for the afternoon crowd

Ooooh, those trials of faith will really get you to stop and think, won't they? Not a day goes by when I don't feel like my faith is getting tested a little bit more than it was the day before. Heavenly Father must expect some great things from me, and that's why he's testing me. I can only hope I'm doing a good job. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it.

I was talking to a friend recently about application. Not application of foundation (different blog, move on, people, move on) (but if you want to apply your foundation correctly go with a Beauty Blender, ok bye).

We were talking about "gospel blogs" and the like and she told me she'd been looking for something with a little bit more substance. All of us probably read Pinterest quotes all the time and post them on our Instagram, we post a video and hashtag it with the latest #sharegoodness derivative, we gush on our Facebook page about how grateful we are, but I don't know if we talk enough about application.

David O. McKay articulated it best:

"Faith in God cannot of course be other than personal. It must be yours; it must be mine; and, to be effective, must spring from the mind and heart. What we need today is faith in the living Christ, which is more than a mere feeling, but a power that moves us to action—a faith that will put purpose into life and courage into the heart. We need the gospel of application." (source)

I know that for myself, the gospel makes a lot more sense to me when I use it. Well duh. Of course it does. If you never drove your car and just stared at it sitting in your driveway, you'd never learn how to drive or how to be around other drivers or understand traffic laws. You'd just have a potential way to get around. But of course it wouldn't do you any good. The gospel is the same way. The only way I can make the gospel work for me is when I use it every day. I'm still figuring out what that means for me, but everyone has personal things they're working on. If you want a great talk about that, I would check out Elder Lawrence's "What Lack I Yet?" That was a wonderful talk about application.

I'm not sure why this is on my mind right now, but here it is. It's not very elegant or complicated, but that's the gospel. It's simple. Next time you post on social media about #sharinggoodness, try asking yourself what you can do to apply what you've just shared. That's what I'm trying.

I just tried to get up from the couch and I couldn't

we're related.

That thing I wrote as the title= the absolute pinnacle of vegetating.

Yeah, it's a word. I just looked it up on thesaurus dot com because I wanted a different word for what I've been doing, to make it sound better. But you know what, the internet gave me "vegetating," and gently patted my hand as if to say, "There is no better word for that. Sorry, bud."

Today I finished my last two papers, and so I think I'm going to go for a run. YES. I'M GOING TO GO OUTSIDE. My skin might incinerate before I get past the front lawn, but whatever. At least then I won't have to think about starting my thesis soon. Yeah, summer break doesn't mean that much when you in grad school. I wish I could stop talking about grad school on this blog. Us too, you're all thinking. Don't worry, I know. I know.

OTHER ITEMS OF BIDNEZ:

Houston wants papaya for his birthday. That's it. He said "If I ask everyone for papaya, I know I'll get a lot of it. And then...I'll have papaya."
Me: "......."

PAPAYA. Kaitlyn Bothwell, if you're reading this, you're making the same face I made when he told me this. The same fruit we had to tell Mexicans we were allergic to so they'd stop giving it to us for breakfast. Oh well. I'll get him papaya (whoops, don't tell him) (Houston pretend you didn't read this), because he doesn't block me when I send him texts like this:

My parents have a puppy two puppies. Look, see. What else do you come here for? I really can't say.

this is Pip. a picture of her sister is forthcoming. 

There's this scene in Eddie the Eagle when Christopher Walken walks in (no, stop with the DAD jokes, gosh) (yes I am talking to myself right now) to a locker room and it's just such a weird scene, but anyway, it's supposed to be serious, because he picks up Hugh Jackman's skiing book with ol' Chris Walken's face on it, and Chris Walken says, "Nice book you got there. Need me to sign it?" Meanwhile everybody in the locker room is just staring at what must be the Most Inappropriately Timed Autograph Signing Of All Time (in their towels). I think it's supposed to be a really poignant scene but it's not, and everybody in the movie theater probably wanted to assassinate me and Houston because we couldn't stop laughing. Disclaimer: I almost assassinated myself just now trying to spell "assassinate."

That feeling of trying to keep yourself from laughing which instead just makes you laugh more is just like the feeling you get when you're done with your first year of grad school. You're like "K, I'm gonna relax for a bit now, maybe take a nap or go inhale or maybe--MAYBE I will venture to the faraway land of Smith's." But pretty soon you trying to do other things just makes you wonder if you should, in fact, have this much free time on your hands, so you make a huge mistake. You check your email. And what should you find there but an email from a student, long after their final papers were due.

"Hi, so last night when I turned in my paper my internet must've cut out RIGHT when I turned in the paper, so can I turn it in now?" (twelve hours later).

Me:

Why did I check my email? I should've pretended that inboxes didn't exist. Idjit!

You silly girl. Inboxes won't stop existing until you're laying horizontal in your coffin. But probably not even then. Sigh. Shoot, is it laying or lying or laiding or ladling goshDANGIT I have been writing and grading for nine straight months please send help.

Just recently (five minutes ago, just so you know how credible I am) I was browsing the Pinterest when I saw this Steve Jobs quote again, which I'm sure many well-meaning hipsters have nailed to their walls by now:

and then I was like:

C'mon Steve. You're not fooling anyone.

That concludes today's meaningless blog post. Thanks for reading and also I am sorry.