Why not..

"If you never chase your dreams, you'll never catch them."

It's that time again for an update from the life of Lizzie.

Nothing really exciting has happened, so I am sitting here thinking, I have nothing to blog about. I am home from school working at two elementary schools, making up activities for kids to do after school. Though the kids have said some funny things such as: Girl- "I have all the barbie movies.." Me- "Oh, well that's cool." Girl- (gets very serious and looks at me) "I'm not kidding..."; or another example, Me- "Do you love Justin Bieber?" Girl- "No.....do you?" Me- "Well, he is a little young for me..isn't he like 14?" Girl- "No, he is 18 and his birthday is March 1st."

So, other than not listening to me, being obnoxiously loud, and running around like their heads are cut off, they are actually pretty fun.

Recently, (which means from the middle of August), I've been in a "it's time to chase my dream" type of mood. So, I decided I want; need to play college soccer. So, what did I do? I emailed the BYU girls coach. Not just the coach, but the two assistants, and the administrative assistant. I explained why I was emailing them and told them all of my qualifications. Also, it just so happens that they play Oklahoma State University and The University of Oklahoma September 15th and 17th. I told them I would love the privilege of meeting with them to talk about an opportunity to play for them. I didn't receive a reply back for about a week and a half so I decided to call them and had to leave a message. An assistant coach called me back and we talked and set up that I was going to get to talk to them after the OU game on Saturday.

Then, I realized they have no clue who I am. I decided I needed to find a way to give some credibility to them. It just to happens that my high school trainer coaches for OU. So, I gave him a call, asking if he would talk to the coaches with me and say that they should let me be on their team. He agreed. He also sent them an email at the beginning of the week to tell them about me before we all talked, which was a good move. So, after all of this communicating, it's finally going to happen. I get to meet and talk with the BYU coaches this Saturday and see if I get an opportunity to play for the BYU Cougars girls soccer team.

You're probably thinking, "Well, that's exciting! Good luck!" Well, yes it is exciting, but it is also nerve-racking, anxiety attack causing, and making my mind run in numerous circles of various outcomes.

If this situation goes well, and the coaches say, "sure come on out and we'll give you a look", the biggest problem then would be, me actually getting in to BYU. You see, it's a good idea to be a student of a school, in order to play for them.

So that is the other thing I have been quite worried about. Getting in. I am almost done completing my application to BYU, and it has to be the most heart pounding experience. I didn't get in the first time I applied. So, I went to OU for a semester then BYU-Idaho for a year. Now, we will see after three semesters of college experience if I can get into BYU.

So now that you have that story, you might be wondering, "Why does she want to play soccer now and not right after she graduated high school?" I wonder that too sometimes. It probably would have saved me a whole lot of transferring and thinking if I would have decided to play right after my senior year. So, here it goes. Growing up, I was one out of ten members of the church that went to my 2,000 student high school, so you can only imagine how many times I was faced with temptation and people "making fun" of me being a Mormon. For the most part I could handle my peers immaturity, but sometimes it was hard as heck. So, I decided I wanted to go to a church college and be surrounded with people of the same faith and be able to learn in a spiritual environment. In the excitement of this decision, it didn't occur to me to contact the coaches at BYU. I applied to BYU, BYU-Idaho, and OU. When I didn't get into BYU, it was actually real hard to deal with, but BYU-Idaho was also a church school, so I was content with going there. I loved every second at BYU-Idaho. Everything about the school was great. Even though it was the coldest and smallest town I've ever lived in, I knew I was suppose to be there.

After leaving the "everyone is nice, we are all a big family" bubble of Rexburg and came home, I was glad to be with my family. Long story short, my brother came home from his mission and we took a vacation to the beach. Florida. The beach. Where I decided I wanted to play soccer. You might think it sounds cheesy, but there were a few things that caused me to come to this decision to play soccer. The movie Soul Surfer, praying, and quotes (also some self-thinking too). When I watched Soul Surfer, I thought to myself, "Here is this girl who absolutely loves surfing but gets her arm bit off, and has to learn that it's not always about winning, that it is about passion, and finally in the end trains herself for more competitions and expands her talent even more than before." If this girl has one arm and is still trying her best to expand her talents, then what am I doing with all of my limbs not expanding my talents? I am capable of playing soccer at the college level, so why am I not doing so?

I started praying about what I was thinking and got an answer. "Try. Go for it. You have nothing to lose. At least you can say you tried." Also, this story in the scriptures came to mind..where there are three brothers and the Lord give each of them talents. They get to go off and do what they want with those talents. The first brother had 5 and came back with double his talents, the second brother had 2 and also came back with double his talents, and the third brother had 1 and came back with his same 1 talent. The Lord says to the first two brothers, "well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord". But to the third brother he said, "thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not......take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents". So, basically he is proud of his sons that have increased their talents and not proud of the one that had not.

I applied this to my life. The Lord has blessed me with not only the talent to play soccer, but the ability to be taught. A quote that goes a long with this that I like says, "When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me". If I want the Lord to be proud of me, I want to do all I can on my part for that to happen. So, why not play college soccer? Why not try to expand the talent He has given me?

So, that is the story on why I want to play soccer now. As a sophomore in college and transfer to my third college.

On another note.

"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

Sometimes things don't work out the way I plan. Sometimes I think I know what is good for my life, when in reality I need to put my trust in the Lord that He will guide my life how it's suppose to be. I have always lived by the saying, "Everything happens for a reason". I am a firm believer in this. Nothing is coincidence.

So, here's to the future.

Wish me luck.

Ps. This was a long post, so hopefully it will hold me over for awhile. Unless something exciting happens...