June 2nd, 2013
My Dearest Brother,
I hope that you are doing well and that Finland is beautiful
this time of year. My best friend, Ashley, said that her husband told her it
should be the best time of year in Finland this year. He also served in
Finland. I hope that there are bright skies and tender mercies that are coming
your way despite the trials that you have been facing. I can’t believe that
after everything that you also got hit by a car… how is your leg doing? Can you
bike around alright? I can’t believe nothing was broken! The Lord was definitely
looking out for you.
Because I decided to change paths with regards to my
schooling things have been relatively low key around here. On Thursday I was on
my computer, checking Facebook for probably the 100th time that day
and something inside of me just snapped. I realized that I have really been
languishing the last four weeks. I had a rough end to my last semester. My
classes were hard and I pushed and pushed and pushed until I had nothing left
to give. It was okay to relax and to take things easy for a little while after
that was over, but it has been too long and I had fallen into a pattern of
laziness. I was neglecting so many most important parts of my life and things
had to change and it needed to be immediate.
We spent 3+ hours on Thursday night getting the house
cleaned. The kids helped us out and we were able to get it completely finished.
I created a cleaning/organizing schedule to maintain the cleanliness of the
house. Since it is Sunday night now we are 3 days into the house being
consistently clean; I clean up throughout the day and ask the kids to put
things away after they are finished playing with them. If we can keep this up
for 18 more days it will become a habit. I will let you know next Sunday how we
are doing.
Some of the other changes that I have decided to make are to
only check Facebook once a day, to get up each day at 6:30 am with Jake, and to
be more diligent about my personal scriptures and journal. With extension to
these goals I have also been better about my visiting teaching, family prayer,
wanting to implement Family Home Evening even though our kids are so young,
better temple attendance, etc. etc. etc. Basically, many things had been “gathering dust” around here and it was time
to clean out my life and to get things straight. I know that we all go through
periods where we are “on fire” but I really hope that this mentality and these
changes are something that I can make permanent. I feel a huge difference in my
life as I feel like my feet are more firmly planted on the correct path. I feel
a greater peace and happiness and a greater confidence in my life.
Something else that I have been trying to be better about is
the way that I talk to/think about myself. I read a blog post the other day
where someone had typed out some of the things that she thought about herself
on the top as if someone were saying them to her; things like, “Are you sure you
want to wear that today? You look so fat in that!” I was absolutely appalled at
the thought that I said such horrible things to myself when I would never say those things to someone else.
I have been trying to keep that focus this week in not thinking negatively
about myself. When I am tempted to start thinking myself down I switch my train
of thought or think about something more positive.
Well this, once again, has turned out to be much lengthier
than I intended it to be originally. I wanted to share these things with you because
I knew that you would want to know and that you would appreciate the changes
that I am going through. Like I said before, I really hope that these changes
are permanent and that I can maintain this mentality. I know that this is the
person that the Lord would want me to be.
I love you, dear brother. Know that we are all well here and
doing our best to live the gospel and love the Lord. I hope that you are
finding peace and happiness through the great plan of salvation that the Lord
has given to us as a precious gift. We have been so abundantly blessed through
the goodness of God and I am so grateful for the many tender mercies and
experiences that he has given me to know that he is real, that he loves us, and
that he cares.
All my love to you,
Shayla
Having PB & J at Aunt Alyssa's and Uncle Matt's House
Nathan LOVES to color
First fire of the season
Eating a giant smore
Claus in May? Okay!
Playing chess against the former SBOs at Bingham - Kayden beat the former SBO president in 2 moves!
Nathan helping daddy fix the tire - it had come off the rim a bit and was leaking air.
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