Oh what a ride.

Hello. My name is Kellie, and today is January 13th, 2009. I feel a lot today. Can I tell you about it? Ok, I'll take your silence as consent.

I'm realizing a little bit of why I need to be in the elms. It has been incredible. SO SO good. I am so glad I took the plunge and did it. It is exactly where I need to be right now, and I have felt so many good things come of it already-and it's been two weeks! Ah, I'm so stinking excited to see what else the semester will bring. It feels good to know you have made the right choice in something.

Speaking of right choices, have I told you that I'm going to be a teacher? Yes, I just started the Elementary Education program, and I, Kellie Wentz, can tell you right here right now that I have never made a more right decision in my life. I NEED to be a teacher. Every day, in every class, it is cemented more and more in my mind that my calling in life is to teach children. It is going to be so hard, and so much work (heck, it already is!), and thankless, and controversial, and discouraging, but SO WONDERFUL!!!!! I know it's going to be tough, but since when is anything worth it ever easy? I have committed to do the BEST stinking job I possibly can. I want my students to have the best teacher they could ever have that believes in them, and loves them, and will do what it takes to learn and prepare to teach them and inspire them to embrace learning as the light in their life that it can be. My heart it packed right now. All of my classes are sparking a lot of thoughts about how I want to teach, and what approaches I want to stand by, and all of that. But this is only the beginning! I have only had two weeks of teaching classes but I feel like a different person. I'm pumped to see what I can do with the next two years! Hopefully by then I will feel more prepared to become the type of educator I want to be! And when that day arrives...oh boy. Look out future classroom of mine-you won't know what hit you. :)

Another thought, I'm finally realizing who and what I am. Cheesy, I know, but just go with me on this. I know you have all felt it sometime or other. Since a, uh..."significant event" in my life about a month and a half ago, I have had A LOT of time to reflect, and think, and change. Look at me, I'm sounding like an adult. Well, don't be fooled, I'm still a ridiculous 21 year old Kellie Wentz, but I am growing up big time. I am realizing who I am, and what my goals and hopes for life are. Not that I didn't realize these things before, but they are finally becoming cemented in instead of being flimsy and changing. I'm realizing how personal my relationship with Deity is, and I have never been more thankful for it. I have finally found focus on becoming who I want to be, and the barriers have just started falling away. I don't know how to explain it. I've picked up this momentum from that said event that is blessing me leaps and bounds. I love my life. I love who I am, and all the things I have had to face, and how they have helped me grow. Things that I knew would start to make sense later but were so hard at first are doing just that-starting to make sense. and I'm even starting to feel grateful for them, just like I knew I would someday. I think I'm starting to figure out what I want in my life. Everyone always says how they never know what they want, ya know? Well I think I do. And I'm going to start going after it. I want to be a teacher, and I'm doing it. I want to be a runner, and more athletic, and I'm doing it. I want to be a peacemaker, and well, that ones a little harder, but I'm doing it-I'm getting better. I can't even explain it all, but I feel like all the things I've been planning and hoping for my whole life I am finally getting the courage to start going after. I know who I want to become, and I'm going to do all I can to become that person, and the hard things in my life are only helping me along. Alright, I'm getting a little carried away, I hope you slightly understand what I mean. I think in summary- I'm starting to really live my life-and I'm loving it. Every little piece.

Another thought? Well, a lot of you know me very well and you know that tonight/tomorrow is the two year anniversary of the hardest day of my life. I don't think, well I hope at least, that I will never feel again what I felt that night. It is indescribable. I don't know why I'm writing this on here, I know it's a silly blog, but I guess I just want you to know how I feel. The past two years have been a roller coaster ride like you cannot believe. The highest moments and lowest trenches have made it a refiner's fire that has shaped me immensely. I have never felt the adversary so overwhelming or the veil so thin as I have since that day. But I can honestly say right at this moment that I am grateful for it. I have grown a lifetime in the past two years. I have been forced to be an adult, and deal with other people's decisions, and nothing has stretched me more, but nothing has made me grow more either. I am a far better person today than I was then, and I can't help but be thankful for that. I know that things work out-the Lord works in such mysterious ways. Faith can be so hard, but it's worth it. I am thankful for it. I guess most of all I just want to say to anyone that reads this that in every moment of misery the past two years, I have felt an unyielding strength and support from a Heavenly Father. I love this gospel. It is all so true. There is nothing more important I could ever say than to tell you that I have felt it is so true. Jesus Christ is real, and I'm thankful for such an experience that has cemented that into my soul. I can never doubt again that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the absolute best and truest thing in existence. The Atonement is real and it is effective and it is more love than we will comprehend in this life. Jesus Christ is absolutely EVERYTHING-always. I absolutely love this gospel, and will stand true to it forever. I'm thankful for hard times. We can't grow without them.

President Hinckley said, "Life is like an old time rail journey...delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for the ride!"

Oh man I'm grateful for the ride. Life is great.