Sincerely, Sidney

"The essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ entails a fundamental and permanent change in our very nature made possible through the Savior’s Atonement. True conversion brings a change in one’s beliefs, heart, and life to accept and conform to the will of God (see Acts 3:19; 3 Nephi 9:20) and includes a conscious commitment to become a disciple of Christ." -Elder Bednar-

Here's what I know:

I know that Jesus Christ did not die for me so that I could be passive about life. Jesus Christ did not make eternal life possible so that I could forget how to trust in Him. 
I know that in order to believe in Jesus Christ and the Atonement and Eternal Life he made possible I must do the tangible: Study the scriptures and his workings and teachings, apply them to my life by really serving real people in need, and keeping a smile on my face everyday. Then, when I do the simple tangible, I must do the intangible: picture Christ walking with me everyday, whispering in my ear what I should say and do and be, and when I make a mistake because I will and always will, I must repent and have that faith that everything is going to be okay.
I know that life is hard and more than once inside everyday, I want to quit and just sit and cry and have everybody feel sorry for me because I'm having a bad day. But, if I did that, I couldn't call myself a disciple of Christ. Christ did not die for me so that I could feel sorry for myself. Christ died for me so that I can live. 

~If there's something bad in your life- get rid of it.
~If you're getting bad grades on tests- study
~If you're not happy- sing a happy song, and say hi to someone who look as unhappy as you feel
~If don't feel adequate- watch the video below or better yet, pray to your Father in heaven. He'll help
~If you don't feel like praying- start spewing out your day to yourself; he'll listen anyway
~If you don't know what to say still- read your scriptures to receive insight and inspiration
~If you don't know what to read- open up anywhere; the beauty of the scriptures is that you can open up anywhere and still learn something from whatever it is.
~If you feel discouraged because things just aren't working out- try again, and then again, and then again.

I know that life is hard, because honestly, the past couple months of my life have been hard. And it's never going to go away with a snap of your fingers, but Christ will help you through it because that was the entire essence of his life. I know that for a fact. 

"I had to get tears out of [my daughter] because if she didn't have an emotional connection to the mistake she made, she'd never fix it." -Jay Allen

Heavenly Father sends trials into our lives so that we can feel what it means to work and fail and have to drag our feet back up to try again. It's painful and emotional involvement is key to the success we receive after we are back on our feet. This is why we must pray, why we must read our scriptures, and why we must strive everyday, all day, in every single thing we do to be examples and disciples of Jesus Christ. He did not atone for us so that we can sit down after we fall, have a pity party, and say, "I can't do this." 

Yes. You can. 

In paintings of the Virgin Mary, she is always wearing blue. A thought someone had was that the color blue (at least within the young women's program) represents divine nature. See, we're taught that we have come to this earth with a purpose- with a divine role. Well, put it into perspective. Mary, as a 15 year old girl was visited by a spirit and was told she was to have a child. Unmarried, this proclamation was a little crazy, and dangerous. If people found out that she was pregnant and unmarried but still endowed to Joseph, they would only assume the obvious. She had committed adultery against Joseph, and the punishment for that was death. How hard would that have been to have to face? To have to go to your proposed husband and tell him that you were pregnant without any explanation to how that child was conceived, and to have to figure out the solution to keep yourself alive? How hard would it have been to be 15 and pregnant? Physically on the body, that would have been exhausting; mentally, it would have been completely draining. How many 15 year old girls now-a-days do we deem fit to be a mother, let alone a mother of the Son of God? She probably would have been daunted by the thought of the task and asked herself how in the world she was going to accomplish that. She didn't bow down to all the adversary inside of what her life was supposed to be, though. It was hard, yes, but she got up and did it. 

Paint yourself in blue and remind yourself that you are a child of God who has something to do. Get up, and prepare to do it. It's going to be hard, but it's going to be worth it. 

This is what I imagine:
I imagine that if I myself get up and do what I need to do to make it to where I need to be, Christ will hold up viles filled full with all of the tears I cried because "life was just too hard" and he will say to me, "Look, look what you have done. Well, done good and faithful servant. You have loved me enough to be standing here, and through it all and even right now, I love you more than you can even comprehend. Welcome to my eternal kingdom."

The Atonement is real, and Christ really lives. He really loves us and wants to help us, we just need to get up, put our best foot forward and try with all our might. Because if we do, our reward is eternity.

"For the beauty of each hour,

Of the day and of the night.

Hill and vale and tree and flow'r-

Sun and moon and stars of light.

Lord of all to thee we raise

This our hymn of grateful praise"