To those who came before me... :)

July 24th. Today is significant for a few reasons.

First, it's my dad's birthday (happy birthday, pappy!). Also my cousin and dad's cousin (my 2nd cousin?).

And second, it's pioneer day! For those of you unfamiliar with pioneer day, it's the day that the Latter-day Saints ("Mormons") arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. It's a big thing for members of the LDS faith. The celebrations usually involve food, fireworks (legal in Utah), and kids parading around in "covered wagons."

Ironically, I spent a couple hours yesterday doing genealogy work. It's so fascinating to look back and see the different places my ancestors came from. I had quite a few from England, but also some more interesting places like Norway, Denmark, and Germany. My 3rd-great-grandma was named Martha Serene Isaacsen. She was born in Norway, and then traveled to America after marrying my 3rd-great-grandpa Karl Sorensen and giving birth my great-great-grandpa Christian Sorensen (who later had Joseph Sorensen who had my grandma Judy Sorensen Nattress. :) This stuff is so great and so confusing). She traveled the LDS trails and is buried in Bear Lake, Idaho. As I said earlier, Christian Sorensen was born in Norway, and he married Selmina Samuelsen, who is from Denmark. Most of my ancestors on my dad's side ended up in the Pocatello and Bear Lake areas, so it's fun to see how we've spread out (which isn't very much anyway :))

Anyway, now that I've bored you with my family history, what is yours? If you don't know where your ancestors are from, look it up! It's definitely worth the time and effort to know your family's background. Looking up genealogy is like a treasure hunt in some ways. Some places to get help you get started are ancestry.com and familysearch.org. So get to it! You won't regret it.

Much love and luck!

For the beauty of the Earth... also of procrastination and clouds :)

Well, here it is, Monday evening, and I still haven't written my Sunday Sprinkle for the week. Did I not predict this? Gee, sometimes I know myself entirely too well :) However, I have a pretty valid excuse (valid in my mind, anyway). We spent the weekend in Idaho Falls for my cousin's wedding open house. It was pretty much a blast seeing all my family. But that all led up to a grueling 6 hour drive yesterday. Even more grueling (for my mom, not me) is that I drove for an hour. It was... exhilarating, to say the least. But I'm home safe and sound. Now I've just gotta catch up on everything!

Anyway, to the point. Isn't God amazing? I guess I've always been the silver-lining-seeing, glass-half-full person, so for you pessimists out there, just deal with it. Speaking of silver-linings, I love clouds. I know, I know. It's protocol to complain on a cloudy day. And then when there are no clouds and it's sunny and hot, it's protocol to complain about that. That's one of the things I don't get about the majority of the human race. I heard a really good poem once. It goes:

‎"As a rule, man's a fool. When it's hot he wants it cool; when it's cool he wants it hot, always wanting what is not."

I love that poem. Just like I love clouds. And for all you people that still think I'm crazy for enjoying clouds, think about it. Without clouds, we couldn't have this:


or this...

or this...

or this...

or this...


You get the picture. I think that clouds are beautiful, as well as sunshine, as well as rain, snow, and basically everything else on earth (except mosquitoes. I've never really seen the use of them). Heavenly Father is amazing. Even if you're agnostic or atheist or whatever, you've gotta admit that whoever/whatever (?) created the earth is incredible.

So, in a nutshell, my thought this week is kind of forked: on one side, God is amazing; on the other, be optimistic! And if you're so pessimistic that optimism hurts, go slowly. Start to see things from a different perspective and realize that even things that are typically considered drab or ugly can be considered beautiful from the right viewpoint. Oh, that reminds me of my favorite Mormonad.



Anyhoo, I hope you enjoy your Sunday (Monday) Sprinkle :) Much love and smiles! Now pass it on :D

Lessons from Tears

This week is most certainly the inspiration for this blog. It started out with one of the best (emotionally touching) Sundays ever, continued with a couple of laughs, a couple of tears, a tragic accident, a lot of tears, a beautiful baptism (and some happy tears), a wonderful trip to the temple, and ended with another great Sunday. I realize that my week included many tears, and you may or may not be thinking, "Oh sure. Those tears are just 'cause Sierra's a crybaby." Although that statement is true, I've never been this crybaby-ish. Thus, I feel like the tears were a sign that I should pay attention, because believe it or not, the feeling that causes crying? Yeah, it's one of the best teachers there is.

So here are some of the things that I've learned from my tears in the past week:

~ My church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) is beautiful. If you are reading this blog, you might be a member of it, or you might not be (which is perfectly fine with me). But just know that I love it. I can see the beauty of it in many ways: listening to the simple, yet sweet testimony of a new convert or child; reading the Book of Mormon or another church publishing; listening to LDS music; and many other ways. I'm so happy to be a part of it, and it brings me much joy to have it (as well as Christ and my Heavenly Father) in my life. Oh, and have you ever been to a Mormon party? Who ever thought that a non-alcoholic party could be so crazy? We have the amazing ability to get "drunk" off of rootbeer and sprite--one of the great mysteries in life.

~ The atonement of Christ is amazing. As I stated before, I got to watch one of my very dear friends and her mother be baptized on Saturday. It was wonderful. I loved listening to their testimonies and watching their sins be washed away as they joined our church. I had the brief feeling of jealousy, that they got to have their sins washed away immediately and that I am quite obviously unperfect. And then I realized that while I can't be baptized again, I can have my sins forgiven quite easily, through the atonement of my Savior Jesus Christ. My response to that revelation was something along the lines of "Lightbuuulb." (on a side note, who doesn't love Despicable Me? To anyone who doesn't, you're not my friend anymore. Just kidding. But seriously, what's wrong with you?) As I was saying, it really put things into perspective. Just because I don't have the opportunity to be baptized again doesn't mean that I can't have my sins forgiven.

~ Life is beautiful, but it can be gone in the blink of an eye. On Thursday night, something very tragic happened in our community. Three girls and one boy (driving from a church conference in Nyssa to Weiser, two towns on either side of Fruitland) were in a fatal car accident, killing all of the girls and badly injuring the boy. I didn't know any of these teenagers personally, but I knew all of them through association. Some of my friends watched it happen (they were in the car behind it) and other friends had been talking to the girls just a couple hours earlier. They were and still are in shock. The entire community is devastated by this simple accident that was entirely unanticipated. Everyone has had quite a shift in their perspective of life since that night. It's just so crazy that you can be talking to someone and have them be gone minutes later. Many, many tears have been shed for them and many prayers said for their families.

These are the major lessons that I've learned from my tears this week. This week is not the norm, but wouldn't it be great to have this many lessons taught every week? (Okay, but not from car accidents. Please. We don't need another one. Ever.)
Anyhoo, since I didn't really explain before, this blog is just something of a journal-y sort of place for me to share random spiritual/inspirational/miscellaneous-al thoughts every Sunday (that's what I'm anticipating, anyway. Whether I actually do it every week is another story). It's just a place for people to take a step back, read something semi-entertaining and uplifting, and reflect on life. So invite anyone you want to read it--family, friends, the neighbors that you hate, a friend on facebook that you don't know at all (I still don't understand the appeal of being friends with someone you've never met. It just sounds kind of creepy to me). I would love to know that someone actually reads my little--well, for lack of a better term--Sunday Sprinkles! Welcome everyone :)