lets talk.

last thursday my bishop called and asked if i would be willing to speak in sacrament today. i said of course and began preparing. he asked me to speak using the talk by sister lant from last conference. this is what i said:
(some of it may be hard to imagine without my tone and inflection, but i am sure you will understand.)

Good morning everybody, my name is Janaya. I am from Tempe, AZ and today, I am giving away free stuff. That’s right, because, College kids love free stuff. We love it. I love free stuff. It doesn’t matter what the stuff is, as long as its free, we like it. Well, today is every college kids lucky day, because I really am handing out free stuff.
I was asked today to talk on Cheryl C Lant’s Conference talk. As I read through Sister Lant’s talk I realized that, Sister Lant loves us college kids. And so she has given us some free stuff, she decided to give us a “read one talk get two talks FREE” talk. So today, instead of getting to hear about one talk, you get to hear about three. The talks that I am going to speak on today are, entitled “That our children might see the face of the Savior” by sister Lant, which is the actual talk that can be found in the conference edition of the Ensign, but I will also be speaking on the talk entitled “That our families might see the face of the savior,” and the talk entitled “That all of God’s children might again see the face of the savior.”
The first talk I will speak on is entitled “That Our Children Might See the Face of the Savior.” In D&C 101:38 it says, “Seek the face of the Lord always, and ye shall have eternal life.” Christ’s invitation to seek Him is an invitation to know who He is, what He has done for us, and what He has asked us to do. I realize that the majority of us don’t have children right now, but the fact is that most of us will have children one day. One of the things that the Lord has asked us to do can be found in 3 Nephi 17:11 when Jesus “commands that the little children should be brought” unto him. There are many ways that we can bring our children to the Savior, and most of those ways have been set up or taught by the church. Things like, family scripture study, family prayer, family home evening, having dinner together as a family, going on family vacations, or sharing your testimony with your children. All of these things will help to bring our children unto Christ. And will teach them to recognize the face of the Savior. Sister Lant says, “It is our sacred responsibility as parents and leaders of this rising generation of children to bring them to the Savior so that they might see His face and the face of our Father in Heaven as well.” Another thing the Lord has asked us to do is teach our children. Another scripture in 3 Nephi portrays this commandment when it says, “All thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children.” In third Nephi, following their own experiences with the Savior, the Nephite parents taught their children about Him. They taught them to love the Lord. They taught them His gospel. The taught them how to live it. They taught them so well that there was righteousness and peace. This is the type of teaching we need to use with our children. These are the things that we need to be doing in the future if we want our children to know Him, and be able to one day see His face.
The next talk that I will speak on is entitled “That Our Families Might See the Face of the Savior.” In her talk Sister Lant invites us to look around at our families, those we love. Since your families aren’t here today to look at I would urge you to think about each of your family members individually for a second. Sister Lant then continues on to say, “This is what matters most – our families. I am sure that more than anything, you want this family to be yours eternally.” As I first read this talk, and took those moments, to think about my family, or those that I love, I found that many more people entered my mind than I would have thought. I first thought about my parents, then my siblings and in my mind I decided I was doing good, I didn’t have too much to worry about in regards to making sure my family could be an eternal family. My parents and siblings are all active in the church. We make our mistakes like everyone else, but we also work to fix them, and I knew that one day we would be an eternal family. And then my mind left my immediate family and headed in a different direction. I was turned to my aunties, my uncles, my many cousins, my cousins children, and their families, and I felt as though I were overcome with sorrow. I am not sure I could describe to you, or them, the amount of love and respect that I have for all of them, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that as of that moment, I would not be able to consider many of them as part of my “eternal family.” I once heard a speaker named, Herewini Jones give a devotional on the signs of the second coming. In the last 5 minutes of his talk his thoughts turned from those signs and focused on eternal families. I remember him saying something to the effect of, “how sad it will be, in that last day, if we walk forward with our families, ready for exaltation, for eternity, and the Savior looks around us and through tears asks, ‘where is the rest of your family?” We have been entrusted with precious families. We have been given a sacred, noble stewardship, for we are the ones God has appointed to encircle our families with love and understanding. We have the blessing of bringing our families to the Savior by teaching them the truths of the gospel from the scriptures and the prophets and by helping them to feel and recognize the Spirit. We must be willing to do these things. This will not come easily. It will take great effort. It will take a lot of hard work and patience and faith, but nothing is more important or rewarding. If we want our families to come to Christ that they might see His face, it is important that we seek to see His face as well.
The last talk I will speak on today is entitled “That All of Gods Children Might Again See the Face of the Savior.” The Lord has invited us to come unto Him and has commanded us to bring His children with us, that we, together, might see His face and live eternally with Him and with our Father in Heaven. We have all been told that we are literally the sons and daughters of God, and as such, He loves us. The Lord wants His eternal family as much as we want ours. He has given us the calling of making sure that His children return to Him. In order to do this we must learn how to love the Lord’s children. We must put our own lives in order so that His children can look to us and follow. We have to know the way in order to show it to them. I think it is interesting how we are all quick to understand that we are God’s children, but it takes a little longer for us to grasp that every person who has ever been born on earth is literally our spirit brother or sister. As I think of this, I think of my own siblings, and the overwhelming amount of love that I have for them. I would do everything in my power to make sure that each of the is able to return to our Father in Heaven. I think it is hard for us to imagine each other as our siblings. I often think that if we could see the way we knew each other before we came to this earth, we would have a love for each other that is as great as, or possibly greater than, the love we have for our own immediate siblings. I want to try and give you a glimpse of those relationships:
(at this point i looked around and would point at people and look them straight in their eyes and say one of the following)
We started a band together
We used to ride our bikes together
We had rock collection
We played cowboys and indians together
We had lunch together everyday
We had slumber parties
We pulled pranks … on those two
We prayed together
We went to church together
We read our scriptures together
We visited the Lord together
We watched God create the Earth together
We fought against Satan together.
We have all been through so much together, that we don’t even know about. I think that if we could truly get a glimpse of those things, we would not let one person who has ever walked the face of this earth leave without knowing that they could return to Him with us, to again be part of our eternal family. Brothers and Sisters, we are the angels that Heavenly Father has sent today to bless His children, and we can help them to one day see the face of the Savior. Together we can come to know Him. We can feel of His love and His blessings. And through Him we can return to the presence of the Father.
I am so grateful that I was able to read and grow in understanding because of these talks. I earnestly look forward to the day when I can look upon the face of the Savior with the rest of you, my brothers and sisters. I love you, more now than I ever realized before. We have a divine role in this life that we must not neglect. The Savior is counting on us, our friends are counting on us, our families are counting on us, every one is counting on us. I hope and I pray, that when I walk forward, in that last day, that the Savior will look around me, and with a smile on His face, be able to greet and hug every single member of my eternal family. And I say all these things in the name of my Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

and that was my talk. it was such an amazing experience for me. i am not sure i have ever felt the spirit help me prepare something so much before in my life. it was absolutely wonderful. i love you all!

scripture of the day:

1 Nephi 1:12 And it came to pass that as he read, he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord

today i am thankful for:

* the spirit and his ability to guide me in my life.

* invitations that we dont want, that bless our lives anyways.

* stephanie! and her support today, it made such a huge difference.

* kleenex because having a runny nose without them is one of the grossest things.

* leftovers that taste as good today as they did friday.

* the opportunity i have to go to church every sunday and partake of the sacrament.

* the plan of salvation and the knowledge i have of its truthfulness and divinity.

* laughter. getting to meet new people and find things you have in common and just being able to laugh with them.

<3.

aweSTRUCK.

(this is for my dad!!:) (its also important to have the volume on for the first and last one)

tonight as megan and i were talking in the kitchen, we had a strange feeling that the paparazzi were outside. remembering that we are not as famous as we think we should be we headed out to see what was going on. and it was ... the most amazing lightning storm i have ever seen. because it is near impossible to capture a picture of some good lightning on an iphone i decided instead to take videos. here are a few that i took. some are better than other, but none of them are as good as the real thing, not even close!

this ones is funny because megan had no idea i was video taping:

this one is short and has a really good one in it:

the only thing that matter for this one is the first 5 seconds:

this one is hilarious because stephanie started out trying to do a forecast and it just ends up her reaction to a bunch of stuff:

so there it is. but seriously, these videos cannot even relay how amazing this lightning storm was. it was completely around rexburg, everywhere you turned you saw it. it was so cool. and it was so much better than it seems on an of my videos. it was a wonderful moment in my life!!

scripture of the day:

D&C 38:30 I tell you these things because of your prayers; wherefore, treasure up wisdom in your bosoms, lest the wickedness of men reveal these things unto your by their wickedness, in a manner which shall speak in your ears with a voice louder than that which shall shake the earth; but if ye are prepared ye shall not fear.

today i am thankful for:

* youtube and the hours of entertainment it can provide, not to mention the laughs.

* calls from the Lord that bless and humble us.

* the wonders and glories of God that baffle me more and more each day.

* friends to sit on a blanket with and just talk to.

* a mom who know delicious recipes and takes the time to send them to me so that i can eat delicious home cooked meals with my friends.

* prayer!

<3.

birthday time.

well, my birthday was pretty much the best!! it was kinda weird not to be with family, but it was still so wonderful! i started the day off early, at 8am!! haha, and some of you may be thinking that is not early, but for me, it is. i was woken up by my roommate megan who walked in with my birthday gift!

it was wonderful! when i walked out my door to go to the bathroom i was greeted with this

on the bathroom mirrior. megan had decorated it for me! megan and i ordered our bountiful basket last monday and had to be out to pick it up by 815 so that is why i was up. it was our first time ordering bountiful baskets, which is this way awesome group in certain states (az, id, nv, tx, ut, wa, and wy) and you pay $15 and they have gone out and searched all of the local farms and gotten a large amount of produce and they give you so much of each thing. i am not sure that explanation was very good, but it is really cool. this week in our bountiful basket we got:

a bag of cherries

a bag of fresh green beans

two heads of broccoli

a head of lettuce

a bag of grapes

a cantalope

six bananas and 10 peaches

20 plums

5 tomatoes

a bag of carrots and two avacados

all for 15 dollars!! isnt that insane!?!?!?! it is pretty much perfect for poor college students. enough food to last a week for two roommates, so, its like paying 8 dollars a week for food! too perfect for words, not to mention it is all delicious! then when we got back i was greeted by one of my other roommates nannette who had made me a delicious muffin cake. (all her muffin tins were out on loan, so she just made me a muffin cake instead, much more birthday festive in my mind!) after enjoying some muffin cake megan and i were off to hula!!! that is right, i started taking hula classes. my class is the halau hula kaleona`uhane of rexburg! my instructor is auntie lee. she is pretty much amazing. hula is just about the best thing in my life. not to mention the greatest work out i have ever had. we go for two and a half hours on saturdays, and the majority of the time is spent learning/dancing the hula, which means for two and a half hours i am either dancing or standing in a squat! it is way fun though! i am so excited to learn more and get better. when i got home from hula i enjoyed one of our many plums and then megan came from the mail room to inform me that i had received a package! only problem, she couldn't get the door to open, so i had to go coax the door open before i could get my package. it was from my mom of course. it was really nice, and i liked all of the things in it! she sent me a "do it yourself" birthday cake, that i actually used for my best friend stephanie's birthday the next day. it turned out okay, but it took some magic, haha. i think it just didn't have enough time to cool. then after i opened my package i got ready for the rest of the days festivities. megan did my make-up!

so of course i was looking good. then after we were done getting ready we went and picked stephanie up and her, megan, and I were off to IF (idaho falls) for some food, shopping, and fun! stephanie presented me with a birthday jedi knight pin.

it was quite nice. once we got to IF we went straight to red robin, because we were all starving!

megans burger was probably the biggest thing i have ever seen!

steph got the whiskey river bbq burger.

and i got the whiskey river bbq wrap! which is my favorite!

and, usually it comes with cantalope, but its like they knew it was my birthday and they gave me watermelon instead!! it was really good. then after we were done with our food they pulled out my birthday cake!

it took some strategic planning to get the candles lit, there was a draft coming from somewhere that kept blowing them out! but we finally got them lit and i got to make my wish and blow them out!!

then i got to open my presents from steph! they were great! after that we went shopping at ross, target, fashion bug, and porters. then we headed to the movies. we decided to see toy story 3 in 3D. and ... it was really good! the first 30 minutes were anyways. after the first 3o minutes they had some technical difficulties and could not get the movie to turn back on, so we got our money back, and one day we will see how the movie ends.

after that we just went to the store and bought everything we needed for stephs birthday bbq the next day and headed home! it was a really busy birthday, but it was so much fun!!

scripture of the day:

helaman 5:12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you, to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

today i am thankful for:

* megan and stephanie!!! and the fun times they had for me on my birthday!

* my mom, and the package she sent, it meant a lot to me.

* everyone who sent me a letter, text, message, or note! it made my day!!

* this life that i have been given and everyone in it!

* the time i have had, and will have to become more like the Lord.

<3.

sketches for interior design.

for my interior design class we are required to complete 75, 15-minute sketches during the semester. every 25 we have a day where the teacher takes them and goes over them to make sure we are doing them, and doing them correctly. she often emphasizes that these sketches are for "quantity NOT quality" or in other words, we dont need to be perfect artists, just get them done. well, this is a sure good thing because as i have sketched it has become apparent to me that I am definitely NOT an artist. but there are a few that I like so I decided to show them off. they arent all finished because at the end of your 15 minutes, you are done. the first 25 sketches we did were to be of any object or thing that we wanted and were allowed to be drawn in 2D. here are a few of the ones I did.

then sketches 26-50 are supposed to be 3D pictures, mainly of buildings, houses, interiors, exteriors, and different architectural elements, such as windows, doors, etc. we also started some rendering (coloring) for these sketches, im not so good at that either. i did cheat a little and do a few elevations, but i felt i was better at those (flat, one wall sketches). these are the ones I liked the best.

as you can see, i was not born to draw, but it actually is really fun, i just wish i was better at it.

scripture of the day:
2 Nephi 32:9 But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul.

today i am thankful for:
* my mom! and the fact that she was willing to carry me inside of her for 9 months so that i could enjoy this life that i have. :)
* all of the amazing tips and tricks you can learn to be able to draw a little bit better than you could before.
* cheez-its! they are tasty, and cheesy, and one of the most wonderful things of my life.
* beds. whoever created a nice comfy mattress for beds is on of my most favorite people. i love being able to snuggle up under a warm blanket in your nice comfy bed!
* USPS. i love being able to send and receive mail. it makes life exciting.
* good people. a girl from my interior design class fainted outside the classroom today, (i was already inside class and didnt really know) but i could hear people asking her if she was okay, and this boy and girl called the paramedics and stayed and made sure she was okay. its just really comforting to know that people care about others.

<3.

camping ... sort of.

so last night megan, stephanie and i decided we needed a little more adventure in our lives. we were sitting on a dock out at beaver dick and decided, what would be more adventurous than to have a spontaneous night of camping at beaver dick?!? megan and i were very excited about this idea, it took a little coaxing with stephanie but soon she was also excited. we jumped in the car and headed home to quickly grab our camping gear, but since we dont really have camping gear we just grabbed all of our blankets, put on warm p.j.'s and were off. next stop was the back side of broulims to retrieve a pallet so we could have a fire. we shoved everything into my car and we were back off to beaver dick. we got there, set up our "campsite," and then worked on getting our fire going. stephanie was a little concerned about the size of the fire if we were to burn the whole pallet at once, and so we decided to try and break it up into smaller pieces. this is much harder than it sounds. we started by leaning it up against a big sitting rock and taking turns jumping on it.

we got a few little pieces of wood, but not much. our fire was looking pretty pathetic. then we found some smaller, but still pretty good sized rocks and decided that smart thing to do would be to just drop this giant rock on the pallet which would surely break it. well, we are girls, and we were wrong. rather than breaking the pallet, the rock decided it would be much more fun to hit the pallet, bounce of, and try and break our ankles. luckily it never succeeded, but it was pretty entertaining.

i love in this picture how if you look at the top left corner you can see megans feet fleeing from the crazy rock. also while we were there a stray dog/puppy decided we seemed like friendly folk and took a liking to us. she was girl and megan and i are pretty sure she was something like a german shepherd huskie mix. she was beautiful. we named her magua, because there was Mas AUGA around. she was such a good dog, she just sat with us and she even tried to help us break our pallet by stepping on it just like we were. and she also attacked another dog to protect us. she was pretty much awesome and megan and i wished we could keep her.

well, after we got our fire going pretty good

we broke out the smores. because all good camping trips include smores. well, my body decided that smores were not something it wanted in its body and took a stand. i was feeling pretty sick, and everyone was freezing so we ended up moving our stuff to the car to sleep in there. well, i tried to fight it, but the sickness got worse and worse until finally stephanie had to zoom us home so i could try and find some way to make myself feel better. since then we have decided it was heartburn, which was not a fun experience, but i ended up sleeping in my bed while stephanie and megan slept in my car in the parking lot. it was still a really fun night, and it was fun to get excited about something.

scripture of the day:
Mosiah 5:13 For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart?

today i am thankful for:
* magua, our new puppy friend who i love!
* stephanie and her speedy driving skills.
* fun ideas, even if they dont work out exactly as planned.
* antacids and indoor plumbing! haha.

<3.

upcoming birthday.

this is mostly for my mother, who recently asked what i would like for my birthday and i have come to my conclusion. for my birthday i would most like money to be able to buy a new computer.

this is what i have decided i want most. i want to be able to buy a new mac anyways, and having money from people for my birthday would help immensely. so yes, if you are wondering what to get me for my birthday, just send some $$$$ my way and i will be happy :) i hope that this helps mother!!

today i am thankful for:

* rain, it has been raining here for a long time now, and i love it! rain is one of my most favorite things!

* a computer that i am able to do my homework on so that i can get good grades in my classes.

* a car that lets me go places.

* WinCo where they have cheap foods.

* music and the impact it can have on life.

* lactaid pills that make it so i can eat dairy without having "my body cry".

<3.

design analysis 3.

so i get to do really cool, really fun stuff for my interior design class. however, this last one, while still being really cool and really fun, was also REALLY time consuming. but i think it ended up pretty good. for this design analysis we were paired up with another student from the class and then we pretended they were our client and we were their client, and we asked questions about what they want in their house, and how they want their house to look, and just all the questions a designer would ask a client and then our job was to draw up a floor plan and also a lighting/electrical plan and then have color/wallpaper/flooring choices for each room. my partner pretended that she had 4 children, 3 girls and 1 boy, the two oldest (a girl and a boy) should have their own rooms and the two youngest, both girls, should share a room. her husband is a psychologist and needed an in home office, they had a very large budget, and wanted everything big. she also really wanted an octagon shaped library and lots of windows. i am going to put up 3 pictures. (the first two show the windows but the last one doesnt) the first one is the floor plan i drew up, the second one is the lighting/electrical plan, and the last one is one that i just really quickly drew up where i just labeled everything so you can see what the house would look like (this one is not perfectly accurate in the entryway size, but you get the picture.) it ended up being an extremely large house, i think a little more than 4000 square feet. each 1/4" square equals 2'. i had a lot of fun planning everything and finding different lights and chandeliers and fans. looking at hundreds of colors and putting them together. it was kind of crazy, and even though i worked on it a little the whole week, i was still up until 4am finishing it all last night. i hope you enjoy.

today i am thankful for:
* the ability i have to function even when sleep deprived.
* fun classes that make us do things that we would never have imagined we could do before.
* a wallet that is good for smushing spiders in the car.

* sharpies. they work really well when you are drawing up a floor plan for a house.

* patience. i am glad that i was patient enough to draw and redraw and redraw this floorplan over and over again. i think by the end of the project i had drawn up the floor plan a total of 10 times.

* the USPS and how i can send stuff to people in AZ without having to actually physically take it to them.

<3.