Last First Day of School

Hey there folks! Today was my last first day of high school. It's a weird feeling and I don't feel like a senior and don't think I look like a senior. But I just need to face it, in 179 school days, I will be graduating. About two months ago thinking about this would have put me to tears. I avoided the topic and if anyone asked me about my plans after high school I would either cry or tell them that I am going to live in Disneyland and possibly turn into a cat. Now that I have figured out that I want to go on a mission, serve The Lord, and have a pretty solid degree option, I feel so confident going into my senior year. I am pumped. I have surrounded myself with great friends and know that Christ can help me get through this year. If my children and grandchildren are reading this, here is what I have to say to you.  Hopefully you have heard this from me already but if you haven't for some reason; being nervous and even a little scared for school is okay! People can be scary and the classes can be overwhelming. Find two or three friends that you can talk to about the scary things and be a good friend to everyone. Keep The Spirit with you at all times and try your best to not put yourself in situations that it will leave you. Even if people are telling you otherwise, you are loved by so many people including myself and your Heavenly Father. Always be open to make new friends and go to school things. Support your school and your friends, remember you only have one high school experience so don't waste it. I know it's a lot of pressure but I know you can do it.
Anyways, my first day of school went really smooth. I was definitely blessed with some really cool people in my four classes today. I kind of really love this new attitude I have because it makes me go into these situations more positive and then my day goes so much better. Anyways so my A day schedule is pretty chill and laid back with classes like, Women's athletics, SLCC human development, psychology, and SLCC English. SLCC English is probably the class I am least looking forward to because the teacher that I wanted to teach it left and I was really looking forward to having her and English isn't really my thing. You all are probably going to love me being in that class if you continue to read this because hopefully my writing will improve. I ventured into the library today which is pretty normal but the strange thing was I actually checked out a book. The first library book I have checked out in my two years of high school and I plan to check out many more! So that how my last first day went, nothing too exciting but it needed to be documented. All in all I'm really excited for this chapter in my life.
Oh, and here is what i looked like when I left the house on my last first day, I had a serious hair malfunction but everything turned out alright. (:

Thanks for reading! Definitely more to come from my senior year so stay tuned!

The Beginning of The Last Firsts: Last First Cross Country Meet

So those of you that know me know I run cross country for Murray High School. It is one of the most challenging yet fulfilling things I have ever done. When I run a race its me running my guts out for 20 minutes. Its so so hard but afterwards I feel great but before every race I get super duper nervous and pretty much would rather do anything than run. So I had a race Saturday morning and I was so nervous and I didn't know what to do. So to motivate myself and calm myself down  I watched this video that  I have seen a few times but we watched it at EFY and I thought it could help, and it did. So here it is:

This video is super duper awesome and motivating because at anything we do we can really only give our  best. So as I was eating my french toast and watching this video I realized that as long as I go run the best that I can and give it my best effort, I could not be disappointed with myself and as long as I'm not disappointed with myself I can be happy.I was at the start line ready to start my race and felt super nervous and then I remembered this video and then we said our prayer like we do before each race and I don't think I have ever felt so calm before a sporting event in my life. Through the race whenever I got tired I played the coaches words in my head "just 30 more steps" in my head. Yes, I knew I had more than 30 steps left but I just took it 30 steps at a time.  So I am happy to report that I ran my race (3 miles) in 21 minutes and 15 seconds. This is just an average time but for my first race of the season its not too bad.
Now for the actual interesting part of this blog post. The spiritual side of things. Every time I watch this I think of the coach as The Savior, Brock as us, and the other kid, I think his name is Jeremy, as our trials. Brock says "I could go to the  50 with nobody on my back". Well, anybody can make it to the 50 with no extra weight. Anybody could make it through life without the trials.  That would be way too easy and pretty much make this life pointless. Little do we know that we are a lot stronger than we think because we have The Savior and Heavenly Father on our side. We can do anything through Christ. I don't know about you but I think that is amazing. Anyways, the blindfold is an interesting thing, very similar to the veil. Brock needed this because he would have given up at the 30 or the 50 but since he was going just off of his strength he could go the full 100 yards. I think we went through the veil because we could not complete this life knowing how hard it is going to be. Without the coach Brock would have given up so much earlier and I can relate to that so much. I haven't gone through anything extremely rough but I would definitely already given up on life if I didn't have The Savior. He is always by our side and is doing whatever he can to motivate us. The biggest difference in this coach and Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father is they are there to take the weight from us. Not only will Christ be constantly with us and encouraging us but He will take the weight and carry us to that 100 yard line. He is willing to help us, all we have to do is let him. When I learned this, I realized that this life is not going to be easy but will can be easier if I let Christ help me through. I could go on but this is already extra long so there are a few of my thoughts. Thank you for reading!

My tiny EFY experience

So I got invited to go to an EFY (especially for youth) in Twin Falls, Idaho with a friend who teaches EFY. I've never been to EFY before, so when I saw opportunity I wanted to jump on it so before I graduate to adulthood I could say that i did get a piece of EFY at some point in childhood. (Yes, I still consider myself a child.)
I was pretty pumped to go on the four hour drive with this friend because she's super awesome and we can have a lot of fun and talk about the gospel at the same time. We had some super awesome conversations and I loved every second! When we got into Twin Falls we realized that it is absolutely beautiful so I took some pictures. The pictures don't even do it justice though.

One of the lessons my friend gave was about self worth and on the ride up we talked a lot about Satan. In reality Satan should not impact our self worth but sometimes he does. One thing I realized was that Satan literally hates us. At first I was a little taken back when I thought about someone hating me. I know that there are people out there that don't like me but hatred is a whole different thing. But then I thought, if I want anyone to hate me I definitely would want it to be Satan. When we were in the car I had a "mind cannon" and I came to the understanding that Satan is a jealous hateful soul. He is an envious spirit and will do anything for us to destroy our bodies because he cannot have one. So next time you look in the mirror and see those insecurities whether they are physical or just anything you don't like about yourself, and Satan is in your ear telling you everything that is "wrong" with you, make sure you let him know you at least have a body. We have bodies and they have "flaws", we have flaws because we are not perfect but a "flawed" body is better than no body. Kick Satan out the door because you're too awesome to be thinking negativity about yourself. Satan does not decide yourself worth, Heavenly Father does and "Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God;" (D&C 18:10) We are children of a king and He loves us very very much and we are worth more to Him than anything in this world is worth. Thank you so much for reading!

The Struggle is Real, but so is God

Sorry for such a fast second post but I feel like I should share my thoughts.  Everyone has struggles. No matter how perfect a person may seem they have their own types of problems and trials. Just remember that as you go through life. Our struggles in life are what make us strong individuals. Some people say that their struggles are so small and that they do not matter.  THAT IS NOT TRUE. A struggle is a trial and all trials are important because they make us stronger and prepare us for our lives and possibly bigger struggles. I am a firm believer in the phrase " what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" because it is true. In some way we should get stronger from everything we go through in this life.  The good and the bad. We should be progressing in this life with anything and everything we do. I often get caught up in a conversation with someone and I will often say, "the struggle is so real" and the struggle may be real but so is God. Something even more awesome is that Heavenly Father created that struggle for YOU.  He created it and He can sure get you out of it. So really I just think that we need to appreciate everything in this life especially our struggles. We need to learn from everything we can and look for opportunities to share our knowledge. Thanks so much for reading!

The Start of my Blog Journey

So I am starting this blog, not necessarily because I want to but because I feel like I need to. I'm not sure if it is because I need it, a friend needs it, or because my children and grandchildren will enjoy it one day. I hope it is for all of these reasons but who knows? I've always thought blogging was intriguing but I have talked with a few people about it and The Spirit really made me feel like I need to do this. I am not really sure if anyone is going to read this but if you are, this is what it is going to be like. This will sort of be like a journal, actually a lot like a journal where I can share my experiences with learning with the internet world. Just for the record my thoughts are going to be super scattered so please forgive me.

I went to Girl's camp about two weeks ago and I had the most uplifting and spiritual experience of my life.But back up to December. In December I was trying to convince my parents to let me leave camp early to go to a basketball tournament but my dad told me that I needed to go to girls camp. He never said why he just said I needed to go. I fought him and fought him but finally gave up. I am going to take a solid guess and say that The Spirit was telling him I needed this. I am eternally grateful I went because I learned so much and loved every second of it.  First of all I gained a ton of new friends and made other friendships stronger and that was amazing.  I was also reminded that my Heavenly Father is always watching no matter what I am doing and will continue to always look out for me. I was taught that everything about God's plan is perfect. Some of it may be painful and be hard but it is all worth it and through Christ we can get through anything and everything . Our struggles are worth hearing about and worth fighting through. Don't just push them to the side. In my opinion, the best way to get through your struggles is to talk to someone you know will understand. So in other words, hit your knees and talk with our Savior. He understands and will help you with anything you need. These are just a few of the lessons I learned at camp, and I know I came out of there with a stronger testimony and a better outlook on life.  I am a better person after camp and wouldn't trade my experience for anything.  So a big shout out and thank you to all that made my experience worth it and amazing. If anyone has any questions at all let me know and I would be more than happy to answer them!