Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Friend!

Today was a tiring day, because I stayed up so late last night, cleaning up my mess from when I was baking. And I just didn't want to go to sleep. So I wasn't very lively today. But after our Midsummer Night's Dream performance I was walking home with a friend from Music Therapy, and we were joking around, and I think I laughed harder than I've laughed in months. It's been so long since I've had a really good laugh! It felt good to have a friend that I can laugh my head off with from time to time! I'm really grateful, because it takes a long time for me to make friends with girls (guys are so much easier to be friends with, for some reason). And luckily it happened right at the end of the day, so I'm ending the day in a good mood (instead of focusing on the moldy french toast failure of this afternoon). =)

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Inspiration

I woke up today feeling really well-rested. Then I looked at the clock and realized there was five minutes until church started. Oops. Needless to say, I was late to church today. Luckily Sacrament Meeting is last!

During Sacrament Meeting I randomly had all these ideas pop into my head about raising my future children. How to do Christmas in our home, how to help them develop personal relationships with Christ, how to help them live up to their potential... it was pretty fun getting all those ideas! I wrote them all down in my notebook so that I can save them and use them later.

After church I stuck around for choir practice. We have the best-sounding ward choir that I've ever heard! I was shocked! And pleased. I guess everyone has started coming now that it's Christmastime. It was a wonderful experience to participate, and to hear the strong harmonies, and to sing with soul. It was amazing! It was a good reminder to me of the power of music, and why I love it. It filled me with joy, and touched my soul.

My visiting teachers came after I got home. I have never had such consistent visiting teachers in my life! I love it.

Then I worked on the Scripture Sharing website I've been making. It can be visited at http://sites.google.com/site/scripturesharing/   I also worked on a few design details for this blog. All the pictures in the right column are links to awesome websites that I suggest visiting. =)

Went to the Christmas devotional by the First Presidency, and felt the Spirit there. Christmas is such an awesome time! I was able to brainstorm during the meeting about what kind of gifts to give this Christmas. I don't really have any money, so I'm having to get creative. Mostly it's gifts of time, service, or words. I'm excited. This is feeling like a really great Christmas season so far. I'm loving it!

The miracle I'm most grateful for today is personal revelation. The Lord is leading me! He gave me the idea of the things that I fasted for today. He gave me ideas of how to raise my future family. He helped me know what I could do for my friends and family for Christmas. He's been with me today, helping me understand His thoughts and His will and how I can come closer to Him. He's amazing.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Increased Confidence Again!

My miracle for today was how calmly and appropriately I reacted when the girl in front of me in choir fainted during our Christmas concert. She started swaying, and started stepping backwards, and falling backwards. I caught her, and helped her down to the floor, and waited for her to wake up. (Her eyes were open, but I could tell she wasn't there...)  She came to, realized she had passed out, stood back up, and got back into formation, insisting she could finish. Unfortunately she passed out again a few minutes later, but the girls standing right next to her helped her that time. When she woke up from that, she left, rather than risking passing out on stage again.

I consider this as a miracle, because I imagine that if this had happened a few months or years ago, I wouldn't have reacted calmly or been helpful. I passed out for the first time about a month ago, so I know how it feels now and all that, so it didn't surprise me too much. Interestingly, in Psychology we've been talking about social psychology, including the bystander effect, and I've been wondering if I would be helpful and contributing if something bad happened to someone in a large group. Tonight I was in a situation where I was able to see myself help, even while in a large group, without thinking about it. I just did what needed to be done, to the best of my knowledge. I'm not saying that I know I would do that in every social situation imaginable (though I hope I would!) but at least I can see that today I didn't fall prey to that way of thinking. And that's a great feeling! =)

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Increased Confidence

My miracle of the day is that when I sang in front of all the voice students today during Voice Recital hour, I didn't feel nervous. No shaking legs, no frantic feelings. I didn't sing amazingly, compared to everyone else, but I sang pretty good for me. And I was happy to listen to myself singing.  The fact that I wasn't nervous makes me really happy. One of my main desires is to grow more confident. To not be afraid of others opinions, or the opinions that I imagine they have. I want to be a humble, willing-to-take-correction, yet confident, happy person. And today was encouraging in that respect, seeing that I'm making progress, and was more confident today than I have been in the past. =)

My favorite thing about the Gospel and about life, is that people can change. Really change. For the better. That really is one of the best miracles of all.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Happy thoughts

Miracles and happy thoughts for today:

The snowflakes were big, pretty and slow.
I got to help a friend understand music theory better.
Jeff looks pretty good with facial hair... (as far as I can tell from his webcam) =)
I have food in my cupboards (thanks to the kindness of my parents on Monday)
Christmas is coming!