Did I ever tell you I love Sister Hinkley?

Let me show you why:

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.
I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.
I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children.
I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.
I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.
I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."
— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

"We women have a lot to learn about simplifying our lives. We have to decide what is important and then move along at a pace that is comfortable for us. We have to develop the maturity to stop trying to prove something. We have to learn to be content with what we are."
— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

"Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

"The trick is to enjoy life. Don't wish away your days, waiting for better ones ahead."
— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

"There are some years in our lives that we would not want to live again. But even these years will pass away, and the lessons learned will be a future blessing."
— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

(A personal favorite :) )
"How did a nice girl like me get into a mess like this?"
— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

"The thing about growing old is that when you wake up with a new pain, you can just about count on it becoming a permanent part of your life!"
— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

"Just Save the Relationship"
from the book Glimpses, Sis's Hinckley's advice to her grandaughter when she needed to know what to do about the fits her daughter was throwing. Just save the relationship."
— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

"...the beautiful thing--perhaps the thing I love most about the gospel-- is that everything we learn we can use and take with us and use it again. No bit of knowledge goes wasted. Everything you are learning now is preparing you for something else. Did you know that? What a concept!"
— Marjorie Pay Hinckley (Small and Simple Things)


See? Isn't she just the sweetest little woman you've ever known? (Or known of I guess. I feel like she's so loving and personable that we're friends or something. :) And I'm sure we were, or will be eventually, because who could not love her?)
Today was one of those terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days. My co-worker had a Dr.'s appointment and so I worked the front alone for the better part of the day, I made a mistake but didn't realize it until I'd practically argued it out with the little asian woman, who I couldn't understand, in front of everyone in the visitor's center and finally had to get my boss to come mediate, my friend was rather temper-mental and I just wanted a friend, and I discovered my newest car possibility was a liar and overpriced. (Although I suppose I should clarify that the car itself wasn't a liar, just it's seller. Cars usually don't lie. They run if they're in good shape, and they don't if they're not. See? Not too difficult to determine.)
So I came home, I ate an apple dumpling, plopped down on my bed and pulled up the covers. And then I do what we all do when our day stinks.
I called my mother.
She probably gets tired of my whining about how my life stinks, but she listens and loves me anyway. Which is one reason I love her a lot!


Institute tonight was ironic (though not coincidental. Never coincidental):
Learning to willingly accept and even seek correction.


I'm telling you, the gospel is true. There are too many "coincidences" for it to be just another theory. :p
And I'm so grateful that it is true! Because how in the world would I survive without the love and guidance Heavenly Father gives me through the gospel? 


"Though it is often difficult to endure, truly we ought to rejoice that God considers us worth the time and trouble to correct." :) Happy hard times everyone!