Easter

Here comes a long post. Stick with it. It's good :)

This Easter season has been a wonderful time.

I don't think I have ever really thought about the meaning of Easter before. I mean, I have always known it's about Jesus Christ and His resurrection, but it just hasn't really been a big holiday for me. Definitely not as big as Christmas. After this year, I decided it should be.

What is Easter really about?
Well, what it comes down to is love.

Christ, in His infinite love for us, suffered and died for our sins and pains. This merciful act satisfied the demands of justice that would otherwise constrain us from coming back to live with our Father in Heaven. If not for Christ, we would have no hope for eternal life. We would be stuck in endless misery because we are not perfect. If we come unto Him and try to live our lives after the pattern He has set, we can gain eternal life.

Because Christ was resurrected, we too can be resurrected. This is also a symbol of Christ and Heavenly Father's love. We can be resurrected and have perfect bodies and be with our families in eternity.

Now, this is about to be a slight change of thoughts. As I was thinking about the meaning of Easter, I wondered why we have the Easter bunny and candy and eggs and stuff. How does that relate to the real meaning? It feels sacrilegious to celebrate the holiday both ways (I also have opinions about Santa too that I struggle with around Christmastime). Anyway, I grew up with the Easter bunny coming on Saturday so it didn't distract the real meaning on the Sunday. Ben grew up with it on Sunday, so it's been a little debate as we try to decide what to do with our own family.

It hit me today, that if we can tie the elements of the world's way of celebrating to the Christian way, it works. So, as I was pondering, I decided at least for this year that I am hiding Ben's Easter basket and celebrating with candy and eggs today because I LOVE HIM. I have been so excited to hide his basket and watch him search for it because I love him and it's a fun thing to do. So, we did do that today.

Ben, knowing that I wanted it to be spiritual, planned a great thing for my basket (which I wish I had thought of myself). While he did have candy in there for me (and a necklace with an infinity loop on it), he also had an egg with a scripture in it. We read the scripture together, then there was a keyword that led me to where another egg was hidden with another scripture and so on until I found a letter with his testimony of Christ in it. YES, LADIES, HE IS TAKEN. It was beautiful. The most beautiful Easter-egg hunt I have ever experienced.

 He found his basket...

 A spider-man yo-yo? Seriously. 

Yes, Ben. I did put that in it :)

 I found mine too!

 The infinity necklace and my first scripture clue.

I also want to share this thing that my grandma gave me today that explains how the worldly things fit in to Easter.

"The word Easter comes from Eastre, the name of the Anglo-Saxon goddess of Spring, also meaning 'to rise.' Her symbol was the hare. Rabbits are known for the many babies they bare. They remind us of new life. This explains the custom of the Easter bunny delivering Easter eggs. What the rabbit is really delivering is the message of Christ's rebirth.


"The egg is a symbol of the tomb where Jesus laid. So it was on that glorious Easter morn, the stone was rolled away, and from the tomb Jesus arose from the dead. The miracle of Jesus rising from death to new life is the great message of Easter.


"The Easter basket symbolizes Christ carrying our burdens, our sins. If we just repent and follow Him.


"A beautiful part of Easter are the flowers. A lifeless looking bulb is buried in the earth. Soon a lovely white Easter lily grows and blossoms. Any flower that grows from a bulb such as a tulip or daffodil is a symbol of the resurrection. The bulb stands for the tomb of Jesus, the blossom--His life after death.


"A new bonnet or new clothes for Easter Sunday has meaning also. When people were baptized long ago, they wore a new fresh robe afterwards. Wearing a new Sunday outfit is a symbol of taking off the old and putting on the new.


"Painted eggs, bunnies, new born chicks, lambs, white lilies, and new clothes. All these stand for Easter, each in a different way. And they help us to remember that all of the beautiful things of spring and new life point tot he testimony of Christ's rebirth.


"Let us all rejoice in His resurrection by living a life of happiness and joy which we can have as we share our love for one another by being kind, loving and doing service for others."

When I read this, I was in love. I don't know where it came from or if the goddess thing is true. I didn't research it. But it makes sense, and it makes me feel better about the world-traditions for Easter when I understand the symbolism behind it. Even though many people probably forget the symbolism, this will stick with me, and I hope to teach my kids the real meaning of Easter. I hope they can understand it and love it as much as I do.

I loved thinking about Christ so much, and I really internalized the hymns and stuff we sang. I can't wait for most Easters like this one. 

Happy Easter, everyone!

Triathlon time!

We registered for the Aqua Triathlon. Hopefully this will go better than when we trained for the half marathon right before we got married. We are really excited! Partially just because it's cool, but also because this symbolizes the progress my back has made, and we can do physical activities together again! My chiropractor told me if I wanted, I could just go do a triathlon tomorrow. That's ridiculous. I would definitely not do that. But it gives me so much hope that in six months, I will be healthy enough to do this! Let the training begin :)

ps, click on the link if you are interested. Anyone is welcome to join us in this endeavor!

White Tie Ball

Saturday we attended the White Tie Ball, hosted by BYU Women's Services. It was dinner, a presentation about fighting against violence (specifically, abuse against women), a performance by Alex Boye', and dancing. There was also a very powerful art display--photography of people who have been hurt by violence (Elizabeth Smart, a Holocaust survivor, and many more), and their stories. We was deeply touched. Many of the stories also talked about the person's faith in God and how that helped them through the awful situations they went through. It made me more grateful for what I have, and it helped me have a better perspective on my own life.

For those of you who don't know who Alex Boye' is, look him up. He has such powerful music. He is an LDS artist, and he sings with such soul and power. He is both Ben's and my favorite gospel artist. We were so lucky to have the opportunity to meet him! He is a very heartwarming, spiritual person.

I am so glad we went to the White Tie Ball. We learned a lot and felt the spirit very strongly.

Lessons Learned While Being Sick

This week has been the week of sickness for Ben and me. Last Wednesday, Ben got sick. It was pretty much a really bad sinus infection, possibly the flu though. He hasn't been able to taste food for days because of how bad his sinuses were clogged. I made some pretty awesome dinners over the weekend that will have to be repeated apparently because his mouth had "the sense that it tasted good," but he couldn't quite taste it. Lol. Anyway, now I am sick. With the flu or food poisoning. It's pretty bad. I haven't been this sick since I had mono in high school.

The point is, I had Ben give me a blessing last night in the midst of my trips to the bathroom. Something really struck me. Before I asked him, I was thinking to myself, do I have the faith to be healed? Yes, but I'm not sure if He will heal me. But I went with my faith to be healed and asked for a blessing. Of course, God won't heal us all the time (I, of all people, should know that) because there is something to learn. In the blessing, He told me to take advantage of this opportunity to be grateful for my health.

It got me thinking. As I have healed from my back and neck injuries, I have kind of taken the healing process for granted. I have thought, "I deserve to have good health" because of how much my body has gone through, then I get mad when I have setbacks. So, as I am sick, I have thought a lot about how grateful I am to have good health most of the time. I am a healthy person. I exercise, I eat right (most of the time), and most of the time I can afford to buy the fruits and vegetables I want to eat. I don't get sick too often. So I really am blessed that overall, I am a healthy person. I am also blessed to have a home and a husband who loves me. I can't imagine being sick and not having a home. Or having only one pair of clothes to wear. Or just being outside, sick, in this cold weather. I'm lucky I have a home. And Ben has taken such good care of me. He borrowed movies from our neighbor and watched the Incredibles with me. He went to the store at 10 pm to get sprite and herbal tea for me. If I were alone, being sick would be a lot harder.

Thanks to Pres. Monson's ABCs from the January Ensign, I have been really working on being optimistic and having a good attitude. I am grateful for the many blessings I have in my life. These ones I have named are just a simple few.  

I win

Friday. I came home from a busy day of work and school excited for the date night that Ben had planned. After all day of anticipating, I finally got home and walked down our little stairs to this:

I win. I have the best husband in the world!

Now that school is started

...our lives are crazy once again. No more of the blissful days spent with family and friends. No, we are crazy and busy, and trying to love every second of it.

I am enrolled in my last semester of classes. I student teach in the fall. This semester is happy-sad for me. I'm on the verge of becoming a teacher, yet I am not ready to be done learning. There are so many things that I just love to do and learn about, and I don't want to graduate yet. Actually, I would love to graduate, but I still want to just take classes and not be stressed about the grades. There are so many more classes I wish I could take! I want to take more painting and photography classes. And music classes. And health and nutrition. And humanities. And the advanced cooking class. And retake interior design because it was so much fun! I also want to take Shakespeare, some other English Lit classes, and history of wars! Can you see this problem I am having? The good news is that I am on the right track for my profession. What other way to share my love for learning than to be a teacher?

The good news is I have already done some research, and there are community painting and photography classes I can take. There are also plenty of books I can read to learn about the things that I am interested in, so everything will be okay. I am just so impatient, and I want to learn and do everything now! I also want to run a half marathon and triathlon. Just so everyone knows.

I am so excited about this semester. I am taking Adolescent Development, Teaching Methods, advanced writing (management communication or something like that), Photography, Family History and Genealogy, AND swimming and volleyball! I am also on basketball and wallyball intramural teams. And I am starting yoga because my chiropractor told me to. So. This semester is seriously looking good for me, even though it will be so busy. Since the semester started, I have found a passion that has been lost for a long time. Maybe because I am starting to see things differently. Maybe because I am so close to graduating and moving on with life. Definitely because of the relationship I am developing with God. But I feel like I am returning back to myself. The one who existed before the car accident. I love my classes. I love doing (most) of my homework. I love art. And exercising. I love Ben. I just love everything right now!

Ben is finishing up school this year too. He still has this semester and Fall, but he is getting so close! It's a little bit of a struggle for him to come back to school after doing a semester of purely internship, especially with a job that he absolutely loves. He is lucky to have this job. It was honestly divine intervention, and we feel really blessed to have the Lord's hand in our lives.

He is also going to be very busy all around. He is on two basketball teams: one is intramurals and one is church ball. He is the deacons adviser (or whatever it is actually called) and the assistant scout master in our ward, so he gets to spend lots of time with the youth and on campouts! I am jealous :) But I love my calling too. With continuing his internship part time, full time school, basketball, and church, it's going to be a crazy semester. The good new is we are in the same swimming class!!! We have also committed ourselves to a date night every week where it is just us, and we are trying to be more creative with our dates. It has been really good for our relationship so far :D

We love you all. Thanks for reading this kind of long post! If I kept up to date more often, the posts wouldn't be quite as long... haha.

Christmas Break Catch Up

Christmas break was a blast! I'm just going to post some pictures to keep yall up to date :)

Our Christmas together before we left

Noel guarding her precious deer-leg she found

Family Bowling Night

Krista got a bullseye!

Baxter's Christmas sweater (courtesy of my mom) :)

Go Cougars!

Haybale tag... Childhood memories restored :)