spreading the good news.

Finding the good news in others and publishing it to my blog, is how i want to blog for a little while. finding the good qualities in different people and writing their stories, or little reminders for me to see what kind of qualities i want to work on in life.

i think it is only fitting to start out with my own father.
my dad has shown me many of his good news moments in life.
there have been many opportunities for me to observe his goodness and greatness; his love; a small glimpse at his full potential.

so, for the sake of time and my poor fingers from having to type all this out... i will only write about one.


the most recent one. 

my dad, has always been inspiring to me. my first ever journal entry was about the day my dad took me to the home run derby in Las Vegas to see Sammi Sosa and Jose Canseco when i was 9 on Feb 13, 2000. (keep in mind i got the journal on my baptism day, and not a single word was scribbled on there about that life changing event or any other event during my 8 year old life) my next post after the home run derby wasn't written until June 2004, when my little sister found out my dad had cancer. and since that time there have been 8 or 9 finished journals. i think that says a lot about how important my dad was to me, even at such a young age.

i have thought a lot about why my dad is so intriguing to me. and one simple reason that keeps coming to mind is that he has the perfect way of speaking. Kind of an interesting quality to attribute it to, but it is one of his qualities that i have always admired. from his bed time stories when i was young, to his late night chats in my bed during my emotional teenage high school years. his phone calls to remind me to keep my smile, to his commanding voice over the pulpit at church. whatever the occasion, his voice has always been soothing to me. but, not just the sound of his voice soothes me, it is also the words he strings together to make all my worries disappear. he has always treated me as an equal with his words, talks to me about his thoughts and ponderings to evoke thoughts in my brain and honestly want to hear my opinions. but he does it with such love i still feel like his little girl. i love the fact that he still calls me kid, but makes me feel like i can rule the world if i put my mind to it. the two ends meet together to form a perfect relationship in my mind.

I went home for Easter last week and as soon as i arrived into town, i met my dad at an Autistic learning center that he had found earlier that week. he stalled the owner of the center for an hour for me to arrive! when i walked in the doors the owner gave me a tour (the place was AMAZING!) and told me if i was interested in working there this summer to let her know. That she would love to hire me on. I was very confused, at why she was so eager and willing to let me just join the center that easily. She hardly knew me at all, and i looked worse than dog poop from driving all day. She then made the comment "Your dad really cares for you a lot, doesn't he?" I thought there must have been a lot of talk about me during the stalling and that is what she was insinuating, a smile spread across my lips and I told her, "Yeah, my dad is a really great guy. He loves me a lot."I didn't think much of it and we left a little after that.

I rode with my dad home, and the easy conversation flooded the car like it usually does when the two of us get together and leaked out of the open sun roof.

This was a Friday, and by Sunday morning I was in my dad's office searching for some paper. That is when i stumbled onto a printed out email on his desk. The email was a conversation between my dad and the lady i had met that Friday at the Autistic Center. I looked at the date, and it was a conversation that they had a week before i even arrived in town. the email started with my dad's writing: "to whom it may concern" and i don't remember all that it said but had a lot of talk about me, my qualities, my unique abilities, and my love and passion for those with disabilities. The second half of the conversation was her, saying that she would love to hire on someone like me, to maybe advance her work up north after I receive a Master's degree and expressed a eagerness to meet me.

I felt like a snoop, but i couldn't stop reading, my eyes were glued to the paper. i was in awe. that is when i thought back on what the lady was talking about when she mentioned that my dad cared a lot about me in our meeting just two days prior. she was definitely referring back to this email.

i quickly put the email back on my dad's desk hoping no one saw me read it and was about to grab a piece of paper and run, when another interesting document caught my eye. this time because it was on regular lined paper, and had my hand writing on it. I more fully inspected the paper and couldn't believe my eyes. The paper was dated November 2009. It was a letter i had wrote my dad, just because. I was in shock that he still had the paper and it sparked my curiosity, so i read it. I can't remember writing that specific letter to my dad, but when i read it i was amazed. I had written my dad all my dreams and goals of life. i wrote to him all about my deepest desires out of life and what i aspire to become. i wrote about my relationship with my Savior and how I felt so strongly that this is what he wants me to do with my life. I ended it with a quote from a book me and my dad read together that year titled 'write it down, make it happen' and i said that my intentions for writing him that day was to have him hold me to my goals in life. i was following the directions of that book and trying to make those dreams come true by writing down specific goals and life qualities. i was amazed at how many of those goals had already come true, even more amazed at how even though my dreams have changed in the last 2.5 years, they were still similar and i was proud of my college freshman self.

tears got stuck in my eye. i couldn't help but make the connection between the two documents. i could not believe that my dad would go to such great lengths to help me achieve my dreams. to take what i had scribbled on that piece of paper 2 years prior to heart and be true to what i asked of him, to hold me to those goals. but then i remembered this was my dad i was speaking about and knew of course he would go through such great lengths. that's what i love about him most. he would go to the end of the world to help any body achieve a dream that they desire. and he'll be your number one fan all along the way of you achieving it. that is a piece of his good news that i hope to adapt to my life and make it a part of my good news.

---Encourage others to live their dreams, and be a #1 fan to all in their journey to their full potential.---

spread the good news.
-it is written.