Such a Sloth!

I've made it one of my top priorities to scripture study in the morning. Usually, this attempt falls short and I end up trying to study a bit in the bus. Other times, I'm semi-successful but not consistent enough and end up studying right before bed. The only problem with that option is that an intended half hour of study time turns into an hour long battle of resisting the temptation to fall asleep, nodding off, and pushing myself to wake up and feast upon the words of Christ.

I wish I woke up and studied this morning. Instead, I lay in bed, texted my boyfriend, read some work e-mails (they start coming around 4 AM), talked to my mom, and enjoyed the warmth of my four blankets in the freezing cold house. Currently, at a quarter from 1 AM, I consider myself such a sloth because I put myself in this situation and when things happen, and scripture study hasn't been done.... you end up studying at 12 AM on a school night! Eeek!

Elder Holland once said, " True love blooms when we care more about another person than we care about ourselves." I think I might have found some buds of true love blooming and if I have.. it may have distracted me long enough to 100% note what was happening around me. Tonight, as Andy was driving me back from his house (a rather unusual and kind gesture for someone who has a strict 10 PM curfew when our 10 miles apart equals a 25-30 minute drive each way), his car broke down. Immediately, I started to think about what to do. We were so close to my house, he could leave his car - take my brother's car (was it fixed yet though?!) and we could worry about his car over the weekend. Or, he could take my car and I could take the bus tomorrow. But tomorrow is my weekly Temple night to do baptisms for the dead and I still haven't figured out how to take the bus to the LA Temple. So, maybe I could take my brother's car and he could - what about Triple A? Did Andy have a card? As these possible resolutions flew through my head, I worried. Frantically, I wondered... what was wrong with his car?! Was it safe for him to drive home if he tried to?!

"You should pull over" I suggested. He agreed immediately and slowed down... and the car continued in its funk while I continued to run through potential solutions.

How does something like this happen out of nowhere? I suppose it is a used car that has problems with some random tooting (albeit I haven't heard it lately), some maintenance lights that never turn off and a constant break light that periodically decides to work. We pulled into a parking lot and Andy got out to check the car by opening the hood of the car. I sat there in the passenger seat with a plate of sugar cookies we had made wondering if I should call my parents to come help us. It was pretty safe where we were but with Andy's strict 10 PM curfew, this might pose a problem as we had planned out him driving me home to meet said curfew.

"Should I call Triple A?" I asked. No response. He muttered something about finding something in his trunk and went towards it. Oddly, I recalled him not wanting me to put my backpack into the trunk earlier because his golf clubs were in there. And... at the time, I had wondered why that mattered since his golf clubs usually sat in his trunk alongside other things before.. but had shrugged it off, giving him the benefit of the doubt that maybe his golf clubs were misplaced and took up a lot more room than usual. He walked back to the trunk of the car and continued examining the inside of the car hood.

And then... it clicked. I surveyed the lot quickly - we were in the parking lot of the Church where we had our first DTR. He had offered me a ride home (not that he wouldn't normally, just that logistically it doesn't quite make sense on a school night). He had turned on a different street than our normal route - and when he did it, I thought it odd for a brief second but figured he wanted to avoid the Huntington split road turns (which now that I think about it, makes no sense). I tried with all my might to repress the grin that was beginning to sneak across my face at the realization of what COULD be happening, but I couldn't help it. Wait a minute Daisy! - I told myself... remember when you over thought things and had an inkling he might ask you something important when he suggested you go to a driving range this past weekend and then he changed his mind? Stop! I kept reminding myself. As my mind scattered through a million thoughts and as I reassured myself to stop grinning in case nothing was happening, he asked me if I could get help retrieve a tool from his trunk.

I knew it! Wait.. do I play along... do I respond? Do I give him a hard time? Truth be told - I wasn't 100% but I was ... 99.9%? .... but wait!!!... I'm wearing basketball shorts! Okay, in that nanosecond, I knew it wasn't happening. Earlier in the night, I had asked to borrow basketball shorts so I could change out of my work skirt and comfortably eat dinner and bake cookies while at his apartment. Convinced there was absolutely no way he would let me wear his baby blue basketball shorts paired with tights (it's pretty cold in LA lately!) and heels, I got up and walked towards the trunk.

"Look under the bag," he told me. As I lifted the trunk, there was a trash bag carefully placed across his trunk space. I peeled it away to reveal a MOUND of graham crackers and some sprinkled pieces of chocolate over it. [So... we have these corny nicknames for each other - and among the many, we joked about being smores for Halloween - he'd be the crackers and I'd be the marshmallows. Then, the bay bridge went out and our Halloween plans were disrupted. So for Christmas, I got an uber cute stuffed marshmellow with graham cracker velcro-ed to it made by his wonderfully crafty and creative sister! along with a poem that actually rhymed and detailed how we met, how we got to know each other and why the stuffed smore was cool and representative of us...] So... he continued the extended metaphor and likened us to the smore and how we could complete each other (if you don't like smores.. this won't make sense).

And so.. the lesson learned is....if I had not been such a sloth, had studied in the morning, I could have come home, excitedly shared the news with my mom, best friend, and other awesome friends, journaled, and gotten ready for bed. Instead, after all of the aforementioned, I still had scripture study to do. In the spirit of tonight's excitement, I picked two talks about marriage. Next time, I'll remember why it's important to scripture study in the morning.. because you never know when an important question might come at night. ... that keeps you up longer than you expected.

As I studied tonight, these words hit me hard. "To give ourselves totally to another person, as we do in marriage, is the most trusting step we take in any human relationship. It is a real act of faith--faith all of us must be willing to exercise. If we do it right, we end up sharing everything--all our hopes, all our fears, all our dreams, all our weaknesses, and all our joys--with another person." (Elder Holland) So, without denying my lard -like qualities and continuing to work at making my morning study happen, I will not be able to grow in faith and faith is something I should always be working at increasing - especially since I just made the next most important decision of my life (the first was accepting the Gospel).

Good night. Sweet dreams.