Our Search For Happiness

Even though this was the book that we were reading for book club in November I just finished it a couple weeks before Christmas. The book is called "Our Search for Happiness" and it is written by Elder M. Russell Ballard. The book was written as it states as "an invitation to understand The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". I really enjoyed the book. Elder Ballard goes through all the basic beliefs of the church and explains them in very simple terms.

There were a couple things that I wanted to share from it, that meant something to me. One of the later chapters is called Fruits of Living the Gospel. Elder Ballard talks about finding peace in a troubled world.

"What comfort and security come from knowing that we have a purposed for being!...How reassuring to realize there is a source of power much greater than our own, which can be accessed through personal faith and prayer and through the righteous exercise of God's priesthood authority! And how encouraging to know that there is a source of strength that can help us cope with daily trails and find peace in a troubled, turbulent world!"

Elder Ballard talks in the beginning of the book about it being written so that those that aren't members of the church might have a better understanding of the Church and what it teaches. I wish at times that I was better at expressing what I believe. So I really like what he says at the end of the chapter called Fruits of the Living Gospel. Elder Ballard says this about members of the church.

"But we honestly and sincerely feel that God has given us something special, something infinitely worth sharing. And that's why I ask you to consider the fruits that come from the lives of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for as the Savior Himself said: Ye shall know them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:16)"

All in all it was a great read, for those who are members of the church or for those who aren't. Just gave me a different perspective on things that I have learned.

Thuloswara

Part of what we were doing for the business development group was taking part in a trekking route that some of the local villages are putting together and than rating it based on our experiences. We spent the morning hiking part of the trekking route from Duradanda to Thuloswara where we would be staying for the night. Once again the views were breath taking. I would consider moving to Nepal just for the views (although the lack of modern conveniences will keep me from doing that for a while). When we got to all of the kids from the school were waiting to welcome us. The welcomed us with prayer scarfs, tikkas, and a procession singing "Resham Firiri". We heard the song so much that I think if I hear it again I will always think of Nepal. We were lead down the hill by a group of girls in some traditional clothing. We followed the procession and the school students down to where the rest of the community was waiting for us. Most of the women were even dressed up in some of their best clothes. The community had organized a welcome ceremony that involved dancing and music. Most of the dancers were dressed up in their traditional clothes. I think that the traditional clothing is beautiful with all the bright bold colors. They even dragged us into the dancing at the end of the night. Once again they made us feel super welcome. At the end of the night we were divided up into groups of two or four people to spend the night at a villagers home. It was a little hectic at first trying to find where our luggage was, get the the homes in the dark and get over the language barrier. Our host families fed us food. It was a traditional Nepali meal: dal, chicken curry, cooked spinach and a ton of rice. In Nepali culture it's proper to finish all the food that is left on your plate. Because of the mass quantity of food that we received none of the four girls that stayed with our host family were able to finish it. I felt bad, because with the language barrier we wanted to make sure that the host family realized that the food was delicious, but just too much to eat. The accommodations that we had for the night weren't too bad. It was a small room with two beds. It even came decorated with some fabulous posters. The next morning when we got up our host family once again blessed us with prayer scarfs and rice tikkas. They even had lemon tea and "smiley face" cook. (They were little cream filled cookies with smiley faces on them.) Then the whole group got back together at the village square for breakfast. The view from the town square is amazing (like everywhere else in Nepal). It was kind of fun to hear about everyone else's experiences. Some where better than ours and others where worse. After breakfast we were on our way. I'm so glad we had the opportunity to get to know other Nepali people. They were so gracious and I felt like I was leaving friends that I have had for a long time.

Duradanda- View

The view from Duradanda was beautiful. I think I could handle living with a view like that every day. The view was across the foot hills with the Himalayas in the background. It was amazing to me that the foothills were so green.

One of the best parts about the construction site was the view, especially the view at sunset. After a long day of work there is nothing like a beautiful view. Although I think almost every view in and from Duradanda was beautiful.

Duradanda- Construction

Part of the work that we were doing in Duradanda was a construction project. We were helping the village build a foundation for the restrooms that would be part of the college. When we got there nothing had been done on the building, so we spent the first day watching the locals layout the foundation. They were using string and stakes to make sure that it was all square. Being in the building field myself it was very interesting to watch. Typically buildings are staked using GPS which will automatically make sure the buildings are square. Once the building was all staked out, we started to dig the trench that the foundation would be built in. All the digging had to be done with shovels and picks to break up the rocks. One of my favorite parts about working on the construction project was being able to work along side the locals. This included working alongside the men and the women. Even though there is a language barrier there was a common goal in the project we were working on. After we dug the trench we worked with the locals to fill the trench up with rocks to create the foundation. Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures during the week of the progress. I did get a picture at the end of the week of all of the work that we had done. We were able to get the trench built, filled and we got all the re-bar tied that was part of the foundation. I was pretty impressed with the work that we got done. Although I will admit that most of the labor was probably done by the Nepali people. They are much stronger and much more skilled at building in this fashion. For example there are local Nepali people that spend all the time during the day cutting stones. They spend all their time cutting the stones into bricks for the buildings. Also because I was interested in the building methods I took a picture of the college building From what I could tell the building is slow because it takes time for each of the blocks to be shaped. I also think that the bamboo scaffolding is really cool. The rest of the buildings in the area were also built in this way. Typically after the building is complete it is covered with plaster and than it's painted. I was amazed (and impressed) by the great care that the people take for their buildings.

Duradanda- Little Girls

While we were staying in Duradanda there was a group of kids that were always around. The kids in the village learn English in school, but most of them are too shy to actually speak. They were showing us how to write numbers and count in Nepali. The one girl even spent some time braiding a few of the girls hair the one day. Basically I think they just all loved being around us, almost as much as we loved being around them. I loved the sweet innocents of all of the kids that were there. It was amazing to feel so loved too!

Duradanda- Wheel of Terror

The next morning we woke up and the local kids decided it would be fun to let us play with their toys. I think they just enjoyed watching us. We got to play on their wheel. It was built of wood and held together with bamboo ties. There were four seats where people sit and two other people move the wheel around. It was actually lots of fun. A little scary and rickety at first, but worth the ride. Fortunately for us no one got hurt on the wheel. The only incident that we had was one of the girls got her hair caught on the wheel while she was flipping upside down.

Kathmandu to Duradanda

The trip from Kathmandu to Duradanda, the village where we were doing most of our work, was beautiful. It was really the first that we really got to see of Nepal outside of Kathmandu. The hills are green and in the distance behind them are the Himalayas. It's amazing. We made out way across the the country in a bus with all our luggage loaded on top. The roadways in Nepal where less than desirable. Even what was considered the "silky" roads were narrow and covered in potholes. This made travel slower. Thank goodness this wasn't our bus, we definitely wouldn't have fit, either would our luggage. Along the way our bus broke down so we took the opportunity to stop for lunch. We walked up a hill to find a place to eat. While we were eating we attracted some of the locals. They are so shy, but they let me take a picture, as long as I showed them what they looked like. Much like the people in Cambodia, I think that the Nepali people are very beautiful. Once our bus was fixed we were on our way again. The view continued to get more and more beautiful, but the road got rougher and rougher. About a mile out of the town another truck got stuck in the mud on the road blocking our way, we decided to just walk the last mile into town. It was beautiful because of the view and it was nice to finally be out of the bus walking around. On our walk we got to see the first of the beautiful sunsets in Nepal. The sun reflects off the snow capped mountains in almost a pink color. Probably one of the prettiest things I've seen in my life. The picture hardy does it justice. When we finally arrived in Duradanda they were waiting for us. As we walked into the village they greeted us with singing, dancing tikkas and scarfs. It was such a wonderful experience it almost felt like a hero's welcome. They were so happy about us being there and we hadn't even done anything yet. It was only day one and already we were having a wonderful time. This experience was just the beginning of a week of wonderful experiences.

Kathmandu

The next stop along the trip was through Kathmandu. This is the capitol city of Nepal and is a little crazy. This picture to me is what the city feels like in general to me. There is always so much going on, especially in Thamel where we were staying because it's the tourist area of town. There are tons of trekking outfitting stores. Fortunately we weren't in Kathmandu that is just were we meet up with the group before heading out into the country.

Hong Kong Layover

So I'm finally getting around to writing about the trip that I took almost two months ago. I guess better late than never huh.

Anyways on out way out to Nepal my sister and I had a layover long enough in Hong Kong that we were able to get out and see some of the city. We decided to stay close to the airport and we went to Ngong Ping. It's close to the airport so we were able to just take the metro. Fortunately for us everything in Hong Kong is also written in English so it was pretty easy to get around. First we took a bus ride up to the top where the Tian Tan Buddha is located. The courtyard area around the Buddha was really pretty, and since we were there early in the morning it was pretty empty. We climbed the stairs to the top of the Buddha which was kind of cool cause the view from the top was amazing and we were really close to a very large Buddha statue. From the we walked around a found the wisdom path. Was kind of cool to see all the Chinese sayings carved on large wooden post, but it might have meant more if we could actually understand what some of them were saying. Than we found the Po Lin Monastery. The Monastery has some very pretty statues and was ornately decorated. The colors where beautiful. That's one of the things that I liked most about it. The inside of one of the temples was completely painted orange. On our way back down the hill we got to take the Ngong Ping cable cars. It was beautiful to see all of the hills and the view from the cable car was amazing. After we got back down to the bottom of the hill we had to take the metro back to the airport so we could continue the rest of our adventures.

Shining Star Cookies

This is a recipe that my sister made last year at Christmas time and decided to make again this year. They are really fun cookies and relatively simple. This recipe is thanks to the Friend magazine.
Ingredients:

• 1 stick butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 1 cup colored hard candies

Directions:

1. Mix butter and sugar together until they are smooth.
2. Add egg and vanilla to the butter mixture.
3. Add flour and stir until combined.
4. Take the batter out of the bowl and wrap it in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least an hour.
   
5. On a flour surface roll out dough to 1/3-inch thick.
6. Cut out the cookies with star-shaped cookie cutter, and then cut out the middle of the cookie cutter with a smaller star-shaped cookie cutter.
7. Cover a cookie sheet with foil.
8. Bake the cookie at 350 degrees for 4 minutes.
9. Meanwhile unwrap the candies and put them in a plastic bag. Break the candy into small pieces.
10. Carefully put the candy pieces inside each star cookie, filing the tips of the stars.
11. Put the cookies back int eh oven for 5-7 minutes, or until the candy is melted and the dough is light brown.
12. Let cookies cool and ENJOY!
    

Long time...

So I realize it's been a long time since I've posted anything, but I've been either not home or busy. I think I've finally finished organizing all of my pictures from the Nepal trip (my latest adventure) so I should be able to post some of those soon.

5K

I ran in the 19th annual Frank Kush 5K run this morning. I have a friend (Jeremy) who has never run a 5K and wanted to do it, so I trained with him and we ran today. It was a nice morning to be out running and the course was around Tempe Town Lake. Overall we did pretty well, ran the whole thing which was Jeremy's goal. Nice way to spend the morning.

Gratitude

So these thoughts come from a combination of something that my sister posted and something that President Thomas S. Monson talked about during General Conference this last weekend. President Monson said that

"We need to focus on our blessings rather than focus on the things we lack"

So I've been thinking a ton this week about the things that I am grateful for and trying to think of ways that I could express that gratitude. So here is a list of things that I am grateful for (in no particular order):

1. a job that challenges me
   
2. my house
3. my car
4. my health
5. wonderful supportive parents
6. concerned grandparents
7. my siblings
   
8. the gospel
9. good friends
10. opportunities to travel
11. cooler weather
12. the rain
13. plants in my backyard that are still alive
14. orange Thai silk flats that go with anything
15. my favorite jeans
16. playing ultimate frisbee with friends
17. cleats when I play ultimate frisbee
18. air conditioning
19. good music
20. my piano and the ability to play it
21. my Savior
22. the Temple (specifically the Mesa Temple)
23. the daily reminders that I have a Heavenly Father that loves me
24. Thanksgiving with the family
25. airplanes that make travel possible
26. my journals (they are funny to go back and read... crazy to see how I have changed)
27. my computer
28. my camera
29. my memory (even though I wonder if I'm losing it sometimes)
30. the beauty of the earth around me
31. family vacations and all the good memories
32. good books
33. the ability to change and grow

I'm sure there are more I'll just have continue to add to this list.

Believing Christ

Our Relief Society recently finished ready Believing Christ by Stephen R. Robinson for our book club. It was an amazing book, I would recommend it to anyone. The book talks about the "good news" of the Gospel. It gave me a really different perspective about the Atonement than I had ever thought about. We all understand that the gospel requires that we be perfect to return to live with our Heavenly Father. The good news of the gospel is that a way has been provided by Jesus Christ that we can become perfect and return to live with Heavenly Father. The author talked about how we often think that we must perfect ourselves and than turn to the Savior, but it doesn't work like that. I think there are definitely times that I find myself doing this in my life. The problem is that when we try to perfect ourselves and than turn to the Lord we are denying ourselves the blessings of the Atonement. We are asked to do all that we can do and than through the grace of God, Christ will step in and make up whatever the difference is between our efforts and the perfection required by Heavenly Father. So in essence "the good news of the gospel is good news to me not because it promises that other people who are better than I am can be saved, but because it promises that I can be saved- wretched, inadequate, and imperfect me." This gives me hope that no matter what I'm doing as long as I'm doing the best that I am able I have a wonderful Savior who can make up the difference for any of my shortcomings. It makes me only want to do better.

Kina Grannis

This week I was so excited cause I got to go to a concert. It was for a wonderful musician Kina Grannis. (Check out her music here) I was introduced to Kina's Music through my brother, who was good friends with her older sister in high school. The concert was at Martini Ranch a local venue here for up and coming artists. It was fun to be in such a small concert. The other two people that also played for Kina were good. Imaginary Friend and Ry Cummings were her opening acts were good. I love new music and I'm really a big fan of Kina's music.

Grammar Too!

So I was kindly reminded today that I am NOT an English person. I know that spelling has never been my forte. But even with the invention of spell check I realized that I am still no good. I might be able to spell the words correctly, but that doesn't mean that I got the word right. Grammar has also never been my forte either. Glad that at least I'm good at math.

Conference

So I realize that I've posted a ton today... just trying to get caught up from one month of not posting. But I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed conference today. I really enjoyed President Dieter F. Uchtdorf's message about remembering the fundamentals and keeping an eye on the things that are most important. I also enjoyed Elder Richard G. Scott's message. I really liked this quote

"We become what we want to be, by being what we want to become each day"

I am excited for another day tomorrow full of inspiration.

Cinnamon Rolls

So it was a little tradition that I started I think when I was in college, but I always make cinnamon rolls over conference weekend. So since it's conference weekend I decided to make cinnamon rolls. This is my favorite recipe, because it's super easy and really good.

3 1/2 cups warm water
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup oil
5 Tbsp yeast

Combine above ingredients in a large bowl and let it rest for 15 minutes. This will allow the yeast to activate and rise. 10 1/2 cups flour
1 Tbsp salt
3 eggs
1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
4 Tbsp cinnamon

Mix 5 cups of flour into the yeast mixture. Add salt, eggs and remaining flour. Pour onto floured board and knead until smooth. Let dough rest for 15 minutes.
Divide dough in half and roll each half out to approximately 12" x 30". Melt butter and spread evenly over each rolled dough (1/4 cup on each). Sprinkle each rolled dough with 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 2 Tbsp cinnamon. Roll up and slice into 20 rolls (I usually use dental floss to slice the rolls that way they don't get squished). Place on a large cookie sheet. Let the rolls rise for 20 minutes. Bake for about 10 minutes at 400 degrees.

Now for the best part... the icing.

8 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups powdered sugar
1 Tbsp milk

Combined above ingredients. Frost rolls when warm and enjoy!