How did I get from the point of hating relief society to loving it?

Ok so i was one of those young women who did not want to go to Relief Society.  I actually stayed in Young Womens until I was 19 haha.  I used to dread going there with all the adults talking about kids, temple marriage, and all those grownup things that I didn't need to worry about yet.  Since I have gotten married and have been in Relief Society though I love it.  If I miss all of my other meetings I will still make it to Relief Society, and when the lessons are being taught I find them so helpful and strenghtening.  I feel like i grow each time i go to Relief Society, and now this once upon a time nuisance has become a huge blessing! There are in fact only two things I dislike about Relief Society and that is 1) I sit all alone, and 2) Super Saturdays are apparently no more :(  Can i just say that number two makes me more sad than number one? I think that Super Saturdays were the best!  I am by no means a homemaker, and I don't consider myself a very creative person but on those Saturdays I felt like i was able to get into that mode and make all these creative things for my home. I hold out hope and I have faith though that my Heavenly Father will see my need and either bring back Super Saturdays to my ward or that he will provide another way for me to learn homemaking skills!

Life and Marriage

I have been thinking a lot lately about marriage.  I work in a retirement home and I get to be around quite a few couples who have made it through life together and have been in each others lives for 50+ years.  I have seen how these couples treat eachother, how they take care of each other, and most importantly how they love each other.  I have heard their pet names, seen quiet signs of affection, and I have seen many relationships that I would love to model my marriage after.  When I see all of these couples around me it makes me so happy. I love to watch as a husband brings breakfast in bed up to his wife, or see a wife fret over her husbands health.  It gives me hope that I will be there someday.  I want to have a relationship that has stood the test of time and more importantly one that is ready to face eternity.  I have watched as spouses of my residents have passed and I have seen them grieve and silently accept their loss, and I have also heard them talk of reuniting with their sweetheart and the joy it will bring.  I love marriage and in a world where marriage is losing my merrit I want to say that I believe in marriage and it is definitely a relationship worth fighting for.  I love my husband more than words can express and I am so happy that we have a marriage that will last not only for time but for eternity!

Who I want to be.

Lately I have found myself thinking about the person I want to be... There are so many things that I want to do and want to be but sometimes I find I have a hard time trying to figure out how to get to that person I want to be. I want to be strong. I want to be able to handle the stresses of life and not feel overwhelmed but everytime I think I am doing that something happens that usually gets me so worked up that not only that stress but all the other stresses that I tried to put out of my mind hit me like a ton of bricks and I crumple. My husband says he doesn't like giving me bad news because he knows that it will upset me, and I don't want that. I want my husband to feel like he can share the burdens of life with me and I won't crumple under the weight of them and leave him to bear the burden alone. Second of all I want to be kind always. You know those people who you never hear a mean word out of their mouth, and nothing seems to bother them? I want to be like that I want to be christ like and to forgive instantly and to have kinds words for everyone, but I still find myself getting frustrated with someone and saying harsh words against them. For like a week I did really well if I thought a mean word I word stop myself and repent and say one nice thing about that persone but then that bad habit came back and I thought mean things once again. I guess what I need to do is repent daily and if I have a bad day where I do think or say unkind things I need to make my goal to not do that the next day or something.  I also want to be beautiful.  Now you might be thinking I mean physically but that's not what I am talking about. I want to have a beautiful soul, I want others to think I am beautiful not because of my face, my haircut, my makeup, but because of my deeds, my faith, and my service. I think in general I just want to be a better person.  I want to be someone that God will look at and say, "Now that is someone who is trying her best to make it back to me." As I get older I realize that is the goal, to be someone God will be proud of and not someone the world will be proud of. Beauty doesn't matter if it is only skin deep, that beauty fades. Success does not matter if you are not willing so serve those less fortunate. Above all Life doesn't not matter if you don't make your life worth living. Partying, Flings, Drugs, Alcohol, none of that makes life worth living. Love, Faith, Family, God, and Friendship is what makes life worth living, Are we willing to make our lives worth living? I sure want to try. I want to be someone who loves life and someone who is truly happy in their own skin.

General Women's Conference 2011

       Ok so the General Women's Conference was awesome this weekend.  My favorite talk was the one by President Uchdorf.  It was entitled forget me not.  He talked about the beauty of the forget me nots and how they are often overlooked because they are so small.  He talked about how the forget me not has 5 petals and that each petal can be a reminder to us of things we should forget.
       The 1st petal is forget not to be patient with yourself.  I think this is an important thing for us to forget not because I know I am not very patient with myself.  The fact is we are human and we will make mistakes and we aren't perfect.  We need to be more patient with ourselves and look for our little steps of progress instead of focusing on all the things we do wrong.
       The 2nd petal is forget not the difference between good sacrifices and foolish sacrifices.  So to me this means sacrificing your time for to do charity for others.  That is a good sacrifice :) This is one I need to do better. 
       The 3rd petal is forget not to be happy now.  I love this one because I felt like he was talking to me.  I feel like sometimes I find reasons not to be happy and instead I need to find reasons to be happy and there are a lot more reasons to be happy than there are not to be happy.  He used the analogy of the movie Willey Wonka and the chocolate factory.  He talked about how chocolate was something that brought happiness and when the golden tickets were put in those chocolate bars the chocolate lost all of its joy.  People weren't happy with just chocolate anymore now they could only be happy if they found one of the golden tickets inside.  Isn't it sad that so many people can't just be happy with just chocolate? Why do we need that golden ticket? We should be thankful and happy with what we have instead of searching for a golden ticket.
       The 4th petal is forget not the why of the gospel. We have a list of what we need to do in the gospel and how but we need to remember the why.  Why are we doing this? Why do we believe? We need to remind ourselves why every single day!
       The 5th petal is forget not that he loves you.  This one is so important.  I think we always know Heavenly Father loves us but I think sometimes we forget.  I know that sometimes it is really hard for me because I feel like I am alone or I don't have friends or that I am not receiving the blessings I want but I need to remember he loves me. He knows my life plan better than I do and he knows what I need better than I do so I need to trust that and remember he loves me and he will take care of me.
       I loved this talk and I loved conference!  It is always so nice to hear the leaders of our church and to hear the messages they have received inspiration that we need to hear.  I can't wait until next week so we can receive more guidance on the things we need to work on.
         

Hard to keep in.

Ok so it's been a while but I haven't had much time to blog.  I just finished my internship for school and wow it was tiring.  I barely had time to worry about anything else but thank goodness it is done and I graduated!  So now my mind turns to other things.  Getting a new job, putting Cody through the police academy, more schooling for myself, and.... kids.  For about 5 months now Cody and I have not been preventing kids from coming and so far nothing so I guess it's not time yet but I wish it was.  I know our lives are a bit hectic right now, and I know having kids will be the hardest jobs we will ever take on but yet I still can't wait.  I love kids and the fact that I am in an eternal marriage with an amazing man just makes me want to bring more craziness and love into our family.  We originally wanted to keep our "trying" secret because we have felt the harsh judgement from family and friends on our other decisions and we didn't want to hear all the, "You really should put that off for five years or so you are young," comments that we know we would get.  Now... It slipped out haha.  First I slipped with my mom I didn't mean to tell her honestly but it happened.  Then some friends found out.  Then Cody's mom.... and now I am leaking it in my blog.  I just am tired of trying to hide it.  I am tired of feeling so frustrated that it's not happening yet and then not feeling like I can tell anyone about my frustrations because they don't know I am trying haha.  So now whoever reads this knows.  Which I can't help to think at most times is no one still but oh well.  I feel like writing it or typing it down is a release and that is what I need.  I am trying so hard to be patient and to live on the Lord's time and not mine but it is so hard when I feel like there are pregnant people all around me and babies and people talking about how much they love being mothers... It makes it hard.  I am trying though and that's all I can say I am trying to wait patiently hopefully that pays off soon. :)

Raising the bar!

This past wednesday I was sitting in my career development class and my teacher was talking about raising the bar.  He talked about what employers want and how you get to be indesposable and I was interested.  I thought to myself about how I could raise the bar at my current job. I work in an environment where the people I serve and the people I work with can be difficult and I am kind of a complainer.  Don't get me wrong I am a very hard worker and I always try to do my best and be the kind of worker that I would want if I were the employer but I complain and I don't always have a positive attitude towards others so I have decdided to be more positive.  There is one person at my work who I have a very hard time with and I decided that I was going to be completely positive and try to like her and be positive about working with her I was about half way through the day and I was doing really well.  I had been positive with this person all day and I was being pleasant and I was feeling good then something happened.  Let's just say I felt like they over stepped a boundary with me and so I immediately went from being positive to negative just as fast as you could say hi.  After my positivity broke down I immediately felt horrible.  I had made a goal and I couldn't even be positive for one day!  I felt bad for getting upset and disappointed in myself for not raising the bar and rising above it. I did realize however that I wanted to change and that even though I had slipped I could try again and renew my goal so that is what I did.  I shook the negativity and again tried to be positive with them.  I hope that I can do better this next time and even though I might mess up again I will keep trying. Practice makes perfect. 

Going from that point I need to be more positive with myself so I have to ask.... any tips?  I find myself feeling bad about my looks or physical aspects especially so if you have any tips hit me up with them.  I don't want to be insecure and negative when looking at myself in the mirror I want to be able to get up in the morning and say no I am not a perfect person but I am the perfect me and I am beautiful.  So.... HELP! :)

Sorry if anyone cares!

Ok so I don't know if anyone cared that I wasn't writing but if you did sorry!  My life got super crazy!  I was hit with a lot of stress and school stuff, and I just couldn't find time to write!  I am happy to report though that things are going well now and that my stress level is a lot lower than it was a week ago!  I am still trying to be myself and improve myself as well.  I had a good chance to do that this last week.

I won't say details but a girl I work with was going through a rough week too last week and so I decided to do something a little nice for her.  I hope this doesn't take away from it but I don't think it will.  So my plan was to not have anyone know that I had done this for her because I didn't need a thanks or recognition or anything, but they figured out it was me.  I was kinda bummed because I thought to myself now that they knew it was me it took away from the charity I was trying to give that person but then upon further thought I realized it didn't matter if they found out.  I did this act of charity for that person.  If I had done it for recognition I would have boasted of the act and let it be known that I was the one who did the charity for her but instead I didn't.  I tried to keep it quiet I even snuck into the room and made sure no one saw me but I know that my motive was known.  Later the girls said to me that they thought it was me because of the manner in which I performed the charity and I thought that was interesting.

You see the girls at my work are all extremely kind hearted but I know that they are not LDS.  The reason I thought to do this charity was because of conference.  I think it is amazing that because of a talk by a church leader I was reminded of charity and thought to do something for this girl.  I don't think I would have if I didn't have the church in my life and I don't mean that disrespectfully towards anyone of any faith I just mean for me personally it wouldn't have happened. 

I know I can be selfish, and I have moments where others aren't in my thoughts at all but because of the church I am reminded of others constantly and because of this I can see beyond myself and help others.  Recently I have been a little all about Bree and I am so glad conference reminded me that if I get lost in helping others I will be able to regain that caring attitude I started out with at work, and the nurturing aspect I want in my marriage and my life. 

I love the LDS church and I want everyone to know that I have a testimony in charity.  When you help others you can find joy, peace, and blessings that you would never have found otherwise.