A Letter on My Wedding Day...TO YOU!

Dear YOU,

A few weeks ago at work, I was listening to a talk by Sister Dalton while I was picking weeds. In her talk, Sister Dalton shared a story about a group of young women who trained and prepared all summer to walk from the Draper, UT temple to the Salt Lake, UT temple--a distance of 22 miles. Each week as they prepared, they learned about temples. Sister Dalton describe the day when they made their final trek. They had leaders with food along the way. They received encouragement from family and friends. The young women participating in the walk helped each other. And at the very end awaited their families--there at the Salt Lake City temple.

Sister Dalton concluded her story with this statement: "The temple walk is a metaphor for your life. Parents and priesthood leaders stood guard along the route. They provided support and aid. Young women guarded and encouraged each other. Young men admired the strength, commitment, and stamina of the young women. Brothers carried sisters who had been injured. Families rejoiced with their daughters as they ended their walk at the temple and took them safely home."

As Sister Dalton spoke these words, tears came to my eyes. I began to reflect on what a wonderful place in life I was at--engaged to a wonderfully righteous man, about to start a full-time teaching internship, feeling closer to God than I have at almost any other time in life--yes, life was so good. And then tears came to my eyes as I thought of all the people in my life that sacrificed and gave and helped and encouraged and uplifted and inspired me here. Gratitude filled my heart to the brink and I could not deny the love of God and His hand in my life.

And that is how I feel today. Amid the excitement and nerves and happiness and butterflies and joy, above it all what I feel is an immense feeling of gratitude for everyone who has helped me get here to the temple with the man I love. For the primary teachers and young women's leaders. For the home teachers and visiting teachers. For the bishoprics and stake leaders. For the school teachers and classmates and band council members and NHS friends. For the priesthood leaders. For the family friends. For the friends that grew up with me and the friends I've made at college. For the family--extended and close, old and new. 

Today, as I enter the temple to get married to the man I love for time and all eternity, I think of all of you. To any of you who have helped me in times of need, been a listening ear, shown and taught me the way, blessed and uplifted me, laughed with me, cried with me, encouraged me, touched me in any way--to you I must say thank you. Thank you for helping me become the person I am today and for helping me find my way along the path of life so that today I am filled with more happiness than can possibly fit in my heart. 

This past week, with the culmination of today, has been the best week of my life up to this point. Why? Because it's given me time to realize how many, many people the Lord has blessed me with throughout my life and how, because of all those people, I'm very, very loved. 

Here I go, my friends! I hope to see many of you tonight at the wedding reception! And for those of you who can't make it, know that I'm just as equally grateful for you're influence and love you just as much. 
Teachers, friends, and family like you are the thing that make life worth living. 

Lots and LOTS and LOTS of Love,

Lindsey (Soon to be Self!)

Thoughts on Weeding

Today I weeded for five hours at work. It was a lot of weeding. It was a lot of work. We put forth extra effort to make the flowerbeds near University Street look very nice because there will be hundreds of people seeing them this Friday at the Fourth of July Parade. In the middle of all our hard work, it occurred to me how unfair of a position we—the workers—were in. If there are weeds everywhere, everyone notices and wonders why we are not doing our job so well. If there are not weeds, however, no one takes notice or thought of all the time and effort the city’s Parks and Rec employees put into making the place look clean. Essentially, we get noticed only when people are unhappy, and forgotten when we do a job well done.

As I thought about this, I realized that this is a position Heavenly Father must find Himself in quite frequently. When things aren’t going the way we want them to, when He doesn’t answer our prays at the time we want, when His will isn’t our will—we notice what seems to be a lack of His hand in our life. On the other hand, when things are going great, we hardly recognize all the hard work He puts forth to make it so. Even when we are striving to recognize His hand, there is still so much behind the scenes stuff that He makes happen that we have no idea about.

 I’m grateful for the hand of the Lord in my life and that He still extends it even when I’m too busy or selfish or tired or impatient to notice it. I know that His hand is there in every single one of our lives and that if it ever seems that He is withholding it, it is only because we must first do our part or because He is giving us an opportunity to grow. Just like little children, we do not in the present moment comprehend all that God has done, does do, and will do for each one of us. We have much more to be grateful for than we suppose.

“Living as we do with a veil over our eyes, we cannot remember what it was like to be with our Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, in the premortal world; nor can we see with our physical eyes or with reason alone the hand of God in our lives.” –President Henry B. Eyring (“O Remember, Remember”, October 2007)

“Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation.” –D&C 58:3

Talents

For the past several months, I've been continually pondering over what talents I have and how the Lord wants me to use them. What talents should I strive to develop? Which ones aren't as important? While I put the subject on the shelf for a while, tonight it came up in a conversation I was having with my friend. We had been talking for a while and the evening was coming to a close. Right as she was leaving, I expressed to her how grateful I was to her for being the amazing woman that she is and for using her talents to serve and uplift others, like she had me. As I pondered on these talents of hers, I started musing to myself about how many people my friend would be able to help Heavenly Father serve if she continues developing her talents as she already has. She has the potential to help so many people! The thought made me excited for her and for me and for everyone.

We all have talents, and because we all have talents we all have something to be excited for. We don't know in the present moment how Heavenly Father will use us, through our talents, to help those around us in the future. But it is exciting to imagine the many ways that He may, and will be even more exciting to see how He really does.

So yes--talents are exciting; not just for the joy they bring us when we use them in the moment, but for the thought of the joy that they may bring others when we use them in the future.

"God knows our gifts. My challenge to you and to me is to pray to know the gifts we have been given, to know how to develop them, and to recognize the opportunities to serve others that God provides us." -President Henry B. Eyring ("Help Them Aim High," October 2012)

Watermelon

When Jon and I are married and have fun little Sunday night dinners with our friends, we will not serve watermelon. Jon and I love watermelon. L-O-V-E it. Unfortunately, our love has gone to a bit of an
extreme, and we find ourselves at a point where we are unable to share this love for others at dinner parties for the unforeseeable future. It just simple isn't in our budget and we simple lack the self control necessary to maintain human-like characteristics when the fruit is placed in front of us.

It's dinnertime. I instruct Jon to cut the watermelon. He does so, leaving half of it uncut while chopping the other half into pieces and putting them into a bowl. We sit down to eat with the bowling ball sized bowl filled with watermelon before us. "Great," I think to myself. "Half a watermelon. This can be the fruit we have at dinner for the next several nights." We say a prayer, eat the main course, even take a sip of water now and again. The meal is going great!

And then, we start eating the watermelon.

No longer are we two humans sitting down at the dinner table to partake in a humble meal. No. Now we become two thirsting camels who have stomachs that are able to take in and hold 30 gallons of water in just 13 minutes, and suddenly no matter what we do, we can't get enough watermelon into our mouths and our forks just keep returning to the bowl again and again and we just can't stop ourselves and we keep going and going and going until--

Where did that whole bowl of watermelon go? That bigger than a bloated chicken entire half of a watermelon bowl of fruit go?

In one meal?

Yes--in one meal.

A whole fifty percent of a normal sized watermelon??!!!!

Yes--a whole fifty percent.

And you two don't see this as a problem?

Actually, we do. We just don't plan on trying to fix it anytime soon. And we also don't plan on serving watermelon to our friends at our Sunday night dinners. Our pocketbook, along with our good name, can't afford it.