New Year New Me

It's New Years, and comes one of the things that I hate more than anything, coming up with New Years Resolutions. For most people they are all for making goals, however short lived they may be, and work towards achieving them. For me, I hate them because I tend to get down on myself with my depression finding ways to change just makes me feel even more bad about myself, and sends me off into a land of what feels like never ending gloom. This being the case I don't tend to make them, but this year after having a ten minute conversation with myself decided to make three, and one of those has to do with my depression and the conversation that I had with myself.

To introduce my first goal I will tell you about the conversation I had with myself. Since high school I have told myself and others that in order to be happy in a relationship you first need to be happy single. In high school depression wasn't something I talked about with anyone, so nobody but my mom knew what was going on with me (disclaimer: my mom knew from watching me and dealing with depression herself). For about the next ten years I found myself in a Catch-22, with my depression I couldn't really be happy, and if I wasn't happy single I wouldn't be able to be happy in a relationship, which meant I couldn't ever be happy. The conversation I had with myself  dealt with how even though it was sound advice, in dealing with my depression it wasn't good for my mental health. I then had to promise myself that I wouldn't let the things I felt one day determine what I would feel the next day, to the point I decided that I need to do a weekly emotional checkup with myself, and wrote every week in my planner "just because you aren't happy today doesn't mean that tomorrow has to be the same."  Goal 1: Not let what I feel one day determine how I feel the next. 

My second goal is one that I know I am not very good at, and that is reading my scriptures everyday. Since coming home from the mission almost FOUR YEARS AGO, my scripture reading has been all over the place. And with the church's new curriculum and me being a primary teacher, I have to be ready for the lessons that we have. Also, because I have applied to be an EFY counselor I probably should be an example to the kids with my scripture reading. I decided that I need to be realistic and I know that I won't be able to do scripture study the same time everyday, so each week when I start scheduling my week, I will schedule when I will do my reading. This way no matter if I am working one job or two I will be able to have time set aside based on my schedule to be able to read.. Goal 2: Improve on scripture reading. 

The last goal I made I knew that I wanted to do something along the lines of self help but at the same time I hate those goals the most. I feel like those are the goals that you do alright for the first month or so but after that they are the ones that go up in flames. So I decided that I to find things that may inspire me to change, so once a month one of my weekly goals is to find a self help book to read, a self help podcast to listen to, find inspirational Youtuber to follow, and stuff along those lines. I chose this way because then I am not doing the same thing every month, and if I find something that I want to do I can try it for the month, and if not it's no big deal. I also chose things that I already use, so that way it wasn't a huge change in my life, because I don't do well with that. Goal 3: Find something that inspires me to find ways to be better. 

This year I want to try and change but I don't want to send me off the deep end mentally, and I feel like going about my goals in the way that I have has set me up to succeed and not make me feel like a worthless potato.

You Will Soar

“The thing that makes women strong is that we have the guts to be vulnerable, we have the ability to feel the depth of our emotion, and we know we’re going walk through it to the other side. And by the way you have accomplished great things this year…You my dear are on a hero’s journey, like Joseph Campbell would say. And yes, you hit an obstacle but you will soar right over just like I would.” -Cat Grant, Supergirl season 2 episode 22.

“Small World” by Idina Menzel is playing in the background as Cat Grant gives Kara the advice she needs to get over something big. I don't know what brought my chain of thought down the path that it did.

We are taught that we need to protect people from the worst parts of ourselves, but how do we really know what the worst parts of ourselves are. When it comes to describing things, worst is semantical. I feel like we use this as an excuse for ourselves, we are too scared to take the jump into the unknown and let our fears of what we think we are tether us to the edge. It is not until we cut that tether that we will be able to move forward, to be able to make the jump into the next unknown point in our lives. We aren’t afraid of ourselves, we are afraid of the uncomfortable turbulence that change seems to bring.  

I'm not sure if this is my way of telling myself that everything will be ok, despite missing my best friend like crazy while they are off working in another state and all the crap that they went through before they left. They will be ok. All of my fears, inadequacies, and pains won't be able to stop me. I will be able to be like Cat Grant and Supergirl and soar over any obstacle just like they would. 

I can battle with the best of them. - Nov 24

So this last week has been crazy because starting Monday I started
having random times where I was dead tired (to the point I actually
fell asleep in a lesson) and then would get these random bursts of
energy. So this last week we have been taking things slow so that I
don't hurt myself or fall asleep in a lesson. It has been a battle,
but I am known to battle with the best of them, I have been doing it
all my life. I have been eating right and getting enough sleep. Sister
Plumb thinks that I am getting sick and I think that it's the last 16
months of work catching up with me.

Oh an interesting thing happened yesterday. We went to try a media
referral that we received. Well we stop by to give her the Bible that
she requested and get to know her. Well we get there and we giver her
a Book of Mormon and tell her about what it's about and then we give
her the Bible. She then starts to tell us about her life story. The
odd part of it all is she told us that she doesn't trust yet she had
got to the point were she needed to tell us everything.

Well y'all have and awesome week and a wonderful Thanksgiving, eat
plenty of our family's potato salad and eggnog pie for me.

Love y'all,
Sister Brady

Camped out in the bathroom - Nov 17

This last week has been freezing. To the point that I have bought
leggings so that my legs stay warm (tights just aren't cutting it). I
have been doing all I can to keep warm and to make sure Sister Plumb
stays warm (she's from Arizona so I have to make sure she really
doesn't freeze.)

Well we had an interesting experience yesterday. After church the
elders came to our house so we could warm up some of the food that
members had given us for lunch. When they were getting ready to go
they were debating as to if they would go out to the area that they
usually go to on Sunday's to give a sister the sacrament. Because a
member had warned us that there was a storm coming in. So we did our
studies...and we accidently fell asleep which had turned out to be a
blessing because not long after we woke up the elders texted us and
told us to stay in because the storm was close. Well four hours later
the sister training leaders text us and tell us to stay in because we
are on a tornado warning, because it was going straight to Amite. So
we stayed in even longer. But we decided we were going to watch the
thunder and lightening from our screen door. Well it started getting
louder so we decided to camp out in the bathroom (the safest place in
a tornado). It was crazy because when we were in there the office
email texted the entire mission and told us that the entire mission is
on red alert lockdown. Ya, we were freaking out and all that jazz. I
have never feared for my life like that before. Everything is alright
now, no harm done.

Well love y'all and hope that you have an awesome week.
Love,
Sister Brady

Second to last transfer - Nov 10

So my time in the field is closing in and I can definitely feel it.
Things this last week have been crazy. We had exchanges right of the
back again, which I am not a huge fan of but I'm not the Sister
Training Leader so I don't make that call anymore. It seems like
everything was falling through that day. We did find out that one of
the part member families in our branch is going through a lot more
then we thought. It was so sad to see the wife who is the member
sitting in front of her front door looking lost and confused.
 
Oh and a weird/funny story to tell you. Last night we went over to see
a less active sister that calls us almost every morning at 6am to find
out when we are coming over next (unfortunately we can't answer that
early) and she was showing us the pamphlets she has from us. She
points out the word of wisdom and tells us that she loves the word of
wisdom and that she doesn't drink.  Well later in the conversation she
tells that WHEN she drinks she drinks no more then five beers or a
wine cooler.  We just sat there when she told us this wondering what
her definition of alcohol is because it isn't the same as what the
pamphlet says.
 
Anyways hope y'all have a good week.
Love y'all,
 
Sister Brady

Well I am staying in Amite. - Nov 4

So as you can tell I am staying in Amite, with Sister Plum for at
least six more weeks. This week has been crazy. Halloween we had to be
in by dark. I got a flu shot (the mission insurance covered it for a
few days.) and apparently the guy that was giving them to us had gone
to our church. He knew quite a bit it was really cool, unfortunately
we didn't have enough time to contact him, so we are sending the
elders to go and contact him when they go to get theirs. We have been
doing a lot lately to try increasing our teaching pool. Like we are
trying to meet a less active sister who has a sister who was
investigating the church but she sort of fell off of the face of the
planet. She has tried to make contact with her, and the one time that
she did she didn't ever call us back as to a time when we could meet
on the day that she said would work. But that is the mission life for
you. People disappear and reappear all the time and we don't have any
control over what happens. Like I found out that one of my
investigators in Houma disappeared off of the face of the planet.
We've been tearing it up this last week. We have been trying so hard
to stay busy. It has been hard though because there are so many people
we can see in certain areas and so much that we can do because the
cities here are so small, and we don't have many miles.
But things have been good. More and more people are showing up for
church each week...You would be surprised by how many visitors that we
get each week. The Amite Branch doesn't show up when you use the
church locator on lds.org.

Well y'all I love ya and hope that you have a good week.
Love Sister Brady

I think I may be cursed.... (Oct 20)

So according to the other missionaries last transfer there was
usually about 40+ people at church, while I have been here there has
been no more then like 20. Things have been crazy we had district
meeting, Zone Conference, and a trip to Baton Rouge to have our car
inspected all in a three days. It was crazy and then pretty much every
one either cancelled on us or didn't want us to visit, so we weren't
able to see as many people as we would like.
Oh and guess what last Monday we got put on lockdown because a good
chunk of the state was on tornado watch. It was crazy though. So we
spent the night cleaning out what we called the closet of doom. It was
filled with clothes that sisters had been leaving behind for the past
year. But we spent lock down sorting through them and bagging them up
so that we could get rid of them. It took a good bit of time.
Lucky for us though a less active member named Tanya has been taking
care of us by providing meals. She's great. She reminds me a lot of
you dad....she got a kick out of some of the stories that I have told
about the way we do things back home.

Here are some pictures from this week.
Number one: Sis Plumb and the contents of the closet of doom.
Number two: a car that we saw in Independence...can you see the driver?
Number three: a wooden statue of Jesus that we found...he's darker
then most that I have seen.
Number four and five: so a cup fell off in our dishwasher and
melted...this is how we found it. We weren't sure how it happened
until we took it off.