Our Similarities

In a world that seems to be ever more divided, it's hard to feel that I have almost any similarities as others. In a world with social media and internet almost everywhere you go, we are connected more than ever before. And yet, I feel so estranged from people. Last night, I saw one of my Instagram friend's stories, and basically was saying that if I am a good Christian, I will vote for one presidential candidate. And then I saw another that said that if I am a good Christian, I will vote for the other presidential candidate. Either way, I am not a good Christian. And that's not me being facetious. I really have a lot to improve. I can do a whole lot more to be a better person. I've made lots and lots of mistakes. Even this year, there are situations that I handled quite poorly. And I've been a Christian since I can remember. However, Christ is perfect. And God is perfect. And they are the Ones that can bring us closer together.

The quote that I read today, that just touched me perfectly was the following:

God's Favourite

As a very visual learner, I liked this description of God's healing and uniting Love.  Hence the Venn diagram I created above. I honestly don't know how to reach out to people very well. Talking to people scares me. I tried to reach out to my ministering sisters today by bringing them cookies. And at a few of the houses, my heart was beating so fast because I just assume that I am doing something wrong and that the person I am trying to contact will react very negatively. But I took the first step. And as I continue to foster God's love in and around me, hopefully I will become less afraid and will be able to reach out to others more. I may be extremely different from someone, but with God's love, we are closer than we realize.

I don't know if most of this post makes sense, but I have been feeling a need to better serve others. Especially since I feel that most of what I see on Instagram and in the world is so divisive. But God's love can heal us and bring us closer. You may not believe in God, but His power is stronger than unbelief. He works miracles every day. And I hope to be an instrument through which He can work a few of those miracles.

He Delivers

I started this one on Sunday but had several other things I ended up doing. So sorry for the delay. 

My goal this year was to read (or listen to) The Book of Mormon three times. I have never read that quickly. Even on my mission, when I was studying every day for an hour, I read it twice over 18 months. So, this was a big goal for me. I definitely got behind and am still catching up on my last read through.

For my first read, I marked characteristics/aspects of God. Many of these were actions that God has taken. But I tried to mark anything that gave a hint to God's character. I marked several characteristics and actions, but one stood out to me more than others. It was repeated over and over in The Book of Mormon.

He is a God of Deliverance. He delivers.

Paige Payne Creations

He delivers the righteous from their bondage. He delivers them from their feelings of grief. He delivers the wicked into the hands of other wicked people. And He delivers the wicked into the hands of the righteous. He delivers His message to people around the world. He delivers command keepers to better pastures.

Different definitions of  'deliver' include to provide, to set free, to bring, to hand over, to send, or to aid bringing forth. To deliver is to move.

God is a mover of people. He will bring you where He intends. He will not leave you alone. This could be physically, mentally, emotionally, etc. God will bring you to Him if you let Him. And He will bring you to promised blessings. You just have to trust Him. (Which I understand is very hard to do sometimes.)

Whatever space you may be in, when you turn to God, He will deliver you. 

Because God delivers.

He is a God of deliverance.

He delivers.

***

The above painting is by Paige Payne. She had a day of screenshotting some of her creations for phone wallpaper. I have had this as my wallpaper for a while. I have needed deliverance from a lot of emotions this year. I have received deliverance throughout the year and hope to receive more deliverance. I haven't necessarily been delivered from all of the trials, but they have become easier to bear. I will continue to put my trust in the Lord, for He knows so much more than I.

Quotes 2023

 Joseph: What's your middle name?

Griffin: Jon-niel.

Josh: When in doubt, it's Joseph's pants.

Coworker: Bandit farted, and it made my eyes water and burn.

Randomly heard in the hallway at work (gravelly tone): If you tell anyone, we eat your face.

30 seconds later (cheerful and high pitch): Hola niñas!

Me, constantly solving problems with our department computers: This is why they pay me the little bucks.

Joseph: Festival!

Griffin: You're a vegetable.

Cami: Why can't I just say I don't want a hot dog?

Griffin: 'Cause we're Americans. It's the Fourth of freakin' July.

[later in the same conversation]

Cami: Okay, well I can get a piece of pizza, and you can get hot dogs.

Griffin: I don't want a hot dog!

Emmett: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't lead a horticulture.

Cami: I want grandchildren.

Coworker: I want bran children.

Cami: Turds?!

Acting sluggishly

When you receive promptings from the Spirit, you are advised, or counseled, if you will, to act immediately. We talked about acting immediately in Relief Society a few weeks ago. A lot of the conversation was about missing opportunities and not being able to serve others, which may be the case, but this is my testimony from not acting immediately.

Over the course of the last year, I have prayed about so many things. I have received promptings and have acted not immediately. I have pretended that I was acting on the promptings, but it wasn’t a full follow or trust in the Savior’s plan.

Most of my promptings have been about my work situation. It is not ideal, and the promptings I have received also seem not ideal to me. In November last year, a rhetorical question asked during a lesson and/or during General Conference was, “If you had more faith, what would you do?” The immediate thought that came to my mind was, I would quit my job. Afraid Cami then did not quit her job but transitioned merely to a PRN position (as needed). This way, scared Cami could still have work and provide for herself and her husband.

Fast forward to June of this year. Still hesitant Cami was working PRN. Every shift she picked up, she lost more and more hope in her job. She gave up on trying to provide well thought out groups. She struggled to have motivation to keep providing authentic and encouraging recreation therapy. So, she wrote a resignation letter and didn’t come back.

Yes, I did it very poorly. But every time I thought about coming in for next shift, I wanted to cry. And I did cry. I felt so horrible about the way that I left. I also cried at work thinking about how much I could no longer stand my job and the feeling that I had very minimal support. And that my coworkers that did encourage me were also giving up. They also felt defeated.

So I quit. Seven months after the prompting, I finally acted 100% to that prompting.

I've seen a few wonderful changes from acting 100%, including my mood and outlook on life. Last year, I started tracking my mood and occasionally stress levels regularly. Almost immediately after quitting in June, my mood was consistently higher. I was rarely tracking my mood as bad. Whereas before I quit, my mood was almost always tracked as bad. My stress improved. My mood improved. I am so much happier. That job was sucking the life out of me.

evidation.com

Another blessing that has come from acting 100% on the quitting my job inspiration may be the ability to follow through with another prompting. I'm not saying that this is definitely the reason for the struggle, but it could be. This one may be TMI, so you don't have to keep reading this one. Just skip the asterisked section.

***

As I prayed about what to do with my life, I kept getting the prompting to have kids. And as my husband and I struggled to get pregnant, I would tell God that that wasn't a funny joke. He knew we had been trying, and yet he was telling me to have kids. At around 11 months, we had decided that if we weren't pregnant by this October, we would start the adoption process.

Almost immediately following quitting my job in June, we were able to get pregnant (at about 13 months). So, I guess technically we would be in the infertile category, but I feel I'm not allowed to talk about infertility because we did get pregnant, so there's that. I don't know if it was because my stress levels were finally so low or if God said, "Okay, you're finally listening to me, I'll bless you now." I won't ever really know, but I have a feeling it was a lot to do with my insane amount of stress from my job.

***

Sometimes when we don't act immediately, we aren't missing out on opportunities, but we may be delaying blessings. I'm not saying that God is going to not give you blessings because you don't follow His counsel and is just going to wait. But God does know best. He knows what is hurting us, and He tells us what will help us. When we aren't following our promptings, we are just continuing to hurt ourselves. We are the ones in the way of our own blessings. When we don't trust, we don't willing receive the help God is giving to us. Hopefully, I can do better in the future at following promptings immediately. 'Cause even though my situation is still not ideal, I am doing so much better than before.

"Jack of All Trades, Master of a Few"

 Hey Peeps!

It's been a long, long while. I haven't posted something substantial since July last year. I just wanted to give you an update of my life and what my hopes are for my blog for the foreseeable future. (And also give you all the quotes from 2023.)

For an update on what I am doing with my life, I am following my Recreation Therapy professor's modified phrase of "jack of all trades, master of a few." To start with what I am a "master" of, I work in mental healthcare. I am a PRN (as needed, just picking up shifts here and there) Recreation Therapist at a mental/behavioral health hospital. I also work with the City of Chandler as a Recreation Assistant. This one's a new job, and I'm still learning some of the ins and outs of it, but this one is my fun job. I get to go on outings, such as fishing trips and hiking. And my regular, but least amount of time job is being a piano teacher. I picked it back up in February last year. (If anyone is thinking about taking piano lessons, I currently charge $18 per 30-minute lesson, once a week. I usually teach beginner to early intermediate students. If you're already a pro, please don't come to me.) I also have a t-shirt "business." I screen print shirts and have sold a few. So, that's my job situation right now. I don't have a super consistent schedule, but I do consistently have work each week. So it's fine.

Also, what I am doing with my life (besides work) is trying to be a good wife, sister, daughter, and slightly fit/healthy person. I currently live at my dad's house in his mother-in-law suite. So, yeah, I'm the 30-year-old still living with her parent’s house. At least it's not the basement. And at least I'm not just gaming all the time (I rarely game, and it's usually when my brothers need a third player.) My goal is to start traveling a little more to see my siblings because they always come here, and I rarely go to them. I should probably also start just calling them more often. That would be good to do. I've been married a little over a year, and I am learning a lot. I am working on my communication skills (being nicer and more understanding).

In regards to this blog, I am going to try to write more. I want to do my Sunday thoughts at least twice a month. These will be a bit more "church-y" and spiritual, but they will go under the Sunday Thoughts label. If you want to look at what I am writing for those, you can access them through that label. 

So here we go on another adventure. We'll see how long I can keep this up. Also, the shirt in the picture is one of my screen printed ones. If ever you want to check out my shirts, I have them here.

2023 Reading Goal

 Last year, I had a goal to read 12 books, so basically 1 a month. And I wanted to read the physical copies, so even though I listened to audiobooks, I didn't feel like I had met my real goal. (The books I read can be found here.) So this year, I set the same goal for myself. I wanted to read 12 books instead of listening to them, even though I still wanted to listen to audiobooks. This year turned out to be an adventure because I ended up going down a giant rabbit hole that increased my usage of e-books (Kindle and Apple books).

So, if you would like to know the books I have read this year, they are the following.

Audiobooks

Physical Books

E-books

Books I read that I would NOT recommend:

*Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man--not very well organized and left me with more follow up questions because some of the original questions posed weren't actually answered; it's super short and doesn't have a lot of content

*Dotty Dishes the Dirt--A lot of errors that made me reread sentences several times to understand what was happening, but some of it might just be British English

Other warnings for some containing adult material (i.e. drugs, language, abuse, and intimacy):

*Karamo Brown--little bit for being a very real biography, mostly language and drugs

*Princess of Thorns--right at the very end and not necessary for the story, not super explicit but still unnecessary in my opinion

*The Children's Blizzard--associated with one particular character and not a lot, but there are a few sentences that are questionable

*Odessa, Odessa--dealing with abuses during Pale of Settlement and emigration

**I try to not read explicit intimacy in books, and I often put books down because of it; so, this is a list that I have deemed might still be too much for other people

**I work in mental healthcare and get told lots of rough and horrible things, so sadly I might be a little more de-sensitized and/or interested in some topics