I LOVE BEING ALIVE

press play.... then read.



“It is a beautiful fall day. I picked up the mail and sat down on the swing. I was so happy and content in the warm sun, the sweet smell of nature and the trees around me. I just sat and gloried in the fact that I am still alive on this beautiful earth. … The Lord is so good to me. How I thank him that I am still here and feeling so good. I am soooooo happy I just want to shout and dance through this beautiful house as the sun streams into the big windows. I love being alive.”-Richard G. Scott

have i done any good in the world today??

The gospel is the good news that can free us from guilt. We know that Jesus experienced the totality of mortal existence in Gethsemane . It’s our faith that he experienced everything- absolutely everything. Sometimes we don’t think through the implications of the belief. We talk in great generalities about the sins of all humankind, about he suffering of the entire human family. But we don’t experience pain in generalities. We experience it individually. That means he knows what it was like when your mother died of cancer- how it was for you mother, how it still is for you. He knows what it felt like to lose the student body election. He knows that moment when the brakes locked and the car started to skid. He experienced the slave ship sailing from Ghana toward Virginia . He experienced the gas chambers at Dachau . He experienced napalm in Vietnam . He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism.

Let me go further. There is nothing you have experienced as a woman that he does not also know and recognize. On a profound level, he understands the hunger to hold your baby that sustains you through pregnancy. He understands both the physical pain of giving birth and the immense joy. He knows about PMS and cramps and menopause. He understands about rape and infertility and abortion. His last recorded words to his disciples were, “And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. “ (Matthew 28:20) He understands your mother pain when your five year old leaves for kindergarten, when a bully picks on your fifth grader, when your daughter calls to say that the new baby has Down syndrome. He knows your mother rage when a trusted babysitter sexually abuses your two year old, when someone gives your thirteen year old drugs, when someone seduces your seventeen year old. He knows that pain you live with when you come home to a quiet apartment where the only children are visitors, when you hear that your former husband and his new wife were sealed in the temple last week, when your fiftieth wedding anniversary rolls around and your husband has been dead for two years. He knows all that. He’s been there. He’s been lower than all that. He’s not waiting for us to be perfect. Perfect people don’t need a Savior. He came to save his people in their imperfections. He is the Lord of the living, and the living make mistakes. He’s not embarrassed by us, angry at us, or shocked. He wants us in our brokenness, in our unhappiness, in our guilt and our grief.

Jesus is the light of the world. We know that this world is a dark place sometimes, but we need not walk in darkness. The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, and the people who walk in darkness can have a bright companion. We need him, and He is ready to come to us, if we’ll open the door and let him.

Chieko N. Okazaki

awkward

Yesterday was one of my first Sunday's attending my new ward here in Logan. I started my Sunday off great by breaking my fast before church even started. boo. I sat in the back of the chapel with my roommate julia and some kid i had never met before. When the 2nd counselor started off testimony meeting the kid started a freaking weird conversation with me...
Kid: I'll go bear my testimony if you bear yours.
Me: No i dont want to
Kid: Come on, are you scared?
Me: no i just dont want to
Kid: (loudly) You're scared! just come on
Me: no
at this point i was feelin pretty annoyed by him (and i'm sorry if he ever reads this. actually i'm not. GOOD RIDDANCE!) He was the first one to pop up and speed walk to the pulpit to bare his testimony and started off by saying, "So i was sitting next to that red head in the back (almost everyone turns around to stare at the red head in the back) and i was usin a little bit of peer pressure to try and lure her up here to bare her testimony but she said she was too scared. I guess you could say i was tryin to flirt to convert her... but she was too scared...." and then the kid continues with his testimony.
I was far from grateful for the clown makin a fool out of me and was way embarrased. It's not that i was too scared to bare my testimony i just didn't want to. It probably wasn't a huge deal but i didn't appreciate it and figured i'd do what i could to crawl out from under the bus that this kid just threw me under and throw him right back under it. I waited for a little bit then proudly walked to the pulpit and bore my testimony. it went a little somethin like this...

"hi my name is megan mitchell and i believe it was said that i was "peer pressured" to come up and bare my testimony today by the kid who was just up here... as i recall he said he tried to "flirt to convert" me but surprise buddy! I'm already converted"

if i was black i would have whipped out my strong hand and snapped it in a Z formation, but since i am far from that... i just bore a quick little testimony and walked back to my seat.

just in case you were wondering...

SO... my job at Pepperidge Farm is slowly becoming the death of me. So what if i haven't even worked there a month? Try wearing a hair net, ear plugs, used Dickies pants, and a size large t shirt every day and tell me how you feel... my self esteem doesn't exactly get boosted when i catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

FUGLY

last week i worked on the line that made goldfish. the first 25 minutes of seeing thousands of smiling orange crackers pass by was kind of cute and entertaining, but then after a while it was just plain annoying. my job requires me to stare down at the fish and make sure they look normal and then seperate them to put into packages. Around hour 7, i saw in my peripheral vision a giant orange thing coming closer to me. I looked up and saw a HUGE goldfish WALKING towards me! If it was anyone else, they would have known what it was, but to me i had this mini anxiety attack because for whatever messed up reason i almost made myself believe that a giant walking cracker was coming towards me. i pulled myself together and then felt like an idiot because it was just a office worker dressed up in a goldfish costume walking around making a video tour of the factory that will get send to elementary schools. my bad.

dont creep on me

Oh hai
Let me explain- I don’t know how I’m supposed to write this, cuz I’m pretty sure Nicole is gonna be the only one reading this, but I also just wanna remember funny stuff that happens to me because on a bad day I wanna look on my blogspot.com and remember how good of a life I have. So I will do this in a list type thing,
7 minutes in heaven- so my brother went and played games with this girl he kind of likes and my mom was all “so brian what games did you play with her?”
Brian- “me and tiffany played 7 minutes in heaven”
Mom- “oh that sounds fun! Whats that game?”
Brian- “well….. you go in a dark room or a closet and you get to do whatever you want with that person for 7 minutes.”
He was jk’in but the joke kinda stayed with the family all day, little comments of how amber and alan played 7 minutes in heaven, how me and ryan were gonna play later that night and all this stuff. Then the most horrifying comment made by my own mother.
“me and your father are gonna go in our room and play 7 minutes in heaven”
I have never really projectile vomited until this night.

Another great memory-
Me and my family were watchin a movie upstairs in the chill room and whenever the movie got over my daddy was all “I’m gonna go check somethin out on the balcony, I heard somethin funny out here” so he gets up and goes out on the balcony while the rest of the family is sittin inside. My mother started laughing really hard and was all “he just farted!” and so whenever he came back inside brian was all “dad did you go out there to fart?!” and my daddy answered so fast “NO!” but then we were all laughing and he was all “okay okay, maybe I did” it was just pretty funny cuz the old man thought he was being sooooo sneaky goin out there thinking he could flatulate in silence… WRONGO!

Christmas break has been amazing, I love Idaho!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is the best most beautiful place I’ll ever go. I’ve been given a lot this break and I have way too many blessings to count. I am so lucky that I’ve got a guy that shows me that I’m worth being loved and that I get to love him back :) and that I’ve got an amazing best kitteh friend! Kitteh treats?!

hello you thing!

i love megan

love, nicole