Day #23- Prophets

I am thankful for prophets in our day. My favorite prophets being the ones I know they best, Gordon B. Hinckley, President Monson and of course my all time favorite Joseph Smith. 

The prophet I grew up with and he will probably always hold a special place in my heart. After all who couldn't love him, he was always so cheerful and happy, such a great example. 

I am thankful for the example they set for us. Joseph Smith is probably the best example of facing your trials with hope and overcoming them. Since I started seminary in 9th grade and we studied the Doctrine and Covenants one of my most favorite passages is in Section 122 verses 5- 9. Whenever I feel like I am going through a "hard" time I will read these verses. I'm not going to post all of them just the end. 

 7.  And if thou shouldst be cast into the ^apit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the ^bdeep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to ^chedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of ^dhell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee ^eexperience, and shall be for thy good.

8 The ^aSon of Man hath ^bdescended below them all. Art thou greater than he?

9 Therefore, ^ahold on thy way, and the priesthood shall ^bremainwith thee; for their ^cbounds are set, they cannot pass. Thy ^ddaysare known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore,^efear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever.

I remember the first time I read 5-9 in seminary and our teacher told us that every last "if" (there are 14) happened to Joseph Smith, I was surprised. It was at that moment that I decided if he could go through all that then I could handle my trials with a little less complaining. Those verses definitely gave me a little perspective.

I am so thankful for our prophets and being able to hear them speak in conference every six months. I was able to hear President Monson speak at women's conference in 2008, right after President Hinckley had passed away and Monson was called as the new prophet. All I can say is he IS the latter day prophet and he truly cares about the members of the church and even in a room crowded with women I could feel his love for me. I am thankful for prophets. 

Together Forever

 Now to get to the post I have been itching to get to ever since it happened! I decided to just put my photos throughout the post so that they will break up all my lengthy paragraphs. I apologize if I tend to wander I tried my best to keep my thoughts on track but there were just soooooo many things I wanted to say in this post, that I am absolutely sure it doesn't all flow.


 David and I got to be sealed and had our one year anniversary on July 12, 2011. Can I just say I have felt so much less stress since we finally got to do this, such a blessing. Originally we had planned on doing it in Bountiful but as the time got closer we both realized that because of travel times and some other things we needed to do it closer. It was kind of a difficult decision since neither of us really wanted to get sealed in Rexburg. I don't want that to sound negative because the reason why had way more to do with the fact that we didn't really have any personal connections to Rexburg, not because we have anything against the Burg.

That was when the decision was made. We would get sealed right here in Idaho Falls. In the end the decision came down to David. I knew that previous events at that particular temple bothered him but we both wanted as much family to come as possible and Idaho Falls was the way to do it. I also think it helped that I had only ever been there 3 times with that other person including when we got married and when I got my endowment. David and I had been to the IF temple more while we were dating then I ever had with anyone else. It just made sense.

Now before I continue what happened on our special day I would like to take the time to say some things about our first year together. One thing that I have come to know over the last year of being married to David can be summed up perfectly by a talk from General Conference April 2003 by F. Burton Howard called Eternal Marriage. In the talk he recalls his own wedding and how much his wife had wanted a fancy set of silverware, so much so that is was all she asked for in her registry. When they returned from their honeymoon and opened their things they didn't get so much as a knife, spoon or fork. His wife and him joked about it often but she went on to slowly scrimped and save up and buy each individual piece during their years of marriage. Then comes my most favorite part of the talk, and I just can't paraphrase it good enough so forgive me as I cut and paste the rest.

"I noticed that the silverware never went to the many ward dinners she cooked, or never accompanied the many meals she made and sent to others who were sick or needy. It never went on picnics and never went camping. In fact it never went anywhere; and, as time went by, it didn’t even come to the table very often. Some of our friends were weighed in the balance, found wanting, and didn’t even know it. They got the stainless when they came to dinner.

The time came when we were called to go on a mission. I arrived home one day and was told that I had to rent a safe-deposit box for the silver. She didn’t want to take it with us. She didn’t want to leave it behind. And she didn’t want to lose it.

For years I thought she was just a little bit eccentric, and then one day I realized that she had known for a long time something that I was just beginning to understand. If you want something to last forever, you treat it differently. You shield it and protect it. You never abuse it. You don’t expose it to the elements. You don’t make it common or ordinary. If it ever becomes tarnished, you lovingly polish it until it gleams like new. It becomes special because you have made it so, and it grows more beautiful and precious as time goes by.

Eternal marriage is just like that. We need to treat it just that way. I pray that we may see it for the priceless gift that it is, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

I love this talk. I was only 15 when I first heard it and I remembered thinking it was cute, not much else. This last year as David and I have been together I have been able to see David embody this principle (If you want something to last forever, you treat it differently... It becomes special because you have made it so) in our own marriage. I have read this talk a couple of times since we were married too, it brings tears to my eyes and I feel the spirit every time. In everything David does and says he is both sensitive and caring towards my opinions and feelings and I am so thankful for him. I am so thankful to have found someone who wants to make things work, and who tries his best even when I can tell he is running short. All I can say is that my one year of civil marriage was as blessed as it could have been because of the choices that David and I have made and I can feel and relay nothing but the deepest sense of gratitude to our families, friends and my Heavenly Father for helping us so much.

Having said all that I still have to admit that I let myself get all stressed out the day of. I really struggle with that. However from my point of view there were at least a couple of reasons that I'm sure any of you ladies out there could relate to. For example when we started driving to the temple it was raining... a LOT. All I could think was "Really?? Really? is this really happening TODAY?!?!" Meanwhile David as  usual is using his saintly ways to try to calm me down and make me feel better. That was right around the moment I realized I forgot my bouquet. I called home and tried to get someone to get it and I thought it had worked. This one is a little easier to laugh about looking back at. My bouquet never got to me that day it had been sitting on David's mother's sewing desk since we got to Idaho and that afternoon the little girl cousins decided to play with it, haha like I said funny and cute now STRESS in the moment. Then we got to the temple and the grounds were literally non-existent. They had dug it ALL up! When we received our Temple day reminder they mentioned "oh yea we are doing some construction on our grounds, we apologize for the inconvenience." I'm sorry but nothing in that said "we dug up everything but the big trees on our grounds and it looks like ground zero." Again I was stressing! 

 

We managed to get in and figure out where everyone needed to be and the spirit in the temple was able to finally calm my stress. We had so many family and friends that managed to make it and our sealer spoke beautifully. Everyone was teary eyed at least once. In fact I even felt like my Grandma Hazel was there as well as Macy and William (my great-grandparents that we share our anniversary with). What a great blessing to be able to be sealed to our families forever! In the end it was a great day and I do feel like we got some wonderful pictures. I'm so thankful for a church that expects difficult things from me it keeps me moving in the right direction with all the right people, most especially David. I love you David Warden! Here's to another 50 years (or more) of this stuff and more for our life after!

~Happily Ever After ~

You Won't Believe It

So I have made several recent blog posts and yet I still don't feel like I have told you all what has been going on around here. So now for the part you won't believe, I have officially been called as the young womens second counselor. I know shocking right? I can't lie I've been dying to be there ever since I got kicked out, I mean had to leave young womens, only now I think I can honestly say I'll be able to handle it (kind of, sorta or something like that).  Haha, also I think it's funny because I have been telling David for several weeks or possibly months now that if I got called to another primary calling I wouldn't accept it. Maybe that sounds bad but I'm seriously burned out on primary for the time being, it's the only calling I've had in the last 5 years.

 I still think the craziest part about all of it is I can remember my days in young womens vividly. I loved just about all of my leaders they taught me so much and helped me gain such a strong testimony of the gospel I don't know where I would be without their examples. Let's just say even though I'm totally excited but also a little freaked out.

In other news David and I moved our exercise bike into the living room and it's been great! I've been using while I watch our favorite TV shows for two weeks now, like Chuck :)

Oh yeah and did I mention that once again my job is NOT working out. I don't know what my deal is. Apparently getting Sundays off and an occasional Saturday is impossible here in Ohio. Also when I was hired I was told I would get 20- 25 hours a week and it would go up the longer I was there. Well now I'm working on average 16 hours a week, I never know my schedule more than a week in advance and I'm trying to juggle a church calling that requires me there every Sunday (nursery was the same way).

Some times I feel like I'm just complaining and I need to get over it but EVERY job I've had since we got here has had at least one severely down side. Dillard's made me work almost every Saturday, every other Sunday and most of all they wouldn't write a letter stating that I worked for them full time. If you are thinking "that's not so bad" just know this, that letter would have saved us David's out of state tuition for a semester ($15,000). Working at Fringe by Carrie made me crazy but most of all it made me feel like I couldn't do hair, oh yea and I was working 32 hours a week with a paycheck of $80 every two weeks (and most of the time it wasn't even that much). But she did write me the letter that saved us the second semesters out of state tuition.

Now at Smart Style I feel like I've finally gotten into my hair groove again and that is great, but I just can't handle not knowing my schedule and not getting the hours I was promised. I've been able to work with more ethnic hair lately which has been great fun! Just check out this cut and flat iron job I did.

I know what you are thinking "so shinny" and you are right

I really enjoy learning new ways of doing hair and doing different types of hair. 

 I just don't know what to do anymore. I was thinking about it all day today, or rather fretting, and by the end of my shift I had the best headache ever. Where do I draw the line? Why can't I just find a normal job? It's so frustrating! I am seriously at my wits end. I guess that is all for those subjects.

Great News

I just got a letter from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, office of the First Presidency, last night. As of October 19th 2010, David and I can plan to get sealed in the Temple on our 1 year anniversary. I was so happy I cried, what great news!!!! I felt the spirit so strong after I realized what the letter said, I just know David and I were meant to be together. After my experience with David at the Temple two weeks ago I am so happy to know that I can start planning to be sealed to him. What a great blessing. Everytime I am with David I understand the importance of marriage and how absolutely great it truly can be if you follow the gospel and you pick the right person.