I hope they call me on a Mission!

Last night I went to best fireside EVER!  Well maybe not ever but it was pretty awesome.  It was a pre-Missionary fireside by Elder Gene R. Cook.  He is an emeritus general authority who has served in the Quorum of the Seventy Presidency and multiple times as a Mission President.  He and his wife came to speak to all potential missionaries and of course I attended!  It was amazing.  It was one of the best firesides I have ever been to.  Sis. Cook bore a powerful and sweet testimony about the importance of missionary work and the truthfulness of this gospel.  Then there was an amazing musical number by a guy majoring in musical performance.  He sang ‘Abide with Me’ and it was the most beautiful arrangement I had ever heard!  The spirit was so strong.  Then Elder Cook spoke on why it is important to serve a mission, how to prepare, and the blessings that follow full-time service.  At the beginning of his talk he did something really neat.  He had us all think of a question that we had that we needed an answer to.  He then had us say a quick prayer asking Heavenly Father to help us get the answer.  He then promised us that if we exercised a little faith we would have the answer by the end of his talk.  It worked for me!  Of course it did - “My word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.”  (D&C 1:38).  And “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say;” (D&C 82:10).  Anyway, it was just super cool and I got the confirmation I’ve been seeking.  The closing song was “Hark All Ye Nations”, a hymn I’ve sung many times but that I’ve never really paid much attention to.  The text of the last verse hit me hard.  It says:

Chosen by God to serve him below,
To ev’ry land and people we’ll go,
Standing for truth with fervent accord,
Teaching his holy word.

                       And the chorus:

Oh, how glorious from the throne above

Shines the gospel light of truth and love!

Bright as the sun, this heavenly ray

Lights ev’ry land today.

I hope in the very near future to be chosen by God to be one of His full-time missionaries, sent to teach and preach His holy word :)

Live, learn and love the gospel! I know that when we do, joy and laughter will flood each day! :)

Poke a balloon! :)

So today was my Saturday shift at work.  Usually work is nothing of consequence really, but I just had to write about today.  I started the morning out by taking some arrangements to a Stake Center for a funeral service.  I got to the place and started in with a large vase of flowers.  A woman came rushing to hold the door for me and greeted me with a warm smile and “Good morning!”  Then her two daughters, maybe 10 and 12, were so sweet to take me to where the arrangement went.  They commented the whole way about how beautiful it was and how nice it was of me to do the flowers and deliver them for their Grandma’s funeral.  They were absolutely adorable!  And so sweet.  The littlest one said to me, “Thank you so much Miss,” and then started to tear up! Ah! Adorable.  I just kept thinking how proud their Grandmother must have been of them.  Definitely smiling in Heaven :) I just wanted to tell them how much she loved them but I couldn’t quite find the words… I did get the feeling that they knew though. 

   

I then had a casket spray and an easel to unload and decided (since the walk was a pretty long one around the building) that I would move the delivery van to the back of building where it would be close.  I pulled around, got the easel out and made my way to the door.  But of course they were locked.  I thought, “Great, I’m going to have to walk all the way around and then back to open these doors…”  BUT WAIT!  Not so.  A man came to my rescue and opened and held the door for me.  He was so polite and kind and asked what else I needed help with.   I told him I just had one more thing left and if he would just hold the door for me.  On my next trip in there sure were 4 men holding the doors, one man following me thanking me all the way into the room, and a woman waiting in the room just gushing about how beautiful and perfect the flowers were.  I asked if there was anything else I could do for them (feeling a little guilty because I had gotten so much from all of them and felt like I had given little in return) but they just thanked me even more, told me that we had really helped to make the day special, and wished me a wonderful day.  Sheesh!  What an amazing family!  I walked back out to the van, only to find it GONE!  Haha just kidding.  I couldn’t help myself.  Really though, one of the men had closed it all up (I had all of the doors open to get the arrangements out).  And had started it and turned the heat on (it was a bit nippy, and raining outside).  I thought it was so kind.  Definitely not necessary on his part.  I hope Sister Venice Kratzer knew what amazing family and friends she had.  I can only imagine the kind of lady she must have been to have a family so kind and sincere.  With all of the love I, just a stranger, was given from her family, she must have had SO much more and must have given much herself.  It was really touching to me to see, that even in the midst of death and sorrow, these people were celebrating life and reaching out to others in love.  I realized that’s something I need to learn better.

There was also another delivery that had quite an impact on me today.  It was a balloon bouquet to a little boy celebrating his 2^nd Birthday.  His grandparents had ordered it for him.  I walked up to the door and rang the bell.  A woman answered with a little boy at her feet.  He looked about two or three so I chanced it and looked right at him and said, “Everett, these balloons are for you!  Happy Birthday!”  His eyes lit up and he did THE CUTEST little jump skip of joy and giggled.  He was adroable!  Oh my heavens.  SO CUTE!  I handed him the balloons as his mom thanked me and explained to him that someone sent them to him for his birthday tomorrow and they would read the card to find out who it was from.  Then as she signed for the delivery, he set the balloon weight on the floor and most of the balloons were at his height and he started poking them, just giggling ang laughing.  I couldn’t help but laugh with him.  Laughter definitely is contagious.  After that, as I drove the 15 minutes back to the flower shop (and with no good songs on the radio) I thought about all that I learned since I was two.  I can’t even remember being two, so I must have learned a lot since then.  But what I learned today is that I’ve also forgotten a lot.  I’ve forgotten how to Poke a Balloon and giggle.  Forgotten how to laugh at the simple joys of life...    

So today I'm telling myself:  

Live your best each day, Learn along the way, increase in Love, 

and don’t forget to Laugh! 

February 14th 2011, you have been good to me!

What an awesome day! Possibly the best day I have ever had!  It was awesome!  Let me tell ya how it all went down.  First off, a little preface.  I work at Campus Craft and Floral, a cute little flower shop on BYU campus.  I love it there!  But as you all may have guessed, flower stores are CRAZY during Valentine’s Day.  And even crazier at BYU if you can imagine!  So I had to be to work at 4 a.m. today!  What the insanity!  I know.  But here is the story now.  I woke up at 3:30 and walked out into the kitchen to maybe eat a popTart or something for breakfast… but there is my roommate Jessi with a plate full of warm scrambled eggs and toast and cold orange juice.  At 3:30 a.m.! AH! What an amazing roommate and friend.  I love her SO much!  How awesome is she?  Then she goes to bed while I finish getting ready and I’m realizing how late I’m going to be.  I didn’t plan very well seeing as it takes me 15 minutes to walk to campus from my apartment.  I definitely did not give myself enough time this morning.  So I’m debating about whether to wake up one of my roomies and plead them to kindly take me to work and not hate my guts when all of a sudden I get a text!  Who could it be at 3:50 a.m.?  Michael Carter.  My good friend from Apartment 12 – in my BYU ward here at Liberty Square.  (Apartment 12 consists of 5 of my favorite guys of all time – but those are stories for other days).  And the text says, “Hey Tash!  Funny story: We all just happen to be awake right now. Can we give you a ride to work? :)”  I thought not very funny for them, or really a “coincidence.”  But next thing I know they show up at my door ready to take me to work.  At 3:50 a.m.!  AH!  They are SO amazing.  They seriously are so awesome I can barely stand it.  I’m so glad they don’t charge for awesomeness or attractiveness or I would be flat broke.  But they gave me a ride and lots of early morning laughs.  I super love them.  They will never know how much that meant to me or how awesome they are.  I gotta figure out some way to repay them.  I told a girl at work about it and she was like, “What!?! They are the ultimate.  My husband wouldn’t even get up that early to bring me.”  Boy did I feel SUPER loved! :)  and SO SO grateful!

Also today I got a secret Valentine.  I know who from, but it’s my little secret ;) and I also got told I was “freakin superhero!”  That was an amazing compliment.  And my roommate Katheryn brought me gumballs to work.  Gumballs are my favorite!  I LOVE them :) hehe.  Then I came home to a letter from Elder Keith Olsen (my friend from high school who is serving his mission in Russia).  But funny story, the entire letter is written in Russian.  Funny joke Keith.  Good thing Michael and Preston (from Apt. 12) both speak Russian!  Hopefully they don’t mind doing me another HUGE favor and translate it for me.  As if they haven’t done enough for me lately.  Gosh they are such great guys. 

Oh! More great news!  On my way to grab some dinner, I hit EVERY light GREEN!  That NEVER happens to me.  I ALWAYS hit them red.  Always.  But not tonight.  Today was just my day.  It was awesome.  Yeah there were the occasional rotten moments, but I’m choosing to look at just the good.  How much brighter and happier the world is when we do that in our lives.  Live for the moment, learn for the future, love those around you, and laugh always :)  Happy Valentine’s Day!  Hope yours was even half as good as mine.