Testing

I'm conducting a little experiment here to see if a post scheduled for months in the past and then published will show up in my followers' feeds. So, does it? At the top or where it fits chronologically? If you have trouble commenting on this post for whatever reason then just use some other post.

Little Influences

Every so often I find myself saying a word or phrase I never used to use or performing some little task slightly differently than I used to, immediately reminding me of the friend who I picked it up from.

Then yesterday I started wondering: do these same friends pick up little phrases or gestures from me? If so, what?

Stake Conference

Last week was stake conference.

A lot of people don't go to stake conference. I've known that for a while, but this year our stake president really pointed it out to us. The week before he visited our sacrament meeting to urge everybody to go, citing some sort of statistic about how many usually go compared to the number attending sacrament meeting on an average Sunday. Then during the general session of conference, he talked about how he would like to have the perfect stake; how cool it would be to have buses show up to take us all to establish Zion or something like that, with our temple recommends as our tickets. But only 1 out of every 3 adults in the stake has a current temple recommend, and 4 out of every 5 stake members weren't at conference. That is, 33% of adults have a recommend, for which they must attend their meetings to be worthy. And some members who don't have the recommend still attend regularly. But only 20% attend the Sunday morning session of stake conference.

We are told that partaking of the sacrament is the most important thing we do on Sunday. And maybe that's part of why some people think skipping conference isn't such a big deal; they aren't administering the sacrament, so we're already missing the most important thing anyway. But the way I see it, if we are regularly required to skip the sacrament, there must be a good reason for it.

So if something is so important that it's worth skipping the sacred ordinance of the sacrament, isn't it important enough that we should make it a point to be there?

Half Herself

Lots of people love Anne Shirley from the Anne novels by L. M. Montgomery. Some love the books, some the movies. I'm a book person myself, which should come as no surprise to people who know me well. But I love Emily Starr and the Emily books more.

One thing that comes up in them every so often bothers me - Emily is often referred to, by herself and by others, as being half Murray - the Murrays being her mother's family. I don't see it that way. Emily has as much Murray blood, as much Murray DNA, as she does Starr blood and Starr DNA. She had more Murray socialization than Starr socialization, her father's relatives being absent from her life; about as much of her upbringing was as a Murray as was Starr. She is not half Murray - she is Murray in all but name.

My Holley and Leavitt cousins are not half Howes; they are Howeses. I do not see myself as being half Wagstaff. I am a full member of Wagstaff clan. The only reasons I don't go by both names are tradition and to keep my name from becoming too unwieldy- Marissa Howes Henderson Wagstaff Willie or Marissa Willie Wagstaff Howes Henderson is way too long for forms and databases, and each generation you go back would double the number of attached surnames. You need to cut off somewhere and the closer to me the cutoff comes the better, so far as length is concerned. But each of the families represented in those names, even if those names are not part of my name, are equally part of my identity.

To High School Seniors

This past Thursday I saw an ad that stuck with me. I don't know what product it was trying to sell -  I only saw it for a couple seconds. But what I did see of the ad went something like, "Make your senior year last forever with this deal that won't." And my automatic thought to that?

Please don't.

If you've managed to progress all the way to the twelfth grade, hopefully you have realized that it would be impossible to make the year last forever. But more important to my thought process is that as much as I enjoyed high school (and I did) I would hate to be back there. Because there is so much more to experience.

So, high school seniors, enjoy your year. Participate in your clubs and go to your dances and all that stuff. Then, after you graduate, move out and move on. Live with roommates. Stay at your friend's place talking until it gets so late that you're too tired to walk back downstairs to your own apartment so you just sleep on her couch, knowing that your roommates won't be too concerned if you show up sometime the next day. Eat cookies for breakfast because that's all you have in your dorm room and there isn't time to stop by the dining hall if you want to get to your scheduled final on time. Or eat cookies and crackers for breakfast in bed just because that's what looks good and bed is comfortable (this course of action is best performed if you intend to be changing your sheets soon, but if you don't... hey, live and learn).

Sure, at first you may miss having Mom do your laundry and cook your meals. But eventually, you just may discover that the freedom that comes from being the one to decide what gets washed when more than makes up for the extra burden of the chore. And that ready-made meals aren't too much to sacrifice in order to be the one who decides what to eat and when to eat it - even more when you make the lasagna and green beans than when you munch on a bag of potato chips and a brownie and call that dinner.

Seriously. It happens. And it feels good.

Don't Say It

I have heard many times that the thing that originally attracts you to someone is eventually going to be the thing that most annoys you.

I haven't seen any research addressing this. It probably is true in some cases, but not all. I'd guess it depends on why whatever it is attracts you and how the rest of the relationship proceeds. Whatever the facts of the matter, I don't see any good from telling it to single people. I can see two rational responses to such information, especially without any qualifiers about how or why it would happen.

1. Avoid marriage and romantic relationships in general
 This option is pretty bad for the survival of the species.

2. Marry someone whose personality does not draw you in any way
This seems like a great way to create unfulfilling marriages.

Isn't there enough out there to scare people away from marriage without making us afraid that the very fact that we like someone is a sign that we're going to end up driving each other crazy in a bad way?

Be a Man

A few years ago, some of my male friends joined a facebook event for a be a man day in an effort to combat the media's portrayals of manhood - machismo or uselessness. Basically, this be a man day was a call for guys to be good, decent, hardworking people and for everybody to realize that is what being a man is about.

Last week I read from 2 Nephi 1 in my seminary scriptures. Verses 21 through 27 have markings placed as per my teacher's instructions - in the margin, Lehi's 10 traits of becoming a man, then the numerals 1 through 10 in the places he mentions said traits. The list
1. Be men (not sure why that's one of the items)
2. Be determined in one mind and one heart, united in all things
3. Awake
4. Come forth out of obscurity
5. Rebel no more
6. Keep the commandments
7. Be an instrument in the hands of God
8. Seek not for power or authority
9. Have the power of the word of God
10. Have the Spirit of the Lord in you

As a side note, I believe this was the same lesson where we split up into boys and girls and made lists - the girls made a list of the top 10 things we wanted in a man and the boys listed 10 things they thought the girls would want in a man. The lists actually matched up pretty well - the order was a bit off, but most of the items were represented on both lists. We girls cheated a bit, though - we couldn't completely agree on what belonged on the list so ended up with a tie in one spot, giving us 11 items. I don't remember many specific items on either list, although I could probably make a fairly good guess at what went on them. What I do remember is that one of the tie items on the girls' list was a Y chromosome. The boys listed testosterone. Those were the only physical attributes. Both lists focused mainly on character.