When it Rains it Pours

I know it has been awhile since I have written anything on my blog. More often than not I feel like the things swimming around in my head don't amount to much. 
I think this post will be therapeutic for me though, and hopefully I'll be able to spit out some useful advice as well.

My Grandma had a saying that my mom always repeats. When it rains, it pours. When I was younger I never really understood what that phrase meant, but as I have grown up and life has gotten more complicated and the decisions more demanding with far reaching consequences I have come to understand. When it rains we don't get to decide how long it will last, how hard it will rain or the damage it will do. We can certainly prepare if we know it's going to be a doozy of a storm, but can't do much besides wait for it to pass. Life is much like those rainstorms. And more often than not it's not a warm, gentle drizzle, it is a down pour complete with thunder and lightning. 

But that is when we get to decide if we are going to dance in the rain, or if we are going to simply endure it and wish that it would stop. 

These last couple of weeks have been full of stress. I don't think I have been so stressed out since my mission...and that's saying something! I had to leave Alaska and everything I had come to love there. I had to come home and live with the consequences of choices I had made. I went back to school for the first time in 3 years. My truck needed new tires, and my computer decided to erase all my files. A doozy right? Well, at least it has been to me. The hardest part has been trying to figure out what I want and what I need and what is going to make me happy. It's hard when everything seems to come to a head at the same time, and even harder to see the positive side of things.

Have you had enough of my pity party yet? Good, because I have too. See? I told you this would be therapeutic. 
When it's all said and done, we can't do much more than take things one day at a time. What seems like the end of the world at 9:30 at night is always a little less bleak the next morning. The solutions come one by one, and even if they don't we start to understand better how to handle the situations we are given. That heaviness in our hearts starts to lift and we remember that there is sunshine after all. We just needed a little bit of rain to appreciate it more. 

Dancing Queen

This past week we had a much needed girl's night. 
Although in the gift shop, every night in the gift shop is girl's night, we needed one that let us sit down, relax and talk about all that drama. We decided to watch the movie "Mamma Mia" and it was a blast to sing along at the top of our lungs to all those classic Abba songs (those songs that I love thanks to my mom who first introduced us oh so long ago.) I am no longer young and 17, but there is always adventure to be had and lessons to be learned. Everyone needs those friends who love our crazy ideas and sing along with our favorite songs. Love comes in all different forms and touches us each time in a different way. We need the people we meet along the way to help us through this crazy journey called life.
Those were the things I was reminded of while watching Mamma Mia.

Trust me, I don't usually sit down and watch a movie to glean life advice.

In other news, I saw my first moose! Or should I say my first six moose! I went on a drive with a friend and within a 20 minute period we saw 6 moose. Let's just say, it totally made our day. We even saw a beaver as well swimming around in a pond. I have a particular fondness for beavers after I did a 4th grade science project on them. 

Today at work I overheard a lady from Australia comment on how she had come all the way to Alaska to see a bear and hadn't seen a single one yet! It made me sad, because I wanted to ask her if she had noticed the absolutely gorgeous landscape around her instead of just trying to find a moving blob of brown or black. 

On a more spiritual side of things, one of the girls that I work with asked me a question about being "saved by grace" and what we believe in my church about it.
That got me thinking, and I did some studying and pondering. I was reminded of a talk by Elder Bednar and how he said that whenever he thinks about the word grace he substitutes it for "enabling power."
For example, there is a scripture in Jacob 4:7 that I love.
"Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace (enabling power) and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things." Accepting that grace means accepting Christ, and accepting Him is not simply a one time act. It is a lifetime of drawing closer to and striving to become more like him. It is living as He would have us live, because we know that it is truly because of Him that we have a chance to return to the presence of our Father. 
As Moroni in the Book of Mormon said,
"Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God" Moroni 10:32

I know that God's grace is real. It truly is an incredible gift, and one that I am grateful to use each day. That grace is not just an extra boost when our own abilities are not enough. It is a constant source of strength and guidance and one that will not fail when other lights go out. 

A Whole New World

This is what I get to see when I step out my front door every morning. Well, if there aren't any clouds that is. Amazing the things you can see when you take a chance, leave behind everything familiar and head out into the great unknown! This time for me, the unknown is......Alaska, The Last Frontier. It is a complete 360 of what I experienced in Taiwan and I know I will be having more than my share of adventure here. 

Hopefully no adventures that include the wildlife.

A new place brings lots of mixed emotions. Nervousness because you have no idea how things work or where to go. Excitement because there are so many new, fun things to do and experience. Appreciation for what you left behind and for what you now have. When my airplane landed in Alaska all I could think was "why did I decide to come up here by myself? Is it too late to go back? What if I don't fit in?" Within a couple of hours, after seeing the beautiful landscape and taking a few deep breaths I knew that I was where I needed to be and that I wouldn't want to give this adventure up for anything. 

I think the one thing that shocked me the most was the people. I am from Utah:born and raised. I grew up in an environment where almost everyone belonged to the same religion, the majority of people have never had a drop of alcohol or coffee, and the most extreme thing you ever saw was hair dyed a strange color. Outside of that little bubble I grew up in is a mind boggling variety of people, most of whom have a very blase` attitude about life. Where decisions don't have long term affects and all that matters is what is happening tonight at the bar or with the cute girl next door. Needless to say, I was a little intimidated and felt really out of my element. Not to say that I judged these people and their way of life. I know everyone is entitled to their own opinions and decisions and I respect that and understand. Just like I hope others understand my decision to not drink alcohol and to go to church on Sunday. 

I know that interactions with people whether they have the same lifestyle or not are invaluable. Life is too hard and too unpredictable and sometimes unhappy to spend even a moment on prejudice. Everyone deserves the common courtesy of a smile and friendly conversation. Everyone. 

So for me, Alaska hold the excitement of a new place with new things to see and do and new people to meet. Everyone has stories about life that can enrich our own and I am excited to add a few stories to my book and learn a few more stories from the people I meet here. 

Slipping Through My Fingers

Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture, but as Robert Frost once said "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on." This week I learned that even though sometimes starting a new chapter is scary it doesn't mean that all the other pages and chapters are gone, it just means they are there when we need to remember the good parts of life and give us the courage to face tomorrow. 

To Begin....

This is my first every attempt at blogging, and to be honest I needed somewhere that I could put some of the things I learn every day and hope that someone can learn and be uplifted like I was. The reason I named my blog lollipops and lemon drops is because of something I learned from one of my companions while I was serving my mission. When I first met this companion I was only a few months from returning home and some days I was less than enthused about the work we were doing. This companion helped me have a better perspective. She was always happy and positive even when we had a terrible, no good, very bad day. She helped me see that every day there are lollipops-those good experiences that make life worth living. I helped her remember that it is OK to have lemon drop days and that lemon drops are sour before they are sweet. We learned a lot from each other. So, that's the background story.

The past couple of weeks I have been acutely reminded of how our dumb mistakes tend to catch up with us, but that we are never alone when they finally do. There is always a best friend or a mom or a roommate that is there to help us remember who we are now and that our mistakes do not define us. They can just point us in different directions. It's gotten me thinking about where I want to go and who I really want to be. There comes a time when everyone has to decide...really decide....where they want to end up and who they want to be when they get there. On my mission I learned that there are few things that come easy in this life, but it all gets a whole lot easier when we remember the ultimate goal. For me, that ultimate goal is returning to live with my Father in Heaven. Why do I want to end up there with someone I haven't even seen face to face? Because I know that He loves me and I want to end up somewhere I am loved no matter the mistakes I made or how many times I tripped and totally face planted it. Who do I want to be when I get there? I want to be the best version of myself. How will that happen? By making mistakes, learning from them, loving the people in my life and learning from them and remembering that it is the journey and the forks we choose to take define us.
How do your choices define you?

Well, I think that is all for my very first attempt, and I am excited to keep writing and sharing!