Love One Another

I was really touched by a talk I heard back in September but now I can't find it anywhere online, so I am recounting my notes and thoughts. I just wish I could read it again. However in googling it I found a women who blogged about it so well and described some of the same emotions that I felt that it was the best I could come to actually finding the publication of the talk.

Courtney wrote what follows:

Elder Jensen spoke of the many "different" people in the church. He explained how there is a certain culture surrounding the gospel (naturally), and how many people do not fit in to this particular mold. The classic (but true, all the same) examples of being divorced, single, widowed make people feel as though they don't belong, but also those who struggle with depression or eating disorders or those who have loved ones who are going through difficult times. Those who are minorities or those who have physical disabilities. As he listed all these people, I started to wonder how anyone feels like they belong in this culture. And that was one of his biggest points. He said, "everyone is a lost sheep. everyone has their failings, and everyone has their differences."

More often than not, I do not feel like I belong at church. I am not naturally out-going, and I rarely feel like I have people to talk to at church. Particularly now that we are in a new ward, I wonder if we will ever find our place. But I loved how Elder Jensen spoke about how it was our duty to include everyone. I've come to realize over the past couple years that there are very few people who don't need new friends. It's still hard for me to reach out to anyone, but realizing that has helped me a little bit.

Elder Jensen opened his talk by speaking about his younger brother, who had brain damage due to birth complications. The brother was often the brunt of much ridicule as a boy, and I felt so much shock at how people feel free to mock those with obvious disabilities. Then I read this post at By Common Consent today and thought the same thing. It scares me to have kids. I don't want them to be made fun of, but I'm also terrified that they will make fun of other kids.

One of the most important things I want-- need-- to teach my children is true compassion and understanding of others' feelings. Hopefully by making this a priority they won't make fun of other kids and when they are adults, they will reach out to those in need (well, I hope they do both things regardless of being a child or an adult).

I'm not sure where the church culture comes from that makes others feel alienated. I feel like I know more people who don't fit the perfect mold than those who do, but perhaps that's because I gravitate towards normal, real people. :)

I was very happy to find this blog post because it very much reflected how I feel. I work closely with people with disabilities as well have close family members who are disabled. I think of my cousin Chainey, who had Spina Bifida, when he was born. To think that anyone could ever tease him because he walks with a walker or sometimes uses a wheel chair kills me. I want to protect him but I know he is a strong boy. I also, like Courtney, want to teach my children (when I have children) to be accepting and love others.

I have felt very awkward before in wards and currently do. Its getting a little better but I still feel like the "special guest" that sticks out in the group like a sore thumb. For the first 3 months of being in our ward, we would only attend sacrament meeting. 3 weeks ago we started to attend all of our meetings and my first Sunday in Relief Society they introduced me as the "special guest" even though I had been in the ward for 3 months and they had already introduced all the new people and did the announcements and sang the opening song. I am sure they meant well but I just felt out of place.

I know most of them know that my husband and I were not married in the temple and most probably (more than I would like) know about our previous activity in the church, to me I feel out of place and awkward somewhat because of this. I am trying to be more outgoing in our ward, I even agreed to meet at 8:20 tonight to do my visiting teaching (my partner is the relief society president) and I signed up to do the October Craft on the 29th.

I know the church is true... the people don't always have me in fits of joy to go to activities but I know the simple fact that since Dan and I have centered our life on a common goal of working towards being better people we have been blessed in all aspects of our lifes. Heavenly Father blesses us and I can feel his love. I have always been very hard on myself and find that I feel guilty about most things I do and feel like their is no way Heavenly Father could love me.

This is the first time in my life that I feel like I have made the right decisions in working with our bishop and working towards our goal to be sealed together forever and that what we chose to do was right for us and we will be blessed. As often as I have seen people rush into marriage or dishonestly go through the temple I am glad we have waited and the joy of our sealing and our marriage has been so better because of this.

Wedding Photos!

Album 1
Album 2

I couldn't have asked for more perfect beautiful pictures to remember our FABULOUS day. I have a shrine of them at work and I adore staring at my Daniels face as much as possible! haha I am a true dork. I posted these because I realized I had deleted my album post... Its more for my sake than anyone else... This blog is like a journal for me... I'm even more of a dork.

Life's blessings!

Dan came home this past week with a bouquet of daisies and was so cute in having worked on this slide show of 101 reasons why he loves me. It was so cute and made me bawl. He is adorable. It was also cute idea of him to do since we had been married 101 days... Cheesy, maybe but I absolutely adore him for the things he does for me!My good friend Kate Brady had her baby shower yesterday it was so much fun! Her baby boy, Archie Bernard Brady, is due November 4th!

Michelle, Me, Kate (and Archie), Jeanine & Sarah

These girls were my roommates when I was 19! We had so much fun and I love each and every time I get to hang out with them. I was there for 6 hours and it went by so fast! Archie will be the first baby born to our little group! We are all so excited!

Today we had a great morning meeting with our bishop. He is such a blessing in our lives and so sweet to us both. We are so excited for events to come and we're thrilled to hear that what we are working towards is coming sooner than we ever thought! We are looking forward to the end of the year even more and are just so excited for all the great things to come! In 3 months we will both have finished another semester and be 6 months away from graduation! We will also get to go home to Arizona for Christmas!

News Flash

I am overweight. I have struggled with my weight almost my entire life. I remember feeling fat in kindergarten, your average say 6 year old doesn't not (should not) come up with this idea on their own and I don't remember classmates telling me that I was fat so I pretty much know the source... Anyway I look back and I was a normal 6 year old, just tall. Whatever, I am far older than 6 and the self esteem body issue damage has been done and all I can do is work through how I feel.

Time goes by. I get to be a freshman in high school, I am doing okay, I am still overweight but in the grand scheme of things I was relatively normal for an adult. Then my parents go through their divorce. I get really angry and depressed and food became a comfort. I gained a lot of weight in high school and I wish I could go back to those days and reorganize my behavior and unhealthy eating habits. But regrets die hard and we move on, right?

I get to college. Now I am significantly overweight. I go through my freshman year and finish and realize I hate being overweight. I start doing weight watchers and lose a lot of weight, yet I become obsessive about it and it didn't end up being the healthiest thing for me at that time in my life. I was convinced my life would be so much better if I was thin. I was wrong. It did make me susceptible to the male audience that I had never received attention from and little did I know at the time most guys that I met in Provo did not want to get to know me for my mind.

So heart break, heart break, abusive relationships, heart break, etc occur.

Then I get sick... I get so awesomely sick that I can't get out of bed or go to school for that semester. I get so sick that I can't run which was my life line to staying thin at that time. I pick myself up have some more abuse and heart break and then I meet Dan. Dan accepted me for the "man hating basket case" that I was at the time. He saw me and wanted to know me. I am so thankful for him. He sees me through my Pseudotumor Cerebri and then is my husband when I find out about my insulin resistance.

Now I am at the state where I have had 3 significant health issues in the past year and a half and have gained back most of the weight I lost originally. I need to lose weight in order to be a healthy person but now I realize I don't need to lose weight to be accepted. I think about my future and my children and I now want to change for completely different reasons.
I am a public health major. I have a great worth of knowledge about what it takes for people to live long lives and be healthy. I know I am one of the only overweight people in my classes but still I come everyday and talk about lowering peoples risk for diabetes and childhood obesity levels. I think to myself... "will I ever be a marketable candidate for a position if I cannot portray myself as living what I preach?"

Well by the demands of my doctor and her threats on my future I am back on healthy regime. I don't mind it, I actually quite prefer it, however sometimes I fear my obsessive competitive attitude will manifest in an unhealthy way. Dan has me in check however.

I miss running. I used to run, a lot. I used to run all over Provo and I miss that dearly. I am not working into getting into the perfect pair of jeans, I am not looking to set off on the runways of New York or Paris or even Provo.... I am looking to run again, because when I ran I felt so free.
This may be of interest to absolutely no one, but these are the things I don't tell people. These are the things I hide away from peers and friends. Well guess what, I'm not hiding anymore.

Dinner at the Seville

If you don't already know this semester I have fell in love with gerontology. Strange as it may be I am very interested in this field. Tonight for my health and aging class we went to one of the local retirement homes to have dinner with the residents. Each student was to pick a table and talk to the residents through dinner and then write a 3 page paper on what they talked about. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to remember enough to write the paper but upon arriving home I was able to write 3 pages easy on what we had talked about.

The three women I sat with were all in their 80's. One was 88! She had been married for 63 years when her husband passed away 7 years ago and she was married at 18 years old! She told me of the years that she grew up in Minnesota and her many years as a seamstress, raising four children and eventually running a fabric store. She was very sweet and she currently spends most of her time working on humanitarian projects for children around the world.

The other 2 women were not as talkative as the first but they were also kind and enjoyed living at the Seville. One was married at 17 and a half and the other at 22. There marriages both lasted about 30-40 years before their husbands passed. They all had great senses of humor, joking back and forth and telling me about their friends that they had their. The most common phrase said amongst the three was "I can't hear you!"

They were so excited about my recent marriage and my upcoming graduation. One of them told me to never get old because its the pits and just started laughing. They were so fun. To say the least I see getting old as an honor. My mom scoffed at me when I told her I am excited to get old. I guess what I was trying to say is that you either die young or grow old and I want to be able to have a full long life with my dear Dan!

Anyway I am excited to get involved at Jamestown Assisted living for my internship and to be able to interact with the residence their everyday!

My baby is turning 11!

Carley is favorite little cousin! She was born October 1st 1997 when I was 11 years old! I was so excited for her to be born I couldn't even stand it! She was going to be the closest I ever came to a little sister! My mom took me to the hospital to see her the day she was born. She was so cute and little and I can still see 1 day old Carley in my mind!
I stayed with her family often and babysat her and loved being able to be there to watch her grown up. She was such a bubbly and happy baby! I remember many a time taking care of her and playing dress up. It was also so fun when her little brother, Chainey, came along 8 1/2 years ago and I had even more fun playing with the 2 of them!
I have missed them so much in the 4 years I have been away at school! Carley turned 7 just after I left for school. I cannot believe that she is almost 11, the same age I was when I fell in love with her as an infant! I can't wait for the day that I have a little girl and Carley can take care of her!

One Year Ago Today My Life Changed

This is the adorably cute boy I started dating a year ago!

This is the handsome man I married 3 months ago!

One year ago today I spent my entire day in bed. I slept all night and all day! I woke up around 5 pm and hit myself in the face because I couldn't believe how my life had turned out.

The night before one of the guys I had been seeing was questioning me about my relationship with his roommate. I asked him "WHAT RELATIONSHIP!?" He asked me about his roommate and I's break up the week earlier and I told him it was news to me because "How could we break up if we weren't even together!?" In my mind by the point I hadn't been with with his roommate. We were not dating. I spent a lot of time with him and yes at some points I liked him and others I thought he was a complete jerk and for the most part I was just "seeing" him in the sense that I saw him, we would hang out, and that was it.

The two of them had just became roommates and I was constantly sick about the fact that the guy I had been hanging out with, would find out about his roommate and I. It made me sick to my stomach and more depressed than I had ever been in my life. I felt like a fraud and wanted out of the situation. I had felt stuck for so long. That entire summer I had felt like there was no way out, that I was destined to lose.

I had met Daniel on July 4th, in the middle of that summer. Dan liked me but I was convinced that he would just treat me like every other guy had treated me. He seemed so nice but I assumed it was just an act. How completely wrong I was. My phone broke in July and I let that be my excuse for not continuing talking to Dan. Although I thought about him and thought well maybe I should give him a chance or maybe I should email him, but instead of following through on my thoughts I spent most of my days upset, crying and in bed.

I had finally realized how much torture I had been putting myself through. I would never end up with either of these guys, thankfully, and as long as I continued hanging out with them I would continue to go no where in my life because I would never take risks or try. And I would continually feel like a piece of garbage that could be used and thrown out at their desire. I had to leave so I did just that and never went back!

That is when I went into my 18 hour slumber. I woke up at 5pm on the 25th of September to a text message from Dan. We had been talking again for well over a month. I would tell him all about what was going on with my crazy life and he would continually ask why I put myself through such torture. He was such a good listening ear and I was so thankful to have someone who didn't judge me and just wanted me to be happy. Dan had been asking me out on a date for awhile and I could never fully agree sometimes I thought he was tricking me into it. He asked me again on the 25th but this time he just asked if I wanted to come over. He had just bought a cool new video game and was on his school break so he thought it would be fun if we hung out or did something. I finally agreed. I pulled myself together and spent the next hour getting ready.

I showed up at Dan's house and thankfully I called him before I went to the door because he told me his house was the third on the left when it was actually the forth. I met his sister Lisa briefly that night and hung out with Dan as he showed me his new game Halo 3. He was such a sweet heart and I kept telling him it was not a date we were just going to be friends! He took me to Los Hermanos that night and it was one of the best nights and meals I have had! We went back to his house and started to watch a movie, however I could not understand the accents of the people in the movie I asked Dan to change it. I had brought over Arrested Development and we started to watch an episode or two. I don't think Dan thought they were that funny but it was just nice to sit there with him. I remember he held my hand and I got a little freaked out. I was thinking, "hey this isn't a date!"

Anyway I called it a night really early and drove myself home. Dan was leaving for California the next day and was dying to see me before he left. I remember walking across campus thinking I was crazy and told him that we had to wait until he came back from California. We talked the whole trip (his mom told me just a few weeks ago that they remember it was like Dan wasn't even there because he was constantly text messaging!)

To say the absolute least, Dan is the best thing that has ever happened to me. He makes me try harder and he causes me to look at things in a different light. He is outgoing and positive and he loves me for who I am. I don't know how all this could happen in one years time but its been the best year of my life. I have learned so much more about myself and have started to act responsibly to work towards my future.

Anyway this is a super long post but I love my Daniel... he is my night and shining armor!

Our Traditional/Non Traditional Wedding

Outside of the Secret Garden

My Dad walking me down the Aisle

Our first kiss as husband and wife!

We were so stinking happy!

The wonderful group that was at our wedding!

I love South Mountain so much!

Salt Lake Beauty

More Bob Boyd Beauty! I love the Salt Lake City Temple!

Fall is here!

So far I am 3 weeks into school and everything is going well! I haven't missed a class yet which is quite a success for me. My classes aren't too bad and this is my last semester with a full class load. I have already started doing some research into what I would like to do for my internship. So far I have decided that I am minoring in Gerontology and that I want to do my 9 credits of internship at Jamestown Assisted Living in Provo. Its just 3 miles away and I would be planning activities for the seniors that live there. I am looking forward to walking during the April graduation and finishing up with my internship in June!

We celebrated Dans 22nd birthday this past week! His birthday was on the 18th but we started celebrating the Saturday before! He had a great birthday and I want to thank everyone who made it a great week for him even though he had finals!We also celebrated my sister in law Kandace's birthday and my father in law Mark's birthday this last week!

I have to say that I am so proud of Dan. He has just finished his 5th quarter at Neumont University and got amazing grades!! He has 3 quarters left and I am so excited for him to start his career. We have discussed our post grad plans and are hoping that Dan has a job lined up before he graduates. I am hoping that we can move to either Las Vegas or Phoenix. Those would be my top two places to live! Either way I am looking forward to finding a full time job at a senior center or assisted living home as well as becoming a Certified Nurses Assistant.

Yesterday we went car shopping (not for now but hopefully the near future)! I officially hate shopping at dealerships but we drove some cool cars! We are looking at getting a Hybrid and so we looked at the Toyota Prius, Camry, and Highlander! Dan and I agreed that the Prius (although gets about 45 mpg) is very small and has an obstructed rear visual field. Dan loved the Camry, it was tons more roomy and has a sleek design. I loved the Highlander for its 3 rows of seats and SUV style while still getting almost 30 mpg! For now we don't have to worry about it but I look forward to getting a new car in the future!

Anyway, Fall is here which means winter is around the corner. I truly hope that next winter we will be living somewhere a little warmer!!

Saying goodbye to Grandpa Rex

Last night at about 12:07, I would say, as I had just finished writing (what is now because it wasn't going to be at the time) the last sentence of my last post, Grandpa Rex stopped breathing. Dan and I had offered to take watch over Grandpa last night to give Dan's mom and two aunts, Joan and Mary, a break so they could sleep. At 11 Dan and I gave Grandpa his medicine and made sure he was comfortable. I took his temperature and found it was 100.2 and his pulse was up in the high 80's and his is normally very low. His heart beat had also been weak and irregular.

Dan went to bed for just a little bit but decided to come back and stay with me in Grandpa's room and I am so thankful he did. Because of that decision and I would say the spirit we were able to get to Dan's mom and her sisters much faster than I believe either of us could have done alone.

Dan and I looked at each other for only a moment as to what to do. We both sat down our computers and went to Grandpa's side. I tried to find his pulse and it was very slow and weak and I also put my hand about 2 inches above his month and nose to feel if any air was coming out. I told Dan to go and he ran faster than I could ever have done. Within what seemed like 2 seconds Kathy, Joan and Mary were standing by their fathers side as he took 2 more gasps of air. We all were trying to find his pulse and held our hands on his arms and chest.

It was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. I have always been scared of death, but one thing I learned last night that death is lots of things, but one thing it was not was scary. I appreciate and love grandpa for all he has done. He taught me so much in the year I have known him about strength and independence (sometimes to the point of far too much independence) but he was a fighter, he was strong and he loved doing things for himself. I am so happy that right now he is with his sweetheart Donna. They have been apart for 21 years and I am so excited for both of them.

I hope Dan and I can have as an amazing a life as Donna and Rex have had. With trials and children and love.

Staying up with Grandpa Rex

This week has been an interesting start of school for me. It involved its usual struggles over financial aid, shuffling between work and classes, and forgetting to do homework assignments that were already due. But this week was interesting because I started working with my acedemic adviser on how to get me outta here in a year with a diploma! We discussed internships and I have to go back to make sure I have all the classes I need.

I am taking a class on "Health and the Aging process," upon attending that class I decided to pick up the Gerontology minor/certificate to my to do list to graduate. I only have to take 1 (maybe 2) more classes to fulfill the requirement, they will give me 200-500 dollars just for doing it and it will bump me just up to 120 credit hours I need in order to graduate. I would like to complete my internship working with the elderly as well!

I have extensive experience in working with people with disabilities and I figure I really enjoy doing what most people wouldn't want to do. Seeing as I didn't even realize until this last year (blind and ignorant I am) that people would dislike people with disabilities, be scared of them, judge and be prejudice against them.

I really enjoy elderly people. I have always found such an honor and beauty in the fact that they have had the privilege to live a long life. It is something I want to have and in my own personal opinion, those newly born and those close to death are the two closest things to God that I have found on this earth. I have been around newborns and have felt their peace and spirit and this week I have been around Daniels grandfather, Rex, as he is transitioning to pass.

He is 95 years old. He has always been a kind, good humored man with a big heart.