Encircled About Eternally In The Arms of His Love

The title of this blog post comes from my favorite scripture, 2 Nephi 1:15 which reads:

"But behold, the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love." 

Every time I read that scripture I picture a big warm hug, or a big blanket wrapped around me.

As most of you reading this know, I returned from an LDS mission to the Georgia Macon and South Carolina Columbia Missions in July 2012. Ever since my mission, I have missed it, and longed to go back to experience all of the things that were a part of my life for 18 months.

A "special" part of being a missionary is the clothes you get to wear. The young men are in a white shirt, suit and tie every day of the week, while the young women wear skirts and blouses or dresses. While the majority of the clothing I wore on my mission either doesn't fit, is worn out, or is... not so fashionable anymore... I haven't been able to bring myself to get rid of very much of it. Besides the things I left behind to companions still serving, I don't think I've gotten rid of any of my missionary clothes.

In January, before leaving for Colorado I had this BRILLIANT idea to make the clothes into something unique and beautiful so I could cherish the memories I had in them. I enlisted my AMAZING friend Allison Dalling to make a project with these clothes. I found a pattern-ish that I wanted it to look something like, dropped a bag of clothes off at her house, and went along my merry way.

I had no idea, 3 months later when it was complete how beautiful it would be and how sacred it would feel to me to have the best 18 months of my life preserved for myself and for my posterity.

Here is my beautiful mission quilt! 

                                       

•  Above we can see one of my favorite polka dotted skirts! I wore it to the Prompt Care when my leg was swollen to 3x it's normal size due to a poisonous spider bite in my last month as a missionary!
• The paisley skirt was a Christmas gift from my parents.
• Hands on Greenville Day T shirt given to me by the amazing Day family from Greer, SC. Brother and Sister Day are super generous and always made me feel like one of their own when I got to spend time in their home.
•  The famous Piggly Wiggly! This shirt was given to me by the Harbor family when I spent Christmas at their house calling home and experiencing my very first Tim Tam Slam! 
• Finally, we can see a t shirt given to me from Selereen, the matriarch, if you will, of the Soram family... An amazing and humble family from Pohnpei, a little island in Micronesia. I only had the pleasure to meet their family three times but i can never forget them and their generosity. Many members of this family have been baptized because of the amazing faith of Sister Madi Chai and Sister Ronda Mae Graves to go and talk to them, even with a major language barrier. Truly the Spirit can put words (even in foreign tongues) into our mouths if we but open them! 
• 
• The famous I heart SC shirt from Charleston is shown here. Sisters Wright, Graves and I wore these matching T shirts often as our PJ's when we were on special assignment to go on exchanges throughout the mission and help strengthen and encourage the Sisters.
•  The pink damask print skirt was one I wore to both my farewell talk and my very first baptism (Makia Brianna Williams). 
• The Billy Elliot t shirt was sent to me from my sweet parents when they went on a trip to London while I was away serving. I am grateful for their love! 
• My very favorite PINK cardigan is shown with the buttons still intact on the left. Cardigans truly are a Sister's best friend ;) 

He Knows Me Better

        I’ve been thinking a lot about my future and choices I need to make lately. A lot of you who might read this are probably aware of some of the things going on in my life and what I am trying to accomplish, and if so, I have probably asked for your help. I hope this post doesn’t make you feel like your advice, prayers, and inputs are unwanted. It has often been said that Heavenly Father will help to answer our prayers through other people he has specifically placed in our lives. I will always cherish the conversations of support that I have had with each of the Angels in my life lately.

        As I have been feeling frazzled as I try lots of new options… The greatest news for me, is that Heavenly Father knows me better than I know myself. On my way to work the other day, I was listening to music on my ipad and decided to switch to an EFY album I used to listen to on my mission. A song came on, and it was seriously an answer to my prayers.

The lyrics say:

It feels like I’ve only got a piece of the picture

I’m trying to figure out just where I fit here,

There is One who sees all I’m meant to be…

Sometimes I can’t see past what’s on the surface

But He helps me understand the depth of my purpose

He gives me faith to hold as my path unfolds…

In a world of voices that say they have the answer

I escape the noises, close my eyes, and I turn

To the One who sees all the pieces put together-

He knows me better.

        It was EXACTLY what I needed to hear and remember at that time. Since listening to that song, I have turned to a lot more prayer and fasting, and more importantly- quickly acting on promptings that I have. It has led me to some new and exciting ideas and opportunities, which I will share sometime later, as well as insight into who I am and what I stand for when I drown out the noise of the world. I love it. I love me!

       Click below if you'd like to hear the song :-) 

He Knows Me Better Video

Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence

I seriously cannot at this moment think of a more influential message that has ever been shared with me in my life. Besides my own personal conversations with God and some trusted individuals, this message has been the most profound that I have been able to keep coming back to in life, over and over again over the course of the last 4 years. It started the day after I made the decision to get baptized. A super hard, frustrating, fulfilling journey full of lots of uncertainty. Sister Stephanie Jarstad sat down on my bed next to me and without even saying much jotted down in a little notebook "Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence- Elder Holland" A year later, when I was struggling to complete my mission papers, and was having some financial setbacks and an extreme lack of support... I reminded myself, "Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence". Throughout the 18 months that I served as a full time missionary, I wrote down this title and printed off a handful of different copies for myself and for different people who were struggling with decisions and lacked confidence that they could successfully do what they had been called to do. About 6 months ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with an urgent prompting to write a letter to a dear friend of mine. In it, I included quotations from this talk by Elder Holland along with a copy of the talk in its entirety. The inspired words from Heavenly Father, spoken eloquently through Elder Holland's mouth were influential in helping her make the decision to serve as a full time missionary. She is now serving faithfully in Colorado. The word "CONFIDENCE" has pretty significant meaning for me. As a general rule, when I am in a safe environment, I feel that I am confident with myself. I try to accept my imperfections, although some have proven to be particularly challenging. To me, the opposite of CONFIDENCE is UNCERTAINTY, or ANXIETY... A feeling of worry rather than a feeling of peace. As I have made many important decisions lately, I have felt a very extreme sensation of wavering between CONFIDENCE and ANXIETY. I have fortunately been guided by the Spirit to find outlets to help me feel confidence and assurance of moving in the right direction. The moment I start to feel safe, and confident in my choices... The adversary (aka Satan) decides to sneak out of the corner and try to make me second guess my choices and take away the feelings of direction and hope that I have begun to build up. Satan has been able to make eternally insignificant things (Like finding out I have 5 cavities to fill when only 6 months ago I was supposedly cavity free, and my dental insurance runs out in less than a week) break through the wall that I have worked so hard to fortify to protect myself from him and his deceptions. I have experienced intense drifting between calm, peaceful assurance and reminders of everything that isn't perfect NOW. Tonight, after a long two days of pondering, discussing, studying, thinking, questioning, and second guessing... out of the blue I heard the words- Clear as day- in my head... "CAST NOT AWAY THEREFORE YOUR CONFIDENCE" followed by the most important (to me) quote of the entire 20 minute long talk...

As a reminder to myself, and to anyone who might ever care to read this... You know enough. You know what you need to do. Heavenly Father may, from time to time, re-direct your paths but he will allow you to do so with a feeling of peace and hope, even when uncertainty lies ahead. No matter what lies and deceptions Satan may put into your head and into your heart... There is one feeling that he CAN. NOT. MIMIC... And that is PEACE. If it was right when you prayed about it, and trusted it, and believed in it... It is right now. Trust God, believe in good things to come... All is well.

Well hello there!

I decided after 3 + years to get back on the blogging scene. I have a lot to say and I feel that Facebook statuses... stati, rather, are just not cutting it for me! This is going to kind of be an outlet to share my thoughts (That sounded deep and dark) that are a little too deep or a little too random for Facebook! Yahoo! Realistically, I should usually just keep my mouth shut but... It is what it is :) Please, be blessed by this :P I love you all!

And um... Here's me in a play a year ago. You're welcome!

Called To Serve

Well, shoot... In case you were wondering, blogging is OBVIOUSLY NOT going to be my 2011 New Years Resolution. Because A) I would fail and B) I'm GOING ON A MISSION!

I opened my call on November 8th (After almost a month of waiting!)


(Kirsten and I both look so super freaked out!)

And I am going to...........



THE GEORGIA MACON MISSION!!!!!

Well, I know most of you guys already knew this but... I figured it was still blog worthy :)

I am so excited to be a missionary in Georgia! I will be reporting to the Missonary Training Center in Provo, UT on January 26th :)




ALSO...While I was waiting those endless days outside my empty mailbox, this song was a common occurance between me and my friends. It's pretty cute so I hope you enjoy!!!

Where you lead...I will follow.

In case you didn't know...I am obsessed with Gilmore Girls.

It is all because of this girl--->

My 2nd year of college was spent watching EVERY episode of the 7 seasons.

Sometimes I get sad that my life doesn't come with "La la...La la...laaaa ahhhh" music in the background.

Gilmore Girls ends up being my life in one way or another all the time. It's kind of awesome/depressing. I want to be Lorelai when I grow up (Minus the whole having a kid at 16 thing...) Gilmore Girls reminds me of Western (AKA The happiest time of my life) and the Vortex, and staying up on the magical couch of narcolepsy when I was sick or sad watching it all night long. I always sleep best with Gilmore Girls playing almost inaudibly in the background.

These guys are kind of my family--->


and laugh if you may, Brian Owen, but I am super connected to them. I just watched this and cried when Rory graduated from Chilton... I love their wittiness "Is it raining?" "No, it's National Baptism Day...Tie your tubes, idiot!" ..."He called me hot plates...he SO likes me"... "Amber BFF'd you!" "Well I feel truly blessed!" etc. etc.

So there is really no reason for this post... I just love it and have a freakish attachment to it. Oy with the poodles already!

The Story

"all of these lines across my face,

tell you the story of who I am,

so many stories of where I've been

and how I got to who I am..."

Today I had to write an autobiography for a school assignment.

This is my life. One page. 12 Font. Double Spaced.
My name is Emily Brooke and I was (accidentally) born in Montevideo, MN on March 7, 1988. I have lived in Wyoming my entire life and although I am not a “cowgirl” I feel that the Cowboy State’s culture, cuisine and climate have all had a role in shaping who I am today. I am tough and outspoken but my heart melts easily. I cry an awful lot! My passions are theatre, music performance and appreciation, service and children. I participated in almost every sport and activity imaginable as a child but excelled only in performing arts so that’s what I stuck with. I am learning how to cook and I love good food. I have great parents, an ambitious younger brother and a beautiful older sister who was “adopted” into our family growing up. I have a close bond with my aunts, uncles and cousins on both sides of the family, and I have wise, strong grandparents. My mom and sister are both teachers and I am no stranger to kids. For example, each summer since high school I have taught between 40 and 120 children at a 3 week long intensive theatre performance camp for children ages 8-18. I cannot describe the passion and energy that these students have, and their thirst for learning and adventure is contagious! I have not always been excited to be a teacher, but now I can’t wait. Following this semester, I will continue my education at UW in fall 2012. In the interim I will serve as a missionary for my church and I am so excited for all of the opportunities that are coming my way in the near future. I can’t wait to be a teacher, mother, wife and lifelong learner always!