Smoothing Out

The smile is back! I'm being tumbled around in a spiritual rock polisher and some of my theoretical rough edges were made a little bit smoother this week. Thank you to those who commented on my last post. It's reassuring to know that I have a "team" even when I might not be on it myself.

It really is in the depths of our despair that we can choose to continue to wallow in that misery that I imagine to be a pit filled with those ugly creeps from Labyrinth:

Or we can turn to the Savior and trust in the power of His Atonement.

Personally I want absolutely nothing to do with the greasy little Jim Henson monsters. I choose Jesus.  Elder Lund shared a talk with us called The Faces of Pride, given by the Prophet Ezra Taft Benson in 1989. He encouraged us to each to pray, read it and make some goals based on the promptings received while reading. I'd like to share a paragraph that impacted me.

"The proud depend upon the world to tell them whether they  have value or not. Their self-esteem is determined by where they are judge to be on the ladders of worldly success.  They feel worthwhile as individuals if the numbers beneath them in achievement, talent, beauty, or intellect are large enough. Pride is ugly. It says, 'if you succeed, I am a failure.' If we love God, do His will, and fear His judgment more than men's, we will have self-esteem."

I choose to follow the Savior and trust in Him for help in my hard times. My success is not based on the achievements of other missionaries. Elle is doing ok. Excuse me. Sister McCall is doing ok (sometimes I need to remind myself that I'm still me). I'm going to share one more quote that comes from Preach My Gospel that I read this morning.

"Your confidence and faith should be in Christ, not in yourself. Rely on the Spirit rather than your own talents and abilities."

So here I am. Still swimming. And I hope you're doing the same :)

Where Do You Find Your JOY?

Happiness is:

A bottle of Mexican Coca Cola!

A snack size jar of Nutella!

Umm...probably not the best mottos in the world. Those things sure make us happy but its an instant gratification, something that we can only enjoy in the very moment we are tasting the sugar rush!

For the past 4 months I've cut out almost all of the things that I thought made me happy so that I can have a full force dedication to missionary work. That means no movies, dating, quilting, crafting, countless hours on the internet, late nights or phone calls home to my mommy at the end of the day. I was worried that I would just find myself curled up in a ball at the end of each day crying about how miserable life was. I'm here to tell you that my fears were not a premonition of what was to come. In fact I'm more happy now than I have been in the past year of my life, maybe the happiest I've been in my ENTIRE life!

Seems pretty ridiculous that cutting out things that brought me joy lead me to so much happiness now. That's because I haven't told you what I replaced those things with! I spend 2 hours every morning studying the scriptures, one hour by myself and one hour with my companion Sister Joy Valentine. I then spend the entire rest of the day (minus 2 hours for lunch and dinner) teaching people about the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

So yes, there is a little bit of irony that this post talks about Joy and that is the name of my current companion but she's a constant reminder to me of real delight in living each day! My happiness that I thrive on comes from living the Gospel of Jesus Christ and following God's commandments!

Mini Series Time!

So on my regular old pre-mission blog I did a mini series about Science Fiction and how it makes my heart happy. Now that I'm in mission mode I'm going to do another collection of posts with a theme, but this time it's going to be a little better planned out. Remember how I said I'd share some scriptures that I like about the Gospel of Christ? Well how about 5 posts, one to briefly touch on each point of doctrine? 

Here's what you get to look forward to:

1. Faith
2. Repentance
3. Baptism
4. The Gift of the Holy Ghost
5. Endure to the End

Now if some of those topics seem like gibberish to you I hope that I can change that.
Also, I had a super fun time making that ridiculous picture of breakfast with faces on it, so maybe more paint illustration too?? Vote if you think I should!