How to Judge Successful Missionary Work

We may not be out in the field serving a 2 year mission, but we're all missionaries. I've been studying Preach My Gospel for a few weeks now with Olivia, and our study today asked us to prepare a 2 minute talk on a principle that we studied in Chapter 1. I chose "How will I know whether I'm a successful missionary?" Here's what I wrote.

  In Mosiah chapter 28, verse 3, it says, "Now they were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble."
  This is how we all should feel about sharing the Gospel. Have you ever wondered if you're being a successful missionary? Maybe on days or weeks or months where there aren't numbers, despite your best efforts? Well, numbers aren't the measure of success. Here are three ways that you can measure your success:

1. You love the people and desire their salvation.
2. Obey with Exactness.
3. Go about doing good and serving people at every opportunity, whether or not they accept your message.

  First--Love the people and desire their salvation. President David O. McKay, in the book Gospel Ideas said, "True Christianity is love in action." We must love the people we're surrounded by at home, or at work, or at school, or at the grocery story. We must love them so much that we want their salvation more than anything for them. When we love them, and show them with action, we are true Christians and are doing our part for the work.

  Second--Obey with exactness. I have a friend serving a mission right now and I got a letter from him once that said he was struggling a little and didn't feel like the work was moving along like he wanted it to. The next letter I got from him said that he realized the problem. He needed to get back to obeying the little things with exactness; and when he did that, the work picked back up. It will work the same for us. When we keep the commandments and follow the Prophets, we will be better able to share the wonderful word of God.

  Third--Go about doing good and serving people at every opportunity, whether or not they accept the message. I feel like this point is hugely important. If we, as members, would do good and serve people whenever we get the chance, I know we'd have an impact on others. I'm not the best at serving people. I make a lot of excuses. But one day I didn't and it impacted me. I was walking through Wal-Mart and I noticed this little old lady trying to get some birthday cake decorations off of the top shelf. She was shorter than I am, if you can imagine that, and reaching up trying to get the decorations with her cane. She had a determined look on her face, but I could see frustration as well. As I walked by I asked if I could help her. She smiled at me and gladly let me get the decorations for her. She said thank you and with a smile and a "you're welcome," I went on my way. I am so glad that I stopped to help her. If we all can do little acts of good, whenever the chance arises, we can and should consider ourselves successful.

  In conclusion, in Preach My Gospel it says, "When you have done your very best, you may still experience disappointments, but you will not be disappointed in yourself. You can feel certain that the Lord is pleased when you feel the Spirit working through you." So, next time you're feeling like you're failing in your missionary efforts, step back and ask yourself-- Do I love the people around me and want their salvation? Am I obeying the commandments and teachings of the Prophets and the principles of the Gospel with exactness? And Have I been taking opportunities to serve the people around me? 

  I know that if we can answer these questions, or even just one, with a Yes, we're on our way to being successful. We're trying and the Lord is pleased with our efforts. 

Sophomore Year

I successfully lived through my second year of college! Actually, I didn't just live through it... I lived in it. I really felt like I embraced the college life and grew and became a better person. That's a good feeling. So, here's a list of 16 things I learned this year--1 for every year of my formal education and 1 bonus one because I'm weird about multiples of 5... I don't really like them.

1. Be present in the presence. 

2. Be "Awe"-ful.

3. Be Yourself. 

4. Russia and the Pacific Ocean are HUGE.

5. I have to Pray, Decide, Listen, and Obey.

6. Family makes good the best friends.

7. Sometimes we need to remember to give Peter the benefit of the doubt. Peter My Brother

8. An active lifestyle is a happy lifestyle.

9. If you want adventures, YOU have to make them happen.

10. Be Grateful.

11. Chill Out!

12. It's possible to live with only $8 in the bank account.

13. Don't apologize when you have to give a talk or speech in public.

14. Heavenly Father listens and loves us.

15. The sun can burn you.

16. Nerd dancing every now and then, is cleansing to the soul.

It was a great year! I learned some scholastic things and I learned a lot of life things. I really feel like I got closer to the person I want to become. But I know that I still have a lot of work to do, so good thing I'm young and I have a lot of years ahead of me to get better. :) Life is the best and I'm glad to be living it! 

THE BEST TIME EVER

It's almost official... I'm dropping out and becoming an adventurer. When Olivia told me that I needed to sign up for Questival, I asked how much that was going to cost me. She told me the sign up was $30. At the time I only had about $70 and I was thinkin, "That's like half of all I have." But, I decided to sign up anyways and it's the very best $30 I've ever spent! Going into the weekend I wasn't sure how I was gonna like the whole thing. It sounded daunting. We were going to do a bunch of weird things and a bunch of very crazy and tiring things, all on a few hours of sleep. When I got home Friday afternoon though, I did what I do a lot--I just decided it was going to be awesome. My mind has an incredible power. If I decided something's going to be fun, it all of a sudden becomes really fun. So, I decided and that was the second best decision I made about the weekend (the first was signing up).

So, we started Questival. We're pretty competitive girls, so we started the day before... well, we started planning. We had papers all over the floor and markers and pens everywhere, designing our plan of attack on the weekend. It surprisingly takes a lot of organizational skills and pre-planning to do this adventure.

Some of our planning sheets

I am not going to give you a run down of everything that we did because it would take about 24 hours, but you can check out what we did on this sight: http://questivalteams.cotopaxi.com.

We started off at the festival where we checked in, got our SWEET new COTOPAXI backpacks, did some challenges, donated food to the food bank, ate a pizza, and took a selfie with a llama. At 7:30 we made a llama sound with all the competitors and sprinted to our car.

CHEEEEEEESE!!!

The first thing we did was go and thank a professor. We drove to Olivia's professor's house and videoed Olivia thanking her. Then we went and watched the sunset.

So good it doesn't need a caption

During the evening we gave a pillow to a homeless person, food to some homeless people, shared a cupcake with a friend, high-fived 20 people in a restaurant, escorted some nice boys across the street, shook hands with the mayor and did salutations to the sun at Sundance Ski Resort.

Do good=feel good

Sun salutations at Sundance

We also hiked the Y and wrote a poem. Then we did the crazy... we headed South. Our goal--go to all 5 National Parks in Utah in one day.

We got to Arches at about 3:30 a.m. We pulled into a parking lot near a campsite, pulled the tarp out of the trunk and while I slept warmly in the back of the car, my teammates, Olivia, our roommate Rachel, and our friend Lyndsey, slept in sleeping bags under the stars. At 5 we woke up and packed up in a hurry. We drove to Delicate Arch and hiked. Now, we were on a mission to win the whole thing. We weren't hiking for fun. We were running up to Delicate Arch and we ran back down. We ran everywhere. It was tiring. Anyways, you're going to get bored if I tell you every thing we did. So I'll give you the rough run down.

Delicate Arch

arches on arches

Sunrise

Canyon Lands

False Kiva Alcove (Amazing View... Just WOW)

#beaUTAHful

Moab

Capital Reef 

Hickman Bridge

Hercules ain't got nothin' on us! #shortgirlontheleft

Bryce Canyon

Baby Waterfall

Then we were going to hit Zion's, but our time was out and we didn't make it. But, we continued onto Zion anyways because we were determined to see all 5 in a day, even if we didn't get points for it. So, those were the major things we did. Some of the other things we did during the day:

Wrote a rap, another poem, sang the Utah State Song, did my nails, yodeled in a public place, gave flowers to a little girl, did a balancing act, mailed a post card to Grandpa, flew a kite, made a campfire, taught how to save someone who's choking, and a much more.

 We just balance each other out... that's what Sister's do.

It was the best adventure! And, I wouldn't have wanted to do it with anyone else. All four of us are very competitive people. We wanted to win and we were doing all we could. We ended up being 68th out of about 418 teams. So, we were pretty proud of ourselves.

You don't wanna meet us in a dark alley :)

This is just a side note, but there was one time in the car that we were laughing so hard we were crying. We're pretty sure we're the funniest people in the world. And it's nice when you can spend about 36 hours straight with someone and like them more than when you started. We solidified our friendships and had a DANG fun time!! I have kind of decided that Questival is in my top 2 favorite holidays. I'm already looking forward to it for next year! Oh, this is a wonderful life!!!  

Lent

I want to document this thing I did called Lent. Olivia and I decided to do Lent and give up desserts and goodies and fruit-snacks and granola bars with chocolate in them. We didn't eat that stuff for 40 days. Also, about one week after Lent started, we began training for a half marathon. We also recently started doing push-ups and sit ups after our runs. It's been pretty effective training for us. I don't mean to brag or anything, but through this training and eating healthy, I lost 10 pounds. I feel so much better. It's really awesome to look in the mirror and things fit better and I just feel better. I took some before and after pictures that I'm not going to post, but I really did change. I'm really excited about the change. Here's a quote that Livi sent me the other day that I really liked (please excuse the bad word).

Now the hard part, the part I'm scared for, is keeping up the healthy lifestyle now that it's not a self requirement. Because Lent is over, I can eat cookies and cake and chocolate if I want to, and I want to, but I don't want to go backwards in my progress. I don't want to find myself looking like the before pictures. The change is great, the keeping up with it... that's gonna be hard. I at least know that I can have self-control because before this whole deal, I wasn't sure I did with my eating any more. 

K... that's it. I'm just gonna do it. I'm going to stay healthy.

All my Trippin' (not drugs, just vacations)

I started out February with a good trip to St. George with some friends that I hardly ever see, but when I see them, we're real friends for life! It was a great time! It was kind of just a jumble of people and we just hit it off real well and had a splendid time! We went hiking and splunking and went to church and walked around the temple. We went swimming and napped in the sun. We went to this incredible Red Neck Heaven called Little Jamaica! Awesome! And we ate pizza and played games. We met Grandma Judy and she's in the top 20 of my favorite people I'm not related to. My favorite part of the trip, besides just being with awesome people, was on Monday when we hiked Angel's Landing in Zion's. It was an incredible view and super fun! I loved it! Here are some pictures from our time at the top of the world!

 Super fun, super cool people. Call us if you need some Awesome friends!

Then we had school. It's great. But we went on another vacation the next week! Me and Livi met Mom at Taffy's on Friday afternoon and we made the trek out to Laramie to see our sibs out there! It was a fun weekend! We managed to not take a single photo, but had a great time! Sometimes I think it's okay to not take a photo because I feel like it means I'm just livin in the moment, and I love livin in the moment. It was fun to get to see all of my siblings and nieces and nephews except for Tami and Casey and their boys. It was a really good weekend! 

My friends in Provo were wondering if I was ever going to stay and play there and my bishopric asked me when I was coming back to church... so last week I stayed in Provo and had a great weekend! It would have been super fun last weekend to come to State Wrestling. My cousin James wrestled for his 4th state title, and won it! I am so proud of him! He is not only an incredible wrestler, but a dang good person! 

Three times a week, every week this semester I have gone on vacation. Every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons, Livi and I hit up Sundance. It's for reals--I'm officially in LOVE with skiing. I'm not nearly as good as Olivia, but I have improved so much and have so much fun skiing! On Monday I was in a weird mood and felt kind of heavy, and Tuesday morning I was still in a little funk. Then I went up to the ski hill, was having a good time, then I biffed a few times and it was just hilarious and Liv and I were just laughing and by the end of the day, the weird mood was gone and I was just incredibly happy! What a therapy and a good thing in my life this semester! I got to be outside getting freckles and got to spend lots of time with my Sis! I love skiing! 

And this weekend, I'm back on the road, writing this blog from Casper, Wyoming where I came to watch Wyoming High School 1A/2A State Basketball!! I look forward to this weekend every year and have been since I was 5. It's one of my most favorite weekends in the year! I love Cokeville High School basketball! This year I was doubly pumped because the boys made it too, so I got to watch CHS boys and girls! It was a good weekend! My Dad is the coach for the Girl's team and I'm so proud of the team! They did what the coaches asked, played with some serious heart, and got the job done!!! It was an intense weekend with some fun games! I loved being here! I'm glad I could come support my Dad and the teams and see family and friends! 

 Lots of our family showed up in support of our Dear ol' Daddio Raddio Rooskers! 

I'm so proud of my Dad and my Mom keeps a good book! I have cool parents!

I want to give a special shout out to the coaches from Cokeville this weekend. Not just my dad and the basketball coaches, but the football, volleyball, wrestling, cheer and track coaches as well. I am so glad I went through the programs that I did and that I had the coaches that I had. I'm also grateful for the programs that all my guy friends went through because I knew they were getting the same top class advice and coaching that I was getting and it made them better people for me to be friends with. My coaches were always emphasizing how they wanted me to be good at volleyball and basketball and track, but that the main goal was that I would learn valuable life lessons and come out of high school ready to be a good citizen, wife, and mother. They were constantly reminding us that sports were important, but that our personal development was the real importance. I know that all the coaches at CHS have that same mentality. I feel so much love and support from my coaches and teachers even still. I've been out of school for two years and I still know they're supporting me because they weren't just interested in me being a winner on their court, they wanted me to be a winner in life. I'm so grateful for that attitude and all the great things I learned through CHS sports. Thank you to all my coaches all the people that I call Coach! You're amazing people and I wouldn't have wanted to play for anyone else! Thanks for making me feel so tied to CHS forever! I love Cokeville!!  

(and I love all the trips and vacations and fun things that I'm doing in my life)

I'm Just Happy

Folks. I am a happy person. This semester I have been a lot better at being myself and not stressing out. I've had so much fun doing things with friends and embracing my straight up weirdness. I have gotten a really good group of friends and I think we're such good friends because I let myself relax and they saw me as who I really am. I think I struggled making close friends last year and last semester because I was always trying to be less weird or less myself. It was tiring and few people got to see the real me. I'm struggling to say what I want to say, but know that I am so happy and I am pretty sure it's because I'm being myself.

I have a bad habit of comparing myself to my siblings and my friends in grades and talents and feeling like I'm failing or something, and this semester my goal is to not do that. I am me and that's good enough. Of course I always have to try to improve and become a better me, but I will still be me.

The other day I went to the Temple to do Baptisms for the Dead. I normally read the Ensign when I'm in there, so I picked one up. The cover was an Ensign, but the inside was the New Era. I thought, what the heck. I'm not too old for this, and I started to read. I read an article about being yourself. It said that we were all sent here to accomplish God's plan for us, and if we're always trying to be someone else, no matter how hard we try, we will never be them. We will never fulfill God's plan for them, and while we're trying to be someone else, we're going to miss fulfilling God's plan for us. I just really liked that. The New Era was a blessing in literal disguise for me.
I just really have come to know that you gotta be yourself. Don't settle and stop improving. That's not what I'm saying at all. But try more to let you come through. If you let people know the real you, the people that really count will gravitate to you and you'll make awesome friends and have an awesome life and be extremely happy. I am so happy right now! It feels great!! :)

Quotations

I joined the world of Pinterest and have found some good inspiration. I really love these two quotes. 

 Sometimes it's hard to feel good about where you're at in life, but everyday I just need to wake up and decide to be awesome, instead of average.

And this one... I am trying to remember the last time I did something for the first time. I don't know when that was. What do you think? Do you need to do firsts to grow? I think I should try new things sometimes, but it's scary. I don't know. I feel like I need to take steps to grow, so I'm going to try to do some new things. This week my goal is to do one new thing for the first time, or one thing that scares me.