Come What May and Love It

I was talking to a friend today. He told me that depression was a choice. He was totally convinced that I could just turn off the depression and be fine. I told him it wasn’t. We agreed to disagree, but I feel like there are a lot of people out there that believe the same as my friend. I am here to say that depression, at least for me, is not a choice. Why would I choose to feel this way or have these thoughts? I wouldn’t. However, I do have a choice in something. I have a choice in how I react. For people who have not been depressed before, know that it is a dark place. Sometimes you cannot feel the light or see any hope. Even with the view of the Gospel, some days are really hard. Elder Holland said the following “But today I am speaking of something more serious, of an affliction so severe that it significantly restricts a person’s ability to function fully, a crater in the mind so deep that no one can responsibility suggest it would surely go away if the victims would just sq...

This has been something that I have been studying out for a while now. For those who have not heard the EFY Medley (or want to listen to it again because it is amazing) you might want to listen to this first: (Side note: I got to sing a new version this in a fireside that was conducted by Sister Janice Kapp Perry- the woman who wrote both the songs sung in this medley. Needless to say, I was crying the entire time.) All of my life I have been told (along with all the other youth) that I was saved for these latter days. We sing about it. We hear talks about it. We have Sunday School lessons about it. This Sunday, Elder Russell M. Nelson gave a wonderful CES Devotional about this idea. It sparked some questions in my mind... Why was I saved for these days? What do I have to offer? How can I make a difference? I would like to tell you about an experience that happened almost a year ago... The week before General Conference in October, I started thinking about a mis...

So my co-workers are amazing and sometimes we hang out outside of work. Today, during and "Unofficial Mentor Hangout" we talked about placing people in boxes. One of these co-workers loves to talk about sexist and racist comments and how they aren't true. Seriously, this conversation comes up every time we are together. Today was fun though, so I wanted to reflect on some of it.  I love this picture, FYI. This is not what I expected when I went to Google Images. The idea of putting someone in a box is believing in a stereotype. For example, "Elementary Education Majors come to BYU just to get married- they aren't really that smart." While this is true for some people, it is not true for me. However, much of the time after saying my major people will place me in a box with the stereotype. They will think I am stupid and going into a dead end career- but this is a rant for another time. Anyway, so we are constantly putting people in boxes. I know I am...