STS: On Choice

I started this blog to share my experiences abroad with my family and friends so when they ask “How is Spain??” I can refer them directly here. I don’t write to entertain hundreds of  strangers with my own personal musings, but I do write for me. And I amuse myself so... that has to be worth something, haha. I started Spiritual Thought Sundays because I think it’s silly to only show your personal wins with your friends if they can’t see at what price they came.  Today I’m writing something different. I don’t expect everyone to understand. And I don’t ask for you to agree with me. I only ask that you keep an open mind.

You struggle… again and again.

And then one day,

you triumph.

I read once somewhere that if we all spilled our troubles on the table, when we saw what everyone else carried with them we would scramble to grab and keep ours. And I think about that a lot.  Nonetheless, it has been a good week here but with some sharper aches and pains in my own life. There are a lot of things that don’t belong on a blog and many that I just choose to not share.

I want to generalize my thoughts and use the Royal We and apply it to the population, but I realize what I mean is in Jessie Dean land- and so to save the time and an inflated sense of self, I’ll just write it like this:

I struggle a lot.

I don’t feel I succeed in every thing that I do.

I am no stranger to feeling unnoticed,

                                         or useless

                                         or to failure.

but all of these things… they’re all so central to being human. I have days where I drag my feet. Moments where I fall apart. I have self doubt, discomfort, sometimes just straight up sadness… we all experience our own share of the worst. I would be shocked if you could honestly say you haven’t felt any of what I’ve listed in the last year. And then I would try to be happy for you but would secretly envy your fortunate circumstances. And then I would add “be less envious of others” to my “to work on” list in my head haha.

I want you reading this to know that I LOVE SPAIN. The experiences I’ve had here have been so great.  I’m grateful to have the opportunity to study in such a beautiful and quirky country. And I still try to love every day the best I can. And I will have a lot of things to miss when I come back to the states… the food, the people, the places, the memories, the bread haha… And yet, this past week has been harder than most. But I’m working through it. Because life moves on, whether or not you’re ready to.

My heart aches today. It hurts for friends back home. It hurts for family. It hurts for my lack of understanding about a lot of things.

Why do we struggle?

Why does God let us hurt if He is the God of Love? Of Mercy? If He is All-powerful?

This is just my personal opinion, but I don’t believe that God has a “perfect path” set out for us. At least not in the sense that it’s a straight line to be walked and we get punished until we find our way back to the one path that He made.

Of course we all need to stay “on the path” in regards to being faithful, repentant, following the commandments, doing our best to be an example and lift others- but that’s a different plan. What I mean to say is I don’t think God has already crafted “Jessie Dean the Street Sweeper Who Lives in Minneapolis and Gets to Have 3 Close Friends” as His path set for me, and that I will be miserable until it’s actualized. That just doesn’t make sense to me.

So like I said: I don’t believe that God has a path set in stone for us.

I think God helps us as we are and as we make our own choices.
I totally believe “Jessie Dean the Artist”, “Jessie Dean the Surgeon”, “Jessie Dean the Politician” and even “Jessie Dean the Manager at Target” can be and are perfectly acceptable paths to walk in His eyes and I will still learn the things I need to in different ways. 

But sometimes God can have these different good things and lessons lined up for us,

and we still chose to walk.

Because we will always have our ability to choose.

I choose to pray. Or I choose to stay in bed longer.

I choose to wait around for apologies. Or I choose to be forgiving.

I choose nutella on bread. I choose corn flakes. I choose to skip breakfast.

I choose to stay in my comfort zone. Or I choose to try new things.

I choose to stand up for the right thing.

I choose to follow the commandments.

And still, there are things that I can’t choose.

I didn’t choose my height.

I didn’t choose my body.

I didn’t choose how I grew up.

I can’t choose my trials.

I can’t make choices for others.

And I can’t pick and choose my sufferings.

But I choose how I handle them.

And I can choose to make bad days good.

I don’t have big experiences with dark nights. I’ve had my share of dark moments specifically in the context of Jessie Dean, but I live my life in a way that I’m always in control. But today I sat and I watched each and every single one of the videos from The Church’s 12 Steps To Recovery (Addiction Recovery Program). And I will no doubt watch them again some other time. They are powerful. They are inspiring. They are real.

https://www.mormonchannel.org/12steps

Honesty

Hope

Trust in God

Truth

Confession

Change of Heart

Humility

Forgiveness

Restituion and Reconciliation

Daily Accountability

Personal Revelation

Service

They are each about 5 minutes long and tell a different story of a real person. Prescription drugs. Food addictions. Alcohol. Eating Disorders. Heroine. Cocaine. Sex addictions.

Addiction is real.

So is Recovery.

Like I said, I don’t have experiences with dark nights. I can say honestly and openly I have not had an addiction of such caliber. I don’t want to say I’ve never had an addiction but I feel like  I keep my chocolate habit at bay… #jokesonaseriouspost

The reason I spend my whole Sunday afternoons writing and rewriting these aren’t for the internet points. I don’t get anything cool from it. For the most part I just hope they’re read and if they’re read by my fam from outside of the church, I hope they read it and look for truths or new things they can apply to their own lives.

Of this I know to be true:

Jesus Christ was a perfect man.

I can’t fathom what a perfect man looks like, but he was it.

Sometimes I sit and think how would I react if Christ walked into the room right now? And sometimes the thought in itself brings tears to my eyes.

Jesus Christ was a perfect man.

He did no wrong.

He sought out and only followed the will of the Father.

And yet,

He was rejected by the multitudes.

The very people he came to uplift.

They turned their backs and laughed.

Or worse,

Raised their weapons and raised their voices to fight him.

And He knew that they would, and he came anyways.

He has endured the dark nights.

He has walked with no one by his side.

He has experienced the most pain.

And yet,

I see him sitting next to me.

A man who has seen so much, felt so much, has done so much.

And he wants to sit next to me.

I sit and sob about the troubles in my life, and he doesn’t jump to conclusions. He doesn’t judge who is right and who is wrong. He understands the pain in my heart and instead seeks to help me to know how to right what is wrong or accept that which I cannot change.

He stands with his hand out stretched, and says

“Come, follow me.”

And this is my choice. We all have this choice. 

He sits with all of us and waits until we look to him for guidance. 

"Come, follow me," the Savior said.

Then let us in his footsteps tread,

For thus alone can we be one

With God's own loved, begotten Son.

I know that religion “isn’t for everyone” but it’s for me, and that’s enough.

I know all things are possible in Christ. I know it. I’m still learning how to put it into practice in my own life.  I anticipate to be doing this essentially until the grave! Sign me up. I know he is the light that can help the darkest of nights and every lost soul. And he absolutely wants to. And you are never too far gone to find him.

I love you all. I love the Savior.

Keep the faith and just keep going.

We can all do hard things.

Love always,

Jessie

It’s been a while since I’ve tacked these on, but some things I’ve been listening to:

Jaymes Young – “I’ll Be Good”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkMVyw-7avI

Labrinth- “Jealous”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50VWOBi0VFs

Kodaline – “High Hopes”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4povfmX144

The Paper Kites – “Bloom”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8inJtTG_DuU

STS: On Service & Journals

Alternative Title: On Making Relationships Better

I wanted to originally title this/write about “On Diligence” but I don’t feel it’s fair to write about things in which you aren't qualified haha. So when you see a post called “On Being Perfect” watch yourself because I’ve either got somethin’ comin' or we all do haha… #secondcomingjokes

I’m also limiting myself to 30 minutes on this because it’s a spiritual thought, not a spiritual monologue. Also because of this, it means I’m mostly speaking from the heart. Gosh dang. So I’m going to need a little more love and a lot less judgment with this post.

I like to write. I don’t think I was always this way, but I like to tell stories. Or I like to hear myself talk. Actually, these are all possibilities.

Because of this, I have a lot of journals. In high school I kept sketchbooks/journals, they’re angsty little thangs, but they’re fun to look through and tell a bit a few stories going through high school dramas. I started really keeping a journal in college, because there was so much going on and I wanted to remember all of it. And it started off as just a weekly bullet point list of “thisiswhatIdidonthisdayandIdon’thaverealtimetowriteanythingbye” and occasionally I find this notebook from freshman year and it makes me laugh so hard.

But that’s beside the point.

Beyond that, I also kept a little spiritual notebook (yes: the free one from the devotional at orientation) and I think somewhere in between the two is the happiest medium. For me, you could basically title all my journals “Jessie Dean: Life As I See It; Trials, Triumphs, Awkward Moments and Spiritual Bits Volume __”. I think ideally I start every journal as yeah, this is gonna be the one… solely for scripture study. Or I’m only going to write about revelation I get from prayer or this book is going to document my spiritual journey to greatness.  Not to dig on myself but………those would be some pretty sparse journals.  I’m not saying empty. You just can’t expect to fill a book with “sacred grove” moments. Well unless you had a lifetime and a half and a very acute sense for the Spirit. But alas, I’m just an average thing myself and take every day as it comes.

But anyways, I take pride in these little books.

They’re little pieces of my life and probably one of the most cherished things I own.

If I had to choose to save my journal or my cell phone from a house fire there’s no contest.

One of the things I’ve been writing and thinking a lot about lately is service. Only because I’ve actually been able to really have a better understanding of it. To do the laziest Google search imaginable for “service define”, you get these results:

1.     the action of helping or doing work for someone

2.     a system supplying a public need such as transport communications or utilities such as electricity and water

and to impress your friends even more with your Googling abilities, you can also find the LDS definition of service somewhere online. Except I couldn’t because our Wi-Fi cuts out incredibly badly at night, so you would impress me if you found it. But I’m sure it’s really similar to the first definition.

I can’t give specific examples right now because I feel like it would bring attention to the wrong things- mainly me, as well as those involved in the story. But here are my condensed thoughts on it.

“If any man will come after me [He said], let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 16:24–25)

The scriptures tell us again and again and again. The thing we should all be doing? Serving one another. The people you love? Serve them. The people you hate? Especially serve them. The people who seem to have it all figured out and don’t need your meddling? They also could use service. On either end.

My thoughts on this aren’t exactly profound… why do we focus on service? President Monson says it best:

“We do not live alone—in our city, our nation, or our world,” President Monson says. “There is no dividing line between our prosperity and our neighbor’s wretchedness.  ‘Love thy neighbor’ is more than a divine truth. It is a pattern for perfection. This truth inspires the familiar charge, ‘Go forth to serve.’  Try as some of us may, we cannot escape the influence our lives have upon the lives of others. Ours is the opportunity to build, to lift, to inspire, and indeed to lead. The New Testament teaches that it is impossible to take a right attitude toward Christ without taking an unselfish attitude toward men.”

We serve others to lighten their load.

We serve others to break the prejudices we hold within our hearts.

We serve others to help them break their own preconceived ideas about us.

We serve others in the best we know how, and as Christ would have.

And we hope that some else will be willing to do the same for us.

Since moving out of my apartment in April/moving in up the canyon to work/moving out of the canyon/moving into our apartment in Spain, I’ve had five or six different roommates. All very very different. Some clicked immediately. Some… a little less than immediately. I’ve never had a bad roommate, (haha: Jackie Dean) and I’m grateful for it. But I have had roommates that stressed me out a little bit and that I think somehow I rubbed the wrong way.

But really.

As I have loved you,

love one another.

By this shall men know,

ye are my disciples.

If you show love,

one to another.

For me, little acts of service have gone such a long way. In receiving them, in preforming them… I try every day to be the best person I can be. And some days it works out almost flawlessly. Not always, but some days. Days where I feel like I’ve treated everyone fairly, respectfully, and we had a lot of laughs… while all these things are great, they keep you in neutral territory. In my mind this grazes the category of “nice” when we are all shooting for “great”. Not saying or doing anything bad does not make you good. We have to do good things and great things to find what it means to be a good or even great person.

When I am served by others, I feel good.

When I serve others, I feel great.

I know I’ve said the word “service” a half dozen times, but let me re-say it.

One of my favorite ways to find a connection or build a relationship with someone is trying to find something small I can do for them. Sometimes, this means leaving little notes. Buying them a treat. Picking up their side of the room when things are stressful. Sometimes it’s bigger. Surprising them with dinner on an impossible night of studying. Folding laundry (I hate laundry… this is “big”). Breaking out the winter gloves and shoveling a driveway or two.

I do it to build our relationship. I do it to see the light it their eyes or hear the relief in their voice. But sometimes it doesn’t happen and a thank you never comes. And in this, I place the most value: I do it because God wants me to. And if nothing else, He is happy that I did.

It’s not hard to serve others, but it takes a certain amount of attention to needs.  In the busy world of today, many won’t ask for help. Sometimes you have to be there to hear what isn’t said.

I feel like there should be a more official way to end this, but instead I just have a challenge. Pray for opportunities for service. And if you don’t feel like you’re getting anything, pray for help to recognize them, because they’re there. Seek these opportunities amongst those around you.  You don’t need to be creativity to help the needs of others :)

Anyhow, that’s all I have. Yes I went over 30 minutes.

Also consider keeping a journal haha!

I love y’all,

Peace, swag, y bizgocho all the days

Jessie

On Plays, El Prado, y el Torneo Medieval

What’s up todos!

So life here is odd. Mostly because despite having a schedule, sometimes it still feels pretty disorganized. We had a big stinking exam this week, and also some fiiiield triiiips. Jessie, you are already living a field trip. How could you have a field trip within a field trip. Great question peanut gallery, lemme tellya bout it.

As far as the school days are concerned, they pass pretty quick. One of my favorite thing we do outside of school is still our intercambios. We just get to have English hour with this adorable Columbian girl and it’s so funny. Although less funny when she asks us “what is the difference between ‘joker’ and ‘clown’?” and the best I can do is draw very sloppy cartoons for her haha. Also she showed us her English homework and HOLY COW I’m SO GRATEFUL I ALREADY SPEAK ENGLISH. She was analyzing sentence structure and it was pretty much the most boring thing on the earth.  

Wednesday was exam day…. I don’t want to talk about it haha. Let’s just say there have been better days. Memorizing things that don’t have a concrete timeline in your mind? Not my specialty. Especially history. Booooo. But life goes on.

On Thursday we had the COOLEST EXPERIENCE. We went to a playyyyy!! So after school we went home and had lunch with the fam, hung around and took a nap for a while, then went to the train station and headed out to Madrid. We went to see La Estrella de Sevilla (literal translation: The Star of Sevilla) and it was SO cool. Sadly, we couldn’t take pictures. But it was crazy, there were 7 actors and basically an empty stage-no real back drops or settings. The props they had were a super minimalist chair, a crown, two swords, and about 30-or-so poles. Oh yes… and the Spanish drama unfolds. It was based off of a real historical event (of course) and you can read about it here: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Estrella_de_Sevilla

This is hard to explain exactly, but I want to say real quick why I loved the play despite probably following a whopping 40% of the dialogue…the presentation.  Like I said, they had these pole-vaulting sized rods that they used to create scenery. It was such an interesting minimalist way of telling a story. In between monologues the characters would each pull a pole out of the floor (the stage was set up so they would stand on their own) and then  anchor them in somewhere else. They were walls, hallways,  trees,  entryways,  torture instruments … haha. It was a great play.

The day after, we went to the Prado again but this time with Rebeca who teaches our civilization class. This lady knows her stuff, it was cool to be lead around chronologically talking about different paintings with someone I actually knew (read: not a tour guide). But three hours standing kind of killed. So afterwards we walked Madrid and went home. Megan, Kristen, Alysa and I went to see El Mercado de San Miguel which is one of the sites to see in Madrid and we hadn’t been since our first day in Spain. It’s really cool to see actual fresh-markets with fish and fruit and tapas!!! Expensive little tapas haha. BUT it’s also cool because everyone who is there is not on their phones. It’s actually a social activity. I mean of course it helps that adults go to the market to have real adult  social time and not a bunch of teenagers who are their to have a social time and then publish it publicly. Haha...

So that’s that, really for what I did anyways. Oh shoot haha, I wanted to talk about the fair!!!! Aw yeahhhh

So last week for La Semana Cervantina Alcalá hosted one of Europe’s largest medieval festivals. Actually, I’m almost certain it is THE largest. And it was so great!!

The streets were covered in banners and little booths of artisans with wood crafts and necklaces and spices and ham and pastries and more jewelry and rugs and floral crowns and sweets and nuts and it was great. It made me think of the farmers market back home on Saturdays y me echaba de menos mis padres jaja.

There were a bunch of activities for the four days it was set up, but we were traveling (also: it was Sunday) so we could only go to do something on Monday. So after staying in to study all day, we went to a JOUST!!!!! I thought it was going to be a bust, but it turned out to be THE MOST FUN and I was laughing and smiling for basically two hours straight. The joust was this sweet production with real caballeros and shenanigans, it was great. We sat in the blue section so our caballero was azul but I actually think he was kind of evil haha… like a bit of a villain in their production. I took some videos so if you want to see some of it they are definitely in the process of being edited and shipped to Hollywood #jokes #amateurhourwiththesmartphoneinthefrontrow

Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCSAz2rPrdM

And after that I rode a camel. It was glorious.

Also frick, you need a ton of calf muscles for those things.

like ya now, love ya always, don’t forget about me while I’m in Spain;)

peace, swag, n blessinz

Jessie