Family History

Well Elder Bednar's talk in the most recent General Conference inspired me to try doing family history!! I recently learned to index and have loved doing that, but I decided I should venture deeper in the world of family history.  I logged into new.familysearch.org and started checking out my family tree.  I have an awesome family and most everything is pretty much known for the first branches...but then I got to the 1600's and there were blank spots and I got excited! I started searching familysearch.org to find missing spouses.  I was a little discouraged because I just couldn't find anything.  So decided to try a different one. AND I FOUND HER! Ja. Gow was missing his wife and Margaret Gow was missing a mom...and I found her! I was pretty excited. So I added her on my family tree! As I linked up to her family tree, I discovered like 5 more children we didn't know Ja. Gow had. Pretty sweet. (and then I noticed someone had entered that Janet married a James Gow in the 1800's...since she was born in the 1600's, I was doubtful.  So, I posted a discussion to correct it (since I couldn't delete the link since I didn't add it) and found a cute little button that will email me if anyone responds.  Isn't that awesome! I'm an official family history doer! Who knew it could be so fun? I feel like I am Nancy Drew solving family history mysteries.  (Yes I read every Nancy Drew book ever written when I was young and still own most of them. classic.)  Just wanted to share my intense excitement with the world!!

Things as they really are

enjoyed this video tonight!

weirdness and love

saw this quote today:

"We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."
- Dr. Seuss

LOVED IT :)

gratitude

my sister's blog post this morning (The Boster Family: Heritage) expressed my own feelings of gratitude better than i have been able to put into words. granted, i am not a young mother as she is...yet i feel the same way about the heritage my parents have left me (and are still creating for me). i find as i go through this busy time of life, it is easy to get caught up in the "thick of thin things". as i read emails from my parents in siberia and josh in mexico, all doing the work of our Savior, it lifts me from my world of selfishness. their stories remind me of what's most important: lifting the hands that hang down and strengthening the feeble knees. even though i'm not on the other side of the world, i too can do His work HERE. and as we all follow the small daily promptings of His Holy Spirit, we follow His master plan to prepare us and shape us into who He knows we can become.

the Lord knows us!

Well I just had to share this cool story.  Yesterday I was searching for a specific email in my inbox. A random one came up that wasn't relevant, but I ended up reading it anyway.  Turned out to be an email I had sent a missionary friend a long time ago.  I always included random uplifting quotes from general conference or ensign talks.  The one in this email was:

 "I testify of God's love and the Savior's power to calm the storm.  Always remember in that biblical story that He was out there on the water also . . . Only one who has fought against those ominous waves is justified in telling us - as well as the sea - to "be still" (Mark 4:39).  Only one who has taken the full brunt of such adversity could ever be justified in telling us in such times to "be of good cheer" (John 16:33)."


(Jeffrey R. Holland, "An High Priest of Good Things to Come," Ensign, Nov. 1999, 37)

Randomly after I read it, I had the thought, "I should post this on facebook!" and didn't think much of it.  Then as I was posting it, I almost just put "Jeffrey R. Holland" at the end instead of the whole reference...but I had a strong feeling I should leave it.  So that was a few days ago and I'd entirely forgotten about it.  Then today, I had a message in my facebook inbox from an acquaintance I don't know that well. It said:

 "Hi, I don't get on facebook that often, but I did today and saw your post of Elder Hollands talk from 1999, it caught my eye.  I looked it up and read it, you have no idea how much I NEEDED that today.  You were an answer to a prayer - so I just wanted to say Thank you."

I know this is just a little thing, but it hit me really hard.  It was just another witness of how the Lord knows each of us.  He knows exactly what we're going through and what we need to get through it!  To think that the all-powerful God of the universe had the time to prompt little Liz to post a random quote on facebook because He knew His daughter needed it.  He has been there for me so many times!  I was also grateful that He let me be a part of this small tender mercy. I have been so busy lately that I'm afraid I haven't taken as much time to be still and listen for the spirit.  This experience has made me want to be as close to the spirit as possible so I can be the Lord's hands more.  We can all be a part of His work.  And it doesn't have to be big things, it can be things that only take up 30 seconds of our time.

Just wanted to share my testimony that the Lord knows and loves us all!!

today i am grateful not to be a rat!

so today in my physiology class, i learned that female rats cycle every 4 days compared to 28(ish) days for humans. enough said. never again will i complain.  I'm so glad I'm not a rat! life is good :)

is it creepy that i people watch?

well here i sit in the library doing my take home test for physiology. don't worry i've actually been VERY productive the past 2 hours (i'm quite proud) and am now treating myself to a 5 minute break.  i just wanted to comment on how fun it is to people watch. call me a creepster...but i enjoy it.  i will illustrate by describing some of the fascinating scenes in front of me:

1) girl at her computer with headphones on...ROCKING out to her music without making a sound. that's right...she's lipsyncing very enthusiastically.  quite entertaining. i wonder what she's listening to... now i know what i look like when people in the next car over see me at a stoplight

2) then there are the people who have fallen asleep in amazing positions...head back on the couch, mouth open...on the keyboard of their laptop....with head on their hands with elbows on the table (very impressing how balanced they are)...then of course my fav: those who are TRYING not to fall asleep but you can see the head bob happening. i love the head bob. you know...they start to fall asleep...head starts to fall forward...and when it does it jolts them back awake....then you see the determined face "i will stay awake!" when just 30 sec later the cycle starts again.  i once tried to video a head bobber in a physiology class...but it looked like i was videoing the lecture and i felt like a nerd and stopped.

3) then my fav.  i'm sitting on a couch between the entrances to the men's and women's restrooms.  they both have a big yellow sign on them saying the restroom is closed (unfortunate for me since my allergies have been off the charts this week and i'd really like to blow my nose).  sooo for the past 2 hours I've gotten to watch people come up, stop suddenly, read the sign, then turn away...then look back to doublecheck they read it right...then walk away. ok now i know this doesn't sound very funny...but if you watched it over and over again it would get entertaining to you too.

4) i ran into a girl i used to teach piano lessons to about 7 years ago! turns out she's a student here! who knew? just another experience (in addition to running into a girl i used to babysit and then one of my EFY kids from years ago that said "aren't you graduated yet???") that makes me feel old :)

well my 5 minute break is up!

do you ever have those days?

do you ever have those days when you can think of about a bajillion things you need to get done....and you spend so much time thinking about what you need to get done you don't get any of it done??....and then you finally sit down to get it done, and just like THAT you think of something relatively unimportant that you need to do and so you start doing that because it's easier than the thing you REALLY need to get done?...and then as you do that relatively unimportant thing that needs to get done eventually, you think of something very UNimportant that would be fun to do so you start doing that instead??...and THEN you decide to waste even MORE time by writing a blog post about all of it? ...and then you come to your senses and realize that the longer you waste time the more sleep you're going to be losing near the end of the week?...so you sit down to do the important thing that needs to get done and the cycle starts all over again!! well you guess it....that's the kind of day i'm having.  what has happened to me? i used to be responsible.  well, back to the cycle i go... (except maybe this time I'll actually BREAK the cycle...now THAT would be blog-worthy...)

today i am grateful for...

SMOOTH MUSCLE CONTRACTION!!

my lovely depiction i made in paint.  now y'all knew i was a nerd...but just humor me....isn't this cool?? it boggles my mind how everything works together. love it. and it's even way more complicated than this. God really knew what he was doing.

PS - don't worry...i didn't do this for fun. It's for an assignment. I'm not THAT far gone.

Formula for an awesome weekend...

Free rountrip flight to Phoenix

+ Peter waiting at the airport with a sign with your name on it, ready to drive you to Sedona 

(lunch provided in the car)

+ one great friend

+ 2 nights free stay at Amara Resort and Spa with...

...the comfiest beds ever made... 

....free gift bag upon arrival....

...and a GORGEOUS view by the pool

+ a free guided tour of the grand canyon

+ a HELICOPTER RIDE over the grand canyon!

+ dinner and shopping in Sedona

= most relaxing weekend ever! can't beat the price too :)