Dear Mindy

Dear Mindy of January 2013,

It's future Mindy again! Here to give you a little advice about your up coming year.

Let me just say, this year is awesome! Full of adventures and firsts and fun! 

Work towards those new years goals you have. Read over them and make them important.

Take heart: you get a new job! Your time at Heritage, thought fun and important, comes to an end! This new job comes very soon after the new year. Learn to love your job, love your co-workers, and love learning about everything.

Remember how you started running? You LOVE it. It's your new obsession. You love to run, love to race, and love to dream about reaching your goals. Run as much as you can. But, when your leg starts to hurt, REST. Rest it and let it heal before you really hurt it and break it and are unable to run for a few months. But that's just a suggestion.

Running does more for you than just running. It helps you realize you can reach goals and do things you never thought you could ever like. Like HIKING. You love hiking now! And you finally Hike to the very very top of Timp this year! Can you believe it?!? And can you even wait?

Go on trips and adventures. It won't be hard to convince you to take adventures to new places. Visit mom's family and get to know them better. They are fantastic people. Go to Katy's wedding. Have fun, take pictures, and remember not to stress about things you can't control. Like planes that are delayed, packing the car perfectly, or summer ending.

For some reason this year you are susceptible to getting depressed about summer ending. Don't be sad. Remember that change is not bad, that things have to keep moving forward, and summer always comes back around.

Get involved in your ward. Try to go as much as you can, especially in the summer. Try to go to activities, even if they sound lame. Learn people's names. Or else you'll end up in your ward in September, realizing you only know names of about 10 people and YOU'RE the one that feels new. Welcome new callings. Open yourself up to liking people. Read your scriptures.

Don't let your work schedule get you down. For the most part, it works out really well and to your advantage. Don't let other people take advantage of you because you won't say anything. Say something. But remember that work is just a job and it's not your life. Your life is a lot better. 

Anyway, your year is really quite great and adventurous. Live it up and love it! The end of this year is a great set up to having a fantastic 2014. I can't wait to live it!

Love,

Mindy of January 2014

fire

I guess it has been a while.
Sometimes I think about things to blog about. But then I never do it. Or then I think about the topic and think, "that's too depressing," or, "that's too happy," or, "who cares about that?"
I don't want to come across as anything less or more than what I am. I'm not depressed, I'm not super happy, and sometimes I think about things that probably don't matter. But that's me. So I can be allowed to write about whatever I want to.
Some things I've started to write about but never finished:

1. One of my favorite scripture stories is in 1 Nephi chapter 17 in the Book of Mormon. God leads Nephi's family into the middle of nowhere and has them do a bunch of things that they would never even dream of doing before or being able to do. Like in this chapter, God tells Nephi to build a boat so his family can go across the ocean to South America.
Seems pretty crazy. And I'm sure Nephi thought so too. God shows him how to build it, where to get the stuff for the tools and materials. And then Nephi has to start. He had everything he needs because God has been providing except for one little thing. FIRE. He doesn't have fire!! He never needed it! God was his light in the darkness, his warmth, made his meat sweet so they didn't have to cook.... So He explaining that for 5 verses, and Nephi says, "I rubbed two rocks together." He made fire. And I'm sure it was a pretty difficult task for him, considering that he spent 5 verses talking about it. He wouldn't have mentioned it if it were easy to come by.
Sometimes I feel like that. I feel like I can easily make really BIG changes in my life because God gives me very specific answers. Move here, work here, study this, go here, meet this person, don't do that. I can handle the really big changes pretty well because I have faith that God knows way better than me.
But then sometimes he leaves me up to my own devices, and I'm halfway through something that He led me to and I realize that I don't have something simple, like fire. I never needed it.
I'm missing fire in my life right now. I've got everything else except the fire. I guess it's time to rub two rocks together.

2. Sometimes people suck. Or they make you feel like you suck.
I'm one of the coolest people I know. Some days it is really apparent to me why I'm so awesome. But some days I have to remind myself why I am. And you know what? The people I tend to associate with lately make me rethink why I'm awesome all the time. And that sucks!
Who wants to constantly have to prove to other people that you have redeeming qualities? That your opinions are sound and that you're smart and funny? Who would like to stand around in a group and have to brag about yourself to make yourself feel good or liked??
More and more I find myself keeping quiet. I hate braggers. I don't want to be one. I know why I'm awesome, but I don't need to list all the reasons for these people just so they can like me.

3. I really want to go to Paris.

4. My ex-best friend got engaged and didn't tell me. I'm scared to death that it's because he hates me or his fiance hates me. I can't think of a single reason why they would. It haunts my dreams, makes me sad, distracts me at work, makes me sick, and makes me so angry.
I feel like this whole experience has caused me to distance myself from other friends that I have.
I wish I could just move on and be happy and forget about this. And I'm sure one day I will. But it hurts so much NOW.

5. I really have the best family in the world. I think I hang out with them too much.
Is there such thing as too much??
I just love them all.

Those would have been great blog topics, right?

my rain

i was in church one sunday, when i was in high school, when my young woman's president stood up to teach.
i don't remember what the lesson was about. but i was a ponderer. still am. i listened.
i remember one of the last things she said that day. she wanted us to think about God and how much He loved us. she said that there are reminders of His love for us every day.
she said that she liked to think that we got to help with the creation of the earth. God let us pick what we created and we helped Him.
"mine was sunsets," she said. "if this is true, i like to think that i helped create sunsets." it was an odd concept.
"every time there is a sunset, i take the time to stop what i'm doing and think about God's love for me. and that we made the sunsets together. and that He sends it every day just for me. to remind me of His love."
if this is remotely true, mine is rain.
that's part of the reason i love rain so much.
it seems that every time it rains, it's the precise moment that i need to remember that God loves me. that He's watching me. and helping me everyday. and He's aware of me.
every time it rains i stop what i'm doing and think about God's love for me.
as ridiculous as it sounds, every time it rains i feel a little bit closer to him.

it's been raining here lately. God knows i need it.
and i love it. I love Him.

my book on patience

You will be rewarded for your patience and understanding. I read that and smirked. I felt like it would become my motto. I also felt like there were going to be a few things that I would need to learn to understand. And it would take patience to understand those things. How could it be that the fortune in that little cookie could put in to words what I was feeling better than I could?

Months later:
Success will come with patience. I read it and had a little smirk on my face. “Yeah, I know,” I wanted to tell the cookie. I could write a book on patience.

Patience is waiting. But waiting with a purpose. Being anxiously engaged in life without being preoccupied with the desired outcome. Making goals and dreams about said outcome, but not letting it take up all of your time. Patience is letting what will come, come, and not complaining about it. It’s optimism. It’s hope. It’s having a smile on your face even when your life feels emptier than it has ever been. It’s faith that your future will be better than the present and anything that the past had to offer.

It's knowledge that you can't control everything. It's accepting that fact and then doing all you can to control at least some things.
 
It's being 24 years old in Utah and unmarried but convinced that life has never been better. Ever.
It's doing nice things for people who don't really deserve it and waiting for them to realize it.
It's being a friend to someone who isn't a friend back.
It's teaching my mom how to upload pictures onto facebook.
It's understanding that people don't always act the way you want them to but loving them anyway.
It's explaining something ten times without getting angry.
 
I may not know a lot of things but I do know a thing or two about patience. Yes, I may roll my eyes every time I hear someone say that all I need is patience and good things will happen. But deep down, in my optomistic soul, I believe it. Patience will solve all of my problems.
Because I have faith in what God has promised me for my life.
 
So here I am. Patiently waiting for my future to stop being such a mystery, for a friend to act like they are truly my friend, for my prince to come, for the snow to melt, for the semester to end, and for my happily ever after.
 
Yay patience.

beautiful

Beautiful.

She gets up each day with a smile

Puts on makeup and curls her hair

She takes one final glance in the mirror

And misses so much there.

You know, I bet some days she doesn’t feel beautiful

Some days don’t seem worth the time

Sometimes she doesn’t like what she sees

Some days she feel less than fine.

So many who know her love her

So many need her heart as a home

Her happy life seems almost enough

But she wonders why she feels so alone.

I bet sometimes she doesn’t feel beautiful

Sometimes she doesn’t want to try

Some days she needs more than a couple reasons

To convince herself not to cry.

She has so many hopes and dreams

And she deserves every one she makes

She’s tired of being so patient

And tired of finding mistakes.

You know, I bet some days she doesn’t feel beautiful

Some days she feels left behind

Some days her happily ever after

Feels too impossible to find.

In my eyes she’ll always be beautiful

I wish I could tell her everyday

That even the prettiest of women

Get tempted to feel this way.

I bet some days she doesn’t feel beautiful

And sometimes she just can’t see

The person I look at every day

And how beautiful she is to me.

just something i wrote a few weeks ago about a beautiful friend of mine. & for all of the beautiful women out there.