As We Grow Old...the Beauty Steals Inward

~Ralph Waldo Emerson



"Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been." ~Mark Twain

"Everyone is the age of their heart." ~Guatelmalan Proverb

"Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty - they merely move it from their faces into their hearts." ~Martin Buxbaum

"And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." ~Abraham Lincoln

More Grandparent Pix!

Adopt-a-Grandparent

Here's some pictures from our visit today at the Homestead. So much fun! We prepared and served dinner for them again, and visited for awhile. WE LOVE THESE PEOPLE SO MUCH!!

You...You Are AWESOME.

One of the final projects I’m in for this Comm150 class is a compliment booth. The Compliment Booth= AWESOME. Kay, so when we did this for the first time I was a bit nervous--it's hard to give compliments to people you don’t know. It’s like that compliment assignment Sister Embree gave us (which assignment is assigned for forever…I only mention it to remind myself. I guess we get our grade for this one in the next life, eh Sis. E?) of complimenting 3 people every week, one needing to be a stranger. But this was complimenting practically hundreds of people (it seemed like that many, I didn’t actually count) in the space of… an hour. We sat in chairs on the lawn facing the back of the library holding a ridiculous sign that says ‘Compliment Booth', and a ton of people walked by. Kiiiiind of unnerving for someone like me who doesn’t like to draw unnecessary attention to herself. BUT, it was great because the missionary in me came out and it was actually super fun! It WAS hard to give compliments that actually sounded sincere and not trite or general. It was hard not to laugh at peoples' reactions, because everyone was smiling! Whether they thought we were being dumb or cool or whatever, they SMILED, they didn't seem to be able to stop themselves. Yes… mission accomplished. Everyone seemed to love it (or at least think we were weird enough to laugh at). Some people came up and thanked us, some people insisted on giving US compliments. Haha, some people purposely walked by several times to get more compliments! My reaction: I couldn't stop smiling! After shouting out about a million compliments that afternoon, I was a bit more open with my compliments to everyone the rest of the day, I just couldn't stop 'em from coming out, I felt like I needed Immodium for the mouth or something!

Why is it that we as humans love, and almost seem to thrive on words of affirmation? (actually I shouldn't limit this to humans...even my dog loves having me tell her how cute she is!) Just nice, simple things said about us, about our looks or our abilities, how much they love our cooking, our family, or even the stupid $2 hand-me-down shoes on our feet? Why are words of affirmation so darn important to us? On the Love Languages quiz, the love language of Words of Affirmation came in third for me, but still, I, like everyone else on this awesome planet, love to have positive and nice things said to me about me, even if it’s just a passing compliment that didn’t take any thought or effort at all. Like in this video clipfrom the movie What About Bob, you can tell the mom loved that Bob loved her cooking. We all love compliments! Why? Maybe because we're such a self-critical/comparing society and we get down on ourselves a lot, maybe because we're stressed out about life and we just need a reason to smile, or because it just makes us feel good to know that you're noticed, that someone took the time to open their mouth and say something nice about you. It makes me want to return the favor, pass it on and compliment someone else!

(Here's a link to the awesome Validation video!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbk980jV7Ao )

What If Tweets Parts 1 & 2

This one is in answer to the questions from class. The first question is "What if you could have the perfect love relationship, but you knew at the end of one year the other person would die. Would you still pursue the relationship?" The second question is "What if you could have the perfect love but instead of them dying after a year, you knew they would betray you. Would you still pursue the relationship?" These were super hard Q's...I think I finally decided on a yes to the first Q and definite no to the second.

Part 1:
1. @SisEmbree Yes...y waste that time that u could be happy w/some1 u love even if only a yr? U would probly only regret it later on if u didnt
7:46 PM Mar 19th via web in reply to SisEmbree
2. @SisEmbree I think if you knew you'd only have a year together, you'd try to make every day count, no regrets.
11:42 AM Mar 20th via web in reply to SisEmbree
3. @RyaJam you're so right...since it was the perfect love how could anything ever come close to matching that?
8:36 PM Mar 20th via web in reply to RyaJam
4. @blakejx but perfection is all relative anyway, right? so the perfect love could in fact be imperfect...?
12:11 AM Mar 21st via web

Part 2:
1. @SisEmbree Wow.it wouldnt b the same. It wouldnt b perfect cz of that knowledge. I'd always b wondering if they really do love me after all.
9:37 PM Mar 22nd via web
2. #comm150 I think it would also depend on if they were repentant or not. Its easier to forgive someone who is truly sorry.
11:07 PM Mar 23rd via web
3. P.S. just another thot on the whatif Q's...the more I think about it the more I feel I would definitely not pursue the betrayal relationship
9:28 PM Mar 26th via web
4. Reason: betrayal is NOT accidental. 2 me its a deliberate action. Y would u want to b w/some1 who is going 2 intentionally break your heart?
9:30 PM Mar 26th via web

Social Exchange Theory Tweets

#comm150 Question: so do you think the costs or rewards of relationships continue even after the relationship has been cut off?
6:13 PM Mar 17th via web

@jlbell71 I guess it's one of those sitch's where the rewards don't come until later...probably much later, & not in this life. #comm150
7:31 AM Mar 19th via web in reply to jlbell71

Love Languages Quiz Tweets

On the Love Languages quiz I scored the highest on quality time, then touch, words and acts of service tied for 3rd, and last gifts.
7:06 PM Mar 16th via web

#comm150 I decided I only like the gifts love language if it comes in the form of ice cream or baked goods, haha.
7:08 PM Mar 16th via web

Strategic Language Twitter Discussion

1. glen beck is one of my fav examples of using strategic language to get u 2 agree w/what he says. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ophH-quXFHo
12:56 PM Feb 20th via web
2. @sophiecarolines haha, I love that one!
12:57 PM Feb 20th via web in reply to sophiecarolines
3. @RyaJam yeah, I think he gets a little too excited sometimes. =P
11:32 PM Feb 20th via web in reply to RyaJam
4. @StewartGal @JaredNeibaur I watched the grammar one too, so funny! I laughed a lot, and had to watch it a couple times too. =P
11:34 PM Feb 20th via web in reply to StewartGal
5. K-this was super hard! My four words: love (yup, I used that one too!), awesome, thanks, excited...I pretty much love those words! #comm150
1:38 PM Mar 3rd via web

Twitter Communication Scriptures Parts 1 & 2

1. @McCracka87 @SisEmbree I think those James scriptures will forever remind me of Elder Holland's Tongue of Angels talk.
4:20 PM Jan 9th via web
2. Love Eph4:29 interesting that words can minister grace to the hearers; grace is a divine means of help/strength, our words can give that!
4:25 PM Jan 9th via web
3. @SisEmbree Awesome ordering of these scriptures, btw! They all just seem to flow together. 4:32 PM Jan 9th via web
4. #comm150 Prov. 21:23 "Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles."11:48 PM Jan 12th via web
5. @sharpsterman contention definitely inhibits my ability to comm. If I'm upset my mind goes BLANK& I can't think of what to say.Why is that?
9:28 PM Jan 13th via web in reply to sharpsterman
6. @ifishyou0510 wow, crazy scripture,maybe its good my mind goes blank, tho it drives me insane.whats the 'right' reaction to contentious ppl?
9:55 PM Jan 13th via web in reply to ifishyou0510

The Gift of Friends

So I REALLY LOVE doing this adopt-a-grandparent project. It is definitely my fav! So quick story...the first time we went it was a Thursday afternoon, right around the time I start getting tired every day. I was pretty sleep-deprived and not in the best of moods as a result. So there I was, walking into the care center in zombie-like fashion, just had kind of surface politeness to my group members. By the time we left an hour later, I was smiling and chatting and laughing myself out the door, and I was actually really truly happy. I loved visiting with the people there, it totally made my day and changed my entire mood, and somehow I wasn't tired anymore. I wasn't conscious of this sudden mood change until we left and I realized how much energy I had. With every visit we make it never ceases to put me in an awesomely good mood that lasts for the rest of the day. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and it reminded me of something I read in a book by Pres. Hinckley's daughter. So here's an excerpt from this book that I think illustrates my thoughts, and also pertains to what we've been talking about with relationships and listening.

Excerpt from Virginia H. Pearce's book A Heart Like His:

"Several years ago I took my mother shopping for a winter coat. Shopping is not my favorite activity, and it was getting close to dinnertime before we finally found the right coat. It was a soft grey wool with raglan sleeves that hung way below her fingertips and a hem that brushed the tops of her shoes. The saleswoman sent for the alterations lady, who helped Mother onto the raised platform and went to work. I sank into a chair in the corner of the fitting room, lost in my own little world, wondering if I had time on the way home to shop at the grocery store to pick up something for dinner.

"Gradually, on the edges of my consciousness, I began to hear a conversation. Mother would ask a question, and the alterations lady would answer. At first the answers were rather brief, but as the questions and interest from Mother continued, the answers became longer. The woman's voice became more animated. By the time we left, the two of them were laughing together like old friends. And I was left out--a shriveled, self-asorbed, tired little soul in the corner. And withholding myself, I exited just as I had entered. I looked at Mother. She had come in just as weary as I but was leaving with an extra spring in her step.

"Aha. Here was a discovery that I didn't recognize then, but when I began to experiment years later, I thought back on that afternoon and identified a process that is repeatable: Opening one's heart creates energy. Closing one's heart depletes energy. As I sat in the corner of the dressing room with my little closed heart and thought about the list of things I had to do my fatigue increased. Mother looked down at the laterations lady and opened her heart by expressing an interest, and Mother's energy increased. "Do you like your job? how long have you worked here? What about your family? Where are you from?" An open heart looks outward. A closed heart looks inward.

"I learned something else about opening hearts from the coat-buying encounter. An open heart very often coaxes open someone else's closed heart. It's almost magical. An open heart presents a safe place that others sense, and they respond, sometimes immediately and sometimes much more slowly. No matter, however, whether they respond or not, because in the meantime, we feel so much better living this way. Go ahead, experiment for yourself."

Isn't this so true? It seems when I'm open-hearted and willing to take the time to really listen to someone (using my new-found master listening skills), they open up, and I know we talked about how listening makes you tired because it's an active process and is hard, but I think that it does also create energy. I think it's the looking outward, beyond yourself, beyond your own needs and wants and having someone else's happiness in mind besides your own, that's when you become happy in the process of making them happy. Making friends or just being a friend in the moment isn't hard when you're willing to listen and be sincerely interested in the other person. It's interesting how other people's happiness can so greatly affect our own.

"We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story, begging the listener to say--and to feel-- "Yes, that's the way it is, or at least that's the way I feel it. You're not as alone as you thought." ~John Steinbeck

Listen up!

So after reading this listening chapter and our discussions in class, I'm now freakishly aware of what a terrible listener I really am. It's really bad. Sometimes I don't even do the pseudolistening thing and pretend to be paying attention...I just type away on my laptop in my own little world, not looking up, emitting an occasional grunt of acknowledgement to be polite. Whatever, this is so ridiculous. And just like someone posted on Twitter, I feel guilty for not listening now. I'm also very much aware of everyone else's bad listening skills. I used to be blissfully ignorant in my non-listening world, and now because I'm aware of all this, it's driving me insane. :P It's crazy how much we as a people DON'T listen (and when I say we I mean me too). I think it's ingrained into our brains that we have to just pretend to listen to be polite, but we don't really HAVE to listen, because it's not interesting or pertinent to our salvation...and even when it is salvation-helping, like in church, for example, people don't really listen the whole time, myself included. I totally space out SO MUCH, all the time! But okay, since we can't possibly pay attention to EVERYthing everyone says 100% of the time, is it really bad to just be a mediocre-listener?? Of course, one of my favorite people in the world is also the most amazing listener I know, which is why she's my favorite, because she always makes me feel like I'm important, and what I'm saying is important to her, saying things like 'tell me about this', or 'tell me how you're liking this and how you feel about that'...she is always sincerely interested in whoever she's talking with. I want to be like that! Now the only trouble is making my aspirations of becoming a master listener a reality... I've been doing better lately, now that I'm actually paying attention. And you know how in class we talking about being hungry after coming out of the temple, or something where you're really having to pay attention? Yep...happens to me, and now I'm hungry all the time! :P

So I've been thinking about this. We read a lot in the scriptures about having 'eyes to see and ears to hear', and we know the Savior wasn't necessarily talking about physical eyes and ears, but spiritual ones too. We're always told to 'listen to the Spirit' (like that primary song I've had going thru my head all week, "listen to the still small voice, li-sten, li-sten..."), but how often have you heard the Spirit speak to you in an actual voice you could hear with your ears? For me, it hasn't happened all that often, and usually it's through a voice inside my head or my heart, speaking with words or feelings. So am I correct in thinking that listening doesn't always involve our ears? If the members of the Godhead are the Ones I should be listening the closest to, and I can't even hear their voices through my physical ears, what does that mean about listening to other people? We should be listening, not only with our ears, but our eyes, our body (nonverbal!), our minds and our hearts. One of my child development teacher's kids wanted him to pay attention to him, and he told him he was, but his kid said 'no daddy, listen to me with your eyes!'. I like doing a zillion things at once (only out of necessity of course), which usually means when someone's talking to me, I'm running around like a headless chicken while trying to listen. But I hate it when people, do the same thing to me, it makes me feel...unimportant to them. So I really need to change that. Do I make people feel unimportant, albeit unintentionally? Hm...

I also realized it's not always bad not to listen...well, maybe only when listening to Spirit. One day I was going through an endowment session in the temple, & for some reason I could not focus or pay attention, & I kept thinking about things that had nothing to do with the presentation. So I thot to myself 'c'mon, Amy, pay attention to what's happening', but I kept spacing off thinking about other things. Then the thot came to me that it was okay to think about these things because it was the Spirit guiding my thots to receive personal revelation. So sometimes I think it's totally okay to not be completely listening, as long as you're trying to tune into higher source of communication. How many times have we been told that during meetings like General Conference, devotionals, or church to not take notes about what the speaker is saying (especially when you'll have it online or in the Ensign), but write down the impressions you have, that might have nothing to do with what the speaker is saying? So I think it's important to remember that listening is not only what we hear with our physical ears, but with our spiritual ears. And to be there and ready to LISTEN when people need it.

"Listening is more than being quiet. Listening is much more than silence. Listening requires undivided attention. The time to listen is when someone needs to be heard. The time to deal with a person with a problem is when he has the problem. The time to listen is the time when our interest and love are vital to the one who seeks our ear, our heart, our help, and our empathy." ~Marvin J. Ashton
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=ee92b8c96c89b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=024644f8f206c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

"I'm so freakin' excited!"

Just fyi, I TOTALLY feel like this sometimes...a lot actually, especially about ice cream haha (or going to a Jazz game!)! So this hilariously awesome video from Saturday Night Live I think applies to some things we've been talking about in class. I have a friend who is just like Sue in this video, who is VERY expressive and totally shows all her emotions and what she's thinking/feeling, and you always know exactly what she's thinking/feeling. I, on the other hand, exercise a little more restraint when it comes to emotion and showing how I feel when I'm in public (depends on the situation, where I'm at and who I'm with for sure!). I just get a little shy with publicly displaying my emotions in a big way, & I get embarrassed kind of easily (which I hate). So does that mean we all feel emotions differently to a lesser or greater extent, or do we just express them differently and uniquely as indivduals? And to put sort of a spiritual twist on this, what kind of emotions did we feel in the pre-mortal life, since we didn't have bodies or physiological responses to them? I'm sure we had them, but I think we maybe feel them on a much bigger level here with our bodies than we ever did as spirits?? Sorry, tangent.

So in this video, a monotone/stone-faced Christopher Walken says, "I'm excited too, I just show it differently", while Sue can hardly contain herself. Everyone around her is appalled at her behavior and I'm guessing from their NVC, probably a little annoyed. I think when people are unable to control their behavior in a socially acceptable way in response to the stimulus and physiological response of an emotion, the people around them either think it's hilarious, or annoying (personally, I find people like Sue hilarious, they just make me laugh, which I love to do). Kay, so here's a different example: crying is a perfectly acceptable behavioral response to many emotions such as sadness, joy, spiritual whatevers...but when someone can't control their tear ducts I admit my 'emotional intelligence' drops and I get a little annoyed. For me, I hate it when I cry in public. To my great dismay, I do cry in public (like most girls) and way more than I'd like, and often it's for stupid reasons. Sad movies, I have to watch alone so I can bawl by myself...cuz somehow crying my eyes out when I'm alone is perfectly fine in my book... If I watch sad movies with other people I can usually control myself to the point of shedding like one glistening tear and I'm done, lots of blinking involved...k-actually no, not really. Sometimes I really cry more than that in sad movies and I can't control it! Bleh. I'm trying to convince myself otherwise as I'm writing this. Why is something like tears so stinkin' hard to control sometimes??? Especially for girls it seems! Lame. Anyway, I just think emotion is interesting...how sometimes seeing someone cry makes me want to cry (tho I try hard not to)...emotional contagion I guess that would be called. It's the same when someone's laughing, it makes me laugh even if I have no idea what they're laughing about (which, uncontrollable laughter I'm very much okay with because I do it a lot!). We all sort of feed off of each other's emotions and reactions to our emotions...it's kind of a circle of life type deal I guess, kind of weird. Hopefully this made sense...late night ramblings.

Texting= good or bad?

So I really liked this chapter on language. I totally think the way we say things are super important, and like it was said in class, meanings are in people, not in words. The other day I was texting one of my guy friends and we were just joking around and started being all sarcastic, and the next thing I knew, both of us were totally confused as to what we were both saying. It was crazy how fast it happened, and how much gets lost in texting translation. Even though I still do it a lot, I think this is why I don't really like texting/IMing all that much, because it takes all the emotion out of what we say, and is depriving us, I think, of having real relationships with people. I think it's a good way to have more frequent contact with people, but it should not be replacing our person-to-person contact. I definitely think new technology can have good purposes. However, as we talked about in class, Satan has a counterfeit for every principle, and I think one of the ways he uses this technology of IMing/texting communication for evil is to distract us from the relationships that are physically in front of us (it drives me nuts when people text when I'm talking to them or hanging out with them, because they're not really there), and to inhibit our social skills and our views of relationships, and especially eternal relationships. I'm thinking of Elder Bednar's CES fireside he gave here last year entitled "Things as They Really Are". Here are a couple quotes from it that have to do with my thoughts:

"Sadly, some young men and women in the Church today ignore "things as they really are" and neglect eternal relatinoships for digital distractions, diversions, and detours that have no lasting value. My heart aches when a young couple--sealed together in the house of the Lord for time and for all eternity by the power of the holy priesthood--experiences marital difficulties because of the addicting effect of excessive video gaming or online socializing. A young man or woman may waste countless hours, postpone or forfeit vocational or academic achievement, and ultimately sacrifice cherished human relationships because of mind- and spirit-numbing video and online games. As the Lord declared "Wherefore, I give unto them a commandment...::Thou shalt not idle away thy time, neither shalt thou bury thy talent that it may not be known" (D&C 60:13)."

"If the adversary cannot entice us to misuse our physical bodies, then one of his most potent tactics is to beguile you and me as embodied spirits to disconnect gradually and physically from things as they really are. In essence, he encourages us to think and act as if we were in our premortal, unembodied state. And, if we let him, he can cunningly employ some aspects of modern technology to accomplish his purposes. Please be careful of becoming so immersed and engrossed in pixels, texting, ear buds, twittering, online social networking, and potentially addictive uses of media and the Internet that you fail to recognize the importance of your physical body and miss the richness of person-to-person communication. Beware of digital displays and data in many forms of computer-mediated interaction that can displace the full range of physical capacity and experience."

Here's the link: http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?locale=0&sourceId=e99385703d951210VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=43d031572e14e110VgnVCM1000003a94610aRCRD

P.S. on another note, I also realized this last week how much I say the same things to describe my emotions. Things like "I LOVE that movie..." or "I hate that whatever..." Like Sister Embree said in class, 'do you really 'love' it as much as your husband?' I'm not married, but do I love it as much as my family/friends??? Psh, of course not. So I realized I really need to expand my emotional vocabulary and use a wider variety of words. Like we learned yesterday, the average human uses only about 500 different words a day...that's pretty ridiculous in my opinion, but I can see how that would be true, since I'm most definitely not the only one who uses the same words to explain their thoughts and feelings about everything. So, after doing the emotional journals, I sort of made a list of what I think are my most frequently used words: awesome, dude, totally, like, whatever, so, sweet, very cool, pretty much, definitely, super, crazy, ridiculous, obnoxious, lame. Yep, those are the ones I say about a millions times a day (eh, there's probably a few I'm missing too). So I definitely...most positively need to expand my emotional vocabulary! :)

LAME...

Story time...so I was leaving our amazing Comm150 class, and I was feeling pretty awesome, as I usually do as I leave that class, feeling all pumped, excited to change the world and all... As I approached the doors to leave the Spori I noticed a girl there windexing the glass doors with an expression on her face that said 'I hate my job, I'm so tired, I need a break from life'...okay so that might not have been what she was thinking, but hey, perfect situation for our little compliment project or just for me to try and be a nice person or whatever... and so I said "Hey, you're awesome! That's such a thankless job, you're so awesome for doing it!"... only it didn't make it out of my head!!!!! I made eye contact, smiled a little, hesitated, looked down, and walked out the dumb doors on my merry little way... one word came to mind in this moment: LAME. As I walked away I totally felt like I'd missed out on an opportunity to make someone smile, make someone's day, or just make myself feel better by trying to uplift someone else or whatever. WHATEVER. The Spirit prompted me and gave me the words to say in my head, but at the risk of sounding/looking dumb I failed to open my mouth, and I don't want to ever feel like that again. This might seem like just a little thing, but I'm going to get over my dumb fears/apprehensions and take advantage of unexpected opportunities like this one from now on, and not just ones I'm looking for.

Thots about Communication

So these are my thots from the last week of communications class...so hopefully it all makes in class, I came home that night and as I interacted with my roomates I realized just how much I rely on relational communication, and how much everyone else does too. It's like I expect everyone to read my mind or something, and it's kiiiiind of ridiculous.


I have to share this, I totally had an "I'm hungry" situation on a date last month, didn't realize what had happened until this last week, and now it all makes sense. I don't think I've ever been on a date where we didn't eat anything, so for some reason I just assumed this guy was going to actually feed me food of some kind on this date (which started at 6pm...dinner time, duh!). He kept me out till almost midnight...and we didn't eat a thing!! I was SO annoyed, because that's of course, what happens to me when I'm super hungry, and I know it affected my communication skills because all I could think about was my loudly growling stomach, which my date somehow managed not to hear. There was a point during the evening (right about when I finally realized he had no plans of getting food) when I asked him if he'd eaten dinner yet (mistakenly hoping he'd pick up on my 'relational message' and ask me the same) to which he replied that he had...and of course he didn't realize it was actually a hint saying I was super hungry and wanted food. I realize now that he wasn't trying to starve me or trying to annoy me (as I originally thot in my hungered state when I got home and raided my fridge). To be a little more content communication savvy, I should've said something like "hey, so I didn't eat dinner yet, I didn't know if we were going to eat tonight or not, but would you mind if we stopped to get some food?" Better?? Now that I'm aware of my major deficiencies in content communicating I've been doing better with catching myself from just dropping hints and instead just saying whatever it is I have to say.

In our class discussion about self-concept, we talked about how our self-concept is mainly the product of other's comments or reactions to us. That got me thinking, not only about my own self-concept and how to change it a little, but also about how I treat other people, and how I'm shaping their self-concept by the way I treat them. How often have I said a careless remark or joke about someone, not really meaning anything by it? P.S. I really love this compliment assignment, because it's making me more aware of other people's strengths, talents, and abilities and giving me the courage to mention them in a sincere way. It seems like a good way to positively influence the self-concept of others. I think the 'natural man' comes into play with your self-concept, with having an unrealistic perception of yourself, or being overly self-critical. From a gospel perspective I think having a negative self-concept affects our feelings of self-worth, which is what Satan wants. Weird that the world/media has us comparing ourselves to the kind of perfect people who don't really exist.

I also thought about our discussion in class about not being able to take compliments from people, perhaps because of not wanting to sound prideful or something. We're so afraid of pride that we can't even allow ourselves to be pleased with our accomplishments, or allow others to compliment us. This is either false modesty, or sincerely being self-critical. I think false modesty is dangerous as it can sometimes be a way to hide our pride. Whatever our talents and strengths are, it's important that we recognize them as strengths and know what we're good at, but we should remember to give the credit to God. "Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things" (Alma 26:12).

"Consider the climate that would exist within a marriage or family--or any organization, for that matter--if through genuine humility mistakes were freely admitted and forgiven, if we were not afraid to praise others for fear they might gain on us, and if all were able to listen as well as we now verbalize" (Marlin K. Jensen, May 2001).

My first post...ever.

So I'd like to start off by saying I promised myself I'd never have a blog (or be on Twitter, for that matter), but here I am, seeking to use the online communicative resources that are available, hoping I won't be required to break anymore promises to myself. :P Hopefully I can 'add to the conversation' without repeating anyone or going too far off topic.

I don't think I'm alone when I say that this awesome communications class (and it is AWESOME) has caused me to think more deeply about communication than I ever have before. Why is effective communication so important? Why is it that every person on the earth seems to have this innate need to be heard and to be understood by another human being? Just thinking of my need to communicate, I can understand why it was such a terrible punishment for the Lord to confound the language of the people at the tower of Babel, and why the brother of Jared pleaded with the Lord not to confound the language of his family, so they could still have the blessing of understanding one another.

I think this need to express ourselves has brought about many things I would include as forms of communication, including works of creation, such as art, music, and literature. Pres. Uchtdorf said: "The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before." I'm a music major, and therefore love creating beautiful music, and when I perform, I really do feel like I'm communication my thoughts, feelings and emotions with the listeners through the music (which is probably why I'm still extremely reluctant to perform in public...connection with my reluctance to make comments in class or even to post this blog...? hm...). Someone once told me that in order to become a great musician you have to learn to speak through your music without saying anything.

I had an interesting experience in one of my classes today (which actually prompted me to finally create my blog)--for some reason (whether it be the lateness of the hour, or the fact that it was a Monday evening in Rexburg and everyone's brains had already shut down and left campus for the day) no one was making comments. This was a little unusual for this class which thrives on discussion, and my teacher proceeded to explain that speaking up and adding to discussions in class is like taking a step in the dark, an act of faith. You don't always know what you're going to say, but opening your mouths to speak is like an invitation for the Spirit to teach you in class, because when you open your mouth, it's filled. A great example of this is testimony meetings; everyone's afraid to get up and share those things that are most sacred and precious to us (except for those awesome people who for some reason beyond me are never nervous to speak in front of large audiences), but as Pres. Packer said, "a testimony is found in the bearing of it". So not only do we contribute to whatever meeting or class or conversation we may be in by opening our mouths, but we also allow the Spirit to teach and testify and confirm things to us at the same time.

In my class we then talked about how Christ was never afraid to go out of His comfort zone, to go communicate with everyone around Him, even seeking people out. So in essence, getting out of our comfort zones in this communications 150 class and learning how to communicate more effectively is teaching us to become more like the Savior. And now that I've written more about this subject that I thought possible, I look forward to learning more about communication by opening my mouth (hopefully) as well as listening to the thoughts of others. "As we learn to participate together in meaningful associations, we are able to convey our thoughts of love, dependence, and interest." Marvin J. Ashton