Hannah's Beat Depression Boot Camp: Midterm Evaluation

Original Post: Hannah's Beat Depression Boot Camp

Diego has now been gone longer than he has left in Basic Training! Yay! Only 34 more days until I get to hug him!

To celebrate this fact, and to put off doing other more important things that I should probably be doing, I'm going to do a mid-term evaluation of my Beat Depression Boot Camp goals.

1. Read my scriptures and pray sincerely every day.
        This has helped so much while Diego has been gone! I have immensely blessed every day, and I know that Heavenly Father really gives help and strength to those who ask for it.

2. Finish the Book of Mormon in Portuguese (I have less that half way to go!)
       I'm in 3 Nephi. I still have a while, but I'll probably need to step up my daily reading.

3. Read to Lucia every day
      I haven't been super good at this one. Although, we do normally watch videos of Diego reading to Lucia (which I totally count!) and we spend a lot of time learning silly children's songs.

4. Keep my surroundings clean and orderly
     I've been doing pretty good at this one. It helps when I have people over, which forces me to clean up!

5. Exercise Monday through Friday (Zumba maybe??)
      Oh yeah....um...I was doing good there for a while, and the last couple of days I haven't been. I need to pick it up so I don't look like such a wimp next to my ripped Army soldier. :)

6. Learn how to cook something new every week
        I've been doing this goal every week (except the first when my parents were in Texas and I had no one to cook for.)

• Weeek 1: One Pot Mexican Skillet Pasta

• Week 2: Texan Ranch Chicken Casserole
• Week 3: Tuscan Chicken

• Week 4: Italian Pasta Salad

I don't know why I didn't take a picture of week 2, but it turned out really good!

So, I think I'm doing pretty well on my goals. And I think that they have definitely helped me with my depression. Out of the 39 days that Diego has been gone, I've been depressed maybe 2. And not for very long, either. On the contrary, I have been very happy. I am loving life.

I have come to appreciate my husband so much more. I miss him, but I think that this has been one of the best things for our marriage because I remember how much I need him in my life. Also, his last bit of advice about making goals has been a huge help.

So bring on the next 34 days! I'm ready for them!

The Storm

The waves grow high
and break against the cliffs
The wind howls
The rain beats and beats
inside my heart

Blind rage, debilitating gloom
Unbound passions consume
There is no hope, merely
         empty
                    wretched
                                     ME

But then
the wind stops
the sea stills
and silence turns to peace

He walks across the water
on my sea of insecurities
and I reach out and take His hand

He calms the storm inside of me.

Para cada niña que conocí en Honduras

Hace casi 5 años me despedí de mis amigos y mi familia, mi trabajo y mis estudios para poder ir a Honduras. Fui llamada como una misionera del Señor Jesucristo con un solo proposito --invitar a las personas a venir a Él.

Llevo más de 3 años ya en mi casa aqui en los Estados Unidos, pero todavia pienso en las personas que conocí en Honduras. Las recuerdo con mucho cariño, pero en especial a las mujeres jovenes que eran mis amigas. Siempre me gustaba enseñar, pero aun más a las mujeres jovenes.

Creo que es porque cada una que conocí tenía un corazón tan bueno. Algunas se bautizaron, algunas no. Algunas se bautizaron pero dejaron de ir a la Iglesia por una razón o otra. Algunas ya eran miembros de la Iglesia. Pero a cada una de ustedes, mis queridas amigas catrachas, quiero decirles un par de cosas.

1. Todavía las amo y las recuerdo mucho. Mucho ha cambiado en mi vida desde que regresé. Me casé con un hombre increíble y después tuve una hija hermosa. Pero creenme cuando digo que mi familia saben (o sabrán) de ti. Hasta que el segundo nombre de mi hija es Belén, por una niña linda que conocí cuando estaba en Satélite. Aprendí mucho de cada una de ustedes. Fueron, son, y siempre serán una parte enorme en mi vida.

2. Todavía quiero decirles lo mismo que las decía cuando estaba en la misión. Son hijas de Dios. Hijas especiales que tienen valor más de los que pueden imaginar. En Honduras, igual que en el resto del mundo, es muy fácil olvidar eso. Es fácil dejar que un tipo te maltrata porque no te valora. Pero quiero que ustedes exigen respeto. Recuerden que son hijas de un Rey. Son bellas, cada una de ustedes.

3. Todavía testifico que la Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días es la Iglesia de Jesucristo aqui en la Tierra hoy. Ha sido restaurado y tiene las llaves de la felicidad y la vida eterna. Si tengan preguntas o quieran aprender más, preguntanme, o vayan aqui.

Y si quieren hablarme, POR FAVOR, mandenme un mensaje. En Facebook o si no, mi correo es hannah.de.cabrera@gmail.com. Me encantaría escuchar de ustedes, en serio.

Las amo, hermanitas, y todavia considero cada una de ustedes como mi hermana.

Sean fuertes y valientes y no se desanimen nunca!

Con mucho amor,

La Hermana Fairbrother

(La hermana fer)

(Hannah)

So, I'm writing a book...

Ever since I was little I dreamed about being an author. I have several file boxes full of stories that I wrote when I was a child. I also have files upon files saved on various computers. The problem is, I have a ton of awesome ideas, but never actually dedicate myself enough to see them through. I think the longest "book" I've ever written was about 50 pages, and it wasn't even finished.

Before Diego left he told me he thought I should work on writing while he was gone. So that's what I've been doing. I'm still not very far along. I have so many ideas that I can't get them out on the page fast enough. But at the same time, I am finding it hard to keep myself motivated. I wish I could just hook up some wires to my imagination, plug that into the computer, and let it do all the work for me. At night, I dream about my story as if it were a movie. I know if I could just focus, it would turn out to be a pretty good book. (If I do say so myself...)

I have a lot of other friends who also write, and I wanted to know if they had any tips on how to stick with a story and see it through to the end. Anyone?

P.S. If anyone wants to be my guinea pig and read parts of my drafts as I go, I would LOVE some feedback!

You have more influence than you think

"Whoever you are and where ever you may be, you hold in your hands the happiness of more people than you can imagine."

(Henry B. Eyring)

I have this habit of checking the stats of my blog every time I publish a new post. Sometimes I will sit and click refresh over and over again to see if the number of views has gone up at all in the last millisecond. Probably not the most productive use of my time, but hey, a little self indulgence every now and again isn't all bad, right?

One of the features on Blogger's statistics is showing your blog's traffic sources and referring URLs. With that, you can also see any keywords that have been used in searches that led to your blog. For me, there isn't usually anything there, since my blog isn't too high up in the search engine hierarchy. However, while casually looking at stats the other day, I noticed three different searches.

They were originally in Spanish; here are the translations.

"I hate being 15"
"I hate my teeth"
"I like him but can't talk to him because I hate my teeth"

These keywords led their searchers to a blog post of mine called I Have An Overbite...and That's Okay, which I translated into Spanish as I Hate My Teeth. (It was a little complicated to translate the title and make it sound good, so that was the next best thing, haha.)

The Spanish version of this post got a dismal number of views, according to myself, who sets higher expectations. However, by reading the keywords of searches that led to three of those views, I came to an important conclusion.

I have a lot more influence than I thought.

While it may not be true, I'd like to imagine that the individuals who typed in those searches were young women, probably with their self esteem pretty low. I would also like to think that maybe they were helped by reading the experience of another young woman who had really low self esteem but was then able to overcome it. I don't know any of that for sure, but it got me thinking.

My post could have just 1 view. And if that one view helped to brighten someone's day who needed it, or teach someone something they didn't know before, than it was worth taking the time to write the post.

In this day and age the internet has come under fire quite often as being something that dissociates us with reality and with meaningful human interaction. While that may be true on many accounts, I believe that it can also be a powerful tool for meaningful communication. And through blogging and other types of internet public discourse, it can provide meaningful communication to people you have never even met and will probably never meet.

This also means that we should be cautious about the things that we write. To quote Sara Bareilles*,

"You can be amazing
You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug..."

"Nothing's gonna hurt you the way the words do
when they settle 'neath your skin..."

So be careful. Words are so powerful. For good or for bad. So "let your words be anything but empty." Lift people up. You have more influence than you think.


*Brave, by Sara Bareilles

Lucia y mamá

I couldn't help it. I had a $10 off coupon for another photo book, so I made myself a Mother's Day gift. :)

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly offers exclusive layouts and designs so you can make your book just the way you want.

Tonight I Fell In Love Again

There have been some hard nights since Diego left. Tonight was one of them.

I'm a hyper-sensitive person, and it seems that I can get myself into a state of depression, or rather, just a state of "bla" over the smallest things. It could be something I see on the newsfeed of my Facebook, or a random comment by a sibling, or even just an unpleasant memory that pops into my head for no reason. Or it could be the culmination of all of the above. The point is, I was in a state of really awful "bla" tonight.

I tried to shake it by re-listening to some conference talks. Then I tried to do some Family History work. I wrote a letter to Diego. But nothing I did seemed to work. I felt absolutely "bla" and nothing was going to make it better.

Then I decided to check Diego's email. I've been checking his email and Facebook every once in a while since he's been gone just to make sure that he's not missing anything important. Out of curiosity, I decided to see how far back his messages went. The oldest message goes back to 2010 and guess who it's from.

For those who don't know, Diego and I met on our mission. He left 8 months before me, and wrote to me every week until I got home. (I had permission from my mission president to write him to, all you nay-sayers, haha.)

So tonight I started to read our emails back and forth to each other. I spent 2 hours reading, and I'm still not done. But I'm out of my "bla" mood. And I've completely fallen for that cute Peruvian elder from my mission all over again. With every email I read, I remembered what an amazing man Diego is, and why I wanted to even write back to him in the first place.

Today Elder Ballard talked about his being "persistent" when courting his future wife. Well, Diego was very persistent, and I am so grateful for it. He is my best friend. And now we get to be together for all eternity.

I guess I'm just writing this post because I miss him, and writing about him seems to be a good outlet for emotion.

Wives, don't take your husbands for granted. And if you are feeling sometimes like they are hard to love, remind yourselves why you fell in love with them in the first place! And that goes for the husbands, too!