Incredible Perspectives

This video pretty much speaks for itself. It is the testimony of a couple who, after just three weeks of marriage, discovered that the husband, Daniel, had cancer. To this, I will just add my own testimony regarding trials that as Daniel says, "Sometimes tests aren't about passing or failing. Heavenly Father is not sitting up there with a pen and checklist while we are enduring a trial". I know that the trials we receive are specifically tailored to us personally and that Heavenly Father never leaves us alone during them. I'm truly grateful for the perspective we are blessed with when we endure our trials well. I'm beginning to learn that not only are we going to have similar trials on more than one occasion, but rather than immediately assuming that we've learned all that we need to from a particular trial, to exercise more faith in the Lord and be patient. It is often in these moments that we learn more than ever before and more than we could have imagined. I know that from personal experience and I'm so grateful that the Lord is patient with me as well and takes the time to help me learn lessons that I constantly need reminders of.

Broken and Eternal Family Trees

The older I get, the more convinced I become that there are few, if any, coincidences in this life. There are so many experiences I have at particular times in my life that I couldn't have possibly planned better on my own. Today I'm so grateful that along with the trials I have received that the Lord has allowed to gain the perspective that I have concerning my more recent trials. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I've learned all I needed to from them, but definitely more than I thought I would this quickly.

I'm also grateful today that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, our families have the ability to be together forever. I'm grateful for the knowledge that God knows each of us individually and that regardless of our individual and family situations, He will not deny us the blessings of exaltation if we do all we can to obtain them. There is an unnecessary and unrighteous stigma that surrounds divorced members of the church that I wish we could dispel. While we shouldn't condone it per se, I believe it is wrongful to look down upon individuals simply because they became involved in them. We all make mistakes and need the Atonement to heal us, regardless of the gravity of our individual sins.

This song has really taken on a new meaning for me the past couple days and has strengthened my testimony regarding families. I too have no idea how things are going to work out in the next life when it comes to creating and reuniting eternal families, but I take comfort in knowing that this is the first priority of our Father in Heaven, and that "bringing to pass [our] immortality and eternal life" is His greatest joy.

A Pandemic of Perplexing Proportions

I know that we hear about this issue almost every General Conference in the LDS community, but recent events in my life have helped me see why we will probably never stop hearing about this problem. I would just like to add my personal witness that this plague, in no uncertain terms, has the ability to decimate and destroy individuals and families alike. It is truly heart-wrenching to be surrounded by the effects of this sleaze. I hope that if there are any individuals involved with pornography within the sound of this blog that they will have the courage to free themselves from this most damning influence. I know that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ there is no weakness or trial that we cannot overcome. And I hope that all of us will exercise the personal strength to see that any and all forms of pornography stay out of our lives.

Elder Oaks has spoken more in depth on the subject and I'll let him do the rest of the talking.

Personal Healing and Inception

This semester has been crazy to say the least, despite only being a month into it. And at the same time, it has been very cathartic. A time of healing and understanding. Gaining knowledge that I don't think I could have possibly learned except by going through the experience I did, coupled with perspective I could not have gained on my efforts alone. I've learned more about relationships and love in the past year than I think I did in my first twenty-two combined. I wonder what life will be like when I'm ninety and I have so much more to reflect on.

One of the classes I'm taking this semester is an English senior seminar centered around Carl Jung and pop culture. The past few weeks my class has been studying the film Inception very in depth, because believe it or not, the movie is really just a "...domestic drama-painted as large as possible" in the words of Jonathon Nolan, the director's brother. For those of you who are living under a rock, or are simply crazy enough to have not seen this movie yet, you truly have no idea what you're missing out on. The special effects are incredible in and of themselves, and unlike some other movies with great special effects i.e. Avatar, there is a plot to the film. Simple really, yet extremely deep when it comes to the heist part.

As I've been a part of the class discussions, I've come to gain an even greater appreciation for a film I loved since the first time I saw it. I didn't really internalize it the first several times I watched it, but the journey which Robert Fischer, the man who's being incepted, must take into his subconscious is not one that he takes alone. Cobb, too, has to come to terms with the mistakes of his past in order to achieve wholeness as a person as he comes face-to-face with the projection of his dead wife Mal, the guilt he has harbored within himself for so long. I could spend several posts going more in depth with Jung's psychological parallels, but suffice it to say that I too have had to come face-to-face with my own psychological issues and see them for what they really are. In so doing, I've come to accept so much more about myself than I ever have before. I've come to learn that in order to have charity towards all, you have to love yourself. Trying to

find love in other sources, besides Christ, will not be compensatory. Knowing that has changed my perspective so very much in a good way. Maybe someone has incepted me :)-

This week in FHE we discussed Christlike attributes and we left with the commitment to pray to recognize our weakness and what we can do to overcome them. I testify that when we do that, we can come closer to our Heavenly Father and gain a greater understanding of Him and ourselves personally. I hope that we will all be willing to do that. Not just admit that we have them, but acknowledge them for what they are and go to work on them. I'm so grateful that the Lord gives us continual opportunities to do this through His infinite and eternal Atonement.

So, if I haven't been able to convince you to go and watch this movie yet, at least listen to this song from the film. It's from the last scene and it is simply amazing. If I were to turn my feelings into words right now, I imagine it would sound similar to this. Letting go of things we have no control over is one of the hardest things we can do, but it brings a perspective that we could not otherwise obtain. I cannot express in words how grateful I am for the perspective I've been given by my trials and the lessons I've learned from them. Sometimes the hardest person to forgive and love is ourselves, but when we embrace those concepts fully, it literally changes us from the the inside out. The debate goes on about the conclusion of Inception, whether or not Cobb has really experienced everything or if it's all been a dream. However, I choose to believe, as many others of the cast have also concluded, that the top still spinning shows how irrelevant the whole concept has become to Cobb. It no longer matters to him whether or not he's dreaming. He's finally come home, he has finally become whole, and that's all that matters.

Much Belated Post

Wow. This month has gone just incredibly fast. Some days I wonder if I'll find time to breathe, but I suppose that will make things go by faster. That being said, this is brief, but I thought it was high time I reminded myself that I had a blog. This is an awesome song. The lyrics may not be much to shout about, but the music is beautiful and makes me wonder why it took so long for it to wind up on a movie trailer before Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. By the way, has anyone gone and seen it yet? I've heard mixed reviews, but not from anyone I know personally. Alas, I digress.

This past month has not gone without some serious reflection upon my life and all I can say is I'm so very blessed to have had the experiences that I have in the past several months. While some of the trials seemed to be more than I could bear for a time, I'm beginning to see some of the reasons and the amazing insights I have gained from them. I don't know that everything has found a place quite yet, but I'm certainly a great deal farther than I was a month ago. I don't have time to explain all the details, but I will say that I'm so grateful the Lord has blessed me with awesome friends who have challenged my views and perspectives and helped me to become better than I could have done on my own.

Why I'm An English Major

So, as some of you reading this blog may already be aware, my schedule is rather crazy this semester. I mean, I know we all have busy lives, and I don’t mean to minimalize anyone’s personal schedules/trials, but I have a busier schedule this semester more than ever (hence my lack of posts the past week). However, I’m able to do it because I absolutely love the courses I have to take (minus Spanish). After pondering on this and reading a post from another one of my friends, I thought I’d write down just a few of the reasons I’m in this major that too many people think is worthless.
1: I LOVE READING!
So, among many other college undergrads, I had a very difficult time deciding on a major. I think I may have always had ADD, I just didn’t realize it until I 20 years after the fact. As a kid, I loved reading books. If not for movies, I probably would have been grounded from reading at times. My family inherited a couple hundred children’s books when I was growing up, so I was constantly surrounded by them. If I’m really honest though, I didn’t read probably half of them. I tended to stick to the ones I loved: The Bernstein Bears, Arthur, etc. Before I learned to enjoy English, I knew that I could get through my English classes for this reason alone.
2. I love exploring different perspectives. If you want to be an English major, you must be willing to read a lot, and A LOT of things that you don’t want to initially. This was one of the reasons that I struggled with making this my major because I felt like I encountered so much gratuitous material in the works I read. But as time has passed and I’ve matured a lot, I’ve become much more tolerant of such materials because I understand their context, not because I accept the behavior portrayed. There is a huge difference between tolerance and apathy, and I certainly do not associate with the latter.
However, nothing frustrates me more when people simply refuse to read or view something because it may have unsavory material. I understand that in many cases that we are fed unnecessary trash. We don’t need to look any farther than our TV sets to find that. I guess what frustrates me is when people look only at the rating reasons below the MPAA stamp on the DVD and don’t bother to read the plot summary. I’m aware that Satan’s influence is rampant in the world today and I don’t care to view material that he inspires others to create. But, I believe that Heavenly Father gave us agency to USE it, to think and make decisions for ourselves, not just surrender it in every case. It would have been SO much easier to do things Satan’s way after all. But, Heavenly Father gave us agency because He wants us to LEARN for ourselves.
3. I have ample opportunities to better understand my own faith and beliefs. As I read various stories from all kinds of different authors, I’m exposed on a regular basis to belief systems that often do not coincide with my own. As I consider these things, I’m always reminded of the power that the gospel of Jesus Christ has in my life, and that I would not at all be where I am today without it. No matter what I encounter as I continue my studies and research, I will NEVER let go of my testimony of the things I know to be true. I’d change majors before changing my beliefs any day.
4. I have a passion for research, particularly regarding literature and film. As lame is it sounds, I’ve rather liked writing some of the papers I’ve written in the past because of them relating to a film I had viewed. Last night I was in the library later than I usually am, but for the first time, it was because I was genuinely enjoying my time there. I have so many questions to be answered by what I’m reading that sometimes I don’t want to stop. When I find something to be passionate about in research, it consumes me. It’s helped confirm that going on to be a professor is definitely something that I can find enjoyment in. This semester I’m blessed to have three classes that I’m very passionate about and so while the load on my hands is huge, it’s totally doable.
I’m so grateful to have the talents and abilities I do. Without them, I would never have set foot in this major, nor would I have the perspectives that I do.

The Upside of Failing

This past semester for the first time in my academic career, I flunked a class. Not a C, not even a D, a straight up F (or an E in BYU grades, since apparently we're too cool to use F's). I had hoped that by doing the minimal amount of work for my Spanish class that somehow I'd be able to get by. However, given that it is pass/fail class, I couldn't get anything lower than a B- if I wanted to pass. Over the break, to my great dismay, I discovered that I would be retaking the class. At first, I was infuriated. Partly at my teacher, but mostly at myself. Why had I been kidding myself the entire semester? At what point did I honestly believe that my meager efforts would magically amount to a passing grade?

While part of me still wishes I could have avoided the entire experience altogether, I'm grateful for what this experience has taught me. If I want to get a passing grade, I can't just be hoping to get by when I don't put forth my best efforts. This coming semester I've vowed to put forth more effort and energy than before in my Spanish classes. I've been too lackadaisical the past semester in my studies, and this is just what I needed to help me recognize that I can't keep doing what I have. While I know this is going to make things more hectic this semester, I look forward to having this opportunity to do better than I have before.

I'm so glad that Heavenly Father gives us second chances as well and that when we fail, we have the opportunity to use the Atonement of Jesus Christ to overcome our challenges and weaknesses. It is by no means a simple process, just like obtaining a passing grade, but it can be done. The Lord allows us to fail so we may more fully recognize our dependence upon Him. I love this song by Kenneth Cope because it reminds me that when we feel broken and like we are beyond repair, the Savior can step into our lives and help us overcome whatever challenges we are facing. So next time you find yourself failing at something, don't get too down on yourself. Remember that if the Lord is willing to let us fail at times, He is more than willing to help us get back on our feet and become better than we were before.