The Place I Come Back To

Well, it’s happened. My family has moved back to my dad’s hometown in Arizona. They’re currently renting my great aunt’s house. This week my dad will be driving my brother Carl out to college at BYU-Idaho. In the meantime I’m still be here in Utah. Some people have asked whether or not I will be going to live in Arizona with my folks. The answer to that is, right now, no. I don’t want to go down there until I have a car and I’m able to get a job and live on my own. Which, right now, is kind of a tall order. But that’s my goal and I want to stick to it.

In any case, I am happy that my immediate family is in Arizona now. They’re now an 8-10 hour drive away from me (and my mom’s relatives) instead of 20+ hours.

LDS Temple Pictures

This is the first time my whole family has moved. Up until now, my family has lived in one place, and moving was something other people did. My dad is from Taylor and we visit a lot, but when you go live somewhere it’s a lot different from visiting.  When you move, you have to rebuild your whole support network--who provides your medical care, your dental care, where’s your library, your school, your teachers, your groceries, your gas. The day-to-day things you don’t worry about when you’re on vacation. One perk of living in Taylor is that we get to interact every day with aunts, uncles, cousins, and second-and-third cousins. Some of them even live on our street. We get to help take care of our grandma, too. We could walk to her house if we had all the time in the world, I’m sure, but it’s a 1-2 minute drive to get anywhere usually. Neighbors and friends that we are not related to will come soon enough. For now, Taylor feels more like home because there’s more family, and more people of our faith.

Taylor is also home in the sense that we’re descended from the first group of Mormon settlers who came there. It was where my Shumway great-grandparents raised their family, and it was where my paternal grandparents decided to raise their family. So it’s where my dad’s side of the family gathers, and while we have a few of us living there right now, those who live down in Mesa/Gilbert will come up on weekends. My family used to go out there at least once a year to visit everyone.

What makes Taylor home to me is that I went to live there for a year when I was in high school. I was...in a really bad place emotionally when I was in high school. My parents hoped that sending me out there would help me. My army cousins were staying with my grandparents for the school year, so I joined them. I went there to do high school orchestra and release-time seminary. I took a lot of honors/advanced classes, and I was at Snowflake for the last year that Ms. Cunningham taught English there. I went there to befriend more Mormons, and I did achieve that, but in that setting I was also more comfortable in befriending non-Mormons: the differences just kind of melted away. I even got to go to the freaking prom! I had a lot of experiences and learned a lot of things that I would never have had otherwise.

pocogrande.com

Taylor/Snowflake reminds me of the Shire in the Lord of the Rings. Probably because my cousins had a mixtape of movie soundtrack themes that included “Concerning Hobbits” and it would get played every so often as we drove back and forth. There’s a few partly underground houses, and lots of irrigated green fields and livestock. It’s one of those communities that’s tight-knit and doesn’t get out much.

Technically, Snowflake was named after a guy named Snow and a guy named Flake. But yes, it does snow there. It’s about 5000 feet above sea level so it’s a higher altitude and cooler climate anyway. But the year I lived in Taylor was my first real exposure to snow. During winter semester there were two separate occasions where the school opened late because of snowy conditions, and then the ice would linger in the courtyard for weeks while everything else melted.

Snowflake also has an LDS temple. It was the second one built in Arizona, long before Gilbert or Phoenix or the other new ones besides Mesa.

Did I mention the happy little spot in between Taylor and Snowflake known as Bellybutton?

Weaver's Needle, Paint Your Landscape

During the summer, Snowflake and Taylor are about the two sleepiest small towns anywhere. But during the school year, if you’re involved in school and community stuff and church stuff you will be so busy you can’t even see straight.

When you move somewhere, there are things you do have to give up, but you get good things in their place.

Living in Taylor is great, don’t get me wrong, but it gets even better if you can get out of town every once in awhile and see the country, because you are within a driving distance of some of the great natural landmarks of the West. Even a short drive to one of the other locales like Heber, Show Low, or Holbrook will take you through prairies decorated with junipers, past mountains and buttes and extinct volcanoes, across spectacular deserts, and into beautiful forests. It’s only a thirty-minute drive to the Petrified Forest National Park. The Grand Canyon is a day trip away. And if my family is going back and forth more between Arizona and Utah, that may mean more visits to other national parks in Southern Utah--at least I’d like to think that.

Painted Desert, Personal Photo

Holbrook is the town directly to the north of Snowflake by about thirty minutes of driving. Between the outskirts of both towns it is one of the straightest roads you will ever drive on. Holbrook is where my grandma’s brother Drew settled and raised his family, and I’ve been back there a few times to go visit my great aunt Joan. I also went horsebacking there with some of my cousins one time. Holbrook you may have heard of as one of the places that inspired Radiator Springs in Disney/Pixar’s Cars--the Wigwam Motel is still there. Driving to Holbrook is fun because you pass landmarks such as the Chocolate Cake and Woodruff Butte. Holbrook High School is where I auditioned for orchestra regionals and scored a 29 on the ACT. But mostly it’s the place you have to get through to get anywhere else if you’re going north.

Flagstaff. Darn, I love Flagstaff. When I lived in Taylor, I went to a college recruiting fair at their high school. About four years ago, I waited for my cousin and my brother to pick me up at the Barnes and Noble when I came down to Taylor for Christmas. Years and years ago my family stopped to visit Sunset Crater--the pine trees smelled so good, I’d buy a candle that smelled like that.

Perhaps my favorite drive in the world is US 89 between Flagstaff and Kanab, Utah. You climb down from the forests in Flagstaff onto the Navajo Indian Reservation. Going to Page is fun in its own way. But I LOVE taking the Alternate, because 89-A goes past the Vermillion Cliffs, and Navajo Bridge. I love stopping to walk over Navajo Bridge. My family kept a picture of the rock formation I call “Castle Rock”  on our living room wall back in our home in Texas, along with photos taken at the bottom of the Grand Canyon when my dad would go hiking there with his family. Once we stopped at Lee’s Ferry and I almost caught I fish with my bare hands.  

A Fish like Thish? Yesh. (Pinterest)

After Marble Canyon, you go up a big, big hill to Jacob Lake--the view is spectacular. Jacob Lake is a favorite stop for my family when we drive between Arizona and Utah. It’s the turnoff to the Grand Canyon, but I’ve only been there with my folks once--that end with me and my siblings having temper tantrums because we couldn’t stop for souvenirs, but if it wasn’t that I don’t want to remember what it was.

Sometimes my family will get to Utah by going east from Holbrook and taking US 6/191 Northward. We go through Ganado and Mexican Water and we’ve only ever stopped in Chinle once. It goes right through the heart of the country that Tony Hillerman writes about in his Leaphorn and Chee mysteries, so next time I drive through I swear I will pay more attention.

Going south from Taylor, you hit Show Low/Pinetop/Lakeside, which is where you used to go to Walmart before the mini Walmart was built in Taylor. Back when I lived there, going to Show Low was a day trip, but now with Mom working there I imagine we’ll be spending a lot of time in Show Low.

Heading down through Heber, between Heber and Payson is the Mogollon Rim. If you watch carefully, you can glimpse Four Peaks while you’re heading down the mountain. The Rim is also where my dad proposed to my mom--rumor has it he would have jumped if she said no.

My uncle Mike has a cabin belonging to his wife’s family down in Christopher Creek. My dad’s family had a reunion there once, and in winter there are nice spots to go sledding nearby. When I did my first year of girls’ camp, I went with my aunt and cousin to Camp LoMia up by Payson.

Woods by the Palmer cabin, Personal Photo

When my siblings and I were younger, we would go out to Mesa to spend the summers with our cousins. Those were the best times--swimming pools, trampolines, and all the cable TV we could stand. I was there long enough that I got familiar with the names of the streets and I learned the names of the mountains.

Other than these few places I have been or spent lots of time in I don’t know Arizona very well. Any state I’ve more or less lived in I can’t say that I’ve seen all of. But I’m looking forward, if I get the chance, to getting to know Arizona a little better. And I will say, serious props to J.K. Rowling for making Arizona the home habitat of Frank the Thunderbird in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I don’t think I’ll ever get over that, really. But maybe J.K. knows just how hardcore Potterheads are down in Arizona. That’s where I first read the series, during one of my summers there. Fandom--family--adventure--Arizona is where the important things are.

What We Leave Behind

Most of you should probably have heard this. If not, you may need to sit down.

My family is--FINALLY--moving to Taylor, Arizona.

So, for anyone in my family or who’s a friend/associate of ours from the Grand Canyon state, yay, it’s good news. If you live in Utah you’ll probably be seeing more of us (I know I’ll enjoy having them close enough to take an occasional weekend trip). And I’m relieved that Dad decided to do this before the Second Coming.

But for our friends back in Texas, it’s kind of a bittersweet moment. Dad moved out to a little town east of San Antonio called Seguin (SEH-geen) to work at the Motorola plant not quite thirty years ago. Motorola has come and gone, but Dad brought Mom to live there and they raised five of us down in a little house right off of 1-10. We went to church in Seguin and school in Marion and although we didn’t have all the cool toys or watch all the popular TV shows we had books and friends and cats and that was enough. I don’t think the people we’ve known and loved in the area can imagine what the world is going to be like without us. I know I can’t.

View out my dad's office window. Notice the goats--
this was obviously a very long time ago

I don’t miss Texas a lot. I had bad experiences at school--some of them, yes, featured me getting bullied. Right up through Senior year. I don’t miss having to drive everywhere to get to a store or to church or to town, half the reason I never moved back. I don’t miss the humidity. Or the bugs--especially the spiders. I won’t miss the floods, and chances are where we’re going we won’t see so many of them. I won’t miss the rattlesnakes we’d occasionally get in our barn, but where we’re going there might still, sadly, be rattlesnakes, probably a different subspecies but still.

I’ll tell you what I DO miss--what I AM going to miss now that my family isn’t there anymore.

I’m going to miss our little house in the country that had grass just soft enough to walk on in the yard. We have like five pecan trees that give us nuts in the fall and in winter we crack them and give them away by the pound to friends and neighbors and ship them to far-off relatives. We have a field that we just let hay grow in and when I was younger dad would build us forts in the barn. Dad has tried getting into raising different kinds of animals--sheep, goats, rabbits pigeons, we were somewhat successful with chickens and ducks. The only critters that really flourished were the cats. We had a garden in the backyard and a little playground that got turned into a treehouse and then a fort that pretty much only the cats used. Part of the reason I turned out an introvert was because I lived too far away from friends to really hang out with them a lot. So that meant I could spend hours walking around in circles around the house and the field and daydream or just go back inside to draw or to read or to watch movies.

Guadalupe River crossing at US 90.

I'm going to miss the hills. Out where I lived there were just low rolling ones everywhere. If you're from Utah, it can seem kind of flat, but compared to, say, Lubbock, it's actually interesting terrain. I thought it was beautiful--it was the most beauty I got to see from day-to-day. And then every so often, my family would drive out into the Hill Country just a little to the west. Big, steep hills covered with brambly forests, a lot less civilized. Definitely a wild place.

I’m going to miss the rolling fields of wheat and corn that line the roads, the pastures full of horses and cattle, the ruined barns and houses that dot the landscape, the thickets of live oak and mesquite that grow here and there. We are out in the boonies enough to still have that small-town/country feel with the authentic drawls and cowboy boots and hats, but close enough to civilization that we feel, well, civilized. Mom and Dad were never really part of that culture anyway--Mom’s from (urban) Utah and my dad’s from Arizona. I built up a tolerance for country music. Enough to say that I like Rascal Flatts and Carrie Underwood and to relate to the lyrics of a few popular singles that I can’t name the artists or titles to.

I might miss Marion, a little, actually. Runs to Dollar General, driving in early on 78 from early morning seminary in Seguin. A small school that doesn’t have a lot of electives but a staff of teachers that was so supportive and wonderful to me and my four siblings. And there was nothing quite like homecoming day when all the girls who were passionate about it wore those frilly, tinkling mums of green and white ribbons.

Pape's Pecan House, Seguin, TX

I’m going to miss Seguin. Driving over the Guadalupe River every time we’d go to town and savoring the view. The Victorian houses. Just driving down College street. The old-town feeling of Court Street, the square behind the courthouse with the fountain and the statue of Juan Seguin that I regret not visiting nearly enough. Don’t get me wrong, the little Mormon meetinghouse on King and College streets is pretty. But the other religious organizations in Seguin have some fine churches too. Driving into town from you can see all the steeples as you come down the hill, and you glimpse them close-up when you drive through town. And then there’s the stores where we’d do our grocery shopping and the old library and just the landmarks you’d learn from driving back and forth a million times. Lazy afternoons at Starke Park. A lot of it has changed, over the years--the old HEB is gone and they built a bigger one. Blockbuster is gone, of course--it got divided into a liquor store and a dental office. And there’s a big, brand new city library downtown.

I’m going to miss the nearby town of New Braunfels. Landa Park. Playing church basketball with the girls over there. Hobby Lobby and Target and all of the best shopping! The hotbed of local German culture and the Edelweiss Inn that was oddly enough featured in a movie I saw at BYU International Cinema. Clear Springs...do they make onion rings like that anywhere else?

I’m going to miss the creeks and the little places for camping in and around Seguin and then the state parks up in the Hill Country (fall is the best time of year for camping in Texas, fall being November). The Hill Country, beautiful and remote and covered with wild forests. Wildflowers, every spring: bluebonnets, Indian paintbrushes, Indian blankets, primroses. Spring is my favorite time of year in Texas. It’s the best place in the world to be in springtime.

More or less what our highways look like in the springtime, in a good year (Pinterest)

I never went to Austin very much--well, except their airport, but that is a small airport that tbh I am glad to see the last of for now. But everyone in that part of Texas knows that Downtown Austin is a place to be avoided at rush hour. The few times I have driven through downtown Austin, though, I loved it. We would combine with the stakes in Austin for Youth Conferences, and let me tell you Austin is where the cool (Mormon) kids are from. A lot of those cool kids are here in Provo.

When people ask me what part of Texas I’m from I say San Antonio. Because it IS the best part. Marion is close enough to the Alamo and the downtown museums that we took epic field trips in elementary school. My parents, they’re from out of state, and they’re...tourists, so they like taking us to the tourist magnet, the Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio, but it’s a beautiful place with bridges and boat rides and the best of local culture on display. Better than Venice. The zoo is...mediocre but the last time I went was over ten years ago. The Japanese Tea Gardens at Brackenridge park are spectacular.  I went on field trips to the auditorium at Trinity University to see plays based on classic short stories when I was in middle school. And then I graduated from high school in that auditorium.

Downtowm SA

San Antonio also has the best freaking NBA team. I am a Spurs fan for life.

The Church built a temple in San Antonio. It has beautiful stained-glass windows and in one of the ordinance rooms a mural of the Hill Country with wildflowers painted by a lady from my home ward, the late Ardyth Haecker. It was completed in 2005 and the night before the dedication I was part of an enormous cultural celebration in the Alamodome. The temple is on Stone Oak parkway, overlooking Loop 1604 (another place to avoid during rush hour), right on top of a hill at the edge of the Hill Country.

Corpus Christi is where my family would go to the beach. And it's getting its own post.

Gosh, I love Texas history. I grew up right in the middle of where some of the more significant events happened, so I’m biased. But we had our own war of Independence from Mexico. We had an epic last stand at the Alamo. I read a biography of Sam Houston a few years ago and let me tell you, we need more people like him in today’s government. He may have been from a pro-slavery state but he was vehemently against the other southern states’ wanting to break with the Union right up until the Civil War, at least that’s what I gathered.

And NO state has state pride like Texas. I may live anywhere else in the world, but I will always own my Texas pride.

I like to think that the Texas flag is made out of part of the US flag.

Edit of a personal photo of the Alamo

I’m going to miss the culture. There’s the cowboy/folk/country element, for sure. My brother David spent several years growing up playing fiddle at the local oprys and I went to a few of his shows--lemme tell ya. But there is also a strong Latino heritage in the area, lots of Spanish place names and architecture and glorious, glorious mariachi music.

Also, the FOOD. Food is very important in south-central-whatever-Texas. Everybody (except me) loves spicy food. My home ward would do a chili cookoff nearly every year. My mother is going to miss the tamales. I’m going to miss the breakfast tacos made on homemade flour tortillas, wrapped in tinfoil, stuffed with cheese, egg, potato sausage, bacon, onions, refried beans, and other fillings and toppings to taste.

arielle clementine

My mom served her mission in Houston, Spanish-speaking. We almost never went to Houston (but before the temple in San Antonio was built the adults in my ward would go to the temple there every so often, and let me tell you the Houston Temple is beautiful). But my mom learned to make somewhat authentic Mexican food--enchiladas, fajitas. We’re taking that with us. To this day a quesadilla is a staple of my diet.

I’m going to miss driving through West Texas. Yes, it’s a pain in the butt, but I learned to enjoy the ride, especially when every landmark we passed would mean we were that much closer to that somewhere else we wanted to be. You go into the Hill Country, and then pass through lots of plateaus and buttes right up until you reach Fort Stockton, and then after that you’re in a desert and it’s so barren that you can feel the moisture coming off your skin, but at least there’s mountains. And then, after like six hours and six hundred miles, you’re in El Paso.

Butte visible from Interstate 10 just outside of Fort Stockton

It’s not just saying goodbye to all of these places, though. Moving means saying goodbye to all of the people that my family has spent the last twenty-odd years building relationships with. Each ward unit in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is supposed to be like a family, but no ward IS a family more than the Seguin Ward of the Kyle Texas Stake. When my dad moved there, it was just a branch. There was a Spanish branch there for a little while, but we’ve been a ward since I was a kid. Dad got to be bishop for a little while, even. There weren’t a lot of girls in my young women’s group, but they were some of my best friends growing up. Our chapel has hymnals in both English and Spanish.

There’s a handful of families that have been there as long as Dad has, if not longer. And there are families that come and go that you never forget. Some of them are transplants from Utah/Idaho/Arizona, like my folks. Some of them are local. A lot of them are converts. We have dinners parties like no one’s business--Thanksgiving, Christmas, Halloween, boy scout fundraisers, that sort of thing. Back in the day when General Conference was only broadcast to the chapels we would have pot-lucks in between the Sunday sessions.  And yes, we take turns feeding the missionaries.

LDS Chapel, Seguin

On the Stake level, we’ve made a lot of unforgettable friends too. Up until 2008, we were part of the San Antonio East Stake. Then we got put into the Kyle stake. Our stake center in Kyle is a 45-minute drive from my house and it made no sense for my family to attend functions there. But we stuck it out. We made it work. We have friends clear up and down I-35 from the east side of San Antonio to New Braunfels to Buda, friends with whom we share a common faith. After Dad got released from being bishop he served off and on in the high councils of both stakes. Since he and mom both speak fluent Spanish they have usually been assigned to work with the Spanish-speaking members on ward and stake levels.

We have friends outside of the church, too. My mom says that her co-workers at the Seguin hospital are like family to her, and she will miss them. I didn’t have a lot of friends at school--I had social problems. The few I did have were priceless. I sadly didn’t realize it until my last couple years of high school. But I did learn. No one can ever take their place.

Texas was never home for my mom and dad. Other people who live there, they have their parents and siblings and aunts and uncles and cousins living close by, they get together every so often. We have to travel out of state to see our extended family. But now Dad is moving back to his hometown, we’re renting a house from his aunt right next door to a place where one of my cousins is living and a couple of doors down from a few other cousins. It takes two minutes to drive to his mom’s house, but if there’s good weather and you feel up to it you can walk.  Mom can take weekend trips up to Utah to see her family. That’s their idea of being home. So I’m happy for them. And I’m happy for my younger siblings who get to have that experience.

Winter Sunset, I-10 West of Seguin

That little house in Texas is home to me in the sense that it’s where my story began. It’s the place that, after much trial and adversity, I was able to get away from in order to accomplish Great Things™. It’s enough of a home that I have a few ideas for potential fantasy novels set in that region, so if I want to take a trip back I can definitely call it “book research”. If I’m ever successful as an author, I will come back for book tours and give inspirational speeches to kids telling them that they should read books and go places in life. Yes, Texas is home, but there is so much more to the world.

So the Cole family is leaving Texas. We're going to be closer to our extended family. But we will miss the family that we had here. We will remember it as a place of the world that we made a little brighter. That is reason enough to say we’re happy that we were there.

Finding Gratitude

There's a million things I haven't done. And not having done them drives me crazy.

Some of you may or may not be aware of this, but for the last few months my depression has been worse than usual. My parents and other responsible adult figures have encouraged me to make going to work at my job my number one priority. Which means no taking time off of work for cosplay (no Saturday events) or for family (second year in a row I've missed the Fourth of July in Arizona). 

This year in general has been rough. The few cosplay events I have been to have usually been accompanied by some degree of anxiety, so I haven't really been able to enjoy them as much as I would have wanted. 

Photo from this spring

The stuff I usually agonize about is, with all this on top, harder to manage. I just want so many things that time and money prevent me from having. When I don't have them, when I have to wait longer for the money to buy that new costume or order that new t-shirt, I get frustrated. When I get home from work, I'm tired and I don't feel like working on costumes or writing, let alone put in the effort to work on actually finding a real job. So the things I want to have get delayed...and delayed...and delayed. I pass the time at work gathering wool about what to put into my stories, but I get home and I am too eager to find an excuse to not spin it. I don't get to eat out every weekend. I don't have a lot of food in my fridge, and I don't feel like cooking much. I'm stuck at a job that I don't want, I don't have money to buy everything I need or want, I'm not going to the places or doing the things that I want to do. And worst of all, I never get to spend time with the people I want to see the most.

I never get what I want, right when I want it, as much as I want it. 

All I focus is on what I want.That just makes me more miserable.

This morning, I had a moment of inspiration. Instead of thinking about what I don't have and haven't achieved yet, I could instead feel gratitude for the things that I do have. The things that I have done. What I HAVE accomplished.

Last September, right before Comic Con, I was having a really bad time. All I could focus on were the areas where I was failing. But during a phone call with my mom, she reminded me of the things that I have achieved and the things that I had to look forward to that very weekend. Her sharing that with me was a reminder that I am worth something. That I am capable of doing things--good things, great things, difficult things.  

You know, I could use the same kind of perspective right now. 

I don't get to see my cosplay friends a lot. But we have shared a lot of good experiences. Why be sad about the fun I could be having, when I can look back and remember the good times? 

There are a lot of costumes I want to build or I am somewhere in the stages of building. I don't have time/resources to allocate to creating one-hundred-percent-screen-accurate-costumes right now. But I have already created outfits for a lot of my favorite characters. I've sewn a few of them myself, even. I'm not the best at crafting things by hand, but the stuff I do put together looks good, and it tells a story. People recognize these characters and appreciate me for bringing them out. And I've been able to create some beautiful art through cosplay.

I don't have time to be a full-time writer/author right now. It makes me sick sometimes, to think of all the story ideas that I have that I don't have time to sit down and write, even in my spare time. Guys, being a writer is hard work!

But I do have these stories to tell. I have places to go in my head and my heart. I have stories that I can plan out in my mind. When I get the chance, I can sit down and chip away at them, a little bit at a time. Even though I can't share them all right now, the ones I have created have given me a place to go where I can be happy and safe, and where I can find a different way to analyze my fears. 

I know I haven't posted as much in my blogs as I've wanted to so far this year. But looking back, I have actually written a lot of posts over the last two years, and some of them are actually great.

I don't get to travel a lot. I haven't been outside of Utah since Christmas. I haven't been able to travel anywhere new lately. The only time I ever left the country was when I was three, and that was for a wedding in Mexico I don't even remember. I did get to go to Nauvoo and Florida when I was little, but I feel like it doesn't count. I haven't really BEEN anywhere cool since becoming an adult. And I've been telling myself for years that I was going to save up money and travel. 

But I have been to fantastic places. Right here in the West. I see these places sometimes every summer. I know where they are. I can always go back to them in my mind.

There are friends I don't see in person a lot. But I post things on social media to make them laugh. I still know them. They still know me.

I haven't been able to go out much this summer. But I have made it to four wedding receptions in the last three months--that's actually kind of a record. And I have also been doing a lot of reading--more on that coming next week.

Some of you know, I have invested a lot of my soul in Salt Lake Comic Con in the last few years. Salt Lake Comic Con regularly has a high turnout of big-name celebrities. But I have never had the money to get photo ops or autographs with any of them--except for Carrie Fisher and John Rhys-Davies. Those were two experiences that I will never forget. I also met Ray Park and Daniel Logan in passing. And LeVar Burton. I may want their autographs but I HAVE met them and that's saying something. I may not have gotten their autographs but it was still just as cool to meet them. I've meet some of my favorite authors as well, and been able to meet up with my friends in the professional geeking world. 

And as for the other celebrity guests--Mark Hamill, Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, Anthony Daniels--I've been able to go to their Q&A panels. I've been in the same room as them, and been entertained by them with thousands of other fans. I saw and heard them in person. Some of the things they've done at Salt Lake Comic Con have gone viral over the internet, and I am able to say that I WAS THERE. And there are guests that I want to come or to come back very badly to upcoming conventions. But if I complain about them too much, I'll forget the good times we HAVE had with the people who HAVE been. And when looking back, I shouldn't listen to the snarly voice in my head that says "You should be grateful for what you already got and stop asking for more." No. Just be grateful. Just feel it.

sltrib

I don't live in a penthouse. I don't have an apartment all to myself. I'm still living in the Provo "bubble." But I do have a nice place to live. And I can decorate it however I want. I'm walking distance from BYU campus and some good shopping areas, fast food, and I can get to a bus stop easily. (Plus I haven't misplaced my UTA farepay card for the last several months. There's something to be said for that).  

I'm not a perfect person. I'm not a flawless Molly Mormon. I don't go to the temple EVERY week. I don't make it to church sometimes because I sleep in. Sometimes I only read my scriptures for five minutes instead of fifteen. I haven't done any visiting teaching this summer. And I get angry. A lot. Over stupid little things.  But I am striving to be a good person. I do things that invite the Holy Ghost in my life. I'm trying to socialize more with my ward. I go to the temple when I have the time and energy, and I've been doing better the last couple of weeks. I've started reading through conference talks with my scripture study. 

I have my temptations and weaknesses. But I don't let them define who I am or who I want to be.

I don't have a car, but walking everywhere keeps me in somewhat good shape. My job requires physical activity as well. I'm actually pretty tough physically. And even if my mental health is a mess my physical health problems aren't usually worse than the occasional cold. 

Pinterest

Remember that meditation I posted last year, Your Focus Determines Your Reality? If all I do is focus on how badly I want something, then the negative feelings will harm me. If I focus on everything that is going wrong, then my life is, indeed, a disaster.

If I take time to look back and think about the things that I do have--a place to live, food to eat, a decent job with reasonable hours, lots of costumes, lots of memories, lots of friends both near and far away--then I realize that I not only have a lot, but I AM a lot. 

What I have may not be the same as what the more-accomplished-adult in the Ritz has, but I shouldn't give in to the trap of thinking that what I have isn't "real" or as important. 

This line of thought inspired me to re-read a talk that President Uchtdorf gave in conference a few years ago, "Grateful in Any Circumstances." It's humbling that I've finally figured out what that talk was about and that I have a reason to apply it. Gratitude isn't so much counting off your specific blessings as it is having the capacity to appreciate those things--the capacity to feel that these things are gifts from God. Especially when times are hard. Seeing the good in the world, in your life, requires faith.

I know my posterity may not be satisfied that I have not kept very consistent personal records over the last several years. But I hope that when they read these blog posts, they will be able to see how I was able to find the positive in difficult circumstances. That's all I want for anyone who reads this next week to get from it, too.

He is Risen: A Belated but Necessary Easter Post

Mormon friends: do you ever get tired of reading in the Book of Mormon about the Nephites and the Jaredites going through the infamous pride cycle over and over again? I mean, do you just sit down to read Helaman or Third Nephi and go uuugggggghhhh?

Tenor

And do I need to remind any of you here of the number of times that this happened with the Israelites in the Old Testament? Just as soon as Moses had them going straight, something would happen and they would start murmuring. AGAIN. And their life in the Promised Land was no bed of roses, because they would repeatedly forget the Lord, break the commandments, worship idols, and then end up in bondage to their enemies.

Wheatley Scholars

In our day, the pride cycle can happen in our personal lives, but in society at large it doesn’t seem so much a pride cycle as a long downward slope. And just when you think the world has hit the bottom, things keep getting worse. We turn to the scriptures, and we see the exact same thing: war, wickedness, sin, and destruction. If the Gospel is in the scriptures, then where is the part with the “good news”? The scriptures were written for our day, to help us get through. But seeing more examples of what we’re already seeing doesn’t seem to give much comfort, much less answers.

It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out that those ancient peoples are US. And it probably doesn’t take much more thinking than that to realize that the wicked people who are ripening for destruction are not meant to be our role models.

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So what do we look for? We read about the people who stayed righteous in the midst of all that wickedness and all of their personal trials. We read about Abraham, Joseph the son of Jacob,and Moses; Joshua, Gideon, Ruth, Deborah and Barak, Samuel, Elijah, Hezekiah and Isaiah. We read about Lehi and Nephi and Alma and Alma the Younger and Nephi son of Helaman; we read about Mormon and Moroni and Ether. We read about Jesus Christ. We read about the people who followed Him, His mother Mary, Peter and John and the apostles, Stephen and Paul. What are they writing about their experiences and the lives of those who came before them? What are they learning that they want to share with us? How do they stay righteous in a wicked, difficult world?

This goes for the Book of Mormon, too! (Pinterest)

In His final sermon to His apostles, Jesus shared the secret: “In the world ye have shall have tribulation. But be of good cheer: I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

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Jesus overcame the world. He rose above the sin, the sorrow, the despair, the grief, the lust. He rose above everything evil in this life. He descended below all things, and was thus able to overcome all things.

He did not get caught in the Pride cycle: HE BROKE THE CYCLE.

He is Risen, not just above death but above sin and above pain and suffering. Above repeated human errors and mistakes.

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HE. BROKE. THE. CYCLE.

AND BECAUSE HE DID, SO CAN WE.

In the Intercessory prayer (John 17) He asked the Father not to take his disciples from the world but to keep them from the evil. We are still supposed to be a part of this mortal experience. We came to experience the pros and the cons. But the cons don’t have to make us weaker. Christ can help us overcome the things that are difficult. Christ made it possible for us to be stronger than our pains, our temptations, our sufferings through His Atonement.

He is the Light of the world. He is stronger than the darkness.

All those people in the scriptures who still managed to make it through even though they were surrounded by wickedness and evil and destruction? They made it because they chose Christ.

In one of his last letters to his son Moroni, Mormon wrote a harrowing description of the atrocities committed by both the Nephites and the Lamanites. And then he said something to Moroni that I think we should all listen to: “My son, be faithful in Christ; and may not the things which I have written grieve thee, to weigh thee down unto death; but may Christ lift thee up, and may his sufferings and death, and the showing his body unto our fathers, and his mercy and long-suffering, and the hope of his glory and of eternal life, rest in your mind forever” (Moroni 9:25, emphasis added). Believing in Christ doesn’t necessarily make everything around you perfect or solve all your problems. BUT believing in Christ can help you to be all right when everything else is chaos.

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As he is abridging the record of the Jaredites, Moroni takes a chapter to write out some of his feelings on the subject and some of his experiences in coming to know the Savior. He says that he had prayed that God would “give unto the Gentiles grace, that they might have charity.” But God’s response was,” If they have not charity it mattereth not unto thee, thou hast been faithful; wherefore, thy garments shall be made clean. And because thou hast seen thy weakness thou shalt be made strong, even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father” (Ether 12: 36-37). We don’t have any control over what other people choose. But if we are faithful, then our own salvation is assured. Peace in this life. Eternal Life in the world to come. We will be able to overcome the world and have that reward.

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In Paul’s second epistle to Timothy, we read Paul’s counsel to those who were trying to stay true to the faith in a time of difficulty. The Great Apostasy--the time when the true Church would be corrupted and the truth of the Gospel lost--was at the doors. “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Timothy 4: 3-4). Paul would soon be going to his own martyrdom (vs. 6-8). But Paul’s counsel was simply to be ready for whatever came, and to stay true to the faith. In the previous chapter, he had reminded Timothy to “continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of.” The message for us today is the same: stay true to what you know, do the things you know are right. Doubt and fear can and will be overcome.

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In the book of Revelation, we read of God’s promises to those who “overcome” the sins and temptations that were plaguing the seven churches: they would be clothed in white, named in the book of life, have part in the first Resurrection, receive eternal life, and live in the presence of God (Revelation 2-3). And as recently as the last general conference, Elder Neal A. Andersen gave a talk on the attributes of those who overcome the world as Christ overcame it. Overcoming the world, Elder Andersen said, is not done in a single moment but over a lifetime. But it can be done. Christ overcame, and he will help us to overcome.