there are so many reasons for me to feel full of thanks. but let me just begin asi:
1) for laura being willing to listen to me when i needed it/was ready for it.
2) for laura being ready/worthy to follow the promptings of the spirit to share this with me.
3) for heavenly father sending people into our lives with their own experiences/ideas to help us. it's often through other people that He answers our prayers.
i confided some character flaws of mine a few weeks ago. i'm not sure if it was a cry for help or simply an opportunity to explain myself, but she listened with love and responded under the direction of the spirit after receiving some definite revelation. she remembered this video from a class she'd taken last semester.
and i loved it.
i needed it.
and i feel like sharing it with the world.
if you're interested in the whole idea of vulnerability, watch this clip. yeah, it's 20 minutes, but i promise it's worth it.
"vulnerability is to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror when we're wondering--can i love you this much? can i believe in this this passionately? can i be this fierce about this? just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, just say, 'i'm grateful' because
to feel this vulnerable means i'm alive."
" we have to believe we're enough."
"vulnerability is the core of shame, fear, struggle for worthiness...but it is also the birthplace of joy, creativity, belonging, and love."
"you cannot selectively numb emotion."
"courage comes from that latin root 'cor-' which means heart. courage means to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart."
still eating more fruits and veggies than...wait no. more than nothing. we should always be eating more of those guys.
laura says my husband is going to need to love verduras. especially the green ones.
and also that i should have a compost.
i don't really know what that means, but i'm cool with it.
did i tell you we had a lot of fruit flies? before.
ha ha. at first we had a separate bag for the fruit and veggies remnants. then we had that bag be air tight and somewhere else--in a cupboard. didn't work either. then we decided to put all that stuff in a baggy in the freezy. this is me doing away with that. : )
and i'm pleased to say we have little to no fruit flies now.
genius.
we're still chilling with this great guy--love. what an inspired human being!
still loving the whole workshop situation.
we met with the bishops/branch presidents of a nearby church units to tell them about all the resources the church offers and to see how we can help their specific members.
the Lord is so aware of His children. and He's given us so many resources so that we can be successful. i'm becoming more and more aware of and grateful for that.
we got to teach this great group the first part of the workshop last saturday.
second half tomorrow!
(we think this selfer is a cool pic because you can kinda see the title of the workbook cover--"el taller de la autosuficiencia laboral." that wasn't on purpose mae!)
aaaaand we're still chilling with this great family all the time. :)
here we're teaching them to make galletas. SO FUN. we made the dough and then just did whatever we wanted for each individual cookie by hand...some had oatmeal, some coconut, some almonds, some all three, some plain,... we made a mound of cookies and they were taaaaaaasty!
love with bea smiles in pictures. : )
we also taught them how to make apple pie.
(and this pie is GIGANTIC. it looks sad because it should be more elevated, but that was two gigantic bags of apples!)
all those people (above) partook...
and--as you can see--it was riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiico. we were just missing the johnny rockets a-la-mode action (in memory of my dear sister).
and they taught us how to make this majesty of an el salvadorian dessert. i think it's called semilla de piña? soooooo good.
and then we went to the temple. : ) cutest abuela. you know when you find yourself feeling grumpy for no reason? and then you realize it's because it's been too long since you templed it up? that should never happen. but i realized a few days before we went that i needed it and that it was time to stop worrying about not knowing where it is or about it being too dangerous to go alone and to just FIND THE TEMPLE because i needed that spiritual boost. sooo badly. we all do! i love this story of the early saints in logan: every time they wanted to go to the temple, they'd say they were going to go and immediately something would happen...like their wagon wheel would break or their mule would get sick or whatever. finally the prophet exhorted them, "drop your buckets and RUN" to the temple if they wanted to go. so don't wait. don't let satan win. something will always come up. and maybe it is legitimately hard to go. but make it a priority--make it happen!--and watch the blessings flow.
(Utahans are SO BLESSED to just be able to go to any of eighty temples at our leisure. we've gotta step it up. we don't realize what we have until we don't have it.
will you all make a goal to GO?)
it's time.
......................
pineapple shake. : )
happy one month in costa rica!
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apart from all the usual great stuff, we hiked a volcano yesterday. ha ha. just got on a bus and went.
first we drove through the cutest, quaintest most beautiful places on earth...
see all the pictures. no explanations necessary.
just tulips on the mountain. no big.
i love this one.
and then it started getting foggy...
but it wasn't fog...
we were, in reality, in a CLOUD because we were up so high on the mountain. i mean volcano. ha ha.
just treadin the volcanic ash.
made a few friends...
i have such a knack for that.
remember the squirrel and pigeon in london?
or the ducks in slovenia?
call me the she-whisperer
or whatever.
ps. racoons have sharp claws. he swatted me for some cashew clusters.
the audacity.
oh, and then today we jumped off this bridge.
down there.
pretty sturdy, ma!
and then here are two videos. in case you happen to want to watch me jump off a 300 foot bridge voluntarily.
what?
ps. you may notice they keep calling me "anto." the reasoning for that may be unclear to you. let me reveal the logic here. TAWny is impossible to say in spanish. that kind of pronunciation just doesn't exist, period. so i sometimes go by TANI. but even still...that causes a lot of ruffled eyebrows. so i often just resort to antonia because that's totally latino and easy and unmistakeable. and anto is antonia shortened.
(i occasionally go with toñia because that's cool and russian sounding and just awesome, but i found out today that's a kind of nicaraguan beer and if i seem overly excited about my name...people automatically think i'm ready and wanting to party. odd. and undesirable.)
you've gotta think BIEN about what you name your children. as my sister always says, "why do you hate your child?!" i'm just sayin. i love my name but all you out there bearing fetuses or feti, you've gotta consider these things.
you know what today is. and you know that i'm thinking of you!
yesterday, this happened:
and i loved it.
(dear everyone besides staisha,
one time, while staish and i were in hike school, there was a freakin downpour in orem. i unfortunately had ballet class when class got out, so there wasn't much i could do to really soak in the whole experience--pun intended. ha ha. but as i drove home, i knew i just had to aprovechar--enjoy, take advantage of the opportunity. so i called dance people and told them i'd be late... and headed to staisha's. she was thrilled by the surprise. we went puddle jumping around her house like no one has ever been puddle jumping before. at one point, her dad passed us in his huge diesel truck, splashed us hardcore, and turned around to do it again. :) at one point, we even found ourselves laying in the gutter as passerbys (julia mcdougal) drove by looking sooooooooooooooo confused about what the freak we were doing.
we were then freezing, so we warmed up by sitting in her bathtub discussing everything from rain to death.
it was an epic experience.
every time it rains i want to repeat the experience. in fact, there's even a part in the above video where i pause, look at the water, and legitimately consider laying myself down right there in the gutter to show ivan what hardcore puddle jumping is. ha. but i was tame.
this video was reminiscent of that day...minus the fact by how calm i am in it.)
we reunited after croatia and san diego at the friendship tree only to be quite dismayed.
we were different.
the tree was different.
our names aren't there anymore.
that branch is up there WAY higher than we remembered it being.
and...we have lost some serious agility and gained some serious weight or something because....
...it was a struggle getting up there!
after several attempts, staisha rendered herself useless, and gave up...
...injured.
but we smiled for the camera because the world saw my garments as i struggled to climb the tree, and that was funny! and your ankle bled, and that was funny!
and also because, yeah, we're different--life is so different--but the important things, the things that reeeeeally matter... are still the same. and we're happy. it's a different, deeper, unspoken, fought-for kind of happiness.
but we have it. especially when life permits us to do dumb stuff together.
and that's well worth smiling about.
I repeat:
"can someone ever go back to being 100%? no. i don't think so. first of all, i don't think there's such a thing as 100%. second, i think that people go through crap so they can make up what they lack by learning new things...and come back as a new, different, person, with an even greater capacity to live and do. you've been through a lot. and it's really shaken your world, rocked your boat. it's changed your perspective and altered your life and identity. and that's good. it's right. it's meant to be that way. absolutely. so no, you'll never go back to who or how you were before. ever. she's gone and dead. get over it. but your'e YOU. you're staisha, NOW. older, wiser, more calloused, with more feeling, more depth, more intelligence, more empathy, more faith, more to offer. you're you. you're new. you're closer to 100%. and you're GREAT."
I still love you a whole lot. and i'm still so grateful for your timeless friendship. years later.
see you at the friendship tree, beauty. and this time...we'll burn our names into the bark.
