I have been thinking about how much the Gospel of Jesus Christ means to me and how I don't think I have shared in on this Blog. I want to make sure it is written down. I know that it is recorded in a book of testimonies of the Anoka Stake in Minnesota, but somewhere along the way I have lost my copy of that book. I wanted to write it down before I forget any additional key details.
There are a few reasons that this has been on my mind. For one thing I have an old Jr. High friend living with me who is not a member of my faith and as I compare our lives and our life lessons I am very grateful for the ways I see things differently and how these teachings of the Gospel of Christ lead me to have greater happiness. I will probably write more on this topic later.
We have also been dealing with earthquakes along the Salt Lake Valley with a 5.7 out of Magna and they have a way to make you step back and examine your life.
The other thing is, it is a Sunday morning and we have been asked to refrain from meeting to take the sacrament due to COVID-19. We were able to meet in groups of ten or fewer last week but now we are asked by Governor Herbert to stay home. Since I don't have a priesthood holder in my home I just need to be without for a few weeks and create my own church of sorts.
Some of my earliest memories I have of the gospel were of excepting everything I was taught at church. I know I felt the spirit of God in my meetings and lessons. I trusted my parents who were fully committed to the gospel. Living in the Salt Lake area I was surrounded by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and it was a happy community for the most part. I thought the rest of the world was just like my tiny corner. I remember asking my father after watching the news why there were wars if almost everyone in the world was Mormon. He gave a chuckle but I don't remember a clear explanation to my very serious question.
I remember going to church alone some weeks as a young child. It was just a few blocks away. Always within walking distance in Utah. I am not sure why no one was with me but my parents were divorced at that time and my mom did a paper route and perhaps she was too tired to go. I think the only reason I remember this one particular Sunday was because I tripped going down a hill and must have landed on my hands and face because I remember having a scab down my nose for a week or two. I turned around and went home and my mom still encouraged me to go to church saying my teacher wanted me there but I was a mess and I was too embarrassed by how awful I looked.
I remember my baptism I remember wanting to play in the water but it was too peaceful of an occasion and I didn't want to change the mood by being rambunctious. I also remember a change in my soul and a feeling of peach when I was given the gift of the Holy Ghost. I felt as a member of the church I had certain responsibilities and I needed to take them seriously. This is me with my Bishop on my confirmation day.
When we moved to Minnesota, we had little to nothing. No car and church was a 20 minute drive. We went once or twice when we got a ride but then it just became too difficult. Even after we had a car, we were so out of the habit and as children we resisted and made it difficult for my mom to go, so we just stopped. Around the age of 12 I remember walking to the convenience store to get a treat with by babysitting money. I remember a strong feeling come over me that I needed to be at church. It seemed to come from no where and I thought, "I can't just go to church. I am a little girl and we don't have a car and who am I as one of the youngest in my family to tell them what to do?"
Later we had an interested Young Women's leader Becky Rogers that seemed to take an interest in our family. Here she is in the middle.
She invited us to activities which was about all we were ready for at that point. She was very consistent in offering us rides and being a good example. We went because we were bored and needed to get out of the house. It progressed to her inviting us to church and I would probably attend church meetings the most consistently. She would have her too youngest sit in the hatchback so I could have a seat. I was always impressed with the sacrifices she would make to be sure I attended whenever I could.
This was all well and good until it was time for a temple trip to Chicago. I needed a recommend to go. I told Becky that I wanted to go and be with everyone but I didn't want to talk to the bishop so I would just go and sit in the waiting room while everyone else was at the temple. She said that would be okay but that she really hoped I would be able to attend and feel the spirit there. I continued to consistently decline her offer. Until one night at mutual we were cooking something in the kitchen and the bishop came up to me and told me he wanted to speak to me. I was horrified and I looked at Becky like how could you have done this to me.
I was in the bishops office for what seemed like forever but was probably around an hour. I didn't want to talk at first. I was still a little frustrated that I was in that situation. Bishop Bigelow just kept reiterating that the Lord wanted to carry my burdens. I ended up crying and confessing and in the end, he told me that that things I had done were wrong but I could make restitution and that the Lord would forgive me. I could go into the temple.
I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from me and I knew at that point I was committed and I never wanted to feel the weight of my guilt and sins again. I went on to attend church and seminary regularly and feel the spirit in my life on a regular basis. The Holy Spirit consistently testified to me of many truths that helped me gain a stronger testimony.
It is amazing what you can forget when you have been away from church for a while, when you are not studying and when you are not praying. Somehow everything I knew to be true was lost as I wandered away. The spirit I once felt slowly dimmed until I had no place for it.
I think that this conversion process for me was much more serious to me at a younger age because I knew that I had taken it for granted and I didn't want to take it for granted again. I became like a sponge for information. I remember my favorite Young Women's leader Claudia Larson (pictured below) would tell me that she loved teaching me because my eyes were so intent on listening to every word she said and I was basically staring into her soul as she taught.
I just have so much gratitude for the many who have given of their time to teach me and guide me through life's ups and downs. They prepared me for challenges that I was going to face with faith and determination. Thanks be to God and his son Jesus Christ who made all of this possible.
Over this last month I have been learning what I can about a man named Wim Hoff. He seems to be part crazy person, part guru, part adventurer. Its like people want to put a label on him because they don't fully understand him and yet he seems to want to break out of the molds people are trying to place him in. Why do I think he is so interesting? Perhaps it is because he has conquered the parts of himself that terrify me.
The fact that he can swim 57.5 meters under a frozen lake, or run a half marathon barefoot in snow and ice boggles my mind. Why would anyone want to do that? Some people have died trying to accomplish the things he does. He also doesn't seem to have a lot of sympathy for people who are terrified of the elements he has embraced.
The overall thing I think I have learned is the power of the mind over the body and the body's ability to adjust to and overcome stress. When I think about taking a cold bath or shower panic sets in and I go into fight or flight mode. My breathing slows and I just want to run away from even the idea.
Life has not been easy for him. He was married to a woman with schizophrenia who died jumping out of a building. I don't know if he just wanted to feel numb afterwards, but he was drawn to a frozen pond and he found himself spending more and more time in this pond. He didn't like the stares and the questions he would get from passers by so he started going after dark to spend time in this pond.
On one hand it is amazing to think about what the body can accomplish as we become in-tune with it and understand what is going on. Scientists have discovered that Wim can turn on the heat in his body, he can also turn off his immune system. This is not a genetic ability. He has an identical twin who doesn't have these super powers. He says his abilities are learned and anyone can learn to do what he does. It seems like embracing these extremes have made him turn inward instead of seeking an external solution to his problems.
I big part of his abilities stem from a breathing technique he has developed in the cold water. It is a way to build up more oxygen flowing through. When you get into cold water, your body goes into shock and you go into fight or flight but he has found a way to overcome that shock and trust the body to do what it is supposed to do in such extremes, adjust and burn ABT or brown fat to keep you warm.
I do recommend this book. It was very thought provoking for me. It took the skeptical author, Scott Carney, an ordinary man though the Wim Hoff method and by the end, four years later to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in 28 hours and 6 minutes. A pace that would kill an ordinary person. This is normally done in 8 days so a person can acclimatize to the lack of oxygen in the thin air.
Wim believes what he has learned by connecting with his body that has evolved over centuries has implications for people with autoimmune diseases, anxiety, depression and probably a host of other things. Two thumbs up from me. ;)
I have a friend who is really good at saying bad things about herself. I sent her this video and she responded with, "I am ruggedly handsome. I am ruggedly handsome. I am ruggedly handsome!" LOL!
After watching this video, I have been thinking about how we are programmed. Sometimes we have the right programming, other times we need to rewrite our programming. Some programs help us to live a good life, some programs hold us back. Makes me think of what George Lucas said, "We are all living in cages with the doors wide open." I am sure that statement includes me. I am sure there are many things I could do with my life. I know I hold myself back in many ways. In Relief Society we have been talking about new beginnings through the Savior and that has made me think about what I can accomplish with the help of Christ. I am sure I am living below my privilege there.
I am sure some of the programming comes from the things we are told and believe about ourselves. Perhaps some of it comes from thinking errors that don't get corrected along the way. According to KlearMinds website, "Thinking errors are faulty patterns of thinking that are self-defeating. They occur when the things you are thinking do not match up with reality. This is sometimes also referred to as cognitive distortions. Those who commit thinking errors often don't realize they are doing so."
So how do we discover our thinking errors and how do they get corrected? I think for one thing, we have to be open to constructive feedback from others because we cannot always see these on our own. We have to be able and willing to dig in and find our errors and be willing to make the necessary changes in our lives. We have to talk to others about how they see things and be open to comparing their ideas with ours so we can expand our thought process.
Then there are those who benefit from therapy to correct these. I have been told that I need therapy, by a certain family member who shall remain nameless. Perhaps it would help, but I know I am pretty good at talking things out with family and people I feel close to.
How anxiety and depression plays into this whole process I am not the expert, so I won't try to be an authority in that area. I will leave that up to the professionals.
I have also thought back to a sociology class I took where we talked about logical fallacies. I am sure that every debate team is well versed in these so they can check all of their arguments before they are challenged on stage. I think that we have all been guilty of these at sometime in our lives. We should consider and check our thinking for these errors.
I am open to your feedback if you see my bad programming or my thinking errors.
I was able to connect with an old friend that I haven't talked to much in the last 20 years. Our lives have taken different turns. We came from very different backgrounds and have gone in different directions. As I was playing counselor with her and trying to discover why she felt so helpless in her life, she talked a lot about her relationship with her parents and I could sense a lot of anger and frustration. It seemed as if she was pushed into the grown up world unprepared for the problems that would come her way. She said that she and her brother were the type of people that waited for life to come to them and that they were not the types to go out and make life happen.
The truth is that when obstacles were in her path, she didn't work to overcome them, she avoided them completely and ran the other way. I remember back in Social Studies class, we did a government section and we were assigned to give a persuasive argument on hot topics. I remember I had to speak on euthanasia. Well when it was her turn to give her speech she just skipped class. I think the teacher knew how terrified she was and made special arrangements for her to turn a paper in or just give her speech to him so she didn't fail the class, but as we were talking I noticed a pattern of avoiding every challenge that came her way.
I used to envy her life. She was the daughter of a successful actor with plenty of bucks in the bank. She has been to exciting places and mingled with some "important" people. I no longer envy her. She doesn't feel she had much in the way of love from her parents. She seems paralyzed by her fears, unable to chase her dreams and living a shadow of the life she could have. I have to say that back in Junior High I had high hopes for her. She was creative and artistic. She did well in her classes. She seemed like a bright young lassy.
I am not claiming to be an expert, but It seemed to me that because she has not controlled her fears, her fears have controlled her life. She is paralyzed by tasks that seem like no big deal to me. I can't say I know what the solution should be for her but it seems to me that she needs to build her confidence by overcoming some of her fears. She can start out small and work her way up.
Today at church we were talking about 2 Timothy 1:7, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." I believe that as we have faith in Christ and strive to overcome our fears, the Lord will guide us and strengthen us until we overcome. I see it in my sister who has just overcome her fear of flying and took a flight with her family to Florida. I can say that I am grateful for the challenges that have come my way because they have given me confidence to progress in my life and gain a greater freedom.
Today we were talking about Romans in our Sunday School class. I was reminded of a story I heard when I worked for Seminaries and Institutes. I think it all took place maybe in Connecticut.
There was a nonreligious young man with a very sick father. The father who couldn't really get out of bed but to pass the time he liked to check the power ball numbers. His son would buy him a lottery ticket every day for him to check. Well his father got more and more sick and was less and less interested in checking the numbers. Eventually the numbers were just stuffed into a drawer and forgotten about.
They later were watching the news and heard that the winning numbers had been purchased but they were never claimed and if they hadn't been claimed that night by midnight the prize would be forfeited. They searched the drawer and found that they had the winning ticket. It was late and the Lottery office was closed. He decided that he could just go there when the office reopened and they would give him the millions, not knowing that he could take the ticket to any convenience store that sold lottery tickets to claim his winnings. He was told by the lottery offices that he missed the deadline and he would not be able to claim the funds.
He fell into a deep depression and his friends could see how unhappy he was so some decided to invite him to Institute class. He continued to work through his depression and eventually became converted and decided to be baptized. At his baptism he spoke and said that he was glad he didn't win the money because he knows he would not have done good things with it. He was grateful to have the gospel instead.
So in class today, we read this...
And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Romans 8:17-18
It just made me think about how we have already won more than the Lottery. If you want to look at it in terms of luck we who have the gospel of Jesus Christ are some of the luckiest people that have ever lived on planet earth. Sure that belief requires faith but I imagine the reward we will receive will be eternal and worth much more than can be given to us in this life.
I also really like this video from Prager U about gratitude. The more grateful we are for Heavenly Father, his plan and his Son, the happier we will be in life.
I started to think about this topic maybe a year ago. I am still trying to wrap my head around the subject and understand it better. I have been stewing over the question, "Why do we need emotions, especially the painful ones?"
I started to think about this topic when I was learning about the three Nephites. In 3 Nephi 28:9. They are told that they will have no pain or sorrow except sorrow for the sins of the world. Their desire was to bring souls unto Christ while the world would stand. Could they not have done this task without feeling sorrow? Would they just cease to be able to do their work if they lost the ability to care?
I think that we can see people all around us who just don't care, they don't feel or they just don't see the importance. I am not sure if they don't genetically have this ability, or if they have never developed the ability to empathize. Have they just been hurt so much for so long that they have completely turned off their emotions? Has no one cared or loved them and it is a learned behavior? As you can see, I have a lot more questions than answers at this point.
The scriptures make reference to the heaven's weeping. They also talk about God weeping in Moses 7:28. He saw the earth as it was veiled in darkness and that caused him to weep. I guess the obvious part of this is that God loved his children righteous or not or he wouldn't have cared and he would not have wept.
This leaves Enoch with a lot of questions. How is it that you can weep, seeing that you are holy? How can you weep when your creations are numberless? How can you weep when you are just, merciful and kind forever? How can you weep when you have taken Zion to yourself? How can you weep when peace, justice, and truth is the habitation of your throne? Enoch sees all of the good works God has done, the incredible characteristics he possesses, his amazing numberless creations, the souls he has taken up to himself and yet he still weeps. Enoch is still so confused.
How does God respond to this line of questioning? He goes back to the garden of Eden and recounts that he gave man their knowledge and their agency. He weeps because he gave us the knowledge and the ability to make decisions and he weeps because of what some have chosen to do with that freedom. He commanded men to love one another and that we should choose him as our father and yet despite all of this some don't care about each other, some hate their own blood and some have chosen another to be their father.
Verse 27 states that God and the heavens weep because these children who were once children of God have chosen the adversary to lead them and be their father. They have chosen misery and suffering. All of this then causes Enoch to weep. Then God points Enoch to the Savior. I think this shows that God doesn't enjoy watching us suffer, but he is bound by the laws that govern the universe. He shows his love and mercy by giving us the Savior to make a way to overcome the effects of the law.
There is a lot of emotion in this chapter but it seems that at the root of this weeping is love. Seems strange in some ways. We are taught to love each other despite the fact that this can lead us to deep sorrow at times. It even leads God and the heavens to weep over us. Perhaps that is why some make the choice not to love. It can be immensely painful, and yet we are commanded to love and not just love our favorites but to love everyone. What kind of a world would that be? Also I find it interesting that God with all of his perfections never loses the ability or need to weep.
I've had more thoughts on my mind from Jordan Peterson lately. I have heard him say things like, "You're more capable than you think", or "You're stronger than you know". I know that when we overcome hard things it can give us courage to tackle more difficult things. It got me thinking about times that I have overcome painful challenges and how that prepared me to take on more in the future. I started to think about the things I have dealt with and I started to make a list. I am not trying to claim that my challenges are any worse than anyone else's but they are still good for me to remember when hard times come my way.
1. Having a sister with Down's Syndrome. I struggled with putting this one on the list because really Marie is such a joy and has brought so much laughter to our lives. The whole family loves her like crazy but she has posed some challenges for us. She can be incredibly stubborn and she used to run away all the time when we were kids. We would have to call out the neighborhood kids to help us look for her. She was never in any real danger. She would just go off exploring on her own. One time I remember she came back with a candy necklace from Maverick and she told us that a nice man bought it for her. The Maverick was just a few blocks away but still not good that she took off on her own. I am about two and a half years older than her and I was often tasked with babysitting her. Nothing super stressful but it was a responsibility that I often had throughout my life. Given the choice I wouldn't trade her for anyone else. I have learned so much from her especially patience and compassion. I am SUPER excited that she is going to come visit me for her 40th birthday with my mom.
2. When I was six my parents went through a divorce. I remember seeing my mom out the front window pulling into the garage and my dad said, "Well your mother has just filed the divorce papers." I remember going to the hallway collapsing and crying. I am not sure I even understood what was happening. If nothing else I realized that my life was never going to be the same. I am sure this affected me in more ways than I know but if nothing else it removed the stability from my life and made me realize that there was going to be some changes ahead. Perhaps it also made me wonder how much you could really trust people and relationships.
3. My parents divorce had many consequences. One of which was that my parents both became very poor. Not that we had much money before. One Sunday Moe was tasked with pulling us all out of Sunday school and we got in the car and headed to the YWCA where we stayed with other women and families that had come out of very abusive situations. We had a small room that we shared and I remember very tight security. It probably confused me because I didn't know my father to be abusive to my mother. I didn't understand how this was better. My father did the best he could to keep our family house. My mother did what she could to support 5 kids and try to go back to school, but really she didn't have any direction so her education didn't profit much. She just got by doing paper routes with our help, and working retail and fast food. We often got free food and Christmas gifts from our church and other local charities.
4. Living with my stepmother wasn't something I enjoyed. She told me on their wedding day that she could be as mean as the stepmother on Cinderella if she needed to. That is all she needed to say. I knew after that it was going to be a rough ride and I didn't really understand how my father chose her as a replacement for my mother. She would go through periods of being sweet as sugar and then you'd hit her hot button and throw a bigger tantrum than a 5 year old. I can't say we were ever close, even though I was tasked with throwing together a life celebration for her when she died this last summer. I never felt close with her or that I could really trust her in ways that I trusted my mother.
5. I don't think that I will go into great detail here since it is a sensitive topic, but my family has had its share of mental health challenges. I have dealt with some anxiety and depression in my life but I could never really understand how it could remove all logic from a situation and make a bad situation much worse instead of working to make things better.
6. My mother's move to Minnesota seemed like it would be a little exciting. I was able to live in a new place that I had visited a few times before. My mother had family there and I thought they would help us get settled in. I also thought that my grandmother would at least temporarily make room for us in her very large home that she lived in alone. My mom's family didn't seem to be much help to us. We got more help from my mom's old friend Sandy that could be just as callus as my step mother. We were eventually turned out to stay in a homeless shelter for a few weeks until we could get some housing and furniture assistance from the government. The cold seemed to be the closest thing I had been to death and we were certainly not prepared for the temperatures we had to endure that winter.
7. The next year I decided or I guess I was enticed to stay with my dad and step-mom with the promise of new school clothes for my 7th grade year. During this time my father started behaving strangely. Maybe nothing too serious but if I was a little late coming home from school he would come looking for me. He couldn't seem to follow my stepmother's simple instructions and I didn't have any siblings living with me. Looking back I know this was the beginning of my father's dementia. I started to get very uncomfortable living there and when I complained to my mother in private that I was unhappy, she instantly made arrangements to come get me in the middle of the school year and took me back to Minnesota. It was in the next year that I heard of my father acting more erratically and being put in a care facility. I saw a video of him later where he had forgotten his children's names. I felt like that was goodbye for me in a lot of ways. I had no more connection to him. He was far away and didn't even know who I was. In the middle of my 8th grade year he passed away. He wasn't going to be around to do all the things that father's do like help me feel safe, help with car repairs, encouraging me to go to college and just overall helping me maneuver through the challenges of life.
8. After my first few weeks of beauty school I was driving in an unfamiliar area and was paying more attention to the street signs than I was the road and I rear ended a car that hit one or two others. I fractured my nose on my steering wheel (before air bags were common) and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance with the man that I hit. I fell into some pretty major depression and I just wanted to quit school. I have written about this before so I won't say much here but it was a difficult time for me that I got through with the help of a friend who wouldn't let me quit. Somehow I mustered the courage to get a bus pass and start attending school again with two black eyes on Halloween.
9. It probably wasn't until I lived in Hawaii that I realized how tough the Minnesota winters made me. I was living with a group of people who had never had to prepare for a long hard winter, never slipped on ice, never had their car engine frozen, never walked in 3 foot snow drifts, never had their eyelashes frozen together, never had to catch a bus in -70 degree windchill or shovel mounds of snow. A few weeks ago an able bodied male in my complex was whining/complaining on Facebook that he was late to work because the snow plows didn't clear the roads before he had to go to work. A man like that would be laughed to scorn in Minnesota. They'd say man up and get a shovel. Snow storms aren't easy for anyone. You just got to make due and if you have any strength left, help your neighbor.
10. Missions are very difficult for most young missionaries. You have to leave your home and family for 18-24 months, learn a new language in 8 weeks, go outside your comfort zone in a strange place with strange people and eat strange food. You work all day in all kinds of weather and don't get paid for it. My mission was extremely difficult for me in many ways. I was supposed to train a new missionary after I was in the country only 6 weeks. Before she came I remember praying and saying, Heavenly Father we both know I wasn't going to be able to handle this mission. Please just give me a medical reason to go home. It could be something as easy as a broken arm or a temporary disease, just so I don't have to face my friends and family fess up to being a quitter. Well the broken arm never came. I just had to focus on the next day and try my best go get through it. In the end I was able to work with some of the best people I know in one of the greatest times of my life.
I was also thinking about a time after my mission when I was going through a lot of challenges with life and my family and I excepted each of those challenges understanding that they were going to be learning experiences that would make me stronger. I didn't have any real higher education at that point in my life, and I felt like life was my teacher. Then all of a sudden the challenges seemed to stop. I remember at one point thinking or praying, "Okay Heavenly Father I am ready for my next challenge. Bring it on." Then I realized that I was being a little bit lazy with my growth. Why wasn't I creating my own challenges? Why was I just expecting God to constantly create obstacles for me? Why didn't I have a plan for the ways I wanted to grow and develop? These next few items are some of the ways I challenged myself in my life and overcame.
11. Okay, so I don't know if I should really count this because I sort of got tricked into it. My Dear friend Brooke is part of the reason I challenged myself to do anything sports related. She was just such a great example of someone who sets goals and then worked to achieve them. Brooke and some others wanted to hike Mt Timpanogos. At first the thought was a bit overwhelming. I would be hiking up and down a mountain for 10 hours with no bathrooms. When I would question if it was a good idea, Brooke would always respond and say things like. "It really isn't too bad." or "It's mostly just flat the whole way up." Yeah, basically she lied to me. ;) 13 hours later we were done and I just wanted my bed.
12. Brooke is also probably the reason I ran any half marathons. She was training for full marathon's and so I went to the gym and ran on a treadmill just to see if I was fit enough for a 5k. Well five miles later and I decided I should train for a half marathon. Again Brooke would say things like, "Oh, if you can run 5 miles, you can run a marathon no problem." And I did. Let me see if I can count all the ones I ran. I did Canyonland's in Moab twice. I did the Salt Lake marathon twice and I did Brooke's temple to temple race twice. I think that is it. Six half marathon's isn't too shabby. I always took my training very seriously and I always finished successfully. One of my highlights was beating Brooke's trash talking husband both temple to temple races.
13. School, school, school and more school. I always felt like I missed something by not going to college like so many of my friends did. Maybe I could have had a BYU romance if I buckled down and made school happen. It was always on my to do list but the pieces never fell into place. Also being as poor as we were, I was terrified that the debt would never be paid off. My work with Seminaries and Institutes was a huge blessing in that arena. They were going to pay 75% of my tuition up to $5,250/year. I started at Salt Lake Community College and got my associates degree in classes where I was clearly the oldest student in the room. Then I wasn't sure what to do because my work would only let me take two classes at a time and it was going to take forever. A coworker was going to start an online program at WGU and because I could get through the program in less time I was intrigued. I prayed about it and I had one of the strongest answers to prayer that I can remember. From that I knew good things would come from that (and they definitely have). I pushed myself just about as hard as I possibly could. What my counselor said could take me five years to finish, I finished in eight months. I got my Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting in eight months. I still am shocked that I was dedicated enough to get it done. I studied on the bus ride to work, on my lunch break, on the way home and then for another three to four hours after dinner. It really was one of the hardest things I have ever done. My health really suffered because of it I am sure and I got a bit out of shape.
14. Then I was ready for an adventure. I was frustrated that my current job wouldn't give me a promotion, so I knew that I had to challenge myself to go somewhere else. After many prayers, a job opened up at BYU Hawaii where I didn't really have a clue what I was getting into. The school was unwilling to pay for my move or really assist me in any way for that position. I had to sell most of my possessions, pack everything up and sell my town-home. I had to secure my own housing, find a car and be ready for work one day after flying in. I can't say I saw this as much of a challenge. It was more of an adventure, until I realized how much the locals didn't want me there and the many other problems I was confronted with like mold. Still I am so glad I went because I learned SO much and it made me stronger in the face of adversity.
15. When I was heading out to Hawaii, I had all of these visions of me studying for my MBA with my laptop on the beach. Well let's just say it didn't quite happen that way. There were a lot of days sitting in front of my computer in my apartment sweating and trying my best to study. I again over did it and turned doing being social more times than my friend Amy liked to study my brains out and crank out more classes. It was hard work. What was supposed to take me two years I finished in five months.
16. For my 40th I went skydiving. Part of it was just feeling like I needed to do something big for the big 4-0. I don't have a need for speed or thrills, I just needed to put some sort of an exclamation point on my life at that stage of the game. My co-workers were talking about it and two of us just decided we needed to get it done. When we were waiting to go up in the tiny plane, I just tried not to think about it. You just can't think too much about what you are doing after signing an eight page waiver.
17. Well after my skydiving and a trip to France, my life was starting to feel uneventful so I decided with a little push from some friends that I needed to train for a 50 mile Bike Ride. It wasn't so much difficult as it was a matter of being focused enough to put the work in. I needed to have a plan to gradually increase my distance. I biked alone since my friends were doing to 100 mile ride for eight hours. Still I am proud of my four hour ride and it went so well that I am doing another 50 in June.
I cannot and will not say that I did any of this alone. I have ALWAYS had help and support from family and great friends. All of this would have been a very lonely and depressing road without good friends to help me through. Also I know that Heavenly Father cleared the path just enough for me to be able to maneuver the rest alone. Any time I have taken on a major challenge I have always sought his guidance and approval before embarking on anything big. He hasn't let me down in this arena.
