At least you aren't a pig

One of my favorite stories is found in Mark 4:36-41. This is the story of Jesus and his disciples on the boat crossing to Capernum when it starts to storm. The apostles start to panic and think they are going to die. It's interesting that they are so frightened when their profession is fishing. They are on boats all the time! It must have been pretty bad for them to be shaken up. However,  they failed to realize that there is NO way they are going to drown when Jesus is with them.  Heavenly Father and Jesus aren't going to let them fail if they are with Christ. 

Like the apostles, we often feel overwhelmed. We get scared, think we are going to fail, and possibly drown. I know everyone feels this way. How many times do we think to ourselves 'I can't do this anymore' or 'I'm failing at everything" ? It happens all the time in school, family life, and our professions. We need to remember that if we are in Jesus's boat, He is not going to let us drown. We are pushed and tested to prove our faith. Sometimes, it is a reminder of where we should be focused. 

I also find Legion's story very interesting. He's the guy who has been possessed by many devils. It has driven him to the point of uncontrollable despair. I sort of feel bad for the guy. However, I want to think about the devils for a moment here. They are spirits and they don't have bodies. They will never have bodies. There is nothing they wouldn't do to be able to have a body of flesh and bone. They will tempt anyone and everyone so they can get inside and reside within a body. They don't care about the body shape, size, color, skill etc. They don't care what it looks like, because without flesh and bone, you can't progress. Our body was a gift from God for our spirit to reside in. We take our gift of a body for granted. 

We complain about the way we look. 

We complain that we wanted straight hair instead of curly. 

We complain that we are the wrong size. 

We complain that we are too tall or too short. 

You know how insulting that must be for God? From a young age we are taught that when we are given a gift, we are to graciously accept it and be thankful. Our body is a gift from God, we should appreciate everything about it. 

When Legion asked Jesus to release the spirits from him, the devils asked Jesus, "...Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them." The spirits would rather have a pigs body, than no body at all. That is how important having a body is. So, love yourself. Be happy you have a body. They are important. 

Don't forget to be awesome!

BYU part 1

I've been to a lot of places and seen a lot of faces. 

Most of my summers have consisted of traveling around the U.S or even outside of it. Adventures has always been one of my family's favorite things to do. However, up until August 2013 I always had the same home to come back to. My family never moved. 

Leaving home was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I was leaving my 3 younger siblings to go on with their lives without me. It was crushing. I was going to a college where my family was over a thousand miles away and I was solely going alone. On top of everything being new and me being completely lost, I am introvert. I was terrified. However, I had heard so many wonderful and exciting stories of BYU. 

"It's the best time in your life!"

"You'll never be happier!!!"

While I believed in BYU as some sort of fairy-tale, I felt like I was leaving one behind in Oklahoma. 

My first semester was one of the most trying times in my life. Perhaps this was because I tried so hard to be someone I'm not, or maybe it was because I didn't have the support of a mother anymore. I felt like I was carrying the whole weight of the apartment on my shoulders and slipping in school. On top of all this, EVERYONE was dating...except me. I mean, I went on dates. It wasn't ever successful though. Stressful. 

I remember staring at the ceiling with my heart aching. I wasn't as pretty as everyone else at BYU, I couldn't compete. I didn't have the social skills, special talents, intelligence or spiritual aura the rest had. 

It wore me down piece by piece, day after day. 

I made friends, well a best friend. I was blessed with the tender mercy of having a roommate who was just enough like me that we were best friends, but also different so we didn't butt heads. I immediately felt like I could talk to her about everything. We'd lay on our beds and talk into the wee hours of the morning about life. Family, love, our worries, fears and future. If I didn't have her, I think I would have given up and gone to live at home. I don't think it was an accident that we were roommates. We were set up by a family who lives in my town and told me we should be roommates. Call it destiny or fate, but we both needed each other. God looks out for us, he always has :) 

But I struggled with my other two roommates. They were nothing like me. Now looking back, I think they were my roommates to teach me things so that I wouldn't have to go through those things myself. I quickly learned to clean after myself and dating wasn't what it all it was cracked up to be. I became an expert listener as I heard sob stories and a teacher when asked for advice. 

I learned to love the mountains. They were magical as I watched them turn from green to golden colors of red, brown and yellow then finally to white. I've always been in love with snow, it's so peaceful as it falls from the sky. You can always see God's beauty when it snows.

Here are a few things I learned my first semester:

1. Any boy can break your heart if you give them the power to.

2. I'm not even close to as smart as I thought I was.

3. Roommates make or break your semester. 

4. God is there, God is always there for you. 

5. You can ALWAYS call home too :)

Our Future and Awkwardly Facetiming

I've often wondered what our future will be like. Being the first generation to grow up fully submerged in technology we will be able to watch our fellow high school grow up, get married, land jobs and have kids. Our posts, tweets, pictures, and videos will live on in the past as a sort of dialog about our life. ...sort of like this blog! :D

I first started thinking about this when Amy (my freshman BYU roommate) and I started a vlog on YouTube. The thought occurred to me that my future kids could go back and watch me in moments when I was at college. HOW STRANGE!
The most I was ever able to get was the letters my mom wrote while she was at college, which were actually quite hilarious. It would be SO cool to see my mom talking to the camera when she was just a fresh college kid, instead of always being my mom.
I could see past boyfriends/girlfriends, family vacations, hit videos and songs that were happening in that era. Anyway, it was just a weird thought for me.

Onto story time! So Amy and I were sitting together trying to watch Pushing Daisies and while we trying to figure it out I got a phone call from our other roommate, Katy, who was a bit lost finding our mail. Anyway, we tried FaceTiming so we could see where she was at and direct her where to go.
*ring-a-ling* *ring-a-ling-a-ling* someone answers annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd IT'S NOT KATY. This older woman popped up on the screen and was like "hello!" 
...........
......................
...................................... oh brother.
We just kinda looked awkwardly at the screen and I sort of muffle/whisper to Amy, "where's Katy?"
I guess the lady realized we didn't mean to call because she said "I think you have the wrong number."
*awkward looks between the three of us* Amy says, "Uh, oops, Kaybye." As soon as she hung up I about peed myself laughing so hard. I was down on the ground unable to handle what just happened. C'est la vie.
Although I'm not sure why you would pick up a facetime from an unknown caller but that just happened.