Grammer Answer

Jessi and Audra, that's the same reaction I had when my English 315 teacher put those words on the board! Except for I gave up way before 15 minutes--Jessi, I am impressed with your perseverance! The answer is someone asking whether Sam or Sally was right in their use of the word "had" in a paper/grammar lesson:

Where Sam had had "had," Sally had had "had had;" had "had had" had the teacher's approval?

Crazy, huh?!

Grammar challenge

Believe it or not, these words can create a correct sentence if punctuated correctly. See if you can figure it out:

Where Sam had had had Sally had had had had had had had had the teachers approval

Dance!

"If thou art merry, praise the Lord with singing, with music, with dancing, and with a prayer of praise and thanksgiving" (D & C 136:28).

"Attempt to be creative for the joy it brings...Select something like music, dance, sculpture, or poetry. Being creative will help you enjoy life. It engenders a spirit of gratitude. It develops latent talent, sharpens your capacity to reason, to act, and to find purpose in life. It dispels loneliness and heartache. It gives a renewal, a spark of enthusiasm, and zest for life." (Richard G. Scott, “Finding Joy in Life,” Ensign, May 1996, 24)

“The great principle of happiness consists in having a body” (Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pg. 181).

“It is expedient that all things be done unto [God’s] glory” (D & C 78:8).

As you all know, I love ballroom dance. I think there is something very satisfying about trying to use the body Heavenly Father gave me to create beauiful movement. And I think ballroom dance is so beautiful. I really do believe that dance can be a way of glorifying God, of praising Him.

I also love how ballroom dance requires two people, a man and a woman, to work together. There are so many parallels to ballroom dance and relationships. These parallels often come up in my classes as the teachers try to illustrate dance principles or techniques. Here are just a few, some of which have come up in class, and some of which I have come up with:

1. While you should always maintain connection with your partner at certain connection points, you also need to stay out of your partner's space in some areas. If you start leaning into that space, the balance is thrown off and you don't look good.
2. In dance, the man is a gentleman and the woman is a lady.
3. The gentleman should lead, but that does not mean that he should push or pull the lady around. In fact, if he did, the result would be terribly ugly. The lady can, and must, move on her own in order for the partnership to be smooth and beautiful. The man leads by subtle movements, and the lady should be attentive to those movements.
4. You have to communicate with your partner. Your partner often doesn't realize that what he is doing is making it harder for you to do what you need to do, so you have to tell him. But you also have to tell him in a tactful, courteous way that is not accusatory, but explanatory. If you tell him in an accusatory way, he will be even less inclined to change to help you out.
5. Sometimes you just need to get out of your partner's way.
6. If you try to dance on your own, it doesn't work. You have to listen to what your partner is telling you through his movements, and adapt to those movements as much as you can.
7. You have to loosen up, to relax. If you are too tense or uptight, it's not going to be a pretty picture.
8. Ballroom dance takes a lot of practice and patience. You are not going to achieve a sense of smooth synergy with your partner right away. This is especially true when you are learning a new, more difficult routine together. But the more practice you have with a partner, the easier it is to maintain synergy with him even in the face of the challenge of learning difficult figures.

Ballroom dance has brought so much joy to my life in the last two years. Just as Elder Scott said it would, it has brought into my life gratitude, friendship, renewal, and enthusiasm. These results haven't always been immediate--sometimes I have gotten extremely frustrated and discouraged. Sometimes I have lost the vision of why I dance, and have gotten bogged down in the stress of not feeling good enough, not getting high enough scores, and not performing to the level that I wish I could. But during those times, I have had to remind myself why I dance. It's not to be better than the other girls in my class or to win first place in any competition.

I dance because it's fun and challenging. It's rewarding to learn how to do something I couldn't do before. It's exciting to see something beautiful, and then improve in my ability to create that beauty myself. It's refreshing to step away from my studies and just dance to beautiful music, to just enjoy using the body Heavenly Father gave me. I think that if everyone in the world took an hour a day to dance to inspiring music, the world would be a much better place!

P.S. I got this picture from http://dancesportinfo.net/DisplayGallery.aspx?eventId=4132. It is of Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova, the #1 standard couple in the US. I got to see them last March at DanceSport, and they were amazing.

"I Wanna Talk About ME" (You know, the country song...)

I got this list of questions from Jessi's blog:

My four favorite movies are:
1. Sense and Sensibility
2. Anne of Green Gables
3. Lord of the Rings trilogy
4. Searching for Bobby Fisher

The four places I want to be right now:
1. Any island in the Pacific
2. Guatemala
3. India
4. Spain

Four things I accomplished today:
1. Gave a presentation on alexithymia and eating disorders
2. Made a handout for said presentation
3. Talked to three of my four nieces, one of which (Lydia) in a British accent for about 5 minutes! (She's five years old and she can carry on a conversation in a British accent for 5 minutes! Wow, huh!)
4. Studied for my D & C test tomorrow (what I should be doing right now!)

My four favorite things to do in my "spare time":
1. Spend time with Chad
2. Go running or play tennis
3. Read
4. Go to arts or sports events

Four things I think I'm good at:
1. Liking other people
2. Being meticulous with school work
3. Having a good sense of direction while driving
4. Remembering people's names

Four things I'd like to change:
1. Romania's economic and political condition
2. U.S.'s moral condition
3. U.S. doctors' residency hours
4. How fast I can read (I want to be able to read faster)

How I'd spend a MILLION dollars:
1. Pay for Romania and the rest of my school
2. Give some to my parents as payback for the help they have given me
3. Humanitarian aid
4. Investments

Things I'm going to do tomorrow:
1. Go to the temple at 6 am with my lovely friend Jocelyn
2. Dance the foxtrot!
3. Study for and take a D & C quiz and test
4. Volunteer at the Special Needs Institute

P.S. To see a hilarious picture, go to my friend Amy's blog and see her entry from July 27. It might only be funny if you know her, but it's hilarious to me. Here's the link: http://parselysagerosemaryandthyme.blogspot.com/

On Receiving

In the LDS Church, there is usually an emphasis on giving and serving. Which I think is absolutely wonderful, given that I need to be constantly reminded to resist selfish thought patterns, attitudes, and behavior. However, I have misapplied this counsel at times in my life. I have misconstrued it to mean that asking for help is a sign of weakness--that I am only a good person if I continually serve without ever asking to be served. This idea that good LDS people only give and never receive is so off the mark!!

Recently in my scripture study I have been impressed by how the act of receiving is a gospel principle. This idea was mentioned by my IAS teacher last term, and yesterday I looked into it more in my scripture study. I looked up the word "receive" in the Index, and I found that there is almost a column and a half of references for the concept! That is quite a lot. Listen to how many phrases there are in the scriptures and our gospel vocabulary that include the word "receive":

Receive the priesthood
Receive a priesthood blessing
Receive God's counsel
Receive personal revelation
Receive promptings of the Holy Ghost
Receive forgiveness for one's sins
Receive one's endowment
Receive other gospel ordinances
Receive the gift of the Holy Ghost
Receive the sacrament
Receive God's word
Receive Christ's love into your heart
Receive light
Receive God's image in your countenance
Receive salvation
Receive God's servants
Receive the Lord
Receive the Father
Receive the Father's kingdom
Receive all that the Father hath

That is a lot of phrases using just one word! And there are probably more that I missed. Clearly, the Lord wants us to receive all the good gifts He has to offer us. He wants us to accept help from Him. He has even told us, "For unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have." (2 Nephi 28:30). Receiving is an integral part of the gospel, because we can't make it on our own. We cannot gain salvation on our own. We need the Lord's help. We need His saving grace! We need the saving power of the atonement.

A directive from God to man that is found all over the scriptures is "Ask, and ye shall receive." It seems to me that most of us in the Church accept this readily and don't have any qualms in listing off to Heavenly Father in our prayers all the things we want and need. So why then, if we are so comfortable with asking God for help, do so many of us struggle in asking each other for help?

I believe that just as we need God's saving grace, we also need each other. We have been told that we can not be saved or made perfect without our dead (see D & C 128:15 & 18), and I believe that likewise we can not be saved or made perfect without each other. We should ask each other for help. Really, in order for there to be service in Zion, there has to be people who need to be served!

As I reflect on the people I've known in my life, those who stand out as my best friends are those who I went to and said, "Hey, I'm having a hard time, can you lend me a hand?" It was those people I felt the greatest bond with. And I believe it was in those moments in which my friends and I shared mutual insecurities, pain, fears, and struggles that those bonds were formed. Of course there were other times of shared joy and triumph that strengthened our relationship as well, but without the times of shared struggle, I don't think we would have drawn as close to one another. My closest friendships are the products of the applied principle of asking and receiving.

I have a long way to go when it comes to this principle! I need to work on being more humble so it's easier for me to ask for help. I also need to work on internalizing the belief that receiving is not the opposite of service, but rather it is complementary to it. I'm sure it pleases Heavenly Father when His children engage in reciprocal relationships in which there is both giving and receiving. In this way we help each other return to Him.