Come What May and Love It

When I was pregnant, I was obsessed with reading other’s birth stories. Now, I feel like it is only fair that I write one of my own.   To Mitch-   It is ironic that you were born the week of the April General Conference. A year earlier- your father and I had received the inspiration that we needed to start trying to have a child much earlier than we had originally planned. We followed Heavenly Father’s counsel and had faith that it would work out. Now we have you! Your due date was March 24, 2016. I thought you would come early, but you apparently had other ideas. You decided to come late.  Every morning that week, I would wake up and check to see if my water had broke. Every morning, I was disappointed. I went into work on the 25 th and it was one of the most miserable days because I didn’t expect to be there. You silly goose! You kept us guessing from the very beginning. Your dad and I went into my doctor’s appointment on the 25 th . I still had not made any progr...

I have told this story so many times, I feel like I might as well share it on my blog. Our First Date (10/19/2013) People ask me if I was surprised to get engaged. The answer is yes, and no. I knew it was coming. I knew it was going to be in July. I just didn't know when or where. We had gone ring shopping a couple weeks before and I knew he had the ring, but I had no idea what it looked like. It was important to me and to Gariet that he pick out the ring. I told him styles and designs that I liked and didn't like, but I never told him which one I wanted. Honestly, I am glad I didn't have to choose because I would have never been able to make a decision! Kindred Dead Concert (One week after we started dating) Gariet's mom came into town about a month ago. It was fun getting to know her better and at the end of the week she gave us an 'early birthday gift' with passes to Thanksgiving Point. As Gariet and I were looking through the pamphlets, I notice...

Last Father's Day, I did a post dedicated to my dad. I felt it was necessary to also do a post dedicated to my Mom for Mother's Day. *Sorry Mom in advance for the pictures...I didn't get them approved by you. I figure I will ask forgiveness rather than permission :) As I have been pondering what I should write for my mom, I saw this quote by Sheri Dew (One of Mom's favorite speakers). "Few of us will reach our potential without the nurturing of both the mother who bore us and the mothers who bear with us." Yeah- when I read that, it hit me pretty strong. I was not an easy teenager. I can tell you that for sure. At the time I was struggling with depression and not really understanding what was going on in my head. It was all so confusing. This caused me to lash out on my family and storm off to my room. Yep...I was one of those teenagers. (I swear I am going to get a child worst than me someday). Looking back, I can't help but feel complete gu...

This blogpost has been going through my mind a lot these last few weeks, but finally I decided I needed to write it out after falling in love with this video. This month I have searched high and low for a modest swim suit. It is interesting to find out what the world now thinks is “modest”. Saying something was a “one piece swimsuit” used to mean that it was modest, but slowly even the one-piece suits have become lower cut in the front, in the back, and on the sides.   It is no longer modest when there is more skin than suit or it is just barely covering up the bare essentials.   It is interesting to see how my views have changed. Up until last year this girl was so insecure about her body that she wore a swimsuit with basketball shorts and a t-shirt. I know. I was pretty bad. But as I have come to appreciate my body more, I have wanted to stay modest without being prudish. Women have it hard these days. We live in a world that is plastered with images of Size 0 and...

This Easter season, there has been a trend going around with the hashtag "#BecauseofHim". I didn't want to follow the rest of the crowd, but as I started reflecting, I wanted to write a blog post about my thoughts. So here it goes... Because of Him... I get to study at this great university that is centered around the Spirit. It is amazing the kind of people you meet and experiences you get to have when it is centered around Jesus Christ. Because of Him... I have the most amazing friends in the whole world. I got to meet them through common beliefs and an understanding of Jesus Christ. Because of Him... I get to stay with these crazy people FOREVER. They are stuck with me whether they like it or not. Jesus died and was resurrected so that we may live again. We can be with our families forever. This is something I have grown to appreciate more and more as I have not lived in the same state as my family for three years. Because of Him... I am here. He helped me ...

*NOTE: I apologize for this post. I have been feeling really sentimental and this post just came out of all that. It is so interesting how your whole life can be altered by one decision. I was talking to some good friends. We were randomly just talking about how I became friends with his whole apartment in August. I had not really thought about when we became friends because I thought it was a completely different moment. Then he told me about when he felt that we had first interacted on a non-superficial level and how it really changed everything else. Let me rewind...It was the day before school started in August. I went over to a family dinner. I got stung by a wasp for the first time in my life (it was a very traumatic experience).  Then I texted the boy I liked at the time and asked if he wanted to watch a movie that night. He ended up being busy, and I ended up going home from the family get-together kind of sad. I had promised myself that I would get out...

To those of you who heard my testimony today, I apologize that I am repeating myself. This is an experience I just needed to write down for myself. Let's rewind to Monday night. I hadn't been feeling all that great. I had only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before. I just was ready to go to bed. I told myself that I would come home from FHE and go to sleep. I was in my pajamas by 8:30- crazy for a college student, right? One of my friends dropped in for a visit. After she left, I had one of those moments where I just felt completely alone. I went to my room and prayed when a few simple words came to my mind. "Heavenly Father, Are you really there? And do you hear and answer every child's prayer?" These two lines from the children's primary song were stuck in my mind. In the moment, it is easy to doubt that Heavenly Father answers our prayers. How can He really hear every single prayer around the world? How can He answer every single one? It just ...

I have been very open about my past depression. I have told people about my struggles, but I always make sure that I talk in the past tense. I need to be honest. It is not just in the past. Did I go through hard things back in High School? Yes. Have things gotten easier? No. Some days are harder than others. And I have had my share of bad days in the last year. In fact, last semester was probably the worst I have been in a long time. Anyway- a few nights ago got really bad really fast. I was feeling alone and in the dark. I sat in my car and just cried because of the rush of emotion and dark thoughts filling my head.  I decided to look up a talk by one of my amazing professors, Brad Wilcox. In this address, he talks about grace. I really love the talk and would encourage you all to read it . One thing he said was "So grace is not a booster engine that kicks in once our fuel supply is exhausted. Rather, it is our constant energy source. It is not the light at...

Yesterday, I took a group to go Hospital singing. We were having a rough time on the second floor. We were being told 'no' or 'not today' by every person. I was feeling sick to my stomach. Here I had gotten 15 people to give up their precious time on a Sunday afternoon and we weren't even able to do what we came to do! We got to sing to one person on the second floor. Then, I felt like we needed to go to the third floor. Realize that I have been going hospital singing for eight months now almost every Sunday. I had never been to the third floor before. But yesterday, we needed to go there. My goodness. It is indescribable the events that went down on that third floor. I am going to try to write them down for my own sake, but I will not do them justice. First we visited Lynn. He was an old man sitting in a dark room. I don't even remember what songs we sang, but afterward we just started talking to him. He had such a strong testimony. One person asked ...