Reflections and Thoughts

Recently, I have been doing a lot of thinking about what my purpose is in life. I love my calling, my job is great, and I have amazing friends. However, sometimes I feel like I am not truly happy. This week I have had a lot of things happen that has brought this again to my attention and I wanted to share some of those. My friend, Kristen, posted on her blog the question: "Do you know who you are?" I have thought about this a lot because I know certain parts of me, but with uncertainty comes doubts of who I really am. I love my life and I am happy to be here. Sometimes I wish I could see the end from the beginning. This week I have decided to live life for me and to be in control of my own life. I have let little things control my life that shouldn't. My health, job, or anything else will not control who I am.
My brother sent me an email this week. He is serving in the Arizona Phoenix Mission. In the email he had this little rhyme that makes a lot of sense to me. I am not sure who said this.

"Trials come
And trials go
But having the Lord next to me
Is all I need to know."

I am going through a time when I am not sure what the next year or so will bring but the Lord is next to me and will be. I have nothing to worry about.
Tonight we had part of our stake conference. Elder Walker from the seventy was there. He said somethings that were really neat. One was to the effect that whatever errands the Lord wants me to run, I will be ready to do so for him. It is fine to be a "goody goody" or a "Molly Mormon" because it shows that we are truly trying.
I think the thing that was said that impacted me the most was this: "Do not let your faith be difficult to detect."
This is who I want to be. I want to be a woman of faith, charity, service and love. I want to be in control and have fun.

Tons of Fun

I have had an exciting past couple of days. On Friday, I got to go see my sister. I spent the weekend with her and her family. I had so much fun talking, playing, and watching conference. It was a good time. On Saturday, I babysat my nephews. While I was babysitting the both climbed up into the chair and I told them to close their eyes and pretend like they were asleep. It was soooooo cute and I have to share the picture.They look so peaceful there and the lighting was nice to make it look like night. On Sunday, I did not want to come home. I had so much fun there. However, there was more fun to come.
Monday brought some fun. I was able to celebrate my birthday with my parents a day early, because today was plain crazy. Anyway, when my dad got home from work, I opened presents. It was great. To make things even better, we went to Chilis for dessert.My dad had the cheesecake. He was glad that the strawberry syrup was on the bottom.
My mom had something like a chocolate chip paradise that had chocolate, walnuts, coconut with ice cream and probably some other stuff.This is mine, and it is almost as big as I am. I got the chocolate chip molten lava cake. It was huge, but delicious. Needless to say, we were all given so much food that we could not finish what was on our plates. It is all good though because it was delicious.

Today, I was able to celebrate some more. It seemed like my birthday lasted two days this year instead of just one. My friends took my out for treats for the birthday treat and also gave me a poem that they had made up about me and my life. It was great and it made me laugh. It had little joke about things that had happened to me in the past couple of years. It is going in the journal tonight, that is for sure.

After all the excitement, it is time to face that fact that I am one year older. Thank you all for everything. I have the best family and friends.