Great pearls of wisdom

For the past 2 1/2 years, I've kept a running list of important life lessons as a note on my iPhone. All of them are things I've learned over time, through trial and error. (Read: I messed up a lot before I figured them out.) Here are some of my favorites. The last two are the best!

Pay extra for cheese dip. 
Don't pay extra for guacamole. 

This is important stuff. Cheese dip matters. The only good guacamole is free (or homemade) guacamole.

It's okay to ask for help. Even when it's inconvenient. Really. 
Don't be embarrassed.

Thanks to the missionary who basically followed me around saying this for 3 months, it finally sank in. It's okay to let others see me in the midst of a trial. It's okay to admit that I can't do everything by myself. That doesn't mean I have to tell everyone on Facebook what I'm going through (thank goodness), but I can live with it when someone sees me struggle.

Get to know the stranger who holds his umbrella over you. 

One of the best experiences I've ever had was getting caught in a rainstorm and having a freshman boy run up and insist on following me across town with his umbrella. I didn't want to let him, but the Spirit gave me a nudge. I still got soaked, but it was awesome.

It's never a bad idea to become best friends with someone you'll probably never see again after 6 months. Those are some of the best friendships you'll ever have. 

Three years of crying every sixth Thursday morning... that's only a little bit of an exaggeration. This isn't just true for missionaries, though. Life is full of transitions, but you can gain a lot from knowing someone for two weeks or six months. Sometimes you need to let go of those friendships as circumstances change, but you can take what you learned from that person forever. It's worth it.

Befriend the person whose eyes light up when you mention baking brownies. 

Sometimes you need to be reminded that the simple act of giving away baked goods is enough to make the world a better place.

If you give everything you have serving other people, your every need will be met. You are cared for in even the smallest of ways. 

I've seen this principle work in my life so. many. times. One of my favorites was finding a pack of tampons in the bottom of my temple bag the night I spent the last of my money to drive a stranger to the hospital. That's just one example of many, not all of them financial. It can be a struggle against the natural man to give the very last of what I have to someone else, but the blessings of doing so are too great to turn away.

Don't let whether you're going to church this week be a question. Just go. 

It took me  f o r e v e r  to figure this out. Even when I was super active and involved with all my callings in college, I missed church way more than I personally thought was acceptable. I knew I needed to be more consistent, but I didn't know how. At some point in my last two semesters, the switch finally got flipped. 

I stopped getting up on Sunday morning and making a decision about whether I was going to attend church. There's no longer any decision to be made; going to church on Sunday is as automatic as checking my phone when I wake up. #workinprogress Now I only miss sacrament meeting if I'm legitimately too sick to drive. No other reason. And it's great.

The Holy Ghost doesn't always give you promptings you understand. Follow them anyway. 

"But WHY!?!?!?!?!?!!!!" - my response to any given prompting 

"Oh. Thanks." - 5 minutes later

Sometimes it's okay to break earthly rules when you're following the Spirit. 

(This explanation is super Mormon specific.) There's a difference between policies and principles. The rules and policies of the church are put in place for good reason, and following them is smart. However, policies are written by human beings trying to follow principles given by God, and when it comes down to it, the principles are what really matter.

One example: Anyone who knew me well in Morgantown knows I was a fan of the missionaries' white handbook. (Newsflash, lists of rules make me happy.) OBEDIENCE MATTERS. But there were a couple of elders who I wrote to after they left with no regrets. I was prompted to keep in touch with those specific people, and I saw blessings in each of our lives from occasionally (like once every six months) sending uplifting letters. I didn't distract them from the work and maybe even helped, so... principle > policy. The policy of not writing to missionaries living in your mission is good and important, but sometimes the principle of loving your neighbor and bearing one another's burdens trumps it. 

These last two are my favorites!

Don't let pain go to waste. 

Mortal life is full of all different kinds of pain. It's unavoidable. So, this is my mantra. Every pain I endure has the power to teach me something - either something I should do differently, or some way I can help others. Some of the worst pains of my life have helped me to relieve the hearts of others who see no path back to their Heavenly Father. I've learned to embrace pain because of what I've seen it enable me to do.

Likewise,

Don't let the Savior's pain go to waste. 

The atonement is real; it's not just a hashtag. I strive to follow the Savior to the best of my ability, but sometimes I fall short. Okay, I often fall short of even doing it anywhere near "to the best of my ability." Instead of beating myself up about that, I've learned to keep in mind that this is why the Atonement happened. I won't waste the Savior's pain by either giving up or trying to redeem myself. Either of the ends of that spectrum are wrong and failing to acknowledge what Christ has done for me.

If you didn't catch the sarcasm in the title of this post, you must be new. Welcome!