Week 29

This last year so many important things have happened in my life that I will never forget. 2019 brought a whirlwind of changes in my life. I finished high school, left on a mission and then my life started to change spiritually too. It wasn't until the new year that I really looked back and saw how I've grown and put new goals to continue that growth. I have really seen that real happiness comes from the satisfaction of being able to see the fruit of your labors and having a desire to work every day. Some days I don't see progress and it's frustrating sometimes, but when we look back on larger periods of time it's much easier to see that progress; that's why I'm grateful for the new year because it's a special time we can use to reflect and feel the satisfaction of what we have accomplished. I love something that Thomas S. Monson said about happiness in a BYU devotional in 1970 because it has a lot to do with that progression I was talking about:

“The happy life is not ushered in at any age to the sound of drums and trumpets. It grows upon us year by year, little by little, until at last we realize that we have it. It is achieved in individuals not by flights to the moon or Mars, but by a body of work done so well that we can lift our heads with assurance and look the world in the eye. Of this be sure: You do not find the happy life … you make it.” – Thomas S. Monson

I'm grateful for the opportunity to make newer, better, higher goals in order to eventually make my life a happier one.

One goal that I was already able to accomplish  this year was to make a better relationship with my companion. The first two and a half weeks were super rough for me and there were way too many things that I didn't agree with. I felt like we didn't function well as a companionship and so first I decided to continue telling my lame jokes and laughing at myself even if he decided to keep inside his "serious shell". Little by little I got him to laugh until he would tell his own jokes and now we are already like buddies. I figured out what he really liked to do - photography - and it turned out I loved it too and I was the first companion of his that could talk about everything he loves about cameras. In fact we both watched videos of Peter Mckinnon before our missions!! Yesterday he told me he takes a good picture with every one of his companions and prints it out and so I had an idea: in the night we would turn on all the lights, and build a mini studio to take the absolute BEST picture possible! We set up a stand for the camera using tables and books, and made a "studio backlight" from the broken DVD player (we accidentally broke it last week oops) and started popping out some GREAT pictures and it was a blast just being nerds with the camera and figuring out the best settings, hahaha! Here are some of the results of our little photoshoot :)