Adjusting Focus

Since leaving my home in Massachusetts to go to my first semester at BYU-Idaho in 2016, I've managed to move/have new roommates every few months (and on a mission a new area and a new companion every so often). Though I like to plan out my life, I've grown accustomed to knowing no place is ever permanent for me. My move to Utah, though, would be different. I planned on being here for a while to get state residency, and hopefully apply to grad schools close by. That meant Salt Lake would (most likely) be the longest I've ever stayed in one place since high school.  I've come to realize that the inconsistencies of where I live and who I'm living with has been harder than I've led myself to believe. I used to tell people I loved the change of never being "still" for too long. In some ways, the change is nice. Moving and living with new people every so often has allowed me to meet my closest friends, and have some incredible memories/experiences. On the ot...

Good Friday was yesterday. Many (if not all) of you participated in, or at the very least saw a post about, the Worldwide Day of Prayer and Fasting. My heart remained heavy as I saw these posts and these invitations to join. I found myself struggling to have the desire to participate because of the betrayal I've felt from an organization I've dedicated my short life to. Before I continue, though, let me say this; I am in no way bashing on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Personally, I would never do such a thing. It's something that offered me a lot of good growing up, and is something many of my loved ones know to be true, and I highly respect that. There are also parts of it I still believe and find good in. When watching General Conference last weekend, I recognized a large shift in what my life was like not that long ago. Flashes of my last conference, just last October, crossed my mind, because shortly before that conference, as I was pushing myself t...

Your body is a temple. It's a gift from God.  Treat it well.  Somewhere, somehow, at the age of probably 14, I decided my body was disgusting. It's a strong word, but it's exactly what I thought. I looked in the mirror, day after day, feeling like there was too much of me there. I wanted to be like the other skinny girls; I couldn't handle looking like the ones society labeled as 'big'. It set me off into a storm of tears and stomping on the scale.  I thought things were too tight on my body. I thrived when my guy friends would comment on how small I was. I loved when girls at school would say how good I looked. There was one morning I weighed myself and hated the numbers I saw on the scale. I sobbed and told myself I was too fat, that no one would ever like me, that I had to be better the next day. During my advisory period a boy told me I was skinny and I thought, "Oh, he thinks I'm skinny, so I must be. I'm doing okay." Followed by, ...

"I have absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever AT ALL, that this is Christ's church, that the covenant path is ALWAAAAAAAAYYSSSS the easier, happier, more joyful, better path... [Christ] loves each and every single one of us more than we can ever comprehend." Nearly a year ago I wrote this in my final email home to my family as I prepared myself to leave my full-time missionary service for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. For 18 months I spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. I found a love for others I didn't think was possible. Leaving was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Following my homecoming, I felt a small burden lifted from me as I could finally take a nap, I could sleep past 6:30am, and stay up as late as I wanted to. I didn't have to wear a dress anymore and I was back to being a regular 20 year old. Music was such a huge part of my life and I was glad I could listen to old songs that used to make me happy and discover new ones. But d...

I'm currently writing to you as I sit on a blowup mattress in my brother and sister-in-law's living room, with what turned out to be a really bad braid, and with nails that are too long, so typing is actually really irritating. BUT I've had a post I've been meaning to write down for a while, so here I am. If you've followed up on this blog since the beginning of the year, you'll know my 2019 life motto is " Bloom ." It's a word which I feel sums up what this whole year was going to be for me- and it has. The year's not even over yet, but boy oh boy have I learned so much and found more of myself than ever before. I started college again, was seriously depressed and so anxious I barely left my room, decided to see a counselor on campus but he turned out to be... the worst... started the journey of medication, found a new therapist, ended up with a boyfriend for a brief time, gained and lost friends, started getting slightly political on social...

I define myself by a thousand things that probably don't matter in the long run; I'm anxious. I'm brown. I'm this and that and the list goes on. If I'm to be completely honest, most of them are negative. As I began reading a book ( Brave Girl Eating ) for a class I'm taking this semester, I realized that I've been forgetting my most important identity that isn't defined by the world and by myself. I am more than my problems and the things that have happened to me in the past. This will be an unplanned continuation from my  previous post on perfectionism- a lesson I'm still desperately trying to learn and apply in my life on a daily basis. As per usual, I'll be honest. In my Abnormal Psychology class we talked about how there is such a stigma around mental health. It's improved a lot over the years, but there's still a long way to go. As a future social worker and one who is generally passionate about mental health and bettering lives,...

This weekend I was blessed to be able to go down and visit my mission again. I got my old car back and was able to drive around to see some old places I served in and visit some wards I was in too. It ended up being much more therapeutic than planned and I learned a lot and I needed a place to share that, so here we are. On Sunday I attended two different wards. I walked into my first sacrament meeting and looked around at this congregation of people I had grown to love. In this congregation sat three people I met who were either baptized or learning more about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It made me miss teaching and I wondered what more I had to offer in being home. The meeting ended and for the first time I was able to hug one of the guys I taught (as a sister missionary we weren't allowed to hug those of the opposite gender). I gave a big ol' hug to another one, and was able to talk with another girl I'd been teaching right before I left. Fo r a mo...

Leaving on a mission is a hard thing. Suddenly it feels like all of your support systems are gone. You're thrown into this foreign place (some more than others) with new people and new cultures, and suddenly it feels like your weakness are being shouted from the rooftops. When I first came to Utah, I wasn't sure I would be able to do it all. The task ahead seemed daunting. I had no idea what I was doing. And mission life is nothing at all like the life I had before. But missions are an amazing thing. The thing is your support systems aren't all gone. Our Heavenly Father is right there beside us. I remember the first night I was in Murray, in my first area in Utah. I knelt by my bedside and immediately started to cry. I told God I needed Him, that I wasn't going to be able to do any of this without His help. I needed His help to speak, to walk, to get up every morning, to do everything He called me to do. And looking back I can see He was truly right there, standing ri...

This will be my final blog post for the next 18 months as I leave to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I'm nervous, excited, happy, a little sad, prepared and not so prepared, and everything else in between. It's a weird experience to be packing while also trying to finish a TV series when you only have two days left. I can't believe the time has finally come! Tuesday at around 8pm I'll officially be a sister missionary. Though I've had many friends go on missions and some come back, though my three brothers have all served their missions, and I've had a sister-in-law serve as well, I'm not entirely sure I'll actually be fully prepared to leave and start my own mission on Wednesday. I've been told a lot of things but the reality of it all is that I'm going to have to learn it all on my own. I'm definitely scared and my feelings of inadequacy have increased since getting my call but at the end of the d...

My mission papers were submitted within the first few weeks of returning back to BYU-I. A couple weeks later, when I was hoping my call would arrive, I was notified I needed a pre-mission evaluation. In that moment, my heart was slightly crushed. I wasn't sure how long it would take to get an appointment with LDS Family Services and how much it would push my call back. I called as soon as I could and got an appointment as soon as possible, even if it meant missing a class. After the evaluation (which basically just checked to see if I would be emotionally fit for a mission- I had to discuss my struggles with depression, anxiety, etc.) my papers would need to be resubmitted. I expected it to take another couple weeks. I checked the mail often. For a while there was nothing. Once the call was finally sent, I checked the mail pretty much every day. I continued to feel down and discouraged about the lack of getting the call. I knew of a good amount of people who'd gotten their cal...

As a little girl, the idea of serving a mission was something I desperately wanted to do. The older I got, the less this seemed to be. I just stopped thinking about it. But years later, my first youth conference focused on missionary work. I was paired with another girl and we would be 'companions'. We taught a lesson to some stranger, I felt the spirit, and bore my testimony at the end of the weekend. I said how that experience, the whole three days, showed me that being a missionary was something I wanted to do again, despite how much the idea of being away from home scared me. Once again, time seemed to fade that idea. For one Wednesday night activity we went to a zone conference, or something along those lines. A ginormous group of sisters and elders were gathered, with some extra people sitting in rows behind them. At some point, one of the elders was bearing his testimony. It was then that I had this overwhelming  feeling that I had to serve a mission. At the exact mome...