Sunday

This morning I was greeted by an overwhelming feeling of...homesick. Hard to describe, really. All I really wanted to do was call my best friend - one of my few friends I've known my ENTIRE life. I didn't really have anything I wanted to talk about, but I wanted that comfortable feeling she has. I wanted to be reminded why I do the things I do, why I am the way I am, and why its okay. She makes me feel better about me, because she's known me through everything - thick and thin - and loved me just the same.
I think sometimes we (okay, I) get caught up in how we're supposed to make other people happy - we walk on eggshells, say only the "right" things, do what we're told. Why? Here's what I know...the more I give in to trying to make other people happy, the less I feel like me. I feel like I've lost the parts of me I used to love - my vivacity, my honesty, and my sense of who I am. Why is it so impossible to act around other people the way we do around our best friends? Why would we want to be reminded of those worst parts?
I guess in a way I'm cleaning house. No more of those worst parts.

No, that's not what I learned in church.:)
Our combined Priesthood/Relief Society meeting was on missionary work and a video was shared with a talk from Jeffrey R. Holland (http://lds.org/ensign/2001/03/missionary-work-and-the-atonement?lang=eng). There were a couple parts of his talk that I loved, so I came home and looked it up.

• "I don’t believe missionary work has ever been easy, nor that conversion is, nor that retention is, nor that continued faithfulness is. I believe it is supposed to require some effort, something from the depths of our soul."
• "If He could come forward in the night, kneel down, fall on His face, bleed from every pore, and cry, “Abba, Father (Papa), if this cup can pass, let it pass,” then little wonder that salvation is not a whimsical or easy thing for us. If you wonder if there isn’t an easier way, you should remember you are not the first one to ask that. Someone a lot greater and a lot grander asked a long time ago if there wasn’t an easier way."
• "When you struggle, when you are rejected, when you are spit upon and cast out and made a hiss and a byword, you are standing with the best life this world has ever known, the only pure and perfect life ever lived. You have reason to stand tall and be grateful that the Living Son of the Living God knows all about your sorrows and afflictions."