When Bad Days Happen

“The Lord in His wisdom does not shield anyone from grief or sadness.”

 

I was reading a talk from Joseph B. Wirthlin this week, getting ready for another Fireside and this stood out. Notice the word WISDOM.  The Lord is wise, therefore he does not shield us from sorrow.  Every single one of us will have those, “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days”.  Some of us will fail an important test. One of you may lose your job. We may get in a car accident.  We will lose loved ones, that is inevitable.  Over the past year I lost some very good friends to illness or tragic accidents. We will, every single person who has ever lived, lives, or will live, have days where nothing goes according to plan.

 

           I am blessed to be able to know that our life here on Earth is just a tiny stepping stone to a much better place, a place with a fantastic view.  This knowledge is the strength I need to get past the bad days and welcome in the “tomorrows” with a smile and open arms.  In order to progress, we must learn and grow and work.  That is what God wants for us, that is why He does not keep us from feeling the negative emotions, preventing bad things from happening, or simply giving us all of our wants we ask for.  God is working, He is working so we may understand what He wants for us.  When God appeared to Moses, He told Moses, “Behold this is my work and my glory-to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”  This scriptures is one of my favorites because it helps us understand why we are here, who God is, and what He wants from us.  What does that mean?

        “Behold this is my WORK and my GLORY..”  My friends Merriam-Webster defines work as, “an activity in which one exerts strength or faculties to do or perform something.”  God is working.  He is exerting his strength and faculties to achieve a goal.  This work is also His glory, Merriam defines glory as, “a height of prosperity or achievement”.  When we read the beginning of this scripture, using the definitions, we can see that for God, He is “exerting strength” so he may arrive at a “height of prosperity (and) achievement.”  

        

         What does that all mean? Well, those terrible, horrible days are here to help us become better, wonderful people.  It’s up to us to decide how we handle the trials that are thrown at us and to use these to become better than we were yesterday.  Use everyday to become better than we were the day before.

 

God is working so we may life forever with Him after our life here on Earth.  He is working so we can be with our families after we die.  He is working because He loves every single one of us.  He gave me my trials because He wants me to be a better person.  He gave me my trials because He loves me.

 

XXo,

Mo

 

My Mission in Review

Have you wondered what eighteen months living in Tahiti would look like?  This is what it looked like through my perspective.  

XXo, 

Mo

My Homecoming Video

My cute sister Kenzie made this video of my homecoming... I guess a month later I'll watch it again.  Tomorrow or Saturday I'll throw up a video of my mission in review. 

XXo, 

Mo

Just Call Me Lucy or Allie

After going on a Valentine's Day chick-flick binge, I'm noticing a trend.

Do all chick-flicks require a main character to lose their memory? Come on!  At least all the movies I was force-fed this week did.

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50 First Dates

People relate this movie to my life all the time.  Last week at work a co-worker pulled a Ten-Second Tom reference that I did appreciate.  He has good tastes in movies. Thankfully my memory lasts longer than ten seconds!  That would make life quite difficult. 

Take this story that came from the New Yorker: "In March of 1985, Clive Wearing, an eminent English musician and musicologist in his mid-forties, was struck by a brain infection – a herpes encephalitis – affecting especially the parts of his brain concerned with memory. He was left with a memory span of only seconds – the most devastating case of amnesia ever recorded."  

50 First Dates is adorable though!  . . . in a very sad, slightly creepy way. . .  Adam Sandler tries to make Drew Barrymore fall in love with him every single day because she can't remember.  Is this love or is this just plain creepy?

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The Notebook. 

Ranked the Best Chick Flick of All Time by multiple sources.

This entire movie is based of an adorable Old Couple's "story time."  This story is a Romeo and Juliet type plot:  Boy and Girl meet.  Boy and Girl are from different worlds.  Boy and Girl fall in love.  Father bans Boy and Girl from being together.  Boy and Girl are heart broken,  

*SPOILER, I'm giving away the end of this movie... If you haven't seen it I suggest turning off the 

laptop/phone/tablet and watching it before continuing.  This has one of the best movie endings of all time.*

The Old Couple is Boy and Girl!!  Girl lost her memory and Boy is trying to help her get it back.  What?!  Plot twist! 

The next time you're living in a nursing home and a man is reading to you, think twice.  Then again,  you wouldn't even remember reading this. . . 

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Now, I haven't seen this one, but it sounds like a pretty spot-on movie.  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  The couple decides to erase their memory of each other, but throwing your memories in the black beauty trash can is not what it's all cracked up to be.  Also, it's rated R.  I just avoid all movies with that rating.  No thanks! There's no need to watch it, I got the whole plot line in IMBD's summary of it. 

> > 

Is my life a chick-flick? Hmmmm.... This is an interesting theory...

I'll stick with my action-packed suspense movies.  Why can't I be a character in one of those?  Throw the flowers out the window and give me some action!

 I'd rather be a fighter than a lover. 

XXo, 

Mo

"Look Not Behind Thee"

Looking back is an interesting thing. 

We’re going to crack open our Bibles here.  Go find it.  Wipe off the dust.  Can’t find it?  Goodness, download this app for apple or for android and then you will never lose it again, and you’ll be free of allergies because the chances of your phone getting as dusty as that book over there are pretty slim.  open, or click, to Genesis 19.

AH, the story of Lot.  What’s going down here?  Lot is living in Sodom, it’s a pretty wicked place.  (No, not wicked in the “that’s so awesome” sense of the word.  Wicked as in evil.)  Wicked to the point The Lord says, “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.”  If he could find fifty people the city would be spared, but fifty righteous people were not to be found. He says, forty-five.  No.  Forty.  No.  Twenty-five.  No.  Twenty.  No.  There were not even twenty people in the whole city who were righteous in the Lord’s eyes.  Because of the wickedness of the citizens Lot receives this advice:

“Escape for they life… look not behind thee…”

Okay, the Lord is telling them to get out of the city or they’re going to be a part of a nice barbeque.   Lot and his family do not want to be rotisserie-d so they start leaving.  The Lord specifically says not to look back (key phrase here people, do not look back), but Lot’s wife must have been feeling hungry, and she looked back. 

Um.  Why didn't she listen to Him and keep her head straight towards her end goal: safety?  Why didn't she keep walking forward?

 She looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt.  She looked back.  She wanted to go back.  She wished her family had not of left all of her gold, jewels, and precious things.  Moving onward to a land she does not know, to a place where she is’t comfortable is scary.  Lot’s wife was scared.  What would happen to her when she didn't have all her girlfriends around to sip herbal tea, discuss the latest Kardashian scandal, and cry over chick flicks with?  How would she make do without her favorite little restaurant?  She did not want to move away from these things, even though the Lord told her it was time.

That is the key to this infamous Bible story.  Like all Biblical stories there is a lesson to be learned and we need to implement it into our lives.  We cannot look back at the past and long for it.  I do that.  I will stand on top of a mountain and yell it to the world I am Lot’s wife occasionally.  It is simple for me to look back and WISH I hadn't of done this, WISH I could remember this, and a million other WISHES.

I wish I hadn't have left my house December 13, 2013.  I wish I would have stayed at the chapel that night.  It stretched as far as the point of wishing I had never served a mission. All of these thoughts came in the darkest moments of the recovery of my accident.

How did these thoughts change the situation I was in? They don't.  Wishing I hadn't of been a victim of a hit-and-run did not change the fact that it had already happened. No amount of wishing would bring my memory back.  No amount of wishing will make anyone feel better, in fact, it makes one feel worse.

Wishing is another form of regret.  When we wish we would have, could have, or we should have, we are Lot’s wife.  We are longingly looking back to a time we cannot change.  The only thing we can change is the present.  By our actions here in the present, we are then able to control our future.  We are able to have a future free of the could/would/should haves.  I am moving on with my life.  I still have a life, I am still alive, and God is letting me do whatever I want to do with my life.  I am free.  Here, I am not known as the “Miraculous of Tahiti” and surrounded by people asking for my autograph.  Here I can move on.

I am at a point in my post-accident life where I can sit back and: “Remember Lot’s wife.”   She longingly looked back to her old life and did not look forward to the better life God had prepared for her. Looking back and wishing for the past to change is easy.  Looking forward and seeing a better future God has prepared because of the past is hard.  This is hands down one of the hardest things someone can do.  It takes a lot of faith.  That is what Lot’s wife lacked, faith.  She could not see God; she could not see where He was going to take her and her faith vanished. She looked back.  I am done looking back.  That was yesterday.

Today I choose to have faith.

XXo,

Mo

How About Dem Patriots?

Hello Sunny Beaches of California!

Last P-Day

It has finally come...

I refuse to cry anymore today, so this will be very short. 

I love my mission.  I am going to miss the people here so much. (this is when the tears start) All will be well.  That's what I keep telling myself.  All will be well. 

I love you!

Oh, my homecoming is on Jan 18th at 11am.  Come see me!

Love, 

Mo

p.s.  I TAUGHT 10 LESSONS ON SATURDAY!!!  That's a record.  Be proud of us. :) :)

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Tahiti Papeete Mission

Soeur Taylor, Morgan

 

B.P. 93

Papeete, Tahiti

98713

French Polynesia.