Simply Smiddy - The Idaho Convert

Why do we allow other people to decide who we are and what we are like?  From a very young age, we allow OTHER people to decide what kind of personality we have, who we get along with, or if we fit in. I am so bothered by the fact that I can look back to my elementary years and remember the rumors that society made me believe even from such a young age. For example:   "I am not very book smart. I won't fit in with the all of the intelligent students at BYU. I am a very bad reader. I hate reading. I am not good at it." - Thought I have made myself believe. When I break down WHY I am thinking this about myself I think back to the small events that made me believe this about myself. One in which is POPCORN READING. Guys, I am a passionate HATER for POPCORN READING. I think it is the devils creation and should be removed from classroom settings.  Just kidding.  Well, kinda.  Popcorn reading was one of the worst parts of my da...

One year ago today I sent you all this email... (attached, well quoted, below) It was the hardest email I ever had to write. I cannot express to you how hard it was to align my will to God's will. Coming home was the last thing I ever wanted to do. I loved serving. I don't think I would have wanted to come home even if it wasn't early.  Serving my mission was something I always dreamed of. I loved it, EVERY SINGLE SECOND! Even when the rain was chucking it down.  The past year has been full of surprises, blessings, and growth. I have gone through hard time which have made the good times even better. I KNOW that the Lord has a plan, he had a specific plan in sending me home and he has a specific plan for you, even when you dont quite understand it.  Some of the highlights of the past year have been... 1. I got to take Kaylee and Kalin (my half brother and sister) to the temple open house. Now this is a HUGE deal because, their mom, my step mom past away seve...

Stop expecting perfection from yourself. Stop expecting perfection from your neighbour. Stop expecting  perfection from your parents. Stop expecting  perfection from your church leaders. Stop expecting  perfection from your roommates, friends, spouses, children, etc.  “Except for Jesus, there have been no flawless performances on this earthly journey were perusing. So while in mortality let’s strive for steady improvement without obsessing over what behavioral scientists might call toxic perfectionism.” -Jeffery R. Holland Isn't the commandment "to be perfect" (3 Nephi 12:48) such a daunting and overwhelming request? For me, it is.  But living in the fallen world and state that we do, I believe that Heavenly Father isn't commanding us to be perfect and wanting us to feel inadequate and awful about ourselves when we fall short. Truth is, we will probably ALWAYS fall short. We will not achieve perfection alone in this life. That is w...

Today as I sat in sacrament meeting I started to write down my testimony in my journal, as I do every fast Sunday, and it wasn't long until I was just overtaken by the gratitude I have for each and every person I have come in contact with in my life thus far. I am grateful for PEOPLE. The thing is, there are no such thing as coincidences. You don't just meet someone by "chance". Everyone you meet you are meant to meet. God is in EVERY LITTLE DETAIL of our life! This past month has been full of experiences where I have been able to be reminded of some of the people that have had eternal impacts on my life. Take just one minute to think about the people that have had the biggest impacts on your life? Who has inspired a change in you that, looking back, if you wouldn't have met them or changed, would you be a different person? I can most definitely think of a couple of those kind of people. One in which, I have been really grateful for recently. I am grat...

As I have been thinking about this blog post, I was reminded of some of my biggest take-aways from serving my mission. There were two things that kept coming back to my mind over and over again, but I wasn’t exactly sure how I would connect the two. But as we know the Lord works in mysterious ways and last night as I stood in line for a funnel cake at Lagoon I was pondering my talk, and I quickly was tuned in to the conversation happening behind me. There was one older woman talking to a young woman. The older one was expressing her frustration with the Lord. She expressed how she couldn’t listen to one more talk in sacrament meeting or one more relief society lesson where whomever was teaching would speak of how they were miraculously healed because of their faith. She felt that she had the faith to move a mountain. She knew no one else with greater faith than herself. The woman had been suffering through some physical pain for a long time now, she had faced many treatments and e...