An Ending

On January 1st 2012, I started the new year with a Crazy New Years Goal.
Having just recently got my Ipod for Christmas (Yes, the same Ipod I've been having problems with recently.) I wanted to do something epic.

I hadn't realized just how epic my goal turned out to be.
I'm not totally meaning epic as 'this is awesome!' it is, but Epic as in 'an epic' as in a 'really long journey' most often only related to super long series of books.

But in any case. I'd been looking for something to do, to keep my interest in reading Church related stuff alive. Just reading the scriptures wasn't accomplishing the same thing anymore. I needed to do something different.
This also, happened to be the year that I served on my Institute Council, and my CoChairs and I decided to do an 'art contest' based on 'one-liners' (a sentence) that sparked creativity, taken from the recent General Conference. We had the goal to each read a section of the talks, and mark 'lines' that we found inspirational and could be used as a jumping off point for the artists participating in the art contest.
However, I found so much enjoyment in marking the magazine copy of the conference talks, that I actually got my own copy of the Ensign so that I could continue marking things that stood out to me.

Now, January 1st 2012, was the start of a new year. And I wanted a 'new goal.' Previous goals of mine of this sort had included reading the Quad -Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, D&C (and PoGP) in a year.
This, this would be of the same magnitude.
Once I discovered how many conferences were available on the Gospel Library app I downloaded (for portable scriptures) I thought it would be cool to read all the conferences from the year of my birth until the current year. I'd thought that would be easily accomplished in 2012.

It wasn't.
You see, I started out reading only two talks of conference a day -starting in April of my birth year.
I thought I'd easily be able to get through everything in a year. 365 days.
Ha.
It was about...April, I think it was, that I calculated how long it would actually take me, and realized...that I wasn't going to finish in 2012.
So, to try and remedy that, I increased to reading three talks a day.
And...stuck with that. Because really four talks a day, was overkill in my mind. Considering most of the talks are 15 minutes long when spoken...I didn't want to spend a whole hour reading conferences. It was just a quick thing. To get a spiritual fix of the day.

In this manner 2012 passed me by.
And my Crazy New Years Goal got crazier...because I continued it into it's second year.
It wasn't that difficult to keep up the reading (most of the time) as I realized, that my breaks during work were the perfect time to read as I had to 'sit' down for a set period of time, and I really didn't have much else to do. (I did, but I told myself I didn't) so for at least my first break, I would read conference talks. And really, it's become habit to do so. And crazily enough, the days where I struggled to read my conference talks, were the days I had off from work, because I would get busy with other things and forget to read them until later that night. It was hard to 'make' time for them.
But I did it.
And slowly, but surely, the number of conferences I had read, ticked higher, while the number of conferences I still needed to read ticked lower.
Until by the end of 2013, I only had four conferences to go. The year 2012 and 2013.

Oddly enough, knowing that I was so close to the end, didn't make reading conferences easier. It made it harder. I was so close. I often felt like I could take a break, and it took real effort to actually keep up the reading.
Sensing that I was so close to finishing, My mind was already anxious to start on something new. To do something new, to change up what I did on my breaks at work.

So, knowing that I was so close to finishing reading and highlighting the things I liked in those conference issues, knowing that I'd been doing this for two years,
You can totally imagine my horror when on Monday...my Ipod apparently erased everything on my Gospel App and my total joy when I discovered nothing had been lost. The data had still been there, the content just had to be redownloaded.
I mean, two years of conferences. Two Years. Everything marked up. Gone in an instant.

Strangely...it wasn't a 'world is ending' moment. Sure, my heart sank when I thought I'd lost everything. But really, I took it as a sign. "You've done this for too long. Move on."
Oh yes, Ipod, I have. Waay to long. But I wasn't about to quit when I was soo close to the finish line.  I wasn't about to stumble with something of this magnitude almost completed.

So I made up my mind to continue. I mean, the conferences were still there, only my highlights weren't (so I thought) I could finish reading the last of the talks no problem. (I remembered where I was) though I had debated about whether or not I would continue marking the talks when all the others had been erased. Luckily I did. Because that same night, I discovered all my markings were still there! Yes! Total excitement. ^^ Fist pumps, little dances, and crazy smiling included. :D

And yesterday (Thursday). My hard work and stubborn persistence, paid off.
Yesterday, I read the last set of talks of October 2013.
Last night, I completed my goal that had headed into it's third year.

Wow.
48 Conferences. Saturday Morning, Saturday Afternoon, Priesthood, Sunday Morning, Sunday Afternoon, and Relief Society/Young Women's Sessions. All read. All marked. Completed.

Now what? ;) lol

(I'll tell you. Tomorrow. :) )

Until you next read these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Dream

My family had come from poor surroundings, but recently had become rich. Amazing for a huge family as there had to be like seven to twelve siblings all squeezed into a little house. But the parents feared that we were taking rich for granted and so, for a week packed us all back up to move into our grandmother's house, which compared to the lavishness of our house, was primitive. The space was limited, the lights didn't flip on with a switch, you had to turn the glass to turn the light on, and that light while bright, was still pretty dim compared to what we had become used to. While we were there, I was being...sneaky. Heading out at night to go meet up with a boy, I was wearing a fancy dress and everything, and I had to sneak back in for breakfast without my parents realizing I'd been anywhere. I basically managed it, but an older brother of mine had noticed and was suspicious. I quickly grabbed cereal -cinnamon cheerios (which I didn't like), fruity pebbles, and frosted flakes and mixed them all in a bowl together, and for the first time in forever I decided to eat the cereal with milk, only when I glanced around the table I saw every percentage...but the 2%. Which was my preferred percentage so I went for the next closest one 1 1/2%. There was a flurry of activity to pack up and suddenly we were...basically in the same house, but everything had become modern, except the old furnishings -like the light bulbs- were still there. My father warned us that these bulbs wouldn't work anymore if we turned them as they had been sealed shut, and if we tried to stick anything within the bulbs, it would be stuck there permanently because there wasn't a way to open it anymore. It was odd, coming back to 'modern life' it was like we'd entered a foreign country because we'd become so familiar with the older way of living after spending a week there...

When the unholy tones of daylight pulled me away....
and I became myself again. :)

-S.N.D