To touch or not to touch?

I was watching Pride & Prejudice the other night, the A&E Version. It’s one of those ones that I watch when I’m sick and just want to cuddle up in a blanket. Every time I watch it something new jumps out to me. This time the line that jumped out was one spoken by Charlotte Lucas in Chapter 6. She says “It may perhaps be pleasant," replied Charlotte, "to be able to impose on the public in such a case; but it is sometimes a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him; and it will then be but poor consolation to believe the world equally in the dark. There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost every attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all begin freely -- a slight preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement. In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better shew more affection than she feels. Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly; but he may never do more than like her, if she does not help him on." (Italics added) The thought crossed my mind…What if Charlotte was really onto something here? Should we show more affection for people that we are interested in than normally we would? Is that the way to secure a relationship?



Last night I was talking about physical contact with a friend and explaining why I’m not a touchy person. I view hand holding and cuddling as indicators of a stronger interest in someone than friendship. I’m not one of those girls that likes to be touched continually by friends. Yes, we all have those days when we need a hug or someone to reach out and hold our hand for a minute, just to let us know that someone cares, but as a friend, I don’t want this to happen all the time. A hug in greeting or when saying goodbye is always acceptable, however, constant physical contact can lead to mixed feelings that can sometimes be confusing and cause friendships to end when one person becomes more invested in the relationship than another.


I would have to say that if a boy was interested in me and he started flirting physically it would get my attention. I’m not sure that I would enjoy it profusely, but I would be aware of him. And yes, a portion of not enjoying the attention could be attributed to not being interested in the guy. I can, however, also see how this could lead me to develop an interest in him. We all want to feel accepted by someone and physical flirting communicates that acceptance, and can result in opening one’s heart to feelings.


So I ask...once you have decided that you are interested in someone would it be better to express more interest or less until you know the feelings of the other person? Is it beneficial to make clear your interest in hopes that the other person will return your feelings or should you play it safe and keep the friendship as it is? What are the pros and cons of this type of flirting?

Firehouse Car Washes-Fundraiser!

Hey all you local Utahans--it's that time of the year that you finally WANT to have your car washed! Firehouse Car Wash has teamed up with me to help me reach my fundraising goals for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I'm selling 4-Alarm washes for $30 & 3-Alarm washes for $20. Firehouse Car Washes are seriously AMAZING!!! You won't regret this donation for a minute! If you'd like to buy a wash, or two or three, leave a comment or text me or call me or facebook me :) and I'll set your voucher aside.


4-Alarm: Voted "Utah's Best Wash" by Utah's best customers! The 4-Alarm gives your car added shine with water-whisking Weatherguard Protection. We'll shine and protect our dash with conditioner, too. We guarantee you'll leave delighted.


3-Alarm: Now you can cruise I-15 with pure confidence! Get the mud off the bottom and enjoy the shine of Weatherguard Protection. Be a superstar with tire shine and clean rims! We'll throw in an air freshener - you're welcome!

Race for the Date to Date for the Race Silent Auction--Spread the Word!

I'm Auctioning off Dates with my friends! Yep, you read that right! You can be the lucky "owner" of a night under the stars with one of 14 AMAZING people!



The date will take place on either July 22nd (Forever Strong) or July 29th (The Goonies). We will be doing one big group date (28 people in total) where we'll be going to the Utah State Capital for their "Movie Under the Stars" series and some other activities that night that will be announced later.



The Auction itself will be done on Facebook through messages. All dates start at $25 and increase in increments of $10. Two people will be auctioned per day, one guy and one girl. A "day" will be from 10:00 am - 8:00 pm.



To make a bid send me a message with either a current bid or with your maximum bid if you're not going to be around to make additional bids during the day. The Winner will be announced & messaged by 8:30 pm every night.



If you are the lucky winner you will have until the auction opens the next day (10:00 am) to issue payment online at http://pages.teamintraining.org/dm/rnrseatl10/mwootton or make arrangments with me to bring me a check or cash. If you do not meet the deadline the next bidder in line will receive the date.


The Auction will start on Saturday, June 5th and will conclude with the last people being auctioned on Friday, June 11th All proceeds will go to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and are 100% Tax Deductible!



I'll be posting a list of the participants later today and tomorrow, so keep your eyes open!





*If you're married you can't win the date for yourself, but you can win it for your single friend or family member that lives in Utah and would be available on the day of the date.


** If you don't live in Utah but do know people who do, please invite them to the Auction, the more people that know about it the better the results will be!

Your Anyway Friend

"An Anyway Friend is the one person in your life who no matter what they say or do, no matter what they’ve been through with you, they love you anyway. No matter how old you are or your responsibilities, if you have love, real unconditional love, you can make it." -Sam Bennett (Yes, this is a quote from Private Practice, get over it!)



Everyone has an anyway friend. The point of an anyway friend though is to be their anyway friend! I have felt at times that I don’t need any more friends, that I have enough friends, but the truth is, you can never have too many friends. Too often we are tempted to walk away from friendships over stupid disputes. I have walked away from friendships over misunderstandings, and you know what, the majority of the time the only person that I was hurting was myself, and I could live with that. It was easier to live with that then to let that friend hurt me or to know that my actions were hurting them, but no matter who’s hurting, it’s not okay. I’ve observed that the majority of the time that friendships end is when one person has feelings for the other person that are more than just friends. It’s a lot easier to talk about things when feelings of real interest aren’t in the mix. We’re all human and can relate to the theory that when there is interest involved the stakes are higher, and when the stakes are higher that means that we can be hurt more. For me personally, that translates to me being more standoffish, less likely to communicate fully. Some people are able to dive right in and share more and have more faith and trust in the other person. I don’t really understand that, but to each their own! A friend of mine has made the comment that it’s our loved ones that hurt us the most. While it’s true, I hate it! I can’t believe how selfish we can be that we don’t see how much we hurt people. It’s too easy to snap at our family and our friends and play it off as, “they understand, they’re just seeing the real me”. Shouldn’t the real us also have the courage to apologize and talk things out with them? Shouldn’t we have the patience with our loved ones that we hope they have with us? I’m not saying that I’m perfect, I’m sure that many of you reading this know how UNperfect I am, but what I am saying is that is it so much to ask that we all try to do a little bit better each day for our Anyway Friends? Let’s face it, one of those Anyway Friends will become your spouse, your companion, your partner for life. So we better learn how to do our best by them now.

Actions vs Words

I was actually getting ready to write a post on kissing, but I was directed to an article by Elder Marvin J. Ashton entitled Love Takes Time that took my focus in a different direction. Whether it’s a romantic love or a love in friendship the principals are still the same. Elder Ashton says, “True love is a process. True love requires personal action. Love must be continuing to be real. Love takes time.” Too often we try to rush love. We try to make it fit our time tables, but we have to remember that love doesn’t happen overnight. People don’t feel loved overnight. I appreciate the line about love requiring personal action. Love is not stagnant. It is not something that you can check off your list as having completed. It is never finished.



Elder Ashton tells the story of a man who upon coming home from work one evening tells his young son that he loves him. He son responds by telling his father, “…I don’t want you to love me, I want you to play football with me.” True love is not a declaration; true love is shown in actions every day. Elder Ashton goes on to say, “We must at regular and appropriate intervals speak and reassure others of our love and the long time it takes to prove it by our actions. Real love does take time.” Too often we think that our words will do the job, unfortunately this just isn’t true. I’m sure that you can all think about someone in your life who told you they cared about you, that they loved you, but at times you doubted that love due to the lack of actions taken on their part.


The Savior has asked us to feed His sheep and to keep His commandments repeatedly in the scriptures. Elder Ashton points out that “…we can often best show our love through the processes of feeding and keeping.” He goes on to say, “Feeding is the providing by love adequate nourishment for the entire man, physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually. Keeping is a process of care, consideration, and kindness appropriately blended with discipline, example, and concern.” Feeding and Keeping are parts of our daily life. There are times that we don’t even realize that we feeding and keeping or that we are being fed and kept. Elder Ashton asks the question, “When were you last fed by a family member or friend? When were you last given nourishment for growth and ideas, plans, sorting of the day, sharing of fun, recreation, sorrow, anxiety, concern, and meditation? These ingredients can only be shared by someone who loves and cares.” I want to point out that he says that these can only be shared by someone who LOVES and CARES.


So I want to ask the question, how are we supposed to be able to tell the difference between someone who loves and cares as a friend versus as an interested party? The difference can at times be hard to decipher, because of that I want to say that you need to be careful with how you are expressing yourself to a girl. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. We are all hopeless romantics underneath all the barriers that we put up. Some of us don’t put up as many barriers as others, some of us have barriers so high and so thick that you may think it’s impossible to penetrate, but have patience and determination and you’ll be surprised how quickly things can happen. So why do I caution you? I caution you because even though you may say one thing, your actions can be saying something else. If you tell a girl that you are interested, but then don’t call, or text, or even facebook, she’s going to doubt that you really care. If you tell a girl that you aren’t interested in dating her, that you just want to be friends and then you continually call her, text her, hang out with her, she’s going to assume that you do like her. If that does happen, every time that you joke around about dating or marriage she’s going to see that as a signal that you are thinking about it, and she’s going to assume that you’re thinking about it with her. So please, use caution.


Back to feeding and keeping. You may be wondering why your new friend or special interest doesn’t open up to you right away about all the little things going on in their life. First, not everyone is as open as your ex girlfriend. Some of us have been hurt and we tread with extreme caution. Second, as Elder Ashton pointed out, the sharing of those details of our lives is only done with those that truly love and care. Until we feel loved and cared for (on any level) we won’t feel safe opening our hearts to you. Remember, love takes time and ACTION! I can guarantee that when you take the time to prove to a girl by action that she is safe in your arms (figuratively, not necessarily literally, but it could be literally also.) she will always be willing to take care of you, to nurture you, and to remind you of how amazing you are.


There is so much more in Elder Ashton’s talk, and I would encourage all to go and read it, but let me wrap this up with another quote from Elder Ashton. He says, “Let us resolve to take the time to give of ourselves in putting love into appropriate action and performance.” Remember, when we feel loved and cared for, when we are fed and kept, we will love and care for and feed and keep you.

Contradictions...It's Who We Are!

I’m going to tell you a secret. Are you paying attention? Girls are sensitive and emotional. I know, it’s not really that big of a secret! But apparently, sometimes, reminders are needed. We need to feel like our opinions and feelings are valid. Girls just want to be valued and respected and heard out. Yes, we don’t make sense! I acknowledge that and accept it, but can you accept it? Before you answer that you have to understand that that means that we may contradict ourselves, we may rant and rave about nothing, we might act fine when things are really bugging us, one day we might want to talk about things and the next we don’t. So, can you roll with the punches? Can you sit there and just listen and have compassion without making and imparting judgments? What a girl wants more than anything is to be accepted, whole heartedly, no questions asked. So…can you be a Man and do the job?

Prophetic Counsel-Elder Uchtdorf

Some Prophetic Counsel. This is from Elder Uchtdorf's CES Fireside on November 1st, 2009. There may be some errors in this transcription, but I will update them as I find them. Enjoy!

Now a second question we hear from you young people is, and again I quote "I’m so lonely, will I ever find my soul mate?". You were waiting for this question right? I have a number of things I want to say on this subject, but, let’s start with the concept of finding the one person you were meant to be with, the one person who’s perfect for you. There’s an old story about a young woman on an archeological excavation who discovers an ancient looking lamp. When she rubs it a Genie appears offering her one wish. She thinks for a moment and asks for world peace, that people would love each other and live in harmony forever. The Genie contemplates her request and finally says, “What you are asking for is impossible. The division among the people of the world is too deep and has existed for way too long. Please ask for something else, anything but that.” So the young lady thinks again and says “Somewhere out there is the one person I was meant to be with. I want to find him, someone who is handsome, thoughtful and has a sense of humor, someone who will help around the house, loves kids, doesn’t watch sports all the time, has a great job, thinks first about my happiness, someone who will go shopping with me and someone who can get along with my family.” The Genie considers her request for a moment, sighs deeply and then replies, “Let me see what I can do about World Peace.”


I know this maybe a disappointment for some of you, but I don’t believe that there is only one right person for you. I think I feel in love with my wife Harriet, who is here with me tonight, the first moment I saw her, never the less, had she decided to marry someone else, I believe I would have met and fallen in love with someone else. I’m eternally grateful that this didn’t happen, but I don’t believe that she was my one chance of happiness in this life, nor was I her’s.

Another error you might easily make in dating is expecting to find perfection in the person you are with. The truth is, the only perfect people you might know are those you don’t know very well. Everyone has imperfections. Now I’m not suggesting you lower your standards and marry someone with whom you can’t be happy, but one of the things I’ve realized as I’ve matured in life is that if someone is willing to accept me, imperfect as I am, than I should be willing to be patient with others imperfections as well. Since you won’t find perfection in your partner, and your partner won’t find it in you, you’re only chance at perfection is in creating perfection together. That is the secret.

There are those who do not marry because they feel a lack of magic in relationship. By magic I assume they mean sparks of attraction. Falling in love is a wonderful feeling, and I would never counsel you to marry someone you don’t love. Nevertheless, and here is another thing that is sometimes hard to accept, that that magic sparkle needs continued polishing. When the magic endures in a relationship, it’s because the couple made it happen, not because it mystically appeared due to some cosmic force. Frankly, it takes even work. For any relationship to survive both parties bring their own magic with them, and use that to sustain their love. Although I have said that I do not believe in a one and only soul mate for anyone, I do know this, once you commit to being married your spouse becomes your soul mate, and it is your duty and responsibility to work every day to keep it that way. Once you have committed, the search for a soul mate is over. Our thoughts and actions turn from looking to creating.

But what about those that despair of ever finding an eternal companion? First, don’t give up. Go to activities, meet people and do all that you can. I know that dating can be rough, rejection is one of the most painful things we can experience, trust me, I know how this feels. I feel with Harriet long before she fell in love with me, but this didn’t stop me, not at all. I found ways to be at the same place that she was at. When I was administering the Sacrament at the Church I arranged to pass it to her family. I was doing the best I could to impress her, but I think she found me just a little immature. The sparks simply weren’t there for her. I despaired of ever convincing her that I could be anything more than a friend, and who wants that, right? So I went away, joined the Air Force and travelled half a world away to attend Pilot training in the United States. It wasn’t until I returned to Germany having completed my training as a fighter pilot years after I had first met her that this beautiful young woman looked at me and said those magically words I had been longing to hear, she said, “You have matured since the last time I saw you.”. When I heard this I moved quickly, and within a few months I married the woman I had loved for a long long time. So don’t give up Brothers and Sisters. Just because you have been rejected a time or two or three or four or a couple hundred times, don’t despair. Brethren, the secret to finding the girl of your dreams is to get to know many of them, and then when you fall in love and it feels right, ask her to marry you! If she says no, you continue to search and to pray until finally you will arrive with a young woman at the altar of the Temple. So don’t give up.

Now Sisters, be gentle. It’s alright if you turn down requests for dates or proposals for marriage, but please do it gently. And Brethren, please start asking, ok? There are too many of our young women who never go on dates. Don’t suppose that certain girls would never go out with you, sometimes they are wondering why no one asks them out, just ask, and be prepared to move on if the answer is no, but ask. One of the trends that we see in some parts of the world is our young people are only hanging out in large groups rather than dating. While there’s nothing wrong with getting together often with others of your own age, I don’t know if you can really get to know individuals when you’re always in a group. One of the things that you need to learn is how to have a conversation with a member of the opposite sex. A great way to learn this is by being alone with someone, talking without a net so to speak.

Dates don’t have to be and in many cases shouldn’t be expensive and over planned affairs. When my Wife and I moved from Germany to Salt Lake City one of the things that most surprised us was the elaborate and sometimes stressful process young people had developed of asking for and accepting dates. We couldn’t believe it. Relax! Find simple ways to be together. One of my favorite things to do when I was young, and I know this was a long time ago, and when I was looking for a date was to walk a young lady home after church meeting. Now, did you bring a date to this meeting here tonight? No one is laughing, there they are. I hope you did, or walk someone home afterwards. Remember, you goal should not be to have a video of your date get a million views on YouTube. The goal is to get to know one individual person and learn how to develop a meaningful relationship with the opposite sex.

Now there are those among you fine young members of the church, who might never marry although they are worthy in every way, they may never find someone to whom they will be sealed to in the Temple of the Lord in this life. There is no way for those who have not experienced this despair to truly understand the loneliness and pain and you might feel. I know of many women who want more than anything else to be a wife and a mother, and they cannot understand why their prayers have never been answered. There are many single men who, for whatever reason also find themselves alone. First, let me tell you that your prayers are heard. Your Father in Heaven knows the desires of your heart. I cannot tell you why one individual’s prayers are answered one way while someone else’s are answered differently. But this I can tell you, the righteous desires of your hearts will be fulfilled. Sometimes it can be difficult to see anything beyond the path immediately before you. We are impatient and do not want to wait for a future fulfillment of our greatest desires, nevertheless, the brief span of this life is nothing in comparison with eternity and if only we can hope and exercise faith and joyfully endure to the end, and I say joyfully endure to the end. There in that great heavenly future we will have the fulfillment of our righteous desires of our hearts and so very much more than we can scarcely comprehend now. In the meantime, do not wait for someone else to make your life complete. Stop second guessing yourself and wondering if you are defective. Instead seek to reach out to your potential as a child of God. Seek learning, become engaged in a meaningful career, and seek fulfillment in service to others. Use your time, your talents, your resources to improve yourself and bless those around you. All of this is part of your preparation for having a family. Immerse yourself in your ward or branch and seek to magnify your callings no matter what they may be. The great purpose of this mortal existence is to learn to fully love our Heavenly Father and our neighbor as ourselves. If we do this with all our might, mind and strength our eternal destiny will be glorious and grand beyond our capacity to imagine. Be faithful and things will work out for you. That is his eternal promise to all who love and honor him.


NOW: Get out there and date! :D