my favorite day of the week

i love sundays! they are hands down my favorite day of the week! i love waking up (well kinda) and getting all dressed up for church. i love walking into the chapel where people of all kinds gather for the same reason: to be edified and taught by the Spirit. i love singing the hymns, listening to the speakers and hearing their insights on gospel principles. i love talking about Jesus and leaving church striving to be a better person, to serve someone, to take a step back and see a situation from another's perspective. basically, i love the feeling that i can take on the world, that Jesus is on my side, that with Him i can do all things. i come away with a reassurance of faith in Jesus, that He is always by my side, encouraging and walking with me every step of the way.

i have been a stress basket for the past couple months. i graduate in april. i will be 21. i have several options at this point. i could go straight to physician's assistant school, i could go on a mission, i could take a year off of school and work, i could take the mcat and go to med school. these are HUGE life decisions that are all coming at once. i worried incessantly, which has caused me to be exhausted physically and emotionally, to break out (oh how i love bumpy skin...gross), and to become somewhat withdrawn. i just wanted someone to tell me what to do. i have not gotten a definite answer. so does this mean that they are all good options? should i go with the flow and see what happens in a year from now? this second option kills me. i am a planner. i make time to make schedules. i hate surprises. maybe Heavenly Father is trying to teach me something....patience.

one night when i was venting to my mom about not knowing what to do with my life, she said something that struck me....surprise surprise. my mom is one of the wisest people i know. and she is usually right. she asked me if i had written out the pros and cons of each decision. i had. she then asked me if i had taken this to Heavenly Father. i said i had, but that i had not received an answer. she then told me to let go of my own desires and tell Heavenly Father that i was ready to do whatever He would have me do. this sounds so simple. and yet, i had some reservations.

i found that i had some fear within me, the fear of the unknown. i feel like i am in a tunnel and i have reached a three-way crossing. i have a flashlight, but i cannot see what is at the end of each path. and i have to make a decision.

so i went to the temple on Friday night. i wish i could go to the temple every day. the amount of peace i felt there was overwhelming. i was given the reassurance that everything will work out, to not stress about these decisions. so i am trying something new. i am just gunna go with it. come what may. now i just need to maintain the faith in Jesus that He will lead me to where i need to be to best serve Him.

i am coming to find more and more that life isn't about what kind of career i will have or how much money i will make. it is about serving others, lifting those who are in a low place, smiling and spreading the Christlike love, becoming more like Jesus, and helping everyone return back to Heavenly Father.

some of my favorite faith scriptures/quotes that boost my spirit when doubt enters:

"And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me." Moroni 7:33

"Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not." D&C 6:36

“Faith in something greater than ourselves enables us to do what we have said we'll do, to press forward when we are tired or hurt or afraid, to keep going when the challenge seems overwhelming and the course is entirely uncertain.” Gordon B. Hinckley

“This is my prayer for all of us—'Lord, increase our faith.' Increase our faith to bridge the chasms of uncertainty and doubt. . . . Grant us faith to look beyond the problems of the moment to the miracles of the future. . . . Give us faith to do what is right and let the consequence follow.” - Gordon B. Hinckley

my most recent purchase

so i discovered a new website a few weeks ago: www.etsy.com. it's a website full of cute things from headbands to jewelry to art that people make and sell! mad got mom a way cute watch for her birthday. so i decided i wanted one too.

so you order a watch face (i got a pearly white so that it will match everything) and then you order watch bands. oh they had SOOOO many cute ones. here is what i decided on:

the designer is sara jane taylor! she has a website that you MUST look at: www.whichwatchdesigns.com. she lives in utah, so it only takes a couple of days to get here! can you say LOVE?!?!

happy news

guess what starts August 2?!?!?! SHARK WEEK!!!!! get so excited! this is one of my favorite weeks of the whole year. so this is a big deal!

round 2

so in december, i signed up to run a marathon in june. 6 months to train for a 26.2 mile run sounded reasonable. (fyi, 26.2 miles is the distance from my house to the prison...i drove around one day and tracked 26.2 miles and ended up at the prison. random i know). then because i think im such a smartie (ha ha right.....) i decided to take 16 credits of only science classes (chemistry, neurobiology, kinesiology, physics, labs, etc) and my exercising took a toll for the worse. i ran maybe once a week, or every 10 days. i was too tired to run for long amounts of time, long being more than 45 minutes. seeing as i have never run more than 6 miles in my life (well maybe in soccer i ran more), running once a week was NO bueno. i did not feel that i was going to be prepared for this 4 hour race. then school got out and i thought, ok i can train in 6 weeks. once again i only ran once a week. i was too busy playing and dating and sleeping and working and getting rammed into by other cars and papa dying and summer school starting and moving. and then i officially came to the conclusion that i should run the marathon next year. i felt like i let myself down. but then i looked back at what exercise i had done. i had mastered yoga!!! that's quite the accomplishment for me, the anti-gumby, impatient me.

so laura (one of my best friends from lib square that is now married to another one of my best friends colter) is in pharmacy school. she is a genius x 20. she just finished her first year of pharmacy school, which is awesome and i can see her more! she called me the other day and said, "so question, are you running a marathon or half-marathon?" i then explained my situation with the marathon. she got excited and said that we should run a half-marathon. 13.1 miles is do-able. i found one at the end of august, the week after we (all the friends) get back from lake powell. but that was the only half marathon until october. so this was it.

then, sara (my other beautiful best friend) called me and said that she had looked at her facebook home page and saw my post on laura's wall explaining when the marathon was. sara wanted to run the half with us too! but, you have to understand, sara is already a runner. she runs at least 4 miles a day. yesterday she ran 7. she is crazy amazing! i was SO pumped when sara said she wanted in, for she will make sure that me and laura cross that finish line!

so i started my training yesterday. i ran 3 miles. i don't know if my butt has grown or if my muscles are growing (very possible with all of my bike rides with howard ;) ha ha), but my legs felt so heavy. at the two mile mark, i wanted to walk SOOOO badly, but my mind dominated my body. i finished the 3 miles. laura called me last night and told me that she had gone running too. she was in the same boat as me. our goal is to finish the half marathon and to run the whole thing. i am determined. lar is determined. sara has faith in us. i feel confident this time around. round two here we come!

i found some inspiring quotes from real runners. i want to go run right now.

“Your training partners are key to your success, and friendships based on your runs together are strong.” Bill Rodgers

"Believe me, the reward is not so great without the struggle.” - Wilma Rudolph

"To exercise at or near capacity is the best way I know of reaching a true introspective state. If you do it right, it can open all kinds of inner doors." ~Al Oerter

"You must do the thing which you think you cannot do." ~Eleanor Roosevelt