General Conference Musings

Twice a year I look forward immensely to an entire weekend of chilling at home in my pajamas, making cinnamon rolls out of the can (yes, sub-par as far as Mormon domesticism goes, but a step up from cold cereal for me) and watching General Conference. For those of you who don't know, General Conference is a huge meeting held in Salt Lake in April and October in which the President and Prophet of the Church, the Twelve Apostles and other major leaders address the Church membership as a whole. It is translated into lots and lots of languages and broadcast by television, radio, satellite and on the net. The men and women who speak are outstanding and have a genuine concern for the people of the world, even those who aren't Mormon. I would highly recommend tuning in sometime. Great people, great messages. Also the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Anyway, this weekend's conference was a little unusual for me. Since there are four sessions, each two hours long, with an average of six to eight speakers per session, I take notes to help me remember stuff I think is interesting or thoughts that come to me while I'm listening. Generally, there are noticeable themes that pervade General Conference (for example, the importance of staying out of debt, the bad influence of pornography, missionary work, etc.); even though the speakers are never assigned topics or told what they should speak about. This Conference, however, there wasn't any concrete theme that I could pick out, besides the extremely broad yet very important concept of charity. There were no fire-breathing sermons (although granted, I wasn't in the Priesthood session) about chastity or any of the typical problems that leaders of th Church often address. Just peace and love and a carefully masked talk about non-violence that sounded like it could have been written by Gandhi. It was quite refreshing. Here are some of the impressions I wrote down yesterday and today.


* Simplify my life. I guess the speaker (L. Tom Perry) did mention debt in that one.
*I don't take enough advantage of the Book of Mormon in my life. I should be excited to come home and read it every day.
*The best way for me to be a missionary now is to radiate the peace, love and happiness that I feel because of Christ and the role He plays in my life.
*I need to write more often to people I taught on my mission.
*If I feel inadequate (um, like every day), an important part of being a disciple of Christ is having the faith to get past my inadequacy, knowing that God will make up for what I cannot do.
*"Faith is not only a feeling. It is a decision." Neil A. Anderson.
*Do not recoil from the will of God. I really like that image.
*The main focus of Sacrament Meeting should be the Atonement of Jesus Christ. "Don't violate your covenant to always remember Him in the very meeting you are making it."
*Make sure I am doing everything I can to qualify for the cleansing power of the Atonement.
*Faith, hope, and charity will stabilize my life no matter my situation.
*Hope and despair cannot co-exist.
*Jesus Christ is the hope of all mankind.
*The Holy Ghost can help me perfect my hope in the gospel and everything else.
*"Come what may, and love it." Joseph B. Wirthlin's mom.
*The Lord compensate for every loss in His own way.
*Even Christ had need of Heavenly comfort--there is no shame in seeking it.
*I can manifest the love of God to others through my kindness.
*God always adapts to anyone's level of understanding. He would fail to be a merciful god if He only spoke to some elite group and not to others.
*The goal of all gospel teaching is to turn people's hearts toward Christ.
*Christ is the only way to happiness and fulfillment. "Any other way is madness." Lawrence E. Corbridge.
*I can't wait for Zion to be established to make the world a better place. I have to make the world a better place so that Zion can be established when the time is right.
*My prayers throughout the day need to be less discrete--more like a frequent counseling with Heavenly Father. That is how I can really "pray always."
*"Meekness is not weakness." Robert D. Hales.
*I need to utilize the gospel to "lift up desperate souls."
*I need to acknowledge God's hand in all things.
*Part of the charge to be merciful is to be merciful to governments. Being patriotic and realistic, but always trying to improve things instead of becoming cynical or losing faith in the system.
*When I reject an offered gift from God, I am also rejecting Him.
*The key to a happy marriage is selflessness. I hear that so often, it must be true.
*I need to live so I can always welcome Christ into my life.

Also, M. Russell Ballard mentioned Burma, and Thomas S. Monson mentioned Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus. That made me so happy. Oh yeah, and Elaine S. Dalton sad something about how young people should not be "ever texting, yet never coming to a knowledge of the truth." Forced, but still funny.

I like General Conference.

Two Funny Stories

I always forget to write about the little moments in my life that make it so great.

1. The other day I was sitting by myself at church until my friend Robbie, who is half-Mexican (but prefers to tell people he is from Ethnia) came and sat on my left. Then Stanley, an exchange student from Taiwan, came and sat on my right. The following conversation ensued.

Me: Mmmmm. Ethnic sandwich.
Robbie: Technically, we're a white girl sandwich on ethnic.

Ha ha. Robbie, I heart you.

2. Last night I took Thelma over to the yellow house (but not the one near us) and met Mo, one of Thelma's buddies from way back. We hit it off instantly and started talking like we had known each other for years. Conversation:

Me: I feel like I have known you forever.
Mo: I feel the same way.
Me: You must be an INFP.

Then a long pause followed, in which I thought to myself, "Darn it, that was a really stupid comment to make. I'm such an idiot." Then Mo said:

Mo: I so am!

Then we hugged. The End.

This is my place.

I like to make important decisions by the seat of my leggings. For example, my senior year of high school, I was making list upon list of where I wanted to apply for college. At the time, I was interested in pursuing my Japanese language experience, so when we had visited BYU Hawaii a year or so before, I thought that it was the perfect place for me. I knew, as a white girl, that my chances of getting in would be lower than for most other universities, but I figured I had a pretty impressive CV (for an 18 year-old) and it wouldn't be much of a problem.

I mentioned that to my bishop, and he asked if I was going to apply to BYU Provo, just in case. My response was a church-appropriate equivalent of "hell no." I would sooner live in a war zone than Provo. At least a war zone would seem like familiar territory.

But God, as we all know, has a wicked sense of humor, and likes to prompt me to do things I would never otherwise do (hello, serving a mission). So as I was getting my paperwork together for my application to BYU Hawaii, I noticed that for a mere 25 dollars more, I could also apply to BYU Provo. What the heck, I figured, and checked the little box on the web page.

For days following I had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. The same way I feel after eating too much at Chuck-a-rama. The feeling said to me, Utah. You need to go to Utah. But I don't want to go to Utah, I responded in my head.

And the response was something along the lines of, "Have I ever cared about what you want, puny mortal?"

After a few days of misery, I went back online and modified my application so that Provo was my first choice. It sounds ridiculous looking back, but at the time, this was an immense trial of my faith. I had always dominated close games of Mutual "I never" with my secret weapon: "I have never been to Utah." The closest I had ever been was Montana. I had always known that I could never be happy there. I barely fit in with the Mormons in Seattle. I was just too different for Utah. And now I was going to live there? Sight unseen. I hated my life.

Then I got accepted, and talked to my Young Women leaders about BYU (they had all gone there ... go figure), and emailed my roommate-to-be (I love you Lori), and I started to get ... well, excited might be too strong a word. Curious would be better. I was curious about Utah. And how I would fit in there, if I could.

By the way, I was rejected from BYU Hawaii. I think God wanted to remove any unnecessary temptation.

My first few years in Utah were eventful. On the one hand, I came to see that I wasn't quite as different as I thought I was. Plenty of other kids at BYU came from cities where Mormons were a minority. I met a couple of kids who were also the only members in their graduating class. Additionally, I was not the only liberal, either. There was even an Amnesty International branch at BYU. I was, surprisingly, pretty happy. However, there was a disastrous first date with a boy who had liked me for months, which ended in a near-hysterical political row. There was the time my fellow students practically booed Helen Thomas (one of my heroes!) off the stage, and I left the devotional in tears. There was a time when I unconsciously crossed myself after a prayer in class and the girl next to me pointed at me as if I had conducted some sort of idol worship and screeched "Why did you do that???" One time, a friend of mine invited me and my three roommates over for dinner. The conversation began like this.

Eliza's mom: So, which one of you is a vegetarian?
Me: (Smile hesitantly, raise my hand)
EM: Oh, how interesting! Now, which one of you is the convert?
Me: (Smile hesitantly, raise my hand)

I never got over people's confused expressions when I explained about my family. I never got over the awkward personal questions about why I was a vegetarian, how my family reacted to my joining the church, when my parents had gotten married, etc. I also never got over my snobbery about how I was from a "real" city, and Provo was lame.

I have Grant Olson to thank for this paradigm shift. Once in a casual conversation, I dogged on Utah (he's a native) and Grant responded, with actual anger, "You say something like that and I will punch you in the face! The only people that hate on Utah are the ones who don't know what it's really like!"

This past year, I have experienced some of the things that make Utah great. And I'm not talking about the abundance of temples, or the fairly low crime rate. Not really. But after nine mile canyon, and the SEGO festival, and the farmer's market, and all the restaurants on center street ... how could anyone not think Utah is amazing? More specifically, after five years, I finally think Provo is amazing.

I feel so zen about this. I have no desire to escape from Provo anymore. Conversely, I am filled with a desire to make Provo a better place to live in, because I am here, and I am cool. I want to make Stand Up for Students a legitimate organization. I want to make Provo the kind of place cool people would want to live. Where all sorts of interesting types can dwell, and none will molest them from morn until ev'n.

What I'm really trying to say is, I think I want to go to law school here.

Oh my gosh. I can't believe I typed that in a public forum.

Me, Katharine, and Isabel

My whole family puts a lot of bloody stock in horoscopes. My Dad, even as a member of the church, frequently laughs at me and my "typical scorpio ways." For those of you who don't know what that entails, it means I'm prideful, passionate, suspicious, obsessive, and overly defensive. Yeah, whatever, stars.

I have always considered a lot of that "personality stuff" like the color test, blood type personalities, and whatnot to be a modern sort of voodoo, and worth about as much respect. Not to mention I have always believed that people identify with what they are conditioned to identify with, so if you see a horoscope that says something vague and universal like, "you feel strongly about the things you feel strongly about" of course you're going to think "OH MY GOSH! THAT"S SO ME!" before thinking hey, doesn't everybody feel that way? Then I moved in with Celia, whose boyfriend has more faith in this MBTI than I have in gravity, climbing equipment, and the innate goodness of mankind. Possibly combined.

From Wikipedia:

"The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment is a psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions. [...] The original developers of the personality inventory were Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers. They began creating the indicator during World War II, believing that a knowledge of personality preferences would help women who were entering the industrial workforce for the first time identify the sort of war-time jobs where they would be 'most comfortable and effective'."

On one hand, it does my heart good to know the MBTI was made by women, ostensibly to help women. I inherently trust female psychologists more, both because I am also a woman and because I tend to assume women know what they're talking about when it comes to feelings (leaving myself as the obvious exception).

So I'm preconditioned to want to believe in this stuff, but at the same time, Nathan's investment in it kinda freaks me out. I mean, you can't honestly base a decision like who to live with or who to marry on a four-letter permutation, can you?

Let's dig a little deeper, shall we.

The other day I met another one of Cel's friends who is invested in MBTI to the point of writing a book about it. Possibly his doctoral thesis. I'm fuzzy on the details. I don't remember how this came up, but Cel at some point turned to him and asked, about me, "So what is she?" What ensued was easily one of the most awkward, yet coolest conversations of my life. After 24 hours, Alex looked into my eyes (sounds weird, but apparently that was a dealbreaker/dealmaker of some sort) and pronounced me an INFP.

Initially, I was pissed that this dude I had just met was making all these crazy assumptions about who I am and what my priorities in life are. But for someone who had just met me, he was pretty spot-on. He kept tricking me, the devil. For example, one point of the conversation went something like this:

Me: I tested 100% on the J .
A: That means you want to be a J. But you're really a P.
Me: (feel momentarily stupid, then indignant) What are you talking about? You don't know me!
A: Ha! Ps don't like to be labeled.
Me: (foiled again ... silent)

Apparently my new friend is a local celebrity of sorts, and lots of people (well, let's face it, lots of women ... a contributing factor could be that this guy is pretty easy on the eyes) look to him as a sort of guru for relationships. That would annoy the heck out of me (I can barely handle my roommates' drama, let alone the drama of every chick in Provo), but he doesn't seem to mind being hounded by people with questions about whether an introverted feeler would work with an extroverted thinker jingle jangle. He really wants to help. It blows my mind. But I think the big reason behind the investment people make in this, and Alex's rock-star status, is that the MBTI is pretty convincing. I am, partially mind you, but still, convinced that it has merit.

According to this fairly legit-seeming website, an INFP has the following characteristics:

--quiet (by nature, yes. in practice, no.)
--creative (I like to think so)
--sensitive (sometimes to my detriment)
--perceptive (it even says so in my patriarchal blessing!)
--often seem shy (why I have so few second dates)
--deeply committed to causes and relationships (ask my mom about my picketing phase)
--guide their behavior by their value system (yeah, OK)
--deeply religious (once I found the right religion)
--like privacy (yup)
--a perfectionist (ask my mission president ... poor man)
--unduly preoccupied with finding a soulmate (I don't want to talk about it)

OK. I identify with all of that. Especially the part about balancing privacy with wanting a deep, committed relationship. And the part about seeming shy. But to make my research a little more effective, I decided to look up my opposite: the ESTJ. And here is what we found:

--tend to do things out of a sense of duty (I am terrible at that ... which is reason number 5678 why BYU is so hard for me)
--good memory (I do have that)
--natural leader (not really)
--can be manipulative (I don't think I'm like that)
--good at strategy, often win at games (I only win at Candyland, which is based on luck or, in my case, cheating)
--law-abiding (again with the rules thing. I suck at rules. Which is why I am a stellar cougar. And why I always cheat at Candyland.)
--loyal (I do identify with that)
--bad listener (nope)
--"Would make a great military commander" (Pfttt hahahahahaha)
--Have difficulty forgiving people (hmmm ... yeah)

In summary, there must be some merit to this test because unlike a horoscope, I don't identify with each one based on my mood. Supposedly, my "perfect match" is an ENFJ, an guy not as shy as me and whose head isn't as far in the clouds. I can see that. Maybe I will try and find one of those this time around, instead of the type I've been going for lately: JERKs. Those just don't jive with me! I'm sorry! It could never work!

In case you didn't catch that, I was making fun of Nathan. All in good fun. I'm going to have to keep thinking about this, though. I couldn't make this the foundation of my life without some real thought. And reading the Book of Mormon. Wait, what?

This is real.

Here are some things I have been thinking about lately.

I got the job at the MTC. That is neat, but what it really means, as I said earlier, is that they will call me when there is an opening. They had one not too long ago, but then it was filled by a former teacher who decided to come back. I had scheduled an interview quite long time ago, then cancelled it for a job interview I thought I wanted more. The interview (with BYU Broadcasting) had gone so well I assumed it was a shoo-in--she had even said "when you work here" the whole time, using the future tense as opposed to the potential mood. I left some writing samples with her and I think that must have been what turned her off. She struck me as a repressed, conservative type, and I think one of the pieces of writing was about something vaguely political? I don't remember for sure, but I am convinced that is what did it. I offended her with my writing. Not that I'm sorry about that. Anyway, I wonder if I shouldn't have cancelled that initial MTC interview, and then maybe I would have gotten the job. Then Grady falls asleep in my arms, and I think, eh, screw it. All I want is my babies. Even at eight dollars a freakin hour, I want to stay with my babies.

If the MTC calls, I will take the job, because I felt so strongly that I needed to apply there. But that will probably not be for a long time, if ever.

The SEGO festival was this weekend, and it was pretty fun. I am glad it is over. I spent a great deal of my own money on last-minute necessities (but not nearly as much as Ama did, so I have no right to complain) so I do not feel obligated to donate to the SEGO festival fund this year or next year. Well, maybe next year, if I have a better job. I am very happy that the SEGO festival is over now. It was fun, mind you, but now Ama can smile again, and we can all sleep.

I could happily live the rest of my life eating cheesy bread. Assuming I could do that without becoming anemic or fat.

Today Bryan repelled from the second-story balcony and I wanted to kill him.

The End.

Oh yeah, and I'm getting a dog.





His name is Shadow, but that is pretty much the name of every black dog in existence, and I'm not crazy about it. I'm trying to think of a name that ends in O, but is cool. Ideas so far include Milo, Kilo, Benno, and Shiloh. Others?

A List of Lies

With a nod to topher, my blog hero.

1. In case you are wondering, my very favorite kind of music is pop punk like The All-American Rejects. The lead singer has such a great singing voice! I mean wow! And they write about real things that really speak to where I am right now.

2. My favorite foods include: potato chips, Slim Jims, beef jerky (especially homemade! Yum yum!), anything from Teryaki Stix (totally authentic!) and Adventures in Deep Frying.

3. Know who is super sexy? Ben Stiller. OMG! And he's sooooo funny. LMAO!

4. I feel like I don't have enough to do right now. Feeling kinda bored ... maybe I should take on a new project of some sort?

5. I love it when Toby pees on my bed. Talk about cute!

Assorted Links

1. A great episode of Stuff Mormons Like. How true, how true.

2. NPR's This I Believe is good every week, but this one is really worth sharing. As the sister and most likely future mother of adopted children, this really struck a chord in me.

3. Silly Reason, a well-done blog by the brother of a friend of mine, all about the el-ec-tion. Or rather, mostly about how John McCain gives both him and me nightmares.

4. AIG puts out ads???? Who knew? It's actually pretty funny.

5. The Love Poem Project. Friends, do not be deterred by its name. Hilarious.