The Lord is my Shepherd

normally when I listen to the song The Lord is my Shepherd, I think about the fact that the Lord is my shepherd, and that He wants to lead me to a pasture where I will be able to partake of the word of God. Tonight, I heard it, and it struck me differently. In the second verse, it says:
Since thou art my Guardian, no evil I fear.
He isnt just my shepherd, trying to feed me the word, he also is my Guardian- and he wants to protect me. It goes on to say:
Thy rod shall defend me, thy staff be my stay. No harm can befall with my Comforter near. No harm can be fall with my Comforter near.
As my Guardian, he will protect me. His rod shall defend me. He will defend me from Satan, and wants to protect me from everything. He doesnt want any harm to come over me. He wants me to be comforted in my hard times, and wants me to be happy. The hard times will come, and Satan will attack. But we have someone better and stronger than us, a Guardian who will protect us with his staff.

bitter sweet

So, I'm back at school, and expect everything to be fine, for the memeories I had created here before to just dissappear, or just be nice plesent reminders of the past. but they arent. i walk by something, and remember something like it was just yesterday. i listened to a talk once about emotions, and controlling them, and the guy said "memory has no age" and boy howdy, have i figured that one out these last two days. i walk around campus, and although everything has changed, it isnt necessarily for the better. i dont know how to get around campus any more, and there are buildings that have been built that i have to ask "what is that monstrosity is that? oh, its the MC, when did that happen. i thought they were finished two years ago with taht one." or "oh, wait, thats the size of the new auditorium? when did that happen?"
besides things i dont know being all around, i am barraged with a boat load of memories. some good memories that stayed good, some good memories that are now hurtful, and some dark memories that haunt the night hours. I spent a lonely day on Saturday moving in. i caught up with friends that night, but it was still hard. i wish my memory wasnt quite so attached to feeling things. i pass an apartment complex. "oh, so and so used to live there. now they are back home and working, and dating people, and i'll probably never see them again..." i pass the gardens "man, i wish it was summer right now. I would love to go back and see what they added to the gardens, and be able to study there now." pass another apartment complex, "man, why did she have to go do student teaching, she was supposed to be here." and the feelings that go with them all, they are still fresh, no matter how hard i try to make them not. it is wierd, because i want to be happy for the people, but it is hard. it makes comming up here bitter sweet. i was hoping for a nice smooth transition from the life of a missionary to the life of a student, but it isnt happening. maybe one day, it will. for now, i'll just live life in my mind, and try to remember the sweet parts of comming back, going to stadium singing and hearing songs, that were put there just for me tonight. friends that i havent seen in 3-4 years because of going on missions, the snow (i really missed it) some time to myself (although it still freaks me out when i do have it), and other such things.

Rexburg Dreams

I'm riding along on my bike. It's a race! but, I'm not supposed to be there. BJ is supposed to. not me. but i have to be. a mob is after BJ, and she can't be shot. other people i know are also in the race. RL, MC, SG, JW, all in the race, and i'm actually keeping up with them. but someone is in the mob. we pass the next to last marker. suddenly. its just me, SG, and MC. everyone else has finished. out of the blue, SG pulls out a gun, "Get her gone!" MC yells. i dont know what they mean, but guess they must be in the mob. SG aims at me, and as i panic, i pull far ahead and finish the race. just as i pass the finish line, SG shoots, twice, and his aim is sure. both times. i'm thrown from my bike and fall to the ground. a pain in my left side. "at least BJ is safe. i did my job." SG comes over to make sure i'm dead, and there he stands, watching me till i die.

"the nothing box"

i have to admit that this all makes perfect sense, and that i'm highly jealous of men. things would be so much different if i didnt have a brain like a ball of wire...

life

its been a while since i've actually updated my life, so i thought that i would do so, since i have no time, and am trying to put off doing my taxes today. :)

-starting with the most recent, my mission papers have made it in to the stake president as of today. as to when i'll be able to meet with my stake president, that is still up in the air. he is out of town a lot, which is rather frusturating, but i always planned on waiting a lot longer to talk to him. he is the stake president after all. and hey, at least i still get to talk to him sooner than expected. things with my councelor apparantly progressed faster than thought, according to her, which was a wonderful thing to hear.

-i actually have stopped my counceling. i stoped it right after my old councelor left, and i had to get a new person. i'll admit it, this seems to be turning into a habit, and i need to stop doing so.

- i still work at sears, but i'm no longer the only one on my team! we got a new gal just the other day. so, although she is currently doing training all morning, i'll eventually have another person to work with, and the load wont be quite as heavy. it came at a convienet time, because they hadnt been all about giving me days off, and now that i'm doing a class, i'll be going out of town to take tests.

-as mentioned, i'm currntly taking a class through BYUI. its an online religion class (new testament to be exact), and is turing out to be a lot more work than i ever planned it to be. i have a couple hours of reading monday-friday, and sometimes on the weekends. i had figured a lot of reading, but not as much as it actually is. i do love the class though. its teaching me some perspectives that i never would have thought about. its wonderful to be learning again.

-i'm no longer teaching the really cute sunbeams. i'm now teaching the CTR 9-10 class. its an interesting experience to feel like you know nothing when your teaching them. the kids are way way smart, and it sometimes amazes me just how much those kids know.

-rachel has left, but oddly, i'm not doing too bad. i expected a whole onslaught of a bunch of crap that happens with my bad depression, but it hasnt come, and i've been able to stay really happy. i guess that means that he therapy i did for those three months really wasnt a waste of my time and money. i do miss having her around, and all the fun we had together, and the house is now really quiet. it does mean we can eat things she really didnt like though, like spinach things, and things with peaches in them, and rhubarb! i've missed being able to have rhubarb things. :)

-for the first time in 21 years, i now have my own room. its kinda interesting to be able to have things in my room how i want, and to sleep not 5 feet off the floor. becasue of it, i spent a few days and rearragned things all by myself (okay, technically dad did take the beds apart, but only because i didnt get to it the day before since i was sick), and i'm proud of how the room now looks. :)

-i've started, or, more like, tried to start a daily yoga and cardio routine, but it hasnt really happned. between my class and what mom needs me to do during the few hours that i'm home and she isnt, i've found myself lacking in time. its something that i need to try and do better at though. it would help if i would prioritize my time, and not play as much. :)

-happy day for me, i've planned some trips up to good ol' rexburg to get out of the house. admitidly, two of those trips have educational reasons behind them. i need to go and take my tests somewhere, but instead of deciding to just take them here in utah, i'm going to save a lot of trouble, not time, but trouble, and take two trips up to rexburg to take some tests. it will be nice to get out of the house for a few weekends. :) i'm also going up to see the opera they are doing. one of my old roomates, RL, is a music minor, and she told me she was going to auditoin for the opera. i'm going to go up and support her being in the opera, or if she didnt make the cuts, i'm going to go and watch it with her. i just wish i could stay a little longer that trip. its a trip up the night of the opera, and leaving early the next morning. :( it should still be fun though.

- last, but not least, i've kept up my photo a day blog. its been a wonderful thing to do in my life. its made me look for the good things in life, and its helped to keep my mind where it needs to be, and focusing on what it needs to focus on. i just wish that i could do it for a bit longer than will probably happen, since eventually i'll be leaving on my mission, and i doubt my mission president will allow me to keep posting. maybe i'll just invest instead in a whole buch of those disposable cameras and take them with me, with instructions to my sister to upload them for me if possible? we'll see when the time comes.

Rexburg and a warning

I came up to Rexburg to visit a bunch of friends before I leave on my mission, (hopefully we'll see them at my farewell, but I guess we'll see). Tonight, we went to the sand dunes, made a fire, and were roasting marshmallws. We've heard of a bunch of people doing this before, so we didnt know that it was illegal and we would get in trouble for doing it. Low and behold, up drove a couple of officers, from the BLM. My future employers (hopefully). Oh yay. Just the thing I needed. Getting in trougble with the BLM. That'll go over well in a job interview. "So, I see here that you got a citation for lighting a fire illegally. Can you tell us about that?" Great for a job interview. Obvoiusly, the BLM didnt have it well marked that it was a study area, and that things such as fires were illegal. Do you really think I would have been participating in an illegal activity knowingly? Especially with my hopefully future employers? (I took a picture of the warning we got. It will be processed when I get back home and finish up the film. One of those times that I really wish that I had a digital camera)