My Sunday: Jenn Blosil
Europe and Utah. I live all over the place, I suppose. I am kind of homeless at the moment. But all of my things are in boxes at my parents house in Orem, Utah. I have been in Europe for the past month, month and a half. So yeah, I'm trying to live in Europe. Full time. I love that I get to be in the USA and Europe. That makes me happy. My Sundays in Utah have more structure. I wake up, and I do my yoga and study. But Sundays are my sleep in days! So I will sleep in on a Sunday and then prepare for church.
Jesus playlist. I’m not the type of gal that's like, so holy, that I'll put on sacred worship songs. I have a Jesus playlist, but it's full of a lot of alternative Jesus songs, which is far more my jam. I think our understanding of worship can be broadened and expanded to mean lots of things. And so I like to put on music that will help me feel connected to God or to myself. So that will look like whatever it is.
Why hold back? Something that is really important to me, if I'm driving to church by myself, is saying a prayer in my car before I go into the worship meeting to have the spirit of revelation to be with me that I will hear what I need to hear at church and that I'm open and ready to receive it. I'm so grateful for anyone who chooses to show up at church. And if we're showing up, let's go all in. Like, why hold back? So I'm so big on taking out a notebook, taking physical notes at church with a pen on paper, and being open to whatever prompting God has for me while I'm at church. And that's a really big part of my worship experience--just knowing that I'm at church to partake of the ordinance of the sacrament and also to commune with the saints and be there to serve and to connect and to help and to engage. So, church is a really important part of my worship.
Chefs. I'm lucky that in Utah a lot of my family is there, and we will always have a family Come, Follow Me discussion at 3:30 followed by dinner. Our dinners are joint efforts. I have really great cooks in our family. My brother's a chef, and then others of us just love to cook and prepare, so there's always going to be some delicious meal following that. And we love to have friends over for dinner. The Sunday dinner is a big deal for me and my family--to gather, and share, and first discuss what we've learned in that week's study or at church, and to learn together, and grow spiritually. I don't have the typical Utah family, other than my siblings, where there's eight kids. But aside from that, my family is quite small. It will be an uncle who is there, and another uncle, and then my aunt who is now serving her mission who's single. My uncles are also single. So it's like my single uncles and my single cute aunt and then some of my siblings. There's at least 14 people, and then friends over.
Different energy and newness. About making Sunday special, I think I could definitely do better to prepare perhaps for Sundays, but I'm always so looking forward to it being Sunday and to be able to gather with other people where we're sharing spiritual truth and knowledge and engaging in that way. And so, Sundays are different for me, because I do try to keep the Sabbath day holy. It's difficult while traveling. But when I'm home, I like to make sure that my activities are focused on how can I receive the Holy Ghost and specifically on Sundays, it's around family. It's around scripture study, and there's a different energy and newness around the Sabbath. And I'm a nerd who gets excited on Saturdays when I know that tomorrow's Sunday and I get to go be closer to my Heavenly Father in a church building, I get stoked. So I don't know. It's just as different in my spirit. I get excited.
The light of my life. I just feel like when you live an entirely consecrated life--and that's my goal is that my life is consecrated to the works of the Lord--that there's no real transition in or out of a Sunday. It just always is. And Sunday just happens to be one day. Again, like I said, that it's different because I'm going to church, but my objective with every day is, How can I use my gifts and talents to gather Israel? That's the light of my life. And God is the light of my life. And so there's holiness every day for me, but then, Sundays are just slightly different because of the ordinances. But I don't feel a transition out other than, okay, It's a new week; what are my goals for this week? But there's no loss of sacredness, if that makes sense, or a transition from the spiritual to the temporal. I always try and seek and live in the spiritual realm.