Advice

I received and email from Amy with a link to a you tube video. I watched and listened and was struck. The advise from Elder Busche could not have come at a better time, really. So I thought I would share it all with you. Thanks Amy...for allowing God to inspire you:)

"Embrace this day with an enthusiastic welcome, no matter how it looks. The covenant with God to which you are true enables you to become enlightened by him, and nothing is impossible for you. When you are physically sick, tired, or in despair, steer your thoughts away from yourself and direct them, in gratitude and love, towards God. In your life their have to be challenges. They will either bring you closer to God and therefore make you stronger, or they can destroy you. But you make the decision of which road you take. First and foremost, you are a spirit child of God. If you neglect to feed your spirit, you will reap unhappiness. Don’t permit anything to detract you from this awareness. You cannot communicate with God unless you have first sacrificed your self-oriented natural man and have brought yourself into the lower levels of meekness, to become acceptable for the Light of Christ. Put all frustrations, hurt feelings, and grumblings into the perspective of your eternal hope. Light will flow into your soul. Pause to ponder the suffering Christ felt in the Garden of Gethsemane. In the awareness of the depth of gratitude for him, you appreciate every opportunity to show your love for him by diligently serving in his Church. God knows that you are not perfect. As you suffer about your imperfections, he will give you comfort and suggestions of where to improve. God knows better than you what you need. He always attempts to speak to you. Listen, and follow the uncomfortable suggestions that he makes to us—everything will fall into its place. Avoid any fear like your worst enemy, but magnify your fear about the consequences of sin. When you cannot love someone, look into that person’s eyes long enough to find the hidden rudiments of the child of God in him. Never judge anyone. Whenever you accept this, you will be freed. In the case of your own children or subordinates, where you have the responsibility to judge, help them to become their own judges. If someone hurts you so much that you feelings seem to choke you, forgive and you will be free again. Avoid at all cost any pessimistic, negative, or criticizing thoughts. If you cannot cut them out, they will do you harm. On the road toward salvation, let questions arise but never doubts. If something is wrong, God will give you clarity but never doubts. Avoid rush and haste and uncontrolled words. Devine light develops in places of peace and quiet. Be aware of that as you enter places of worship. Be not so much concerned about what you do, but what you do with all your heart, might, and strength. In thoroughness is satisfaction. You want to be good and to do good? That is commendable. But the greatest achievement that can be reached in our lives is to be under the complete influence of the Holy Ghost. Then he will teach us what is really good and necessary to do. The pain of sacrifice lasts only one moment. It is the fear of the pain of sacrifice that makes you hesitate to do it. Be grateful for every opportunity to serve. It helps you more than those you serve. When you are compelled to give up something or when things that are dear to you are withdrawn from you, know that this is your lesson to be learned right now. But know also that as you are learning this lesson, God wants to give you something better. Thus, we prepare all the days of our lives, and as we grow, death loses its sting, hell loses its power, and we look forward to that day with anticipation and joy when he will come in his glory."

By: Elder Busche

The Young Family Reunion

These are just some fun pictures from the young family reunion two weekends ago. The reunion was at a campground near Lava Hot Springs. We fished, played at the Lava Hot Springs pool, went to the spas at night, hung out with family, played bautchy ball, watched movies in different family members trailers, slept for the first time in our new tent, and ran around like a couple of crazy teenagers, It was so much fun, and I am so glad that Ashton and I got to make it up their:)Me and Tristan Fishing

Ashton helping Tristan pull out the fish he caught!!! Go Tristan:)

Ashton helping Tristan with his pole. Me and Ashton all sun burnt:(

I was trying to take a picture to show how many people where there from the fam. This doesn't do it justice...their were like 50 + people.

If I Had My Life To Live Over

A friend from work sent this too me, and it really hit home and helped me realize a couple of things. I hope you can all get something from this:)
It is a long quote from Erma Bombeck who died from cancer, it's titled:

If I Had My Life To Live Over
I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day.
I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.
I would have talked less and listened more.
I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained, or the sofa faded
I would have eaten the popcorn in the 'good' living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.
I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.
I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband.
I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.
I would have sat on the lawn! With my grass stains.
I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and more while watching life.
I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil, or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.
Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.
When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, 'Later. Now go get washed up for dinner.' There would have been more 'I love you's; more 'I'm sorry's.'

But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute...look at it and really see it.
Live it and never give it back. STOP SWEATING THE SMALL STUFF!!!
Don't worry about who doesn't like you, who has more, or who's doing what.
Instead; let's cherish the relationships we have with those who do love us.
Let's think about what God HAS blessed us with, and what we are doing each day to promote ourselves mentally, physically, and emotionally.


(PS: Cori, I thought you would really appreciate the paragraph that starts with 'But mostly')

Now go out their and seize the day!!!

Love You All,

Meghan

2 Wedding Anniversary

So yesterday was our 2 year anniversary!!! Yipee, I guess you could say that we are past the newly wed stage (although this last weekend we ran around, literally, like a couple of teenagers in love chasing each other). It was a fun day, minus the fact that we were both so completely exhausted from the weekend and therefore a little irritable. But it was nothing a little cuddle nap couldn't fix:)

Since we had already bought our Anniversary gift for each other (our first tent that we love and have used once already) after work Ashton and I collaborated our ideas for what we could do. My idea consisted of: starting at the rec center playing tennis, then heading over to the Willow Park Zoo and eating a sack lunch, and then heading over to the Rock Haus for some rock climbing. Ashton wanted to go out to eat at a nice restaurant and then cuddle to a movie at home. So we compromised and had dinner first (because we were both starving and tired) at Hamilton's, absolutely delicious...yummy...yummy, and then headed over to the Willow Park Zoo, and imitated just about every animal their(we shared the zoo with probably three other couples). We picked the Zoo from my list because we both had never been their before. After the Zoo we drove around the old part of Logan (we both love it) and stopped at a random park for a short walk look around before hitting up a red box on the way home. Rat's their were no movies that we wanted to watch (ps why are all of the movies at red box rated 'R'?). When we arrived home we were both too tired and irritable to do anything but take a nap. So we cuddled and slept on the couch for a good hour and a half. When we woke up we felt great and all of the exhaustion and irritability floated away so we spent the rest of the night watching Chocolate with popcorn. It was a fun and relaxing day, and we were both just happy that our car didn't break down. (Last year on our anniversary as we were leaving Logan to go and celebrate my car broke down and postponed our celebrating 4-5 hours. When we finally got to where we were going it was so late that we only stayed like 30 min and went home. I think my parents felt bad for us, we had no money, and the little we were going to do we now couldn't do because my car broke down. So we got a call from them and they had rented a room at the Blue Bird B&B for their own anniversary for three nights but on the last night said they had to leave early for "work," yeah right, and were wondering if we wanted the room. They insisted when I was hesitant. When we got their they gave us a tour of the place-amazing- and headed home. When we got to our room their was a box of delicious chocolates and a bottle of sparkling cider on the bed that they had bought us. It was so sweet I wanted to cry, and we both really appreciated and needed their kindness. I really do have great parents!!!)

Sianara college life:)

Can I just say that I have loved being done with school and being able to work on the other parts of myself that seem to be put on the back burner when three tests, two papers, and a project are due all in one week. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved College, and even those hard test packed weeks...really. Something about pushing myself and fare as I could and then doing a little more, I really gained a sense of self ingenuity that I will have for the rest of my life. I appreciate and love every stage of life, and now I am in a new stage and loving it too. It is so nice to be able to just go home after work and work on or do anything I want. Such freedom:) I love it. I have been cleaning my house like a mad woman, rearranging furniture, practicing the piano, singing, singing, singing, bike riding, cooking fun and yummy gourmet meals at least a couple of times a week, reading, oh...and did I mention being able to just play with Ashton. I am so glad that I married a man who likes to do things with me, and always includes me in activities. Even if he is just taking a quick run to the store. We have so much fun together.
Anywho...Next on my list for fun things to do at home is: read this months book for Book Club, start a sewing project (cool curtains for the office), bake some bread, sing sing sing (my poor neighbors either hate me or get a lot of laughs), walk the Great Wall of China (I know, random...for some reason I have had such a huge obsession with wanting to travel to China and walk the Great Wall), and keep trying to relearn the piano (ps if any of you play the piano...never stop. It's amazing how much you can forget in such a short period of time). I feel so excited about life again...I can really go out and try anything and I am and will and that is so liberating. I hope I can always keep that mentality regardless of the stage in life I am in or will be in.

Weekend Fishing Trip

Sorry this is a little late.

Two weekends ago Ashton and I and some of our really good friends, Matt and Courtney, went on a weekend fishing trip up at Island Park in Idaho. Here are some of the pictures from it:)

What a view

Our friends, Matt and Courtney, they also just moved to Arizona. We were so glad that they could come and miss them terribly now that they are gone!!!

We had to follow cow trails through massive bushes to get to the river, we were just about crawling through this stuff.

I wasn't kidding when I said the bushes were massive. Here is Ashton trying to find an opening to get back to the car.

Ashton fishing at Coffee Pot

Meghan(me) holding my fish at Coffee Pot

Ashton holding one of his fish at Coffee Pot, and Matt standing off to the left

I don't know why, but I kind of thought this picture looked cool, so I decided I would add it in:)
One of the nights we went on a walk through the forest...Ashton was acting so goofy... and here is the proof:)

Overall the weekend was really fun; we went to West Yellowstone, went canoing, I caught over 15 fish and Ashton over 40 (yeah I know), played with an air soft gun, and stayed up late every night watching movies.

The Nack

Okay... I just want everyone to know how much I love my husband, he is funny, sweet, hard working, he still lights my fire, and the list goes on. That is why I am posting this video...throughout our married years (almost two) I have really come to understand what it means to be married to an engineer. You almost never higher out if you have a leaky faucet, your toilet isn't running correctly, your car breaks down, etc. etc. I have gotten used to coming home from the store and finding cut up wires, mechanical tape, and tools sprawled all over the kitchen and Ashton giving me that goofy look that always says "I just wanted to see if it worked." I really do love this about him!!! In fact one time I even let him completely take apart my new printer in hopes to clear out the memory stick in it so we could fill our old ink cartridge instead of buying an entirely new one which would end up saving us $15 per ink cartridge(all new printers don't let you use the same ink cartridge twice..lamo). However in the process of taking it apart some little tiny metal thing on the little computer board broke off. Despite his tries to put it back together my printer, my brand new printer, was completely unrepairable. Rat's...the funny thing is, I wasn't all that mad, I knew he didn't do it on purpose. He was really just trying to help. That is how I have learned to look at some of the silly things engineers do, and by having that view I love him even more.

Anyways this is the video that Ashton sent to me while I was at work regarding engineers:) It definitely was a bit of a pick-me-up:)