thoughts on thursday

attending a dance party  the other night really reminded me how much i love dance parties. it has been way too long since i've danced with such abandon :) one of the downsides to my sugarhouse life is that there aren't nearly enough dance parties. like, zero, that i know of. dance parties are great, people.

attending a dance party the other night also reminded me why i love provo. so many of my good friends are there, people that i don't see all the time but that really know me. it was good to be back adn have one of those classic provo nights, where you are surrounded by fun people and just living the twentysomething life.

i'm getting worried that being at work is actually making me sick. i feel fine when i'm at home and the first hour or two at work, but then i just start feeling gross--feverish, headachy, weak, dizzy. what the heck? probably what this means is that i just need to go to the doctor and get a real diagnosis for a real problem, but that's a little scarier than thinking that my job is slowly killing me :) so maybe one of these days i'll make it to a qualified physician's office and find out what's really wrong with me.

i started getting birchbox last month, and it's pretty cool so far. each month they send you samples of various beauty and health products to try. then if you want to buy the full-size version, you can find it on the website. i don't plan on buying a ton of the full-size products, because some of them are definitely higher end than i need, but it's fun trying out new products. this month i got a mini nail polish, black eyeliner, and a delish granola bar with maple syrup and pumpkin seeds. awesome, right?


a couple weeks ago, i bought if you wait, london grammar's debut album. i'm OBSESSED with it. wikipedia describes it as "trip-hop", which is kind of amazing, and it is that type of hard-to-define music that is also really beautiful and catchy. give it a listen, if you are so inclined.

and there you have it! thoughts that mean mostly nothing :)

40 days of lent

the past several years, i've decided to observe lent, though i am not catholic. i am, though, a rather introspective and goal-oriented person, and the idea of sacrificing something for a period of time with an eye toward self-improvement is always appealing to me. so, i do lent. this year i decided i was going to give up soda, since, while i don't think i'm really "addicted" to dr. pepper, per se, i was craving it way too often.

but that didn't really feel like enough, since it wasn't like i was drinking 50oz. of pop a day. someone--it might have been meredith--suggested that i start doing something during lent that i don't normally do. i really like this idea, of adding something to my life, replacing a negative behavior with a more positive one. so, since i love writing notes to people, i set a goal to write 40 notes/letters during the 40 days of lent.

i started out really well, on pace to reach this goal. as the weeks went on though, i decided that a more realistic target was 25 notes in 40 days. it wasn't that i wasn't thinking about the goal and just let it slip away from me--i was thinking about who i could write to pretty constantly. but, you know, postage is expensive.

but it was still pretty great. i sent 13 notes through the mail, 6 were hand-delivered, 4 were substantial and meaningful facebook messages, and 2 were emails. i became obsessed with stationery during these five weeks and bought way too much of it as a result (but that just means i need to write more notes!! it's a beautiful circle!). with some of these little notes i sent out into the world, i never heard anything from the recipient, so hopefully they all got to the right place. why is it so hard to get people's addresses? mail used to be it, the only way to get information--now it's like a person's residence is a closely-guarded secret or something (obviously, good idea if you want protection from killers and stuff, but bad idea if you want to receive thoughtful mail from a friend.)

anyway, i'm excited to keep going. i love writing notes, as i've expressed before, because it's sooooooooooo much easier to say what i want to say with the written word. and it's something you can keep forever. so if you want a note from me, let me know :) i have plenty of cute things to send you!

yay for conference!!

this weekend, once again, is general conference. i'm so excited to hear all the messages and hang out with my family and eat good food (conference weekend is pretty much synonymous with good eats in my mind). i think we will get to go to a session this time, which will be awesome. there is nothing like being in the room when the prophet walks in--i'm still amazed by how much power i can feel in a room full of thousands.

this conference season, we had a general women's meeting as a lead-in to conference weekend. as i started my notes, i titled the section (the historic) general women's meeting because i predicted that one, if not all, of the speakers would reference that this is the first time all women, ages 8 and up, have been gathered, and i think that qualifier is so mormon haha. "this has been an historic gathering"--we hear it fairly often :)

but this meeting really was historic. as soon as i walked in the door i was bawling, and it didn't stop through the opening prayer, given by a new beehive, or the musical numbers, where the choir was made up of 8 year olds and 80 year olds and everything in between, or the talks, which somehow focused on every single thing i've been wrestling with the past several months. it was incredible.

i'm a faithful member of the church and of the relief society specifically, but i've never felt the spirit of sisterhood as strongly as i did in that meeting. women have power, you guys. i felt it!

so, come to conference. it will be awesome!

26

last week was my birthday. i celebrated with shopping, eating out, seeing the secret life of walter mitty finally, and going to a byu basketball game. it was a good day, kind of quiet. i'm glad i got to spend it and the rest of the weekend with my family.

as my lovely little brother kindly pointed out at my family birthday dinner last week, if you round up, i'm 30. which, thanks, carter. i still have four years of my twenties left! sheesh. but somehow 26 does feel a lot older than 25, for some reason.

but, i am determined to make this a great year. a couple weeks before my birthday, i was looking back on the past year, and, even though a lot of things have changed, i don't feel like i've actually done that much to improve myself. well, i guess that's not entirely true--i'm always thinking about that, and i think i did an okay job. but, as far as my list of 25 things to do when i'm 25 goes, i didn't do too well.

let's revisit:

1. save enough for a big purchase (car? new computer?)
2. go on a spontaneous trip
3. go to an avett brothers concert
4. get a big girl job
5. learn to sew and now i have a sewing machine! happy birthday to me :)
6. start learning a language which i need to pick up again...
7. receive a master's degree
8. go somewhere i've never been
9. west coast road trip
10. record something
11. go to the temple
12. publish something
13. learn to ride a bike...i guess
14. consolidate  moving twice will do that to you!
15. read the standard works
16. go to a fancy party
17. family reunion--aspen grove 2013!!
18. read classic novels--i've got a running list
19. read c.s. lewis
20. make a piece of art to put in my house
21. eat something new every month--let's face it; i go to the same places and eat the same things. i need some variety up in here.
22. write and send a letter at least once a month
23. hike the Y
24. go legit camping
25. choreograph a song for zumba

so, 8 out of 25. it's not great, but it's something, i guess. this year i don't know if i'm going to make a list like this, but i'm definitely going to try to make it a really great year. 26 is going to be great!

small victories

the past few weeks of work have been pretty hectic, for reasons that are largely too boring to describe. but these past few weeks have been all about the small victories for me--i guess my philosophy has been that if i don't take a teeny bit of time to celebrate those, i'm going to go crazy, since things are usually pretty mundane.

there's this one student that i've been fighting pretty hard for, and we've been on kind of a rollercoaster, from volatile phone conversations laced with obscenities to now exchanging emails full of exclamation points and smiley faces. this student has a little bit become my friend, even though we will never meet, and problems just kept coming up. today all the problems were resolved and i could finally tell her that we had everything we needed.

sometimes it's easy to get bogged down by the monotony of everyday life, but i have to keep reminding myself that dealing with people is never monotonous, and really, dealing with people is never insignificant. and i'm glad i can do my little microscopic part to help. it feels good, you know?

 

resolution for the new year {2014}: be moneywise

this is pretty straightforward--it's important when you get older and have more things to pay for and buy and more bills and more of a future to plan for to be pretty good with your money. i'm okay with my money, but i could definitely do better. 

i'm making a conscious effort to 1) not spend money on clothes and shoes (this is a process...) 2) save save save (one of my roommates is amazing and has something like four savings accounts--one for emergencies, one for travel, one regular one, and one for her wedding. yeah, she's a catch.) and 3) not eat out so much. it's a little thing that can end up eating a big chunk of my funds, and eating in more often will also help me with my first resolution, so win-win.

so there you have it--my main resolutions for the year. it's going to be a great one!

resolution for the new year {2014}: build my portfolio

i've had this writer dream forever. i've tweaked it over the years, and i've dabbled here and there, but i can't get it out of my head. but the problem is that i don't really have writing samples, per se. i have blog posts and journal entries, but nothing really concrete, aside from a couple personal essays i wrote in pat madden's essay class a few years back. i have these aspirations of writing something more serious, and then it never happens.

so, this year i want to dedicate time (hopefully each day, if only for a few minutes), to writing for real. i think blogging kind of counts, especially if the posts are of the more essayistic variety (and let's face it, i should be doing more of those anyway). but i want to start to put together a portfolio, since many of my dream jobs require something like that.

por ejemplo, a couple weeks ago, joanna goddard of cup of jo posted a job opportunity working as a writer and editor for her blog, which has a pretty huge national readership. in my opinion, i could totally do something like that--write interesting and meaningful posts and build a brand. but i don't have the experience i would need to even feel comfortable applying.

that's what i want to change this year--write more, on a more consistent basis, with the intent that i will actually do something with that writing. i even bought this book to help me :)

resolution for the new year {2014}: eat cleaner

every year, i make a resolution, whether public or private, that pertains to being healthier. i want to exercise more or eat out less or cook more often. this year my goal in this regard is to eat cleaner. all that other stuff is encompassed in eating cleaner, but it's a different approach than i've taken before. and for the first time probably ever, i've been feeling like i need more vegetables in my life. who'da thunk, right?

so i'm determined to cook more during the week, preferrably full and complete meals, with sides and everything. i'm in the market for some good, easy veggie recipes, so send any of those my way. i guess i'm not really thinking about clean eating in the fanatical, wholly organic way, because, let's face it, most diets are probably going to be cleaner than some of the habits i've gotten into. i don't think it would be super effective to completely cut out all processed foods at this point in my progression. maybe someday, but not now.

but i do want to eat better, and i think there are a few little things i can be doing to get there. help is appreciated :)

resolution for the new year {2014}: overview

i always try to use the first few weeks of a new year to plan out some ways i think i can improve my quality of life, which become my "new year's resolutions", but i think i'm a pretty self-reflective person in general. so, most of these goals are iterations of thoughts i've had for a long time and that i maybe haven't articulated in quite the same way, or ever.

as i was thinking about how i wanted to pattern my life this coming year, i thought about the roots of the word 'resolution'. 'resolve' means, for one thing, to be firm and determined. in music, a resolve is a progression from dissonance to consonance. both of these are key to new year's resolutions, in my mind. as with any goal, you have to be determined and disciplined in order to accomplish anything. this has always been a weakness of mine, one that i am constantly working on. but one of the purposes of resolutions is to create a happier life for yourself, to resolve some of the dissonance to make way for harmony. cheesy? probably. still true? yesiree bob.

my overarching goal for the year is to choose happy. sometimes it is very easy to choose unhappy, or even to just choose complacency. i want to be actively happy this year. i hope my formal resolutions and my loosely ideated resolutions help me with that. let the self-improvement begin (or continue, as the case may be :))

year in (p)review

This has been a pretty eventful year—both in the sense that it has been full of events and that is has been full of personal growth. I guess that’s pretty much all you can ask out of a little ol’ year, right? So I thought I’d give a little run down of what has happened in 2013 (in the briefest of detail—ain’t nobody got time for more than that) and a sneak peek into what I hope will happen in 2014 (not to be confused with my resolutions—those are in the works and will be coming over the next week or so). And away we go! 

Year in Review

Took a couple classes that were actually pretty interesting (it seems really weird to think that I was in classes this year…that feels like a lifetime ago)

Tutored ACT English and Reading at Sylvan Learning

Job searched

Job secured

Job started

Lived with both of my sisters

Did a ton of Zumba and Just Dance

Listened to so much great music

Moved out of Provo

Moved home

Moved away from home

Moved to Sugarhouse

Went to Taylor Swift

Went to Hanson

Went to Kelly Clarkson at Stadium of Fire

Saw a bunch of really good movies

Wrote in my journal a lot

Got an iPhone

Went to Disneyland on two occasions

Welcomed a missionary home

Hit the Peaks (Seven Peaks, that is)

Bought a car (sheesh, I almost forgot that, the biggest thing!)

Blogged on and off :)

Became a homemaker/DIYer/crafter (who am I kidding—I was already one of those)

Read almost all the standard works—all that’s left is the New Testament!

Read a bunch of books, too many to keep track of

And, without further ado: 

Year in Preview

Go to One Direction (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) (I am a teenage girl, I know)

Send off a missionary brother :(

Have an awesome time in Sugarhouse

Go on at least one epic trip, hopefully more. But maybe not more.

Sew my Shop Hop quilt

Finish The Great Bedroom Redecoration at Logan Avenue

Basically be a dating machine

Create lots of art. In a lot of arty ways.

Finish the Book of Mormon at least once

Progress at work

Keep a faithful thankful journal

Get a TIME magazine subscription and actually read TIME

Have a bunch of parties

Just generally have an awesome time

This has been a good year, overall, with many ups and downs. I haven’t really mentioned any of the downs here—no one wants to hear about my identity crises or breakdowns. All of it translates to good things in one way or another. Onward and upward, my friends. Adventure is out there!

Happy New Year!!

moving out/moving in

everything has been pretty close to the surface over the past couple days. i'm not entirely sure why--every so often i have a couple days where i just want to cry, and pretty much anything will make me cry. combine that with moving to a new place on my own and "leaving the nest" (again), and i've been having a rough go of it.

the good thing, though, is that i know it's going to be okay. even if i don't make a million friends right off the bat or become the social butterfly of the ward or even have everything figured out, things are going to be okay. remember how i have to tell myself that multiple times a day, still?

but overall, i feel pretty good. my space is coming together, and i love all of it. i'm sleeping on an air mattress for the time being (a very comfy air mattress, though) and there are still boxes surrounding me. but it's great. it's going to be great.

special thanks to my family, for so many things, as always: for being here to help me move, for being there to console me, for being the best.

so it's on to new adventures. this sounds so melodramatic, which it probably is. but it feels like a big deal to me right now. so bear with me. i'm sure it will be a fun adventure :)

thankful {part one}: faith

it's that time of year again, my favorite time, really: the month of thanks leading up to thanksgiving, which leads up to christmas. i'm this close to listening to christmas music, but i'm holding off for at least one more week :) so, in the spirit of thanksgiving, i'm doing my annual series of thankful posts. (hopefully this year i'll be more consistent and not remember in the last week..)

to start:

i am grateful for my faith. this is way more all-encompassing than just one little blog post, but pretty much everything great in my life boils back down to my belief in a loving Heavenly Father who wants to bless His children and see them happy. i know He knows me and knows what i need and what i am worried about and the desires of my heart, and i know He answers prayers. i am sorely lacking in many ways, but i try to raise my voice in thanksgiving when i can for all those amazing things that i have because of my beliefs.

happy november! more thanks to come!

working girl

wow, remember how a week and a half went by in a flash? i've been immersed in training, learning about the university, the industry, and all of the policies and procedures that go along with my job.

i'm pretty excited about everything, actually. most of the people are pretty cool, and i'm learning pretty quickly, and i guess i pretty much like it. i mean, the whole working full time thing isn't the most fun, but that's just a part of growing up, really.

so, i'm happy. i was a little nervous, but i'm good now. i have a desk! i have health insurance! i have paid holidays and sick days! i have paychecks! that's the most important thing, probably :)

token first day of work picture :)

big news

as some may know, for the past couple months (really actually the past year or so), i have been on the job hunt. this was made somewhat harder by the fact that i want to teach and love to teach yet don't have a teaching certificate as of yet. so, the age-old question remained: what can you do with an english major?

job searching isn't easy. you don't feel that great about yourself. you see "now hiring" signs everywhere but none of them attached to a job or place you want to work. only a handful of the applications you send out lead to interviews, and a surprising number never garner any type of response at all. i like to think of those application out there in the nethers of the internet, waiting to be evaluated. i'll probably hear from them in a few months. how do you get a first job, the job that will help you gain real field experience, if all the positions require you to have prior experience? i don't know; i guess i was a little late to this game. i mean, i did a master's program partly because i wasn't ready to go out into the world and leave my little provo life.

i got the job!! and i don't take flattering selfies...

anyway, all this is leading up to the announcement that I GOT A JOB! i heard yesterday, and it's all very exciting for me. i will have a salary! plus benefits! i can once again become a functioning and independent part of society! i'm pretty sure my parents are even more excited than i am ;) i am really grateful that things worked out the way they did and that i have Somebody looking out for me. many somebodies, actually--i have been overwhelmed by the support and prayers of so many friends and family members this past little while.

i will be working at the salt lake/global campus of strayer university, which specializes in career-track online education for mostly adult students. i will be an admissions coordinator, so i'll be working with recruiters and students, helping them get situated. i'll get to know the ins and outs of this kind of higher education. i think it will be pretty cool. i start october 21st.

i still want to teach at some point. i think i'll end up getting my certification in a couple years. or maybe seminary? i would love to teach seminary. so we'll see. for now i am glad to be employed once again. there goes #4 on my list of 25 things to do this year.

get a big girl job: check.

conference is upon us

this weekend is, once again, General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. as i've said before, these two days consist of leaders from our church speaking on various doctrinal topics. these leaders pray about the messages they need to give, seeking to deliver an address that hits current issues, offers instruction, and hopefully provides an answer for someone in need. over the weekend, i  know i will be spiritually fed, as cheesy as that sounds (see what i did there?). i can't wait for this semiannual event, and, though i don't think i will get to be in the conference center this time, i will be watching every session, pen in hand. and i know that i will get some answers, hopefully to questions i've been asking for awhile, but probably to questions that i didn't even know i had.

i invite you all to take this week to prepare for conference, whatever that means for you. and then watch!

thoughts on tuesday

--i just finished alma in the book of mormon challenge--i'm on track to finish at the end of the month, and it has been pretty awesome. one thing i've learned is that it isn't impossible to be spending a good amount of time in the scriptures every day. i think eventually i won't have this much down time, but setting aside time will be doable.

--i'm obsessed with
 this song:

this video:

and this album:

--when you move, you care a lot less about the stuff you've been carrying around for years. things that had significance at some point, or especially the stuff that had little to no significance, seems fit for nothing but the dumpster or, for the lucky ones, the d.i. box. but even after getting rid of bags and bags of my stuff, i still had so much to move.

as for moving itself, it wasn't as emotional as i thought it would be. if i start thinking about it too much i tear up, but i've been okay. probably when i don't go back to provo in a few weeks or when i move to a completely new place in salt lake it will really begin to sink in. but, i did try to celebrate provo life by going to some of my favorite haunts, which were mainly restaurants. you know how it is. my last meal as a provo resident? brick oven. my mom thought all of these "last meals" were pretty silly, since there's a 100% possibility that i'll go to all of them again, probably in the next few weeks even. but it won't really be the same.

i don't live in provo anymore.

--i've been doing some creative workouts the past couple days, including some treadmill time, some ab work, and, my personal favorite, the exercise ball aka fitness orb.

here's to getting toned!

--i meant to write a bunch of great flashback type posts about study abroad, taking things from my journal, especially that day that i was stranded in the dublin airport, which was also, obviously, pre-blog. but, that didn't happen, at least not in the timeline i planned. so maybe that story will be told sometime.

--also, today's my half birthday. how did it get to be august, the middle of august no less? time marches on.

finishing the doctrine and covenants + book of mormon challenge

here i am, back in the blogosphere. it's weird being away from provo for a couple weeks, weird in a way that makes me realize how ready i am to leave this town. but anyway, back to the business at hand.

since just before easter, i've been reading the doctrine and covenants. after my birthday in february, i made this list of 25 things to do while i'm 25 (also, why haven't i been referring back to this? i've done a couple of these things and i probably wouldn't have even crossed them off the list! sheesh.), and one of the items (the only one i've really remembered, i guess) is #15: read the standard works. today, i finished the doctrine and covenants, the first time i've really read the book all the way through. here are some things i learned/relearned these past few months:

• God speaks to His servants, then and now.
• the doctrine and covenants are unique in that many of the sections are direct revelations from God and Jesus Christ, so they are in their exact words. writing it like that, it doesn't sound so different from any other work of scripture. but i'm a person who is interested in authorial voice--i feel like the sections of the doctrine and covenants express the voice of God in a way that doesn't always come across in other scriptural books, because they are essentially written by God or the Savior. does that make sense? it's just cool to me.
• i LOVE this verse, written by john taylor after the martyrdom of the prophet joseph smith and hyrum smith.

 Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it. In the short space of twenty years, he has brought forth the Book of Mormon, which he translated by the gift and power of God, and has been the means of publishing it on two continents; has sent the fulness of the everlasting gospel, which it contained, to the four quarters of the earth; has brought forth the revelations and commandments which compose this book of Doctrine and Covenants, and many other wise documents and instructions for the benefit of the children of men; gathered many thousands of the Latter-day Saints, founded a great city, and left a fame and name that cannot be slain. He lived great, and he died great in the eyes of God and his people; and like most of the Lord’s anointed in ancient times, has sealed his mission and his works with his own blood; and so has his brother Hyrum. In life they were not divided, and in death they were not separated! (d&c 135:3)

• that is so awesome. it's difficult to comprehend how joseph smith did so much--translating the book of mormon, restoring the Gospel and organizing the Church, doing missionary work--in so little time and through so much persecution. i'm grateful for him.
• most of the revelations that became the doctrine and covenants were received in the 1830s. how incredible is it, then, that so many of them have relevance for us today, right now?

today, i'm starting a book of mormon challenge. for the month of august, i will be reading 8 chapters a day to finish by august 31. i'm really excited about it! i've never read the book of mormon like that in a short amount of time before, so i think it will be really great. if you'd like, join me!

i love the scriptures. i love reading them.

this american life

i subscribed to the this american life podcast a couple years ago, mainly because i knew it was the cool thing to do.

well, the episodes mostly sat in my library, unheard and unloved.

this all changed when i took up late-night embroidery. i couldn't get enough of it during the day, so i started burning the midnight oil. and hey, i thought, i've got to do something to fill the silence. why not listen to that devotional elder and sister holland gave that i downloaded months ago that i till haven't heard.

turned out this talk wasn't on my ipod like i thought, but what was? six episodes of this american life that i had randomly decided one day that my ipod could not live without. and so it began.

i listened to three episodes that night. i didn't want to turn it off. even after i finished the piece i was working on, i lay on my bed in the dark, listening to ira glass and company tell stories about the most ordinary things.

last night i listened to an old episode called "middle school." it was amazing. emily knows about this from her first year teaching middle school, but hearing the voices of these sweet kids made me fall in love with them, all going through hard times and figuring out who they are supposed to be, all actually really smart and insightful.

so i guess it just took me a couple years to be cool enough for this american life. maybe this is a sign that i'm almost ready for a subscription to TIME?

the impossible

i've been thinking lately about the idea of impossibility. one of my favorite scriptures is luke 1: 37. i love it for its simplicity:

for with God nothing shall be impossible.

this comes in reference to the immaculate conception, so yeah, i believe that, with God, nothing is impossible. He can do anything--move mountains, calm oceans, raise the dead. i fully believe that miracles happen.

it's harder for me to believe this when it comes to my own life, my own problems, my own worries. i know, theoretically, that, if i rely on God, i can do anything. but it's a lot more difficult in practice. i know that i have limitations, some which i don't even understand, and those limitations let all my self-doubts and fears creep in. i start to think that those things that i want to do are impossible, that i can't be helped.

i'm ready to change my attitude about impossible things actually being possible. the first step is an unshakable belief, right?

Jesus said unto [me], If thou canst believe, all things are possible to [her] that believeth.

seek the Lord's acceptance

i listened to elder kopischke's talk, "being accepted of the Lord" this morning, and it was just what i needed. i loved the talk during conference, and i love it again now. here are some of the gems i like most.

The feeling of being accepted by someone we love is a basic human need. Being accepted by good people motivates us. It increases our sense of self-worth and self-confidence.

The ultimate source of empowerment and lasting acceptance is our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. They know us. They love us. They do not accept us because of our title or position. They do not look at our status. They look into our hearts. They accept us for who we are and what we are striving to become. Seeking and receiving acceptance from Them will always lift and encourage us.

We need to know that our hearts are honest and broken. How do we know that? We begin by engaging in sincere self-reflection. The heart is the center of our feelings. As we look into our hearts, we screen ourselves. What no one around us knows, we surely know. We know our motives and desires. When we engage in sincere, honest reflection, we do not rationalize or deceive ourselves. There is also a way to judge if our hearts are broken. A broken heart is a soft, an open, and a receptive heart.

A contrite spirit is manifest by our willingness and determination to act. We are willing to humble ourselves before God, willing to repent, willing to learn, and willing to change. We are willing to pray, “Not my will, but thine, be done.”

Too often we think that the word sacrifice refers to something big or hard for us to do. In certain situations this may be true, but mostly it refers to living day-to-day as a true disciple of Christ.

Having the Holy Ghost as our constant companion is the ultimate indicator of being accepted of God.

Seeking and receiving the acceptance of the Lord will lead to the knowledge that we are chosen and blessed by Him. We will gain increased confidence that He will lead us and direct us for good. His tender mercies will become evident in our hearts, in our lives, and in our families.

pretty awesome, right?