Thoughts on a Sunday

I'm a Visiting Teaching "district leader" in my Relief Society organization and I got an email this morning from my Relief Society President regarding some updates to Visiting Teaching assignments and some general business.  One item that was raised in the email was that our monthly meetings with all the other district leaders and the RS presidency to go over the needs of the women in our group would now include the Elder's Quorum auxillary over Home Teaching to put our heads together regarding the sisters. 

This got me musing about my past Home Teachers, especially about the ones that made a significant impact on my life through very small means.  I'm still friends with my first set of HT's when I was a freshman at BYU, but my thoughts settled around a set that I had the following year when I was a sophomore.  Due the course of events, I was living with none of my adopted sisters I made freshman year, but went "pot luck" in my transition to real world living (i.e. apartment and all the responsiblities that accompany that leap).  That fall, I lived with 3 new girls, 2 other sophomores and a freshman and we were civil but I never really became friends with them.  Two of them changed apartments for the following semester, leaving me with the other girl who was always at her boyfriend's.  Add to this my being in a private room with a dash of cliquish activity from my ward and needless to say I had a lot of quiet reflection time to myself.** 

All that alone time worked wonders on my grades as I prepared to apply to the Athletic Training program, let me tell you (3.81 semester GPA that winter compared to the 3.2 semesters before lol). Something else it did was allow me to develop my relationship with my Heavenly Father and Savior.  Never before had I started out being so emotionally and physically alone, and it became pressingly apparent to me that I was to sink or learn to swim. 

So I swam.

But I had some help.  The Lord was very kind and very mindful of me that year and I saw His hand in my life almost everyday thanks to some cueing from my mother.  She told me in an email one day that I should look for something good every day, even if it was just seeing something amusing, enjoying a particular flower on campus, or getting to view a sunset on my way home. 

My way home....

Lots of things happened on my way home from campus, one of favorites involved one of my Home Teachers during the Winter semester.  Barrett Edwards was one of THEE guys to know in the ward at the time.  We had two Elders Quorums and he was the president of one of them, he was tall, handsome, had money and drove a 300 series BMW while in college. Yeah.  Barrett was released from his presidency position before Winter semester and in due course became my Home Teacher along with his roommate Jason Hunter.  Barrett and Jason came to visit me every month and were amazingly dilligent about doing so.  Both of them were Mac enthusiasts, so we had something in common there as well, but the thing about Barrett that's stuck with me all of these years were the rides home he gave me.  On certain days when I had my even Beginning Athletic Training course that ran into the evening, I'd be walking home at dusk and at least twice a month on those days Barrett would be driving home the same way.  I'd be 75 yards from the entrance to our apt complex and he'd hail me down and give me a ride that short distance, simply because it was getting dark and cold outside.

For an out-of-place 20 year old, you can probably imagine what that meant to me.   (nostalgic smirk)  Barrett helped me to see more clearly what a genuine servant of the Lord can be, especially one who conducts himself with full purpose of heart - what a Home and Visiting Teacher should be. 

Just some thoughts I had on a Sunday...




**Barrett Edwards was not the only God-send friend I had in that apt complex or ward by any means.  There were some very genuinely good people there, and heaven knows I found them (Laurie, Jamie, Arienne, Jessica, Starlee, Scott, Amber amongst others).

Reflections I'm apparently suppose to be having

I'm not sure if it's because I've been wishfully thinking about guys I use to date or my hormones coming into imbalance (which weakens my defense against loneliness and social ineptitude), but I had a dream last night about a gentleman who asked me out in the Testing Center at BYU when I was a freshman. As in, ACTUALLY in the testing room with the proctors roaming waiting to pounce on someone remotely suspected of cheating. (It was a very smooth transaction - he dropped a very carefully torn and folded tiny lil note on the corner of my desk while walking by.  We only went out once, very sweet and very smart, but I was 19 and immature, more concerned with trivial things than what matters most because I didn't have any true bearing on what matters most). 

In the dream he still had his amazing intelligence (double major in Chemical Engineering and Physics Education) and his same humble sweetness, but the connection was different this time, almost like things had been waiting for me to turn my corner so I wouldn't be such a superficial jerk to such gifts proffered me - a good man, smart man, willing to devote himself to me and an "us" and for me to finally to be in the psychosocial position to do the same. 

Heh, turning corners.  An interesting thought to ponder.  My interpersonal relation skills on a basal level have always been good, but it was a matter of refining them, and ultimately myself, in the process.  Some things I've come to realize....

-  I almost lust after intelligence and the ability to create physical items at the same time.  Give me a machinist or carpenter, anyone who works with their hands with common sense, tenacity, deductive reasoning skills or an equivalent IQ of 150+ any day.

-  Raw attraction completes what intelligence/common sense/loyalty/all other quality characteristics don't fill.  It's a fact of life and that's that.

-  I'm shy when I care, and brazen when I'm confident.

-  Genuine loyalty and friendship is pretty quickly determined.

-  I like feeling safe more often than feeling like I have to beat up someone (I don't take well to men I feel the need to physically protect)

-  True charity knows no bounds - I admire the those who don't put a price tag or a mark on the balance sheet when it comes to helping someone else out who needs it; who love without repose; who ACT on behalf of another, not just think about it or delegate it off.

-  Banter exercises my brain, but I respond best to a common sensed, honest and soft hand.   

-  Balance - too much of a good thing is still too much of a good thing, just as not enough of a good thing, or too much of a bad thing.  Common interests are a spark and a glue, differences keep things healthy.

-  Being able to dance is more than just being able to reproduce preconceived notions of steps and patterns.

-  Ambition is almost as luring as intelligence.

-  Extracurricular talents involving the performing arts are nice, but they're more the glitter than the substance.

-  Intuition needs to be balanced with Imperitive - good touch says more than words for me, but that's not how everyone operates, and I've finally come to understand that.

-  How boys are is drastically different than how men are.

-  I prefer a long and steady road than a short quick route

-  Fear is legitimate, but never an excuse. 

-  Communication, in all forms, but especially verbal, will make and break it all.
 

It's been a long and winding road that's gotten me to where I am, and I know there are many more long and winding paths ahead.  I wish I could send thanks to all those I've had the pleasure of giving myself to in all forms so that I may learn more about myself in return, but I suppose they'll figure it out eventually.  Maybe.