Power in Asking God

 21 June - 27 June 2021

Monday: Lucy and I went to a swim class at the rec center, and just as I predicted, she LOVED it! I think it had a lot to do with the instructor, who is theatrical and hilarious. She's my favorite as well. Afterwards, we took a few laps in the lazy river and whirlpool. Later that morning, we went to the family history lab at the BYU library for an activity and won prizes! We also did an escape room, and we had some elderly people in our group who had no idea what was going on, which was hilarious. Then Lucy got packed up, we had lunch, and then I dropped her off at the airport. When I got home, all I wanted to do was sleep, since we had gone on so many crazy adventures and I was exhausted! I even missed FHE because I was too tired.

Tuesday: I attended a weight training class at the rec center that got me so good. My legs were shaking the rest of the day, and they've never been so sore for so many days in all my life! I had voice lessons with Christina, and we both noted how my voice is getting stronger and improving. I went shopping and ran some errands, then had some people in the ward sign the card for Bishop who hadn't already. I dropped it off at his house that afternoon, and I heard from Sister Osborn that he loved it! I'm glad I was inspired to make that for Him. Truly, when you pray for service opportunities, the Lord does provide! Mira and I went out and heart attacked our sisters we minister to, and we had a ministering later in the afternoon. I attended institute that evening, which Whitney has started coming to, and we had tacos after!! Um, let's just say I've been craving fast food tacos, so I may have had five or something... (don't worry, I made sure everyone else had plenty. There was just a lot left over). 

Wednesday: Today was actually a pretty rough day. Between attending Zumba and my job interview that afternoon, I learned that the package I'd ordered from JC Penny couldn't be delivered because of an "insufficient" address. I realized I forgot to include my apartment number! Beware of the convenience of those auto-fill features; you still need to double check everything! I spent over an hour trying to get that fixed, on hold with JC Penny, then UPS, then having to call around to local UPS places, and doing some googling of my own to fix it. It was frustrating because there was no clear solution and I felt like my time had been wasted. My job interview was fine, except for the part where I realized the job sounded like torture and I didn't want to take it even if it was offered to me. I had scheduled to go over and help Megan-Jean with her babies, so in my lowest points of frustration, I thought about getting to hold sweet little babies fresh from heaven to calm me down. I helped Megan-Jean cook (mostly I was on flipping crepes duty for an hour) and then got to hold Rosalie for a bit. Baby snuggles are the best. I attended Whitney's ward's institute, mostly because they have food afterwards and I don't want to cook dinner for myself if I don't have to. Plus, a lot of the friends from our friend group go, so it's nice to socialize with them. Plus, I don't have much else to do since I currently don't have a job. While I was there, the lady in charge of preparing the food asked if I knew one of the other young adults that had looked sad the previous week. I didn't, but I went over to him and started up a conversation, getting to know a bit about him. It was good, and then I got to ease the worries of the lady and let her know he didn't seem sad, but he was quite a bit older than everyone there (29) so maybe that played a role in why he kept to himself.

Thursday: I had some extra hearts cute out that I used to tape up around my roommate Grace's room. She's been gone for a while and I wanted to surprise her with something kind. I attended our ward service activity in the evening, which was a white elephant service exchange. We all wrote down a service that we would be willing to do for someone else, and then we put the papers in a pile and took turns picking one at random. Whoever was next could choose a new one or steal a service from someone who went before them. I stole the service of someone making dinner for me! Hehe. My service was a 10 minute shoulder massage, which my ministering sister Brittany stole from Mira, who stole it from another person who got it. I chatted with friends afterward. 

Friday: I went to a deep water workout. I ditched going yesterday to a work out because I was still sore and exhausted from strength training. Being in the water was a nice transition back to working out. In the evening, I stopped by Megan-Jean's house to help out. I did the dishes and cleaned around the kitchen. I got to help feed little Gideon and he fell asleep on me with his mouth wide open. So cute! Then I attended a bonfire with my friend group and roasted/ate way too many marshmallows!

Saturday: I went to the rec center to do Zumba step, which was intense. I picked up a movie from the Redbox after, then went to RS yoga. I left early because I was too warn out from doing Zumba. I had a movie night that evening with some friends. Vivian bought me a gluten-free cinnamon roll from the farmer's market. The movie was lame, which was a bummer because I'd been looking forward to watching Chaos Walking. I went to a Canadian party at the park in the evening and played some games with friends.

Sunday: We practiced for ward choir early in the morning, and it was so bad! My voice kept cracking on all the high notes because my voice wasn't warmed up, and also because lots of people didn't show up. Fortunately, more people came up to the stand to sing for our sacrament performance. Relief Society was an answer to my prayers. We had a great discussion and I realized I needed to ask Heavenly Father for the things I desired instead of feeling unworthy and undeserving and just waiting for things that aren't going to happen if I don't ask for them. God is already willing to grant me so much, even though I am undeserving. So why not ask for my desires? If He is already willing to grant them, I am only hurting myself by not asking. I guess I hid what I really wanted because I was afraid He would say no or they wouldn't be answered how I wanted. I found new strength and power from Relief Society that I shouldn't tell myself "no" before God does. He truly can take away my burdens and trials. Even if He often doesn't work that way, it doesn't mean I can't ask and seek for it. Sometimes it is part of His plan to take away a trial to build our faith and confidence. Besides, when we pray, God will always answer--in His own time and way--but He will always answer. The rest of Sunday was busy with choir practice, family history, making banana bread, taking a nap, going to ward prayer, then hanging out with friends and playing games.

Much love,

Emily Burnham

Lucy Comes to Visit!

 14 June - 20 June 2021

What a crazy busy week! Full of more adventures than I've been on in all my time at Utah!

On Monday, I went to a Zumba class in the morning, and in the late afternoon, I was invited over to visit Megan-Jean and her two new babies. I was over there for just over two hours, holding the sweet little babies while MJ got some cleaning and laundry done. I also helped feed one of them. It looked exhausting and helped me to realize just how much mothers have to sacrifice. Their entire world really does go on hold when they have a baby and they have to feed, change, and take care of it all day and night, leaving barely any time for yourself. Right after, I drove over to the Thomas' house for FHE, where we had dinner. I was so hungry and ate so so much! They were so kind to have bought gluten-free buns for me to use for the pulled-pork sandwiches. 

Tuesday, I applied to 15 different jobs on indeed.com. The job I'd been banking on getting due to my connection with Valerie fell through, but I know something else will work out. I talked with Whitney for a bit about the insights I'd had during my personal scripture study. I'd been studying from Elder Bednar's talk, The Character of Christ, and I realized that I let my natural man take over when it comes to dating. The natural man is the cookie monster, who wants "cookie now!" and when things don't go your way, you want others to feel sorry for you. I realized that in dating, I want instant responses from guys, and if things don't work out, I complain to a friend so they will commiserate with me. I need to be more like Jesus Christ when it comes to dating. I then went to a deep water aerobics class in the afternoon, and institute that evening. Right after institute, I went on a date with Mark, the guy from the previous week, to play pickleball. I thought I'd give him another try, but I still did not have fun and I think he could tell.

Wednesday was the day Lucy came! I scheduled a work out class before I'd have to go pick her up, and on my way out the door, I found an envelope with my name on it on my doorstep. I didn't have time to read it because I was rushing to go to class. I opened it in the car to see who it was from and found it was the first clue to a scavenger hunt! After the fitness class, I had to hurry and shower and get ready and pick up Lucy, so it wasn't until after we both got home and ate food that we could go on the scavenger hunt. I'm not gonna lie, I was feeling anxious at first because I thought it came from a guy (like the one I went out with last night and didn't have fun with), but seven clues later (which clues led us all around the south part of campus), we ended up at the duck pond and under a bench was a flower made of paper and pipe cleaner, and a sweet note. They wrote that they admired my example of service and that I had inspired them, so they wanted to do something for me. They hoped I had fun! It was anonymous, but I guess sharing either in church or my CFM friend group helped someone and they wanted to do something nice for me. It was very sweet. Then I took Lucy shopping to get food for the week. That afternoon, we went to Nickle City, and arcade place, and we played tons of games for almost 2 hours. Personally, I had a blast and felt like a little kid again. Afterwards, we walked to Brooker's and got ice cream. Lucy wanted to do something in the evening, so I asked around and found out my friends were going to institute, so we tagged along. It was not as good as my regular institute that I attend, but we had J-Dawgs and chips afterwards. So I didn't have to cook Lucy dinner! Plus, that secret J-Dawg sauce always hits the spot. Yum. 

Thursday: Lucy slept in while I went to yoga. I left early so I could come home and get ready to go to the Salt Flats. It was a two hour drive to get there. It was so pretty! We had a picnic out in the middle of the flats and got pictures. It was super hot and bright (I could barely see with all the light being reflected from the white salt), but we huddled under the shade of my umbrella to eat lunch. The ground was surprisingly hard. And of course we both licked the ground, just to make sure it really was salt... ;). Yup, I can assure you that it was salt! That evening, we went to babysit for the Nixons. Again, Lucy ate dinner there so I didn't have to cook. We got to watch part of a movie on the giant screen in their theatre room. The parents came back an hour later than expected, and me and Lucy were falling asleep on their couch!

Friday: I convinced Lucy to go to the hip hop class at the rec center with me. She hated the class and left halfway through to go walk laps on the upper level. I don't think she was happy she came... but as I was leaving class to go find her, I walked past Stacey from Studio C, who was teaching the class after ours. Then going up the stairs, I passed by Natalie from Studio C. I found and told Lucy, and she got so excited! "We need to go find them!" She said. So we walked around and took awkward stalker-selfies with them in the background (lololol). In the afternoon, we went onto campus to look around the bookstore. Then we did chalk art outside around Heritage Halls. We went to the Creamery for ice cream and then to the MOA to kill time before going to The Wall for half-off fries. They lady at the front desk asked us if we wanted to solve a mystery that they'd put together to find the different forgery paintings. It took us a bit over an hour, but we did it! We got to pick a prize at the end, and we both got invisible ink pens. They also gave us a postcard of Jesus, which we later used to write letters to Sean. Then we went to The Wall, only to find that it was closed until further notice :(. That evening, we drove to Lindon for the Lantern Festival. It wasn't quite what I was expecting. They weren't lanterns that floated, like the ones from Tangled, but rather ones that you just set onto the water. It was windy, bright, and bug-infested. Lucy complained a lot. But finally after 3 hours of sitting and waiting, we were able to light the lanterns and it was so pretty! We made it back to Provo just in time to go get boba before Levi's Boba Bus closed. Lucy loved it! I thought it was pretty good.

On Saturday, we both slept in, even though I meant to get an early start on hiking the hot springs. We were just so exhausted! After a 40 minute drive, we started our hike. It was pretty long, three miles, but we finally made it! The hot spring was SO hot, it felt like our feet were being boiled! So we had to go back down to a cooler spot, and then we sat there for a bit. It felt like we were in a hot tub. Then we hiked the three miles back to the car, and I got a bit burnt on my shoulders. We were so tired after that, so we showered, ate food, and chilled. Then we went out for dinner to Silver Dish (cuz I was craving the Pad Thai Noodles) and then Lucy really wanted ice cream, so we took a quick stop at the Creamery. We then wrote the letters to Sean, and I went around and had everyone sign a giant card for Bishop for Father's Day.

Sunday: Bishop was out of town, which was good because I brought the card to church for anyone to sign that had missed signing it when I'd stopped by the night before (which was quite a ton of people). In Sunday School, we talked a lot about forgiveness, and I felt the Spirit. After church, I got to conduct choir, which was super fun, even though I basically just make a fool out of myself. We went to reconnect at the church. It was a small group that came, but they enjoyed the laughy taffies I brought! Lucy gave me a foot rub in the evening right before we left to go to CFM, which was heavenly. Then we attended CFM scripture study, ward prayer (where we played the game "Sounds" where you close your eyes in the middle, point at someone, ask them to make a sound like an animal, and then try to guess who it is), and then a game night with my friend group. Lucy had a blast at the game night and didn't want to leave! So we stayed past 11pm! 

Much love,

Emily Burnham

Sunshine and Sunflowers

 7 June - 13 June 2021

Monday: I slept in pretty late and missed my exercise class, so I signed up to go to a late afternoon core class at the rec center. That evening, we tried to paint like Bob Ross for our FHE activity. It was super hard! Mostly because we don't have the same paints and brushes as him. 

Tuesday: I went to Zumba with elderly people for my work out at noon, bought some work out gear off of amazon, and then went to institute in the evening. 

Wednesday: I attended a strength training class in the morning, and WOW did it get me good. My arms were sore for days. I went shopping for work out tops at Burlington. I also went and picked up my copy of Psych Intuition, BYU's undergraduate Journal. It only took two years to make it to print, but I'm officially published now! I also called Capella University to ask some questions about their MFT program, and I was able to share a bit about my church and beliefs to the lady on the other end of the line. It was so cool how much closer and familiar we felt after talking about God. She was Christian. I love that God is providing me with missionary opportunities, even ones that are not in person! In the evening, I had a date with a guy I met from the dating app Hinge. I was actually looking forward to it because we were planning on going to DI and picking out outfits for each other. Then we had to change into them and wear them out in public to get a treat. I got him so good because he was SO embarrassed to be wearing a UVU shirt with PJ bottoms. We took before and after pictures.

Before:

After:

Thursday: I went to go to a Zumba class at the rec center, but I accidentally signed up for a seniors only class. So I kinda got kicked out and instead went up to the bike room and did some cycling for a bit. In the evening, I attended Disney's Tarzan the Musical at the Scera Shell Theatre (which is an outside one where I saw Newsies with Valerie two years ago). Lacee had a bunch of extra tickets, so I went with a bunch of my friends and got good seating! 

Friday: I went to the 9am cycling class, which kicked my butt as always. My friend Kathy and Vivian both came as well. That evening, I babysat for the Nixons, which is always a good time. I watched the kids swim, cleaned up around the house and yard, and then watched tv with the boys. I forgot to put little Jack to bed on time, but when I did finally remember and get him to bed, he wanted me to lay next to him. He is so loveable and sweet (though also a stinker at times, lol). After getting home, I went over to a movie night my friends were having for a bit. I caught the tail end of the movie, the Croods 2, which was super super strange. I've also been working on expanding my painted rocks collection outside of my door:

Saturday: I went to a hip hop dance class at the rec center in the morning, did laundry, and painted a sunflower on a rock for Lacee's birthday present. We planned to surprise her since her birthday is next week and they will be out of town. Early in the evening, we all gathered together and picked up a sunflower and a clue and then were assigned to hide at different places. Lacee was sent on a scavenger hunt to find us one by one, ending at her apartment with a huge cake. She was very surprised. 

Sunday: I was very happy and content when I woke up this morning, and I was so excited to go to church. I will get to start working in the temple in three weeks again! I went to ward choir, then to family history reconnect, where more people showed up! And then I took a nice nap and went to CFM at my friend's place. I really liked the discussion we had about how the Lord calls us to repentance through others. It comes from a place of love and it isn't always straightforward. It is just you living your life, being a righteous example or sharing an experience you had, and then the Spirit can touch them and help them realize they need to change too. Then off to ward prayer, where we played this fun game with a squirt bottle. The person in the middle picked a category. If you said what the person in the middle was thinking or repeated what someone else had already said, you got squirted. Then we played games at our friend Jared's house, and Whitney walked me home. She encouraged me to ask a guy in our friend group out to do something. I decided I should go for it. I am grateful for my friends and their love and encouragement, especially when it stretches you outside of your comfort zone.

Much love,

Emily Burnham

I'm a Sinner

 31 May - 6 June 2021

Monday: I went early in the morning to get gas, and I fixed up my bike to sell. That evening, I babysit/life guarded at the Nixon's home for three hours. They had a backyard BBQ with a ton of families and wanted me there to watch the pool at all times. There were around 20 kids there total! It was pretty enjoyable and I got a nice tan. Plus I got some of the food. Afterwards, I went to FHE at the bishop's house. We had an outdoor movie with popcorn. I wasn't a huge fan of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and may have fallen asleep for the last bit of the movie.

Tuesday: I attended a 9am cycling class with Vivian. WOW do they give you a run for your money! It was very intense. During the day, I finally painted the M&M rock that I found a while back, and I must say that it turned out so much better than I was expecting! Whitney and Quinn attended institute with me in the evening, which was very nice because usually I go alone. They had cereal for the treat after and I got to take a bag of it home with me. 

Wednesday: Zumba in the morning was very crowded and the music was very very loud, but it was a great work out. I'm still working on filling out a spreadsheet to compare different online graduate schools to find the best option. After all, I know it's my choice where I attend. This is a decision God will not make for me, and He trusts me to make it on my own. It's taking a lot of faith to believe that I can make choices that will bring me happiness and fulfillment instead of ruining my future. Which is dumb, but sometimes I don't even know what I want, let alone how to make the choices to get what I want. I went on a unicycle ride and picked a giant leaf from a tree that was as big as my face! I don't know why, but giant leaves make me so happy!

Thursday: I went to 8am yoga, even though I happily could have fallen back into bed and slept for twenty hours. I had voice lessons with Christina after, and I love how encouraging she is. She is so excited for me to sing "Before It's Over" from Dogfight and keeps saying that it will "sound so good in my voice." After voice lessons, I hung out with Whitney for a bit and we went to Rock Canyon to collect rocks that I could paint. That evening, I went ice skating with some friends (Ruby, James, and Eva). I was actually feeling stable and did well practicing my Waltz Jumps! Afterwards, we went out for tacos because I had forgotten to eat dinner and was feeling very very hungry. 

Friday: I went ice skating at 11:30am for exercise. Even though I didn't really feel like going, I dragged myself there and was glad I went. A couple stopped by to buy my bike after. I went shopping in the afternoon to get treats for the game night I hosted at 5pm. A good size group of people came and they all had an enjoyable time because they stayed for three to four hours! And I let a few of them try to ride my electric unicycle. Then James stayed late and we just talked about life.

Saturday: I was feeling lonely and frustrated today. I went to attend a Zumba class at the rec center, but University was all blocked off for a marathon that was going on, so what is usually a three minute drive turned into a twenty minute drive! I went ice skating that afternoon with Mira. I asked Whitney what she was up to, and she came over to do some home work for a bit. That evening, I joined her and her ward for an outdoor movie night where we watched Megamind. I also have a date next week from the app Hinge that I'm excited about.

Sunday: As I was listening to my scriptures this morning, a scripture passage I've read many times stood out to me in a new way. In 2 Nephi 2, they talk about Adam and Even having no joy, for they knew no misery and doing no good, for they knew no sin. The thought that hit me was, "Well, I'm a sinner." And because I have experience the pain and guilt of sin, I can do much good to counteract that. I can understand the goodness of the Savior, because through Him, I can become clean and good. Although it was fast Sunday, the ward choir sang in sacrament meeting, so I drank water in the morning to warm up my voice (which also awoke my hunger pains...). I wore my new dress that mom had bought me as a graduation gift and I received so many compliments! One girl said I reminded her of Cinderella! I got to sing by the microphone with the other soloists, and everyone loved our musical number of I Wonder When He Comes Again. I also bore my testimony in church, I really felt the Spirit and felt uplifted and unified with my ward. I took a nap before attending ward choir after church, and then left to make food because all the singing on an empty stomach made me feel nauseous. Then I helped host a Family History meeting at the church where we watched a short training video and worked on finding names and records. I actually found and added a record for one of my ancestors! (At least I hope it was correct, but I'm doing my best here). That evening, I went to Come, Follow Me with friends, then off to ward prayer, then to a game night. I also watched The Chosen. It was a very great Sunday.

Love,

Emily Burnham