The day has arrived...

Sadly, the day has arrived where I had to buy jeans. Now, that is not the sad part. The sad part is that I had to buy jeans that were EXTRA SHORT! Yep... I think I am shrinking. Stores need to learn that it lowers my self-esteem when I have to buy short jeans but then to buy EXTRA SHORT (and they are still a few inches long) just damages me completely. It was a sad day in my life.

Long time comin'

Well, due to technology issues (my power cord blew up) as well as midterms and school, I have failed with blogging lately. As I was reading the other night about Moses dividing the Red Sea, I kept thinking about miracles. God performed so many miracles in the Old Testament including the burning bush, saving Daniel in the lion's den and protecting Joseph from the law. I was pondering all of these events in the Old Testament and realized it is the same God today as it was in the times of the Old Testament. If there is a God that could save the slaves out of Egypt, rescue Moses from the river and allow a barren woman, Sarah, to deliver a son in her old age, then there is a God today that can perform miracles today. I have witnessed miracles and truly know they continue to happen just as they did in the Bible. Miracles come in all sizes: small, large, quiet and loud (such as a baby crying in the night). I am grateful to know that our God is powerful and truly a God of Miracles.

Now, aside from my thoughts of the Old Testament, I have been up to a lot in my life lately. School is done in about a month now and then I come home for three weeks in May. Anatomy is finishing up thank goodness! I am looking to next semester's classes as I have NO lab classes! Some friends from church and I went hiking in the snow about a week ago, which was quite fun and adventurous. I will post pictures later...

A day late...

I've been thinking a lot about faith lately and the importance of it on my life. I am so thankful I had the faith to ask questions when investigating the Church. I am grateful that I have the faith now to ask the Lord questions that enter my mind and the knowledge and understanding I have that answers will come. This week in Genesis, I read about what happens when someone is weak in faith.
"And told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt. And Jacob's heart fainting, for he believed them not.
And they told him all the words of Jospeh, which he had said unto them: and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived." (Gen. 45:26-27)
Jacob/Israel didn't believe the words his sons spoke to him but the moment he saw Joseph's wagon, his spirit "was revived." I think it is amazing that many people (including myself) won't believe something until they actually see it. But with so many things in this world, we have to rely on God. I never saw the First Vision take place but I know, through faith, that is it true. I don't need to see it. I am grateful that I don't need to see everything in order to believe it is true.

How Do You Spend Your Day?

Brigham Young once said, “Life is best enjoyed when time periods are evenly divided between labor, sleep, and recreation…all people should spend one-third of their time in recreation which is rebuilding, voluntary activity, never idleness.”

He further explained that having 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work and 8 hours of recreation each day makes your life have meaning. As I've been reading the Old Testament, I think a lot about how the people filled their days. For them, there was no texting, calling, emailing or blogging. This past week, I decided to look at my time and how I utilized it to see if I fit what President Brigham Young urged us to do. Here are the results:

Sleep: 37% I slept for about 62 hours of my week. How can I do that and still feel exhausted today? That is nearly three days out of seven!
Church: 8%
Getting Ready: 4%
Eating: 7%
Class: 9% It seems like so much more than that.
Study: 16%
Socializing: 8% I even had a bunch of people over last night and it still is quite sad.
TV watching: 3%
Work: 5%
Service: 3%
I then placed those things in three categories: Sleep, Work/School and Recreation and added up percentages. According to President Young, they should all be even around 33%. Here are my results
Sleep 37%
Work/School 33%
Recreation 30%
I am closer than I thought I would be. I just need to increase my recreation time, which should be easy to do as I am recreation major!

Blessings of Being Prepared

Continuing on with the Old Testament this week, I read about the whole situation with Joseph and his brothers. Joseph is cast off into prison and there he interprets dreams. Eventually he is able to interpret the Pharaoh's dream about the seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Because Joseph could prophesy of this, it allowed the people to gather and store food during the plentiful years so when the famine came, they were able to survive. Not everyone listened and followed this. Ironically, the many brothers of Joseph who wanted to slay him needed food during the famine and their father, Jacob tells them to collect food from their own brother in Egypt.
Now, the prophets and leaders of our Church today tell us to be prepared for emergencies and even more stress food storage. I think the story of Joseph stands as a testimony of how important those principles are. We have been told to store food and be prepared for emergencies just like Joseph was told through the dreams of Pharoah. Because Joseph prepared not only himself but the nation, he and others were blessed.

Aside from reading the Old Testament, this week was filled with memorizing all 489 terms for my anatomy midterm tomorrow (yep I counted them). So if you ever have a question about which muscles insert on the intertubercular groove in your humerus, you can ask me!

The Fall

So to start off strong with this new goal of mine, here is my first blog.

These past few days, I read the beginning of Genesis, which tells the story of creation, the Fall, the flood and some other things. It was delight to read them this week.

But I wanted to focus on one thing in my blog. That is the Fall and when Satan enters the Garden of Eden to tempt Eve to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. This time around, I read it and this question came to my mind: Was Satan aware that he played a crucial part in the plan of salvation?

Allow me to explain. Sin had to occur in the Garden of Eden in order for Jesus Christ to become the Savior of the World. So Satan did that; he brought sin into the Garden and essentially into our lives. It was crucial for that to happen. So my question/thought is: Did Satan know he was bringing to pass the work of God? He rebelled against God in the war in Heaven and would nevver want to do anything that would please our Heavenly Father. I spoke to a leader at my church about this and he helped me with a few things. He explained that there must be opposition to all things and that Satan wants us to be miserable just like he is for all of eternity. Satan probably did not realize that by tempting Eve he was assisting in the plan of salvation but rather God knew the characteristics and desires of Satan's heart and knew Satan's power. God, being all-knowing, used that to His good.

It made me think a lot about the power of our Heavenly Father and how much He loves us. It also reminded me of the manipulative power of Satan and how he actively tries to, through sin, make us as miserable as we can be.

To make this post worth it even more, here is a picture of something I thought was cute.

Casie's Goal

Today, while waiting at the doctor's office, I picked up the January issue of Friend and browsed through it. I read an article entitled, Amy's Goal (click to read the article). And the idea came into my mind that if an eight year old could do that, so could I. I have the read the Bible multiple times but never cover to cover. So for the next (insert the time you think it might take to read it), I will blog weekly about one lesson I learn through reading the Bible. It begins tonight, right after I finally finish studying at the library and studying the brain in anatomy!