3.21.13

Hello!

 

It is finally P-day! This week and a day has been soooo long but also really fast at the same time. I have been learning and studying like crazy. The MTC is good, but I am ready to get out of the concentration camp, as Jason calls it, and get into the field! I only have 4 more days!!! We have been learning how to teach and learning doctrine and how to present it. We practice on actors and volunteers pretending to be investigators and also on our teachers. This is cool but sometimes a little bit hard. The other day we practiced teaching a lady who really is a less active member ad had a really great experience. I am really excited to get out there and teach real people. The MTC is a pretty cool place, as it was described in the devotional on Tuesday by Elder Scott Whiting of the 70, the MTC is an incubator--a controlled environment with conditions made to be ideal for growth and development. I really do feel like I am a baby chick under a warm light who is just about ready to hatch. I am so exited to be in Boise not just to teach, but to not have to eat the food here any more... It is like disgustinggggggg. I really miss cooking and eating good food. The food is really the only bad part of the MTC though. I have a really great district and an amazing companion. Today we are fasting for an elder in our district who went home early. This was really sad and really hard on us as a district. I has made us all reevaluate how we see our missions and our purpose here as missionaries. I am so grateful that I am a missionary and for all of the love and support that I have. I am really experiencing something that I have never experienced before. I am growing closer and closer to my Savior daily and understanding conversion in a way that I never knew possible. I am so blessed to be a part of this marvelous work! Don't worry, I am still hilarious and send my district into tears laughing at all of the weird things that I say. The term 'struggle bus' has started to catch on in my district and it makes me miss home a bit.  I have been pretty good about not using the batman voice though ;)... I love to get dear elder letters every few days, they seriously keep me going and keep me sane! Meredith, your letters crack me up and keep me happy. I miss you like crazzzzzzzyyyyyzzz. I don't know your Fredline-y email address though, so sorry you are not getting a personalized email... Love you all and I hope to hear from everyone really soon! Please send me more dear elders!!

 

Your Sister,

 

Madison Baker

MTC!!!

This afternoon we dropped Maddy off at the MTC! After a fun lunch at Zupa's, we said our goodbyes. Since they had us kick her to the curb, we didn't have much time for tears until after we drove away. It was probably better that way.

Before the goodbye.

Walking away.

Even though I will miss Maddy, I know she will be doing great things, and we will be blessed for her missionary service!

-Meredith
p.s. keep checking the blog for her weekly letters!

Cupcakes are Good. So is Pot Roast. Yum.

Life is a beautiful thing. It is a crazy, wonderful, intense journey along a path only enlightened by patience and perseverance. There are so many roads to take and lessons to learn, I am literally in awe as each new adventure unfolds and how they all seem to lead you to the next place perfectly. I could spin off all kinds of sappy stories about all of the happiness and heart break I have had since the birth of this little blog, but I wont. Instead, I shall simply put it this way -- oh man, but God knows what he is doing. I am a pretty blessed lady ( and I will never stop saying it). 

Anyways, as much as I know there is a plan, sometimes I feel like I am living in total anarchy... Okay that is a little extreme. But things can get pretty random. I just have a really awesome and hilarious family (ten year old brother wandering around in Ugg boots, entire family bursting into song at any given moment... you get it). I love them though, and I think they like me enough most of the time too. It is especially awesome when Jake the Bake "helps me make cookies". This consisted of him wandering in and out of the kitchen, cracking one egg, and making some weird faces. That kid is awesome. I also have a really cool job. I am super excited to wake up early in the morning to go to it *insert mild sarcasm here*... I really do love it though. I get to do fun things with fun people all day and try really hard (not very successfully)  not to eat my weight in delicious rolls. 

Well, this post has pretty much no direction and I have not even thought of a random food-related title yet... I am maybe just a little blog rusty. At least blog rust is rainbow and sparkly and just like there is some extra glitter stuck in the blogging corner of your brain and not brown and scratchy like actual rust. I suppose I will work on organizing my sparkles... Here is to a New Year and plenty of new adventures (and hopefully a few more posts about them than last year).

Tortilla + Pizza Accouterments = Pizzadilla

I don't write very often. I usually only write when I feel like I have something worthwhile to say or birthday wishes to send. Well, I was reprimanded by my awesome friend upon about 1 hour of his release from serving a full time LDS mission. How are my children and generations worth of posterity supposed to know all about me if I do not update my blog more than once every several months... That being said, along with every other blogger out there, here's to posting more often and preserving proof of my actual existence... Or something like that.

On a completely unrelated note--

I had a profound experience today. I was having a conversation with an older woman, someone whom I admire and respect greatly, and we began talking about work and service. She expressed to me some level of discontent with her job situation and wished she could give her life to service and charity.   Hesitantly she disclosed this wish to me and her desire to do something that could make a difference and make her more happy. Granted, she is one of the most upbeat and positive women I know--she makes a difference with just a smile and sincere 'how are you?'. Warm, charitable, serviceable, fabulous does not even begin to describe this lovely friend of mine. But just as everyone else in this wide world, she, for just a moment felt small.

I learned a few things from this brief conversation:


No matter where we are in life--no matter how successful, beautiful, powerful, what have you--we may be, it is still possible to feel small.


Do things that make you happy, and if you are not happy--FIX IT! 


 Life constantly happens, and it takes a lot to not just let your life happen to you. 


Most importantly--I've said it before and I will say it a million times over--life is all about choices. We choose what we do and we have to choose to accept what comes of it. Happiness is a choice (probably one of the hardest ones to make). Kindness is a choice. Being present in your own life and in the lives of those around you is a choice. We choose how others perceive us and how we perceive ourselves. Every action we take, we are making a choice to be the best we can be or to maybe not be as great as we could be.


 Faith in the ability to daily improve is what drives me. I believe in choosing my own attitude towards life and I know that I am not always very good at making the positive choice. But I know that I am in control of myself and through self control and positive choices and a good attitude, I may just have the ability to turn someone else's frown into a smile. And that, to me, is worth it. 

Cucumbers and Sunshine

Guess what! Today is a very special and wonderful and stupendous day. Exactly nineteen years ago on July 16th, my soul mate was born. My longest and very best friend, Anna Elizabeth Lewis--more affectionately known as Anna Banana, Anne Banann, Anna Bear, or Sunshine--is celebrating her birthday today. I could say a million things about how utterly amazing she is. She is my rock. She is beautiful, and happy, and more kind than anyone I know. Although we do not live near to one another (we have not lived in the same state since we were 7) she is always a phone call away to laugh, cry, sing, or just be quiet with me. I see this lovely lady about once a year--and always have since she moved away many many moons ago--and we can always pick up from right where we left off the year before just as if no time has passed at all. Like I said, she is AMAZING. If I were as cool as her I would have included a bunch of photos of us growing up together (just in case you were wondering, dear, you don't have the 'awkward stage' pictures because they just happen to be in my possession.) but I am not that tech savvy, and really the only photographs that I have are not publicly acceptable. Anyways, she makes my heart smile and our souls know each other. Anna, you have blessed my life in more ways than you know. I love you forever, and cannot wait to grow up one day and live next door to one another so our darling and perfect children can be soul mates as well. Happy Birthday to the very best!!! I love you!! 

Apple Pie in a Mason Jar

One of the best men in this world passed away this morning. Pat Quinn was truly an amazing person. He was loved by every single student at Desert Vista and by anyone who knew him. He kept me sane through High School. He was not only a security guard, but a cherished friend. Not a day went by at DV when he didn't smile and wave and ask how my day was going. He called me by name and knew my story. He genuinely cared how my new job was going or if the team won our last lacrosse game. I looked forward to seeing Pat several times throughout the day. A wave as I drove into the parking lot in the morning, a brief chat as I walked off campus for seminary and a "hey there" when I came back (and sometimes even a scolding for parking in a teacher space). I loved riding on his golf cart when I was running late and hearing his stories about being a firefighter or when he lived up north or just about his family. His love and admiration for his sweet wife was inspirational. His love and zest for life was contagious--he dressed up for every spirit day and passed out candy on holidays. A genuine smile was always on his face. His kind of happiness is a choice, one  he made effortlessly every day. I know I have learned much from my friend but most importantly he taught me to make the best of what life brings me and to treat everyone with kindness and respect. He knew that life was precious and lived as an example to thousands of students. I know that he is smiling down from a beautiful paradise now, proud of his legacy. Pat Quinn will live forever in my heart. 

Food for Thought

I have been thinking a lot lately, which sometimes can get me in trouble.I think this is good thinking--but then again, it is the middle of the night. Anyways, In the midst of all of this pondering I realized that maybe I should just let you know a little something. You are beautiful. You are intelligent. You are bright. You are powerful. You are blessed. You can do hard things. I know that I wish I could hear these words more often (though I have a wonderful many people supporting me every day, sometimes you just need to hear it again), so just in case you needed to hear them--I really believe that they are true.

I have always felt different. Not special different, or super weird and strange different, but I have just always known that I am not like anyone else. I feel that I have always had a very strong sense for who I am, but I have not always felt great about it. As a struggling student for years I told myself that my best is good enough but inside I never felt that I was smart because I did not receive straight As. I always felt that I was too emotional, too passionate, too involved. I made others uncomfortable with my all too unique way of existing--who wants to be friends with the girl who yells at her first grade teacher in the middle of reading groups or bursts into tears during eighth grade social studies class? It is hard for a kid not to fit in. But I never had a desire to try. Sure, I wished that the girls at church would just let me feel like part of their group and that I didn't eat alone sometimes in High School, but I never did anything to change myself to what others saw as acceptable. I couldn't let them (the people all living the same so seemingly cookie cutter life around me) win. I knew that for some reason I just had to do my own thing. Growing up was hard, and the fact that I am not done yet kinda sucks. But I have learned a few things along the way.

I am smart. I am beautiful. I am passionate (and that is not a bad thing). I have potential to be a great person. I am not trying to take you on an ego trip, I just need you to know that it took me a long time but I finally believe that these words are true. I may learn differently than most students. Maybe I like to argue and be loud and cry--but why  would I want to be friends with someone who disliked me for those things? I have realized that I do not need to fit in to the inner sanctum of perceived superiority to have worth as a human being. But most of all, I have come to see that all of the time I spent being upset about being different, I now need to make up with embracing my uniqueness and helping others do the same. Confidence is not something that you can just pick up at your friendly neighborhood Wal Mart... Well maybe, considering it is Wal Mart and all... But it is something that you have to discover for yourself. Find what brings you joy and go DO IT. Who cares if people will give you judgy looks? Seriously, if someone is going to judge you they will do it no matter what it is that you are doing. Live your life in a way that makes YOU happy. End of story. Because you ARE smart, and gorgeous, and talented, and great. And no one can take that away from you but yourself. So please, be kind to others and be kind to you.