Life today and how I'm going to fix it for a better tomorrow

I know I haven't posted anything lately but it's mostly because I don't really have anything to post. At least anything that is remotely interesting or anything that is new. I mean I do pretty much the same thing everyday. I wake up (normally around 8:30), watch a movie or read, eat some breakfast, watch some tv, read, play with Tony, play on my iPad, eat some lunch, watch more tv, read some more, drive, help with dinner, eat dinner, go to room, watch movie, fall asleep watching movie. Sure I get a lot of movies and tv watched but is that something I really want to be proud of. Absolutely not! Actually writing done my daily schedule makes me really ashamed of myself for being so lazy. I made a goal today to just try harder and to do something productive everyday. I think that I might start feeling better if I start actually doing something with my life instead of wallowing in self pity every day. It probably isn't healthy at all! So my goals and how I'm going to them? Well I'm going to make a plan right now. (I just realized in write a lot of lists on this blog but it's a good way to organize my thoughts, so once again here it goes)

Today I discovered this awesome daily planner on pinterest. It is amazing! It looks like this:

and this weekly planner that looks like this:

sorry they are so big but I don't know how to get them smaller. These are both courtesy of www.life's-a-journal.com. This lady is awesome and she has more than just these organizers. You should go check out her blog!

Anyways. So my goal to use these everyday. I printed out about 30 copies of the daily planner and 4 copies of the weekly planner. I put them in a binder and so far it's fantastic. I really like it because I can record everything I need to (that i used to have to record in all different areas) all in one spot. It's awesome. It also helps me keep/ make goals. So far I am loving them! Hopefully these are going to be something that actually stick. I think these planners are going to make me way more organized productive. If that didn't top it off aren't they just so cute! They are pretty. I wish I had a talent to be able to do that with computer!

On these planners there are daily goals and daily to dos. On these I'm going all the things that I want to accomplish in that day (duh). For example, today I wrote that I wanted to make my bed and pick up my room. I also said that I wanted to go for walk. I think because they were actually written down I actually did it. It feels amazing to be sitting on a made bed in a clean bed. I feel pretty accomplished today. Even if to some people that may seem very simple, it is something that is productive for me since I haven't been very productive lately.

Just a side note. Over the years I have learned that making smaller goals and slower working up makes you feel more accomplished and your more likely to succeed. So by making the goal to just make my bed today I accomplished my goal easy. It was something that i knew I could accomplish and tomorrow my goal is the keep my room clean, make my bed, and clean my bathroom. See how all I did was add something. This is the way that i have learned to make goals. I take baby steps, one day at time. This is also the plan that I'm going to take with my new exercise/ diet plan. Make easy goals that aren't to far out of reach. Such as instead of cutting sugar out of my diet, although that is my long term goal, my goal for right now is to cut down on the sugar, only have one cookie instead of three. Something that is going to be just enough of a challenge that I know I will feel better about myself at the end of the day instead of regretting that I didn't do anything at all that day. It is a great way for me to be productive.

So since this post is starting to get slightly long and it's getting late I'm going to end it.

Reaching my goals GMH

"Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice." -Wayne Dyer.

Ok, I have to save this really fast. When I find my quotes I just look up a subject on brain quotes and then choose the best one. This specific quote really spoke to me tonight. Mostly because it is so true. It is my choice everyday to not do anything and feel miserable or I could motivate myself and feel a little bit better about myself.

One of God's greatest creations (in my opinion)

 Overlooking the valley

 My amazing brother and his beautiful girlfriend

 The awesome Larson family and their exchange student

 Aren't they the cutest couple you've ever seen?

 I really liked this house for some weird reason. It was sitting in the middle of a beautiful field.

 The first picture of the Yosemite Falls

 I love this kid so much!

 Just some logs

 The river

 The river flowing away from the falls. We have never seen it this full!

 So pretty!

 This is by far my favorite pictures. It's so beautiful!

 Me and my family

 I still can't get over how pretty these falls are!

 The entire falls

 So magnificent

 The lower falls

 Larson Family!

I don't like the way that the new blogger is set up and I can't figure so I would have liked to put this explanation at the top but couldn't figure out how with the photos so I'm putting it here. I'll play around with it a little more and see if I can figure it out.
These are pictures from our trip to Yosemite in July with the Spain exchange students. This trip to Yosemite was one of my favorites ever. Yosemite was exceptionally beautiful this year because of all the rain/snow we've gotten this year. The rivers were so full which made the waterfalls amazing and more glorious than ever. It really was a magnificent thing to see. Yosemite is always beautiful but this day it was just unbelievably beautiful. The whole time I was there I kept marveling on how wonderful God's creations are. God really is an amazing person for creating this beautiful earth for us to live in and going to Yosemite was just another way for me to have that written into my brain.

Insecurites

Ok I am extremely insecure about so many things it's ridiculous. I dont think I'm that pretty, I feel like I have a weird personality, I don't have many friends, and many more but I feel like the all come down to the big notion of being accepted. I feel that I haven't been accepted in the past and so going into new environments scare me to death. I'm always afraid that people aren't going to accept me for who I am. I guess I'll kind of go through the entire background of where all of these feelings have come from.

It all really started in 6th grade. Since my family moved the following year and we were now in a new school boundaries I had to go to a new school for 6th grade. Now this was one of hardest things I've had to do. Before this I never considered myself shy but I think this where I got some of my shyness from. It was really hard for me to approach someone and talk to them and yet no one was talking to me. I spent the first couple of months either by myself or hanging out with my younger brother and his friends because I couldn't seem to make any of my own. As the year progressed I went from one group of people to the other...never really feeling like I belonged. At the end of 6th grade I started hanging out with some of the more popular kids in the 6th grade but even then I never really felt fully accepted.

In middle school I started the year hanging out with these friends and some of my old friends from my first elementary school. But once again didnt really fully feel accepted. With the kids from 6th grade, they had all known each other since kindergarten and I still felt like the new kid. With my friends from DeVargas I felt out of place because they had spent a year with out me and seemed to get along with out me just fine. Eventually I settled in with hanging out with some of my "less popular" (even though I really didn't care at all whether or not they were popular). I enjoyed hanging out with them for the most part but I felt like I only clicked with a small handful of them and I had one friend (we'll call her suzzy) that was pretty much my rock in that group. She was really the only person I felt truly accepted by in middle school. Until we got a girl (we'll call her Pam) from France come in the middle of eighth grade. She was really shy and worried about making friends so I befriended her and we seemed to hit it off quite nicely...or so I thought. The two of these friends pretty much made my group of real friends until they started to criticize the fact that I didn't swear, or I never wore immodest clothing, or that I didn't go to the dances because I wasn't comfortable there. They started to question my beliefs and started calling me a "goody goody". Ok ya so what if I am? If they were truly my friends they would accept me for who I am and not ask questions right? But no they started tearing me down and so cone again I didn't feel accepted.

So now going into high school. Suzzy moved and went to another schol across down so it was just down to Pam and I. Pam started to hang out with other people that I wasn't comfortable around so I started to hang around with the other Mormon folk at Tino. I was ok here but at the beginning I still didn't feel completely comfortable because they were all older than me and my best friend from church was in a grade younger than me. So I kind of once again was just there to make it look like I sorta had friends but I really didnt. Eventually I started to grow this great friendship with Carolyn Dye (she is up to this day my very best friend). Carolyn was there for me and I have no idea how to thank her for being there in my crazy emotional roller coaster. I love you so much. Anyways. In December two of my best friends who I hadn't seen in 5 years because they moved came back to California for a semester of school. To make a super duper long story short I started to like my best guy friend and he liked me too. (i was nt planning on sharing this but here it goes) with this guy liking me I started to feel more and more accepted. I had Carolyn and Brenna and this guy. Things were going great. I also started to feel more accepted at church dances because we hada pretty big group there. I felt truly happy for once. Well then comes summer and these two friends had to go home. Ya now this was hard but I still had Carolyn.

Nothing really eventful happened sophomore year other than the fact that I felt more and more out of place with my peers. It felt like the more and more I spent away from them there more and a more they seemed to not want anything to do with me. These are people that I actually thought I was sorta friends with. Turns out I was wrong. I started being that person in class that when you were doing a group activity I was the one with out a group or a partner. People never really talked to me in class. Once again I no longer felt accepted. Not to mention the fact that this was about the time that the guy I mentioned early started to like a girl from where he lived. So now I feel lonelier than I had ever felt. This is a big reason behind my attendance record. I sort of stopped caring about my school work. Many days I would wake up and feel like it just wasn't worth going to school. I would pretend that I was sick and stay in bed all day just by myself. As time went on it got worse and worse. This continued through junior year. Pretty much the same thing just getting worse as it was confirmed upon me that I really didn't have any true friends that i could just talk to besides Carolyn. Little did I know it was about to get even harder.

Senior year. Senior year pretty much started out bad from the beginning. Over the summer I gained a lot of weight because I am an emotional eater. At the time I didn't realize it but i know I am now. I gained a lot of weight because I was so down all the time because I didn't have any friends and didn't feel accepted. There were even times when I didn't feel accepted in my own family or home. Anyways when senior started I was alredy super insecure because of my weight gain and not to mention the fact that I no longer had Carolyn because she had graduated and was off to BYU. I knew before senior year started that it was going to be tough. And it was!

It was about Novemeber when my parents started talking about moving. It started out with moving ot Evanston, WY. I though great this can be a new start for me. People who haven't known me my entire life, it's going to be great. Well Evanston fell through because my dad couldn't get a job so we started looking at houses in the Tracy, CA area. We ended up buying a house and moving in March of this past year. (this is going to be the hardest part to write). Moving in march wasn't really the best time to move...especially in your senior year of high school. There were only 2 1/2 months left of school and Manteca is one of those cities where everyone grew up together. At least that's what it felt like when I got here. Our ward is pretty small and I didn't feel accepted at all (i still dont really). I once again felt so out of place. Here are all these people who have known each other for I dont know how long and I'm the new girl. I hate being the new girl. I like my old ward where I was that person that knew everyone. I was in my old ward since I was born. It was so hard to leave them and then to come to Manteca and feel so out of place. All I wanted to do was just go back home! But I knew that was out of the picure. It was really hard for me to compete with Caleb. I know that partially my fault and I shouldn't blame him but it was hard for me to make friends when he was there. Caleb and I are complete opposites. He is super out going and good at putting himself out there and I'm just not. I'm shy and am afraid of being judged. So here's Caleb making all of these friends and he even gets a girlfriend and I once again get left in the shadows. A lot of times I feel like people can't see me...once again I didn't feel accepted. To get away from all of this I decided to go to Idaho with my sister for three weeks. Well when i came back it was worse. Caleb by then had all of these friends and I had zero. He was getting invited to all these things and I wasn't. I used to raise my hand in seminary to answer questions but now I just wasn't comfortable doing even that. The only people I truly felt accepted by were the Larsons and I thank them for that. They make me feel better when they invite me over to go to their house. When they take that extra mile to include me. Thank you April, Alyssa, and Anny for loving me. You really have gotten through all of this. Its the prospect of seeing you guys say hi to me that gets me church on days that I just don't want to face the world. I love you guys and once again thank you for loving me for who I am. I don't know if you guys will read but seriously thank you so much.

I still find myself wanting to go back "home" to Cupertino. Back to the Stevens Creek Ward. But even that has changed. My world is changing and I dont know how to deal with it.

Now I am facing the future. I am considering going to the single ward but then I wonder if I'm going to have to g through what I went through when we moved. I don't know if i could do that again. I know that's it's probably the only way that I'm going to be able to make friends and meet a guynbut still the whole thing scares me so much because all I want is to be accepted. That's all.

Today in Young Womens we had a lesson on being a friend. That's what pretty much inspired this blog because I've been thinking about friends today. I realized something today. I've been waiting for people to befriend me. To smile at me. But maybe if I took that easy step of smiling at someone or saying to someone maybe I could befriend some one. That lesson today was exactly what I needed to near and it GMH

April, Alyssa, and Anny...you guys GMH that I can be myself and people are going to like me for who I am.

Carolyn thank you so much for being my best friend and letting me be myself and for not judging me. Thank you for listening to me and being there for me when i was upset. Thanks for making me smile. I love you so much and I miss you terribly. You GMH

"A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same."-Elbert Hubbard

My non existent future/ what to do next...

Welcome to my brain. The following are things that have gone through my brain in the past couple of days. I've been thinking a lot of what to do next. A phrase that goes through my mind quite frequently is, I've graduated from high school...now what? For the longest time my goal has been graduate from high school, graduate from high school. Well I did that and i have no idea what to do now. I've waited so for the day that I could be an adult and make my own decisions about the rest of my life. Now that I'm here I'm so scared and lost. I thought I had everything figured out but the mo I think about I think of all the other things I could do. I've changed the type of career I want a thousand times because I second guess myself every few days. Let's just real quick go through all the options I've considered. (in order of time)

1.) My very first "real" career goal was to be a wedding planner. I love weddings and everything about them and I thought it would awesome to help out others on that very special day but the recession and all that good stuff kinda crashed that dream. I do sometimes return to this dream and think maybe I should just try but yaaaaa no. 

2.) After years of this whole "wedding planner" ordeal I decided to become a doctor, specifically an OBGYN. But you know all that schooling and bloode and stuff....ya not really my thing. 

3.) sooooo onto career number three! A secretary! Yup you read that right a secretary! Now call me absolutely insane but I love paperwork! I know weird huh? I've always sorta wanted to be a secretary for some very weird reason. The whole dressing up always getting to wear skirts and heels really appealed to me...ya once again not so sure about that one. Well eventually this career choice evolved into...

4.) ...option #4. wahoo! I think we're half way done with Miranda's career options! So option number was a medical assistant of some kind. The thing that appealed to me about this job was the fact that I could still be in the medical field and still be a secretary all at the same time! The point in time when I came up with this idea was when i was at my orthodontist office scheduling my next appointment and I thought that it would be really fun to do that. This job is probably the job I go back to the most (and the job I'll probably end up doing but we'll get to that later). This job really appeals to me and excites me and I feel I'd be happy and good at a job like this. My dream job is actually to work in the ER or something as a receptionist. 

5.) Healthcare Administrator. When I was researching vocational schools to learn more about option number 4 I came across a school in Utah that offers healthcare administration. So of course I was interested and researched it. Well this appealed to me even more than the last because not even do I get to combine the doctor and secretary but I get to be the big man. And sure that's still 6 more years of school but hey this seriously could be it. After a little of bit of making this my dream I went back to option number four but when I went to Idaho a couple of months ago I found out that BYU-I actually offers a healthcare administration bachelors degree. Ok are you serious? Now I get to combine my two dream jobs, be "the man", and now I get to go to my dream school to get there! Heck yes I'm all for it! Oh wait I have no money, haven't taken the ACT, and didn't get that great of grades in high school. Well bummer...dream crashed! At least for the time being. 

6.) So since I still really want to do option 5 I was tossing up ideas of how to earn enough money to go to school next summer. After a lot of days of thought I decided to try to find a nannying job. So I listed myself on all kinds of nannying websites hoping that someone would contact me. I also contacted families that I was interested in hoping to find a great job and earn lots of money. But ya I've never once gotten an email back... :( isn't that ridiculous? I mean seriously! I'm awesome! Maybe is has something to do with the slight lack of experience.....  
Ok something that bugs me about these websites is that when a family contacts us (the nannies) we are required to reply to every single message (ya this took forever because I had tons...heavy sarcasm), even just to say we aren't interested. don't you think that families should have that some rule? Maybe they do but they obviously don't follow them! Which I dont think is very fair. I kinda would like to know what you think even if your not interested. Anyways I'm done ranting about that. 
With the failure of the nannying idea (which I'm still pretty bummed about and am still hoping so if you know of anyone searching for a live in nanny Im willing to move anywhere so please have them consider me!) I decided to go with fulltime babysitting. I got a little bit of a better response but still people need to learn how to answer their emails or something! I ended up with a semi fulltime babysitting job. What I mean by this is that for the first two weeks of august I get to act like a dare care for a one year old while the day care is on vacation. This is a great start and will give me somewhat of resume but it also sucks because I'm only getting paid $165 a week and when calculated thats only $3.3 dollars an hour. If I was working for minimum wage I would have made $400 this week! Ya I think it's kinda a rip off. Especially since I'm working my butt off trying to keep up with this very active one year old for 10 hours everyday! I'm hoping that this will help me get a better more permanent job somewhere...

Soooooo I go between options 3-6 all the time. I can never figure out which one i really want to do and go back and forth between career paths.  So if you have any suggestions feel free to tell me cause I can use all the help I can get! 

Hello World

For some reason this week has been a really hard week. I really don't know why. I started off the week by going to The beach and then Santa Cruz beach boardwalk and had some bonding time with Tony. It was a great day. After that I had a lot of down time and time to myself to clean my room and just to think. Maybe it was all the down time with nothing to do that has made me so cranky i don't know. What I do know is I'm in one of those moods that littles thing makes me upset and I'm very snappy. I don't know what's causing it. Most of the time I have something behind the reason why I'm so upset but today I just don't...

On a happier not I have four more value experiences and need to finish reading the book of mormon and then I am done with my Personal Progress! I'm hoping to get those two experiences done in the next couple of weeks and then hopefully have the book of Mormon finished by then as well. I don't know we'll see! I'm sooooooo close! The end is sight. I have learned so much from personal progress it is amazing!

First off these past couple of weeks with actually reading the book of Mormon I have found the simple pleasures in reading the scriptures. I have never ever been diligent with reading my scriptures until the last couple of weeks. I am reading the book of Mormon with a tape that reads it to me and I follow along and mark scriptures that pop out at me and write things down that pop into my head. It really has been amazing. Somedays I just get so caught up in it that hi realize I've read ten chapters without even noticing. Scripture reading has never been this simple for me. I used to think of it as a chore, but now I look forward to the time that I get to be myself and read more about Christ and the people in the Americas. I have to admit that i am still in Jacob which isn't that far because I haven't been super diligent about doing it everyday but Jacob is the farthest I've ever been in the book of mormon. I just can't get over the fact that I used to hate reading the scriptures and now I absolutely love them! It seriously is amazing!

2.) I've learned diligence. It takes a lot of patience and diligence to complete some of The things in the Personal Progress book. But it has helped me learn how rewarded it is to stick to one thing and finish it before moving on to something else. I have enjoyed everyone of my projects even though some of them felt like they would never get done. It really is an amazing program. And yes it's taken me longer than some to complete it but all my hard work has paid off and I set a goal when I was 12 that I would finish it and I'm going to stick to that goal and get it done. I am so proud of myself for getting through it.

3.) I've learned why all the values are important to me.
The first value is faith. For my faith project i played a song on the piano called "I have not seen yet I believe". This song is amazing! The entire song is dedicated to the fact that christ did all these amazing things and though I was not there to see him nailed to the cross, I was not there to see him heal all the people He healded, I did not see Him feed the five thousand, and most importantly I did not see Him rise from the dead yet I still know in my heart that He did all of these things for me and for you. That is what faith is to me. It is simply believing without seeing. For the longest time I didn't understand that but as of right now i do. I know that christ suffered for my sins and that i can be forgiven of all the mistakes I make, big or small. I know that He will always be there for me. I know that He has gone through every single thing I have and will go through. I know that He will come again and it is coming sooner than some of you may think. I know that he was resurrected and that because of this I will be resurrected. I know that he lives and that even though I can't imagine how it's possible I know that i am going to live forever because of what he did for me. I have not seen all the amazing things he has done and yet I believe. Wow until this moment I didn't realize all the amazing things he has done.
Divine Nature. I have learned that I am divine and that I am a beautiful daughter of my heavenly father. I have divine nature as a woman. I am supposed to be a mother and a homemaker. For my project I made a Jean quilt for my sister. It was a good skill to learn and it something I can use in my future home.
Individual Worth. "Remember the worthnof souls is great in the sight of God." That pretty much sums it up. I have learned that I individually have worth and that I am a princess with Heavnely Father as my King and father. I am a child of God. I know I am and no one can take that from me. For my individual worth project I participated in my dad's readers theater about my ancestors. I learn more about where I came from.
Knowledge. I learned how to be a good mother and that even though I am now out of high school I don't get to just stop learning. I will have the opportunity to learn and gain more and more knowledge each and everyday. For my project I helped my mom with foster care. By doing this I learned how to take care of kids and a home.
Choice and Accoutablilty. I learned that how to use my free agency wisely. I have to admit that I didn't learn much from this part because I was already doing the things in it. One thing i did learn was that I wasn't being forced to do the things I did. I wasn't being forced to dress modestly, or not drink caffeine, or not swear. I learned that these were all guidelines of how to live and it was ultimately my decision to choose the way i wanted to live. This put a whole different perspective on agency for me. My project for choice and accountability was redoing my room. I made comforters, pillows, and painted my room. Sadly I dint think I ever got pictures of my completed room but it was fantasic. Along with this I reorganized my room.
Good Works. "Therefore let your light so shine before this people, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven." Need I say more? For my project I babysit for enrichment for a year. This gave me the opportunity to do service to others in our ward and have a fun time with the kids.
Integrity. I learned to be honest with my fellow men. To not cheat, not to gossip, and not lie. I learned that honesty is the key. For my project I participated in Starz on Stage. This is a dance group. I committed myself to being there at every rehearsal and every performance. I fulfilled this and was grateful for it. I was never behind in a dance and didn't disappoint my teacher.
Virtue. "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies." ummm ya that's about it. I haven't finished this project yet but I am reading the book of Mormon.

I learned a lot more from personal progress but since this already such an insane post I'm going to end here.

The amazing young womans and personal progress programs GMH

"Stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord comes" -D&C 87:8

Side note: its amazing how this post started super negative and ended positive and how much better I feel now that I did that. :D

Now off to some BOM reading! ;)

Hard Day

This is something i just need to rant about and is really hard for me to admit...

The fact is I am extremely insecure. I don't know why but I am. I am slightly over weight and haven't felt pretty in a long time. Today was one of those days that those insecurities got to me. I went shopping at the mall with my mom and I find all of these super cute clothes that I fall in love with. The hard thing is when I try them on they don't look good on me because they were designed for girls who don't really exist. I wonder all the time why I can't just be one of those girls who can eat anything they want and still stay super thin. I think that if I was even 10 pounds lighter I'd feel better about myself. And ya I have trie eating better and exercising but I get discouraged to quickly because I don't feel like there is any difference. Maybe I just need to accept the fact that I'll never be skinny. Today I once again came to the realization that I love clothes and love to shop but I hate to shop for myself. It takes an eternity to find something that has potential to look good on me and then I feel like its not the "in" thing to be wearing what I'm wearing. I don't know. I also hate having my picture. When I see a picture of myself I see what I feel inside. I don't think I'm that pretty and it's hard to see myself in a picture and have that shown in my face. A lot of times I find myself looking at pictures of when I was a freshman. I was pretty then. I tend to put these pictures up as my profile picture on Facebook. They are also all over my walls. It's in these pictures that I truly felt happy and the most myself. I think i really do just need to accept the fact that the weight isn't just going to come off on it's own, I'm going to have to work for what I want...

Another thing that sorta led up to this is when i was reading my cousin's blog. My cousin is a runner and she serisouly inspires me. She runs over 4 miles a day and does a full work out. It's ridiculous. I have always had this secret ambition to be a runner but the truth is I've never bee that good at it. I try to run and I can barely get around the block. I am so out of shape that i feel like that 1/2 mile isn't doing anything but that is all i can do. I want to be healthier I really do but sometimes it's hard...

Ok i think I'm done ranting now. Some good things that came out of today is that I got a new comforter for my bed that actually fits. It's brown. Boring I know but I love it! I also got a white board so I can write upliffting notes to myself. I got a planner so I can keep track of my oh so crazy life, which consists of really nothing. I got a super cute purse and super cute jewelry. So overall I think it was a pretty dang good day. I also finished putting my room back together. I organized my bathroom and cleaned off my desk. I really do have to say that my room looks pretty fantastic!

My friends and family that support through my craziness GMH

"The opinion which other people have of you is their problem, not yours"

GMH and Quote

I realized that in my past posts I forgot to say a quote and something that gives me hope.


Today I finished a friends album I started at girls camp two years ago. I finally put pictures in it! When I was making this album I really started to miss my friends and remembered all the amazing things they do for me. My fiends old and new GMH


"The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart." - Elizabeth Foley

Talk

I gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting about a month ago. My topic was prayer. This is a copy of the talk. Talk on Prayer Good Morning brothers and sisters. For those of you who don't know me I am Miranda Wardle and my family and I moved into this ward about three months ago. I was asked to speak on the topic of prayer. In Doctrine and Covenants 19:28 it reads, "And again, I command thee that thou shalt pray vocally as well as I thy heart; yea before the world as well as in secret, in public as well as in private." We are commanded to pray. Not only when we are asked to in meetings but we are commanded to have our own personal prayers. We are also commanded to say meaningful prayers. In Elder Bednar's talk at General Conference in April 2008 entitled "Ask in Faith" he states, "Meaningful prayer requires both holy communication and consecrated work...As we speak of prayer, I emphasize the word meaningful. Simply saying prayers is quite a different thing from engaging in meaningful prayer. I expect that all of us already know that prayer is essential for our spiritual development and protection. But what we know is not always reflected in what we do. And even though we recognize the importance of prayer, all of us can improve the consistency and efficacy of our personal and family prayers." Meaningful prayer doesn't include repetition and saying the same thing every night before you go to bed. Meaning prayer is thanking Heavenly Father for all the many blessings you have received with a humble heart, it is asking Him for things that are relevant in your life at that specific time, it is seeking to know the answers to questions you have at that specific time. It is asking in faith. In Doctrine and Covenants 8:10, it reads, Remember that without faith you can do nothing; therefore ask in faith. Trifle not with these things; do not ask for that which you ought not. We are to ask in faith. When we prayer we must put our faith in God that he will answer our prayers and he will. On lds.org if you search prayer one of the first things that comes up us this, "We are all children of God. He loves us and knows our needs, and He wants us to communicate with Him through prayer. We should pray to Him and no one else. The Lord Jesus Christ commanded, “Ye must always pray unto the Father in my name” (3 Nephi 18:19). As we make a habit of approaching God in prayer, we will come to know Him and draw ever nearer to Him. Our desires will become more like His. We will be able to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that He is ready to give if we will but ask in faith." We must learn to pray for all things. We need Heavenly Father's helpt in all that we do. President Spencer W. Kimball said... We must turn to Him in all things. Lately my brother and I have been not getting along very well. This is normal family behavior but I was starting to notice that our constant fighting was effected the rest of the household. This week I challenged myself to be patient with my brother and try to be kinder to him. I knew that I was not going to be able to do this on my own so I asked my Heavenly Father for help to be able to do these things. I immediately noticed that things that normally would bug me weren't so bad anymore. When he did do something I didn't like instead of yelling at him I tried to explain why I didn't like what he was doing or I would leave the room. In Elder Bednar's talk he shares this story. " Several years ago there was a young father who had been active in the Church as a boy but had chosen a different path during his teenage years. After serving in the military, he married a lovely girl, and soon children blessed their home. One day without warning their little four-year-old daughter became critically ill and was hospitalized. In desperation and for the first time in many years, the father was found on his knees in prayer, asking that the life of his daughter be spared. Yet her condition worsened. Gradually, this father sensed that his little girl would not live, and slowly his prayers changed; he no longer prayed for healing but rather for understanding. "Let Thy will be done" was now the manner of his pleadings. Soon his daughter was in a coma, and the father knew her hours on earth were few. Fortified with understanding, trust, and power beyond their own, the young parents prayed again, asking for the opportunity to hold her close once more while she was awake. The daughter's eyes opened, and her frail arms reached out to her parents for one final embrace. And then she was gone. This father knew their prayers had been answered-a kind, compassionate Father in Heaven had comforted their hearts. God's will had been done, and they had gained understanding." Sometimes Heavenly Father may have a different path than we had hoped for or the answer may be no, but as in this story we must find the courage and faith to stop persisting and instead ask for understanding or to change our prayers to having Heavenly Father's will to be done not our own. In Doctrine and Covenants 9: 8-9 it reads, " But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it is right and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right you shall have no such feeling, bur you shall have a stupor of thought that've shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong." In closing I would like to share an excerpt from President Hinckley's book, Way to Be. In the section under be prayerful he states, " You cannot do it alone...You need His help, and you know that you need His help. You cannot do it alone. You will come to realize that and recognize it more and more as the years pass. Live so that in good conscience you can speak with God. Get on your knees and thank Him for His goodness to you and express to Him the righteous desires of your hearts. The miracle of it all is that He hears. He responds. He answers-not always as we might wish He would answer but there is not question or doubt in my mind that He answers." I know that if we turn to our Heavenly Father with the righteous desires of our hearts he will help each and everyone of us. I know that if I pray in faith I will receive answers. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

Room Back!

Today my my sister and her husband left to back to Idaho after spending most of the summer with, Ty was here since April. This was a very bitter-sweet departure. I love my sister and her husband and had a great time having them here. The house already feels super empty without them here and I am already missing them. We did a lot of great stuff together and felt like wee bonded a lot. This is the bitter part. The sweet part is the fact that I get my room back! I haven't really been able to appreciat my room since April...that is a really long time to go without my sanctuary. My favorite place is my room and having it gone has been really hard for me. My room is my space where I can be by myself and do whatever I want to do. Not having that these past three months has been seriously hard. I haven't really had a place to just be by myself. It is seriously great to have that back. Not to mention the fact that Ty helped decorate my room and it looks amazing! Natalia and Ty found these awesome old windows that Ty hung on my wall. One of them is behind my head with sheets acting as a head board and the other one is on the adjacent wall with a ton of (empty) picture frames around it. I absolutely love it and would have never that of it on my own. I will have to post a picture of my room once I get my camera back. With the return of my room I have been reorganzing it and moving all my stuff back into it. It has been a full days work but it feels so good to have everything back in. Now I need to figure out what im going to put in the empty picture and what I'm going to do with my bead and then I really will have an awesome room!

"Going Public"

So I've had this blog for a couple of months and at first it was pretty much just for myself but now I'm thinking about letting others read it and maybe that'll help me keep it positive. One of my main reasons in letting others read this is because there is a lot/ will be a lot of who I am in here. I treat this blog as my journal and there are some things in here that are very personal and close to my heart which is part of the reason why I haven't announced the fact that I have a blog until now. It is your choice if you want to read every blog post or just one or none at all but if you are going to read this I ask that you respect my opinions and when I need to rant about something I'm going to rant about it. I want people to read this and learn a different side of me and maybe through me you can learn something but I don't want be to torture me or make fun or say any mean things on here. This is my place to write my thoughts so please respect that.

Today I found an app on my iPad called GMH which stands for Gives Me Hope. I found this app/site very interested. This site is a place where people can state the people that give them hope and why. I think it is a great site and a great lesson. It shows me that in the darkest hour of ones life one can still find hope in a person or tiny event or something else in their life. It's so amazing to me and makes me want to make me be more positive about not so bad life.

If you didn't/don't read my very first post in my blog I have a few rules for my blogs. I have to stay positive, or at least end on a positive note, and I have to end each post with an uplifting quote. This is to help me stay positive after rants and when I feel down I ma forced to look for some light in my life. I am going to add one more rule to this list, I am going to start saying something that gives me hope at the end of each blog so I can see the light in my life already. I feel that this will help me even more through my struggles. I have other rules but I haven't really kept up with them but I am going to try harder. I have been pretty bad about writing at least once a week, i havent written since April, so I am going to try to do better at that.

In conclusion of this long blog post I would just like to thank all of you for just looking at this blog, even if it was just boredom or curiousity. It means a lot that you could be doing something else and instead you are reading this. I don't really care who/ how many people read this. Even if no one does or just one person writing this still helps me and I really enjoy it. So once again thanks.

All the amazing people in my life, GMH

Quote of the Day: "Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving." - Dale Carnegie

Just as a side note I write blogs by writing what's in my head. Sometimes random ideas/things pop up. This blog doesn't have proper grammar and it probably seems very unorganized. But I really do write thoughts that pop into my head sometimes it took a couple of thoughts to get there so it may seem the thought came out of nowhere but it didn't. I apologize if all this seems sporadic and random but that's just how it's going to be.