Hocus Pocus and Caramel Apples

We are going to do a little throw back to Halloween for this post...

A few years ago Halloween night came around and I remember everyone getting ready for the parties and texting me and asking if I was coming. The thought came to my mind.."You can go and just enjoy everyone's company, you don't have to participate in anything. Just have fun, it's harmless." Then I got a text from my best friend saying. "Do you want to come over to my house and we can make caramel apples and watch Hocus Pocus together?"

"Which should I choose?" I thought.

I felt like the cartoon character with the little angel on one shoulder and the little devil on the other.

I knew what the right decision was in this situation.

I knew that staying with my best friend would be the safest option and is what Heavenly Father would want me to do.

But yet, that little devil was still on my shoulder saying "No, go to the party, you wouldn't want to upset all of your friends by not going."

IT WAS SO HARD! I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!

Ladies, we all have values. Sometimes they are a little lower than we should set them but we all should have some. I know what it's like to be faced with the desicion between what you want to choose and something that you should choose. I know how influencial friends can be. I am the biggest people pleaser in this world, and I know that it's hard.

BUT

You need to stand up for what you believe in! I got myself into a whole bunch of situations that I would have never been in if I would have stood up for what my values were. I did, with the help of Heavenly Father, choose to spend that Halloween night with my best friend watching Hocus Pocus and making caramel apples. Did I feel like I was 10 again? ABSOLUTELY! However, it was so much more fun and fulfilling being there with her and doing something worthwhile rather than living with the regret of going to that party.

You may not have had the specific situation I had but you have had one similar. Whether it be deciding to uphold your standards of modesty, of clean language, or of appropriate music and movies. What every it may be, we all go through decision making every day.

Whatever your struggle BE STRONG  and

STAND UP FOR WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN!

 

Regarless of who is convincing you to do something. I have lots of family that believe differently than me but I have to be firm in what I know and in my values. It doesn't mean I don't love them because they don't decide to follow 

                                                                                             the path I follow, I still love them the same, I just

                                                                                             CHOOSE to walk a different path.

Someone who loves me so much always left me saying REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE.
So, Who are you? What do you want to stand for?

An Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ said:
"O, youth of the noble birthright, make your decision here tonight: “I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded” (1 Ne. 3:7). There is power in His way. There is no greater joy in this life than to be found in His service. I bear you my solemn testimony that a decision to live according to His law will bring you life eternal."

My volleyball coach always asked me,
What legacy do you want to leave?
I invite you to ask yourself that same question the next time that you face a challenging decision that will determine the legacy you leave. Do we have the moral courage to stand firm for our beliefs, even if by so doing we must stand alone?

Be Salt not Sugar

Mmm I can just smell those fresh homemade chocolate chip cookies coming out into the oven. When I think of chocolate anything I always think of those skinny models eating Dove chocolate so perfectly on commercials. My companion and I don't eat Dove chocolates or chocolate chip cookies so graceful!
I love to bake! Cakes, especially cookies, bread, and pies! Mmm I just love it so much! I learned how to bake a lot from my Aunt who lived with me for a while. She is the master chef! Of course we always load up on the sugar when making yummy chocolate chip cookies but there's one ingredient that you can't forget or else it might taste a little off. Can y'all guess what it is?

 

SALT!

Who would have thought, right? Not me!

 

So many people use salt to add just that final ingredient to a delicious meal. Salt will
enhance the taste but you hardly ever use a lot of it on anything.

What does salt have to do with anything?

 

In Matthew 5:13 it says "Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour,
wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but
to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of man."

 

When I read this I thought there is way too much sugar in the world, as in the same type
of person. It's hard to find the salt of the world that hasn't lost it's flavor.

 

                       EVERYONE IS TURNING INTO SUGAR!

 

We were all created as individuals so why don't we all become individuals? Why is it such a "thing" with us women to be just like the next coolest girl? Why can't we be happy and comfortable with who we are, who God has made us to be?

 

I've learned over my mission that it's okay to desire to have have attributes that someone has but it's not okay to want to become completely like them. It's actually breaking one of the ten commandments when we do that. #commandment10

 

I have a dear friend who is so close and special to my heart. Her name is Sister Hargadon. She is salt for sure. She is so confident in who she is and is a light to so many people. She has let the world become her playground and used each one of her life experiences to make her the INDIVIDUAL she is today. When I first met her I wished I had the energy for the mission, the way she helped people feel comfortable, the light, the earthiness, and so many other things that she had. I wanted to be her. As I was around her for about 6 months I learned that the things she had I couldn't take because I wasn't her. I am Hermana Schmit and I am different but I was able to learn from her. She taught me to open my heart and see things in a different light and to connect with who I really was as a Daughter of God. I always call her my soul sister because I feel like she helped me open my soul. She helped me become "salt of the earth" instead of just some more sugar.

 

Sisters of all ages!! Don't desire to be someone else. Be You! Learn from others, and apply their teaching to your life but don't lose your savour just to become the prettier than the prettiest, richer than the richest, or more popular than the most popular. Remember the salt is the least amount of an ingredient that you put into those delicious cookies you love, but it makes all the difference.

                                                         

                                               Be the "salt of the earth".

 

 

 

Click to read a great talk by a living apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ: The Moral Force of Women

Our Royal Search

Imagine this...
You go to sleep at night, looking forward to a good nights rest...all of the sudden you wake up outside, in the dark, cold night, and don't exactly know how you got there or what was happening...you start crying and screaming for someone to help you....

Pretty scary right?
This actually happened to me when I was younger and lived in Alaska where there were bears!! Lucky me, my Dad got to me before the bears :)

I have felt this same "lost" and "confused" feeling this past week. I don't really know why I am on my mission, why I wake up everyday in Tennessee and not in Washington, and what my purpose is here.

GIRLS.... do you ever feel like that? Like your just another person in this giant world and that NOBODY understands what you are going through? Sometimes I feel like Mia Thermopollous from Princess Diaries who gets sat on all the time by the cute popular cheerleaders of the world because I'm apparently "invisible".

Just as Mia found her purpose as a Princess and later a Queen in her life, we are all on the grand search of what our purpose is in our own lives. Ask yourselves this...Why are you where you are right now, in this very second? How did you get there? What decisions led you to that specific place? But most importantly why are you there?

Through my high school years up until now I have searched up and down and around everything to find the "why" of everything. Finally after a lot of heartache, mistakes, and hitting rock bottom I KNOW why I am here. Why I am here sitting on this computer in Hermitage, TN writing to all of you. I know why I decided to come on a mission. I know why I decided to come to this earth.

You want to know what the greatest part about all of this? I KNOW that YOU decided to come to this earth and live this life also. As I've studied the Bible and Book of Mormon and listened to prophets, and prayed my heart out I KNOW that each one of us chose, before this life, to follow our Perfect Brother Jesus Christ and because of that decision you were given a beautiful body to live this life in and experience the joy that you get when you see your very best friend and the sorrow you feel when nothing goes right.

                                                

YOU HAVE A PURPOSE TO LIFE.

We might have our Mia moments or a moment like mine where you wake up from life and and don't quite know where you are. That is the moment that I invite you to get on your knees and pray. Pray to whatever God you believe in and ask for direction, comfort, peace, love, guidance, whatever you feel that you are in need of. I promise you that you will receive the very thing you are asking for, as you pray in faith. The scriptures say, "Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him."  You are His daughter and He knows you better than you think and knows what is in store for your life. Just as you wish to ask your teacher for help during a test, YOU CAN ASK FOR HELP FROM YOUR FATHER IN HEAVEN during this earthy test or what we call life!

"Never forget that you came to earth as a child of the divine Father, with something of divinity in your very makeup. The Lord did not send you here to fail. He did not give you life to waste it. He bestowed upon you the gift of mortality that you might gain experience—positive, wonderful, purposeful experience—that will lead to life eternal. He has given you this glorious Church, His Church, to guide you and direct you, to give you opportunity for growth and experience, to teach you and lead you and encourage you, to bless you with eternal marriage, to seal upon you a covenant between you and Him that will make of you His chosen daughter, one upon whom He may look with love and with a desire to help. May God bless you richly and abundantly, my dear young friends, His wonderful daughters." -President Gordon B. Hinckley    

Don't lose hope my dear sisters! You have something amazing to do in this life! Be like Princess Mia and find your purpose and achieve it! You have a Heavenly King as your Father and He is waiting for you to become His PRINCESS!