The Quirks of Life

In Regional Conference, one of the speakers talked about the Hastening of the Work. As I sat there, I thought of what a miracle it was in my life to serve a mission. This led to me think of a host of other mercies the Lord has extended to me that I never expected or dreamed possible. So here's my mission story: When I was 17, I had a friend (Allison) who was about to serve a mission. I expressed my reluctance and fears about missionary service. I did not want to wear a long, blanket like skirt every day and I did not want to tract. The lifestyle was not for me. But my spiritually in tune friend read to me a part from her journal where she talked about how excited she was to serve the Lord. The Lord began to soften my heart. I even went so far as to tell my Stake President (a church leader over many congregations) who smiled, asked me how old I was, and told me to come back in about 4 years. A few months later, I was standing in my kitchen at college, just making something to ...

These past few weeks have been crazy but wonderful! Mom and I road tripped it out here to Utah (and had a blast!). We read 2 whole books, learned life lessons, put the windows down and the music up, and just enjoyed ourselves. It was a lovely trip. Dad flew out and we got to see Grandma Hall and Uncle Gary's family. We also saw Aunt Joyce and her family as well as Uncle Duane and Aunt Chris. It was so good to see family and go to my cousin Kade's homecoming! In my human development class, our teacher brought up that through this semester, we may not be good at everything from the start. He advised us not to give up and said to maintain a "developmental" viewpoint/mindset. This entails that we are always growing. We are always changing our brain, and we will get better. This reminded me a lot of eternal perspective. I read a quote once that talked about how things that live longer take longer to grow. A deer takes only a few years to mature, but live the fract...