Thoughts after watching too many clips of Ben Shapiro (all of which I loved)

I don't post very often because I don't have much to say that I want to be public, but I feel especially impressed to share some thoughts that I have been feeling, especially being so far away from the people and the country that I love. It makes me sad to see contentions, fighting, and disunity. It especially makes me sad to see how intolerable people can be towards others and how angry and defensive people get when someone has a differing opinion. I realize that many have different beliefs about what should be done and how things should be done, but I also believe that there is a civilized way to accomplish the general goals and desires of every person. That also being said, I do realize that not all desires of every person are going to be met. Even in situations where you may not necessarily get what you want or, things are not done in the way you think they should have been accomplished, I still very strongly believe is important to be civilized.

All of that being said, today I was reading in the Book of Mormon in Mosiah 4:1-16. And in these verses of scripture, King Benjamin is discussing with his people about how to be happy. He then states, that if you have a belief that God has given you everything, including your life, then subsequently after applying those beliefs that come along with that, happiness is acquired, to put it generally.

But to believe is not to receive. A belief is merely the first step. The next step that is required is to test your belief or your theory. In other words the next step is to have faith. A lot of the times those two words get confused but after reading verse 10 where King Benjamin States, "If you believe all these things see that ye do them". I determined there had to be a difference. If faith and belief meant the same thing then you could essentially replace both verbs, believe and do, from the sentence with the same word; either faith or believe. But by doing this we see that either way the sentence then looses it’s meaning. It was then I realized (or I guess re-realized, but with deeper understanding) how simple the solution to avoiding contention really is. It is one thing to believe in something and another to actively practice those beliefs.

So many times I get attacked for the way my husband and I thinks. We consistently hear the phrases “white male supremacy”, “black lives matter”, “You’ll never understand because you are so privileged” or whatever other demeaning things they can think of. Yet, at the same time, these same people preach equality. They preach that everyone deserves to be heard. That everyone has to be offered the EXACT same opportunities. Even, if the work isn’t done. It only matters if it’s fair. And this in itself is completely illogical due to the fact that no one person is the same, no one place on earth is the same, and above all that, EVERY single person has to make their own decisions, and these decisions then affect how their life turns out. Because of all of these different variables, each and every circumstance is different and can’t be compared to anothers. And what’s ironic about that, is THAT is what makes everyone equal. We all face our own equally difficult challenges. To say that things in my life aren’t as hard as something that has happened in yours is difficult to weigh, as maybe something that you consider to be extremely difficult to overcome, might be something that I can just brush of my shoulder and vice versa. What matters is the way the trial is overcome.

Back to my reading, anyone can believe something, but that isn’t what is going to make them happy. A belief is not going to get anyone to where they want to be. No one will ever be truly satisfied with merely a belief. It is the action behind the belief that makes you, your family, and a society better. To clarify, action is not whining about not getting what is wanted or demanding for something that you weren’t given. It’s not gathering a group of people together to tell other people they are wrong and why things should have been done differently. It’s working on yourself, and making sure you are doing everything in your power to make your desires and dreams come true. It’s about learning to be a good member of society and contributing,  and then so on up the scale: i.e. Establishing a home of order and love, Helping others do the same, and electing local leaders who will help establish a community of order and love etc (D&C 109:8).

What I’m trying to say is that once you actively start doing things to improve your circumstances instead of just believing you are entitled to happiness and opportunities, you will then begin to receive the fruits of your labor.

I know that with hard work, comes satisfaction and happiness with oneself and with the outcomes you have created or have been given. I know that Heavenly Father wants to bless us with all the opportunities and riches of the world, but I also understand that in order for me to appreciate them fully, I have to earn them. This is hard. Failing and picking yourself up again and moving on is hard. But life is hard, and it’s meant to make us stronger. I hope I didn’t offend anyone, as that was not the purpose of me sharing my feelings. I do hope that we all are doing our best to be better. I hope we will attack each other less, and do more to serve our neighbor.  And if you have any questions about my beliefs, please feel free to message me or to go to www.mormon.org and you can read more.

I love you all. Happy Sunday :)

-Melissa

Madrid

Hello everyone! Today I am doing a quick update on what's been going on.

If you have been following me on Facebook at all I've been working on a painting of Christ and some children. That has been really fun, it's made me think more and be more creative  while using my time a little bit better.

This week I just started my classes again. I was nervous but the classes have gone really well so far and I have a new potential student that I've been talking to.

We just bought tickets to go to Rome! My parents are going to be coming in the middle of December and we are going to go explore the world! I'm so excited to go travel a little bit more.

So, last week we went to Madrid. Last week was Matthew’s fall break and we had so much fun. for the first part of the week we sat at home and we had what we called “PJ day”. This was the best day ever!!

First we prepared the night before by making sure that we had all of the food that we needed and we set up pillows and things around the house because, obviously, when you have a PJ day  the entire floor of your home is lava and so you have to figure out ways to get from room to room. Which is what we did which was so fun. There were pillows lining the floor to the kitchen so I could go into kitchen island where the whole kitchen words one big island safe Zone. We eventually made the bathroom an entire safe zone because at first the bathroom floor was lava but that started to get tricky and we had to get very creative moving around in there. But we decided that eventually the volcanic lava built up so much in the bathroom became an entire Island itself. Haha. We watched so many movies that day and, might I add we watch the entire Twilight series. And for the record, that was not my idea. It was my sweet husbands idea to watch the entire Twilight series because, and I quote,” You know what? I actually am in a romantic movie mood, like sappy romance.” I never thought I would hear those words come out of my husband's mouth. But they did and I took advantage of them. We were up till 5 in the morning watching all these movies. It was so much fun.

The next couple days we went to Madrid and this was fun but it was also frustrating at the same time. There was a miscommunication between us and the people that we were staying with. We stayed with some people through Airbnb. They didn't understand that we are coming in early in the day and they weren't able to meet us until in the afternoon so we ended up having to carry our luggage around Madrid. That was kind of difficult and frustrating because we couldn't do as much as we would have loved to that first day. But we did end up going to the Lush Spa that is in Madrid which was amazing! I was so stressed out and frustrated because we had our luggage to carry everywhere and the train ride was long and we didn't get enough sleep and I woke up really early and everything was just not going like I wanted it to. But we went into the spa, seriously, all of my frustrations melted away. The next thing was awesome but also kind of a frustration was, it rained every day that we were there especially the last day. Because the cold and rain, we didn't get to do and see and walk around as much as we would have liked but we did end up going to an art museum that had some of Pablo Picasso's work, which was really interesting. But that's about the extent of exciting things we saw. Another thing that we did that was really funny was we ordered Chinese take out at like 11 o'clock at night and the guy that came was so grumpy. Which I don't blame them because we didn't actually get the food until almost 1:00 am, but when he came to the door He rang the bell witch was so loud and then he couldn't figure out how to open the door because they locked it and I didn't know it was just a big disaster at 1 in the morning and I was afraid that everyone was going to wake up but luckily nobody did which was nice or at least we don't know if anybody will go up haha.

Anyway other than that life has been great. Same old same old. I've been seeing a lot more of the members since I am the secretary in the Relief Society and we have meetings that I attend all the time plus I'm helping with the activity on Saturday. It's. great!

I love you all hope you're having a good day.

Love,

Melissa

PS… don’t  mind the runon sentences… I used the speaking thing to type this for me…. And I don’t speak in proper english… sorry.

A day of Photos....or a Month

So, as the title suggests, this is a post of pictures from the past month with descriptions.

Enjoy!

 So, we saw this on our walk home from the grocery store. I though it was so funny because the little girl is all dressed up and everyone else is in their underwear! Like, Hey everyone! Time for a family photo!!

  Cool cathedral chairs. I just pictured a ton Popes sitting there. Kind of like all the Avatars in the air temple in Avatar the last airbender.... Nerd moment.

So there is a BEAUTIFUL and HUGE cathedral right next to our house. It supposedly has the Holy Grail. It's been approved by the Vatican, so it must be true... Anyway. Here was my attempt to take a picture..... on my cheap phone.... You couldn't get close enough to it anyway.

 Just a cool organ.

 This was another crazy one.  It is a Saints ARM!! like his real arm. He was born in 304 A.D. That is one old arm. They believe that to truly be a Saint your body will not decay... so here is their proof.

 Beautiful ceiling in main part of church.

 Another big book.

 This book is just a tidge smaller than the book above. It's all hand painted. Beautiful.

 This was really cool. You can't really tell but this book is HUGE. Each page was about 2'x1'. This is an ancient music book. The black dots are known as neumes. They don't have an actual pitch, it just indicates that you start here (whatever sound... sounds good) and then depending on the length of the black mark and where it was placed determined the sound. So if the black mark is lower than the one before then it is a lower sound. And the longer the mark is the longer the sound is held out. Thank you Professor Elaine Jorgensen for teaching me that.

 Me... :) oh, and some other Saints.

 An ancient Pope robe.

 Another ancient pope rope and dressing.

 I found a replica in the museum part of the church that I got a better photo of.

  They dug out a portion of the church's foundation and they found bones. Like, there were pieces of bones scattered throughout the walls. It was crazy! I'd never seen a real human skull before!

 My cellphone quality picture of a beautiful gold ceiling. There were tiny baby heads in all of the corners. That was a little weird.

 A random government building they were letting us walk through.

 Beautiful!!

 Our first day at the beach! Me in my pioneer dress and Matthew's sleeveless shirt. We are one awkward couple ;)

 One of my sketches I did while sitting out side. It was interesting because people though I was a street performer and would come and watch me and comment on my work.

 A man handling a huge rack of meat!! It smelled sooo good.
 

  I love him :)

    Skyline from my daily walk to get food.

A beautiful building in a quiet plaza.

So, the pictures and video from now on are from my adventure and participation of the Spanish holiday Pino Navideño, October 

The start of my walk across a bridge full of booths.

A whole slew of pickled things in cauldrons.

Torres de Serranos 

Detail of Torres de Serranos

So, the licorice on the top is normal Redvine size. I think you can understand why this picture was taken.

I thought this was cool. You don't usually see at fairs your choice of local spices to choose from. 

This has nothing to do with the holiday.. It was just a beautiful church I saw on my walk home.

There you go world. I'm sorry I have not posted anything about my life here in Valencia. I know I will regret that when I get older. Here's to new goals: Write once a week. That shouldn't be too hard.

I love you all and I hope you are doing well! Send me some questions or things you would like to hear about!

--Miss