Creatures or Creators?

Hey, world!

These past two weeks have seen fantastically fast-paced highlights and incredibly slow interludes (oh, the mundanity!  Haha, ha...), but that's life!  It's been a great intro back into the real world.  Not every day is going to be scheduled to the minute with soul-saving, deepy fulfilling activities, and that's ok!  I've remembered that winding down and relaxing is ok, and that I can still have meaningful experiences outside of inviting people to repent and such.  In fact, I still feel the Spirit in my life about as strongly as I did on my mission!  It's all in the way you view your situation.  Will we be creatures of our circumstances and allow the events of everyday life rob us of happiness or spirituality or other positive things, or will we be creators of our circumstances, and find the happy, make the good, and choose to move forward?  That's our decision.

Which leads everso silky smoothly into what's been on my mind, lately!  We are all accountable for our own actions.  Period.  Our circumstances may affect the level of difficulty of making decisions, or even the way we think, but in the end, no one can force you to do anything.  Options might seem limited, consequences might seem better one way than the other, but we always have our agency, or our power to choose.  Obviously, there are those with conditions that limit their accountability, which is understandable, and is a part of life.  For the rest of us though, there are no excuses!  It's right or wrong.  With the right, it's even broken down into Good, Better, and Best.  There are so many choices!  But they're all OURS to make.

Heeeeere pigdeon pidgeon pidgeon!

Tough guy.

Personal post-mission application: shooting guns.  On the mission: BAD NEWS.  Off the mission: cool!  I could choose to stay stuck in my missionary mentality of "we're breaking rules and wasting precious time when we could be sharing the restored Gospel with our brothers and sisters," or I could enjoy myself with family friends and develop a fun skill.  Another!  Going on a date.  On the mission: BAAAD NEWS.  Off the mission: cool!  I could choose to lock myself in a closet and take an oath of celebacy to remind myself of how much I loved my mission, and how I can't possibly move on from such an amazing event in my life, or I can buck up, act normal one-on-one with someone who's not another Sister (or as normal as I can be... not saying much), and move on.  Personally, I don't want to allow myself to be stuck in the past when I've been preaching about progressing eternally for the last year and a half.  We just have to choose to move ahead!

Totally hypothetical examples.  Totally just pulled them out of the air.  Totally not trying to brag about the fact that I got to shoot clay pidgeons with 12 gauge shotguns.  Not at all.

Super artsy sidewalk chain-link fence thing.

I also could have chosen to curl up into a fetal position in New York City with how un-missionary I felt there, but that wouldn't have been much fun, now would it?

So for this week, read 2 Nephi 2:26-27, and decide how you can decide better in your life.  Take personal responsibility for who you are, what you're doing, and who you want to become and do with your life, and choose to close any gap there might be!  Start today!  Nothing is holding you back.

Love,
Katie

Super artsy big city temple pic.  Eat your heart out, fence thing.