It Was the Best of Times » Personal

Wait on the Lord

Adam — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 05:50:55 +0000

Patience is an interesting quality. It has been described as “the capacity to endure delay,trouble, opposition, or suffering without becoming angry, frustrated, or anxious.” Most people know that they need to learn to be patient but when it comes down to learning to be patient it is often more difficult than it seems it should be. I’ve been blessed in my life to have many experiences that have helped me to develop patience.

While I was serving my LDS mission in the Philippines, I had to learn to deal with people that I didn’t get along with well. I also learned that people have their agency and that no matter what I did, sometimes they would choose to not follow the things that I was teaching them. More recently I was taught patience when a trip home to see my family for an important even didn’t go as planned.

Patience is an especially important virtue when we desire a blessing from the Lord. Sometimes it is difficult for people that believe in the promises of God to understand why He doesn’t bless them with the righteous desires of their hearts when they want Him to. Learning to have patience with the Lord can be particularly difficult and requires faith and diligence in following the commandments of God.

In Psalms 27: 14 David says that we are to “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” When we want any blessing from God, it is important that we realize that we need to wait for His timing in receiving that blessing.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks quoted Neil A. Maxwell saying,

“The issue for us is trusting God enough to trust His timing. If we can truly believe He has our welfare at heart, may we not let His plans unfold as He thinks best? The same is true with the second coming and with all those matters wherein our faith needs to include faith in the Lord’s timing for us personally, not just His overall plans and purposes.”

So the key to learning to patiently wait on the Lord is to have faith in the Lord’s timing. I know that as we learn to have faith in the Lord’s timing in our lives that we can live richer, fuller, happier lives. If we are constantly questioning why we aren’t getting this or that blessing that we feel we deserve, then we will never learn to be happy. If we have this negative, scarcity-based mindset we will always live lives of scarcity. If, however, we choose to rejoice in the blessings that are ours and focus on the abundance of blessings in our lives we will be better able to wait on the Lord for blessings that he has promised will be ours.

“O Love That Will Not Let Me Go”

Adam — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 02:05:35 +0000

In Concert Choir we are singing a piece with this title. It is a beautiful piece and speaks of some of the deep longings and desires of the soul. The text is by George Matheson and the music for our setting is by Joseph M. Martin. This song speaks to me on many levels and I’ve included the text here for you. I’ve found it helpful when thinking about this text to ask myself: what is the Love that will not let me go? Why do I have to yield my flickering torch? What is the sunshine’s blaze? What is the meaning of the rainbow that we’re tracing through the rain?

O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths
Its flow may richer, fuller be.

O Light that follows all my way,
I yield my flick’ring torch to Thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in the sunshine’s blaze
Its day may brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seeks me through my pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And know the promise is not vain,
That morn will tearless be.

O Cross that raises up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from Thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

My “Trip” to Scotland?

Adam — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 17:18:40 +0000

Several weeks ago I tried to access my Hotmail account and found that the password had changed. I tried several passwords and none of them worked! Microsoft was supposed to have a way to recover the account by answering a question but the answer to my secret question had also been changed. I was a bit worried about this because I had recently started using Live Mesh to keep my documents synchronized between my several computers. I hoped that there was just a technical problem and that my data was either lost completely or at least not compromised. I tried several other ways to recover my account with no success.

Then a few days ago the story got even better. I never used that account for email, only to sync documents, so you can imagine my surprise when I got an email from a good friend on my real email account telling me that he though my Hotmail account had been hacked! He said that he had received the following email from “me!” The email is one of those classic scam emails and so I’m including it here. There are tons of problems with this email and I would never send such a thing.

I’m sorry for this odd request because it might get to you too urgent but it’s because of the situation of things right now.

I’m stuck in Scotland with family right now, we came down here on family vacation, we were robbed, worse of it is that bags, cash and cards and our cell phone were stolen at GUN POINT,and it’s hard to get hold of a phone here in Scotland it’s such a crazy experience for us, we need help flying back home, the authorities are not being 100% supportive but the good thing is we still have our passport but don’t have enough money to get our flight ticket back home, please i need you to loan us some money.

All we need is $2,500.00 but anything you can spare right now will be appreciated and I promise to refund it to you as soon as I arrive back home safely.. You have my word!

Thanks,

Well, I obviously wasn’t in Scotland. Also . . . how was I able to access a computer to send an email but couldn’t find a phone to use? Did I have a laptop with me? Well if I did, why didn’t the thief take that too. I don’t know! I guess it will remain a mystery. Anyway, the moral of the story is: change your passwords often.

P.S. I may not be the best writer, but my grammar is not that bad!

Aaronic Priesthood – Duty to God

Adam — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 18:44:44 +0000

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently created a manual for Aaronic Priesthood holders to help them prepare themselves to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood. This is called “Fulfilling My Duty to God“ and was originally created for young men between the ages of 12-18. The principles that are taught through the activities in this manual, however, provide a great resource to help men of all ages to learn their Priesthood duties and to help them become worthy Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthood holders. I’ve started to work through this manual. Part of the activities that are outlined is to share my experience while doing the assignments. I’m going to use the pages in this section to talk about my experiences. I hope that through this I can share my testimony and help to strengthen the testimony of others that may read this.

Don’t Walk on the Grass!

Adam — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 18:46:50 +0000

The campus of Brigham Young University (BYU) is one of the most beautiful campuses in the United States. The grounds crew works tirelessly to plant flowers, sweep the sidewalks, rake the leave, shovel the show and keep the campus looking amazing! Unfortunately there is a sub-culture at BYU that for some reason often decides that their own busy schedule and personal need for speed is more important than helping to preserve the beautiful nature of our campus. The picture in this post shows newly laid sod in front of the engineering building. Before this new sod was laid last week, there was an ugly, packed dirt, scar running through the lawn. This scar was created by students who were in so much of a hurry that they decided they’d rather cut through the lawn than walk the extra 15 feet to take the sidewalk. I have watched people coming into and leaving the building who walk through this grass as though it was meant to be walked on! They don’t realize that the lawn is there to make things look good! I don’t have a problem with walking on grass if you’re going to sit on it and study, but using it as an alternative to the sidewalk seems lazy and inconsiderate.

My favorite thing I’ve seen with this lawn problem was a few hours after the sod was laid. A student came out of the clyde, noticed that new grass had been put down, and then very courteously walked just to the left of the new grass rather than walk on the newly laid sod! Does he not realize that it’s people like that that required that the sod be laid in the first place! You can see the end result of this kind of carelessness. Now everyone that walks into that building, rather than see a beautiful lawn, has to deal with caution tape to keep people off the grass!

Ok, that being said, I’ll try to say something a bit more nice about Thanksgiving later this week!

Our Story – Adam Arnesen and Sarah Huggard

Adam — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 17:41:32 +0000

So I don’t usually share personal things on my blog but I’m getting married next month and I wanted to share my story. I’m marrying the lovely Sarah Huggard on 13 May and I am so excited! She is the most wonderful girl in the world and I am so blessed that she is willing to marry me. We have so much in common and look forward to long life together.

You can read our story here and view photos and request invitation at wedding.arnesenfamily.net.

Our Story

It all started on Valentine’s Day 2009. We were both in the BYU Concert Choir, and we had both gone of up to SLC to watch the BYU Men’s Chorus have master class with the King’s Singers. Sarah kind of had her eye on this tall, blue-eyed baritone, and although we hadn’t talked much before, we sat together during the master class. Sarah said, “I got kind of excited inside, but I tried to not let it show too much.”
The next week Adam asked Sarah out on their first official date. Sarah was surprised that Adam asked her! It was a group date to the Space Center (where they do simulated space missions that make you feel like you’re part of a Star Trek movie). For the next two months or so, we went on a few dates, hung out some, and saw each other a lot in choir.
At the end of April, Sarah mustered up all the courage she had and asked Adam on a date to the BYU Singers’ Bon Voyage concert. Thankfully Adam said yes, and we had a grand time. At the end of the date, Adam asked if he could be “blunt”, which Sarah found rather refreshing. He told Sarah that he liked her, but he just wasn’t ready to start any sort of relationship right then.
Despite this conversation, Sarah’s mind was spinning when Adam asked asked her on a date four days later. Over the course of the next six weeks, we went on seven dates and hung out on the side. Finally, in June, we decided to start dating exclusively.
“The next two months were so enjoyable,” Sarah said. “I hadn’t ever had a boyfriend, and Adam was incredible. He was kind, proactive, intelligent, talented, a hard worker, sensitive to the Spirit, living the best he could, and attractive besides! I couldn’t figure out how a guy like him ever wanted to date me.”
For whatever reason (that Adam still can’t figure out), Adam broke up with Sarah in August. We still wanted to be friends, but heaven knows how often that works out with ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends. Adam was a confused mess and Sarah was heartbroken, but with time and the power of the atonement, she was able to accept what had happened and fully heal. The hard part was that we lived in the same apartment complex, and once school started, we saw each other in choir every day again. We had to get used to seeing each other often but not interacting like we had been able to do before.

In November, Sarah started to seriously consider serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. By December, she started the application papers, but she felt like she should wait until January or April of 2011 to serve, so she decided to put the application away for a year or so.
Adam started to get wind of all this mission talk through the magic of facebook (ahh, facebook). He got a bit nervous with all the talk and decided that he’d better figure out what was going on. He sent Sarah a message out of the blue that went something like this:

Sarah,
I saw that there’s mission talk on your wall. Have you started your papers?
Just curious,
Adam

Sarah reacted, “Wait, what? I was so confused. There was no way that Adam could have noticed mission talk on my wall without committing the crime of facebook stalking. Suuuuuuuuure he was ‘just curious.’” As confused as she was, she replied and told him that she had started her papers but that she was waiting for a year or so before she left. You can imagine how that made Adam start to think. He had already started considering trying to date Sarah again, and hearing this news took that feeling to a whole new level.
About this time, almost every guy Sarah knew decided to get back in contact with her and/or ask her on a date. One day after choir, Adam followed Sarah to the library. Along the way it seemed like she talked with 100 boys and Adam got more and more nervous. He stopped Sarah in the library and asked if he could take her out on Friday, but she already had a date for that night. He settled for Saturday.
Sarah’s head was spinning, but she tried to tell herself that Adam was just asking her out because we were friends. She told herself to not make a big deal out of it. Adam, meantime, was ecstatic! He had gotten up the courage to ask her again and it felt really good that she had accepted.
The date was so enjoyable! We went to Café Rio, Opera Scenes at BYU, and to an ice cream shop. We were able to talk like old times and just enjoy each others’ company. At the end of the date, Adam asked Sarah if he could take her out the next weekend, and she, completely surprised, told him, “Suuuuuuuuuure.” When she seemed to accept so readily, he also asked if she wanted to run up to his grandparents’ house in Salt Lake with him the next day, Sunday, and she agreed to go with him. Adam just thought, “Wow things were going great!”
Sarah’s head was still spinning. It seemed like Adam was interested in starting things up again, but she didn’t like being confused. She didn’t want to risk getting her heart broken again. She said, “I knew that I needed to ask Adam what he was up to.”
On the drive home from Adam’s grandparents’ house, she mustered up her courage again and said to Adam, “I’m sorry if this is a little blunt or awkward, but I’m confused, Adam. What are your intentions?” He chuckled and replied, “Well, I have intentions.” He went on to explain that he had realized a lot of things over the past several months, and he wanted to date Sarah again. When he asked Sarah what she thought about that, she said, “Well, I’d love to date you again, but honestly, I’m scared. I don’t want to get my heart broken again.” Adam bravely said, “I don’t want to manipulate you at all, but I can’t see me wanting to break up with you again.” …in other words, he was in it for the long run.
Sarah knew she needed to ponder seriously about what she wanted to do—and about what was the right thing to do. She brought up some of her concerns with Adam about dating him again, and she decided to let him know by our date on Saturday if she would date him again. Adam thought that was fine and was overjoyed that she even would consider dating him again. He thought that a week was really quick and would have been willing to wait much longer to let Sarah feel comfortable again.
Well . . . the whole one week thing didn’t work out so great.
Since we have choir together, we saw each other every day, and we talked every day after class. Sarah even went over to Adam’s apartment twice and talked to him. She could see that Adam was sincere in word and deed. After pondering and praying a great deal, she realized that she really wanted to date him, and she felt like it was the right thing to do, too! Adam was so excited when Sarah finally told him (on Wednesday mind you and not on Saturday), and Sarah was excited too.
That Saturday (so two weeks after our first date the second time around), we had a choir concert in SLC. We were holding hands at the concert and got some slightly confused looks from the choir who had no idea that we were dating. After the concert, we went to Marie Callender’s for pie with his parents, and Adam surprised Sarah with a lovely bouquet of flowers. We chitchatted on the way back to Sarah’s home and marveled at how our time apart had helped us.
On this drive, Adam bravely brought up a risky topic: “So, if this were to go long-term…….have you thought about timing at all?” Sarah told him, “Yes….” (Sarah said, “I’m surprised I could even get the word out of my mouth! You see—Adam has an internship in Austin from May to August, and we both knew that we were in it for the long run…so if we wanted to get married soon, it would have to be in May, before going to Austin, or in August, after being apart all summer, after Adam’s internship, and right before school started. That was no bueno.”)
Through the course of our conversation, we realized that we wanted to get married—and in May. From that point we were “unofficially engaged” and decided to tell only our parents.
Three days later, Adam asked Sarah’s dad for his permission. Wednesday, we went ring shopping. Friday, we had a splendid date. That evening, Adam said, “I have something to show you, but it has to be in the morning…like early. Can I pick you up around 6:40?” Sarah, mostly unaware of what was going on, told him yes.
All bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, Adam picked Sarah up in the morning, and we drove to the Mt. Timpanogos Temple. We walked over to the east side of the temple grounds and had a lovely talk about all sorts of things, particularly about covenants, while watching a beautiful sunrise come over the mountain. After the sun rose, Adam had Sarah sit down on a bench. He knelt down, said some wonderfully romantic things, and asked her to marry him. Sarah ecstatically replied, “Yes!!!”

“I am thrilled beyond belief! It is miracle to me that everything has worked out so perfectly. Adam is the man of my dreams and more, and I’m so excited that he and I get to spend eternity together. We have been truly, abundantly blessed.” — Sarah

“I am the most blessed man in the world. I’m so happy that Sarah would even give me the time of day let alone want to marry me. I love her and I am excited to spend eternity with her. She is the most gorgeous girl in the world! She has prepared herself in the right ways to be a righteous wife and mother in Zion and for that I will be eternally grateful.” — Adam