Potpourri

• Last week my younger brother John, who is on his mission, sent me this in his email: 'Fun fact: I met an Elmo family in this area I'm in now. They're investigators and I want the gospel to bless their lives and what not, but they're still my arch nemesises.' There aren't enough words to say how much I love this. As John would say, that anecdote is made of  win! Why? Because it combines the new John-the-missionary that I'm bursting with pride for and the same silly sense of humor that I've always known and loved. (In this case I'm partially responsible  since I was the one to show him the facebook group that spawned this train of thought--it's called   "Grover is the greatest of all time and Elmo is merely a crimson impostor" and is very very true :)

• The song I've had stuck in my head the most lately is 'Two Is Better Than One' by Boys Like Girls and it has occurred to me that it would be a really savvy song choice to play often at the grocery store. Just think: you're at the store debating how many apples (or anything really) you want and then you hear a catchy little song that says "and maybe two is better than one..." Or at least, that's what I would do; gotta love less-than-vague hints!

•  It's been about a week now since David Dejesus was traded to Oakland from the Royals, and not to sound overly dramatic, but I've mostly come to terms with the deal. Logically, David only had one year left on his contract, we probably were not going to be able to afford to re-sign him, saved $6 million, and got back two young arms that we control for at least the next five years and which have the potential to be positive contributors to the team. On the other hand, I'm still a little heartbroken to see DDJ go. He was drafted in 2000 and has been with the team since 2003. A couple years after that he showed the team loyalty by signing a deal buying out a few of his first free agency years. He wasn't an all-star outfielder, but a very good and unerringly consistent player. And he seemed to really enjoy playing the game--which is always refreshing considering he and baseball players in general are paid millions of dollars to play a game for a living.  I'll miss the grin he forever had on his face; it was a nice smile too... :) (Kathryn, if you happen to read this: See? Despite my 'logical' analysis of the trade, I do see the players as real people and not just pieces to be bartered about willy-nilly, so no muttering about the slave trade :P  Or at least I tried to convey that.)

•  Recently I had quite an odd dream; the kind that throw you for a bit of a loop, but are then laughed off 'cause they're just ridiculous. Except, after I laughed over this one, I realized the obvious symbolism of the dream, and it kind of troubled me. In my dream I was going to get married in a couple days, and yet I didn't know anything that was going on about the wedding or nearly anything about the guy I was getting married to (he was in my dream prominently, but still 'fuzzy' in that all I can remember making out is that his hair was probably darkish and his name was definitely 'Sven'). Understandably, I was quite confused by the whole thing. Now, to the best of my memory, whenever I am in my dreams, I always dream about people I know or 'know of.' Not so with this 'Sven'--I've never known anyone with that name and I can't remember reading or hearing it anywhere, so obviously my subconscious completely made him up. The 'why' of that is what bothers me. It makes sense that it wasn't anyone I know personally since lately I've had a real hard time letting myself commit to even being interested in someone. But why then couldn't it have just been someone like Joe Armstrong (a British actor who I happen to think is one of the most beautiful people I've ever seen, but of course I have about a one in a million chance of so much as meeting--and that's if my friend Kathryn and I even make it to England someday (we accept donations if you'd like to help out :D). So if it had been someone like that, at least the message would have been clear that I can't see the 'reality' of my marrying--that it seems unlikely and 'dreamlike' and faraway right now, but not impossible. But for my mind to have to make someone up entirely? Am I really that pessimistic about my chances? Really? I wouldn't hope so. However, I can't deny that this is an issue I've been grappling with for awhile. It seems to me that if, for example, I'm at point A and getting married is Point M, then I have a whole lot of letter-points in between those two to make it through. The problem with that being that though I know I have my weaknesses and have a lot to work on, I am trying to be the best I can be and I actually do have a lot going for me as I am, and still I can't even make it to point B. It leaves me feeling like I don't know what else I can do, that somehow I'm stuck. Which you could say is kinda disheartening, but for that thought, I refer myself to my next bullet point.

On a lighter note, the other three things I remember about my dream are that I had a really huge, loopy dog (seriously, it was as tall as a Great Dane but as big around as a St. Bernard!) and in the last scene of the dream I was back in my apartment and suddenly I knew that the sixth seal had ended and the seventh was beginning (and naturally it got all dark and spooky outside). Our living room had magically gotten several times larger so that it could fit the whole Relief Society. Clearly this means I really love dogs, am still a bit uncertain about the future, and....I feel quite protective of the Relief Society because I wanted to 'house' them possibly?

• Lastly, lately, my personal maxim seems to be along the lines of "everything works out."  And while I undoubtedly know that is true, I've found that I need to remind myself that "all...things...shall be for thy good" (D&C 122:7) quite persistently. It's so easy to forget to keep that in mind when I am discouraged and can't see how I will get to where I want to be. That's when I also need to remember that though the desires of my heart are good and right, I can't just have them right away because I want them; I have to work through the Lord's will and timetable and challenges he has for me to be worthy of them because of the person I have become through them. I need to "trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding." (Proverbs 3:5) It shouldn't be as tough as I perceive it to be at times, but I do struggle with that. 

So usually at that point I turn to Alma chapter 29 to give myself a spiritual 'whack upside the head.' I came to this chapter in my scripture reading nearly two years ago at a time when it really hit home for me, and it's been a great help to me ever since. In the first two verses Alma says, "O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of my heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people! Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth." All Alma wants is to cease the sorrow in the world by bringing the gospel into everyone's lives--certainly a righteous aspiration if there ever was one, right? Yet the very next verse is the real kicker: "But behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me."

Reading on, we get a better understanding of that statement "I ought not to harrow up in my desires, the firm decree of a just God, for I know he granteth unto men according to their desire (footnote here leads us to Psalms 37:4-5 , which says, "Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass." And this scripture in turn references us to Enos 1:12, that says,"And it came to pass that after I had prayed and labored with all diligence, the Lord said unto me: I will grant  unto thee according to thy desires, because of thy faith." which finally leads us to Helaman 10:4-5 that reads, "Blessed art thou, Nephi, for...thou...hast not sought thine own life, but hast sought my will, and to keep my commandments. And now, because thou hast done this with such unwearyness, behold, I will bless thee forever; and I will make thee mighty in word and in deed, in faith and in works, yea, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for  thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will.") whether it be unto death or unto life; yea, I know that he allotteth unto me, yea, decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable, according to their wills (footnote: agency), whether they be unto salvation or unto destruction.

"...Now, seeing that I know these things, why should I desire more than to perform (footnote: stewardship) the work to which I have been called?

"Why should I desire that I were an angel, that I could speak unto all the ends of the earth? 

"For behold, the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word, yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have; therefore we see that the Lord doth counsel in wisdom, according to that which is just and true. 

"I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it, I do not glory in myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul unto repentance; and this is my joy. 

"And behold, when I see many of my brethren truly penitent, and coming to the Lord their God, then is my soul filled with joy; then do I remember what the Lord has done for me, yea, even that he hath heard my prayer; yea, then do I remember his merciful arm which he extended towards me."

It was hard to format that with my little scripture chase in the middle and have it comprehensible, but I wanted to give the proper context so the following points make since. This is what I concluded:

• Alma was not wrong to hav e the desire he did, it was "good and right."   
• However, he was wrong to want it regardless of what the Lord wanted or had in store for him.
• The Lord gives us the desires of our heart as we delight in him, commit to and trust in him, labor diligently, pray, keep his commandments, and through all these things, exercise our faith in Him.
• Why and how does this work? Because the Lord has a mission for each of us and wants to give us all that he has and as we do the things in the above bullet point, our will becomes aligned with the Father's. Our desires are still good and right and are 'not contrary to [His] will' so then we are blessed and our joy is full.
• Our Heavenly Father promises us this, but gives us our agency as well, so we must choose to do this.
• Thus, the Lord hears us and knows us. He has provided/'allotted' everything we need for each of us individually so we can choose to keep the Lord's commandments and be His instrument. We are 'content'  with the things we have and our circumstances because we understand that the Lord knows what we stand in need of and has a plan that is for our best if we but let Him lead us through it.. 

I'm not sure if that all makes sense or if I just made it a lot more convoluted than it needed to be. I suppose I mostly like the way Alma puts it a even though I concluded most of it much more concisely in the paragraph before I quote Alma. Oh well.

• In my next posts I'll actually get around to doing one of the things I actually started this blog for--post pictures so my family and friends who don't live by me can get some "snapshots" of my life.