28 November - 4 December 2022
Well, this past week, I felt completely exhausted. In fact, I was SO tired that I came up with the best/worst pun ever: Guess how I feel? Like a cow-shaped muffler... utterly exhausted. Yup, I am VERY proud of that joke :) :) :).
This week, I went with the ward to see the Mesa Temple lights. Despite feeling exhausted, I had a good time socializing and soaking in all the pretty sights. I also have been enjoying the gym with my mom in the mornings. Working out REALLY makes a difference in how I feel and am able to move. Umm, I got a little overwhelmed with my emotions and spiraling/anxious thoughts on Tuesday, and I vented with my mom about my YSA ward and how people need to step it up and be better. I went out to get acai bowls with my friend Jasen and talked about that frustration a little bit, which I kind of feel bad about because I hate to feel like an ungrateful/judgmental complainer, but some days and weeks are harder than others to control your emotions and thoughts. On Thursday, I went to institute, where we talked about the millennium and final judgement. I enjoyed some yummy snacks afterward, and Jasen taught me some inverse chords and the basics of playing by ear, which was SO fun! I was super impressed with his playing. Then we went to this institute dance thing in Mesa, which was actually kind of lame because the music was SO loud that I could feel it vibrating through my body and could not talk to anyone! Fortunately, they had this game room set up where you could play ping-pong and foosball and other games, so we did that for a bit. Friday was also a good day because I got to cheer up my friend Matt from Florida, who was in the hospital after having his kidney removed so he could donate it to someone who needed it. I sent him lots of cute pictures of Gracelyn and drew him a super cheesy picture of his favorite things: a cow, platypus, train, and mustard. That evening, I went with my parents and younger sister to Jacob Ellsworth's wedding reception. It was at a fancy restaurant, and they had Costa Vida catered. But we didn't eat very much food, so on our way home, we stopped at Arriba's (which does NOT sit well with my gluten-free tummy, in case you were wondering. But oh well).
Saturday was EPIC! We had a ward rock climbing activity at Alta and they had these self-belaying things where you could climb up and then just let go and it gently lets you down. It kind of had the feel of repelling, which I love!! They also had this tower blocks that got taller in a box-shape and you put on the belay and then you can step up them up to like 20 feet! It was my favorite things. They were so fun, but I did get a pretty nasty bruise on my back from falling onto the tower, since the belay doesn't catch your weight until you entirely let go, so I kind of fell sideways and smashed into a tower on accident... whoops. But it was SO fun. Then I went to an endowment session, even in the pouring rain! There were three live endowments in that session, which was pretty cool. Sunday was good. I had some insights come to mind during church. One was a change in mindset: Our goal isn't to minimize how much we sin and fall away from God but rather to maximize how often and quickly we return to Him. I also was thinking about how all strong emotions stem from love. When we are sad or angry, it's because someone who means a lot to us has hurt or disappointed us. If we didn't care about them, we wouldn't react so emotionally. Anger can be an expression of love, so can sorrow and joy. And then my last thought I had was how Christ is known as the Unexpected Deliverer, and how of course this applies to how our prayers are answered. We have such a narrow way of viewing the world and our situations, and we want our prayers to be answered in specific ways, but God sees the whole picture and answers in unexpected ways that happen to be exactly what we need. We watched the First Presidency devotional, and then I had friends over for CFM at 7:30pm and we played games. People stayed so late (not really that late, but I was SO ready for bed that I left early to go back over to my house to go to bed before 10pm, haha).
Much love,
Emily Burnham
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