On Women in the Priesthood...

I know when I get too much time on my hands, because this blog starts to get a little ranty (is that a word?). However, I feel strongly about this and I've decided to make my sentiments known, mostly for my own benefit and to sort out my feelings in my head. Feel free to peruse on if you wish.

I listened to the broadcast on KUER with Ally Isom, a spokeswoman for the church, in response to the media explosion in the wake of Kate Kelly possibly receiving church punishment for her propagation of "Ordain Women". You can find the interview here. It's lengthy, and gets a bit contentious at times, but I think it's worth the listen if you have questions about excommunication and/or the role of women in the church.

I had some opinions jogging in my head as I was listening, and I figure this is as good a place as any to express them. First off, it raises the question in my mind: What is Kate Kelly still doing as a member of the church? If you're part of an organization that does not support your ideals, don't you find a new one? There are many churches who support women receiving the priesthood; why doesn't she join one of them?

Second, and most importantly, the purpose of this life is to return to Heavenly Father. It's at the center of everything we do in the Church. I would submit that it would be difficult to get through a 3-hour church block without hearing those words, likely verbatim. With that being the purpose and design of our existence, the Lord has determined that women do not need the priesthood in order to gain exaltation. It doesn't have to go any further than that. Start the wrap party, folks! That's it.

It was repeated numerous times in that interview, that the church encourages questions because righteously doing so promotes faith. The entire restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ started with a question. The danger in asking questions, which wasn't said but what I wholeheartedly believe, is that Satan works his way in to the process and tries to steer you away from the truth. That is what has happened in the case of Kate Kelly, and so many others in the church. An honest inquiry has been turned in to a crusade which has put a black mark on the name of the Church. If you have such an inquiry, the place to go is to your Judges in Israel, your bishop and stake president. Don't go pounding on the door of the Church office building and then express outrage when you're not admitted, because those aren't the people the Lord has appointed to help you.

Even if the answer to a righteous inquiry is sought in the right way, the answer may still not be clear. That is when you may have to trust that "My thought are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways" (Isaiah 55:8). The doctrine of the church is not a buffet. You either choose to accept all of it, or none of it. I personally choose to accept all of it, even the parts that my mortal mind cannot make sense of right now.

Number One!

Ian gives me reasons to be proud of him every day, but today he was recognized at work for being the #1 rep in the St. George office and #2 in the company for the month of April (they do the recognition dinner every 2 months). Each of the supervisors of the people in top ten write a little blurb to be read at the dinner. Bobby had nothing but good things to say about Ian:

"Good job and congratulations on your 1st #1 trophy in top ten! Anyone that knows Ian is fully aware that he is capable of being at the very top in the company every single month. Ian is one of my very favorite people and I would not trade him for anyone. I believe every good team has a great foundation and that is what Ian provides for my team is a rock solid foundation. I know exactly what to expect and am never disappointed! Keep rocking it, Ian, and thanks for all you do. I really appreciate you."

I wanted a picture. You'd think that wouldn't be so difficult having grown up in a family of photographers...

We started like this.

This one's a little better, but I kind of wanted to see his face.

Third time's the... nope...

There we go! Look at that handsome devil of mine!

I'm so thrilled to be married to someone who is so skilled and makes the most of his situations at work. (The $200 bonus doesn't hurt either... (: ) I am one proud wife!

Feelin' Hot, Hot, Hot!

And, just like that, May is gone. Crazy, isn't it?

Life is busy, but oh so good. Ian's working hard and bringing home the bacon at AllConnect, and I'm working part-time. It's kind of nice to have nothing to do but catch up on Criminal Minds and read books that have nothing to do with Nursing. I'll be ready for the fall when it comes though, I'm sure.

We're lucky to be able to spend a decent amount of time with each other lately. We even managed to escape to Vegas last weekend. Ian found an Argentine restaurant that he was excited to try, and it was delicious! He said it was just like what he used to eat. We stayed at The Golden Nugget, which was surprisingly really nice, and since we had never done downtown, "old Vegas" before, we spent the evening taking in the sights and kitschy-ness of Fremont Street. We have a tradition of playing this stupid penny slot machine called "Planet Moolah" whenever we see it, too. It used to be really fun because we would win when we played, but it hasn't been so kind lately. Oh well. What can you really expect playing penny slots?

Ian wore my sunglasses while we were driving because we had to buy him a new pair
and it took me a while to get the tag off. He's so hipster.

The hotel comped us a goody basket. 

Argentines are not like other South Americans. They eat a lot of red meat.
Typically, they cook a lot of different cuts of meat and cut them in to
small pieces so everyone can have a little bit of everything. 

He went straight up Ron Swanson on the place.

I had Milanesas. It was delicious! You can kind of see the chimichurri in the corner which was SO good!

Fremont street right outside our hotel.

Projections on to the ceiling.

From the outside looking in. On the right was The Heart Attack Grill,
where people have literally had heart attacks eating.

I've been reading The Matt Walsh Blog a lot lately. I don't agree with everything he posts, but it's refreshing to read words from someone who shares similar values and writes about something other than what celebrities are tweeting about. His post on Friday was about marriage and how devastating it is that people don't take it seriously anymore. One part really resonated with me:

"Life is change. People are change. I’m seeing this play out all around me. As I get older I drift further apart from some of the people I used to consider my closest confidants. But I let myself drift, and so do they, because circumstances also change, and what I’m realizing is that so many of my relationships were only ever circumstantial.

"My relationship with my wife, however, transcends the circumstance. If we feel ourselves drift, we reach out our hands and grasp tightly, because I choose to remain at her side, and she at mine. And if I ever look over to find that we’ve somehow lost sight of each other — both now walking alone and lost in that cold night — I will grab a torch and search for her until I find her again. She is my mission, my life’s work, and I’d sooner give up my life than give up on her."

It's sad that we live in a world where this opinion is the vast minority, that "cohabitation" is the norm, and usually leads to broken hearts and families. I'm glad to be part of that minority.

Since It's May and All...

I got a shot today. I would complain, but after the 1000s of injections I've given over the past few years (really) I suppose it's just karma. I also cut the tip of my finger opening the pork roast I made for dinner and am now wondering why I decided to type... Huh...

Ian and I made a spontaneous trip home this weekend. I got to spend one-on-one time with everyone in my family and it was fantastic. I am blessed with the most amazing siblings and parents a girl could ask for. And I even got a shopping trip out of the deal.

We went 4-wheeling on Monday with my in-laws. Well, before I tell you this story, I have to tell you a different one. I don't even remember all the details really. It was while my parents were in Lake Powell, and for some reason or another, my dad told my mom that she was "no fun". So my mom went crying to my uncle (her older brother) and said, "Jeff says I'm no fun." All he had to say was, "Well, yeah." Ok, so I don't know if I told that story even remotely correctly, but the point is that it has been established in my family as a joke that Mom is no fun. Well, I'm my mother's daughter. I am no fun. I like to ride 4-wheelers, but only if the trail is level and we don't go faster than 20 MPH.

So, here we are headed up this trail that gets progressively more rocky and has big divots from where it was likely a 4WD truck had been before us. It wouldn't have been so bad, but we kept having to go over them at a 45-degree angle. Now, it doesn't matter how stable it really is or how far I lean the opposite direction, I always feel like we're going to tip over. I finally had enough and told Ian I was walking the 8 miles back to the car. It didn't matter how irrational that was at that point, I was ruining all the fun and I wanted to leave. Ian and his dad finished the climb to the top of the mountain, and I sat in the dirt and sulked. He turned around after taking in the view from the top, which I learned wasn't that far from where we were, and insisted I get back on. I refused, so he let me walk down to the less scary part, assured me I was not ruining the fun, and we headed to a different trail.

We got back on the easier trail, switched places so that I was driving, and I ended the day on a better note. I thought about that experience as I was touring through the dust, and I made an important connection (it seems like spiritual connections happen a lot when your adrenaline is running high). It's a little cliche as I type it, but I thought about how the trail is like life. Of course we would prefer the easy parts where we can coast along with our hand barely on the throttle, but often we find ourselves climbing a big scary hill. When that happens, we have two choices: we can be Ian in this situation, and make the best of the ride until we can get to the top and enjoy the view, or we can be me and give up, turn back and feel sorry for ourselves. I thought about how tragic it would be if while we're watching our life movie on judgement day, we realize how close we came to the top, only to turn around and walk back. I realized again how essential it is to call on the powers of heaven, and get to the top, even if it scares the living daylights out of you.

Well, except when it comes to 4-wheeling. I'm not doing that nastiness again.

Caribbean Cruise 2014

Well, we've been home from this cruise for a month now, so I might as well blog about it. We went with my in-laws on a week-long adventure to Cozumel, Belize City, Roatan and The Cayman Islands. Wow! We had so much fun!

We took the red eye to Miami out of Vegas, and barely made our flight.

Seriously. He took this as we heard, "Last call for Harwell" over the PA.

Not a bad view of the city from my window seat.

 That photo was the best part of the flight. I will never take another red eye as long as I live. I should've taken a picture of my eyes. They were firey red. We maybe slept for an hour, and because of the time change, landed at 6:30 AM. I don't know what it is about airports but there never seems to be anything nearby. We wandered around for awhile and found a place to eat breakfast. It was super ghetto but there's really no way to screw up pancakes is there?

We got to get on the boat at 11. We slept the afternoon away since we hadn't slept at all the night before.

Our cruise ship

Ian and Alan played giant chess the first night. Ian won. That's the thing about your dad making a deal that you can get out of being grounded if you beat him in chess. You get good.

Our first port was Cozumel, Mexico. We didn't actually do anything in Cozumel. We took a shuttle across the bay to Playa Del Carmen, and rode a bus to see the ancient city of Tulum. It was absolutely beautiful and amazing to see what people could do with such rudimentary technology. I was blown away.

Ian and his mom on the shuttle.

At the entrance to the city.

Our tour guide, Humberto, was really knowledgeable. I loved listening to him.

The main temple is behind us.

Just chillin on a rock in the shade. It was really hot there.

Yeah, I'd build a city here too.

The first full week we'd spent together in a long time.

The second port was Belize City, Belize. We took another bus ride and went cave tubing through another piece of mayan history. I know a bus ride sounds boring, but the tour guides told us a lot about the history of the places we were. It was really interesting!

One of 8 stop lights in the entire country.

After hiking about half a mile, we got on our bright green tubes and got ready to go.

It was pitch black other than our headlamps, so it was hard to get good pictures.
There was a waterfall in the middle of the cave.

Floating along.

The best part was we only had to give our guide a $2 tip. I swear we spent more on tips than anything else.

I didn't realize there were so many little islands off the coast of Belize. We watched the ocean sunset that night and watch probably a dozen or so islands go by.

We spent the third day at Mahogany Bay in Roatan, Honduras. It was a little island off the coast about 10 miles long. We wanted to snorkel, and after realizing it would cost us $100 to get to the beach in a cab, we decided to rent a car and explore the island. It was my favorite day because I felt like we got a taste of the real island. There was a definite difference between the tourist side of the island and the place where the natives live. It was also the first time Ian drove in a foreign country.

Mahogany bay. The whole island looked like a post card.

A shipwreck out the window of our boat.

Ian cruisin in our little Kia.

Just big enough for the four of us.

On the "native" side of the island.

 After cruising around for about an hour and a half, we went to the beach! I'm not a huge fan of swimming in the ocean, so I stayed on the beach with the stuff with everyone went swimming.

Ian found a conch shell.

 From the shore, it didn't look like there was much to see in the water, so I was content to sit in the sand on the beach. Ian swam back to shore and convinced me to see for myself. Yeah, I'm glad I did. Wow!

Yeah, it was worth it.

Our last port was The Cayman Islands. We spent another day chilling on the beach and snorkeling.

Headed over on the tender.

Welcome to Grand Cayman

"Don't tell Cori about the sea urchins"

 The last day at sea, one of our fellow passengers got sick and had to be evacuated off the ship by the Coast Guard. It was quite the spectacle.

The last day we had a day to kill in Miami, so we rented a Charger and went around town.

Ian was searching for lunch and found an Argentine Panaderia. He got us a bunch of empanadas, just like he used to eat as a missionary. They were delicious!

A Miami sunset from the air.

So, when's the next trip?