Labor Day Weekend (So Far)

Watching the Game

This past weekend has been lots of fun! We started things off by going over to our friend's house to watch the BYU football game on TV. We won, so of course it was a very good night :)


Then, yesterday we made our way to to Temple Square in Salt Lake City to attend a FREE (whoot! whoot!) Paul Cardall piano concert. Paul Cardall is a new age and christian piano artist. The music in the room was beautiful, but the spirit that it invited was definitely the highlight. The best part of the concert was the testimony he bore before he played his last song, which was called "Redeemer." He testified that if there was anything broken in our lives that Christ could fix it, or that if we found ourselves in need of some comfort and shelter that we could find it in Him.

At the concert

"I love Jesus Christ," he concluded emphatically.

A tear slipped out of my eye and a feeling of warmness and devotion that I haven't felt in a while, because of the craziness of getting married and moving and starting a career, came over me. The feeling said: "I love Christ too," and I really do.

With that feeling still in my heart, the rest of the evening and all of today have been pretty top notch. Tonight we have our neighbors over for treats and games and tomorrow we go to the Ogden Temple Open House. Labor Day Weekend doesn't get much better than this.

Life Lately

HOLY COW! The past month has been one of the best/craziest whirlwinds of my life ever! Being married and moving into an apartment and teaching for the first time ever take up a lot of time! But I have loved it. Really loved it. It's awesome getting to come home knowing that Jon will be on the other side of the door. It's awesome having a job that keeps me so busy that I barely have time to scarf down lunch and that makes me wait three hours before going to the bathroom because I'm so busy but that I love to death anyway. Yup--pretty awesome. Pretty good.

Oh, and this happened for FHE tonight:

Jessica: You should be proud of me

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