"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." -Plato

The other day I was at the gym coaching one of my little competitive tumbling teams. This team likes to give me grief every now and then and on this particular night they were having an especially difficult time.

They were having a really hard time listening to and following directions. Their attitudes were out the window and every few minutes I had another kid in tears for menial reasons. And as every minute passed I felt my blood boil more as I started to slip into what I call "strict coach mode." Pretty soon everything they did made me mad and I stopped being their friend and started being their dictator.

I had about had it.

It was at this point that one of my seven year old students flopped on the ground wailing about how he couldn't do a back handspring the way he wanted to as tears streamed down his face. This was probably the fifth tear episode from the class and the second one from him in about 20 minutes.

I swallowed everything inside of me that wanted to yell at him and say "get up. you're fine. stop crying." and I pulled him aside and sat him down on the edge of the tumbling floor. I knelt down on his level and put my hands on his knees and said "buddy... how come everything is making us so upset today?"

I expected to him wail back at me something about me and my coaching. I expected him to complain about how he didn't like what I was making him do or something along those lines.

His response shocked me.

He looked up at me with tears pooling from his eyes and said "I got in a fight with my mom on the before tumbling today. She was yelling at me and it hurt my feelings. I just can't stop thinking about it."

It had nothing to do with back handsprings, or tumbling, or my coaching. It had everything to do with what this little boy was experiencing in his life.

So I asked him to tell me more. I just sat and listened and didn't say anything. I just let him talk. After a few minutes of him telling me this story he wiped away the tears and I asked him if he felt better. He nodded and I said "should we get up and try our back handsprings again?" and sure enough he popped right up and did his back handsprings perfectly.

So often in our lives we interact with people without really taking the time to know what's really going on behind the curtain. We judge them for the things they say or do and we don't take into consideration the fact that there might be more to it than meets the eye. And even worse, we interpret their actions to have something to do with us. As if they don't like us or they have a problem with us, when in reality, most of the time it has nothing to do with us.

There is a quote that keeps coming to my head every time I think about this experience that says

"Be Kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." -Plato.

Isn't this just the truest statement?

So since then I've made an effort to take this philosophy into the other classes I teach. I've made an effort to take the time to talk to each child during class to ask them about school and their families and different parts of their lives. I've been amazed at how much just a little kindness makes in someones life. I've been so surprised by how the children have responded to this small gesture of listening. During one of my classes this week one of my small quiet girls ran up to me and gave me the biggest hug and whispered "we are going to be best friends, okay?" I know she never would have done that had I not taken the time to show her I wanted to be her friend first.

And I've also noticed how much of a difference the little kind acts of others have made in my own life. I've noticed myself become physically happier when I walk into work and my boss takes the time to say hi to me, or when I walk into one of my school classes and the girl sitting next to me takes the time to ask me how my weekend was, or when the random friend snapchats me to ask me how I'm doing because he hasn't heard from me in a while. All of these things have made such an impact on my life and sometimes I don't even notice it.

Kindness is real. You might not be able to change the world, but you have the power to change someones world with just one small act of kindness.

So there's some food for thought for your day today. Take the a minute to consider the people in your life and your current relationship you have with them. Are you taking the time to listen to their stories? Are you talking the time to be kind to them? Because I promise you, it will make a world of difference.

My friends, don't forget to be kind today.

-Whit

glorious

 Oh my! Life is beautiful; busy, but beautiful. Life is glorious.

Remember when my mom was a rather popular DIY blogger before she dropped off the face of blog land? (Seriously... Check out this post from back in 2008 when I wore super cute scrunchies and my mom taught me how to install door frames. This is quality stuff.) Anyways, since my mom doesn't post her fancy projects anymore I thought I would. Her latest included a re-painted kitchen table, as well as several re-painted kitchen chairs in various colors. I'm kinda obsessed with the whole miss-matched color thing so I dragged them all outside and stacked them on top of each other. The pictures above are the result.

Life as been a serious balancing act reticently (see what I did there?!), and by "balancing act" I mean there are SO MANY awesome things happening that they are hard to handle. But somehow I've managed to keep them all stacked in such a way that they have created quite the entertaining spectacle.

This past week has been so crazy. When you can say you went to a homecoming football game, went zip lining, watched conference (which deserves it's very own blog post, so stay tuned), went to school, coached 9 tumbling classes, had three meetings, learned about velocity-time graphs, the primary colors of physics, and jig lines, began filming a campaign video for mock elections in Government, started applications for college, and created a video game all in the same week you know you have a busy life. And oh how I'm glad it's the weekend and that my only tasks for the rest of the day is to finish this blog post and buy myself a new journal.

Me, my cute friends, and our awesome guides after zip lining on Saturday!

So life is busy. But it is so so beautiful.

One of the most beautiful moments of the week was yesterday when my 9 year old sister asked me what the word "apostasy" meant. So I taught her the first discussion from Preach My Gospel. #BOOMBOOMPOW

This was seriously so cool for me. I have practiced teaching this discussion so many times in my mission prep class, but I have never actually taught it to someone that wasn't just pretending not to know the answers. It was such a real missionary discussion, yet it was extra special because she is my baby sister. I am defiantly going to love the missionary life when it calls.

My second beautiful moment came when I asked one of my tumbling classes what they thought I should be for haloween when one of my 3 year old students shouted "PINK PRINCESS UNICORN KITTY!" I think I might just have to do that.

So I'd say it was a successful week! Long and brutal yes, but also glorious.





feel my sunlight


p.s. Isn't David Archuleta just the coolest? That song is from the movie Meet the Mormons that premiered in theaters TODAY! I can't wait to go see it!
p.s.s. For those of you who don't know. I am a Mormon. Nice to meet you!

autumn is my favorite holiday

Happy October!

On Sunday all the Laurels in my ward were piled in a car on our way to visit a one of our wonderful girls who wasn't at church. While riding in the car we were discussing how much we liked autumn when one of the girls said "fall is my favorite holiday" meaning to say "fall is my favorite season." We laughed hard and later decided that fall was defiantly a holiday. Therefore it should be celebrated.

I love fall. Not in the stereotypical pumpkin-spice-everything-loving-white-girl kinda way, but more in the I've-been-living-on-this-earth-for-18-years-and-have-never-noticed-how-pretty-changing-leaves-are-until-now kinda way, which is why I've reticently created a Pinterest board titled "Autumn is my favorite holiday" which makes me so darn happy and boy am I itching for some fall photo sessions! And I'm also lovin' fall in the man-all-these-bloggers-are-going-on-cool-fall-adventures-I-want-an-adventure-kinda-way. And to satisfy that need I am going zip lining this weekend and I can't even stand how excited I am!

And oh how exciting this moment in time is for so many reasons. I love how the change in seasons always brings so much excitement. Here is my list of excitings for the foreseeable future. (yes, I did just decide to turn 'exciting' into a noun... deal with it.)

1. Homecoming Football Game this Friday!! Always an exciting thing about fall.
2. Zip lining on Saturday. Happy birthday to me!
3. General Conference. What?! That is this week?! You bet it is! Conference is my very most favorite thing ever. (It is equivalent to Christmas.) Y'all had better watch it!
4. Meet the Mormons. That cool new movie that is coming out on October 10th about those people called the Mormons (hint hint I'm a "Mormon"). I can't wait to see this movie and for the world to see just what the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints (aka the Mormons) is all about! Check out this awesome movie trailer!



5.Witch Fest at Gardner Village. Seriously the best part of Halloween.
6. Food. The food is always better when it's cold outside.
7. Family and friends. Because I'm really enjoying the people around me right now. People are really great.


So I'm excited for fall and life is awesome. What else is new?



feel my sunlight



p.s. If you haven't checked out this yet... you should. It's going to be awesome. I'll share more about it later.

P.s.s. Even though it's fall I'm wearing flip flops today... Because a little piece of my heart still wants summer.