Summer of concerts

I'm not sure how it happened, but this was the summer of concerts. I started in June with the Josh Turner concert at the Scera Shell. I went with Noreen and we had a lovely time! That man can sing and he is easy on the eyes.

August was my half birthday present to myself by going to Brad Paisley. I went with Sarah, Lisa and Brenda. Josh and Kim were there as well and it was a surprise to see my favorite Liz. Brad is a favorite, but we were kind of far away and couldn't see super well, but it was still fun. His concert has been on my bucket list so I can check that off now.

The end of August was Sara Bareilles and One Republic. I went for Sara Bareilles, but I LOVED the concert for One Republic. I knew I liked their music before, that's one reason I decided to go. Sara Bareilles and another band I knew was okay. Guess I missed the memo that I know all their songs and all the words and that I LOVE THEM! It was really fun. I went with my roommate Chelsea and met up with Kyna, Jessica and Jen from the ward. They had gotten there early and had awesome seats. Sadly they also got caught in the pouring rain. Kyna called me as we were leaving to go to the concert and told us to buy some tarps since it was an outdoor concert and the grass was now soaking wet. It was a good plan. The concert was SO fun.

I was going to finish the summer out with Backstreet Boys, but I couldn't find anyone who would go with me. My friend Jonathan was going with his sisters and he actually offered to sell me his ticket. I didn't get my hopes up too much though, I didn't figure his sister would let him bail. I wish she had. I'll have to catch them next time they tour.

Ragnar Snowbasin

So in April my friend Brenda got me to join her Ragnar Trail team down in Zion National Park. I wrote about it here. I loved it so much, when I got an email promoting Ragnar Trail Snowbasin I jumped at it. I knew a couple girls in my ward had wanted to do it so I figured finding a team wouldn't be too difficult, so I signed myself up. I was completely wrong about finding a team. It was SO hard. Emma was going to be out of town, Sam broke his thumb, Steph's family was going to be in town, Dave didn't have the money, Jeremy would be out of the country, Randy couldn't get work off, blah blah blah. So with four weeks to go I had four people: Leslie, Jerika, Jarom and me.
During my training I fell pretty hard and was out for about a week. That didn't help my confidence in the whole experience.

Slowly, but surely I added people to my team. Jentrie, who just finished a marathon and Russ, who did Ragnar Zion in April. But with just two weeks left I still needed two people, so I did what we do. I put it up on facebook. I was surprised when my friend Tim from college commented and said he'd do it. I hadn't seen him in 9 years! And my final team member was solidified the Saturday before. Luckily Aubrey had been training for a half marathon she has in September. Sadly I missed the deadline to change our team name so we were Name in Progress. Luckily we weren't the only ones with a name like that.

Friday afternoon I left work and picked up Aubrey and then we headed to pick up Tim. I got to meet his wife, (since we've been facebook friends for years but had never actually met) and then we headed up to Snowbasin. We got there around 1 and got checked in. Then we were off to set-up camp. The side of a mountain.

Aubrey, Tim and I got the tents set up and not long after Jerika, Jentrie, and Jarom got there. 

Then it was time to get ready to run. Our start time was 2:30 so we didn't have long to wait. It was pretty warm, so staying hydrated was a big priority. Lucky for us (or so I thought) we were close to the bathrooms. They were pretty nice bathrooms, but at 2 a.m. the slamming doors was NOT very convenient.
Jerika was our first runner and it was cool to actually be there for her to run under the arch, since I missed that part at the Zion race.

 I was the fourth runner so I had a while to wait. I was grateful Jarom had brought a canopy for us to sit under while we waited. It was fun to chat with everyone and get to know people a little bit better. Tim was our resident relationship expert (since he was the only married person and the only guy who was really around all the time).
My first leg was the green. That first mile hike up the hill was a killer. Then the trail split and there was another hill to climb. After that second hill it was a great trail. Lots of shade and very pretty. I was glad I had taken water with me since it was still pretty warm and there was a lot of dust which was scratchy on my throat.

 My second leg of the race was at about 3 in the morning. I tried to sleep, but it just wasn't working so I sat in a camp chair and watched the moon for a while. My second leg was the red trail. It had a 1200 foot elevation gain in two miles. I felt like I was climbing that mountain forever. I couldn't really see where I was, but I was pretty sure if I went much farther I'd be able to see Ogden on the other side. I finally got to the downhill, only to discover it was pretty steep. With not too much light, it was hard to run down. Gravity wanted to help me out, but since I couldn't see I was fighting gravity the whole way down. When I finished my back hurt pretty bad. Luckily they had left a foam roller out on the grass, so I took advantage of that to try and help ease the ache. I lost a toenail Monday night. I blame the beating my feet got from the red trail.

I got about 3 hours of sleep from 4 a.m. to 7, but then the sun was up and people were out and about so trying to sleep anymore wasn't really going to happen.

Tim coming in from his first leg, the yellow trail.

Russ finishing his first leg.

Jentrie finishing her last leg of the race.

 The trails were much steeper and rockier than the Zion run and it took us longer than I anticipated. My last run was the yellow trail at about 11. It was already really hot and it was the longest trail. It of course started out with the mile hike and continued gaining for a while, but then it was just rolling hills. I did manage to fall on this trail. Two of the other girls also fell on this one. I fell just after the water station where they had sprayed me down so I got pretty dirty, but only came out with a small scratch and a bruise. I really enjoyed the yellow trail and am still debating whether I liked it, or the green better.

 We didn't get too much sleep so Aubrey found a cool spot to wait for our last runners to finish. These are the benches in the girls bathroom in the lodge.

Tim watching the screens for our runner to come in.

Waiting for Leslie to come in to switch for the last leg.

Leslie finishing strong.

Our sad little running bib. It got ripped on the second leg. By the 9th leg it was hanging in there just barely. I'm not sure when they taped it. Obviously the tape didn't last on the one side. And the buckle broke around leg 12ish so we were tying it around us. We recycled the poor thing when we were done.

The drive home was long. We dropped Tim off and then headed to Draper. We stopped and got some dinner and I could hardly focus on what Aubrey was saying. I dropped her off and then headed for Provo. I just got more and more tired and when I hit construction at Lehi, I wanted to cry. I had been debating whether or not I would stay up and work on my lesson, but there was no way I'd be able to do anything productive. I got home just before 8 p.m. and was asleep by 8:15.
Sunday morning I was up at 5:30 to shower and work on my lesson. Church started at 8:30 and I had a hard time focusing on things. The nice thing about 8:30 church is that you have a long time to nap afterward and nap I did. Monday was still a challenge to try and focus, but by Tuesday I think I had mostly recovered on sleep.

This was definitely a more challenging course, but I'm glad I did it. I don't plan on ever being team captain again, but I'm up for being on someone else's team anytime. I'm really grateful for the support of my team and the good time we had.

Anxiety much?

This last week stressed me out a little bit.
Sunday I was called to be a Relief Society teacher. I've had that calling before and I actually really enjoy it. One catch, my first lesson was for the next Sunday. The day after Ragnar. The first week of 8:30 church. Awesome. I read the lesson and started to ponder what the girls needed to hear and what might be the best approach.
Monday I found out my coworker was quitting. The coworker who saved my sanity in February when she got hired and learned so quickly and made everything great at work. Now she will be gone and we will be splitting up her responsibilities. I also started to look at online classes and that gave me MORE anxiety, so I stopped. I decided it could wait until other things were off my anxiety plate.
Ragnar was always on my mind. I got my final runner on Saturday. The rest of the week was sending emails, making sure everyone had what they needed and coordinating when to be there and who was going with whom. I took my team captain from last Ragnar's advice and delegated. That helped ease my anxiety a bit.
Thursday night I was back to the temple after a 6 week break while the temple was closed for cleaning and some minor remodeling. When we got our schedules I saw that I was a floater every week. That does not usually happen. After our meeting, our shift coordinator came to talk to me and asked that I be at the veil all night to shadow the veil coordinators. So I was there ALL night. It was fun and I liked learning it, but I was tired and needed to get some sleep before Ragnar.
I prayed for no nightmares, since all week I had slept poorly because I would dream of Ragnar and that I needed to stay awake to make sure everyone made it to their leg of the race. I slept really well and got up excited for Friday.
Actual Ragnar deserves it's own post so I won't go into much of it. Let's just say I took my lesson manual with the intention of working on my lesson, but it never left my bag.
On the drive home I discussed whether I should work on the lesson that night or go to bed and work on it early in the morning. As I got closer to home, morning was the only answer that was going to work. I was SO tired. I went to bed at 8:15 p.m. and slept through the night. I got up at 5:30 and went over things, but I still didn't know what to do. I created a powerpoint and just put up quotes from the manual that I had highlighted.
I wasn't nervous at all during any of the meetings. Just really tired. The lesson went REALLY well. I knew it would. The girls in my Relief Society are SOOO amazing and I knew I could count on them to participate and share their thoughts and experiences. The lesson was on the priesthood. There were so many amazing comments.
Two of my favorites were about the priesthood being an umbrella. It's held by the father, but it covers the whole family and the family can use that priesthood and pray for the priesthood holder and by their faith great things can come about.
Also applying it directly to our situation in life, we can be examples to the elders around us and expect good things from them.
A thought that I shared that I had while I was studying was this:
The brothers we are around now will be the bishops, husbands, young men leaders, Sunday School teacher and most importantly, fathers, in the church. They may not be our bishops or husbands, but they will be someone's. We need to support and encourage them and help them become who God needs them to be for the future of the church, just as we hope there are women elsewhere doing the same for our future.

I am so grateful for the priesthood in my life and for the worth men in my life who are willing to bless my life with it.
In the end the week was just fine. My lesson turned out fine, Ragnar was fun, work will go on and I will figure things out. With the Lord all things are possible and everything always works out.

It's coming

I'm trying REALLY hard not to wish away my summer and to just enjoy the season I'm in and the time I've been given. But really summer has never been my favorite and I'm really excited for

Seriously though. My roommate and I talked about how much we love the month of October for 10  minutes last night. It's just so great and I wish Fall lasted longer in the west.

Be obvious

Last night at our ward FHE, bishop shared a message about cairns.
What is a cairn you may ask? It's a trail marker made of stacked rocks.

He shared a story of when he was hiking and got separated from his group and realized he didn't know where the trail was. He started hiking and soon found two rocks stacked and a third rock kind of leaning on the other two. He wasn't sure it was a cairn, but didn't have anything else to go on, so he followed it and sure enough it lead to other cairns and he found the rest of his group. He compared that with another time when he came across a cairn that was very clearly stacked and ENORMOUS. It was obviously a cairn. No doubt or hesitation, he knew he was on the right path and could carry on with confidence.

He challenged us to be obvious cairns. When people look at us, they should be able to tell right away what we stand for and know that it's okay to follow our example. We need to be obvious in what we believe, by what we do.

Don’t you just love that? BE OBVIOUS. People shouldn’t question if we are different or not. It should be obvious that we are different. They should see us as the Christ loving, good people that we are taught to be. Hopefully by seeing that it will invite them to ask questions, follow, listen and accept the principles that make us that way. Hopefully we can live in a way that people can follow us with confidence and know that they are on the right path.

Step by step

It's the last day of July and I'm barely posting something for the month. I'd say it's because my life is boring, but that's not exactly true. Maybe busy? I don't think that's it either. Lazy is probably the better word. Whatever.

After my run last night I ran into my visiting teacher Deb. (Can I just say I love her? She's pretty much the best ever.) We had a nice little chat. The visiting teaching message this month was on teaching and learning the gospel. One part at the very end talks about asking meaningful questions. In my reading of the lesson I thought of a couple questions about that: What questions should I be asking? and How do you ask good questions? In my own visits to the girls I visit teach we discussed this, but didn't come up with any conclusions. In talking with Deb about the same thing I gained some insight.
First of all I need to prepare better for prayer. I just kneel down and go for it instead of thinking it out. There's nothing wrong with just going for it, but I don't feel like it's very effective for me. Deb also suggested that maybe our every day questions (maybe not necessarily spiritual) could be directed towards God instead of just thought of and discarded.
Next, to go with the first: think about the different areas of your life. Physical, emotional, spiritual, social, etc. In each of these areas ask these questions:
What do I want to change?
Who do I want to become?
What are my goals?
Who can I help along the way?
What worries me?
What talents do I want to develop?
Look at these questions (and others you think of) for each area. Now make and plan and think of questions to ask God to develop this plan and put it into action. Maybe I won't even know the answers to those questions and that will give me a place to start in my question asking.
Really ponder and find the questions of my soul. I think I should definitely write them down. I forget what I've asked for or what I'm working on so who knows what answers I've received and didn't even connect.
What opportunities have I passed by? What progress did I miss?
Lots to work on.

Time

Life is a funny thing. You have days that just drag on and on and you think they'll never be over and yet, when you stop and look back, you can't believe how fast the time has gone. I read this quote by Robert Frost the other day and it really hit home.

Life goes on. No matter the heartache and disappointment, life continues moving forward. Hopefully we continue to move with it. It doesn't discount our pain and trials, but time continues on and it does heal. It softens the pain. You don't forget, you don't fill the void, you learn to live with it and keep going.
14 years ago today we lost my brother Brad. Last year his birthday was really rough for me. It comes and goes, but it's always there. Some days are harder than others. I am so grateful for my family and our testimony of the Plan of Salvation. I'm grateful we stuck together and have become closer as the years have passed. I am grateful for the memories we have with Brad and the memories we have made since.
I am grateful for the friends God has given me who have helped me through trials and continue to lift and support me. I got a text from one of my best friends today just letting me know she was thinking of me today and another friend who probably didn't even think about it when she sent me a text of her kids that started my day out right. God knows and He puts people in our lives to make it a little easier.
God is aware of us. We don't always understand His plan or His timing, but I know He is always taking care of us and wants the very best for us. I am grateful for His constant hand in my life, even though I mostly don't understand and get very frustrated. I know He loves me and things will always work out the best way as long as I do my best to follow him.
Brad, I love you. I miss you. We all miss you.
Heavenly Father, keep taking care of him please. :)