A lesson from the Olympics

I have herd many things on confidence lately. Apparently it is very important and can make all the difference in the level of success you have. However, I have never seen it in such outright performance as I did while watching a snowboarding event in the Olympics. It was the one where they go down a half pipe and do all sorts of tricks. For those of you who don't know they get two runs and then their best run is there score. This guy was the last to go. No one had beaten his score so he already knew that he had the gold. He already knew that he was good enough. However he still had one run left so off he went. He decided to do one of the most difficult tricks on this run. It is important to have good speed going into this trick so you will go up high enough and therefore have enough time to pull off the trick. He didn't have allot of speed/momentum going into it because of the previous trick he had just done (so the announcer said) however he still pulled off the trick. I'm pretty sure that the snowboarder knew that he was not going into the trick well but he decided to do it anyway. Why because he had the confidence that it would be ok. He already knew that he had won gold and that he has great capabilities. You know what happened, he pulled of the trick and improved his score by like two points. Hows that for the importance of confidence.

A I wrote that I thought this. We are just like that in life. We have two runs. The first was the in the preexistence and we won gold. Now we are on our second run. Yes, there are times that it looks like the odds are against when we go into things or it may seem that we didn't quite do so well in preparation for our next attempt in life. But we already know the out come. We already know that if we do our best we will win gold again because of the atonement of Jesus Christ. Therefore we can go forward with confidence.

A Roof Over My Head

For the last four weeks I have been volunteering as an EFY counselor throughout Utah. I have loved it. But that's not what this post is about.
Being me, I didn't realize until the day before I left for Utah that EFY does not give volunteer counselors a place to stay. GULP. I was stressed but a little voice inside my head said Go ahead and get on the plane. It will be taken care of. So off I went. I had no clue where I was going to stay and the people I had called to see if they knew someone who would let me stay with them had no idea either. Finally I got a call form my wonderful Dad N.. My cousin Bre had been going to School in Logan and I could stay with her. That was a major blessing. Three weeks down two more to go. Of course, after Logan is all taken care of I get an e-mail asking if anyone needs a place to stay while in Logan for EFY. Nope but what about Sandy. So I called the session coordinator and she said they would find me a place to stay Sunday night. Sunday night comes around and I still don't know where I'm sleeping that night. What if no one takes me? I can't afford a hotel for two weeks. Ahh. Not until the very end did someone say they cold take me. That week I also found a girl who would take me for the week after.
Why am I telling you this? Because there is a principle. I did not know how things would work out. I only knew that ths was what I should be doing. I also had to put forth the faith that Heavenly Father would take care of me before it was evident how he had planned for that to be accomplished. My help also came from others.
Just like in life we have to put forth faith before we can understand. Sometimes when we are told to do something it seems like help is not going to come but it does and most often trough other people.
I am thankful for being taught this principle.

A lesson form a sport

For any of you who have seen me at a sporting event you would know that I like them.....allot. Why do I like sports? Apart from the fact that it is fun to see a good, out of no where tackle, people celebrating, the feel the energy, and the great shots made by unexpected players, I like sports because their are lessons to be learned for both the athlete and the spectator.

Recently John Bytheway published a book called Sports. Life lessons form court, field and gridiron. My grandparents just happen to have it and I have been reading it. I'm not done. I haven't even made it to the football section, but here is one of the quotes. Its found on page 38 and Spencer W Kimball said it.

"I have special luck with my shots tonight, the ball goes through the hoop again and again, and the game ends with our high school team victors against the college team. I am the smallest player and the youngest one on the team. I have piled up the most points through the efforts of the whole team in protecting me and feeding the ball to me. I am on the shoulders of the big players of the Academy. They are parading me around the hall to my consternation and embarrassment. I like basketball. I would rather play this game than eat"

Obviously he must have been a good player. I think that in life if we want to be truly good at something we have to want it more than anything. Like food. This made me think of fast Sunday because fasting is not one of my favorite things. But I should want to obey the law of the fast more than eat food so I will have to be better at it.

EFC

My first session as a volunteer EFY counselor was amazing beyond description. I am so thankful that I get to do this. Every thing was awesome. And I got what I prayed for, patience. I didn't mean to pray for opportunities for it I just prayed that I would have it. I guess some of my kids were sent there so I would know I was being helped with it. Despite that I still love those kids. They have bright testimonies and great potentials. The reason I can see that and love them is because I wasn't just loving them for me. I was loving them for Heavenly Father. I love them because he loves them.

So, what is EFC? It's what happens after an area session of EFY when the kids go home. Especially for counselors was very fun. We got to say the things we enjoyed that day, eat, cram to many people in a car, and flirt because the kids aren't there to see. There are rewards to being a volunteer. Regretably I forgot to bring my camera cord so I cant add my pictures just yet. I'll tell you when I do.

A Walk in the Snow

Today I was woken up to someone telling me it had snowed. A minuets later someone came and told me breakfast was ready. I must admit that if you have to wake up that those are some great things to wake up to. A special treat to breakfast was hot chocolate. Thank you snow for giving me an excuse. The snow also canceled church. I guess people are a little scared of snow here or maybe it is way worse in other places. Oh well. To substitutes church we watched music and the spoken word along with other programs from the BYU channel via the Internet. The music was especially wonderful because it is Christmas music. I love Christmas music. After lunch we went on a walk. Here are some pictures for you.

A little lesson from a little branch. This branch is very thin yet supports allot of snow. I think people are like this. We are very little, yet we can support allot of things.