Summer!

So...it's been an entire week since high school officially ended, but it feels like it's been at least 3. A week ago I was on my way to the David O. Mckay Events Center to practice with the choir for graduation. So many things have happened since then, but I think more than that, I have had a paradigm change. A week ago, high school was my world. It was my world. There was nothing outside high school except family, which I regret to say, wasn't as much a part of my life as they should have been. I was always off somewhere with my high school friends, doing something that I'm sure was productive, or at least not destructive...but I didn't spend enough time with my siblings, with my parents. That's what I need to do this summer. Spend a lot of quality time with my family. Anyway, this paradigm shift that I've had...it's an amazing thing, really. One day I'm in high school, hanging out with my high school friends, and the next day, I'm not in high school, and I'm hanging out with friends that are no longer my high school friends. We're going to college this fall, we're going on missions, we're moving on, and we're done with high school. Forever. What was our entire life just one short week ago, is now gone. Out the window. Never to return. Is this a bit saddening? A little. I really enjoyed high school, but more than sad, it's liberating. I feel like I'm my own person. I no longer "have" to go to school. From here on out, my education is officially my own. Anything I want to learn, I have to pay for it, and I have to invest myself, because no one else is going to make me.

So, that's my paradigm shift. I don't know if that's even the right phrase to describe it, but that's as close as I'm gonna get. I'm done with high school, and all of a sudden, I'm a different person. I'm the same person, but different somehow. More responsibility, more weight on my shoulders...but FREE. I am my own person. That's what's important.

At the same time it's a little bit scary. My parents aren't going to be there to tell me to pay my tithing, or study my scriptures. Then again, they haven't really done that for a while. I've done those things on my own for quite some time. I just don't know how I will act without them there. Suddenly not paying my tithing has become an option. Or...it will when I move out this fall. I have done it my whole life, but they've always been there watching. They've been at tithing settlement and have heard me declare myself a "full tithe payer". So now that they're not there, will I still act the same?

I hope so. I sincerely hope so. I am confident that when I go out into this world, I will take with me not only their examples, and the memory of their faithfulness, but also my own testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel. I know for myself that if I pay my tithing faithfully that Heavenly Father will be watching out for me. He'll have my back, so to speak. And if things don't always go so well, I will know that whatever happens, it will be for the better. As long as I am in the right place, doing what I know to be right, then whatever happens will "give [me] experience, and shall be for [my] good." (D&C 122:7)

So with that, goodbye high school, and hello world.

Have a nice day,

-Moscas