Sunday, September 7, 2008

Procrastination: Plaging Students since 287 BC

Alright, I don't really know if 287 BC is even a significant date at all, but I'm sure that procrastination has been around for at least that long. When I was in high school, I would always leave my projects til the last minute. Except for this really big research paper, and a few other random projects, but thats another story. Anyways, I would always intend to start on them earlier, but other, more exciting things would come up (like sleeping, hanging out, etc.), and I would find myself with a big project the night before its due barely touched. Each time this happened, I vowed it would be the last time. Was it? Nope. Never. Fortunately for me, I work best under pressure, and I don't recall ever getting less than A on most, if not all, those projects. Well, when I started college, I made a goal that I would do all my homework right when I was done with class. Luckily, I have had very litte homework so far. And guess what, for the most part, the homework i have had, has been done in a reasonable fashion. However, in Biology, we were assigned to read 5 chapters of a book over the course of a day. Easy, right? Well, last night I went to open my book, and I skip to the end of the fifth chapter to see how much I would have to read, and it was 75 pages! And this wasn't 75 pages of Dr. Seuss size print. It was tiny..and on big pages. So I go to start this last night...I can't get past the first page. Like honestly, I tried. Really hard. but I could not concentrate. And this wasn't even a procrastinted assignment! It has kind of inspired me not to procrastinate. Will this happen? Not likely. But its nice goal to have!



Yesterday was a grand day. We had regional conference, which was a stake conference for about 120 stakes in this area. Being broadcast from the Marriott Center, I had the privilege of actually attending the meeting in person, which was a somewhat new because I am used to seeing/hearing conferences like this via satelite, and to actually be there was an amazing experience! This was SUCH a good conference. There were three speakers, Sister Dibbs (President Monson's daughter), and two apostles, President Boyd K. Packer and President Dieter F Uchtdorf. It was SO cool to be able to hear them speak. Me, Andrea, and Shalece (my other roommates were back home for the weekend) left for the conference at about 9:30, thinking that would be early enough to get good seats. Boy, were we deceived!! We ended up sitting in the bleachers behind the speakers. Nonetheless, just being in the presence of such amazing leaders of the Church was so cool. There was such a great spirit there! I really enjoyed listening to the speakers, despite the pain in my back from sitting on a bleacher for two hours. I loved all the messages that were said, and I really feel strengthened coming away from the meeting.

After Church, we went back to the apartment for awhile, just to relax. Around 1:30,our FHE sisters came over and invited us over for dinner. It was so nice! At about 3, we went over there and had a really delicious meal, complete with rice, chinese salad, pistacio salad, and spring rolls, and a delicious dessert! We hung out there for awhile, and then had to leave at 4:30 for the devotional, where Jeffrey Holland was speaking at six.

You might be wondering, why did you leave at 4:30 for something that started at 6? Well, for one thing, we did NOT want to end up with bleacher seats again. Fortunately for us, we have a wonderful friend, Taylor, who went at four and reserved some seats for us, but I guess he could only hold them til 4:45. Boy, were they great seats! Three rows from the front! Even though we just sat around for and hour and a half, it was worth it to be SO close. I have a few notes from the talk that I want to share(I wish I had more paper than just the back of a flyer I had in my purse..I'll definitely be printin this talk off!), but I'm gonna post some pictures first :)


Me and Andrea waiting for the devotional to begin!











Taylor and Shalece! This is the nice guy that got there so early to save us seats. He definitely is one of our apartments favorite people!!




One of BYU's choirs that sang some of the songs that night. They were so beautiful! I am in a non-audition choir, The University Chorale, and we will be singing at a devotional in December! I can't wait :-D








So this is kind of blurry, but here is Jeffrey R. Holland. :)









Elder Holland's talk was basically about how we will all be in Spiritual Liberty Jails at times. He really put a lot of emphasis on how sometime the righteous will receive a lot of trials and life, even if they are doing everything they should, but it's not because we're being punished, but because we need them in order to grow. I think my favorite thing he said was "If you're having a bad day, your in good company." I mean really...at some time or another, all of us have/will think "why me? I'm the only one that has to go through something like this"? I know I have definitely felt like this many a time...but the point of what he was saying is that...even if we are having a bad day, pretty much everyone out there can relate. We just need to remember that the Lord will always be there, and all we have to do is ask with all sincerity of our heart (easier said than done, right?), and He will help us. I really liked when he said something along the lines of, whenever we weap, He and the angels of heaven weap with us. Throughout his talk he outlined three lessons that we can learn from Joseph Smith's stay in Liberty Jail. I really liked them, so I'm gonna write them here..Maybe someone out there will like them as well :)

1)Everybody, especially the righteous, will experience trying times
2)Just because hard, unfair, or unjust things may happen, it does not mean we are unrighteous
3)No power is greater than God's. Rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of Heaven.

He took about 15 miutes on each of these points, and really emphasized the truths of them. I do believe that the righteous are sometimes tried more than others, just because we are doing whatsright, and bringing forth the Gospel to the world, and Satan wants to stop us anywhe can, and when he can't do it with things like immorality, drinking, etc., he tries to make things go wrong for us, in attempts of lowering our opinion of ourselves, and maybe even try to get us to question if God really cares about us. Or at least, thats what I think :) Anyways, this was such an amazing fireside with such a great spirit at it, and I'm very happy I was able to attend it!

Sunday was a really great day :)

On Monday I just went to classes..Honestly, I LOVE having LDS teachers. They incorporate the Gospel into our lessons, and I think it is really cool how the Gospel really correlates with so many educational subjects. Suprisingly, I really love my English class. My teacher is really young and a graduate student, and is so much fun. All of our assignments are way fun, and I love her teaching style. We are currently working on editorial writing right now, and I think it is so much fun! I am also really enjoying my choir class. I was too chicken to try out for an audition choir, but for a choir that anyone can join, regardless of talent...I think it's gonna be graet. I mean, I think it already sounds better than Concert Choir back home! :-D We also had family home evening, and it was pretty fun. My group seems pretty interesting. We played a charades and had cake! Woo hoo. I have sme pictures, but I don't feel like uploading them :-P maybe later!

Well, my lunch is about over (I'm eating in the wilk, and just had the nastiest thing ever..don't eat he Bacon, Brocoli, Chicken calzone with alfredo sauce!!), so I guess I"ll draw this to a close :-) Thanks for reading!

1 comment:

Babzanne Barker said...

Wow--what a great fireside. Elder Holland gave some really powerful insights. It's so true that Satan wants us to doubt ourselves and the gospel, but his power is limited. He can't influence us more than we let him. I'm glad you're at BYU--it will be everything you're hoping it will be!! Keep singing--lalalalalalalala! If you guys are better than Concert Choir you must sound really amazing!!