So, now that my talk is over, I found someone to take over my lease for next year, and I registered for classes, I have very little expected of me until I start school. I'm almost not sure what to do with myself. There's books to read and projects to work on, but it feels different to not have any deadlines all of a sudden. I think I work better under pressure. It feels nice, though. I only have about a month til going back to school, so I better enjoy this while it lasts.

One thing I'm excited for is the Sacramento Temple dedication this Sunday. I received 2 tickets to go see the dedication in person, I guess because I'm a new convert. I'm not sure how close up or anything I'll be, but it should be pretty cool. It's pretty awesome since I'm sure I probably won't have another opportunity to see another temple dedication, especially not in person. I've toured the temple twice, and it is amazing. It's the most beautiful place I've ever been, and I felt better and more at home there than pretty much anywhere I've ever been. Here's a picture of some friends and me at the temple.


As I said earlier, I registered for classes. I changed my plan about which classes to take because I found out that pretty much all of my teachers this quarter were going to be bad. So, I changed out one of them, and got into the others, except one which I have to waitlist. I also decided to take an exercise walking/running class. It's just 1 hour, twice a week (and only 1/2 a unit). I've been thinking, though, and I'm tempted to take another class this quarter. If I pack on a lot of units Fall and Winter quarter, it'll make it a lot easier to do both the Human Development and Psychology degrees in 4 years. So, I guess I'd like some advice on whether or not people think it's crazy to take 20.5 units in one quarter. I've heard some other people say it's not too bad. What do other people think?

Target Practice

 
Today I learned how to fire a gun. My cop friend, Mark, took me to a shooting gallery. My first shot was really good and pretty much right on target, yay! Apparently, beginners usually do really well on their first shot, but then get worse when they start anticipating when exactly the gun's going to go off. I shot a piece of paper in the head a bunch of times too. I don't think I was particularly cut out to go around shooting things, but at least now I can say I kind of know how, and I also liked learning something new and different today. Here's another cool picture, where you can see the casing thing coming out of the gun. 

Hey Big Spender

So, today I delivered my talk on Charity. Here's what I had typed up, so it doesn't include my introduction or my testimony at the end, but this is a pretty good summary of what I talked about, though I changed a few things here and there.

“Charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever.” [Moroni 7:47]. First off, we need to stop thinking of charity in its general, worldly meaning “something given to a person/persons in time of need” or “generous actions or donations”, but to think of it as this “pure love of Christ”. It's not until we know what charity is that we can have it as a quality in our lives. Charity is a Christlike attribute that when adopted into our lives will not only teach us to love others, but will also help us to keep the other commandments.

This “Love of Christ” has 3 parts to it, a love for Christ, a love from Christ, and a love like Christ.

• Love for Christ
  This kind of charity means living our lives in a way that expresses our gratitude to our Savior. Though we may pray often and thank Heavenly Father for the many blessings given to us, we should ask ourselves whether or not our actions outwardly express our gratitude. Some blessings may be hard to see at first. I thought that moving back into my parents’ house after 2 years of being away at college would be more bittersweet than anything, but after seeing my family draw closer and the blessings that have been poured upon us, I only wish that I had recognized them sooner and expressed my gratitude earlier on. A “Love for Christ” doesn’t take hidden blessings for granted, but outwardly expresses gratitude not only through prayer but also through daily actions.
  
  We need to remember that even when times are hard, and blessings are harder to notice, that we still need to express gratitude to our Savior. We need to ask ourselves “When I’ve experienced great losses in life, have I remembered to be grateful for my blessings?” or “If I’m met with hardship in the future, will I be able to see through that fog and remember the light that Christ has blessed me with?”
  
  Just as Christ’s love for us does not falter based on our circumstance, where we are in life or what we are doing, we should not allow our love for Him to waver. Our love for Christ can be strengthened not only in times of great happiness and obvious blessings, but also in times of great need and hardship. No circumstance, no matter how difficult, should be able to diminish our love for Christ. And our actions should always express this constantly strengthened love for him, so that we may exude charity in our lives.



• Love from Christ
  
  No expression of love has ever surpassed that which has come from our Savior through the Atonement. In John 15:13, Jesus says “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Our Heavenly Father permitted his Son to suffer this sacrifice for us and thus gave us the ultimate expression of His love. Christ’s great Love and sacrifice for us has redeemed us, so that we may return to live with our heavenly father.
  
  Now, this may seem difficult as advice for you to express charity in your own life, seeing as it’s a love from someone else. What we need to realize about the love from Christ is that in order to have charity, we need to receive this gift of love. We need to accept and embrace this love given to us through the Atonement by doing our part. We need to repent of our sins by recognizing, halting, confessing of, resolving, and being truly sorry for them. We need to keep the commandments in thought, desire, word, and deed. We need to make and keep covenants with the Lord, and do all we can to have the Spirit in our lives. When we do these things, we become better people, and are better able to be a blessing to others. It is difficult to help build up the righteousness of others, if we are still suffering in sin in our own lives and have not accepted the atonement for ourselves
  
  Partaking of the Sacrament is one of the ways we can receive this love from Christ. We need to take the time before the Sacrament to repent and remember the covenants we are renewing with the Lord. We need to remember the Atonement, and embrace the forgiveness it provides us. If we are unable to partake of the Sacrament, we still need to take that time to remember the sacrifice made for us, and remember that through repentance, we may be forgiven for our sins. Use that opportunity to think of how you would like to better your life; not only for your own forgiveness, but also that you may be a greater blessing to others.
  
  This pure gift of love from Christ through the Atonement allows us to better ourselves and truly exude charity in our lives.



• Love like Christ
  
  After Christ washes the feet of his Apostles, he says in John 13:34 “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you”. Christ has given us His example to follow. Just as he washed the feet of His Apostles, we should serve one another. To Love like Christ is to be generous with your Love to everyone, no matter who they are. I once heard a quote that went something like, “judge a man’s character, not by how he treats his friends, but how he treats someone who has nothing to offer him”. A Christlike love isn’t picky about whom to serve or to love but serves everyone selflessly, whether through small acts of service or tremendous sacrifice. Once the thought enters your mind about what you will get in return for your acts of kindness, you have lost sight of the purpose. When Christ died for us, he did so without repayment, consolation, or concern for his own well-being. Ask yourself, “Would I be willing lay down my life for another, as Christ lay down his life for me?” We should be able to say yes, no matter whom we are asked to lay down our life for if we truly love all people as Christ did.
  
  C.S. Lewis once said, “Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.” To have Christ-like love for others, we need to be a light and a blessing that will help them to achieve all that they can. We should help others work towards righteousness and to lead them by example. As we serve others and work for their best interest, we will develop stronger love for them and desire to serve even more.
  
  Before you begin to think that the serving one another is just the way to reach this third goal of charity, I encourage you to think of this differently. Service is not just a step to take to reach this goal, but service in and of itself is the goal. Once you put all of yourself into helping others obtain the ultimate best they can, you have a love like Christ. He spent every day of his life selflessly serving others before committing the ultimate act of love and service through the Atonement. Once you spend every day of your life serving others, you have a pure love like Christ. I don’t know about all of you, but it’s hard for me to imagine a selfless existence. We all grow up thinking about ourselves at least some of the time; our wants, our needs, our plans. We can all work towards this goal of service and charity by taking a little more time away from ourselves each day, and putting it towards the needs of others.
  
  Besides expressing a Christ like love towards others through service, we should think about whether or not we are treating each other with love. A Christ like love appreciates and shows gratitude for each other’s kindness. A Christ like love does not include anger, bitterness, contention, sarcasm, belittlement, negativity, judgment, hostility, or rudeness. Even when facing the Adversary, Christ did not argue or fight. A Christ-like love means ridding yourself of pride, and building everyone up so that no matter whom you interact with, they feel better for having known you. This principle speaks very loudly to me. It’s hard enough for me to think of the many interactions I have with friends and family that have even the slightest bit of negativity to them, but when thought of on a grander scale, and I think of how a Christ like love means that every interaction you have with every person is positive, that just sounds so huge. The idea of treating every single person with such clear love sounds incredibly difficult, but I know that if we were to all try to build relationships with each other without negativity, we would be better able to have Christ-like love in our lives.
  

We should all work to build this pure Love of Christ in our lives. As we express a pure Love for Christ, embrace our pure Love from Christ, and serve others with a pure Love like Christ, charity will strengthen our faith, better our lives, and allow us to receive the Heavenly blessings that await us after this.

Ether 12:34 reads, “Except men shall have charity they cannot inherit that place which thou hast prepared in the mansions of thy Father”. In this lifetime, we are being tested. Think of how proud our Heavenly Father will be, if when you stand before Him to be judged, you lived your life with perfect charity, just like Christ. Of course, it sounds so difficult to have perfect charity, but it is a goal worth striving for. When we work towards charity, we avoid other types of sin that may test us. With so many commandments based on loving our neighbor, the only way towards being perfectly charitable is to obey all of them. Obeying the commandments will often require us to forget our own desires for the sake of another’s best interest.

The desire to have the gift of Charity may be a challenge in and of itself. To be truly charitable, we need to desire the gift of charity not for our own righteousness, but so that our presence on Earth may be a blessing to others. The scriptures and writings concerning charity often say to have “pure love for one another”. When I read this, it seems that the word “for” may be overlooked. Not only should we have pure love for one another as in just “love one another” or have a love among one another or between one another, but to have that pure love FOR one another, as in have that pure love for the purpose of serving one another, for the sake of one another, and for the benefit of one another. I challenge you today to not only work for the gift of charity in your life, but to do so in hopes of serving others and not yourself.

I am grateful for this opportunity I had to speak to all of you today. I’m thankful that in preparing this talk I was able to learn more about charity so that I can try my best to have charity in my life. I’m thankful that I was asked to serve you and I hope that I have been able to help at least some of you to build charity in your lives the best you can.

Sweet Charity

Today is a nice day without work or expectations for me to be anywhere. This means a few things. I can finally rest my back (which besides the sunburn has been sore for about a week), and get down to working on my talk for this sunday (my first one ever). The topic is "charity". I've found some really good talks on lds.org and I'll look things up in Preach My Gospel, True to the Faith, the BD, etc. I'll probably post my talk on here at some point, either before Sunday if I want criticism or after Sunday if I'm satisfied with it. Feel free to pitch advice though. I'm not too worried about talking. The whole public speech thing hasn't really bothered me, though I might feel weird giving a talk to people who may know a lot more than me about my topic. I'm hoping I can keep my talk interesting enough to hold people's attention. I don't want people flipping pages in their scriptures the whole time I'm talking, so I'll probably just cite and quote the verse without waiting too long between, and not put the verse references too close to eachother in the talk. If anyone has any good stories involving charity that might be useful, let me know, because I'm having trouble finding some to use.

I will sell you my back for a dinner and a Charms Blowpop

I've been accused of not blogging often enough. I don't think my accusor realizes that I'm living at home with very little to do for the time being. Well, I have things to do, reading, projects, working, etc. but it's nothing out of the ordinary.

Today was a fun day. I went to Santa Cruz with my friend and her family. We played at the beach, where we dug a hole, not as impressive as the one here (which was from a Stinson Beach trip), but we were proud nonetheless. But the fun came at a price. I definitely got a sunburn on my back, even after application of all sorts of spf. I've now formed a theory that it doesn't matter what you put on, or how often you do it; if you dig a hole at the beach, your back burns. Period. Besides the beach, we played at the boardwalk and I finally got to go on a rollercoaster, unfortunately not one that goes upside down. It was tons of fun and I'm really happy that I got to go. =)

On the bright side of my whole not really being registered for fall classes thing, I've figured out an amazing schedule for next quarter if I can get into some of the few spots left in the classes I'll need. I'd have 4 hours of class (just lectures this quarter) Mon-Thurs. and NO class on Friday!! The classes will be interesting too, all upper-division, consisting of Psychology of Education, Human Development in Early Childhood (one class) and in the Elderly (another class), and lastly the Sociology of the Family. I'm excited [and nerdy].

I feel like there is more to say, but I'm too tired to say it right now.

"Major" Changes

These last few days I've been waking up pretty early, which feels surprisingly good (probably only because I've also been going to bed earlier too). I've also been eating better (with a slight chocolate ration, so no chocolate fanatics can be mad at me) and I got signed up again at the gym. It feels really good, and I'm very happy that I'm starting to do some good things. Everyone should read this book (You, The Owners Manual; see below).

I declared my major today. Human Development. Once I get back to school in the fall I'll declare Psychology too. My school is kind of a punk about majors. They make you run all over campus and talk to all sorts of people. However, now that I've done that I'll actually be able to register for my classes come winter. For those who don't know, I wasn't able to sign up for ANY of the 4 classes I needed for fall on my first registration time because all of them had restrictions, 3 were "only people in this major can sign up for this class this time around" and the other was restricted to freshmen first pass because it's a general ed. That's bologna. When I was a freshmen the only thing we had priority for was freshmen seminars. Lame, UC. Lame.

Here's one more cabin story I forgot to share before. The first night we were there, we went to Round Table to pick up dinner. Amy and I were feeling rambunctious (what else is new, right?) so we spent some of our quarters buying fake tattoos out of those little dispenser machines. We both got these patterns that looked like dragonflies and another flower thing. Anyway, later that night, we put on our tattoos, hers on her upper back and mine on my lower back. It looked funny, but whatever, that was the point. The next day we were at the lake and I decided to wear my swimsuit and lay out. Not long after I hear my dad say "Hm. Nice tattoo, Jessica", and then turn to my mom angrily and say "did you see this tattoo?" and other various angry freaking out. I couldn't believe he thought my 50 cent tattoo was real, or that he thought I'd actually get a dragonfly tattooed on me. I quickly corrected him that it wasn't real, and we all had a good laugh. Silly dad.

Workin hard for the money

I'm at work. It's a little chilly out today, so not a whole lot of people are coming to swim. Essentially, there's not a whole lot for me to do, but they do give us a computer, so this is really just to keep me from being bored.

I saw the movie Step Up. It was surprisingly really good. I like dance movies, but sometimes the plots are too stupid. For those who can follow the comparison, this was like Center Stage in that it has an awesome end dance performance sequence that's pretty much worth watching the whole movie over again for. It's like Save the Last Dance in that a traditional dancer girl meets a ghetto boy who influences her style and they end up getting together. I like this one better than that one though, and this plot had some actually surprising twists, but it ends up being predictable a lot of the time too.

Now that I've done that, I'm going to go back to reading. Right now, I'm reading You, The Owner's Manual. It's really interesting. Like a medical book in terms anyone could understand. It makes me want to be healthier. You should check it out.

Cabin Camping

About a week ago my family and I were at my Grandma's cabin in the mountains. We wanted to go on a little family trip thing before my brother moved to New York. It was pretty awesome, especially the part about not having cell phone service or the internet. We also got to hang out at this pretty lake:

Amy, my Dad and I were the only people willing to stay up late enough on the first night there to finish this cool puzzle.There was also this really strange machine there that you were supposed to sit on and it would try to burn fat off of your butt. We had a lot of fun trying it out. I won't post pictures of this, but just in case you're ever going to try one out, beware that it tickles. That was last week.

Then my brother moved on Sunday. It was pretty sad, as expected. Now I'm accepting applications for people to play cards with in the middle of the night and to exchange "Your mom" jokes with. I'm hoping to fly out to see him within the next few weeks, before I go back to school and before he gets too loaded down with work to do. On the bright side, I took his huge room and queen size bed. =) This is us in a goofy picture, but at least his eyes are open [rare occurrence].He got all the tan genes. And, I don't always wear ribbons, but it was my birthday.

Blog Blog Blog

So, besides converting religions, the most common activity among my family members these days has been blogging. Since I already did the prior, I figured I could jump on this bandwagon as well. I'm not too sure what I'll be writing about until I'm back to school, but I guess I can keep you all updated on what's going on with me. You may want to be on the lookout for general silliness as well. Enjoy!