Just Another Day

Greetings from a rainy city. Hope all is well with you. So today I shall keep it brief, not much to tell just a simple update. I am loving the job I do on Th and Fri. I get to be extremely creative have a tremendous amount of input. I'm considering asking if I can come in an additional day a week cuz there is just SO much I would like to do, but so little time :). Idk, and lately I have been really missing my friends. Never thought I would say this, but I'm almost looking forward to going back to Provo. haha. But I digress. So right now, I am looking forward to a few things I suppose. First, next Tuesday is my birthday...a very special birthday, the long awaited 21. I'm excited I suppose, maybe not all that much seeing as on that day I will be working and basically spending it by myself, but life goes on. Next, I got my passport which I will be using to travel to Canada for Caribana which, for those of you who don't know, is a HUGE Caribbean festival resembling Carnival up in Toronto. Also, if you didn't know, yes, you now are required to have a passport even to go to Mexico or Canada, just an fyi. After that lovely trip, I am looking forward to my parents coming into town on August 15th for my Aunt's birthday party. I'm excited because the plan is that I will travel home with them and then fly from Chicago back to UT. This is exciting because that will shave a good $100-$150 off of my travel expense, booyah! Yeah for parents. After that, well idk I guess we will see what Utah has in store for me this year. It's always an adventure at the Y in the midst of P-Town in the grand old UT. haha if that didn't make sense then your probably not from UT nor are you Mormon. haha. Well beyond that, it's 2:30 in the afternoon and my shoes, socks and pants are still damp from standing in the rain this morning waiting for a bus that was 40 mins late, so Imma let you go while I go air out my stuff. Love you all, have a blast, and live life to the fullest because nothing is guaranteed.

Ashley E Tracey

The Most Important Lesson of All

So today, I think I had one of the greatest epiphanies I could ever have, and I feel the need to share it with you. I went to church today, at a ward out here in Jersey. The family I'm staying with isn't of my faith, but my aunt let me use her car to drive to church, a blessing I truly appreciate. Being there alone was hard for me, it's not something I'm use to, but I went because I know that I needed to. Anyway, so during RS the teacher gave a lesson about Jesus...while well intentioned, she stated that she wanted to cover the ENTIRE life of Christ during the lesson, and wanted us to provide ample comments. What?! I mean no disrespect but both of those expectations are lofty at best and fight each other. It's either we are going to cover the entire life of Christ during the hour OR we will comment on what we choose. Not both, never both. So, as the lesson commenced, she became uneasy as she saw time tick away, with barely the prophesies and birth of Christ covered, and a room full of women staring blankly at her as she had us flip endlessly from one scripture to another. Don't get me wrong, she was well intentioned, but...alas to little avail. So about half way through the lesson, sometime after I abandoned following the scriptures, a older lady in the class made a comment that changed everything. Timidly raising her hand, she spoke, " I always find it hard to discuss the examples of Christ because I feel that I always fall short. I have a really hard time forgiving people. I try, and just when I think I've got it, something comes up to show me that I really haven't forgiven them. I just don't know what to do." Admittedly, I dislike hearing people constantly bring up how they fall short of Christ's example, of course you do, it's Christ. That fact is for introspection, not to beat yourself down with. The combination of that, the tone of the lesson, and mostly my recent unhappiness with some of my actions and feelings, prompted me to speak. So in the midst of a group of women I knew nothing about, I raised my hand, and let the Spirit speak through me. I said, " I draw, and when drawing a picture you quickly realize that there are two ways of approaching it. You can start by drawing each and every detail, but the problem is that when you finish, the picture isn't going to look the way you want it to. The perspective will be off, the lines won't match up right, and even though all of the details are perfect, the overall picture, will still be flawed. So then you learn that what you need to do is first, rough sketch the entire thing, and watch the details fall into place. That's the same thing with using Christ's example. First we have to sketch out the big picture which is developing the pure love of Christ in our lives and then we'll find that doing things like forgiving others will just come naturally." Now for some of you, this is a duh moment, or so you think. The reason this was such an epiphany is because I, like most of you have probably gotten bogged down in everything I'm doing wrong. But that's not the point, yes, should we fix those things? Absolutely, but why make it more difficult than it needs to be. Rough sketch your picture! And you know what else, use an eraser! If the edges of your beautiful self-portrait start to dull, or veer off, erase it and pen a new loving stroke. When I say I love you all, I mean it. I try very hard to develop the pure love of Christ for everyone, and I definitely feel I have made some good strides towards doing so. Also, don't get distracted. Loving everyone doesn't mean liking everyone or everything they do. Remember when Christ over turned the money changers' tables in the tabernacle? He was very angry with them, but you know what? He died for them too, just the same as you and me. Remember when he rebuked his own disciples because they fell asleep while he atoned for our sins? Yup, still loved them even though at the time he was disappointed. It's okay to be upset or unhappy with someone but still love them. Finally, give yourself a break! It's okay that you don't have it all figured out. Your picture is still being drawn, and guess what, it won't be until that final moment that the whole thing will come together. Your going to make mistakes, your going to lose face, drop the ball, forget why you try, and want to give up, but guess what, Christ's atoning or our sins is that handy dandy eraser that allows you to fix every single erring stoke. I love you, I love myself, and I love the Savior, and those three truths are why I have written this for you all to see. My epiphany is to help us all, I know that of a certainty, and I hope you take away from this at least a portion of what I have.

No luce per me oggi

Hello world, nothing truly new to report, just felt the need to get on and keep you all in the know. Today is a little grayer than usual, in a number of ways, but I know that blessings are in store. I mean, I completely understand the concept of trials and their purposes, but where things get gray is blessings. Particularly when a blessing is disguised as a trial. Even when you know something is for your benefit, it doesn't stop it from hurting if that wasn't what you wanted. This whole not knowing everything deal that we signed up for is one hard gig. What's even harder is when you feel like you are completely alone, not because you are, but because your pain isolates you from the rest of the world. The other night I had an interesting thought that I would like to share. I was thinking about Pain. How pain is talked about almost as if it were a tangible entity. Something you can grab and slap around a bit. Ha, I wish. But the truth is that pain takes many forms. It can hurt you, it can help you, it can warn you, it can make you do things you normally wouldn't. It can let you know you're doing something right, or jar you into realizing you've done something horribly wrong. It can encourage you to help someone, or convince you to hurt someone. Pain is a very complex thing, particularly when it comes in the form of another person. It can come as a person who helps you, a person who hurts you, a person who warns you, or a person who encourages you to do things that you normally wouldn't. That person can let you know you've done something right, or jar you into realizing you've done something horribly wrong. Get where I'm going? The problem comes in differentiating between that person and the pain that you feel. They....are NOT the pain. The pain is within yourself, and no matter how much you ignore, fight against, or embrace that individual, the pain won't be altered. It's not until you realize that, that healing can begin. Let's flip the argument on it's head once again. So you determine that this is the problem, that you are associating a person with a feeling that they can't control, how do you begin to make that change? Well sorry, but I don't have that answer, and until God gives it to me, I can't give it to you. All I have is my conviction that it is possible. But until that does transpire, I'm going to ask for patience. Some days are going to be great, some days will be pain free, and some days will cripple my joints and leave me unable to emotionally move. The deeper inward you search the more variance is to be found between these extremes and you can't put a time limit on eureka. So today, is a tad crippling. I've never abused any addictive substance unless you consider music to be such a vice, but right now I feel like I've quit smoking cold turkey. And even though I know cigarettes are bad for my health, drain my money, turn my teeth yellow, put wrinkles on my face, frog my throat, and blacken my lungs, I still yearn for nicotin (hypothetically speaking of course). And no matter how often you yell the consequences at me and tell me how better off I am without it, the addiction still tells me I need it. It still reminds me how in my darkest moments, it was the only thing I had, when the world was too busy to care. So pardon me if I shake a bit, and act irrationally, I'm fighting a battle only I can fight. Thank you.