A bucket full of new experiences

Wow! I can't believe it's already FEBRUARY! Time truly passes faster and faster with every coming year.
This year has so far already been eventful, I maybe haven't done a lot of crazy things, but it has been full of realizations and new experiences and changes for me.
A lot of this I think is due to the fact that I have been trying to map out what causes me stress and what things I need to work on in my own life.
I started off the year by writing down a list of my talents and things that I am not good at.
It made me realize a lot of things, I ma not always be good at everything, but trying to become better at them, even if I fail is not a weakness, it just means that I am trying to find out my strengths.
Trying new things, putting old things behind me, but still always remembering where I came from.
I started to try to put my life in order, and priorities what should be important to me.
I have also tried to be more honest with myself, because when I lie to myself I get myself in trouble.
It was time to learn that sometimes you have to face your fears to get somewhere.
Writing this is part of that. When I write down my partially-unfiltered thoughts, it helps me to organize myself.
Ok lets start with the biggest change for me.
I started taking an acting class (WHY?). Something that is so far out of my comfort zone, I chose it on a whim. I guess it was some desperate reach for trying to take something as a joke. However, even though maybe it isn't the best representation of a acting class, there is one thing for sure. It has helped my confidence grow greatly. I am still far from being outgoing, but I think it helps me with my presence.
I am also going to have a presentation at school for about 30-40 people. That is a crazy large amount of people. What am I thinking?! hahah I will probably make a fool of myself, but at least I can say I did it and then after a while, after I get over the shame, I will be able to laugh at myself :)
We shall see how this goes. Whatever happens it will be a learning experience for me!
I guess that is all I wanted to say right now, just felt like writing down some stuff.
--Helen

Lets start over

I deleted all of my old posts. Just like all the things that I decided to leave behind in the old year, I decided to get rid of all of those posts that were full of hate, bitterness, pain and over all bad memories.
In the second half of this past year, my life changed a lot. I grew in all sorts of areas of my life and I came to realize many things.
I have been living in a cycle that wasn't doing good things. It was full of negativity and pain, and I wasn't letting go of the things and people that where pulling me down.
And before I continue I would like to say that I am in no way this wholly positive person who doesn't have any bad or painful thoughts, but we shall say that I have come a long way from where I was at this time last year.  I have my bad days just like everyone else, but now I seem to take notice of those good days, or the good things or those little silver linings.
I am still the overdramatic person I was, but I'm ok with that haha.
From the summer of 2014 my life changed in ways that I could not have expected. So much happened that my eyes were opened to all the great things that I had in my life that I had not taken notice of because I was to busy spending my energy on things that were not building me up, but rather breaking me down. I was lying to myself, saying that I was happy, and that I was content with how my life was.
I was not happy, I was not living my life as I should have been, not concentrating on the things that should have mattered to me.
In short these are the things that happened last year that mattered to me.
- I found my passion in school, for the first time I felt like I knew what I wanted to do, and I was no longer floating aimlessly through the school curriculum.
- I got the courage to leave some of the people that I held so hard onto, but who where causing me so much pain.
- I finally started to break through my barrier of fear that had been holding me back from getting closer to people that should have mattered more to me, and now have become some of my closest friends.
- I have more self confidence than I did before.
- I made my eyebrow game even stronger than before ( in my opinion)
- I made progress on the piano, even though I am still noob, atleast I have been trying
- I grew in my faith, and my eyes where opened to all the wonderful things I had been blessed with, and never noticed before, and I really felt Gods presence near me and he showed me so many things.
- I grew in my service to my community YFL, and stepped up as a leader, which was very hard at first but slowly I began to see the plan HE has for me.
- I left the people in school who where dragging me down and moved to place where I felt more comfortable, even though it caused some tension and awkwardness it was worth it.
- I was service team at the Congress in Turin and it was an amazing learning experience as was the whole trip to Turin and Milan.
- I lead the PDA camp and gave a talk which went better than I ever could have hoped, and it truly made my grow as a person and grow in confidence. And I was able to inspire people and having done that made everything worth it.
- I got a job, which I thought would never happened because I had tried and failed so many times. And it made my life so much easier, it also gave me more responsibility and taught me a lot of things and opened many doors for me. I also met a lot of lovely people there who are now my friends.
- I finally got my Iphone which I had wanted for a long time, and I was able to buy it myself because of my job, and it was good feeling to be able to do something for myself, as shallow as it may seem, it was a step in responsibility.
- I got to go on mission to Sweden and serve there at the PDA camp they had. And even though I had few tasks, but I was still able to help where I was needed and it helped me a lot and I met many new people and was able to grow in relationships with old friends and it it was one of the greatest things that I have ever gotten to do, and I thank God every day for being blessed in the way that I am.
- I passed all my courses even though I had a very hard time in the last semester trying to balance work, school, community and family and friends.
- I stopped one of my habits that I had been trying to break for many years

There are so many things that I have to be thankful for, so many I cant even put them all into words, but I just want to put it our here, so if I ever find this blog again and I read about this, with the awkward shivers which I am sure I will get, atleast I will know that at this point in my life I felt happy, even thought I was aware of my flaws and the things that needed to be fixed I am still blessed and I will grow.
I am going to make this year a year of service, of growing with my family, and growing most of all in my faith.
-Helen