Mid Terms

I had forgotten how hard school can be!  For all of you who just breezed through school, never studying, and getting great grades without the work, I say - "May something else in your life cause you the grief and hard work that I have to put into grades!"   Tests evey week, and studying Anatomy and Physiology is hard!  I must boast just a bit though, because mid-terms are over and I did REALLY well!!! I am pretty pleased because I have to admit I was awfully scared that I would fail those classes when I started.  Nothing like a bit of fear to get my butt in gear and push me to study non-stop for a week!

Well, there is the update.  I get my massage table next week, so if anyone wants me to practice on them and give them a "student massage" give me a call and we will get it going!

Prep for the Radnar

I have always admired the endurance of distance runners!  I love the power they seem to be able to tap into as they make their way up over hills, through cities and around lakes and rivers.  Constanly moving to a rythmn in their head and heart that carries them to the finish line. 

Paul was one of these people last year as he ran the Radnar and went on the 2 day trip that ended one of his life long goals.  I was envious and wished at the time that I could do the same, but I did not have the courage, energy or the vision to make it happen.  This year is different!  This year I will do something that I have always wondered if I could do.  I will run the Radnar and get that feeling of having done something hard over the period of several months in preparation. 

Running a race is similar to many things in life.  It takes consistantcey and determination.  It takes making that goal and then doing it day in and day out until at the last you are prepared to make that run from start to finish no matter how long it takes or how you feel at the moment.  I am excited and energized as I am getting started and making strides in my ability to do what I have never had enough desire to push through.  I am excited as my body respondes to me in new ways and with new demands and new energy as I make those little milestones that will make the big goal a possibility this summer.   I am making this a matter of a post so that I can be accountable to myself and everyone else out there.  I have announced that I am running the Radnar, I have signed up for it, and I am commited emotionally, physicially and energeticly to make this happen. 
On a side note, I have discovered that part of my inability in the past has been on account of my adreanals being extended beyond their healthy limit and as I have been fixing that I have a new energy that is amazing to me.  I have never in my life remembered when I have had more energy to do more and go farther for longer.  I have energy now like I did when I was a kid!  I am getting up at 5:30 am and going to the gym, going to school full time, coming home and cleaning, doing homework and hanging with my kids then going to bed around 10:30-11:00 pm without a blink in enenrgy!  IT IS AMAZING what I am learning about the human body!  I love it!!!  Knowledge really is power!

A&P

Anatomy and Physiology is a relativly hard class, not because the material is hard, or uninteresting, but because there is so much that must be memorized.  I am amazed at the funny little names that they put on the projections, dents and holes in the bones.  There is a name for every bone in the body and then ten names about the parts and things on every single bone!!!  Oh and then there is the inside of the bones and who knows what there will be when I get to the joints, muscles and organs.  And I just thought I had to learn all the bones and muslces. 

Going back to school has been exilerating and wonderful but also a big stress.  I spend more time than I ever did in any other class in college doing homework for these courses.  two papers due in a week or two, a test every week in Anatomy and massages to do daily and memorize the actions to.  Oh and did I mention that I have to memorize all the parts on the feet that correspond to the organs of the body.  All of this and there are only 7 weeks left of the quarter then there are the finial exams that I have to remember all the information for and spit it back out.  My memory has never been that great, and now I am asking it to recall forever all the things I am learning in this compact 10 weeks - ( then a year).  It is a bit insane!  But, I love it! 

I wish I could be one of those eternal students that I use to see up at USU that would go to school for years and years.  That would be my dream!  I would love to get a masters degree or even a phD!

BACK TO SCHOOL After 20 Years!

I have officially started school again! I am going to Myotherapy College of Utah full time and it is so much fun! Now that all of my children are in school full time it has been a bit of a time waster for me to be home all day with none of them here with me. I can only do so much laundry and go to the temple so much!!! So, I decided to go back and get a degree! When I was in college before I had a great time and studied what I thought I would love, but I didn't love it! What I would have loved to study was psycology, but I was too afraid that I would be found to be nuts and wouldn't reallly be able to help anyone anyway, so I did what was safe and what I could fail at.... Photography.

It is rather interesting that my grandfather Thatcher loved photography, but he was horrible at it. I think he really wanted to be good at it, but wasn't. I am that same person. My true calling in life is meant to be is in the compassionate service fields. My patriarticle blessing tells me that I will give compassionate service but when I was young I thought that meant being a nurse and I REALLY didn't want to be a nurse. I thought I couldn't do it, that I wasn't smart enough, and I don't think I could have then. It's funny, that now I would love to go back and study nursing! My interests have changed so much, or mayby I have just come to know myself better and therefore I have found out what I truly love. 40 years to find out what I enjoy???

I find it very compassionate that we live as long as we do and that we have time to find ourselves so that we can love others. I know many are able to give and express love from the day they are born, but not me. I have had to learn it, and it has been an amazing process, but a long one.

I really respect anyone who figures out what they love before they are 30 years old! But honestly, I don't think I would change a thing. I believe I took the route I did for a reason and it is perfect!

Baby Jesus' Crate!

Today I got my first christmas present from Hannah for the year. It was a body of drawings that had many apples, christmas trees and sweet messages in them. In the end she showed me the card and how it was going to have a picture of Baby Jesus in His "CRATE" on it. I giggled and figured that this is a reativly correct word to discribe the manger. It does look a bit like a crate!

Prier House

I find it really interesting that often when we do things we do them without our full intent being known even to ourselves. That is what has happened with my blog. I named it Chez Prier because it means "House of Prier", but I forgot that the meaning of Prier is "Prayer". It is the French verb "to pray". So the full meaning of the title of my blog is "House of Prayer" Interesting huh! I got such a kick out of this tonight when I remembered and put it all together!

What We Do For Each Other

I have learned some interesting things in the past 24 hours! I have several friends that are suffering through some of the hardest trials I have ever seen up close and personally. They are having experiences that take my breath away, (like gettting the wind knocked out of you.) The pain they are going through seems to compair quite a bit with what Christ must have suffered on the cross and in Gethsemane. One of my friends was told in a blessing that this is what she was experiencing and that she needed to be grateful for these experiences because they would bring her closer to the Savior.

Heavenly Father allowed Abraham to experience the idea of sacrificing his son just as He would literally do many thousand years later. Abraham could then understand to a small degree what the Father would go through because he suffered it too. We are told that we will have to suffer even as the prophets suffered if we are to qualify for the same glory they recieve. This is what my good friends are going through now! This is what many go through in the last years of their lives when they can't die, but can't live without pain. My husbands grandma is suffering extreme pain from shingles and now another nerve disease that is painful and cronic. I remember my Grandma Thatcher lived too long (in her mind), and only wanted to die because she was so miserable. I have wondered why many times this is so.

Why do we have to suffer so much? Couldn't we appreciate the gift and sacrifice we have been given by just watching it?

We are told in the Bible that even the Savior "learned obedience by the things he suffered". I don't completely understand this. He was perfect, how much more obedient could he learn to be through suffering? but He did, so why do I think that I am above suffering when I must go through hard things now?

If Christ learned through suffering, and my friends have to learn through suffering, and I have learned through suffering, and even old, dying people learn through suffering, then all this suffering must lead us in some way back to the Savior, to His sacrifice and His love or we would not go through it.

As I sit with my friends and try and comfort them and love them, I am reminded of the feelings of deep remorse for what my part of the Saviors load was and is. I remember wanting to comfort and support and love Him while He was suffering on the cross and in the Garden. I felt immense gratitude for what He did for me. I remember hoping that somehow I had been allowed to send my love to Him during those hours of pain and agony. I am not sure that was possible then, or even if I understood pain and suffering in that perfect home on High, but I do know that I can do something now for others when they are suffering, and maybe, just maybe it will lift some of what the Savior carried in those hours of His deepest trial.

Always the statement: "When you have done it unto one of the least of these my breathren, ye have done it unto me" goes through my mind. Time is one eternal round and who is to say that what we do now for others didn't have an effect then? I know Christ suffered then for the sins I commit now. I don't know, but I hope that I can better "mourn with those that mourn and comfort those that stand in need of comfort". It makes sense to me now how this is part of the baptismal covenant and why it is what our desire will be when we have been converted. When we truely accept the Atonement and the suffering of the Savior as payment for our sins and the sins of others against us, we will want to do something for Him, and knowing there is nothing that equals His sacrifice, we look for someone else to serve as He served us. It seems it is all that we have, so we give it ALL hoping that it eases the pain and burden we caused Him.

I wonder if when we do these things we are in essence supporting the Savior in His darkest hour and upholding Him in His pain and suffering. We are saying that we appreciate what he did for us and what others are experiencing to be able to understand better what He suffered. Just like Abraham did when he offered to sacrifice Issac on the alter. Abraham didnt' have to go through with the sacrifice of Issac, and we can't go through what Christ did for us, but we can to a small degree understand what He suffered, so we can appreciate the sacrifice that really was performed for us by the greatest of us all; Jesus Christ!

So when my family and friends supported me through my pain and suffering, they were supporting the Savior too. Thank You! I hope that I can do the same for them and others. It is something that must be experienced to be understood, and if we try and keep all our pain to ourselves and suffer alone, we deny others the opportunity to support and love the Savior as He loves us.