Fasting

This has always been a hard thing for me to understand. "Fasting and prayer". We pray for things. And many times when we REALLLY want something, then we pray and fast for it. Only-why? Is prayer not enough? What about when many people choose to pray or pray and fast for the same purpose...is that prayer & fasting any stronger than the prayer and fasting offered by just one person (Especially if the one person is the main person to whom it applies, and that person is both righteous and faithful?) It makes it sound like God will surely answer that prayer if only we prove that it is something that many people also want. It makes it sound like we are scrambling to fill a petition with enough signitures to allow our voice to be heard. Of course this is ridiculous, but I still find myself confused about how fasting makes any sort of difference.

When my testimony on a certain principle is lacking, I try to rely on that of others, the most important. Do I have a testimony of the Prophet and the apostles, that they communicate with God and are messengers for us? Yes. Absolutely. And do they have a testimony of this principle? Yes.

Thankfully I am not the only one confused, and so tonight my roommate and I spent a lot of time studying the words of the Prophets, searching on lds.org in the gospel library for some help, some explanations on the scriptures we read that talk about these things:

• praying for healings
• fasting with a purpose
• God's will and our desires

We found some really good information, that I may want to look back on and read so I will post them here so I can find them later, and maybe they will be useful to someone else.

1. The Law of the Fast By Elder L. Tom Perry. "The law of the fast has three great purposes. First, it provides assistance to the needy through the contribution of fast offerings, consisting of the value of meals from which we abstain. Second, a fast is beneficial to us physically." (these two I can comprehend) "Third, it is to increase humility and spirituality on the part of each individual." This article helped to explain the third purpose, and most interestingly, the word choice leads me to think that fasting does not directly impact the answer to the prayer, or strengthen the prayer. Instead fasting provides the person with a spiritual strength; sometimes the spirit of prophecy, being blessed with the power of the spirit, giving humility, allowing you to hear/feel an answer to your prayer, etc
2. The Blessings of a Proper Fast Elder Carl B Pratt (This reminds me of a certain Pratt friend I know ;-) I love what he defines as a "proper fast", notice when he mentions fasing with others the blessing is usually not an answer to a prayer, but a blessing of bringing the group closer together, humbling all, etc. "The purpose of our fast may be a very personal one. Fasting can help us overcome personal flaws and sins. It can help us overcome our weaknesses—help them become strengths. Fasting can help us become more humble, less prideful, less selfish, and more concerned about the needs of others. It can help us see more clearly our own mistakes and weaknesses and help us be less prone to criticize others. Or our fast may have a focus on a family challenge. A family fast might help increase love and appreciation among family members and reduce the amount of contention in the family, or we might fast as a couple to strengthen our marriage bonds. A purpose of our fast as priesthood holders might be to seek the Lord's guidance in our callings, as President Hinckley has demonstrated, or we might fast with our home teaching companion to know how to help one of our families."
3. Tragedy or Destiny-The best answer we could ask for as to When does God intervene in the events in our lives? "When there is faith, and when it is not one's time."

What's up with country music?

Is it just me or is everyone going country? I wonder if country singers are making a lot of money so singers from other genres want a piece of it...or if they are just learning that country music is the best music! :-)

So I started paying attention when Jessica Simpson switched over, then Jewel came out with a country CD, then I was listening to the radio the other day and heard someone that sounded like the lead singer from Hootie and the Blowfish, but I am no expert at naming singers so I let it slide. Then I was watching the CMA awards on tv and they announced one singer, Dean Reusser, as being the guy from Hootie and the blowfish. Then Kid Rock even performed at the CMA awards. Isn't he a rock singer?

Maybe it is more of a reclassification of country music...but I just find it interesting.

Good things

paper plates! (all I need now is disposable everything else!)


Rachel learning to do her own hair. Ever since she found out her friend at school knows how to "do ponytails herself" she has been determined to learn. She insists on trying every morning, and as you can imagine it always ends up in a big frizzy, messy, knot, that I of course have to "just fix a little" before letting her leave the house. But yesterday while Sam and I were watching tv she came running in and said "Look! I did my own hair" and I looked up to see this-as you can see with the huge grin she is so proud of herself :-)



Privileged--did I mention I LOVE this show!??? I do. It is such a happy show, and uplifting and most of all i feel inspired when I watch it. Megan is a writer and is trying to write her first book, and it always makes we want to get back to writing my book.


Shoes!! I know the kind of shoes most of you are imagining...and the kind of shoes I am getting giddy about are probably not the same ones. Today I spent two and a half hours in a shoe store...I have never had so much fun in the shoe store before, usually I am looking for fancy shoes and am depressed that cute and comfy never go hand in hand...but today I spent all my time in an old favorite section and I left with these:
even though i just ordered these online last week

My sister in law was trying to choose between cross trainers/walking/running shoes-and she asked my opinion. I have never bought anything other than running shoes. I am a runner (even if the past few years I have only been a runner at heart). It makes me happy. The white shoes are running shoes, but the grey adidas are "running in the dirt" shoes (trail running). Plus-Yellow is my favorite color. And there is a lot of dirt by our house. And doesn't running in the dirt sound fun? Maybe I have been in the middle of nowhere for too long ;-) But during these two hours at the shoe store with my sister-in-law I kept picturing myself back in High school running , and how happy I was, and while I don't expect to win any medals, I did keep picturing myself running in races on beautiful (dirt) courses all over. Wierd- I know, but I am giddy just thinking about them nonetheless!!

Totally enjoying a little girl who is soooo into Christmas...that she doesn't mind she is almost as tall as our tree.

Loving her journaling. last week her teacher gave me her journal from the past month, and here are my two favorites:



And out of a spirit of happy thoughts-this one makes me laugh--a snapshot of a nearby house. Anyone need a tire???





Lastly--Twilight :-) Heidi and I just went to see it tonight and I really liked it. I was hoping for the best but expecting the worst after hearing some pretty cheesy reviews. It was a good combination because I really liked it. There were a few parts that i could see what these reviewers were talking about but I expected a whole lot worse. It was a little wierd to see the girl from Grey's Anatomy playing Esme. Put this on the list of movies I would recommend, that Lacie wasn't as fond of.

Twilight

Last night I did not go see Twilight...because the closest theater is about an hour and a half away...in case you were wondering. I have however enjoyed hearing what friends have thought about it. Sounds like we got our hopes and our expectations up pretty high and probably no movie could live up to the standards that the book created.

Redeeming myself

So I have been cooking away today-I made banana bread this morning and then made an apple crisp for desert after lunch. The truth is I have a lot of making up to do. After 3 embarassing mishaps in the kitchen I needed to redeem myeslf.

• I left a brand new container of milk out on the counter when I left the house-oops
• I left the brand new container of ice cream on the counter for a good 3 hours while I watched a movie. (to make it worse, I had a few thought while sitting there 'did I leave the ice cream out.' but I didn't even get up to look because I was confident that I had put it away...oops again
• I screwed up jello...JELLO!! need I say more??!! (sadly, my family who knows me most will not find this at all suprising)

Thankfully when I told my sister she said "it must be the cabin fever, you just need to get out of there" so maybe I will stick with that explanation.

You came here to visit Chinle....Why?

So I had an interesting conversation today with a family we met at the park. It was a younger couple with two kids (a girl named Baily and a boy named Collin ;-) and as they looked fun, and nice, and were white, I went and introduced myself. It turns out they don't live here in Chinle, (total bummer) they live in a smaller town, Blanding, UT, about 2 hours away from here., and they just came to Chinle because they like to come here every now and then for the day. ????? WHY??? LOL! !! At first she made it sound like Chinle was a bigger town, we have a stoplight, where as Blanding only has a blinking light. But while Blanding may be slightly smaller...it sounds way cooler! For instance, apparently they have a public library AND a movie theater, and there are 4 church buildings there so I am assuming church there would be a little less miserable. It is also not on a reservation and they have pretty red rock scenery as opposed to our brown desert blah lansdscape. I live here...because I have to--but they came here by choice...for FUN!? WIERDOS! :-)

Running the 5k ...aka The Undie 5000

We had a great turnout-over 100 friends and family. I think we were the biggest group.

Some of our family got creative with their outfits, Here are Sam's brothers at the start of the race. If you think their outfits are a little bizzare, notice they are actually pretty conservative compared to other outfits. Like this group which took the advice to run in your underwear to heart.

It was a great event, and there were some great slogans. Here are my favorites.

The hardest part was listening to them talk about how colon cancer is almost completely preventable. It all depends on being caught early, which in Sam's sister's case-would have meant starting to get colonoscopies in her teenage years. Our family will definitely be supporting new technologies and new tests that are actually likely for younger people to have done. That being said--if you are above age 50 or if anyone in your family has had colon cancer-make sure you go see your doctor for a fun colonoscopy.

The highlights of the event were:

1. Sam's brothers starting the race...and running the wrong direction! (Heidi -I am counting on you to find a way to post that video)
2. David singing the national anthem, euro tunks and all -we were all shocked when he started singing, and just as suprised that he knew all the words and actually sounded good
3. Our group being awarded as the Top Fundraiser (no thanks to us, and our lack of fundraising since we registered late)

And for the family results (to be handy for easy access later, when some opportune time arises)

• 12th 20:09 Zach
• 59th 24:30 Bruce
• 71st 25:26 Heidi
• 97th 26:44 David
• 309th 36:22 Amber
• 444th 51:12 Sam
• 457th 51:58 Mike

What I have been up to

So most of you wonder how I keep my sanity living in the middle of nowhere. Well I fill a few hours a day taking Rachel to school, doing chores (rarely), eating lunch with Sam, and getting ready for the day (sometimes...honestly what's the point? :-). Since Rach is in school all day that still leaves quite a bit of time for me and the liklihood of getting pretty bored.

Thankfully, I am still able to keep working with my same job at the cosmetology association. Lucky for me the editorial director position (which can be done via phone/internet) became available right as I was moving to the middle of nowhere.
I coordinate articles to be written and work with the authors. Sometimes it is challenging, after all--I am not an expert cosmetologist, but I think I am getting the hang of it.

okay...kind of wierd

So apparently each episode only last 6 minutes. And it is basically a long commercial for Saturn cars (the show was created to advertise their new line of cars) Wierd. Plus the show loads REALLY slow! So it was all jumpy. Maybe it is our slow internet, but I have watched other shows online and they were fine. So sad...such a fun idea...wasted.

Novel Adventures

So I just found out about a new show--and it sounds really cute. It is about 4 friends who have a bookclub where they not only read the books, but then they go on adventures based on the book. Read a book about italy...then go to Italy!! A little confused why I hadn't heard of this show before...but it turns out it is only shown online, on cbs.com on mondays and fridays. I am mostly excited about what could be my new favorite show...but mostly I can't help but think "Dang it! What a great story idea--why didn't I think of that for my book???!" I really need to get on the ball and start writing my book.

couch to 5K ... in one week?

Count us in! Sam and I signed up to run this race this weekend with a bunch of his family and friends. It is a fundraiser for Colon cancer research. Sam's little sister, who is my age, was diagnosed with colon cancer a few months ago. Before 4 months ago we didn't know much about colon cancer...and now it is a part of our every day lives. When his sister heard about this event she filled all of us and a lot of her family and friends formed a group, which now includes over 50 people. We weren't sure if we could make it since we were just there two weeks ago, and we will be heading back in two weeks for Thanksgiving, but then yesterday we figured -why not?! We are all excited to run on behalf of her and to raise awareness. My only hope is that we aren't the only one's who are out of shape! We decided we can go on a evening run every day befor the event...which gives us 4 days. This should be fun :-) Oh-and a sponsor offered to make shirts and here is what they turned out like-so cute! Great job Heidi and everyone else who helped make them!