Eli

Yesterday I was able to spend a few hours with my brother Eli. I love him dearly. Before and after a church event yesterday we got to just hang out. Time just with me and my brother.

Work, church, and various social things get in the way of being able to hang out with him. It makes me so sad, because I need a little more of him in my life.

He is so steady, kind, patient, gentle, funny, and hardworking. He always treats me like a princess, even though I am sometimes very rude and saucy. He protects me. He helps me. He makes me smile. He teaches me.

Oh, and let's not forget his talents. He plays the guitar really well, and I love hearing him sing. He's good with children. He's super strong. He is methodical. He's able to calm people down so they actually start thinking. He serves in every possible aspect. Oh, and by now he should be excellent at cleaning gutters and windows, having been in his job for quite a few months.

He's leaving sometime in the next few months. He is going to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and spread the gospel. He's going to share his testimony courageously.

But I will miss him enormously. He is one of my biggest inspirations. I look up to him, and I always will. He's my big brother.

Success and Failure Through Running

Today something really frustrating happened. To understand how frustrating it was, though, I want to give you some background.
This summer I took a Couch to 10K running class. For the first few weeks I stuck to the schedule faithfully and did really well. I ran my first mile, then two, then three. I looked up nutrition plans and finally found a great way to eat and train through No Meat Athlete. I was really excited about running, I wasn't nearly as tired as I usually am, and I was just overall feeling great.
Then something happened which, as silly as it is, stopped me. I lost my iPod that told me how many miles I ran during my training. This is an incredibly ridiculous reason to stop running, but it stopped me.
So I didn't turn in my assignments for my class (resulting in an F on my transcript), I didn't run my 10K which my Young Women leader had been going to do with me, and I even stopped eating vegan. This past month or so I've been feeling overall bad, so today I decided to take up running. I figured I wouldn't be able to run as far as last time I ran, but I would at least be able to do a mile.
So I got ready, I went outside, and I went for it. But I didn't reach the mile mark. That, my friends, is the frustrating thing that happened today.
Yes, I'll just get back on my plan and it won't be a big deal, but I could have just kept on going in the first place and not had to start over. I am going to run a 10K someday. I just am, even though it's hard. But I still feel like I failed when I just gave up over the summer.
Thankfully, that isn't the final measure of success. It depends on your commitment today, not the times when you didn't measure up in the past.

Loved

One of the saddest things I have ever seen is a child of God who forgets that their Father has for them. Unfortunately, this happens all the time. Some of the most beautiful people I know forget how beautiful they are not only for themselves but for their spiritual heritage.

Our souls yearn for something higher than this earth, and yet we are stuck here where we are surrounded by pain, sorrow and general heartache. We are separated from our home and blinded, so we can't always keep an eternal view.

Fortunately, there is more than the pain that sometimes seems like the only thing. There is so much that is lovely in this world and the next. There is innocence and joy and trust, and we can always smile. Because we are each loved. Always.

To end this post, I want you to listen to  Believe, by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.
Please, please try to remember that you have heavenly help. Even in your bad times.

Lessons

Last week I started teaching piano to a little boy from church. Our first lesson went really well, and so did today's. The difference is that last week I actually took time to be dressed neatly, prepare a lesson, gather together my books, and spend a lot of time beforehand thinking about how best to serve this child.
Today I was generally disorganized, hadn't prepared a lesson, and didn't even remember we were supposed to have a lesson until my student came knocking on my door.
During the lesson I stumbled over my words and was generally absentminded. I was so absentminded, in fact, that I labelled my fingers using a Sharpie. Usually I am able to avoid being such a bad example for children, but I must confess that I now have semi-permanent numbers on each of my fingers. Hopefully my clarification afterward of that being a really bad idea helps him.
Somehow, everything went really well, even though it probably shouldn't have. My student had fun. I learned a lot. I think he learned something.

I don't really think there's much of a point to this post. Mostly it is just a reflection on some of the things I need to work on, such as being less spacey (and remembering to use my planners and SARs.)