Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

I have had a lot of memories flooding back to me in the past few days. Some are memories that I wish I could just let myself forget. Others, I hope never fade. Through all my thinking, this is what I have concluded: I hate change. I always have and I think that I always will.

This time of year is always a little sad. Everyone is packing up to move home for the summer or off to summer jobs. Everyone is moving on. It is especially sad for me this year. I can’t help but think that this may be the last time that I see some of the people that I consider myself to be most close to. I hope it isn’t. If I didn’t have such a strong burning desire to preach the gospel, keeping these feelings at bay may be difficult.

As much as I hate change, I can see its purpose in my life, especially lately. Change transforms people. I had an experience about a year and a half ago that has changed my life forever. In the aftermath of it, I was miserable. It was hands down the worst time in my life. I wasn’t happy. I had lost my smile. I was going through the motions of living my life. Somehow, and I still don’t really know how, I managed to pull myself out of the rut and make myself live again. This was not without a lot of help from family, good friends, and most of all, my savior.

Now, who I was back then and how I am now, don’t even seem like the same person to me! Last week I had the opportunity to go through the temple for the first time. As I was getting ready to go do my endowment, I looked myself over once more in the mirror. I didn’t even recognize myself. The sad girl I used to be was gone. In her place, was a happy, confident, radiant girl that knows what she wants and is trying her best to achieve it. I thought maybe I was just being silly, but as I was driving with my mom to meet the rest of my family at a restaurant after, my mom turned to me and said “You look so different. You look..angelic”.

My point is that change, while sometimes sad, makes us who we are. So many times you hear people say they want to “find themselves”. Instead of trying to find ourselves, we should be creating ourselves! You are who you choose to be. Had I chosen to remain in a dark place, I wouldn’t have come to Utah State. I probably wouldn’t be preparing to go on a mission. I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to serve in the Relief Society presidency in the USU 49th ward. I wouldn’t have met some of the most amazing people that are currently in my life. I wouldn’t have a “Disney family” (you know who you are, haha). I wouldn’t have found out for myself that my testimony isn’t dependent upon my parents.

And so, in conclusion (haha this sounds like a term paper. What can I say? I’ve had to write a LOT lately!) I just want to throw out the scripture that got me through my rough patch in the hopes that maybe it can help someone else go through a difficult change. I am who I am today BECAUSE of the experiences that I have had, not in spite of them. “Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come here-after, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation. For after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore the day cometh that ye shall be crowned with much glory, the hour is not yet, but is night at hand” (D&C 58:3-4)