Priesthood Power

I try not to post too much religious stuff on my blog because I know that a lot of my readers are not religious and might feel uncomfortable. But I feel the need to share this experience - don't read this post if you don't want to.

The last couple of days have been hard on me. I've been feeling down on myself, which I don't like. I'm an amazing girl and should never feel like less than I am. I went for a walk today, which is the best kind of therapy if you ask me. I walked and thought and just felt impressed to do three things which I did immediately I got home.

1. Read my Patriarchal Blessing. In the LDS faith, members have the opportunity to receive a special blessing. They record it so you have the words with you always and are encouraged to read it often. To me, it is words directly from my Heavenly Father, telling me of my strengths and blessings and giving me guidance on what I need to do. While I was doing this, I started crying a lot. I couldn't see any of the girl who was talked about in the blessing in me and it hurt. What was I doing wrong? How did I change? This lead me to

2. Search the Scriptures. I rarely have big questions that need answering in the religious department. I know what I feel is important and never feel the need to question anything. But this time I did, and while I didn't find the answer exactly, in searching through those sacred words and reading words of Prophets and leaders of the Church, I was calmed a bit. I began to realize that my question couldn't exactly be answered in this life, but that I need to just trust that God has it taken care of and wouldn't make me miserable for any reason.

3. Get a blessing. When in doubt, turn to the Priesthood. Holding the Priesthood is to hold the power to speak and act for God and all worthy males members of the LDS church hold that power. As such power wielding individuals, they can give blessings for things like healing or comfort and council. I needed both comfort and council desperately so I texted my friend and two boys were in my apartment in white shirts and ties five minutes later. It is such a sacred experience that I don't feel the need to post everything that was said in that blessing, but I will say that immediately they put their hands on my head and said my name I felt the love and care of God so strongly. I was counciled on the things that I need to do to feel better and reminded of the helps that I have around me. Life gets hard, but I can do anything with the power of God behind me, lifting me up and reminding me of my divine worth and potential.

I am blessed to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know that it is the true, restored gospel of Jesus Christ and that we do have living prophets now, guiding us to return to Heaven. I know that Heavenly Father is real and knows me by name (and you too). He knows my strengths and weaknesses and is rooting for me to succeed in this test called mortal life. I know the true power of the Priesthood.

New Semester, New Apartment

I am living in the best apartment less than a block away from the Provo Library. I have two amazing roommates (they are sisters) and we are getting along just wonderfully. They are the two sweetest girls and I love them dearly.
The Kitchen

Living Room

My half of my room


In other news, I'm being so good at being social! We had FHE at our apartment on Monday. Usually we have groups assigned, but they haven't gotten around to it, so we invited another girls and a guys apartment to join us and we made pretzels.

Sunday was Fast Sunder (one Sunday out of the month, LDS people fast together for certain things, it's really an amazing experience) and our ward had a break the fast dinner. I started talking with some people who I decided were kindred spirits. We went to see the Three Musketeers last night and it was really fun. Not the best production ever (though the set was fricking amazing!), but it was a fun evening out.

I work three days a week stocking bottles in the vending machines on campus. It's pretty dull work, but I work with a fun guy and it's over quickly so even though I don't particularly enjoy the work, it's not too bad.

Last little bit: classes. I'm taking three literature classes, so a lot of reading, but I'm enjoying it all. I think one of my favorite classes is my Family Life class. We are studying the The Family: A Proclamation to the World which is a document that the LDS Church put out back in 1985 about the place the family holds in the world and the family unit in general. It's way good. But we study more than that, we are going to be looking at how to build a successful family. We get to hear some fun stories and talk about what I consider to be the most important thing in the world. It makes that whole "marriage" thing less scary.

The last class I'm taking is a Mission Preparation class. For those of you who don't know, I'm planning on serving an 18 month mission leaving in January (possibly more like April). I don't know where I'm going to be sent, but I know that I will be doing important work for my Heavenly Father. I'll keep you updated on the proceedings. I just realized how soon the end of October is going to come. That's when I think I'll be turning in my papers!

P.S. I was taking an advertising class, but after we spent 40 minutes in the first class watching YouTube videos, I decided it wasn't for me. Also, it made my Thursdays incredibly long (8am-6:30pm)

SCUBA

Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.

A few years back, my dad, sister and I took up SCUBA diving. We went quite a bit that first year, but now we only go every once in a while to keep up with it all. My dad and I went out once this summer on a really fun boat with some friends from Church.

The boat was HUGE and we had it mostly to ourselves which was sweet. I only did two dives, everyone else did three (it's just such a pain and I was getting all kinds of water in my dry-suit and so I was very cold and tired). They were some really great dives. There were a lot of really pretty purple coral and it was just all around pretty.

The cook on the boat was an actual chef and so we ate really well. Sometimes you go on a dive boat and you get a giant stake for lunch.

More on Cub Scout Camp

I never included the pictures from my Cub Safari! My little boys!!! Archery, knot tying, crafts, a big slide - I miss my boys.

Disneyland

So I took some pictures of my new apartment to blog about and then realized that I had quite a few pictures on my camera and things to blog about. So this is the first in a series of posts about fun things.

We begin with Disneyland! Some of our best friends came for a visit in the middle of summer (they were coming from AZ, so it was a break from the heat hahaha) and we went to Disneyland, which is really the happiest place on Earth. I'm not much of a picture-taker, but I did get a shot of my mom and me with our new, matching phone covers. And of my sister, one of our friends, and the Little Man.

Aren't we cute :)





Ok, I know there are two pictures of this moment, but the first one is cute with the baby even though my sister and Sam look possessed with red eyes. So I had to include it so they looked normal at lest once.


Kaylee and her mom on the Matterhorn! I love that ride - I still jump a little bit when the snowman pops out at you.

Finding the Internets

I have never been in charge of getting the Internets. It's always just been there. Not so much this time around. I'm living in a condo, so it's owned by a private party. Cable was 'provided' - provided that you had the necessary equipment and the people who lived in the apartment before you removed their names from the cable agreement.

I had to call Comcast to figure out why our TV wasn't working and they told me to go to the service center (which is about 20 minutes away). I talked to my dad about getting Internets and we decided to do it all in one go.

This morning, after Yoga, I went to the service center. They hooked me up! I got a new cable box thingy and an internet modem and a big red bag. Rather than wait(and pay) for someone to come install it, I decided to just do it myself. Easy, right? Just plug it all in.

Hours later and talking with no less than four different Comcast people at various times and going BACK to the service station because the power cable didn't fit into the hole on the modem, someone is coming to fix it all on Wednesday.

Luckily, we have a lovely downstairs neighbor whom we begged to let us borrow some Internets for a few days. We are going to buy her some mint choco-chip ice cream because that's her favorite.

The Internship

So I'm 'done' with my internship and had some time to think about the experience and now is time for a blog.

I say 'done,' but I don't really think that I will be truly done with this. For one thing I have a few projects that are still in the works. For example, I worked on a bunch of lesson plans to go with a video the Church produced about the Mormon Battalion/Mexican War/Gold Rush/trails west. Those activities are still being edited and whatnot, but I've turned in my draft. Also, there is all the money from the Uchtdorf event (on May 26th) that is still being settled. There is one guy that owes $1,700 for his tickets.

Overall, it was a pretty amazing experience. I learned a lot about the inner workings of my Church which most people don't get to see. Quite honestly, there is a lot more politics then I realized. I can understand why people are so against organized religion - it could be a tool for great evil. But that's why there is so much care that needs to be taken. It's not like I think they are hiding things up in Salt Lake at Church HQ, but more about that they have to be careful about what they say and do because so many people are watching. Because we are a church that believes in modern day revelation, anything that any of the Leaders say could be construed as coming from God, rather than just the comment of a man. Does that make sense? Who would have thought my Faith would be tried while working for the Church - I didn't. But it was a little bit and I've been made stronger for it.

Mostly, I got to work with some amazing people. The Smiths, Faye and Rodger, were the senior missionaries in the office. They are two of the sweetest people and are just filled with love. Matt, my boss, is a character! He has so much energy and love for what he does. He is a great teacher.

In the end, I'm ready to go back to school. I've ordered my books and have a huge stack of novels to be read this year. I love to learn :)