“What we love determines what we seek. What we seek determines what we think and do. What we think and do determines who we are — and who we will become.” ― Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Thursday, November 18, 2010

My Values

For my online English class, we were asked to do an assignment in which we list 20 of our top values that we strive to live by in our life. Here.Are.Mine.

1. Integrity: Stand up for what you believe in and don’t let others influence you for the worst.
2. Love: Love all those that surround you. Love your God, and love yourself.
3. Health: Take care of the body that you have been given. It is a gift, it is a temple, it is sacred. Don’t treat it like it doesn’t mean anything to you.
4. Spirituality: Create a relationship with your Father in Heaven and continuously develop that relationship.
5. Kindness: Everyone deserves to be treated with the utmost kindness, even if you do not agree with their actions or their own values.
6. Service: Give back to your community, family, and friends by serving them in any way possible, small or large means.
7. Happiness: Be happy and spread that happiness to others. Being happy feels good. Choose to see the brighter sides of things.
8. Patience: Wait to worry, don’t stress about the small stuff and just relax.
9. Honesty: Be honest and truthful to your friends/family/and every day acquaintances
10. Faith: Have faith in yourself and with the Lord. Know that you can do anything you put your mind to and know that the Lord with help you along the way.
11. Balance: Find a balance with you work, school, family, church and social life. Keep your priorities, but don’t let one go unnoticed over the others.
12. Charity: Give back to those who are less fortunate than you.
13. Compassion: Show othersthat you care about them. Everyone wants to feel cared about.
14. Control: Control your emotions and don’t let yourself get addicted to anything that will reorder your priorities in life.
15. Discipline: Make sure you get things done when they need to be done, and don’t let yourself succumb to weaknesses and pressures of the world.
16. Education: Continuously be learning. Read books, go to school, study, and learn to love it.
17. Fun: Have fun in life! Do something adventurous! "Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured" -G.B.H
18. Gratitude: Be grateful for your blessings and all that you have been given and the people that have been put in your life.
19. Joy: Find joy in all that you do. Look at the glass half full.
20. Nature: Put yourself out in nature. This is where our spirit and revelations will thrive.

It is finally here.

Tomorrow I am officially California bound.
Leaving at approximately 10am and arriving at my grandparents house at approximately 10pm.
Words cannot even describe how excited I am to see my family!!
As most of my friends know, because I talk about them all of the time, I LOVE my family with all of my HEART.
A shout out goes to...

my grandparents:
Merl & Candy Ward

my aunts and uncles and darling little cousins:
Dani, Paul, Brooklyn, Maya, & Garrett Madsen
Matt & Sarah Ward
Mike Ward
Steve, Leah, Gordon, Oscar, Ellie, & Maggie Ward
Don, Elise, Taylor, Annabelle, & Emmeline Ward (even though they will not be there :( )
Jenny & Jerid Hensley

I have missed you all so incredibly much. You make me laugh. You make me happy.
One.More.Day and the long days of playing Nertz, going to movies, making delicious food, talking, laughing and smiling all of the time will be here.
:D

Monday, November 15, 2010

Just for you Santa...


The lovely ladies of apartment 309 have built you a fire place and hung stockings with care.

Made from cardboard, christmas lights, construction paper, and tissue paper.

and, we made a chain. Counting down the days until Thanksgiving and Christmas...hence the different color schemes.

It.Rocks.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Dear Snow,

Whom, may I ask, do you think you are? You waltz right into Rexburg acting like you own the place.
Well NEWS FLASH, clearly you DO NOT.
So you can run and tell that....homeboy.
The weather has been incredible here. Just yesterday, yes YESTERDAY, I was walking outside in a t-shirt not even needing a light jacket. Then to my dismay, I woke up to you floating around outside of my window and you have not stopped floating around since then.
Are you trying to suck the life (and warmth) right out of me?!?
Are you trying to suck the life out of my bank account? Because this means new footwear most definitely.
I hope I have not offended you in any way, because in all honesty I do love you. Just not right now.
Maybe later.
So you can go back from wherever it is that you came from and come again sometime after Thanksgiving.
Then, and only then, will I enjoy your bitter coldness, re-creating you out of white computer paper, building snowmen out of you, learning to snowboard on you, making snowballs out of you, and possibly snow shoeing in you.

Yours truly,
Your number one fan....after Thanksgiving.

P.S- Oh, and don't over-stay your visit this season. Becuase as my memory recalls, last season.....you did. Please and Thank You.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Going, going.....gone?

I want to leave.

Get out.

Go somewhere.

Move.

Take a trip.

I don't feel like I belong here.

But I don't feel like I belong anywhere else...

Where do I go now?

I'm stuck in limbo.

Do I stay or do I go?

Oh life.

Please give me another adventure.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

What I wish I knew back then

This evening, I came to a sudden realization. Kind of a personal realization, but nonetheless most likely will pertain to many in this world, so let me share with you.

I will start with me, at least the person who I used to be.

As long as I can remember, I have never accepted myself for who I am. I never thought I was smart, pretty, funny, outgoing, ect.ect.ect. I just thought I was plain old me. And more often then not, I hated that plain old me. I had beautiful, amazing, brilliant friends who surrounded me and I never thought I could be like them. At times, I refused to hang out with them because I was embarassed that they would be seen with someone like me.

But that was then. This is now.

Being raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and have gone through 6 years of the Young Women program, it is not until a year and a half later that I am starting to learn what they were trying to teach me all of those 6 years.

and that is... Divine Nature and Individual Worth

I guess it wasn't necessarily a "sudden realization" that I had this evening, but rather a lesson that I have slowly been learning for the past few months. A lesson valuable beyond measure.



"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?" Actually, who are you not to be. You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightnened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. When we let our own light shine, we unconsiously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." (Nelson Mandela in his 1994 Inagural Speech)

Ahhhh. I just LOVE that quote. And every single line is truth. After learning how incredible it truly is to call ourselves children of God, is when I started to realize the importance of every individual. We are capable of such wonderful things but we make it extremley hard on ourselves to accomplish those wonderful things when we don't even believe in who we are and fully comprehend who's we are: children of a Heavenly King.

I feel that I have been liberated from my own fear. My fear of never being good enough for anyone or anything. The confidence that I now have in myself feels incredible and when I see others who I know feel like I used to feel, I just want to give them all of my new found knowledge. Give them that faith, confidence, and light. Because everyone deserves to know who they are and who's they are.

"If you could envision the type of person God intended you to be, you would rise up and never be the same again."

Monday, November 1, 2010

Spontaneous is my middle name

Ok, not really. It's actually Regan if you were wondering.
But I do love love love being spontaneous and doing things on a whim.
For example:
Today my first class started at 12:45. I woke up around 11 and got ready to go to class. As I started driving to my class I was nearing the stop light where I would turn left to go towards campus, I thought to myself "Should I go to class? Nahhh." So instead....I turned right. And you know where this took me? To Idaho Falls.
T.J Max to be exact. Where I did some wonderful shopping.

In all honesty it was a GORGEOUS day today and my teacher wasn't even going to be in class, we were just going to watch a movie about some science stuff...boooorrrriiinnnggg.

Then on my way home, I made another little detour
to
the
MOVIE THEATER!!!

I went and saw "Life as we know it". It was cute. Just the perfect movie to see by myself.

Overall it was a fantastic trip to Idaho Falls. (Secretly, I almost drove to Utah....it's probably good that I did not)

So if anyone ever wants or needs a spontaneous trip, I AM YOUR GIRL :D