Potential

What do you despise or like most about people?

A friend of mine asked me that today, and while he was just saying it as a casual comment, it made me stop and think.

I think I would have to say their potential. I love to look at someone, imperfect and mortal as they are, and recognize that they, too, are a child of Heavenly Father and have the potential to become something amazing. I'm sad when I look at those who can't understand their own potential and truly believe that they cannot succeed.

What if everyone in the world looked at one another and saw not what they were, but what they could be? Isn't that heaven, right there?

Dreams

Should you sacrifice everything to reach your dreams, or should you change your dreams to be more realistic, especially when you know you'll be happy either way?

I don't know.

Well, even though nobody really reads my blog, I still spend my sleeping time writing on it. The craziness of me.

Today I got together with some friends and started planning our post-study abroad travels. If all goes as planned, by next Christmas I will have seen Spain, London, Stonehenge, Bath, Paris, Vienna, and Rome, plus a lot of countryside in between from train windows. While it'll cost a bit and be a sacrifice, maybe even of living in Provo for a semester, it's going to be worth it. I'm SO excited!

Tres Elegante...

Tonight our ward had our "Grammys" presentation for the FHE group music video competition. Ours, a puppet version of Kiss the Girl, was awesomest, if I say so myself. The best part, though, was getting all dressed up and being escorted there by the best home teacher in the ward!

If today was your last day

So a girl I knew from high school, albeit not very well, has been diagnosed with cancer. And while she's not really my friend or anything, it still makes me think as I read her story and think about how life must seem to her right now. I spend so much of my time thinking about tomorrow, and the next day, and the next year, and the next ten years, worrying about this and that. How would it be to wonder if you would be alive for next Christmas? My life right now is, in a lot of ways, defined by how long until my best friend comes home again. How would it be to not be sure I would even be alive to see him again? While her cancer is very treatable and prospects seem to be good, it's still in advanced stages, and things are still uncertain for her.

I was still contemplating what this would be like when I watched conference today, and then President Monson's talk this morning hit me like a freight train. "Among all the facts of mortality, none is so certain as its end. Death comes to all."

It's true. Death, in this life, is inescapable. And I, for one, am not afraid of my own death. What scares me is the partings, the pain, the separation from those who go before me and those I leave behind at my own passing. But because of that day nearly 2,000 years ago that we celebrated just today, death is not the end. Because Christ sacrificed himself and then rose again that Easter morning, we, too, can rise again. Death is not the end. Rather, like every change, it is simply the beginning of something new.

President Monson also said, "To understand death, we must appreciate the purpose of life." Life isn't everything. The life I live day by day right now isn't all there is to it. This life is the time to prepare to meet God, to prepare to become something bigger, and when you look at it that way, death is a lot like high school graduation. If you've done your best and march across the stage with your head held high, doors will open and a universe of possibilities lay before you.

My goal is to live every day of my life as if it were my last; to treasure every blissful moment, to throw myself into every new experience whole-heartedly. Then, when all is said and done, I hope to pass through the veil of death with a smile, knowing that I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith, and a crown of righteousness awaits me on the other side.

Her Diamonds

She shuts out the night
Tries to close her eyes
If she can find daylight
She'll be alright
She'll be alright
Just not tonight.

And she says ooohhh
I can't take no more
Her tears like diamonds on the floor
And her diamonds bring me down
Cause I can't help her now
She's down in it
She tried her best and now she can't win it
Hard to see them on the ground
Her diamonds falling down.

I really, really like this song. Sometimes it's okay to not be okay. Some things take time.

Where is your heart?

If you could take one thing from a burning building, assuming all the people and pets were safe, what would you take?

I think the answer to that question tells a lot about a person. It shows where their heart is, what their priorities are, what's most important to them. "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." So what would you take?

I don't know what I would take. So many things have meaning to me. A photo album of pictures, maybe. My scriptures. My journal. Of course, then there's the more practical side, like my laptop, or my wallet. I really don't know.

Isn't it nice that when you die, you can't take any of it with you? You don't have to sit and think about what object in your house or life is most important to you, because in the end all that really matters is what's inside, what's in your heart. And nothing, not even burning buildings or death, can take that away from you.

But still, what would you take?