My LAST Final

I am studying for my last final... and I am learning all sorts of new things!  That can't be good news.  Not at all.  It's funny how I only have 2.5 hours to study for my biggest (and last) final ever, and how little I care.  I'm just excited that SPRING is here!


I am attending commencement today at 3.  I wonder what happens if I don't take my final beforehand?  I'm not brave enough to find out for sure, but one thing is certain:  in 5 short hours I will be FINISHED with my undergraduate studies, and one day later I will officially be a BYU ALUMNI!


I cannot wait.


Thank you BYU for an unmatched education, for giving me the knowledge and skills to lay the foundation for my future in medicine.  Now if you'd just waive my requirement to take my last final, that would be great.


But seriously, life is full of opportunities, and I owe many of those opportunities to BYU.  Thank you.

FINALS FINALS FINALS

yells my conscience, every time I think of something fun.

However, it is REALLY hard to focus because:

Chantel really wants to play uno!  AND SO DO I!!  (FINALS FINALS FINALS)

My new issue of National Geographic came today and it has a HUGE section on climbing in Yosemite.  Coincidentally, I purchased some great climbing equipment today.  (FINALS FINALS FINALS)

I cannot WAIT to be done!  Huzzah!

Dear Professors,

I don't want to complete my study guides for finals week.  Let alone actually study them. I do not want to take these tests.  It's SPRINGTIME people!  Time to go play outside!  I know for a fact that all of you are already on vacation (and it's not even finals week yet, and one of you left before CLASS was even over)... and I just wish one of you would have invited me. :'(

     yours in academic apathy,

          Spencer

General Conference, Continued

Did you know (I feel like I am always starting sentences that way), that you can now WATCH the Priesthood Session of General Conference?  It's true.  Now, you wonderful ladies still cannot attend the session yourself, but the tech-savvy LDS Church has recorded and posted the talks online for you to watch!  Pretty neat, eh?

Anyways, just in case you didn't feel like waiting for the magazine to come out, you can watch them here!

Sweet, yeah?

So.

Excuse me for waxing a little bit personal here, but I want to share my motivation for this post:  Compared to my usual near-perfect life, I've been going through some tough times recently.  I'm not really complaining, (in fact I feel like this is all largely a result of my own choices) so it's one of those times in life where you just gotta work through some stuff, and hope for the best -

Watching these conference talks has been really helpful to me, giving me that extra little boost when things feel especially tough.  If you need a little pick-me-up, I recommend you follow that link I posted (up there ^).  The talks don't fix your problems for you, but they give you a good idea of what to do.

That's one thing (among many) that I love about the Gospel of Jesus Christ - you get to earn your blessings.  That way you don't take them for granted.

Here's something I loved from Steven E. Snow's talk, Hope:

"We should never let hope be displaced by despair. The Apostle Paul wrote that we 'should plow in hope' (1 Corinthians 9:10). The exercise of hope enriches our lives and helps us look forward to the future. Whether we are plowing fields to plant or plowing through life, it is imperative we, as Latter-day Saints, have hope."


Plowing through life.  What a wonderful way to think about it - and after the plowing, and a little rain, comes the sunshine and the growth.  Life is hard work, but that's nothing new - the trick is to realize that your circumstances don't need to determine your happiness.  If you're sick of April showers, look to the future and you'll see May flowers just around the bend.

credit: papertissue

Half a dozen James Bond movies just became available on Neflix, including Thunderball, which came out in 1965.  Sweeeeeet!

April General Conference

Every 6 months, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints holds a General Conference, in which the worldwide leaders of the Church speak to listeners worldwide.  I packed up and left Provo for the weekend, to spend some time with my family in Salt Lake City as we enjoyed all five sessions.  I love that the General Authorities of the LDS Church can speak in enough detail to appeal to those who are intimately familiar with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but still speak in simple enough terms that a child, or somebody else who is new to the Gospel, can understand.  That is one of my favorite things about Conference.

I feel spiritually fed and richly blessed.  There is so much to learn, and so much more we can do!  As the talks become available online, I will post a link to them here.

That's what you get for falling asleep in conference.

Just kidding.  We didn't really fall asleep.

But take note of the awesome soft-focus from my g12.

Love it.

In addition to the usual joys of Conference, I got to meet my new nephew, Benjamin Percy Jackson.  He's a cutie, isn't he?  We call him "B-Perce," or while he's small, "Benjamin Button."

My oldest sister celebrated her birthday with us, and much wrapping paper was strewn about with reckless abandon.  My brother and I stapled 16 pieces of cardstock together and made the hugest birthday card ever.