The sacred matters

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my major? How much I love BYU? How much I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Well, I do. A lot. I love all of these things because they help me find truth. I like truth. It gives me peace that other things simply can't.
One of my classes, advanced family processes, uses the book "Sacred Matters" written by a lot of Latter-day Saint scholars. It's about how sacredness matters in family life, and how true they are. I think of my own family and the car ride talks about Jesus Christ and how to live the restored truths. I think about the media choices that help us realize that our bodies are sacred and that we are children of God. The sacred matters because it gives us purpose in life, purpose in family and purpose in future. The sacred allows us to see beyond ourselves and instead see how we can contribute to the greater work that God has given us. Pray with your family tonight and you will be united. Invite everyday sharing of your belief in God and your children will be strengthened. As one man put it, "I love the Gospel because it helps me love my family and I love my family because they help me love the Gospel". Read The family: A Proclamation to the World and you will understand how much the family means to be me because I know it is a gift for my Father in Heaven.

Dating and sacrifice

I'm sitting here in the family history section of library, typing on this annoyingly loud keyboard. But, I guess it's not inhibiting my thinking that much, just enough as to where I decided that I wasn't going to be able to read the article for my family processes class because all the other keyboards are too loud as well. So, I will join the typing.
Yesterday was one of those days where the world kind of stops and you realize that you can't control everything. You can't control the fact that two months from now you will either be driving or flying to Georgia or that you now realize that you and your best friend won't be living anywhere close to each other because neither of you got into the graduate programs you needed to. It's definitely one of those days.
So, I've decided to "focus" on my studying. An article about sacrifice as a predictor of marital quality. Along my bookmark bar I had noticed lds.org and decided to see what they had to say about comparing ourselves to others, something adding to my large amounts of stress in the past couple of days.  Which leads me to a question: what do we sacrifice in dating, or in order to date? Well, lots of things.

Family of origin. This is temporary, but I've noticed that I often feel as if I have to choose between my present family and my future family. I came out to BYU in part to date and marry. The marriage part hasn't happened, but I'm happy for the experiences I've had in dating. It's taught me a lot about myself, particularly how much I can handle and how gosh darn strong I am (yes, I still hold on to my Southern roots).

The future. Dating changes a lot of things about our futures. I have friend who is currently dating a young man, and even though they are not talking about marriage yet, she is pursuing the relationship in spite of graduate school plans. I'm actually very proud of her, because that is courageous.
Friends. This one doesn't always happen, but a lot of the times as you date you spend more and more time with your significant other and less and less time with your friends (atleast your single ones). This is so sad. I just really like people and want to stay their friend inspite of recent relationship changes.

What I really like about the research is that it shows that sacrifice of ideas, those separate from your core values, helps to strengthen a relationship because it shows your investment. So, make sure you invest more than money into your relationships. Invest love, concern and time. Remember- Love is spelled T-I-M-E.

Pure honesty and a question

This one needed something seperate because it breaks my heart a little. I promise. Within the last 5 seconds I am still loving everything out of life. But, my question is: did I fail? Everyone talks about BYU as being this place that invests tithing money from members because the general authorities (leaders in the Latter-day Saint church) are invested in their young single adults meeting one another and marrying. Why? Because we know that families can be sealed together for eternity in temples of God and that the only way to enter a temple is by taking steps, including baptism into His church.

So, did I fail? Did I waste their tithing money? I firmly believe that God wants His daughters to be educated, as noted by the talks by Mary N. Cook and the one by Elder and Sister Oaks. I did that. Gained an education. But what about marriage? Leaving here unmarried is terrifying. If I decide venture out  beyond the wasatch for graduate school, from where there are maybe 10-20 LDS singles in the area, there is always I chance that I will not marry.

So, what now? Choose faith. God does not make promises that He does not keep and as long as we are striving to live up to the covenants we have made with Him (Always remember Him and keep His commandments) then no blessings will be with-held. Now is a time to employ active waiting. Waiting upon the Lord is not a "sit down and I'll wait for you to bring me blessings" idea. It's more of a "I'll trust in your timing and persevere to bring your work forward in the way you need me to". Things will come in His time. I have quote on my wall that says: Waiting=Trusting. Time to employ faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (and His promises). 

Pure honesty and a lot of love

A few things have been on my mind lately. I am so scared to death about leaving Provo, it's not even funny. Don't get me wrong... I am SOOOOOO excited to graduate but sometimes I just scared about living the life I want to have. That's right, my own potential scares me. I know I can do great things, but the question is, will I? There are times when fear just sucks everything out of me. Like being lonely. I am so scared of being lonely that sometimes I'm afraid I will take drastic measures and marry that boy that would be so incredibly wrong for me and make my life so incredibly miserable. Never-mind. Crisis averted. 

So, as I'm sitting here and thinking about being honest. I'm scared of going to graduate school. But excited because it means new adventures and hopefully being closer to my family. Which is true regardless of where I choose, it's just a matter of extended family or immediate family. But I am scared to lose touch with friends. The other day, Bea said, "Let's be honest, we talk about having all of these reunions, but it probably won't happen." My best friends are leaving. I am leaving. Sad. day. 


Firstly, there's these girls. Oh goodness. Camille and I met at BYU-I and Beatriz and I in Alpine Court. Oh, the years are flying! Camille is going to Armenia to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Have you ever seen Armenian? It looks like this: ճէրմակ
(White) and then sounds like.... yeah um, I'll let you know that later. Beatriz is going to go to Puerto Rico and become an amazing lawyer, eventually a guardian ad litem. We have a plan. She's going to prosecute the criminals, I'm going to therapy on the families and Camille will do their family history. I like this plan. It means we get to see each other again. Well okay, before we die. 

And this girl. Becca Hay. Fondly known as Becca Texas to my phone. We connected in the library almost four years ago, yes? We decided that a breakdown in the library was a good way to form a friendship. She always talks about how I saved her that day, but in reality I couldn't get along without her. That's why we have a plan. We will live close enough to one another to drive. I know my parents approve of this plan. I was talking to them about South Carolina and they said, "And you'd be close enough to visit Becca when she gets into Emory". Love it. 

And this girl. Oh Davina, Seattle is going to be so happy to see you! Davina is going to be an amazing travel agent someday and we are going to take trips to Italy and Spain and Ireland. It's going to be amazing. Choir friends years ago= living close enough to walk to her house and deal with life crisis things together. I will miss that. 

Provo sunrises. I will miss walking to school and seeing this. It is breath-taking. Running on still mornings and praying to my Heavenly Father is such a wonderful way to start the day. 

Another honesty thing. I love being happy! "there is nothing wrong with loving the crap out of everything. negative people build their walls. so never apologize for your enthusiasm. never. ever. never"- ryan adams. Forget the fear. I'm going to love the crap out of life. I'm going to love getting into graduate school. I'm going to love talking with my Heavenly Father about my decision. I'm going to love skyping with my family. I'm going to love being single (Not gonna lie, sometimes this one is hard. But, I've realized that I grow so much from having to fight heartache like this. I think Heavenly Father thinks I am very strong). I'm just going to love. Because hate corrodes, but love grows!