Faith

This is an assignment for my Mission Prep class where we just needed to pick a gospel topic and write about it, with some sources from the scriptures.  I chose faith and thought I would just share what I wrote.  Feel free to post your own opinions and comments and what not!  

Faith

Many people talk about faith in the gospel of Christ and how it is important in order to live a happy life.  What I think people don’t realize is how it is the basic foundation of the gospel and without it, everything is obsolete. 

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Heb. 11:1)  Faith is belief something that cannot be seen.  It is taking the words heard on Sunday from leaders and having faith in the gospel to apply it to our lives.  It is following commandments given, even when you do not necessarily understand or agree, because you know that God knows all and loves you.  It is living in a world full of tangible things and dedicating your life to that which is intangible and cannot be seen with the human eye. 

When you have faith in Christ and in God’s plan for you, the gospel and the commandments given to you all make sense.  You are given that eternal perspective and that perspective makes everything else fall into place.  You know God’s plan and you see what will keep you from Him and what will bring you closer to Him.  Ultimate, perfect faith gives you power to live the teachings of the gospel without fail.  Because we are human and are in a fallen state faced to deal with our natural man, this perfect faith is not constant or even attainable at the moment.  While we live in a world filled with temptations that are right in our faces, ready to give us temporary pleasure and having our natural man crave that while being at war with our spiritual self, it is inevitable that mistakes will be made and that our faith will waver.  When that desperate father brought his possessed boy to Christ begging him to heal him, Christ told him, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible.”  The father replied back in tears “Lord, I believe.  Help thou mine unbelief.”  And then Christ healed his son. (Mark 9:23-24)  Christ understands that we are human and striving for perfection and thus has great mercy on us.  He knows that our faith is not always the strongest and provides us with support so that we may grow our faith and believe in Him because “If thou canst believe, all things are possible.”

            There are many things that Christ has given us that we must actually do to increase our faith, because “faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” (James 2:17)  If we pray to Him to have faith, He will bless us.  Christ said, “Whatsoever things ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is good, in faith believing that ye shall receive, behold, it shall be done unto you.” (Moroni 7:26)  Obedience to the commandments that God has given us also increases our faith.  As we live the gospel and see the blessings coming into our lives from it, it strengthens our faith and becomes easier to follow the commandments.  He has given us them for a reason, for us to have the greatest happiness in our lives and to return back to Him.  Study of the scriptures is also very important because the lessons of the prophets of old have great worth and have been brought forth in our time to be a strength and support to us in these last days.  All of these works help strengthen our faith in Christ, but all of it starts with a desire.  If someone does not desire to have faith, it will not grow.  All the things above already take a certain amount of faith to do, especially when expecting results and blessings from God.  He has said “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say…” (D&C 82:10) but to do the things which He says, it takes faith and a desire for faith. 

            God loves every one of us.  He put us on this earth knowing how imperfect we would be and how quick to forget of His gospel we would be.  He knew we would grow as we developed our faith in Him, being on the other side of the veil with no remembrance of our lives before.  As we desire and work with that desire for faith, we will receive blessings from the Lord and have the strength to follow His commandments so we can be clean to live with Him again, just as He has planned for us.   

Le Update...

So I haven't written in a while.  This always happens.  I get a temporary burst of creativity and then nothing for months.  You'd think I'd have lots of posts since I have to sit at my stupid computer for 8 hours at a time for my job, right?  Nope. I guess the extent of my thoughts during work are "Please kill me, please kill me, please kill me.  Shoot, I have 7.5 hours to go...oh I'm out of diet mountain dew."


So I thought that I would give an update...for the grand total of...3 of you that read this...that might be optimistic.  Irregardless, here we go.


I'm not in school right now so I'm just working.  I quit my job as a custodian at BYU campus and now work as a cab dispatcher for a cab company in Alexandria, Virginia.  Yeah I know.  Weird huh?  Here I am sitting in Utah getting calls from people who need cabs on the other side of the country and they expect me to know the area like I live there.  So I sit there for 8 hours answering the phone.  (Yeah, I know I said I didn't have much to write about work.  I guess that was a lie.  I have A LOT to write.  It's all I do pretty much.)  So I answer the phone the same way millions of times a day.  I'm getting so used to it that I kind of slur the words now so people can't understand me.  So I have to repeat it.  Again.  And Again.  It's annoying.


By the way, what's with all the people in Alexandria, Virginia that talk like they have a loaf of bread in their mouths?  This is basically how it goes.


Me: "Thank you for holding, can I get your pickup address please?"
Them: "asd;lfams;flah;asja;sl..."
Me: ".....sorry can you say that again please?"
Them: "ASD;FLASMD;FLAHSDFOAIDJF;LASDMF;ALDHF;ALSHGPOAIJ;SLDFJA!!!!!!"
Me: "....ok...can you spell that for me please?"
Them: "WHAT?? A;SFDLKFHA;SDLFJA;SDFDA;SLD.....OK.ASDLFA;SDFA FEESALSF;LAFIADF;AJD"


And then before I shoot my head off, I transfer them to my dispatcher - the manager guy- because he speaks loaf-of-bread-in-foreigner's-mouth language.

Not to be harsh or anything, I love people from foreign countries.  If anyone should be welcoming and loving to these people, it's the girl who lived in Mexico for 12 years of her life.  But so help me if I have another person yell at me for not understanding their horrible accent I am going to build giant stone walls around this country myself with enforced Rosetta Stone English kits nailed all around them.  I am glad to take the time to listen to you and try to figure out what you're saying but if you yell at me, my patience/respect for you/swearing restraint goes down exponentially.


Anyway.


So while I'm dealing with that crap, I try to to distract myself with movies or shows to watch or even books to read!  Gasp!  I know Mom!!  You should be so proud!!  But the problem is that there is very little time in between calls.  I think the longest time I've had in between calls was probably 5 minutes and it wasn't even really worth it because I spent the whole time trying to see if my phone was broken because that never happens.  Ok...that might be an exaggeration but that's certainly how it feels.  So yeah.  It'll take me about the whole 8 hours to get through a whole movie.  No wonder my perception of movies lately has been that they are really slow and that they just drag...


Ok so that's probably enough about my stupid job.  It makes me irritated just thinking about it and I don't want to pass that along to you unsuspecting readers and I'm officially off my shift now so I want to go out into the world.


But I'll leave you with a video I came across lately and have shown it to many people around me because I find it hilarious.  So enjoy.  Or don't.  Whatever.  I find it hilarious.


Don't judge me.

Right on.

I Feel like Play Dough

So I was having a talk with my roommates today and all of the sudden we got on deep topics and my brain was sufficiently tired by the end of the conversation.  We ended up talking about who we are, what we are like and who influences us.  It is an interesting thing to ask yourself.  What are you like?  Who has influenced you most in your life?  We were talking about how we are either too emotional or not emotional enough or how we are driven by some things and have no motivation for other things.  Why is that?  We came to the conclusion that by observing and interacting with others we are constantly being influenced and molded by others.

I've thought about this.  I feel like sometimes I'm not emotional enough and I wish I were more extreme sometimes.  I sometimes feel like I'm too neutral and don't react enough to things.  Granted, I really like that about myself sometimes, but it gets boring after a while.  We were talking about how we were as teenagers and I said that I never got into really big arguments with my parents or anything.  In fact, I don't think I've ever really yelled at anyone since I was really young and annoying.  I have never reallTey fought with anyone, never punched anyone in the face, never had that extreme experience.  What made me like that?  Why was I not the emotional teenager who was rebellious and fought with her parents a lot?  I got along great with my parents!  (Not regretting that at all, I love it.  I'm just wondering why).

So I'm interested!  Tell me if you so desire!  What are you like and who do you think has influenced you most in your life?  Who has molded you into the unique piece of play dough that you are today?

Right on.

Taylor Swift and I are buddies

I got a guitar for Christmas and I've been practicing.  This still has a lot of improvement left and I sort of forget the lyrics sometimes because I wasn't looking at them, but this is how it is so far.
I'm awesome...is basically what this post is about.

Oh yeah and I said "hope you enjoyed it" before it got cut off.  Just FYI.

Enjoy!

Right on.

Another Temporary Burst...

Hello the grand total of 2 followers and 42 page viewers!  Yup. I checked.

I am starting my blog up again!  I know I always get a burst about this time of year for some reason and it doesn't last very long but I'm going to try to make it last.  So...yeah.

Welcome!  I have a new design for my blog.  Before it was all red with my mexico flag picture on it but I decided to change things up a it.  I wanted it to look more...professional?  I don't know. Anyways.  So this is my blog.  The Viva Mexico is due to the fact that I lived in Mexico for 12 years of my life so I grew up there and it's basically my home, for any viewers who don't know me.  I'm a little creeped out, but I guess I can give you that information and still be safe...I hope.  Also I laugh at pretty much anything so if you're creating a tv ad and you want to know if the general public will think it's funny, don't ask me because I'm a little more generous than people in the world.  They're just more boring.  That's what I tell myself anyway.

Speaking of funny tv ads, I am severely disappointed in the Super Bowl commercials this year.  There were probably 2 or 3 that I thought were funny (I know.  It's surprising.) but the rest were just like regular boring commercials!  Doritos got it down with 2 of them and then the kid darth vader was just adorable.  But the rest did not even bring out a chuckle.  Ok, maybe a little but it wasn't as good as some of the others.

On that note, I feel like this has gotten a little random so I'm going to end with a random bit.

Have you heard?  Huh.  I thought that everyone has heard that...

Right on. 

Thinking About Life...

Ok, so I know I haven't written in a million years...yeah. This always happens! I have a creative burst for a couple of days and then it goes away and then when the burst comes back about a month or two later, I write again. Sorry for being so bipolar with my blog-ige.

Anyways, so as I am at school, thinking about what major I want is constantly flowing through my head. And you'd think that I would come up with something since I'm always thinking about it. You would think that if you logged enough hours thinking and contemplating and staring at the majors on the BYU website, you would eventually have an idea! Yeah, not so much. I don't know what the crap I want to do.

I have looked and I have thought but I have not decided. What do you do? Do you do something you know you love or something that will allow you to live a stable life for you and your family? And if you do the thing you love, how do you know you will love it if you pursue it as a career? What do you love??? What do you want to do everyday for the rest of your life? Do you pick a major where you can get a job right after four years of college or something that will require more time?? You can probably tell that anyone's brain would be fried from all these questions. It's amazing how open major college students still make it through their classes. So there are a couple of things that I have considered doing, but I have not decided anything yet.

FIRST!

I could become a vet. I could major in Biology, then probably move back to Michigan where I would go to the Michigan State vet school and spend another four years there.

Pros: I love animals. Great pay.

Cons: Lots of debt. Four more years of school. Don't veterinarians have a high depression/suicide rate?

And all of this would happen assuming I don't get married before I graduate because then everything would be screwed up and my life would be over. Just kidding...right?

SECOND!

I could just major in Biology. Having a Biology major leaves me a lot of options. I was looking at the majors on the BYU website and there was a Wildlife and Wildlands Conservation major that looks really cool. I would be interested in working in a job to preserve the environment and the animals in it. If I don't do that, I could go back to the vet thing, or even go to medical school or something like that. A lot of options.

Pros: Lots of options.

Cons: Don't know if I would like any of the options. Do I even like Biology? Again, probably need more school after four years to get an actual job.

THIRD!

I could just bite the bullet and be a music major. Ok, I might be seriously late for it, but music is really something that I KNOW I love. I would have to brush up my playing to actually get in the program and then either major in something that involves teaching or the media music major, which will probably not get me much. I don't really want to teach music and would rather have it as a hobby.

Pros: I know I love music.

Cons: Would I like doing music as a career? It's going to be hard. I'm not sure if I'll even get a job from this major. What if I need to support myself?

Yeah, I don't know exactly what else to do. I mean, there are other options like nursing, which would get me a great job and I would be able to support myself. I could become a teacher, maybe even a history teacher, but I don't know if I want to teach. Not great pay, but good benefits. And I really like history.

Maybe I could become a carpenter!! I could build things and maybe even one day build pianos! That would be amazing. I would have to go somewhere else to learn carpentry...

I really don't want to be in the business/lawyer/in cubicle category of a job. I would rather do something outside or something with animals and something that I enjoy.

As you can see, my mind is scattered. Lots of options. Lots of pros and cons. Lots of life-changing options that will determine what I do for the rest of my life. Yeah, no pressure, Stephanie!

And if all else fails, I could be a hobo. I like shopping carts. :)

Right on.

Here we go again!

Hello! I am back from my wonderful Christmas break and am starting my second semester at BYU. Time to put away the Christmas decorations, stop eating good food, and change my playlist to the regular one without Christmas music. Fun, huh?

So I got home on Saturday night after a long day of travelling and decided that I didn't want to be here! I was doing fine while I was leaving home and during the travelling process, but as soon as I stopped and sat on my couch, the tears started flowing. There was a definite hole or withdrawal from leaving home that made me sad. After some healthy, well-needed tears, I felt some weight off my shoulders and felt prepared to go back. Have you ever noticed that?Sometimes you need just a good cry. ~Cue Dane Cook's skit about crying. Look it up. It's awesome~. Sometimes the world taps you on the shoulder and squeezes those tears out of you like an orange in a juicer. And even though there are sad thoughts and unhappiness while you are crying, there is something about the aftermath of it that just makes you feel better. It cleanses your soul so you're ready for more crap the world is about to hand you. So if you haven't cried in a long time and you feel like you're depressed with the world, force yourself to cry and almost guaranteed you'll feel better.

Anyway, I digress.

So today was my first day back to class and I must say it went pretty well. The day started out pretty well because I got to sleep in. Since my plan is to get a morning job on campus, my classes don't start until noon or 1:30. So I take my time getting ready and head off to school. I get to my English class and, of course, think that it's the wrong class because even though the room number is right and the building is right and you're there at the right time, you think you're at the wrong place. It happens. But I was at the right place and my teacher seemed funny and easy-going so I think it'll be a good class. I proceeded to my Book of Mormon 122 class after that and almost stepped into a Statistics class. Yikes! So I proceeded to the room next to it, which was the right one, and found out that Todd Parker if freaking hilarious. Thank you, Liz! He was explaining the syllabus like every other teacher and then all of the sudden he would burst out with some movie quote or just kind of stare out into the audience and point at two guys and be like "Are you two twins?! You look like it! No? Ok, never mind" and then continue. I can tell that'll be a good one. Then I headed to my honors Biology class, which has such a funny, quirky teacher. It was weird having an hour and a half class in stead of a 50 minute one like I did my first semester. All in all, my teachers are funny and the classes seem good. A pat on the back for moi for picking my Monday-Wednesday classes. (We'll see about tomorrow's classes...)

One thing that will be different this semester will be that I will have more work to do. I will not be able to get away with lazing around all night without doing any significant homework most of the time and in stead watch movies online. Nope. I have reading assignments that I have to do for almost each class every night so when I get home and have that free time, it will be spent doing homework. WHAT? I HAVE TO STUDY? Yeah, weird.

One thing that I noticed, however, is how much we as humans crave other human interaction. I swear. I was feeling the let down of coming home and having to go back to school and just feeling sad/stressed/unmotivated. Then, I started talking to my roommates and I went to FHE tonight and had fun with my group and just felt so much better! Goofing around and joking with my roommates and talking about our classes and our homework just boosted me up and made me happier to be here and more motivated and made me feel like "Ok! I can do this!" It's amazing how much friends and just general people around you can affect your mood. Granted, this might just be me and my personal needs, but I seriously don't think I would have survived living in an apartment by myself. I need other people, which is good and bad at the same time.

So yeah, that's what's going on in my world. First, feeling unmotivated to go back to school and missing home and then being lifted up to feeling ready to go and ready to continue college and my independent life. (That's such a weird transition, by the way. Turning into an independent adult from a dependent child under your parents. Weird.)

Right on.