2012 in review

Sometimes I start to feel like the years of my life keep passing by faster and faster... The older I get, the more I realize that life is truly a gift, and even if seemingly "momentous"events happen, each day we should strive to find beauty in the little things. I know this is starting to sound like one of those mormon quotes that mormon Mom's plaster on their mormon kitchen wall, but I guess I'm for real kinda having one of those realizations as I type...

So looking back on the year, it has been good to me. I am alive, healthy, have amazing friends & family, and a steady income. What more could make me happier?! In retrospect, this year has truly been good to me.

One of my best friends got married 

One of my best friends had her baby

Went to Arches National Park for the first time ever

Discovered the best place in Provo...The Chocolate 

Got 35 stitches in my face from an Intramural soccer game

Drove down the Portland coast 

Ran another 1/2 marathon---Through fields of Lavender

Got braces for a few months 

Went to Yellowstone

Graduated from college 

BYU Alum

My brother Derald got married 

Reunited with my trainer (and a disastrous hair experience)

Best Halloween Costume in a while

1st time trying peeps for s'mores (actually tasted better) 

Finished working at the MTC, and took a new job at a charter school in Salt Lake City. 

Rode a Carousel for the 1st time in years

Broke 100 in bowling

New Job

Hello! I'm realizing how hard it is to consistently keep up the blog when I now lead a very busy life! I have recently taken a job in West Valley, teaching at a Charter school. The School is in a very low-income area and provides me with very unique opportunities to work with kids in grades 7-9. In Utah that is apparently called "Junior High." I'm learning things like how important it is to LOVE what you do! It is a different mentality to be in when you are working full time. The leisure life of being a college kid is over. Onward and upward. Here's to doing hard things, practical application, and being a problem solver! 

Listened to an absolutely incredible motivational speaker the other day. Our entire school had an early dismissal so that teachers could go listen to an extraordinary teacher named Ron Clark. He has been awarded Teacher of the year and has his own school in Atlanta Georgia. He has done amazing things with kids in under-priveledged circumstances and he is renowned at raising test scores. 

His focus was on bringing passion into the classroom, and focusing on the positive. Something he emphasized a lot was the importance of staying positive and seeing the potential in each student. I was so inspired to become a better teacher through his words!!! I teach reading comprehension, and it is definitely a challenge, but I am learning so much each day from these kids, that I wouldn't rather be doing anything else :) 

here and now.

I am coming to realize more and more in my life, that things never turn as you think they will. Sometimes I really wish I could just fast forward and see what will come of my life, but I know that would serve no purpose. The hardest thing about life is facing the unexpected. You don't know what is to come, and yet we try to think that we have to know everything now, and figure everything out now. Projections are important and effective in decision making, but I also think there is so much to be said about the becoming process. Half of life is the journey in getting to where we want to be. I know this is sounding like a really cliche message, but I really feel that this is especially applicable to me right now with how things are going in my life. You cannot expect to know things faster than time and circumstances allow. Realities need to be faced, and situations need to be approached with possible solutions. We shouldn't try to fix things that aren't broken. It is important to cross bridges when we get to them, and build them in the mean time when we seem to be stuck in a difficult circumstance.  These are a few words that keep coming to mind from President Monson...

"Let us relish life as we live it, find joy in the journey, and share our love with friends and family. One day each of us will run out of tomorrows.

This is our one and only chance at mortal life—here and now. The longer we live, the greater is our realization that it is brief. Opportunities come, and then they are gone. I believe that among the greatest lessons we are to learn in this short sojourn upon the earth are lessons that help us distinguish between what is important and what is not. I plead with you not to let those most important things pass you by as you plan for that illusive and nonexistent future when you will have time to do all that you want to do. Instead, find joy in the journey—now.

 “Both abundance and lack [of abundance] exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend … when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present—love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature, and personal pursuits that bring us [happiness]—the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.” 

Thank you, grocery man.

The last 48 hours have been overwhelming...Perhaps it is because I had become accustomed to not doing ANYTHING last week over Thanksgiving? But truthfully I think that I was actually overwhelmed, which rarely happens. Last night I realized that I had a 10 page paper due at 3 o'clock the next day. I hadn't even looked at the assignment. (symptom of senioritis is procrastination... not in my nature, just simply a side-effect.) I also had made plans to go to bed early so as to be able to be extra sharp at my new job I was starting the next day. Somehow,  I managed to get my paper done last night. Luckily it was for my marriage prep class.... A topic I am somewhat coherent of...ahem...oh wait....

Today I started my new job. I woke up super early to get there, I tried to remember everything I was supposed to at work, I rushed back to turn in a 10 page paper,  I did all I could do to make it to class on time, and went to class for a few hours. From school I went straight to the gym, then straight to the store to get some food for my cupboards. I was starving, and naturally it was taking me an abnormally long time to grocery shop. I felt like it was one of those nights where everything CARB-PACKED was screaming at me "BUY ME!!!" So naturally, I arrived at the check-out about 45 minutes later.

I don't know why I started writing about carbs, and my random cravings for junk food when I am grocery shopping...

 I got to the checkout and I realized that I had forgotten my debit card. I ran to my car to get it, and when I came back to pay, the bagger girl informed me that the guy behind me had just paid for my groceries!!!! I was SOOOO blown-away!!!! What inspired him to pay for my $35 of groceries??? I chased the guy down in the parking low and he refused to let me pay him back.

That simple experience changed my attitude completely. I was in a rut thinking about how tired and stressed I was, and in the mean time the person next to me at the checkout didn't think twice when he had the opportunity to do something nice for someone else.

I think that I have opportunities every day to serve someone.  I keep thinking back to how dumbstruck I was the entire drive home after that experience. It was $35 worth of groceries...but really it was so much more than that. This random stranger chose to do something kind for someone who he didn't even know the name of.

This experience reminded me of one of my favorite talks given in the October General Conference by Elder M. Russell Ballard:

 In your morning prayer each new day, ask Heavenly Father to guide you to recognize an opportunity to serve one of His precious children. Then go throughout the day with your heart full of faith and love, looking for someone to help. Stay focused, just like the honey bees focus on the flowers from which to gather nectar and pollen. If you do this, your spiritual sensitivities will be enlarged and you will discover opportunities to serve that you never before realized were possible.

President Thomas S. Monson has taught that in many instances Heavenly Father answers another person’s prayers through us—through you and me—through our kind words and deeds, through our simple acts of service and love.

And President Spencer W. Kimball said: “God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other”

I was so inspired by the charitable act of that random man in the grocery store. His kind act reminded me of the importance of serving others at any opportunity we have. I think that I miss many opportunities to serve, and it is probably because I am too caught up in myself to seize them! I am grateful that I was blessed with this reminder of the joy that comes through simple acts of service!!!! I'm sure that man will never fully comprehend the depth of influence that his act of service had on me!