The Missionary in Brazil...

Our nephew is currently serving a mission for our church in Brazil and we got this picture with his email letter home this week. I was so excited to see him!! He looks and sounds great! This photo looked like a painting to me, it almost just doesn't seem real!

He loves being missionary, I know this because he writes it all the time in his letters home. It gives me so much comfort to read his letters and to know he is doing something so wonderful, so right and gaining such a deep testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ because he is so willing to give this time to the Lord, and to be an instrument in His hands to share the good news of the Atonement with the people of Brazil! What a great example he is for "the teenager". Jacob really looks up to his older cousins so much, they are confident in who they are, and he is so excited to follow in their footsteps and serve a mission.

It really through these letters home, and pictures like this, that give me the courage to keep helping him prepare (and not just push him in a closet and nail the door shut for the next two years... like some of my fears and apprehensions lead me to) so that he can follow that dream! I would not be where I am today, without missionaries just like this. It's exciting and scary but with the Lord on his side, everyone wins!

Therapy!

I tease about Kate being my therapist, but yesterday when I got my haircut, I think she asked me two questions the whole time and the rest of the time went by soooo fast as I chatted and proceeded to answer with my LOOOONNNNNGGGG stories, that I can't seem to make short.
Before I knew it she was done.

I must have really needed a therapy session this week!
Thanks Kate, for the cut AND the Therapy... sorry to talk your ear off :)

Recapturing Beauty Day 8: Self Talk...

THE CHALLENGE:

SELF-TALK

Pay attention to your thoughts today. Ask yourself, How do my thoughts make me feel? Is what I’m thinking really true? Practice challenging your negative thoughts and replacing them with more truthful ones.

Our thoughts determine how we feel and act. If we talked to others the way we talk to ourselves, we would be ashamed.The beauty of being human is that we can control our thoughts. Start by recognizing your thoughts, challenging them, and replacing them.

Since I started this challenge, I have heard allot of the talk going on within myself. The voices in my head were one of the first things I noticed that was askew when I began researching how God sees my beauty. Interesting. My self talk is louder than I thought. When I began to challenge it, there was allot of arguing going on, angel vs. devil on my shoulder kind of thing... particularly with food choices. Which made for an interesting day. I won some and lost some of those arguments. I think my inner voice did not like being challenged. I will have to work on replacing those thoughts with new ones. Without much practice doing that, and with years and years of listening to those negative thoughts, this might take some time for me. Mostly I noticed that I can't always believe my own self talk, it is not accurate, and often lies to me, or tries to justify things (which is just as bad as lying in most cases). It's just not being "real"... my self talk is in some kind of fantasy world, and has NO concern for consequences. It's very insecure and could be challenged, repent and learn to be a better voice for "beauty"... with some training!

Recapturing Beauty Day 7: Tune out the media...

THE CHALLENGE:

TUNE OUT THE MEDIA

Tune out media – no TV, movies, magazines and internet surfing. Instead tune in to nature. Notice a sunset, gaze at the stars, sit by a stream and listen to the water.

The media constantly barrages us with unrealistic and unhealthy ideals of beauty. Because we are incessantly bombarded, it is impossible to remain unaffected. Get in touch with who you are independent of these messages and find your center in things that are real and lasting--your personality, nature, and your relationships.

I didn't do this one completely... I totally had to watch Hawaii Five O... I am totally taking a "do over" when I can go spend time outside in God's beauty... maybe taking photos and listening to His creatures or next to the stream... that sounded pretty good to me. I just didn't take the time to do it. What I did do during the show I watched, was mute the commercials, and even put my hand up to cover so I couldn't see during one that was selling women's underclothes and it just shows a bunch of half naked women in all kinds of yucky poses! I even reached over and covered the teenagers eyes, but he wasn't looking either! Phew!

I can see where we get hung up comparing ourselves to that kind of beauty.

Recapturing Beauty Day 6: No Fat Talk...

THE CHALLENGE:

NO FAT TALK

Refrain from talk about weight or shape of self and others. Be aware of how often you compare yourself to others, and evaluate how this makes you feel.

The obsession with weight, shape and appearance continues among women partially because we encourage it in each other. We have made it unacceptable for a woman to be at peace with her body. Refraining from speaking about weight and shape-- positively or negatively--allows us to focus on a person’s real value and worth.

For me not weighing... and then not talking about NOT weighing has been a little bit of a challenge, but a really good welcomed challenge! So nice to give myself permission not to think about my weight (I don't talk to very many people about it...so that part was pretty easy). What I found was that I can still eat healthily, and exercise, and not really have any fat talk (giggle...that just sounds funny when you say it out loud). But it is so true, most of my negative self talk is fat talk, I talk to myself about it all the time!! It's so disturbing. I love to think of my self and have different talks now, about how beautiful I am and what things make me beautiful besides my body image! It's SOOOOO easy to see it in others, not sure why it's so hard to see those things in myself. But I am working on it... one day at a time :)

Recapturing Beauty Day 5: Exercise for Fun

THE CHALLENGE:

EXERCISE FOR FUN

Exercise for fun—choose a form of exercise that you enjoy, a form you wouldn’t normally choose because it calls attention to your body. Exercise is necessary for health, but we have turned it into a duty, obligation and punishment--something we do to “make up” for the food we eat. Women are bombarded with media messages that tell us we can’t run, swim, do yoga, or any number of things unless we have the “perfect” body. We must stop waiting to achieve perfection and live our lives to the fullest--taking risks, trying new things, and utilizing the unlimited potential of our bodies.

I am totally a "make up" exerciser. Lately I haven't been taking the dogs on my walks because I want to focus on getting the most of it, or trying to run, and I don't want any distractions from them tugging on the other end of the leash. So they got their own walks today. They loved the focus and it took the "chore" out of the exercise for me and made it fun again!

Recapturing Beauty Day 4: Get Ready on the Inside

THE CHALLENGE:

GET READY ON THE INSIDE

How much time do you spend getting ready each day? Today, use the same amount of time to get ready on the inside. Meditate, write in your journal, or perform an act of service.

Women spend thousands of hours on their appearances over a lifetime. Think about what you could accomplish if you spent the same amount of time each day preparing your inner self. How would you be different? How would each day be different?

This is kind of ironic for me because I have never spent much time getting ready on the outside. I grew up in a home where Dad was "ready" to go and if you were not, you would get left... or harrassed to pieces for it. When I got married to my strong silent mysterious man, he would sit and watch me put on my makeup in awe that I could do it so quickly and be ready to go in minutes. It is now a bit of a challenge to me to really put some effort into how I look each day, especially if I don't go anywhere. Somedays I barely get presentable by the time he gets home from work.

With that said I did spend time preparing my inner self and journaling some thoughts about it. But I tried to make more of a concious effort not to spend more time getting ready on the outside,but just to GET READY on the outside! Be presentable after my exercise, take a shower and smell like a flower, but not obsese on it and not spend anymore time, just the effort.

Definitely spending as much time giving to others, praying, or just studying in the scriptures as I do getting ready on the outside will be part of my balance going forward.