Tevas

I love my mush Teva flip-flops. They are so comfortable, I wear them almost every day. Thanks to Chad's family for introducing them to me! If anyone is looking for comfy flip-flops for the summertime, these are the way to go.

Springtime

I love this time of year! I love how when I wake up, even if I wake up early, it is already light outside and in my bedroom. I love how I don't have to wake up super early to go running, because I can run later in the morning or in the evening and it won't be too hot. I love how I can hear birds chirping from my window and see pictures of frogs, turtles, and birds on my sisters' and mom's blogs! I love how the BYU campus isn't as busy during spring term. And I love how green everything is!!

May 15 is a good day

Three Happy Thoughts of the Day:
The musical numbers of BYU devotionals give me the opportunity to enjoy a great musical performance for free every week!

I love how the scriptures teach us to not esteem any person above another (Mosiah 23:7). What a novel idea for this world.
I have the best fiance in the world. Go to weddingchannel.com and type in Abbi Pyne in the top right corner and look what he made for me!

Positive Mental Attitude

On Sunday I got to spend a lovely day with Chad, Adam, Dale, Crystal, their super cute kids, Neal, Carol, Grandma Martin, and Chad's aunt, uncle, and cousins. It was a great time. We all went to church together and then hung out at Chad's aunt and uncle's house and had a delicious Mother's Day meal. Happy Late Mother's Day to all you wonderful mothers out there! You are the best thing this world has.

I really liked Dale and Crystal's ward, because they didn't have any women speak in sacrament meeting on Mother's Day. Last year Jessi had to speak on Mother's Day and this year Carrie spoke on Mother's Day, and I just don't think that's right to make women work on the one day they should have off!

But anyhow, their bishop spoke and I wanted to share with you something he said. He said that we need to work on having positive mental attitudes and replacing negative thoughts with positive thoughts. He said that when you feel the temptation to mentally complain or feel sorry for yourself, you need to make yourself think of at least three things good about your day or life. Isn't that a great idea? I really need to do that! And then in Relieif Society a sister shared an idea to keep a grateful journal and every night add to it a few things for which you are grateful. I like that idea, too! Would you mind if I used my blog as my grateful-for journal?

Here are a few of the things I am grateful for:

The canned nuts I bought at the grocery store the last time I was there! I love canned nuts, they are so yummy!
The fact that I look forward to going to each of my classes this term--I really enjoy what I'm learning and the assignments I get to complete, and I like the teaching styles of my teachers. I love being a student and will really miss it after I graduate!!
The opportunity I have to move my body--to dance, run, play tennis, drive, hike, clean. I think it would be very hard to be paralyzed.

What are a few of the things you are grateful for?

Go Jazz!

I have become quite the Jazz fan over the last couple weeks. I love the NBA playoffs, they are so fun! It has been so exciting to watch the last few Jazz games against the Houston Rockets and the Golden State Warriors. A lot of the games have been so close, and last night's game even went into overtime! And they won! I really like the Jazz team. I love how they work together as a team, how they get defensive and offensive rebounds, how they hustle to steal the ball and get the ball down the court, how a lot of their good players play from the bench, and how they pull through during the last minutes of the game to secure the win. I hope they can pull off the wins in the next two games at Golden State's home court this Friday and Sunday! Go Jazz!

No More Pile-Up

I am trying really hard to be positive about life, because I have SO many things to be SO happy about. Namely, all the wonderful things associated with getting to marry Chad C*. But sometimes I have a hard time being positive during the week, because I want so badly to be near him and I can't be. I hate being separated from him and not being able to see him everyday, and only being able to talk to him for about a half hour or so a day. I cannot wait to be married to him and be able to come home to him and have him come home to me. I cannot wait for the day when I don't have to think, "Just four more days and I can be with him again." In six and a half weeks that day will be here! But six and a half weeks feels like forever.

Which is why it's really funny that yesterday I started stressing out over all the things I need to get done during those six weeks. You'd think that if I thought six weeks was forever, I wouldn't stress over what I needed to do in them, because I would feel that I have so much time to get them done! But instead of taking one thing at a time, I started thinking about all there is to be done and how I don't want to do them, I just want to be married and have them over with. They were all flying around in my head and the result was a feeling of pile-up.

So I decided in order to calm myself down, I should numerate the things I need to do and then prioritize them. Here is the list, and I'll prioritize them day by day during the next six weeks:

Buy a car (get a loan)
Apply for jobs (in the hopes that I can start a good job in July)
Complete the readings for Psych 350
Write the papers for Psych 350
Complete the readings for HFL 260
Do the homework assignments for HFL 260
Go running or play tennis five times a week
Shop for:
-A sign-in book
-A wedding cake
-An outfit for my luncheon
-A temple dress and slip
-A veil
-White shoes
-Hair decorations for the wedding
-Jewelry for the wedding
-A ring for Chad
Sell my desktop
Write in my journal about the last four and a half months…
Copy my blog entries since January into my journal
Copy my emails since September into my journal
Organize my pictures from Romania
Organize all my stuff so moving to Chad’s will be easier
Read The Holy Temple
Read Between Husband and Wife
Add to my Labels list as people send me their addresses
Go to the temple once a week
Get a bishop and stake president interview for my temple reccomend
Go to the other three temple prep classes

So now that I have everything written down, I can take one thing at a time and not be overwhelmed. I need to set my life in order. This way, instead of the letting the feeling of missing Chad keep me from feeling motivated to accomplish these things, I should use my focused plan of attack to accomplish these things help me cope with the feeling of missing Chad. This is definitely something my mom has taught me--take one thing at a time, and life will feel much easier than if you think about everything you need to do all at once.

And in closing, I want to say that I feel like the luckiest girl in the world because Chad is my fiance. He is so good to me and he gives me every reason in the world to be happy. He is so patient with me and he treats me with so much kindness. I cannot believe how blessed I am to have him in my life. I love him so much and I admire him so much, for the work he does but especially for the person he is. I hope that I can endeavor to deserve him, and that I can make him feel as happy as he makes me.

Learning to Love

I am majoring in Marriage, Family, and Human Development at BYU. But being the slightly prideful person I am, I have avoided taking any classes on marriage during my college career. Funny, huh, given the name of my major. I wanted to give others the impression that I was an ambitious, academic-oriented student--not just a girl looking for her so-called "Mrs degree"--and so I chose to take the classes offered in the major that focused on human development rather than marriage or parenting. But last semester I caved in and took a class called Forming Marital Relationships from Dean Busby. I am so glad I swallowed my pride, because that class was so amazing. And as a little plug for my major, it is a rigorous research-based major heavy in reading and writing. I hope that over time the stereotype of the MFHD major as a girl who doesn't care much about school or career plans and just wants to get through school with an easy major will subside.

Okay, so on to the real reason I'm writing this entry. I wanted to share with you something that Dr. Busby shared with me about love in marriage. He spent the last few lectures of the class just going over some things that he has learned over the years of his own marriage, including more religious lessons. He shared with us the experience he had a few years ago of almost seeing his wife die and then spending weeks and weeks with her in an ICU, and since then helping her regain her physical and mental abilities. It was heart-wrenching to hear how painful this experience has been for him, but it was also beautiful to hear how much he learned through it. It was especially heart-wrenching because he had referred to his wife in illustrating certain concepts throughout the whole semester, and we had never known this had happened.

One of the many things that he said during this lecture was that this experience has taught him that learning to love is learning to die beautifully. He repeated this phrase a few times and talked about why he felt this way. My initial reaction was that love isn't about dying, it's about living. Because of this, I have thought a lot since then about what he said, and the more I think about it, the more I agree with him. And here's why:

Learning to love a person is learning to love their whole person--their eternal being, not just their mortal person. Since one of the big hindrances of love is fear, the fear of aging and death and loss keeps us from loving fully. And so the more we are able to accept the fact that aging and death and loss is just a part of one's eternal journey, the more we are able to love a person without the burden of fear of loss.

Learning to love a person is learning to make sacrifices for them--letting parts of you die that hinder you from loving them completely. Like Lamoni's father said, we should be willing to "give away all [our] sins" to be able to love others more purely. This means we have to let the not-so-great parts of us die, including our "pet sins." And I think marriage takes a lot of other sacrifices as well, that take giving up things that aren't necessarily sins but just neutral things that aren't the best for your relationship.

Learning to love a person is learning to serve them all your life, even to the point that you wear out your body in doing so. It says in the scriptures that "greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13). I think this could also apply for all the husbands and wives in the world who work so hard for their families that they wear their bodies out in doing so.

Learning to love a spouse is learning to grow old with them. I think the more experience we have with our spouses, the more we love them. And I think that's what growing old does for us. I think it's unfortunate that our culture is so fixated on youth, because there are so many great things about getting old, but since our culture focuses on fleating temporal things, we don't recognize, appreciate, or value them as much.

Learning to love is learning to die beautifully. And because of the Atonement, we can die beautifully with the assurance that we will be delivered from that death and raised up to glory. Learning to love is learning to have faith in the Atonement and the eternities, letting go of our selfishness and living our lives for others. It is losing our lives for the sake of another's. (Matt. 16:25) And in this way we will find the kind of love the whole world is searching and longing for.

Old Friends

One of my favorite parts of the wedding planning has been reconnecting with old friends. After making the list of who I wanted to send wedding invitations to, I've emailed dozens of people to see how they're doing and to ask for their addresses. I'm so glad I've had an excuse to email old friends and teachers, because it's been so great to hear back from them. It's been exciting to hear where people are, the great things they are up to, and how they are still the same wonderful people they were the last time I talked to them. I have had such wonderful friends, and I really appreciate all the kindness they are giving me now in being excited for my upcoming wedding. Thank goodness for good friends!