which he could not escape.

They did not know who they were dealing with.

The priests barely got a moment to get their hole-digging shovels ready.  Having the Lord on his side, Abinadi knew what these guys were up to.  So, he turned the tables on them.  He questioned them about the doctrine they were supposed to be teaching their people.  He scolded them for not leading by example.  He told them about all the ways they were walking their people down a path that will lead to nothing but destruction.

They knew he was right, so of course they didn't want to listen.  They tried to seize him to finally end all this talk of their failings.  They couldn't touch him, though.  The Lord was not done speaking through him.  He continued to tell them of their wrongdoings, but he also told them about this wonderful thing, this wonderful person that they were denying their people the honor, the privilege of knowing -- the Promised Messiah.

He quotes the words of Isaiah:

3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

6 All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all.

He spoke of Christ's healing, saving Atonement.  He spoke of the lost people we would be if Christ was not coming.  This was before Christ's time, but he spoke of Him in the present.  He spoke of how the coming Atonement should be just as much a part of their lives in that time as it would be in the moment of its happening.  He spoke of the joy that we can experience because of this humble, loving Christ if we follow His teachings.

He spoke of many more beautiful things that I encourage each of you to read, but his story ends shortly thereafter.  Once he was finished speaking with love and warning in his voice, King Noah ordered for his execution by fire, but a remarkable thing happened.

Before Abinadi was to face the flames, one of King Noah's priests, Alma, spoke up.  He pled with the king that he may have mercy upon Abinadi.  Unlike the other priests, Alma had opened his heart to the words of Abinadi and had felt the warm confirmation of their truth through the Holy Ghost.  King Noah just became angrier, of course, and ordered Alma to be slain as well.  Alma got away luckily, and Abinadi proceeded to his execution with the same boldness of faith he had had in facing his executioner.

I have been thinking a lot about Abinadi as I have been preparing for my mission.  It would seem not much came of his efforts.  That is the farthest thing from the truth.  In his short life, in this short mission he embarked on, Abinadi turned the heart of Alma.  It is because of Abinadi that Alma had a change of heart and was able to turn the hearts of so many afterward.  It is because of Abinadi that Alma became a great prophet and that his son, Alma the younger's story of miraculous repentance came to be.  It is because of Abinadi that Alma the younger too became a great prophet, as well as many after him.

Abinadi affected a life that affected and continues to affect the lives of so, so many.

For some reason I have heard a lot of people lately talking about their greatest fear being not leaving some sort of impact on the world.  I like to think our very existence leaves an impact on the world.  We will have countless amounts of acquaintances and so many friends throughout our lives.  Each of those friends and acquaintances take something from knowing us, and we from them.  We give those somethings to others and they give those somethings to someone else and so on and so forth.  Heavenly Father places each person that is in our lives in our lives for a specific reason.  He knows each of us perfectly and knows who we need and who needs us.  He placed bold and brave Abinadi in the lion's den that was King Noah's court because He knew his lost sheep, Alma, needed to hear Abinadi's witness of the Lord's love.  He knew Alma needed to hear and know so that so many others could hear and know.  He did not intend Abinadi's death to be for nothing.

I myself have feared not being able to turn the heart of someone, anyone to Christ while I am on my mission, but even before or after my mission.  I have feared my lack of impact, but in rereading Abinadi's story I have reached this new reality of understanding.  I have come to understand that both on my mission and in my everyday everyone is there for me to impact.  The passing stranger with their head hanging low will be impacted by my smile, the stressed out friend will be impacted by my listening for longer than my heavy eyelids want me to, the lost sheep I will come across in my mission will be impacted in some way by my reaching out to them and boldly, lovingly telling them of Christ as Abinadi did.

My impact might not seem as great as one that stems from martyrdom or baptizing 204 souls at a time as Alma did upon escaping the courts of King Noah, but I know those simple somethings that I pass on to others and that they pass on to me are a part of the greater something that is our Heavenly Father's plan of happiness.  They are a part of His bringing us back to our heavenly home if we let them be.  If we choose to make those somethings somethings that uplift and encourage; somethings that bring others and ourselves closer to the joy and peace that only Christ can bring.

It is my greatest wish and my most earnest prayer that my impact of somethings will be one that Heavenly Father will be proud of; one that will evoke the words we all wish to hear some day...

Well done thou good and faithful servant.

Pack Rat Blues

I have now been home for exactly ten days.  It's still a little weird, but the weird is getting more normal with each passing day.

Number of oranges consumed: 5

Number of trips to the beach: 1

Number of books read: 1

Number of roaches/lizards seen: don't wanna talk about it

I have spent my days working at my mom's office and working through the crap-ton of boxes I left here when I moved to Utah.  This is always embarrassing for me to admit, but I was once a hoarder.  That composition notebook from Ms. Byrd's second grade class?  Got it.  That unfortunate self-portrait from fifth grade art class?  Check.  That book full of love songs and angst from sixth grade?  I wish I had burned it.

I thought I had downsized a worthy amount once I left for school.  Oh contrary-wise.

I'm only half-way through these boxes of memories and I just want to throw it all out.  After a year of living with a minimalistic perspective, it physically pains me to look at all this crap.  So, I have made a couple rules:

1. If I have not thought about this item in the past six months, it goes.

2.  If I am not for sure going to use this item in the future, it goes.

3. If there is no story worth telling with this item, it goes.

4. If my children will not get any use out of this item if it survives to meet them, it goes.

The little nostalgic pack-rat still lives inside of my head and gives her input every now and then, but for the most part, I have done well in ignoring her. We'll see which of us ends up winning with these next few boxes...

Fear and Weakness

I finished my mission papers at the beginning of this week and now I am stuck in that waiting game of anxiously wanting to attack the mail man and rip my call from his hands.

Since the announcement of the age change for missionaries last October, I have felt such a love from my Heavenly Father and Savior as I have continually prayed and fasted to know if the path They want for me includes an 18-month mile of a mission.  Since October it was a quiet but powerful yes, but Satan kept placing doubts in my heart, making me afraid of my inadequacies.  Once Christmas rolled around, I still had kept the internal struggle between the Lord and me.  It must have been the Spirit of Christ in the air at that time of year that made me want to live with the conviction of the phrase Fear is the opposite of faith.  As I have vocalized my decision to serve a mission, Heavenly Father has placed so many words in the mouths of those around me and in my own mind and heart that have strengthened that conviction and given greater clarity to the fact that it is not me that is going on a mission, but me as a representative of Christ.  It will not be me stumbling over my words, it will be the Spirit speaking through me.

What I have really come to know and understand for myself is that Heavenly Father does not want the perfect to go out to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ.  He wants His imperfect children to teach His imperfect children.  He wants them to develop a Christ-like love for one another, even with the flaws and weaknesses that come with mortality.  He wants them to understand the power of a humble heart with a willingness and a desire to serve.  He wants them to learn from their weaknesses and help those weaknesses become strengths.  He wants to help their heavy hearts and heal their mortal wounds as they are lifting others and helping them to do the same.  Most of all, though, He wants them to always know that He is there, always ready and wanting to help.  He is always hanging on the edge of His seat, waiting for us to reach for His outstretched hand.  He wants so much to guide us where we need to go to find the greatest happiness.  We need only ask.


Your Father in heaven knows your name and knows your circumstance. He hears your prayers. He knows your hopes and dreams, including your fears and frustrations. And He knows what you can become through faith in Him. - Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

Wonderfully Terrified

I am so happy.

The stress of finals that were not really too stressful has subsided.  Although, my butt still has not forgiven me for sitting on a hard floor for four hours yesterday while I was studying for my final final.

I'm completely terrified in the most exciting way for what's to come.

After my last final yesterday, I finally lost all tolerance of sanity.  Luckily, I was not alone in this and celebrated my madness with my lovely friend Mariangel by eating at the fine eating establishment that is JCW's and catching up on Parks and Recreation until around 2am.

Today was my last day at work.  I am no longer a cafeteria lady.  Even though I will most likely never have the best customers ever again (missionaries), I am happy to be done with the glamour that the occupation possessed.  It was a good job where I met wonderful people and I got to see some of my friends and family off before they went to serve the Lord, but I have had my fill of it.  I'm proud that I had the opportunity.  It was my first job that I sought out for myself.  I relied on it to sustain the roof over my head and the copious amount of trips to Denny's (it's the only place open past nine here).

Now, as I am experiencing the treachery of packing, cleaning, and experiencing unemployment (for now), I am still so wonderfully scared of what the future holds.  It is exhilarating.



I also had pizza and watched The Young Victoria.  It was beautiful (the pizza and the movie).

Brain Disgorge: An Update

There are so many things that are happening in my brain/life/world.

As I type this, I am sitting on my bed that has now become a cage.  One side is just the wall that it's pushed up against and the other is a man-made wall.  Well, a me-made wall.*  I am moving into my new apartment a week from Monday and I am moving all my stuff out in less time than that -- five days.  It's just so nifty how there are only a few days between when my current contract ends and my new one begins (that was sarcasm).  Being the youngest cousin on my dad's side and having watched far too much TLC growing up, I have always heard about the agonizing process of moving.  Let me just add to that sentiment  -- it is agonizing in the most tragic way.  There is no word that could adequately describe how painful it is.  I don't even understand why it's so horrid.  It just is.  I have acquired so much crap and I don't even know how it happened.

On top of moving, finals have crept their way into my existence.  I already took one and it went really well.  I don't know exactly what I got just yet, but I have high hopes for it.  I'm surprisingly calm about all of my finals.  It's not like I have a tight grip on everything I need to know.  I'm just not crying every five seconds like I was last semester during finals.  (You think I'm exaggerating.  I promise I am not.)

I am applying to new jobs without much promise thus far.  I am hopeful, though.  I'm trying to avoid any sort of food establishments.  I think I'm done with that sort of thing for now.

I finally read a book start-to-finish.  It's my first time in a long time and my first time this year.  It's so sad.  I read eight books in 2012 and I'm desperately trying to improve that sad statistic for this year.  The book was Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion.  It was pretty good.  There were some parts that dragged a bit, but it was really well-written.  I was pleasantly surprised.  I recently bought Divergent by Veronica Roth, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Stevenson, and Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.  So, hopefully I'll be diving into those soon.

I don't know when or how I accepted it, but I've come to terms with the fact that I'm an alleged adult now.  Well, at least more than I accepted it before.  Yet, the part of me that still wants to get the ball rolling is still hanging on to the edge of her seat in anticipation.  I blame Pinterest and it's expectations for my future wedding and children.  I was content with everything and being young, wild, and free,** but recently my imaginative six year-old self has made herself known and is impatient for the future to come.

I guess this just turned into an update in the form of brain vomit.  I don't actually like the word vomit.  Thesaurus.com is giving me disgorge instead.  I'm gonna go with that one.

I'm going to attempt for the millionth time today to start a project that's due on Monday and study for the two more exams I have left.

I hope your weekend is a bit more exciting than mine has turned out to be.


*Phrases like this are what made me believe I should be an English major.  I regret nothing.
**"Young, wild, and free," meaning taking spontaneous walks to Denny's or JCW's when I feel like it.

BaLMTUiA?

So, awesome.  This BEDA thing is turning out exactly as I thought it would, but wished it wouldn't.  With finals ahead and the big projects all being due this week and next, April has not been a month of downtime.  I always jump into BEDA at the last possible moment, without any thought as to how in the world I'm going to do it, and then it turns into BaLMTUiA (Blog a Little More Than Usual in April).  I promise to do better next time.

In the mean time, the majority of my big toe nail has been disengaged from it's usual place of residence.  Such is the result of being behind an opening door and walking toward it.  It hurt like a beast and they'll probably have to cut it off.  The latter part was a joke, but it definitely does feel like death.  On the bright side, though, both of my teachers gave me a break for my assignments that were due today.  So, thanks, toe.

It is the weekend and I will definitely be catching up on some shows in the pursuit of procrastinating forever.

BEDA: Burnt Out and Happiness

I have been extremely neglectful of this whole blogging thing.  Not because I don't love to write or expose too much information about myself to the internet. It is simply because I have been making an extreme effort to not procrastinate.

Ya see, when I run out of Facebook friends to stalk; when I'm caught up on my YouTube subscriptions; when tumblr becomes too spoiler-filled for my liking, I turn to my blog for both the need to procrastinate as well as the need to fill my empty bowl of inspiration.

Being an English major, there have been multiple occasions where I have become burnt out by the time I have to start my third paper of the week.  Without time to be inspired by that novel I have been dying to read, I turn to the blogs that I follow to get my creative juices a-flowin' once more, and just to make sure they stay a-flowin', I write my own blog post.

As of late, I have been really happy.  Despite the heavy load of school and work and despite the trials that seem to be tumbleweeding my path of life, I have been just completely happy.  I have an unhealthy love for my major,  my classes are wonderful across the board, I have awesome friends from both school and work.  It's probably sickening to outsiders how happy I have been.  Okay, maybe it hasn't gone that far, but it's just about there.  This happiness has been inspiration enough to keep me on top of things and kept those juices of creativity flowing.

Despite missing BEDA Day 1, I am going to continue on in this endeavor of writing one blog post for every day for the rest of April.

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Travel Companion

I was lucky enough to find my best friend in my mom.  I was also lucky enough to have a best friend who craves the thrill of travel.  Having lived in the same zip code her whole life (which means my whole life too), it was never a surprise when she would suggest we take a weekend trip to Orlando or when she would come home from work after finding a GroupOn deal for a trip to anywhere-but-that-zip-code.  My mom's love of travel and my inheritance of that love has enabled me to do so much in my short life.

Without my incredible mother's sense of adventure and her love of travel, I would not know how beautiful this world actually is.

I would not know the magnificently sculpted rocks that encapsulate Lake Powell.

I would never have fallen in love with Seattle.

Or North Carolina.

My love of photography would have never evolved.

I would never have discovered the laughter the world has to offer to my goofy self.

I would never have ridden a ferry.

  There are so many wonderful relatives that I would have never known or loved as I do now.

 There are so many bookstores that I would have never discovered.

 I would have never witnessed firsthand just how amazingly different the world is.

 

  

 My nerdiness would have never come to complete fruition.

  

I would not know where to find the best funnel cakes the world has to offer.

 My love of history would have remained malnourished.

However amazing these trips may have been and how much they are a part of who I am, the part that will always matter to me the most is my mom.  Despite any shadows in our lives that we have faced, she has always managed to find a spec of sunshine and created ways for it to grow.  For that I will always be grateful.  Being so far from her has probably been the most brutal thing I have ever had to do, but even despite that, she still manages to weave those specs of sunshine into my life.  I hope I can do the same for my children someday.