Oh no oh no

I have been a slacker. But I am changing my ways. Really I've just been busy... good excuse?

So thanksgiving break was perfect of course. And surprisingly even though I have a deathly cold the break gave me the extra energy to pull through and finish which usually doesn't ever happen! Usually I go home for thanksgiving and wish I was there for the rest of the semester.  But 3 weeks left... I can do this!

Some cool things/impressions/things I learned the past few weeks:

• Don't settle for anything that seems "good enough." Make it be great or not at all. Learned that in Stake Conference. 
• I'll go where You want me to go- good song. pretty much how I feel.
• In my TOLP class we talked about how the quorum of the twelve are chosen because they have strong minds and strong wills and they speak their minds.  I once got told I was strong willed ( and I don't think the person meant it nicely) but now I feel much better about it because the apostles are too. so hah!
• apparently when you get parking tickets you're supposed to send in the ticket with the check... who knew?
• A lot of people have been quoting a favorite quote of mine by Sister Hinckley lately, ""I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."     Cool stuff huh? I think that sums up the women in my family. I don't think I'll ever measure up.
• OO This one is goooood!  Another good quote+ some impressions from stake conference. The adversary HATES temples. He trys to beat them down by encouraging us to dress immodestly and feel bad about our physical temples.  Satan wants you to hate your body because he's jealous.  He tells us we're not anything enough (skinny enough, pretty enough, smart enough etc) but that is a big fat DEVILISH lie.  True beauty is letting others see your divine nature. 
• I've gotten a lot better at "rolling with the punches" still room for improvement but I am pretty proud of myself! 

That's it for now! I have a good story I need to write but I'm too tired and congested so maybe another day! Goodnight! Yes it's 10:20 and probably the earliest I've ever gone to bed in college :) 

To my favorite Veteran:

These past two days I have thought a lot about you.  Before I say what I am going to say I would like it if no one got too mushy over this because I plan on expressing my very deepest feelings about my daddy, but just so 30 years down the road my kids know how good I had it.

I am the luckiest girl in the world.  Even luckier than my two sisters. In a talk written by Elder L. Tom Perry titled Fatherhood, an eternal calling, Elder Perry warns us about Satan's attack on the family.  He says things about what a father needs to be successful in our fight against Satan.  Here's the things he says that my dad has already excelled in: "head of the family"... you don't mess with dad! "Must lead in family worship"... I don't think there's anything in the gospel that I couldn't ask my dad about and he wouldn't be able to teach me.  Plus he's the least judgmental person I know, and living with three daughters thats a very important trait to have, so anything anyone needs advice on or just to talk to someone about he's there.  "The father is a teacher and temporal provider"... He's a genius, hard worker, and gives all he can to still provide for our family even though the circumstances make it very hard.  I admire the strong will he has to get up to go to work every day.  "Gives fathers blessings" needless to say that has been a huge blessing for all members of my family.  "In this church the man neither walks ahead of his wife not behind his wife but at her side." Not only are my parents a good team but my dad is a great support to my mom.  Overall I think its safe to say that Satan has lost in his battle against my dad.  Not that life has been easy, because we all know it hasn't, but my dad has stuck it out better than anyone could have asked him to.  Sure it'd be easy to give up and let the pain take over, but not my dad. He's a trooper.  And I even have concrete details to support my conclusion.  :)

Which brings me to the next thing I would like to say.  My dad had a stroke when I was 13 and I am grateful for it.  I'm sure my dad is shocked that I just said that but I will explain myself.  That life changing experience strengthens my testimony of the atonement almost every single day.  Sure it would have been nice to have him be completely healthy like he was before, but except for his own sake, I wouldn't change anything. On Saturday night I was at walmart and I needed to make sure I had all the ingredients for what I was making on sunday.  Mom, Tara or Erin wouldn't answer their phones but daddy did.  I don't think that any Father would know where to find a specific recipe, but Dad looked for me.  He looked for a while and couldn't find it but I was more confident that I had everything I needed. He told me how sorry he was and that he had failed me as a father. That makes me so upset!! I can't ever find the words to convince him otherwise so I hope this will do the trick. On Tuesday in devotional Sister Clayton bore her testimony about our Heavenly Father's perfect love.  I had been upset because I hate hearing my dad say that he thinks he's failed me because that couldn't be farther from the truth, and the spirit of course taught me an extremely valuable lesson.  I learned that upstairs I have a perfect Father who loves me.  He knows me better than I do.  He is there for me no matter what it is that I need.  Well here on earth I have a father who is almost as good, but if he was I'd feel pretty bad about myself.  I already feel like I'll never measure up to my parents, imagine if they were perfect all the time! No, what I need is an imperfect father to teach me.  I luckily have a father who has made mistakes that can teach me through those, a father who will learn lessons along with me. A father who has faults that I can learn from.  A father who has challenges that strengthen my testimony and that give me the opportunity to be strong for him.  I am so unbelievably blessed.

My dad teaches me life lessons that keep me sane, help me prepare for the future, give me courage to be myself and push me to be the best that I can be.  What else could I ask for? So next time my dad says that he feels like he's failed me I'm going to refer him to this page right here and then ask him to retract that statement.  I don't have the emotional maturity to tell him this every time (or the breath man this is long) because I get too emotional in wanting him to know how much I love him.  I have been blessed immensely from my Father in Heaven and my father here on earth.  I wouldn't have asked for anything different and I am grateful for the opportunity I have been given to grow from my circumstances and I hope that I make all of my parents proud.   I am grateful for my father's service in the marines and the sense of pride it has given me of our country.  I am grateful for the eternal perspective that the gospel gives me and the immense joy I feel everyday! Life IS good!

Monday Monday Monday

Well today was kind of a stressful day. I'm not sure but I wasn't as happy as I should have been. I had to register for classes and that always brings on a bit of stress in my life.  It makes me feel like wait what if I don't register for something that I should have... what am I doing with my life??... what classes do I take (obviously) to best get me where I want to go... AHHHH?  See what I'm saying? Stressful! So I woke up and did that which probably was the reason for my bad mood. But then my mommy called. (my computer is doing a lot of really annoying things like undoing what I say and moving the letters not where they should be. grr) So I talked to my mom about what was best and what she thought. It was so comforting and really nice that we were on the same page and she was supporting the decisions I am making because they are the right ones I think.  So that made my day a little bit better. Then we had FHE at Brother Eatons house.  The drive is about 40 minutes but it is a lot of fun and totally worth it! We had a really good lesson on faith and how faith is a principle of action and power. It inspired me to have more faith in this plan I'm doing and wait for the power to come from it.  So I'm grateful for my real family and my ward family :)

Then we got home and my roommates and I had a dance party. It was a lot of fun. I'm grateful for times to unwind and destress after a long day. now its time for bed! Goodnight!

What a Good Weekend!

Well this weekend was a really great one! On Friday night Adria and I went to see a concert put on by the top orchestra, Collegiate, women and mens choirs. It was titled God's Everlasting Love and the text was written by Elder Bednar! He was actually there! We tried to follow him to say hello but we didn't get a chance there were so many people around. Needless to say it was absolutely beautiful.  It was so great to hear the spirit so strongly through the beautiful music.  After that we went out to dessert with Nick (who broke the lamp! haha) and went and watched a movie with his roommates. It was a very fun friday night.

Then on Saturday a group of us went on an adventure to the ice caves! It was freezing but a lot of fun! I love doing Idaho things :)

Then today church was great as usual. In our relief society we've been having a problem with the girls not showing up on time or even coming. Not me of course! So the bishop came to talk to us about the importance of the sabbath day. He said a few things that I really liked. He said to wake up on Sunday mornings as excited for the sabbath as you are on Christmas morning.  I definitely have learned to prepare for sundays on saturday nights by getting enough sleep and I can tell how much I learn more by making that extra effort. I felt confident that I am excited for church each sunday as I am for Christmas which made me feel really good.  Of course he had to talk about dating, and since I haven't been doing much of that this semester I really liked when he said "if he's not around focus on you.  Improve you.  Work on you.  Be the best YOU you can be."  That's what I've been telling myself so I don't get sad about not dating as much as I want to and it was really nice to have those feelings confirmed by someone that I admire and look up to so much.

In the end it was a great weekend. Full of great friends.  Two weeks I'll be in CA! yay! I can't wait to see my family!

Tired Day

Today was a tired day so I'm grateful to have a bed to sleep in. I don't know if I'm getting a cold or if I've just swallowed too much pool water lately but i have this obnoxious cough and itchy/sore throat. So I tried to rest plenty today since my body told me I needed it and so my bed made me very happy.

I really love BYU-Idaho. I love it more every single day. I love the teachers the students the activities provided the campus, you name it I love it! I'm grateful for the blessing it is to be here. I'm too tired to name the many many reasons why I'm especially grateful for it today, but just know I am.

Today I realized it was November 4th...

Excuse me how did that happen? I fly to Sacramento in almost exactly two weeks! It hasn't really hit me yet but I'm super excited!

So today I'm grateful for the temple. I got to go do baptisms for the dead today and it was again a great experience. Right before we went in to do confirmations the brother who was walking us into the room turned to me and said, "isn't it great that we get to have a temple so close where we can go so often?" I think he read my mind or something! Then there was the same old guy who asks my name and when I say Sister Drake he says oh yeah you're here all the time. I stinkin love that guy. He makes me feel so good for going as often as I do. I took my talks from President Uchtdorf to study while I was waiting. You should read We are Doing So Great a Work we Cannot come Down or something like that. Priesthood Session April 2009. REALLY good talk about one of my favorite scripture stories Nehemiah.

I am also really grateful for Idaho and the humble and kind people that live  here.  I know weird that I am grateful to live in a place which will soon be covered in snow, but it has its perks :) Like old guys working in the temple with big walking sticks. Dad would have been SO jealous of it. He walked in that confirmation room and said, "Oh, I can get so many toes in here!" and pretended to get our toes with his walking stick.  I instantly felt close to Heavenly Father through his playful love.  Don't be surprised if you hear of Rexburg getting sucked into the sky one of these days.  With men like that and a population where 95% of the people living there are worthy to enter the temple it's bound to happen one of these days! Point is I love this place.

Update on roomies: we all cleaned the kitchen together... things seem to be getting better! Woo!

Tuesday means devotional!

Devotional today was given by Sidney Palmer a teacher in the biology department! He of course cracked several jokes that only anatomy and physiologists would understand :) I loved it! He talked about being spiritually and temporally prepared. It was a really great talk. He actually quoted part of the talk I read for teachings of the living prophets yesterday! Talk about the Holy Ghost trying to get through to me! It made me think about how grateful I am for the patient way the Holy Ghost encourages me to grow and become better. I can' t imagine going to a church where we had to be guilted (is that a word? oh well) into changing instead of kindly prompted. Brother Palmer said some things I wrote down that really inspired me: first that the temple is the storehouse for spiritual experiences just as we have storage for food. second that we need to constantly be looking for Christ's hand in all things and as we try to remember His hand we will be led to see the ways He was there that we missed the first time. Third that it is important to bear our testimony in deed and in word. One of my least favorite things is when people say one thing and do another... but sometimes I forget my strong testimony of Jesus Christ and how that should influence how I act. So that is one thing I was REALLY grateful to learn today.

Another thing I was really grateful for today is music. In child development my teacher showed us a vienna boys choir called Libera that does a beautiful arrangement of Be Still My Soul. Man that was powerful stuff. The music was so pure and beautiful and I am grateful for how strongly the spirit speaks to me through music. I also went to open mike night at the local Hogi Yogi and got to hear some awesome students. Heavenly Father is pretty cool for blessing us with individual talents.

That's all for tonight! Pray that my roommates will be nice to each other!

I'm Grateful

So in my Teachings of The Living Prophets class today we studied President Eyring. I decided to study his talk titled O remember Remember. I'm sure you all remember :) it from Oct 2007 conference I believe. I really enjoyed it the first and second and third times I heard/read it and I decided its about time I do something about it. I do that a lot where I think about how much truth is in something I hear or read... but then I slack and don't do anything about it. BUT today that changes! I'm a little scared because now people will know when I'm slacking but that will be good motivation I think!

So today I am grateful for technology :) not only do I have an awesome new phone (thanks mom and dad) but I have a car, electricity, HEAT, music, a lap top and other things that I have begun to think of as "essential" but really are blessings. When I was driving I stopped at a 4-way stop and noticed the car across from me check for oncoming traffic just as I had. I thought about how lucky him and I both were to have cars to get us places. It was nice.

I am also grateful for Family Home Evening. I got to teach the lesson tonight and I showed the mormon message Lifting Burdens: The Atonement of Jesus Christ. It is a really good powerful message. Then we had a photo scavenger hunt which was a lot of fun. It was a really good night for our apartment and fhe group and I'm glad we belong to a church that holds important meetings like that.

That's it until tomorrow? Hopefully!