Hard Things

Lately I've been thinking. Obviously I've been doing more thinking than blogging...sorry if there is anyone out there truly upset by my lack of posts...

Anyway. I've been thinking about trials. Why we have them, what we do with them, and how to come out of them. This may sound slightly familiar to anyone who reads my blog. And that is because I talked about it here almost exactly a year ago.

This time of year actually has some significance in my life. For those of you who know me and my family you understand that the time around the holidays can be a very hard and emotional time for us. Once the holidays are over I've got a lot on my mind. I think about how I've changed, what I've learned, and who I've become.

I remember when it first happened. I thought my life was over. I thought I'd never be happy again. I thought it was the worst, most horrible thing that could ever happen. I didn't understand why God would put me and my family through such a bad thing. We were good people, we didn't deserve it, right?

When one of my uncles sat his family down to talk about what my family was going through, he discussed with them what exactly it was. He asked them if bad things could happen to good people. They responded with yes, bad things do happen to good people. We were good people, but what we were going through was a bad thing. He went on to explain that bad things don't happen to good people, but hard things happen to good people.

I've always interpreted that little statement to mean that good people will have trials happen that, in the long run, will become easier to deal with. When looking back we can see the good that has come from a trial. That, as it says in D&C 90:24, by searching diligently, praying always, and believing, all things, including trials, will work together for our good. Although I still see it this way, I've also come up with a new way to look at it.

The same thing could happen to two different people - one who is living their life the way they should be and another who isn't exactly making the right choices. The second person will most likely see is as a bad thing. They may dwell on it, possibly grow from it, but chances are they'll always wish the bad thing would go away. The first person, however, will look at it and realize that hard things happen, but that isn't the end. It isn't the trial that makes it bad or hard, but how the person handles it.

I feel as if I've handled it in a way that I'm proud of. Like I talked about in my post last year, I'm happy with who I've become and how that trial helped to shape me. With the right attitude, the "bad" things in life can be turned to "hard" things and possibly even later it can become something to be grateful for.

The next thing that I've got on my mind is why we have trials. It was so hard for me. I was constantly asking WHY it had to happen, WHAT I did to deserve the pain and sorrow I was feeling, WHY was Heavenly Father putting me through this?

I know I say this about every scripture, but this is one of my favorites. In D&C 121:7-8 it says "My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high." In the eternal perspective, our trials will not last long at all. We shouldn't dwell on them, be afraid of them, or let them take over our lives.

President Harold B. Lee said "Don't be afraid of the testing and trials of life. Sometimes when you are going through the most severe tests, you will be nearer to God than you have any idea, for like the experience of the Master Himself in the temptation on the mount, in the Garden of Gethsemane, and on the cross at Calvary, the scriptures record, 'And, behold angels came and ministered unto him.' Sometimes that may happen to you in the midst of your trials." Our trials and sufferings can bring us closer to God than anything else, we just have to let it happen. After all, who can understand better than the man who went through our pains, afflictions, temptations, sicknesses, and infirmities? Who can better help you than your Savior?

Our Heavenly Father wants us to be near him. He wants, more than anything, for his children to return to him. The way that we will make it back to him is by enduring to the end. In my mind, enduring means progressing, changing, becoming. I've noticed that trials often come right after a spiritual high or right when you think life can't get better. Sending a trial at this time is His way of saying "I'm proud of the choices you've made. You've come so far. You can make it through this, too." Trials aren't sent as punishments. They are sent because He wants us to turn to him, strengthen our testimonies, and become better people.

Thinking about how happy this gospel makes me, stops my words. I can't express my gratitude, my joy, or my love. I do know, with ever piece of me, that it's true. No matter what your trial is you are NEVER alone. As Elder Scott pointed out in his talk about the atonement, NOTHING was forgotten. Whether you're suffering making time for everything, or you don't understand your classes, or you still struggle with something that happened a long time ago, you are not alone. He loves you more than you can imagine.

"The vast expanse of eternity, the glories and mysteries of infinite space and time are all built for the benefit of ordinary mortals like you and me. Compared to God, man is nothing; yet we are everything to God."
 - President Dieter F. Uchtdorf.

He has already suffered for us. Turning to him is all it takes.

A New Christmas "Tradition"

Every year on Christmas Eve we do the same thing. It's something I look forward to and have always enjoyed. As kids we'll all gather into one bedroom and make beds wherever we can find a spot. My mom will read us her favorite Christmas stories and then we'll watch a movie and attempt to stay up long enough to hear Santa. And then we'll wake up as early as we possibly can to open presents before promptly taking a nap.

Even now that we're older (the youngest is thirteen), we still do this. This year, however, was the time for change. We moved so we weren't exactly sure which room we should sleep in. Whitney married Quint and we weren't exactly sure how it was going to work with us all in the same room.

Mitchell and I decided we still wanted to do this. We moved his mattress into the TV room and then Julia moved hers as well. Whitney and Quint stayed to watch the movie with us and then headed off to their own room.

And here is where we made the mistake. We let Spencer decide which Christmas movie we would watch. Okay, maybe it isn't completely his fault. The good classic Christmas movies we have are still lost  from the move...hopefully we find them by next year.

Anyway, he decided on this super short, super cheesy version of The Nutcracker. It wasn't even five minutes into the movie before we devised a plan.

If you've seen this movie you know what I'm talking about. The kids are dressed in their best clothes as they open Christmas presents. This is weird to me. We've always been in our PJs with our hair a mess and our eyes barely open. If you know us you can probably guess what is about to happen.

We decided to surprise our parents and wake up slightly earlier so we could dress in our Sunday Best. We woke up, put on make-up, did our hair, all that fancy stuff. Julia and I even put on our prom dresses! The boys obviously weren't as excited about it as the girls. Spencer put on shorts, a yellow polo shirt and a zip-up tie. Mitchell put on a suit jacket over top of his pajamas. Quint put on actual clothes but still looked nice.

When my dad saw us he didn't seem fazed at all. I guess that by now he's gotten used to us. My mom though, she was shocked. She just looked us and said "What are you guys doing?" and then she realized she could laugh about it.

As fun as it was, I don't think it will continue. I don't really want to wake up early to curl my hair and put on my prom dress before sitting on the floor to open presents.

Let me just say this - I LOVE MY FAMILY! :D

The Future... ooooh.....

I started unpacking my room today. Finally.

I came across something that literally made me burst out laughing in my lonely room.

It's a list Alora and I came up with a while ago. I'm not even sure when we made it, but I believe it was some time after watching Say Anything with the wonderful John Cusack.

Here is the list:

Future Dating Companion Checklist 

1. Must believe I am real - NOT imaginary/Can't make fun of Alora's middle name.
2. Can not be judgmental of our "traditions" - possibly even participate in them. :)
3. Alora can NOT hate him! And he can't hate her.
4. He has to be friends with Alora's boy - (or at least get along with him really well).
5. Can't let me walk on glass.
6. Must have at least a small love towards dinosaurs.
7. He has to be willing to dance with me.
8. Must like 80's movies.
9. Must love ball brownies! ;)
10. Can't make fun of my hiccups or Alora's sneezes.


Yep. That's the list. I should probably take it with me when I go back to school. And then I could maybe possibly even use it. ;)

Phillip the Stegosaurus :)

Chelsea and I sometimes like to avoid going to sleep.

We'll eat grilled cheese instead.

Or, sometimes we'll go to the lobby and do nothing productive whatsoever. This is what we did last night. As soon as we sat down I began telling her a story about a sad stegosaurus named Phillip. If you're interested in hearing the story ask me, maybe I can recreate it for you. Maybe. My stories are often a one time thing. ;)

Anyway. This beautiful story had a moral. The moral of the story is that we need to be happy with who we are and the things we can do.

I've noticed that in my life I spend a lot of time comparing myself to those around me. I'm down on myself the majority of the time. I don't like this. It's hard feeling like I'm not good enough and never will be.

Mostly, I don't enjoy having a negative attitude.

I realized that the problem here is jealousy. My new goal in life is to quit being jealous of those around me. Because after all, I'm pretty neat too. :)

Gratitude and thanksgiving...and memories?

Last year around this time I made a list of things I was thankful for. It wasn't complete and I tried making a complete list for this year, but that sort of thing can't be complete.

At church on Sunday my family all got to speak in sacrament meeting. This tends to happen after moving to a new ward. Believe it or not, they were asked to speak on gratitude and thanksgiving. I drove home partly to see this and partly because it was Mitchell's 16th birthday! (He took me on a date. You'd better be jealous.) Honestly, I didn't know that they were speaking until Saturday. They don't like to fill me in on these things.

Sunday morning I woke up to Mitchell saying "SORINE! Come help me write my talk!" (Yeah, with 1:00 church, they all put it off for the very last minute). After he promised me that he already had an idea for his talk and that I wouldn't be doing the entire thing, I agreed to help him.

To truly understand how his idea came about you'd probably have to study his brain for years. He said, "I'm going to talk about memories!! I'll just quickly tell a few memories and then sit down. It'll be great." Sure, we've had some crazy things happen in my family that he could talk about, but I just wasn't sure how he was going to relate it back to gratitude and thanksgiving. He thought he was brilliant though. After telling his idea to my dad he said "I'm so good at giving talks its ridiculous!" (At this moment I wish I could tell you about all the times he's given a talk in sacrament meeting. You'd be laughing your arms off.)

Anyway, I helped him type it up and tried to connect it to the theme. When it was his turn to talk he got up and started by saying, in his deep monotone voice, "Hi, my name is Mitchell. I was asked to give a talk on gratitude and thanksgiving so I decided to talk about memories. One memory I have..." It was probably the funniest thing I'd heard in a long time. Whitney and I were both laughing so hard we cried. And this was some serious crying. It's a good thing I knew the rest of his talk cuz I could not listen after that one. Haha!

They all did a really good job with their talks. And they even remembered to leave my dad some time to talk this time. :)

So, like I said in that list, my family is crazy. There is no way to describe them. I love their silliness and the stupid sense of humor we all have. And oh yeah, I'm grateful for memories. ;)

In my family...

... we start out a fight by saying "tut, tut, looks like rain." rather than "go" or something.

... we laugh and call it our exercise for the day.

... we call to tell each other random things

... we know we are nerds and try to build on our nerdiness as often as possible.

... we celebrate Fathers Day four days early in the parking lot at Costco.

... someone gets up, laughing and running to the bathroom at every meal to prevent an accident.

... we know its time for bed when we can't control our singing.

... we help each other make fun of ourselves.

... it just takes one look to get us on a laugh attack.

... we sleep in the same room every Christmas Eve.

... we'll all squish onto one couch to watch a movie.

... we punish each other by making one person lick our feet or by throwing socks in their face.

... we love each other no matter what.

I'm honestly SO glad I'm a part of this crazy family. I don't know what I'd do without them!!!! :)

August

Wow. I've seriously been lacking on my blog writing lately. For anyone who reads this and keeps up with my life, if any of those people exist, I'm sorry. For the rest of you, here is another pointless blog from Sorine! :)

I sat down a lot and tried to start writing another blog, but I never actually followed through.  I'll try to make up for it. Here are some funny conversations from August!

Martha: I don't want to get married young. I won't get married until I'm...um.. twenty-one!
Hyrum: But Martha, twenty-one is when you die...
Later on...
Jacob: Hyrum, you don't die at twenty-one. Some people do, but not everyone. Mom is older than twenty-one.
Hyrum: Nuh-uh! Mom isn't twenty-one yet. Twenty-one is when you die!

Spencer: There are like four kids at my school who still have the tags on their backpacks.
Julia: Did you hear that, Sorine? Four kids at his school still have the tags on their backpacks! That is so unladylike!
Me: Unladylike? Who said anything about them being ladies? They could just as easily be boys.
Julia: Well, unpeoplelike just didn't sound as cool.

Me: Mitchell, how is your upper strength?
Mithcell: Superior.

Julia: Psst! Sorine, follow me...
Me: Why?
Julia: Just follow me...
I followed her to her room where she slowly lifted up an itunes gift card.
Julia: Let's use this!


Well, these aren't as funny as the conversations I posted here, but they'll work. :)

So here are some things I did in August:
-Went down the canal - FINALLY!
-Went to Lagoon and was brave.. I actually went on the rocket, believe it or not. And I survived!
-Had a sleepover with my best friend Alora. :)
-Had a yard sale
-Went to two bridal showers for Whitney
-Went to Goblin Valley! Woo!
-Locked my keys in my car
-Went to craters of the moon
-Had a job interview
- And finally... I MOVED BACK TO SCHOOL!!!! :)

Let me just tell  you how much I love it here. On a scale of 1-10 I love it here...let's say 50,471. :) I had that job interview, but didn't get the job. I'm stressing about it. But there are still a few jobs left that I'm hoping will work out. I am so excited to get back in the swing of college life. Don't get me wrong, I love my family, but I'm glad to be moved out again. It was a very long summer of sitting in my room and applying for jobs. It feels good to do something with my life again.

Okay, last bit of news. Its big news so if you kept reading this far... yay for you! My family is moving. Yep. We got a house and everything. It's been pretty busy lately with trying to get things in order for the house and with planning Whitney's wedding and with Mitchell finishing up his eagle scout project. Anyway, we are going to rent our house to the people who are renting the house that we are buying. We've been planning to move for quite a while and just kept quiet about it all. Although my dad just started telling a ton of people all of a sudden so maybe you all know already.

Don't worry, we are just moving across town. It's very bittersweet. I love the neighborhood we are in now. It's where I grew up and I have SO many memories there. However, they are covering up my memories with new houses which isn't so nice of them. It will be weird to not be in the same ward or house I've been in for almost as long as I can remember.And even weirder that someone else will be living in OUR house. But it will be a good experience. And we're still close enough to all my Eastmoor friends that I could ride my bike to see them. Either way, I'm not even living at home right now so I'm not too troubled about it.

Well, I hope everyone had a fantastic summer. LET SCHOOL TIME BEGIN!!!! :D