Mini Mission!

Hello dearly beloved,

Those who hang out with me frequently would concur that I talk about my mini-mission a lot. As time passed by, the memories fade a little and I don’t talk about it as much. However, the love and tenderness I have for that experience will never change. So, I’m pretty excited to talk to you guys about my mini mission. I’m so glad I have a whole post just to talk about it!

So, when I wrote my brother-in-law’s mom about serving a mini mission in my mind I imagined myself serving the Brazil Campinas mission because that was where I spent most of my life and my parents had only moved out from there to Belo Horizonte a couple months earlier. So I was surprised when I was told she got in touch with the Belo Horizonte mission presidents. I wasn’t surprised in a bad way or anything like that, I just didn’t see it coming you know? But yeah, so check out a Brazil map! I'm from Sao Paulo and served in Belo Horizonte.

I got in touch with the mission presidents there and all I really needed was to study Preach My Gospel (as I wouldn’t go through the MTC), comfy shoes, and permission from the Brazil area presidency as I was only 19 (and the minimum age requirement for sister missionaries to serve at the time was 21). I was happy when I got permission and as soon as everything was set and confirmed, I couldn’t help but feel super excited about it and tell everyone that talked to me. No joke; when someone greeted me at church and asked how I was doing, I’d say “I’M SERVING A MINI MISSION!!!!” with a lot of enthusiasm and excitement. I just couldn’t wait for it!! I talked about my excitement constantly. And on top of that, I’d always ask as many returned missionaries I came across with for advice as I could, because I wanted to take advantage of those 5 weeks as best as I could.

Three pieces of advice that I recall from different returned missionaries were to have the faith to

attend church activities and to magnify my callings because you will need a lot of faith as a missionary. The second actually happened while talking to this dude about how excited I was because I love teaching lessons and talking and he said, “Actually, on your mission you end up listening more than talking”. It really blew my mind when he said that. Especially when I was out there I realized how missions are not about you, the numbers, being charismatic during lessons, getting people to change, or all the other things that are apparent to others’ eyes; but it’s about completely forgetting yourself 100% and focusing only and solely on the Lord’s beloved children who need your help to find their way home.

The third item of advice was to really study chapter 10 of preach my gospel which talks about teaching skills. This guy told me we tend to think we need all the knowledge and all the charisma, when really all you really need is the spirit and to be worthy. Rather than providing people with information, ask inspired questions. Your job as a missionary is to be the telephone company and utilizing the holy ghost to connect the wires between the investigator and God. That blew my mind too and I’m so glad I studied that chapter BEFORE serving because I was able to see many miracles because of it.

So I go on my mini mission. I didn’t go through the MTC (Hence why I asked around for advice and hardcore studied Preach My Gospel) and I didn’t wear a name tag as I was not set apart as a full-time missionary. I also didn’t go through the temple and people just called me by my first name. I lived with the sister missionaries and was expected to live all the missionary rules though. My trainer was Sister Ruecket from UT! We hit it off so well, we’re still really good friends to this day! My other companion was Sister Castellano from Sao Paulo, who I already knew from before her mission when she lived in Provo. I was really excited about being companions with someone I was already friends with.

 

My first night there we were able to teach one lesson via tracting. This guy required quite a bit of

patience because he’d constantly interrupt us and make little jokes on the side. He’d say he didn’t believe in the Mormon church because the Bible was enough and therefore he didn’t need the Book of Mormon. I knew arguing or bible-bashing with him wasn’t gonna help, and I remembered what my friend had said about following the spirit. So I prayed and begged the Lord to direct me at that moment. I asked him, “What are you looking for and why did you let us in?” His facial expression changed from goofy to serious. At that moment, I no longer saw an obnoxious tattooed man who was mocking me, I saw a son of God who the Lord loved so much. His eyes lightened up when he answered, “Direction.” I could tell he was sincere. So I told him about a 14-year old boy named Joseph Smith who also needed direction and I proceeded to tell him about the first vision. I could tell he felt the spirit. He said he’d come to church on Sunday. Then I bore my testimony that I knew Joseph Smith was a prophet and asked him to say the closing prayer. He offered the most sincere, most humble prayer I have ever heard.

That following week my initial reaction was a state of complete shock and frustration. Nobody told me how hard missions were and how much they require every single drop of your faith. When you hear homecoming talks from RM’s all they say is how awesome their missions were, how they’d give anything to go back and how much they grew out of it. During that first week, I had no idea how it was that people could do it for 18 months or 2 years and why they would say it was the best time of their lives. I was physically exhausted; when you have a bad back and you’re on your feet 10 hours a day knocking on doors under a big bright sun and no one lets you in, it’s hard not to get frustrated. It made me wonder if it was worth it; leaving your comfort zone to share something nobody wants. The only thing that kept me going was remembering how strong the spirit was when I felt that I should be there and how much I knew that despite all of the rejections, that what I had to share was true. I literally had nothing but my faith to rely on during those hardships.

One night, after another long day of working our butts off and no success, my trainer Sister Rueckert (did I mention how much I love her?) decides to sing hymns on our walk home. I liked singing hymns, so I sang along with her since we had a 30-minute walk home. We sang “Army of Helaman” and when we got to the part “and we will be the Lord’s missionaries to bring the world His truth”, tears ran down my cheeks. I was reminded by the spirit through that hymn of my purpose there. I remembered the heartbreak I felt as a teenager of the thought that there were people who didn’t have the gospel. Isn’t it a beautiful phrase? To bring the world His truth! Ah, so beautiful. I could say it a million times and it still wouldn’t get old! Bring the world His truth! Isn’t it wonderful that the Lord trusted the 19-year old Kimbo to do such a sacred thing? It was an awesome feeling. Missionary work is so amazing and it brings us closer to God than any other calling on Earth (after parenthood, of course).

One day, we were tracting and had absolutely no success. I was so sad that nobody wanted to even hear a 10-minute discussion on something I knew would change their lives. I didn’t get why people wouldn’t give us a chance to help them make their lives better and happier. After a few hours of knocking on doors and no one letting us in, Sister Rueckert gathers us and suggests that we stopped and said a prayer.  Finally, an old lady lets us in!!! YAY! We’d always start our lessons with a hymn. So we sang a hymn (can’t remember which one it was) and she already starts crying and telling us she felt really good and felt a lot of peace in her heart. During the entire lesson she’d say “It was Jesus Christ who sent you here, I just know it!!” She explained she rarely answers her door, but she felt that she should when we rang the doorbell. That just made the rest of the day worth it. The moment this lady testified we were sent to her by God, I completely forgot about the frustration I felt from getting doors slammed in my face earlier that day.

This brings me to quote myself from an email I sent my parents on a p-day: “One thing is true: Despite all the no’s and the rudeness of others, there hasn’t been one lesson we taught where the person hasn’t felt the spirit when we talked about the first vision.” So when I’m talking to a premie and he/she asks what it’s like, I tell them straight-up that 90% of it will be soul-stretching to say the least. But that 10% consists of experiences so humbling, so heart-softening, so life-changing, so sacred, that they make up for the 90% in a way you’d only understand by actually experiencing it. Those experiences that come from the 10% are unique and you won’t feel them any other way. So far, I haven’t had any experiences as those I’ve had when engaged in missionary work. So yeah, missions are hard. But it’s so worth it. It’s the best hardest thing you’ll ever do.

We did the baptismal invitation, and she said no because her sister was a hardcore catholic so she’d want to talk to her first. Looking back I should’ve invited her to pray to know for herself what she should do. I should’ve borne my testimony that the blessings that came from being baptized will bring blessings that would make up for anything. But I didn’t. :/ And that makes me sad. What if something I had said would completely change where she is with her life now? And that’s one frustration I still feel to this day; as missionaries you are expected to live high standards and represent Christ. But we forget that even though we keep all the rules and live those standards, we’ll still be imperfect and make mistakes. If I could go back I would’ve done so many things differently than I did. But the thought that God trusts 19-year old kids to introduce people to His gospel only increases my love for Him and teaches me that anything is possible through Him as long as we are worthy.

I did feel prompted to ask her, however, if Christ gave us direction, if she would follow Him every

step of the way. She said she would. So I gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon and Sister Rueckert assigned her a chapter from 2 Nephi to read. I’m glad I gave her a Book of Mormon! Hopefully she didn’t throw it out and she’ll read it someday and be like “Whattup, those chicks were telling the truth!” or something. We scheduled to see her the next day and when we showed up she said she changed her mind about seeing us because her sister didn’t support it.

Okay, this is getting pretty long so I’ll finish up in the next post(s)! Hope you’re liking it so far and that you’re stoked to read the continuation to this post. :)

Love,

Miss Mottola <3

The "WHY" behind being a Mormon!

My beautiful and loyal K-Slicers:

WHAT IS UP!? You guys, can I just say I love the liberty of writing whatever the heck I want? I mean, there are a few questions that were submitted to me that I have yet to answer, but on this post I decided to go my own way for a change. I will, however, get back to y’all and answer your questions. So keep submitting them and I will answer them in the upcoming posts. That being said, thank you for supporting my blog by submitting those questions. Keep it up!

I’m assuming that by reading the title of this post you already know what this is all about. If not, then that’s okay. Just keep reading! =) I am going to tell you my conversion story! “Conversion story?” you may ask, “Haven’t you been a member your whole life?” Yes, but everyone’s a convert. I didn’t get a testimony until after I was baptized. No one is born with a testimony of the gospel. Hence why so many people who are born into strong LDS families leave the church!

Now I can’t tell you this story without pretty much telling you the story of my life. So bear with me as I tell you this in more than one post! Why did I decide to share my conversion story? Well, I love to hear how other people knew for themselves that it was all true. Let’s face it: believing in a God you’ve never seen with your own eyes isn’t easy. And knowing that out of all the churches, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true, is also not easy. But there are people out there who absolutely know with all their hearts that all of this is true. I am happy to say that I am among those people. And I hope that by knowing my conversion story you will be uplifted, questions you may have will be answered, and that you will feel a desire to draw closer to God.

Another reason as to why I decided this conversion-story-series is because I also have a lot of friends who aren’t Mormon – from high school, jobs, university, old roommates, etc. And I’ve definitely had some of those friends approach me and ask what it is about the church that makes me go to it 3 hours a week, to not drink or swear or sleep around. So this post is for YOU BEAUTIFUL PEEPS AS WELL! I want you guys to know why I do all of this and how I became a Mormon!

I was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil back in the early 90’s to an LDS family. Mother found out about a church through her best friend when she was a teenager and despite the fact that she’s the only member of her immediate family who is an active member of the church, she always stayed strong.

My paternal grandparents found out about the church through full-time missionaries back in the 60’s down in Porto Alegre, Brazil (hence why I get so emotional and motivated for missionary work). When they moved up to Sao Paulo, however, they stopped coming out to church. When my dad was a teenager, he started going to church on his own, got baptized, then served an honourable mission in Rio de Janeiro. (I really like his conversion story so maybe I’ll do a post on it where I can go into more detail). While my dad was on his mission, his immediate family came back to church, member by member. Then when he came home he was sealed to them for time and all eternity. Then he met mother and married her in the temple, then had my sister and I in the covenant. It’s pretty sweet! I like my family. They’re cool!

Growing up, I didn’t like church. I grew up in sunny Brazil so I strongly disliked the fact that I had to dress modestly. I also didn’t like that I had to wait until I was 14 to go to dances (I actually cried on my pillow once over that), or that I couldn’t swear like my friends did, or did I understand what was so bad about rated-R movies. Then when I found out cooties weren’t real, I didn’t understand why I had to wait until I was 16 to date the cute guy who liked me back. I especially didn’t like going to church because I thought it was boring. But, I liked running around the church with the boys when I was in primary. Then I got all sad when I moved up to Young Women’s and had to do personal progress and be brainwashed about marriage. But what I didn’t understand the most was why my parents loved church so much and kept the commandments. Though I thought they were crazy for that, part of me wondered what it was that made them so strong in the gospel and how they would know all of it was true. And that was what made me live the gospel, though I didn’t know it was true and I didn’t want to.

I was also not a very good person. I was unkind, incredibly selfish, and dishonest. Being those things were in my comfort zone and the fact that the gospel teaches us to be kind, loving, selfless, and honest ruined my life.

Despite all of this, I always loved missionaries as a kid. There was something about them that drew me close to them, especially sister missionaries. When I was six, there was a sister missionary in my ward who I just loved with all my heart and wanted to go on a mission someday so I could be as cool as she was. Then when I was 12, my dad got called to serve in the Brazil Missionary Training Centre and I’d occasionally go with him so I could talk to the sisters. I remember feeling different there, like as if that place stood out from any other place I’ve been to. It was my first memory of feeling the spirit. In fact, my visit to the Brazil MTC was more memorable than my visit to the Campinas Temple open house. But that might’ve been because I was 10.

Then when I was 13 I was at a Sunday school lesson and we were talking about Joseph Smith’s first vision. I thought church was boring and I’m ADHD, so if I wasn’t disrupting class I was zoning out. But what struck me was when our teacher quoted James 1:5 (which was the scripture that got Joseph to go into the woods and pray) and he challenged us to do the same – to ask God if it was all true. It hit me because of our teacher’s confidence to say that. How is it that he absolutely knows that if I pray I will know it’s all true? I should try it if he’s so confident about it. Another thing that hit me was the fact that I couldn’t honestly say I 100% knew it was all true and I really wanted to. So, I took on that challenge.

Now, I don’t think I should share what exactly happened because it was personal and sacred. And if I go out and share these experiences I run the risk of not having them anymore. But what I can say is I didn’t get an answer as instantly as I wanted to. But I wanted an answer, so I prayed and prayed until I knew. And when the answer did come, I was overwhelmed with the love of God to the point where the truthfulness of everything I’ve been taught was undeniable. I then made a commitment to keep the standards and stay away from anyone who made me compromise that.

But it’s not like that one experience was it and I automatically knew everything was all true. I still continued to make mistakes and I still had my imperfections. But that was the moment I believe a real seed was planted in my heart. That was when my personal conversion process really began. So I started going to church for different reasons – instead of going there to see my friends, I was there to learn and to grow and to feel the spirit. The more firesides and talks I heard, the stronger my desire to live the gospel.  I also started doing my personal progress, which if anything, strengthened my testimony and made me a better person. The more I lived the gospel and saw the blessings that came from it, the more I knew everything was all true.

After a general conference weekend when I was about 17, my family and I had family home evening

and discussed what our favourite talks were. I could really feel the spirit and I remember at the very end I just bore my testimony to my parents that I knew President Monson was a prophet, that Jesus lives and that this church was true. My chest was burning and my eyes were wet and I was overwhelmed by this peace and certainty I felt at that moment. I knew it was all true. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! And I loved God so much at that moment.

I loved the gospel, and it made me happy. And it broke my heart at the thought that there were people out there who didn’t have the gospel in their lives. I thought of the missionaries that found my family and how if it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have the joy of the gospel. So I felt a burning desire to serve a full-time mission as soon as I turned 21. I yearned for it so bad. I always have. The difference was that at first it was because it looked like it was cool, and now it was because I genuinely loved the gospel and wanted to share it with others. But, I was only 17 so I still had time. I wished I didn’t have to wait another 4 years. The irony of this was that I was too shy to do member missionary work!

Another goal I had was to attend Brigham Young University in Provo. So I worked hard towards it. I maintained a solid GPA, took AP classes, attended seminary, and whatever else it took for me to get in. I’d always include my desire to go to BYU in my daily prayers. If you had asked where I saw myself at age 22, my answer would’ve been continuing my studies at BYU after returning from a full-time mission.

However, when I was 18, my family and I were invited by the Canadian government to be Permanent

Residents. It’s like having an American green card, only it’s in Canada. I’d become a Canadian, and the only difference between that and an actual Canadian was I couldn’t vote and I couldn’t have a Canadian passport. The condition was that I lived in Canada for at least two years in every 5-year cycle, but if I lived there for three years I would be eligible to apply for citizenship. And once you’re a citizen, you’re free to live wherever the heck you want, to vote, and to have a Canadian passport! So I thought, “Okay, I’ll just go to any college up in Canada and after two years apply to BYU and finish my schooling there!” though I wish I could do my entire 4 years in BYU.

Then a representative from UBC came to my high school and did a presentation. I learned that BC had the warmest weather in Canada, that UBC’s world ranking was ahead of BYU, and that it seemed like a cool place to go to for school. So I applied there! I had also heard that Alberta was where the church was the strongest, but I didn’t even bother applying because I had heard that it was incredibly cold. Turns out, I got in to UBC! The moment I got my acceptance letter I knew that Kelowna was where I needed to go. Yet I got hardcore butterflies in my stomach. As a matter of fact, I got bats in my stomach. I was so nervous and terrified. I didn’t know what the church was like there, if there were any YSA there, if I would stay strong in the gospel without an honour code to keep me in line, and if I’d be depressed being so far away from my family. I was terrified. So my dad gives me a blessing and after that I knew that I was supposed to go to Kelowna and that I was gonna be okay.

So I moved to Kelowna! It was scary. I knew nobody there. I was the only Brazilian in my ward and none of my roommates were members either. I was lucky to get roommates who didn’t party it up that much and who were respectful. I made friends with the YSA in my ward. At the time, there were two family wards in Kelowna and only a few YSA. However, I lived 4 hours away from the nearest temple, only one institute class was offered, and dances only happened once a month if we were lucky.

You’d think that would shake my church activity and my testimony of the gospel. That’s what I feared would happen too. But the strange thing is, the exact opposite happened. Being away from my family encouraged me to attend church activities so that I could be around members of the church as often as I could, and to strengthen my friendships. Not having family home evening, family scripture study or family prayer encouraged me to say my personal prayers and study the scriptures more consistently. Living far away from the temple encouraged me to attend it as often as possible and made my visits more spiritual. Having a smaller YSA group made me appreciate the power of true friendships and to focus on people on a more individual level. So in other words, coming to Kelowna made me a better person and strengthened my testimony.

So that was how I rolled. Towards the end of my first year in university, all the guys my age were

leaving on missions and I began to notice how the preparation for it made them better people. I wondered if I’d end up going on a mission someday. If the desires I had when I was younger were still there. So a thought came to my mind, “I’m going to Brazil this summer and I haven’t received any job offers. My brother-in-law’s sister served a mini mission for two weeks so maybe I’ll just serve the Lord this summer so then I’ll know if I wanna go full-time when I turn 21.” As soon as that thought came into my mind, I felt this incredible burning in my bosom. So I messaged my brother-in-law’s mom and asked her who I should contact in order to serve this mini mission. As I wrote the message, I recall how strong I felt the spirit and how right the decision to serve a mini mission was.

So this is everything for part 1 of my conversion story! Hope you guys enjoyed it so far. My next post will be ALL about my mini-mission (hopefully I’ll remember all the deets! :/). Stay tuned! I love you beautiful K-slicers. Thank you so much for reading my blog, messaging me with suggestions, commenting, liking, and all that jazz. You guys are the BEST!

Love,

Miss Mottola <3

Guarding your Heart Through Emotional Independence

Yo yo yo!!!

I’ve honestly had the busiest couple weeks. With moving out of Alberta and into BC, settling in and all the back-to-school shenanigans I just didn’t have time to update this blog. But the important thing is I am here and ready to end the guarding your heart series once and for all!

So one day, when I was about 16 or 17, my older sister who was still single at the time, offered me some words of advice that I’d like to share with you. It’s called not putting all your eggs in one basket. BOOYA! Mind-blowing! I think what it comes down to is developing emotional independence. I’ve separated what I interpreted from that into four different concepts.

Don’t dive in too fast

Let’s face it. Guys in their right mind don’t normally jump into a relationship right away without

getting to know a girl first and giving themselves time to evaluate their feelings. Some know right away they wanna be with a girl and some take longer. Guys are different! But what I’m trying to get to with this is don’t force a guy to quicken his pace and be willing to take it slow. Relax, sit back, and enjoy the ride! That doesn’t mean sit around all day and wait on a guy who’s taking however long he’s taking just to ask you out! In the meantime, be open to other guys that come your way and show genuine interest in getting to know them. You may find that by doing so, you’ve found someone you’re more compatible with than you were with the guy you were initially interested in. If you’re not in a relationship, it’s okay to get to know other guys and to date different people.

I know for me if a guy I’m interested in and I are in the getting-to-know-you stage and he went on a date with one of my friends I wouldn’t care! Who knows, he might even be more compatible with her than with me! We weren’t dating anyways! I went on a date with a guy once and we talked, hit it off and had a grand time and that same week he took one of my best friends out on a date to the same place and they had a great time too. Did I get mad? Heck no! We were never boyfriend and girlfriend, so he was free to date around and get to know other girls! If he ever asked me out on a second date I’d probably go considering I enjoyed the first one. But if he and my friend had started seriously dating and what not I’d be fine with that too!

There was another guy I went on a date with and he was a really good guy! I was super pumped up when he asked me out because I had my eye on him. Well, we went on a couple dates and eventually we both saw we weren’t really compatible. Didn’t change the way I saw him as a person though. It just showed me that there’s another girl out there who will be more capable of making him happy than I am and vice-versa. We’re still really good friends and enjoy hanging out occasionally!

So what I’m saying is, don’t dive in too fast. Play the field. Get to know a bunch of people. Go on lots of casual dates. Let guys get to know you and let them get to know other girls. Be open to the idea that you may be incompatible but you can still be friends! Don’t be one of those girls who claim guys as if they were their personal belongings. Singlehood doesn’t last for eternity so enjoy it while you can! So rather than thinking “I’m looking for someone to love”, think “I wanna really get to know as much people as I can” because as you do that, everything else becomes natural. When you have that relaxed attitude, you spare yourself from getting hurt because you don’t invest as much time, energy or feelings to one guy you’re not 100% sure you work well with.

Don’t let your life revolve around one guy

When we’re young we tend to make our lives revolve around one guy. If you disagree, go creep a teenage girl’s facebook right now and all you’ll see is pictures and statuses about her boyfriend.

Get busy with your lives. Don’t make your day consist of texting that one dude (which for me back in

the day was MSN). Take classes, think about the person you’re trying to become and set goals to reach that, serve people, develop a strong relationship with God, magnify your callings, strengthen your friendships, work, take care of yourself, learn new skills, read good books, attend firesides, go to institute! Focus on making yourself a better person! Have lots of things going on in your life so that if things don’t work out with
someone, you can easily move on by keeping busy with your own life. I want you to keep so busy that if a guy isn’t calling you, you won’t even notice!

At the same time, don’t be so busy that you’re turning the nice guys down for a date. It’s possible to take the time to get to know someone without getting hurt! In fact, it’s how it should be. Emotionally independent people are those who know how to develop a relationship with someone (and by that it can mean friendships or family bonds as well), without revolving their lives around them. I’m definitely not one of those people who have to call their best friends every day or hang out with them every weekend. And yet, I’m super close with my best friends! It’s the fact that my friends and I don’t revolve our lives around each other that we allow each other to breathe and find other sources of happiness that makes us happy in our relationships with each other.

Don’t hand someone a remote control for your emotions, as Jon Bytheway put it in his “What I Wish I’d Known When I was Single” fireside. I feel like sometimes we tend to do that. Guy asks you out, it’s like he turns the happy button on. Guy talks to other girl at a dance, it’s like he turns the jealous button on. You can still have crushes and dates though. So long as you have other things going on in your life as well to maintain that balance.

Don’t let guys make you cry

Don’t put your happiness on hold over a guy who hurt you, whether it was intentional or not. Remember what I mentioned earlier about giving someone the remote control to your emotions? DON’T DO THAT! No guy is worth your tears. So yeah, cry it off if you must but don’t sit around and wait for things to magically get better. Move forward with your life, especially when you catch yourself thinking about it too much. You might argue saying sometimes they don’t intend for us to be hurting, so they’re not necessarily a worthless d-bag we should just get over. Sure, that is true to some extent. But if the person who unintentionally hurt you is as amazing as you think they are, do you think they wanna see you like this? Let’s not even bother talking about the actual d-bags who hurt you for some selfish reason because we all know they don’t know and let alone care about how you’re feeling. So the point I’m trying to make is putting your happiness on hold for someone won’t benefit a single person on this planet.

One time I was really sad about something that didn’t go right. It wasn’t a guy, but having to go through what I went through is harder than going through any relationship heartache. In fact, I remember ranting to my buddy about what I was going through and said, “Dude, I’d way rather be going through the most painful breakup cuz even that wouldn’t hurt as much as this does.” It was an effort to get out of bed in the morning and do something with my life. Hanging out with friends, which for an extrovert like me is my favourite thing to do, became exhausting. All I wanted to do all day was to lay in bed, cry it all off and feel sorry for myself. I hoped that with time I’d eventually feel happy, but I didn’t. I learned that time isn’t necessarily the only ingredient to make you go through something; but it’s also your willingness to move forward. It wasn’t until I started working, magnified my church callings and went out with my friends again that I truly learned to be happy again. Had I stayed in bed crying I’d probably still be sad right now!

So don’t sit around and mope over someone. Get your butt out your bed and move forward. And you know, it’s definitely easier said than done. Some people need to cry it off a little to move on. And it’s personal too. There’s not a single universal recipe when it comes to moving on. We’re all different and we react to things differently. So I can’t say how one goes about not letting someone cry in a general perspective. But I can say that the best thing to do for everyone is to move forward because there is not a single heartbreaker out there worth anyone’s tears. I know it’s hard, and it takes time and strength. But as you work towards moving forward with your life, you will find how much more there is to life than some random dude who hurt you. Trust me.

If he’s just not that into you, it’s okay

Ever watched the movie “He’s Just Not That Into You”? If not, then watch it. This here is a link to one of my favourite scenes from that movie.

I’m sure you’ve been in a situation where there’s a guy you’re talking to and he’s super nice but you

only like him as a friend. But you still enjoy talking to him! He likes you though. Are you being a jerk for not chasing him that way? No, you’re just not into him that way! So let’s reverse the roles here. You like a guy and he’ll talk to you, but he doesn’t chase you enough. Maybe he’s just not that into you! Doesn’t mean he’s a d-bag or that he’s trying to hurt you!

And if that’s the case, then that’s fine. I think sometimes we hate admitting the ugly truth that the boy we like doesn’t like us back. We shouldn’t be so scared to admit it! Just because a guy’s not into you doesn’t make you any less of a person. For some reason we tend to assume that if a guy doesn’t like us it’s because there’s something wrong with us… we’re not pretty enough, not smart enough, not funny enough, not spiritual enough, not mature enough, or what not! I’ve been in a situation where I liked a guy and he didn’t like me back and I know for a FACT that I’m still hilarious! So don’t sweat it. And just because a guy’s just not that into you doesn’t mean you can’t still be friends! Friendships are awesome! I love having a bunch of guyfriends. Probably cuz I never had a brother, so I kinda have them fill up that void for me. I wish I had a bro! Think of a guy not being into you as your freedom to go out and find another guy!

Anyways, this wraps up my guarding your heart series. I’m very excited. Next post I can use the sky as the limit! WHATTUP! I hope you learned something out of this. I hope I was able to answer questions you had. If not, please enlighten me on how I must go about doing so. But yeah, I'm hungry so I'm gonna eat. BYE!

Stay safe,

Miss Mottola <3