Sacrifice and Success

On Sunday I shared the difficult experience I had after my mission of feeling like I had truly done my best. (If you want the full story you can ask me all about it.) But the short story is that I basically gave myself such high expectations that I knew I would never ever be able to reach them no matter how perfect I attempted to be. When I had my exit interview with the mission president I was asked, "Did you do your best?" (He had already prepped us in various conferences telling us that when he asked that question and we answered "yes" it would help us transition back to non-missionary life.) When I answered my "yes", because I knew that that was the expected answer, I felt like I was lying because I was in my mind thinking of all the ways I could have done better. I could have talked to more people on the street everyday; I could have contacted men more; I could have talked to more people on the bus/trams; I could have worked on "P-days"; I could have been more bold; or not been discouraged; or happy to come in at night. Actually, I could go on and on about how I could have been better. It later took me over a year to finally feel like I had served a good mission and that God was happy with me.

When I checked my email Sunday night I had an email from our former Stake President and Area Authority Seventy that is now working in the Single's Ward. He sent me a talk called On Sacrifice and Success which was given by John Tanner, the chair of the BYU English Department for the Humanities Convocation address in 2003. Here are my favorite parts:

So while I hope you succeed in your righteous desires, I also hope you won't measure yourself exclusively by your successes and failures. God's words to Oliver Granger remind us that we are more than our résumés, GPAs, salaries, and scholarships. What endears us to heaven is our sincere sacrifice; our sincere efforts to love God and our neighbor are sacred. The Almighty does not require success, but he does require sacrifice.

Consider Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego: They knew God had the power to save them from the fiery furnace. They also knew the outcome was in his hands. Their concern was for righteousness, not its results. Hence, they defied King Nebuchadnezzar with bold indifference to the consequences: "If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace. . . . But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image" (Dan. 3:17–18). Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego were spared martyrdom. But they stand in the same position before God as Abinadi, who was not spared a fiery death. From an eternal perspective, the outcome is irrelevant. What is sacred is the readiness, not the result; the sacrifice, not the success.

I don't know if I would have listened to the advice when coming to terms with my mission, but I definitely think it can help me feel good about other church service or other new projects I tackle in my life.

6 days

In less than a week I will be waking up in my new house in Arlington getting ready to go find a job. Excited and nervous, but more excited.

Addendum: Arlington is in Virginia. And is a suburb of DC.

Clams and Lobstah

I ate real lobster for the first time last week in Maine. And by real lobster I mean lobster straight out of the shell, not a lobster roll, or lobster added to a dish or anything like that. We stopped at a lobster shack that had six brick water boilers outside and walked in looking clueless into the shop. My dad told the guy we wanted lobster. The guy smiled and opened a huge cooler full of live lobsters. He pulled out two one and a half pound lobsters, their little legs and antenae things wiggling around, and weighed them before putting them in a a net bag and handing them to the boy working (who wore a Polish soccer team shirt and when I talked to him later, in Polish I might add, that he is living and working in Maine for the summer) to boil. It was kind of sad to think about the poor innocent lobster that were about to take their deadly jacuzzi bath, but while we waited for our lobster to be done we ordered steamed clams, a lot of steamed clams. Here are some pictures of our seafood (not "see- food") experience:

My dad was really excited about all the food, the clams and later the lobster. My sisters didn't like them much but ate them anyway. Emma wouldn't hardly eat any of them she thought it was too gross. I thought they were good though, but most things are good when they're dipped in butter. Paula Deen would be proud.

These pictures show us trying to eat/shell the lobster. My dad breaking the claws, me tearing the tail off, trying to get the meat out of the tail, and taking off the small legs to get the meat out. I couldn't help thinking that there was meat everywhere in those things!

While we were eating we had lots of stares, a couple friendly pointers and questions about it being our first time eating lobster. How could they tell? The fact that we were taking pictures? Or the fact that we were slightly grossed out by the green liver? Or the loud level of speech? Either way, it was fun and lobster is really tasty. But I'll keep buying it the easy way, already shelled.

Dey aww fo

Last night we pulled drove into Halifax around 6:45pm. We were just excited that we were getting in early enough and in a city big enough to finally see Harry Potter. As we pulled into a cute hotel on the water we were given horrible news: the Annual Tall Ships festival, a KISS concert, and a big Jazz festival all taking place this weekend. There were NO hotels. We drove around Halifax and up to surrounding smaller cities looking for hotels and were given the same news at them all. Finally we got of the freeway in Lower Sackville. We were really optimistic that we would find both a movie theater and a hotel. Movie theater, check. (We got really giddy when we saw that there was a movie starting in an hour. Perfect.) Shady motel to the left, check. (We stupidly assumed that because it was a gross motel it would have available rooms. Wrong.) As my mom returned from the motel she told us that the only information she got was from a Chinese lady who didn't speak English well. All she said to my mom as she walked in was: Dey aww fo. (They're all full.) As we drove to hotel to hotel each receiving suggestions to try other hotels. We decided to try and get as far away from Halifax as we could (but we still wanted to be within reasonable driving distance for church and the city for today's touring). We found the Inn on the Lake which had a No Vacancy sign up but we decided to ask for some help (it was now 9:30, we had been looking for almost three hours). The guy at the front desk told us that there was actually one room left: the executive suite--a two storied apartment with a Murphy bed (one of the ones that falls down out of the wall) and a king size bed, a jacuzzi bathtub, and two bathrooms. Pretty much the poshiest room in the place. My dad, tired of driving around, and my mom, stressed that we wouldn't find a place and it was getting late decided to take it in desperation. We ordered pizza and drank an entire liter of root beer. Perfectly fitting for our posh hotel room.

Canada updates

So we spent the first two days in Montreal and then headed down to Maine. Today we are in New Brunswick and are taking the ferry (but we keep referring to it as the farie) across to Nova Scotia. Here are some Montreal pictures:

Pictures on top of the St. Joseph Oratorio. The sign says something like, reserved for people climbing on their knees.
(A French speaker could translate. I'm too lazy to ask my sisters right now too.)

Bread and cheese and jam lunch in the park, and overlook in Montreal.

Monastery outside Magog

Vancouver

So I mentioned that I wouldn't be blogging. Circumstanced changed and now I have my computer with me so that we could make sure the missionaries got their letters this week and next week.

We left for Portland yesterday to catch a flight to Vancouver, BC and then a connection to Montreal. We didn't make it out of Portland until this evening. The drive to Portland usually takes two hours but took four because of some freak bad traffic. (We couldn't figure out why the traffic was so bad, we couldn't see an accident.) So after calling the airlines from the car because there was no way we were going to make it in time for our flight, we got the same plans for the following evening. We are now in Vancouver and about to get on our red-eye flight to Montreal. Have I ever mentioned that I hate airplanes? I can't sleep on them. I hate red-eyes and I know I'm going to be cranky tomorrow because I'm only going to get four-ish hours of sleep. And I've realized in past years that I need seven hours of sleep to function and nine hours to be happy.

I hope you have a good day, good sleep and think of me when you wake from sweet slumbers in the morning and my headache, backache and swollen feel I'll probably have after the flight!

Oh Canada!

I'm going to Canada tomorrow. Montreal, Quebec City, PEI, Nova Scotia. I can't wait. I'll be gone for two weeks, so don't plan on hearing from me until I get back. Then I'll probably come back and want to blog about the trip but be so busy that I won't be able to do it because after I get back, I have one week till I move to DC!

I started a new book today: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It's so hilarious. Kind of weird, but hilarious. It takes the original text and then adds zombie stuff to it. The authors are, Jane Austen (obviously) and Seth Grahame-Smith. I'll let you know if I completely recommend it when I finish it but so far so good. Here's an excerpt:

"Then, Mr. Darcy," observed Elizabeth, "you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman."

"A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing and the modern languages: she must be well trained in the fighting styles of the Kyoto masters and the modern tactics and weaponry of Europe. And besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved. all this she must possess, and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."

And I learned a valuable lesson today: Never go to a wedding without a date.

Yosemite. Long over due.

I'm having a really hard time blogging right now for some reason. I think all the time, "Oh! That would be really good to blog about." And then when it comes down to it nothing really gets done. So I'll just leave you with a few pictures of Yosemite despite wanting to blog about the epiphany I had while there. Maybe I'll save that for an I-feel-like-being-a-deep-blogger day.

Hike to Vernal Falls (with the falls in the background)

Nevada Falls

Hetch Hetchy (this is the reservoir that supplies water to San Fransisco-we may or may not have spit in it-don't ask me why)

Pretty little meadow on the way back from Hetch Hetchy. I can't think of meadows without saying it loud and high like Bambi.

Hopefully I'll feel inspired to write tomorrow. I want to write about the book I finished a week and a half ago that I can't stop thinking about. The Book Thief.