Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. St. John 15:13

And he said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God?
And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things.
1 Nephi 11:16-17

Christ loved us so much He would lay down His life for us. Christ loved us so much He did lay down His life for us. Christ would rather have gone through our pains for us than have to watch us go through them ourselves. He did go through our pains, so that we could be healed of them. He would rather suffer for our sins than have us suffer for them. He did suffer for our sins so that we don't have to suffer for them. He loved us, and He loves us still.

My Dream

You know how you're always in the middle of this exciting dream but you always wake up right before it finishes and you are annoyed because you want to know what happened? Well, last night, for the first time I can remember, I finished a dream! After it was over, I woke up a little, but not completely, so that I was in this semi-conscious state. And I felt completely satisfied. "That was wonderful" I thought, "so entertaining!" I began to think about writing it down in book form and publishing it. And then I really fully woke up, and I realized that was a stupid idea. But it was a great dream.

Anyway, what happened is that I was swimming in the BYU pool, and this guy came up and tried drowning me by holding me underwater at the bottom of the pool, but I escaped and came up and got out of the pool and began yelling "help" as loudly as I could. So then this really big marine guy came in with a stun gun and he tried to shoot him, but the guy was invincible and the gun had no effect. Then I kept yelling "help" and all sorts of more people came,but no one was able to shoot this guy, the bullets just bounced off of him. But then I found this old camera sitting there, and I found that if I took a picture of the bad guy it took his invincibility-ness away. So then I took his picture and we nabbed him and I finished my excellent dream.

It was an action adventure dream, high time entertainment at its greatest.

How is this Possible?

I'm in the library, and I haven't run into a single other person I know! Well, one friend, but I was wearing a coat so it didn't count. Not only am I suffering from social withdrawal, but today I am wearing a wardrobe masterpiece and no one is here to see it! I've been saving this cowgirl shirt in my closet in case I ever am invited to an event where you're supposed to dress up in country clothes, but today I looked at it and I wondered what it would be like if I wore it. So I pulled it out, and it wasn't so bad. I put on some dangly earrings to match, and somehow managed to get my hair in the perfect messy ponytail--the kind where it looks like it was just sort of thrown together and messed up but still looks good--you can't plan that sort of thing. I'm pretty proud of this outfit--it's pushing the edges a little, but still normal enough that I can wear it and not look out of place. I got the idea from my sister Lisa--she told me she likes to dress nice, but push the edges of creativity sometimes. I like it. No, I really like it. Maybe I'm liking it too much. Now I wish I could wear a cowgirl hat somewhere and not look out of place. I even feel stupid wearing cowboy hats to rodeos--like I'm a poser or something. That's what Halloween's for.

You know what's funny about Halloween? All these people dressed up and wore their outfits around campus during the day. It was so funny, because I watched them and noticed they started to get this harried (is that a word?) look on their faces. They were staring straight ahead and walking quickly and looking a little picked on, like they were having a bad day. Obviously no one was doing anything to them, except staring at them, and not even staring because they were weird, just staring because they were interesting to look at. They were getting a taste of what it feels like to not blend in. It must be really rough to not blend in.

I'm blending in, but I'm still making a statement, in a mild sort of way. It's kind of fun to be a little quirky sometimes.