Still loved....

2nd day of teaching Relief Society, but 1st lesson out of the manual. I should probably come clean and say that although I "skimmed" the lesson a week or so ago, I didn't really pick it up since then. Yes, I was guilty of reading through it in Sunday School. Halfway through Sunday School, I realized that somehow I had skipped to the next lesson without realizing it. I can tell you that next week's lesson is pretty great. :) Relief Society, for me, started pretty badly. I also play the piano and the opening song didn't go well. For some reason, the piano was echoing weird and completely throwing me off. It sounded terrible. Almost like I had forgotten how to play. Oh well.
When I started the lesson, I realized that, although I knew what I was going to say first, and last, I had no clue what to say in the middle. I kept stumbling over my words. I knew it wasn't going well. When I got to the point that I froze and nothing was coming out, an angel came and saved me. Her name's Megan. I love that girl. She made a comment and others started commenting. Things started to come together and gel. From then on, the Spirit was able to come into the room and the rest of the lesson was amazing. I learned so much and was so grateful to have the girls with me. I learned that there is so much stuff in life that I get bogged down in that really has nothing to do with, well, life. The reason we're here and what it's really about is so completely off so many of the things I do. I've decided that I really need to do better. I'm terrible at remembering and keeping in focus the things that I have learned that I need to implement in my life. So, I'm going to try something. I'm going to stop doing, or get rid of something specific in my life that doesn't have anything to do with the eternal scheme of things and replace it with something better. I haven't chosen yet, but I'll be thinking about it. I'm thankful that my Heavenly Father had mercy on me even though I procrastinated. He is aware of how crazy I've felt lately with working overtime at work and everything. He knows everything that's bogging down my mind. I'm thankful so much for that knowledge and blessing.

I am loved!

Today I taught my first lesson as an official Relief Society teacher. This has been a tough thing for me because I don't feel like I'm very good with words sometimes and my head goes blank. My first time teaching as a substitute felt awful. There was a point where my mind when completely empty and no words would come out. I couldn't speak and I was just frozen in fear. It felt like it went on for about 5 minutes until the Relief Society President finally saved me by saying something. Since then, I've had a little anxiety about the ability to. I also don't feel like I've been doing everything in my life the way I should in order to have the Spirit work through me like I need it to when I'm teaching. Well, in preparation for this lesson today, I prayed that despite my shortcomings and even stupidity at times, the Spirit would be in the room and the girls would be able to feel it. I prayed that I wouldn't be a detraction from it. Well, it's amazing how Heavenly Father can answer a simple prayer with such power even when I don't feel I deserve it. I felt His Spirit in that room today so strongly. The girls participated and we had a wonderful discussion about adversity and being of good cheer through it. I wish I could explain or describe what is in my heart and how incredibly grateful I feel for this gift. I needed it so badly. I love that even two hours later, inside of me feels like I am still in that room. I'm so thankful to have the relationship that I do with those girls. I know that if I feel like I am less than capable, they'll still love me and won't judge too harshly. I am so incredibly loved by my Father. I'm thankful that He taught me today. I pray that I'll be able to live up to the responsibility (and blessing) that He's given me. Mmmmm......I just feel SO good right now!! :)

This is from a hike that I took with a couple friends last month. It's Antelope Island again. There's just something about that place that brings a measure of peace to me. There's something about looking out across the water at the city beyond, knowing that there's all sorts of craziness going on there, and being able to separate yourself from that and have some peace and quiet. I need it so much sometimes.

I've set some goals for myself in the last few months and I haven't done well with them. I think that my greatest challenge in life is consistency. The thing is, the only way to get strong on consistency is by being consistent.

That's all for this post. I think I need to get back to my challenges so that I can update this more. I feel like I'm not being very exciting lately, so I'm hesitant to blog. I'm going to try to work on it. Oh! One thing that was a big thing for me was that at the end of the summer, I danced in a luau. I'd been taking hula classes from one of my friends during the summer and we had a recital of sorts at the end. It was so much fun, but did get me out of my comfort zone! Dancing in front of some of those people was very scary. I loved it though. I've missed dancing. I love this form of dance!!!! I hope to be able to learn more dances. 5 just isn't enough. My friend and teacher, Amanda, is at BYU-Hawaii to study and she's learning a lot more. I'm excited for her to come home so that I can learn more.

It's the July shutdown for work again. This year, with money being a factor, I decided to go more local. I'm spending the beginning in St. George with my friend, Crystal, and then be in Idaho for the end part. Not as exciting as a cruise to Mexico, I know, but sometimes you have to do what you can, right? Well today we spent a little bit of time on Dixie Rock. It was crazy windy, so we didn't stay long. I may head back up there on my way out of town in a couple days. Crystal felt like she was going to be blown over. I just love the style wind gives to my hair. :) Not the most flattering of pics, but fun nonetheless.

My first attempt at Puerto Rican Flan (or any flan for that matter). It's bound to get better from here, right? It actually could taste worse.

I have a couple new (kinda) things that I'm working on these days. When I watched General Conference, I realized there were some things that I could really be doing better on. One thing is my budget. After listening to Elder Hales talk, I realized that I needed to be helping people more. But I realized that I couldn't help them until I was in the position to. So I sat down and had a good look at my finances. I've really tried to tighten things down so that I can get to a point where I can give more. It'll take a little bit of time, but I'm excited about the changes I'm making. I'm already seeing the benefits of it.
Another thing that I realized from Conference is that I need to control some of my addictions better and that some of them had gotten out of control. When I have control of those things, I am more able to reach out and help others. Which kinda brings me to the second thing I'm focusing on. My eating habits and exercise. Fortunately, I have a lot of support with this one right now. At work, there's a group of us that are participating in a weightloss competition. It's going to go for 14 weeks. It'll end the week before shutdown. Right now, there are 28 people participating. Last week was week 1 and today was our first weight loss weigh in. I'm happy to report that I lost 6.2 lbs. Now, obviously this is a lot for a week. But most of it is just 1st week changes. Although I'm sticking to a strict eating plan, I'm not going overboard. I'm just doing what my nutritionist told me to do a couple years ago. It worked then, so I know it'll work now too. My goal is 2.5 lbs a week. Depending on how much I want to beat the others, this may change. My weightloss was good enough to get 3rd place for the week, and I'm pretty happy about that. 3rd out of 28 is nothing to be ashamed of.
I'm just excited for this time in my life. I love the Spring. I love being outside (even though I sunburn really easy), and I'm happy.
Another great thing that I'm working on.....my relationship with my Rob. We're back together after our break, and I'm hoping to help nurture things so that we can have a positive, fun, happy, and loving time together that's also full of support, understanding, and respect. I'm not against relationship advice from those of you who are succeeding. :) I don't feel like I'm very good at this thing yet.
Anyway, yay for life. I'm happy. Time to get out in the sun!

Adapting to change.....

So, it's been a little while. I've had an eventful time these past couple months. The good thing is that I feel like I'm beginning to learn how to handle things that are just thrown at me out of the blue more that I was able to before. I guess it's called practice. :)
Job update: Sadly, the job in the office that I had has come to an end. It was a pretty abrupt end, but after a couple days and some explainations, I'm okay with it. I am thankful for the time that I had to learn new things there and get out of my comfort zone. I was moved to a different department from what I was in before. I wasn't sure how I'd handle it, but I'm finding that I'm liking it quite a bit. It's taking a little bit of time for my body to adjust, since it's standing all day instead of sitting all day and has a lot more movement, but I feel happy. I think I was blessed to receive this new job. It may turn out saving my life. Yay for the unknown!!!
Now for the date update: Back in December I mentioned that I had asked a boy out and then it turned out that he couldn't make it. I remember saying something like what happens may turn out to be a surprise to us all. Well, I didn't realize at the time how true it was. A guy that I dated about 4 years ago ended up volunteering to go with me. I was hesitant for a lot of reasons, but after a couple days decided that it wouldn't hurt. After all, we were still friends. Well, since then, we've been together at least once a week, sometimes more. It's been nice dating again, especially a guy that's good to me. We're taking a little bit of a break right now, but I'm grateful for the time that we've spent together. We'll see what happens. He's a good man.
There have been lots of little things thrown at me, but I think I've handled them pretty well; my ipod breaking as just an example. But ya know what? The sun is shining, Spring is coming, hiking season is about here, General Conference was AMAZING, and I'm happy. Sure, I've got a lot to work on and improve, but I'm trying to see those things and do it. Yay for life!!!!!!
:)

Another work update...

Here I am. Working at a computer. Weird. Don't worry, I'm on my break. I'm not blogging during working hours. :) Update on the new job thing......oh boy. What have I gotten myself into? I don't know what I'm doing. I had a friend of mine point out something though. He said, "Sometimes I wonder if when all our days are tallied and accounted for...the days we didn't know what we were doing will outnumber the days we did." Right now, I won't doubt it at all. I'm really doing ok. There are a lot of things to learn, but I've never started a job that I actually knew how to do beforehand. So, here I am. Smiling.........albeit through gritted teeth. :) As long as I don't step on too many toes, I should be okay. Think I can learn Portuguese?? It would sure make things easier at the moment.

Argentine Corner

I just experienced a fun night. Hilariousness ensued. I went to dinner with a guy I've been dating and a couple of his friends from college, Cassie and Adam. We went and ate at a little Argentine place. Fun!

New job

So, I guess I'll be starting that new job this week. I don't know what to expect at all. I don't know what I'll be doing, how much I'll be paid, or anything. About all I know is that I'll be working on a computer. Here's to jumping in without being able to plan! :)

I was a success today!!!

I don't like change. Actually, I do like change. The part about change that I don't like is that I hate feeling incompetent and stupid when encountering something new. Today was a big step for me. I learned something.
You see, I had a surprise interview at my job last week for a temporary quality clerical position. I was very truthful when I told them that it had been awhile since I'd really used the computer for things other than email, blogging, etc. I wasn't really all that into the interview because my mind was on other things. Well, today they called me into the office for a couple of tests. They gave me two documents and wanted me to duplicate one in Word and the other in Excel and spend about 15 minutes on each. They said that it was okay if I didn't complete them. They just wanted to see what I could do. I decided to start with the Word one first since I was most familiar with it. Of course, this was the newest version of word and everything was in different places from what I was used to. But I faked my way through it. At the 15 minute mark, I was about 3/4 of the way through. I decided to switch over to the other one. I opened up Excel and sat there for a few minutes just staring at the screen. I realized that I had no clue what to do. It reminded me of the time that I decided that I wanted to play the guitar and so I went and bought one. When I got home, I opened the case, held the guitar, and realized that I had no clue where to go from there. I had to go to a friend and ask him to give me a starting point. Well, that's how I felt when looking at Excel. I tried a couple of things, but it was getting me no where, so I decided that I would go back to the Word document. If nothing else, I could at least finish one of the projects. I know that I didn't get the document perfect, but I know that I did as well as I could. Now, to someone looking at this, it might seem like I failed, not succeeded. That's not the case. I'm starting to learn that if I'm not perfect at something that I've never done before, it doesn't mean that I'm stupid or incompetent. It's okay if my first time (or even my second) isn't absolutely right. I succeeded because I went back to my sewing machine, realized it was okay that I made some mistakes, and didn't cry or put myself down. I decided instead to look at what I did right. I decided to see the risk and challenge that I took and say, "Way to go. You did something you've never done before and you've grown." Who knows what will happen after this, but I'm thankful for the opportunity that I've had to learn a little bit more about myself. Yay for growth!!!! :)

Another challenge update

This past summer, I decided to go on a cruise with a couple of my friends. I didn't give much thought into the decision. I just decided to jump. It was something needed to distract me anyway. Our awesome cruise was the last week of July. We left on Friday to drive to Cali and got there early on Saturday morning. Later, after a couple hours of sleep, we got up and went to Disneyland!!!! Yay!!! It was the first time I'd been there since high school. I was such a little kid. I was giggling in anticipation in the parking lot. It was a wonderful day, even though we were really tired. At the beginning of the day, we bought little tiaras and wore them all day. We had fun being princesses.

Monday morning, we went to board our ship at Long Beach. The security and boarding process weren't nearly as bad as I expected it to be and everyone was very nice. Quite a difference from airports where everyone seems grumpy.

On the ship, we got settled and then had our safety drill. We learned how to get on the escape boats just in case of an emergency. Fun! :)


The first night, we had to test out the deck chairs. It was freezing and so we went and got some hot chocolate, went out on deck, and had some awesome girl talk. It became a tradition almost every night.

Tuesday was Catalina and snorkling!!! Now, water doesn't scare me at all. I've been a fish since I was a baby, but this was a very new experience for me. When I first put the breathing thing in my mouth, it kind of freaked me out. I'm not used to having something in my mouth and trying to breathe through it at the same time. It seemed so huge and didn't seem to belong in my mouth. When I put my head under the water, I had a little bit of a freeze up and slight panic. I was actually almost tempted to get out right there and not go on. I don't know if it was clastraphobia or what, but I decided that I needed to get over it. If I practiced breathing and relaxed, then I would be ok. After all, everyone else was able to do it. I could too. I'm so glad I didn't quit. It was awesome. I wasn't ready to get out of the water when it was time. It's definitely something that I'll want to do again. And I wasn't stung with a jellyfish. I was worried about that. The funny thing is, I talked to a few of my friends later that had gone snorkling later that summer, and they did get stung.

Tuesday night was formal night. I just love getting all dressed up!

Wednesday was Ensenada, Mexico. We went shopping in La Bufadora. I wasn't really in the mood to barter much, so I didn't get much there. I did want to have some authentic mexican food while I was there and our tour guide said that there was this really good place that served fish tacos. One thing that my brother, Tim, told me to do while on this cruise was to be adventurous with the food. I decided to try this fish taco and it was one of the most delicious things I've ever had. That was a good adventurous experience. A not so fun one will come up later.

Wednesday night was a big party on the ship. The other girls went to bed early, but I wasn't ready for that, so I wandered and finally joined in with a bunch of people. I was by myself, but ended up having a blast. I danced on the deck until the wee hours of the morning. I even joined a conga line. Sorry, no pictures for this night. I didn't have anyone to take them. That's probably a good thing. :)

Thursday was an all ship day. We had planned to go swimming and lay out, but it was very cold and cloudy. It was a relaxing day though. Dinner was the adventurous part. I decided to try some smoked salmon for the appetizer. Unfortunetly, I thought that smoked meant it would be cooked as well. Not the case. Let me just say that I am definitely not a fan of raw salmon. Ew! But just for my pride's sake, I choked it down. I wasn't looking forward to the entree that I'd ordered. It was some penne pasta with the most disgusting shade of orange, pasty sauce. It also had shrimp, scallops, and calamari. I'm not a fan of shrimp in any form besides popcorn, but I ate it. It actually was the tastiest thing on the plate. That's not saying much. I ate the scallops, but probably just because I didn't know what they were. But the calamari was too much. When I saw the tenticles and head, I just couldn't do it. I'll stick to fried calamari from McGrath's or something. Dessert saved my taste buds. Baked Alaska. It was yummy and I'm thankful. I needed something good to get that awful taste out of my mouth. I might be a little more cautious when being adventurous next time. :)

Friday morning was back to land. It was hard to come home. We were ready to go on our next cruise as soon as we'd gotten off the ship. I'm glad I was able to have this experience. We'll see where the next one takes me.