The Importance of Being Lauren

I am on week 7 of self-isolation and I've been going a bit stir-crazy. I am blessed to have a job that I can do from home, and I have been able to self-isolate in a safe place. I am grateful for the many blessings and comforts I have in my life during this trying time. This afternoon Mel sent a text to the group chat blasting Stef's blog from 2007. I spent an hour going through the archives of my own blogs throughout the years. I was on the floor laughing at some of the experiences I had shared and I'm grateful that I have those memories to read all these years later. Writing brought me a lot of joy before going to BYU. Being a Sociology major meant that I had an insane amount of academic writing each week, so I never had time for fun writing.  I feel hypocritical when I tell my students that they should be writing everyday, because I haven't kept up with my own daily writing. I am going to challenge myself to write a few times a week to keep my writing skills f

I wanted to take the time to write about a cool experience I had in my last semester at BYU. I moved a lot when I was in Provo. I am a restless person and I crave change. I decided to move to a new apartment from January-April of 2019. I didn't know the area very well, I didn't know the roommates, but I felt like I should move in. It was during this time that I was going through the most serious trial of my faith. I had never gotten back into reading the scriptures daily since my mission ended, I pretty much only prayed at meal times (yay habits), and I only ever went to sacrament meeting. I would go to random sacrament meetings every week even when I didn't have to work. I was disconnected from the church. I didn't feel God in my life anymore. Even though I wanted to stop going to church, I could never seem to make a clean break. I kept going through the motions. One day I was called in to meet with a member of the bishopric. He asked me if I needed anything and