two princesses

One, two, princes kneel before you
(thats what I said, now)
Princes, princes who adore you
(just go ahead, now)

Have you ever had a choice to make, a choice between to good things, trying to accurately pick the 'best.' Choice A seems logical, convenient, and increasingly acceptable day by day. Choice B seems a little more difficult to attain, something that will force me to go out of my way and will probably take quite some time. It seems obvious, no? Go with choice A, the path of least resistance, right? However... I've had a nagging feeling that I really should choose B, a thought that's been in the back of my mind since..... February? It's kind of hard to ignore, but it's almost harder to follow it!!

My final reasoning is that I cannot every be satisfied with anything until I have done B, whether it works out or not. Assuming that A is in fact the 'best' answer I can only prove that by first choosing B. B must be carried through, hopefully I have the courage to do it.

thanks for reading <3

5:39 pm

What's with the absolutely random timing of the playing of the Star Spangled Banner on campus!!?! it started at like 5:37... lame.

Last night I pondered myself. I think that I am being too much of 'Sting' and not enough 'michael'. I know that period is supposed to go inside of the quotes, but I don't want it to be.

I found that I am very fearful of many things, so fearful that I give up before I even get started... something that is going to have to change.

I have very high hopes for the future, and this homecomming week at BYU is super fun, with lots of activities and on Saturday, ESPN's College Game Day is coming here!! It's gonna rock my socks :-D

These feelings I'm feeling

Since beginning my last post I have struggled with defining how I feel about people I know not of my faith. I have given it much thought, and explored my feelings deeply. I have several friends who are not 'mormon,' and I took into account experiences with all of them that allowed me to develop my ideas here. I will try to be very generic in this analysis, but hopefully you can all still understand what I'm trying to say.

First of all, I do not think that this is a feeling that is possessed solely by me, I think this same feeling is experienced by people all over the world, any one person with a good friend, with said friend making decisions contrary to what said person thinks is "right." People are often afraid to offend their friend, such offense rising from one person trying to 'force' the other to do certain things. I say 'force' because they usually don't mean it that way, but are afraid of having their intentions come off that way. People are afraid to ruin their good relationship, a fear driven by not know what their friends reaction might be. So is it fear?

Despite any fear, such a person would continue to have a desire to talk to their friend about religion or making 'better' decisions. This desire (I think) is driven partialy by guilt. They feel guilty that by saying/doing nothing they aren't fulfilling their belief or duty to their religion and thence they feel guilty toward their religion/belief for such betrayal. A second reason for their desire could be because of their sincere belief in this religion, not so much guilt for not sharing, but a robotic programmatic response ('zombie' like you might say) that zealots of certain religions obtain through complete devotion to their religion.

Another (related) reason for their desire could be out of genuine concern/love for their friend. For me, there are a few things in this world that I love above everything else, and I love them because they fill me with joy and make this life worth living. First is the gospel of Jesus Christ (and ever family, friend, truth thing pertaining thereunto). Second is skiing. Finally is Apple computers (awesome technology in general). For me, the joy that I get from these three is enough to cause me to want to share these things with my best friend. When I love someone I want to share with them my greatest joys so they too can be joyful. I am please to report that my current direct link converts (those I've converted, not converts of converts) to skiing number around six, and to Apple around five :-) (Having spent two years doing nothing but 'converting' people to the gospel, my number there significantly higher). The point being that wanting to share joy is a valid reason for having a desire to share religion with your friends.

It goes on in an eternal balance your desire to share counter balanced with your fear of their unknown reaction. And I think for myself the only way to resolve this dilemma comes in the form of a question: Would I still be friends with them if I knew that in the end they would never join the church? Regardless of the fact that we cannot predict the future, lets assume we can, and say that the future says that friend will never share the same beliefs or live the same standards as said person, are you still friends with them?

For one friend of mine, she was never a member of my church, she never shared standards, though she was an overall 'good person'. I do not fear offending her because our relationship was never based in the church. Another friend I made in Washington was in my ward there. Since our parting he has left the church, and I have little desire to see him again, simply because our original connection no longer exists. Finally the friend who sparked this train of thoughts, though our original connection was through the church, or friendship developed over a long period of time and transcended, religion, age, or sexual preference.... Some friends really are forever.

If you read all of that, I'm impressed, if you feel like you just wasted ten minutes of your life please let me know and I'll do my best to get it back to you ;-)

Photons

I didn't cry when my I found out my grandpa died (though I did at the funeral).
I didn't cry when my first 'love' broke up with me (though I wanted to).
I didn't cry when I got fired from the best job ever.
I didn't cry when my girlfriend of five months broke up with me.

I did cry after seeing my best friend for the first time in a year.

Over this past year he's led a life that I don't agree with, a lifestyle that he actually begun about four years ago. He turned 23 this week, making it four years since he turned 19 and decided not to go on a mission, about a year later he turned 20, and turned gay. A bounce house of events moved him from SUU to UVU, back home to Elk Ridge, and finally up to UofU. I saw him a year ago when I first came back down to Utah for school, and hadn't seen him since though we have continued to acknowledge each others existence through facebook, commenting on statuses and pictures and the like.

Yesterday, I went up to Salt Lake (Sugarhouse to be exact) and visited him at his work (Olive Garden). I went at a slow hour so he has plenty of time to talk with me, we talked about school, classes, majors, how different life is now than in high school. We didn't really talk about anything super important, but we talked, and that is what I feel was important. Another old friend of ours works there at the same place, she gave me dinner and cheese cake for free (I will forever love you Loni for that), and I left. I got in the car, started driving home, thinking about how much I fun I'd just had and within six blocks I was crying. I honestly don't know why. I suppose it was partly because I was so happy to have seen them, partly because I was again remembering my great love for them, and perhaps partly I was sad that we weren't better friends.

I want to let it be know that I do not find fault in him, I do not feel betrayed or that he is a bad person. Simply stated, my own beliefs in the gospel of Jesus Christ tell me that the decisions he has made are not the ones that will bring greatest happiness, but I do not expect anyone else to live their life by what I believe, they would then be living my life, and that would just be weird, I believe in agency .... more on that subject: next post.

The Story of Some Talents

I once knew a pair of twin sisters who loved to dance. These sisters, Amy and Emily, had gotten into clogging while they were still pretty young and by high school they were on teams that toured around and they had not only become very good at dancing, but they grew more and more in love with dancing. I met these two in our freshman year at college and they were on some dance team, practicing often and having awesome performances. I was friends with not only Amy and Emily, but also their four other roommates, a handful of some of the funnest people I've ever met. I would often spend my days hanging out at their apartment, doing homework, talking nonsense, doing dishes... you know it's only been four years since then, but I have a hard time remembering just what it was I was doing there. I remember it was relaxing to be at their apartment, I felt at home.

Something I will probably always remember though, was once sitting idly in their kitchen while Emily was cooking some food. As she stood at the stove stirring her noodles (or whatever it was she was cooking) she was softly bouncing as her toes and heels tapped out rhythms from their dance routine. For me it was a small indication of just how much these girls LOVED to dance, more than anything else, and how it permeated their entire lives. I went to a large dance show that winter 'Christmas Around the World' and as I watched them dance I couldn't imagine them being any happier. Their smiles were just so huge and full of joy.

Yesterday I went to the dance devotional and saw them again dancing some amazing pieces, again with engaging and full smiles permanent on their faces. It really made me enjoy the performance that much more because I felt like I really knew how much they were enjoying the performance, and also how much work, effort, and practice they had put into it. I began to reflect on other people I know that shine while performing and I could recall various others who when dancing, singing, acting, or even cooking, would grown between their ears the largest and fullest smile possible. Such a smile is contagious I think, and blesses those who see it.

I think there is a lesson to be learned here about sharing talents. If there's something that you love that much, and you can do it at a performance level then it can truly become a great blessing to those you share it with. Perhaps hidden away in us all is the happiness of doing what we love and it is my prayer today that we can discover it, do it, and use it to bless others.

p.s. in the first picture Amy is the first full face you can see on from the left, and in the second she's up and to the right of the guy right in the middle. I guess she's more photogenic, I couldn't find any pictures of Emily, and actually another of their roommates, April, is also in the ensemble now.