Spilled Milk: a lesson on Murphy's Law

Hiya friends!

Want to know something awesome?!

I locked my phone and my keys in my car...

What? That's not awesome you say?

I guess your right.

So if any of you lovely people try to text or call me and I don't respond don't be offended. I promise I don't hate you and I'm not ignoring you.

This last week I was able to go hang out with my family on the Oregon Coast. It was buckets of fun and thanks to Murphy's Law none of my pictures from my fancy pants camera will upload. And also thanks to Murphy's Law, my phone with the rest of my pictures is locked in the car.

It's kind of a Murphy's Law day.

Murphy's Law states that 

"Everything that can go wrong will go wrong." 

(Look teacher! I do pay attention in school!)

So I guess you'll have to survive with only the pictures that I've already uploaded to Instagram.

I was on this rode, therefor, there were more Whits on this Whitmore Road.

We found a tiny door at Burger King. #shortpeopleequality

Dad is livin' so big he hit his head on the midget door. Way to live big dad. We're proud of you. #LiveBig2014

Finally found a door my size!

lots of fast food

Portland Temple!

Beach Sistas

Required handstand picture.

Life is best when it looks like this.

So in the spirit of "everything that can go wrong will" lets talk about Murphy's Law. Murphy's Law means that all the bad things that can possibly happen to you will. HowStuffWorks.com states that "it may just be right. This isn't because of some mysterious power the law possesses. In reality, it's us who give Murphy's Law relevance. When life goes well, little is made of it. After all, we expect that things should work out in our favor. But when things go badly, we look for reasons."

What? It's my fault everything seems to have gone wrong this morning? No, but its my fault if I decide to dwell on it.

As we go through life we focus on all the bad things. The keys locked in car, the photos that won't upload, the frustrations with work, the million responsibilities we are trying to juggle, all the people texting you wanting your time that you don't have, the car accidents, the failed attempts, the tight money, the medical problems, the spilled milk.

These things happen to everybody.

But while we are focusing on the spilled milk we sometimes forget the milk that's still in the glass.

Murphy's Law is only relevant if we let it be.

Look down at your hands for a second and think about all the wonderful things they have done since you woke up this morning. They have probably done at least a few of these; made you food, brushed your teeth, combed your hair, drove your car, shook hands with someone, gave someone a highfive, picked something up, set something down, typed something awesome, scrolled through the internet, hit like on some social media site, played a musical instrument, pushed play on a movie, done pushups, done pullups, honked your horn, cleaned your house, opened a door, clicked on my blog, or maybe turned on some music.

Now, That's only a few seconds of thinking about the awesome things your hands can do. And this list is limited to one body part. Now think of all the awesome things in your feet, your mouth, and your brain. Think of all the things outside your body that are awesome. The list would never end. These things your hands did this morning are all remarkable amazing features that you have been blessed with the ability to do. But when you did any of these this morning did you think "Oh, it's so awesome that I can do that?"

Probably not.

As humans we expect only good things to happen to us, and we therefor, only notice when bad things happen. While what we should be doing is focusing on all the good things.

Hiliary Weeks, an astounding LDS singer and speaker, once talked and sang at a concert I went to. She talked about an experiment she conducted that resulted in the creation of her site billionclicks.org.

She had heard that on average the human things around 300 negative thoughts a day. She wanted to know if this was true so she decided to test it. She got one of these clickers and clicked it every time she thought a negative thought through the day.

Pretty soon she noticed that she was focusing on, and looking for all the bad things. She started to become depressed and was having a hard time focusing on the good things in life.

This is exactly what Murphy's Law is. Focusing on bad things until they are the only thing you can see.

She wondered if this same experiment would work the other way. If focusing on bad made her sad, would focusing on good make her happy?

She also tested this and it worked! By focusing on only good thoughts she soon had a new attitude about life. Things suddenly became better and all she did was change her thoughts.

When I heard this I decided I wanted to try it myself. I bout a clicker and I tested this experiment and am proud to say that it works! Now, this morning I wasn't thinking about this and was trying to figure out why everything was going wrong. When I realized that in reality, everything was going right. As soon as I changed my outlook on my day things got a whole lot better.

Since Murphy's law makes us sad, let's make up a new law that will make us happy. Let's call it Happy's Law.

There are so many good things in our lives right in front of our noses. We just have to open our eyes to see them.

So here's to the person who locked her keys in the car. Don't focus on the spilled milk, but the milk that's still in the glass.






feel my sunlight




p.s.  Thanks to too much spam comments I had to change my settings so that I have to approve comments that are posted. So if your comment doesn't show up right away don't fret! It will! Keep the comments coming! I love them!

p.s.s.I only have a year left of High School. I only have a year left of tumbling, and only a year left until I go on a mission. That's a crazy thought!

Meet the conditions

Today was a sad day for my sport. The World Games are underway in Cali, Columbia (for those of you who don't know, the World Games are the equivalent to the Olympics for non-Olympic sports.) Due to circumstances regarding safety the FIG (International Federation of Gymnastics) has requested a waiver to be signed, and the US has refused to sign it because it puts the athletes at high risk, and therefor, the US has been forced to pull out of the World Games It is very sad for me to think of all the work that these athletes have put into this sport, only to be pulled out at the last second. {Read more about what happened HERE.}

Now all this EFY, relate it to the gospel, lifesaver stuff made me think "what in our lives are stopping us from signing our waiver to allow us to enter the Temple?" I know this is a stretch, but bear with me.

In our lives we all have the goal of the temple, yet there are things that could stand in our way from being able to sign our "waiver" or our temple recommend. These conditions (temple recommend interview questions) if not met would force the bishop to have to refuse our participation in temple ordinances.

I now challenge you to "meet the conditions"

To me "meeting the conditions" doesn't mean do as little as you possibly can, but enough to still make it. It means strive to be your very best so that when the time comes there is absolutely no question as to weather or not you are fit to enter into his kingdom. "Meeting the conditions" does not mean you train like you are going to the "spooky spectacular", but to the World Games. "Meeting the conditions" means you are anxiously engaged in a good cause, and are in constant prayer with your Father in Heaven. It means that you study and love your scriptures, and you apply them often. It means you attend church, and you pay attention. It means you give 110% in your callings and you look for opportunities to serve. It means you are a good example and you let your light shine. It means you strive to be perfect, but because none of us are, you recognize your faults and you work at making them better. It means rising to the occasion.

Now since none of us are perfect and we all slip up sometimes there should be no way we would be able to sign our "waiver". But we have been given a mediator, a person who will sign the parts we can't sign as long as we have done what we must do for him to sign them. Through the Atonement Jesus Christ has taken all of our hurts, our trials, and our heart aches and has suffered that we might not have to suffer. Our sins are taken from us when we repent and they are remembered no more. Through him we are able to be made clean again and are able to sign our waiver allowing us to enter into his Kingdom.

I have a testimony of the Atonement and I know Jesus Christ suffered for all my sins and heart aches. He knows what I have been through, and if we call out his name he is more than willing to reach down and lift us up out of the water, no matter how deep we are sinking.




Feel my Sunlight



p.s. I feel like if my life were a movie this would be the part of the movie where they show a montage of me staring out of the window of a car dramatically with clips of me going back to normal life while they play the song Home by Michael Buble. It feels fitting.
p.s.s. post-EFY-withdrawls stink! Lets go back.
p.s.s.s. Going back to the gym is hard. But it feels so good. <3 I love my team!

soap and lifesavers

The cutest group of girls that you ever did see.

Well, I am done with EFY for this year and let me tell you it has been fantastic! Now, I won't say it has been the best two weeks of my life because I was told that I should make the week after EFY even better. That is a hard challenge because EFY pretty much rocks, but I accept it.

Now, I won't give you a layout to what happened each day this week because that's not the message I want to share, but I will share with you what I feel upon coming home. I have met so many awesome people this year who have changed my life for the better. I feel blessed, I feel loved, I fill lifted, I feel cleaner, and I feel stronger.
I feel cleaner and more refined in this world of dirt and I feel a need to hand out my "soap" to the world and invite others to use it. These scriptures have been my soap from this week. Learn and love them. {And Amberleigh, that soap analogy was for you. *lifesaver!*}

Today I found a reminder that I need to be careful. Today I discovered that our new search engine on our laptop is called "babylon" Now, this reminded me that while there can be good found on the internet, there is enough bad to equal Babylon and that we must be careful if we don't want our language {or our internet} confounded. I laughed at this, but marveled at its truth. I have already seen the powerful workings of the adversary on Pinterest today and can see that if we aren't paying attention and watching ourselves, how quickly he could pull us down.  {*lifesaver* to the internet for that analogy!}

But I have also seen good in the world today. I discovered that the first presidency and the quorum of the 12 now have Facebook pages and I liked every one of them. If you are my friend on Facebook expect some scripture love to flood your feed. Today I used the internet to read a blog post about Lemons that I just loved, and I have also used the internet to watch the Emma Smith movie via Netflix and totally recommend you all go watch it! This just goes to show that there is opposition in all things, and that it is our decision on how we want to use it. Choose wisely.

Now my lovely neighbor just brought us cookies with chocolate chips AND m&m's in them for no particular reason. What a "zion like" thing to do. I don't know about you but that makes me want to go do something good. What are you going to do?



Feel my Sunlight



p.s. EFY, Nationals, Trek, EFY, 4th year hike, girls camp, tumbling camp. Can summer get better? I submit that it cannot.

p.s.s. There are more EFY pictures to come later. :)

p.s.s.s. Just so you know, the term "lifesaver* refers to the fact that every time you came up with an analogy for the gospel at EFY our lovely counselor Amberleigh would throw you a lifesaver. Analogies = Lifesavers