SHE'S HERE!!!

Friday was the day I've been waiting for for a long time.

IT WAS THE DAY JESSICA MOVED TO UTAH!!!!

See--look! This is me picking her up from the airport!

I've been so super excited to have her come live in the same town as me so that we can play and so that when I have free time and I don't feel like being productive and Jon is gone and I have nothing to do I can hunt her down and be annoying to her and it won't even matter! Also, it's soooo nice to have a female family member back in my life in person. Jon just doesn't get it when I say "How 'bout we just sit and talk?"

We celebrated the night by taking her to one of our favorite restaurants--El Gallo Giro. I ordered a burrito and they brought me a tortilla stuffed to the size of a baby.

Trust me--this picture doesn't do it justice.

Of course by the time they brought it out, I was already so full of horchata that I barely had room to fit any of it inside my belly.

I ate most of it.

When we got home, we initiated Jessica into the house by playing several rounds of Monopoly Deal. I won the first three games and Jon won the last, though Jon will tell you I really only won two out of three because the first round was just a practice round and he wasn't really trying his hardest. Apparently, Mr. Pride couldn't face the truth.

It's going to be an awesome summer!

Teaching's Coming to an End!

 My classroom doesn't look like this anymore.

I have one four-day week left of teaching at Salem Junior High, and it's getting kinda' sad.

I started to feel sad last Wednesday when my classroom went from looking like it does in these pictures to looking like an empty hospital room. As kids have filed in and seen the room, they make remarks like: "It looks so empty in here!" and "If you leave there'll be no cool teachers for me to come say hi to next year" and "Why do you have to move to Washington?"

Normally I don't take much joy in other peoples' sorrows, but this is one time that I am grateful that there is a little bit of sadness. It's good to know that, amid all the confusion and learning (on my part and theirs) and mess-ups and trying agains, that the kids still liked me and thought I did a decent job.

Now, it's on to finding a teaching job in Washington!

(PS- The kids made me promise to curl my hair for the last day of school!)

She Remembered My Name

Saturday I was walking in the produce isle in WinCo when an old lady who had just walked past me whipped around and exclaimed: "Lindsey Rogers!"

It took me a moment to place her face, but after a couple of seconds I realized who this lady was...one of the women who had served in the stake Relief Society presidency when I had been a Relief Society president in my single's ward over two years ago! We talked and said hi for a couple of minutes and then went our different ways to continue shopping, but for the whole rest of my shopping experience I couldn't stop myself from beaming and feeling warm and fuzzy on the inside. Two whole entire years later, and this dear older lady still remembered my name! And it's not like we even saw each other a whole lot when I was serving.

I learned a lot from this lady yesterday about how to really magnify a calling. It's not about to-do lists or activities or percents or meetings or lessons; it's about really loving those I serve and making sure that they know it. Even after my time to serve in a position is over, my responsibility to love those I served never will be.

It would have been so easy for this lady to have seen me and gone on her merry way without saying hi to me. After all, it has been two years since we've seen each other. But instead of putting her head down and avoiding eye-contact while shuffling past me (like I feel most people do) she reached out and said hello. In that moment I felt God's love for me personally.

Grace

Tonight I've been reading Stephen E. Robinson's "Believing Christ." This is a timeless book about grace and our relationship with Christ. In the part where I'm at, Bro. Robinson is talking about 2 Nephi 25:23:

"...for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do."

He argues that members of the church frequently interpret this scripture incorrectly, that "the correct sense of 2 Nephi 25:23 would be that we are ultimately saved by grace apart from whatever we manage to do. Grace is not merely a decorative touch or a finishing bit of trim to top off our own efforts--it is God's participation in the process of our salvation from its beginning to its end." 

After considering his thoughts, I have thought of yet another way to look at this scripture. In the part that goes "after all we can do," I have usually considered the "we" to be me--an everyday person. After all, this makes the use of "we" parallel with how it is used earlier in the sentence. However, after thinking about it, I realized that if I break all grammar rules and look at it differently, the "we" could be considered Christ and I. 

Looking at the scripture this way changes everything. Taken this way, this scripture never suggests there is a moment when I'm the only one doing the doing. Rather, it suggests that Christ is always there, a part of the "we" team, and that when I can't keep the team going anymore, His grace steps in and fills the void I leave. 

How awesome is that?! One of the biggest misconceptions about grace just dispelled by using the scripture that is probably the reason why so many people have said misconception! Man, I knew there was a reason why I performed so poorly in my grammar class!

If you want even more insights on what Nephi meant when he wrote this verse, President Uchtdorf put it pretty fantastically in this past General Conference, which you can find here. Or, you could read one of my all-time favorite talks ever, which happens to be about grace, here.

What a beautiful, happy reminder that we do not walk through this life alone! I'm so grateful for a Savior who keeps on pulling when I fall off the "we" bandwagon. I know I couldn't do it without Him--before and after that point.