Wishing you were somehow here again...

What a week! The week started with a loverly three day weekend. I surely needed it. Friday and Saturday I was that lame person who stayed home and did their laundry and homework and stuff. I know...I'm such a party animal. At least, that's what I was doing until mi amiga, Melody, managed to persuade me to go shopping. Good times. Sunday was another beautiful Sabbath day here in the valley. As hard as it can be sometimes, I really do love fast Sundays with testimony meeting and all. It is especially nice now when we are all trying to get to know each other.  Monday was labor day so I slept in a bit and then finally went and hiked the Y for the first time! and what a hike it is. Just getting to the trail head was a workout. But we survived.

{the trail head}
[pretty cool...huh?]

{a fantastic view of the temple from the top}

{we made it!}
[me and two of my super cool residents :)]

Tuesday was back to classes as well as the first devotional of the semester! I absolutely love devotional! Since it was the first one President and Sister Samuelson spoke. President Samuelson's choice of topic was perfection. He said that perfection and worthiness are not the same thing, but that many of us confuse the two. We are commanded to be perfect, but this is a process that takes place on an eternal time scale and only with the help of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Perfectionism is corrosive and destructive. We need to understand that we do not and cannot have control over everything and therefore should not blame ourselves unduly. We shouldn't have unrealistic expectations of ourselves: "You can't be purer than pure". He also noted that self-reliance is important but that we should not withdraw from the Lord. He will not withdraw His hand, but we need to reach for it: we do not and cannot become perfect by ourselves; we attain it because of Grace. But, we also need to do our part --> do our best, accept the Lord fully, love others, and love ourselves. 
Throughout the whole message it was like he was speaking to me. I know I definitely struggle with perfectionist tendencies and am therefore very hard on myself much of the time. I know that I often forget to  love myself...it's a problem. Sometimes to the point that I just don't do things for fear of failure, for fear that I won't be good enough. Which brings me to an awesome quote:
  "It is impossible to live without failing at something. Unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not
   have lived at all -- in which case, you fail by default."
           ~J.K. Rowling
That is so true. This has inspired another one of my goals for this semester: to stop waiting for things to happen and to go out and make them happen. To put myself  out there and get out of my comfort zone a little bit.
Yesterday was just one of those up and down days. I started out the day by doing to the temple, which is the best. But then my morning was ruined by a trip to the dentist. It was very unfortunate. And since I was upset, it made me miss him because all I really wanted was for him to be there and to hold me and tell me that everything was going to be okay. But then right after that I had lunch with a super awesome person named Jill! And that made it better. But then I was walking to the creamery last night, past the bell tower, and I was already missing him so the memories just came back and, alas, I was sad again. So yeah, I guess that's just kind of how life goes sometimes. And when that's how it goes I just remember all the things that my Heavenly Father has blessed me with and figure that things aren't so bad after all. Oh, and yesterday I finally got my first pair of Toms...yay!:

{ :] }

Note on Kade: he has been in the Provo MTC for 8 weeks and still has not received his visa so earlier this week he was temporarily assigned to serve in the Washington D.C. South mission! So cool. Even cooler...I told my parents this and discovered that the place where I was born is in that mission. Okay so maybe that isn't as cool as I think it is, but...it's still kind of random.

Note to self: for you music kids, in choir today I learned that "intonation is an attitude" ...interesting way of looking at it, but it kind of makes sense.