Urban Poly Princess

My training class has about 32 people in it. It reminds me so much of when I was a collections trainer at First Security Bank. It was a great job and a nice company BUUUT there is no comparison to being a librarian. Library work involves working directly with patrons. Creativity is always employed to get people excited about reading. What I love most about public libraries is I feel like I'm working for some higher good. I love libraries and everything they represent. I like trying to expose people to culture, I like offering services to people who can't afford it. I like that libraries are used by a diverse group of people.

There's a new girl in my ward named Marianne Bell. She has her master's degree in library science from a very good school out East. She has not been able to find a librarian job since she graduated AND when I was complaining about making $13 an hour she told me she would kill to make that much. She has an interview tomorrow and will facetime with someone out in a tiny town in Illinois. I hope she gets it.

I enjoyed talking to her. She is a trained Children's Librarian. My strangely less-active friends I sat with at that one St. Patrick's day FHE came again. When I told them what we were doing they left. I just added them on Facebook which is good. I hope to be a positive influence in their lives. I enjoyed sharing my testimony with my ward members who did attend. I told them about how my father is Tongan and mother is English Irish Hawaiian Chinese.

I told them how I was raised with the church and always had a testimony although this grew stronger with time. I told them I attended a church high school in Tonga and that I knew probably no one could claim that. I also worked at my first job at PCC, owned by the church where all of our preparation meetings began with a prayer. I also told them how I was raised in a small little town Hauula near Laie where BYU-Hawaii and the Polynesian Cultural Center are located.

I shared with them that instead of being like Alma and the sons of Mosiah who fell away from the church and then returned I was more like Nephi who never left and just got stronger and stronger as time progressed. It was hard to say that because comparing myself to any Book of Mormon prophet is ludicrous BUUUT it was what came to mind. Perspective is key. I finally shared how I thought I was strong spiritually when I went to BYU and that although I went to church each Sunday my friends and I would attend different wards looking for the ward with the hottest guys. I also told them how we went dancing EVERY Wednesday and Saturday in Provo and Friday in Salt Lake.

I enjoyed sharing with my ward a little more about myself. I told them about my struggle with myself before I served a mission. I explained that although the church just changed the policy for women to serve a mission to 19 that girls in Tonga could always serve a mission right after high school like the men. This mentality led to most of my first cousins male AND female serving a mission. I told them how when I was 14 I got my patriarchal blessing but before this happened I TOLD Heavenly Father that if he wanted me to serve a mission he needed to specifically tell me that in my blessing. He DIDN'T ALTHOUGH where I got off and thought it was appropriate to TELL my Father in Heaven anything was silly.

I also told them how my stake president was Tongan and had the mentality that all girls should serve missions too. I shared how he would always tell me that when he saw me even when I was just in the Young Women's program. I repeated the line I would use with him then that if the Lord wanted every young woman to serve a mission he would command them to do so and how my cousins began to think I was apostate. BUT then I wanted to serve a mission anyway so I went and that it was there that my testimony grew the most. I also shared how on my mission the missionary guide would reference Elder Packer's talk The Candle of the Lord and how it made me consider and then feel every time how there's nothing like the spirit confirming that what you speak as you testify is the truth.