Life at the Ensign

Okay, some people (*cough* Mom *cough*) have been complaining a little bit that my blog is not particularly informative about me.

*Blink blink* You guys want to read about me? Really?

Okay, well, once upon a time there was this fabulously successful book editor who owned her own publishing company...

Oh wait. That's how I think about me. Right.

Alright, alright, I give.

Life has been, well, fabulous, really. I love it. Confidentiality agreements prevent me from revealing a lot of the things that make my life so wonderful, but the stories I edit every day are incredibly educational and uplifting. Even if I wake up late and barely make it to work on time and am consequentially grouchy, just a few minutes at my desk working on an article can cheer me up.

I'm even writing some pieces of my own for the Ensign and the Liahona. When I first started the internship, I was a little terrified of writing, but for the last week or so, I've been itching to get some manuscripts written. I've found (with the help of the extremely supportive editorial staff) a couple of topics and submissions that, guided through my editorial voice, will hopefully become wonderful articles. Set for a more hazy future are some purely "me" ideas that haven't entirely been developed yet. But on the whole, I'm really excited to have the chance to tell someone else's story. That's how many of the articles in the magazines are, you know.

In the interim, we're in the middle of pre-general-conference madness where the rule is "drop everything when something conference-related comes up" so naturally my writing pieces aren't getting much TLC right now.

I've been doing a lot of proofreading of conference talks, which basically means that you sit down with someone else with two copies of the talk: one with the very light editorial changes (usually just a comma or two), as well as speaker revisions on it, and one that's "clean," or supposedly has all the changes made. One person reads the talk (including all punctuation--there's a special "language" for it: bang for the exclamation point, paren/end paren for the parentheses, com for a comma, point for a period, etc) and the other person follows along on the clean copy, marking discrepancies if there are any.

Fun fact: I catch myself reading punctuation sometimes now. Like when I'm writing, or when I'm reading a book on my lunch break.

It's really neat, actually. Having done that on the Relief Society Broadcast talks, I found that I actually got a lot more out of the talks when they were given because I'd already read them. Hearing the speakers' inflection and tone added a whole new layer of meaning to a subject I was already familiar with.

At conference, we get about 140 pages' worth of new information to process. Yes, the topics may be familiar, but the presentation of those topics is unique every time. It can honestly be a bit of an information overload. That's why it's so important to go back and read the talks in the conference issue (that was not a shameless plug for my job, I swear). Getting to proof the talks beforehand just makes it easier to process while I'm listening.

Granted, there are probably people who don't need that. Some people are amazing at processing audio information. Me, I have to sit and stew over it in print for awhile before I can really extract meaning from it.

Besides all of that, my favorite thing about my job is the people. They are incredible. They have so many diverse backgrounds, both professionally and personally. A lot of them have absolutely wicked senses of humor.

All in all, I love my job. My life is so fulfilling right now. :)

Gee Whiz Files: Vertigo

The Church Office Building is tall. Not as tall as those New York skyscrapers, maybe, but tall nonetheless. The place where I work is on one of the top floors (24. There are 2...8? total? Something like that) which means that I have the potential to be stuck on the elevator for obscene amounts of time every day. Especially considering how long it would take those stupid elevators in the four-story JFSB on campus.

Luckily, the Church is smart. They have two separate elevator shafts with six cars each. One of them only services floors 1-14, and the other skips those floors (doesn't even have buttons for them) and services floors 14-26 (the poor unfortunates on floors 27 and 28 have to go up to 26 and take the stairs).

And those elevators move crazy fast. As in, shake a little because they're going so fast. From my floor to the ground with no stops on any other floors probably takes about 15 seconds. I haven't timed it, though.

Also, my ears pop when I'm in the elevator because of the elevation change. Or maybe I'm just weird. I have sensitive ears.

Vocabulary fun fact: Spanish did what we call a direct translation of the word skyscraper. The word is rascacielos, which literally means "sky scratcher." Cool, no? I like the poetic feel of it. The English word has it, too, but we tend to forget about it because we use the word so much.

Starstruck

Working in the Church Office Building comes with its own unique set of chance encounters. Like running into General Authorities.

Some of you might be surprised and think that I would be rubbing shoulders with them every day, but that's definitely not the case. They're busy men. Most of the time, when we deliver paperwork to them, we only ever see their secretaries.

Well, yesterday, I had to take a magazine layout design to Elder L. Tom Perry for approval. So I sauntered over to the Church Administration Building (another myth to debunk: only the Presiding Bishopric has offices in the Office Building), cheerfully told the security guard what my business was, and found Elder Perry's office, fully expecting to be greeted by his secretary.

Only... there wasn't anyone at the desk. There was the desk. Her nameplate. Elder Perry's nameplate. No secretary. But the door to the left of the desk was open, and I could hear voices, so I peeked around the corner and tapped lightly on the doorframe. Elder Perry turned around and said, "Well, hello!"

And at that moment, my mind decided to run through all the most useless information it possibly could: my skirt is too casual. My hair is flat. My hands seemed completely alien to me. Whoa, he's really tall. Are boots okay to wear to work? Thank goodness I'm wearing my favorite shirt.

Oh hey, I have papers in my hands. That grounded me. The only thing I could manage to get out of my mouth was a description of why I was there: I have design layout approvals for him from the New Era.

Elder Perry, hoping to put me at ease, I think, made a joke: "At first I thought you were here to lay me out [as in, flat]."

You know how I have that sometimes witty sense of humor that I got from my dad? Yeah, I think it took a vacation or something. A warp-speed, spur-of-the-moment trip to Bermuda, leaving me completely stranded without it. My brain, still caught up in the "whoa he's tall" loop scanned up his roughly 6'4" height and could only smirk: "Laying him out would be unlikely." But of course, nothing---and I mean absolutely nothing---came out my mouth.

Plus, I couldn't even shake his hand. My hands were full of papers. And for lack of any verbal repartee, all I could do was give the papers to him, which meant that his hands were then full of papers. No handshake.

So, still feeling a little disoriented---because apparently my brain subsequently decided to follow my humor to Bermuda---I turned horrifyingly awkwardly and left the room, hurrying back to the snug security of my job where I knew exactly what I'm doing and how to do it.

I felt like a fangirl or something. Normally, I'm really good around authority figures. I'm not easily intimidated or cowed. When I have a reason to be somewhere, I'm comfortable being there. But this is one of the authority figures. And the situation was far from protocol.

But this story isn't over.

As soon as I got back up to my floor, one of the employees stopped me and asked if I'd ever delivered to the First Presidency. No, I hadn't. Well, since it's a little bit trickier than your average tell-the-guard-and-find-the-secretary procedure, she had me turn right back around and come with her. As we walked back into the Church Administration Building, who should be coming out but Elder Perry!

I didn't entirely mean to, but I subconsciously took half a step to the side so that I was partly behind the other Magazines employee. He saw me anyway. And in his usual, cheerful, Elder Perry style, he greeted both of us and complimented us on being beautiful young women. (Oh good, the skirt wasn't such a travesty of informality after all, and apparently the hair was okay, too.) We smiled and thanked him and passed on by. Side note: He's still super tall.

And that, my friends, is my not-so-glorious first encounter with a General Authority.

Oh, and I almost bumped into Bishop Burton this morning on my way to the elevators, but I sidestepped to the other badge-entry-gate and smiled (remarkably composedly) at him on my way past. A much better experience, if you ask me. :)

The big 2-0-0

Hey, Blogger tells me that I've written 200 blog posts! Cool! Actually, this* post  is my 202nd post, but since my last few blog posts were a little more serious in tone, the celebration had to wait until this one.


*(holy crap, Macs are messing me up: I keep trying to hit the "command" key instead of the "ctrl" key to italicize and end up hitting the obnoxious and seemingly useless Windows key instead...)


So what was I doing 100 blog posts ago? Well, surprisingly, I was in much the same state that I'm in now: content, busy, looking forward to the future, and grateful for the past. I haven't been at that stage through all 100 blog posts in between, obviously, but overall, I've been remarkably happy. Life has been good to me. There have been times when I might have argued with that statement, but let's take a look at what has happened, shall we?

I graduated from BYU.
I had a beautiful interview with my stake president that has effectively eased any and all worry I feel about going through the temple. Since then, I've been peacefully content that the timing for that is already taken care of.
I got THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD at the Ensign, where I'm uplifted, inspired, and taught all kinds of spiritual and professional lessons every day.
I got a beautiful new "niece" whose picture on my phone makes me smile every time I see it and whose cute little baby coos and burbles in my arms is one of my favorite sounds in the world.
My brother has gone on a mission, and that has blessed me almost as much as it has blessed him.
I have found out that my friends (you know who you are) are the truest, most loyal, supportive, and faithful friends any girl could ever ask for.

Sure, I'm still not married, and I don't have a family yet, but dang it, I'm going to enjoy my chocolate bar and not worry about that golden ticket. I've already been promised it, so I'm not worried. In the meantime, I will eat the chocolate and love every bite.

Actually, on the note of President Uchtdorf's Golden Ticket analogy, my mom and I were discussing some of the additional symbolism of the story itself and realized that, in a sense, he was warning us not to be Veruca Salt. When you think about the amount of chocolate her father bought in order to find that golden ticket, she probably already had a lifetime's supply of chocolate, but she couldn't enjoy it because she was so obsessed with the golden ticket. There's nothing wrong with wanting the golden ticket, but make sure you enjoy the chocolate, too. :)

(And if you couldn't tell, I loved adored President Uchtdorf's talk. I actually got to read it a few days before the broadcast because we were proofreading at work, but I couldn't talk about it until afterward, and I'm so glad that everyone else now knows how it beautiful it is!)

PPS: Fun fact! This post is also my hundredth post of 2011. Cool.

Strength in Weakness

I'm always amazed at how God can take our mistakes, weaknesses, and struggles and turn them in our favor. I know that's kind of a big way to open a new blog post, especially when I haven't posted anything particularly informative recently. But I've been thinking about it a lot.

A lot of times, I feel like I'm not eloquent enough, consistent enough, scripture-savvy enough, faithful enough, or whatever-else-enough compared to somebody else, especially when it comes to my testimony. Working at the Ensign and reading countless incredible stories and talks everyday has brought those feelings into sharper relief, because I'm surrounded by so many incredible testimonies. What is my own tiny one in comparison? What right do I have to be editing these words when I never could have said them that way myself? 

But a few weeks ago, I had this very profound thought, and thank goodness I had the presence of mind to write it down, or I might have lost it. A testimony is not about how much you know, but rather about what you already know about the Savior. (Maybe that's a "duh" thing for a lot of you, but it was somewhat revelatory to me.)

Some of the most beautiful testimonies I've ever heard are from those who are only just starting to get to know their Savior. They haven't brushed against many of the deeper, more complex layers of the gospel, and yet their testimonies are so rich and powerful anyway. Granted, the deeply personal, poetic, sweeping testimonies of the prophets and apostles are equally powerful, but I think that serves to strengthen my point. When we stop trying to know everything everyone else does and focus instead on what we already know, we find our personal strength. 

We don't have to be perfect for the Lord to use us to bless His other children. In many cases, it is our imperfection that makes it possible for Him to use us to lift someone else. Because how many of us respond better to a sympathetic ear than to someone who's never experienced what we have? Pretty much all of us. That's what makes the Savior's atoning sacrifice so powerful and transcendent: He experienced all things and so He can nurture us in all things.

This isn't an excuse to stop trying to improve, by any means. But if you're like me, you tend to hold yourself to a higher bar than you hold everyone else, and this is a reason to stop pushing yourself so mercilessly hard. President Uchtdorf said last night that too often, we compare our weaknesses to someone else's strengths. That's like comparing apples to brussels sprouts. They are the farthest thing from a valid comparison. 

So instead of worrying about how much I know--and still have to learn--I've spent the last few weeks focusing more on the things I know. Quantity is far less significant than quality. And the cool thing? As you improve the quality of your belief in the things you already know, even if that's only one or two things, you find that the quantity increases, too. I speak from personal experience on this one. :)

The Paper Flower

The florist in the little corner shop loved romance. Which was just as well, since she owned a flower shop, and saw a lot of it. She loved all the flowers that she saw, and loved how each of them could be so different and yet still mean love.

Roses. Richly colored, deeply fragrant, and classically romantic.

Sweet Gerber daisies. Brightly colored, full, and fun.

Forget-me-nots. So many tiny blossoms that added up to a beautiful whole.

Chrysanthemums. Tough and hardy, glowing in the evening light.

Orchids. Sweeping, exotic, and delicate.

Tiger lilies. Fierce and bold and eye-catching.

Tulips. Simple and unassuming.

All these flowers she saw and loved. Their freshness and vigor, and the care required to keep them, made them all the more valuable, far outweighing any cheap imitation, no matter how realistic.

She told herself she would never settle for anything less than one of those flowers.

But long days and months went by, and though she saw so many flowers leave her store, none ever came for her.

Then one day, the boy came in. She'd seen him there before. He'd picked flowers occasionally for other girls, and many times he came in and just looked around, examining the signs that labeled all her plants.

She liked him. His interest in the flowers warmed her heart and drew her to him, even though he didn't come to see her. Sometimes, he'd ask her what she thought of her flowers, and when she talked about the unique beauty of the living flowers in her store, he would smile and agree that they were truly special.

This day was different. He came into the store and looked over the flowers with his customary care. This time, he picked one of her favorites and brought it to the counter, waiting patiently as she rang it up and wrapped it for him. Casually, he started to leave, and then suddenly came back, walking quickly toward her, still holding the flower. He smiled broadly at her, extended his hand--

and gave her a paper flower.

Despite her flash of disappointment, she took it, happy to have a flower of her own at last. He smiled at her once again; then, tucking the flower he had bought safely under his arm, he turned and left the store.

She took the paper flower and examined it, hoping to find some hidden meaning in the creases of the paper. But it was sloppily made, and fashioned from a sheet of old printer paper, unmarked by anything but ragged folds.

It had no scent to tease her senses, no silky petals under her fingertips. There were no vibrant colors to hold her eyes entranced. There was no glow of a bright new bit of life. If anything, it made the room more drab: a bit of folded paper, cluttering up her space.

Just a paper flower.

So pointless, really. It required no nurturing, and hardly any effort to create or destroy. After all that time the boy had spent in her flower shop, all his careful study of each flower's meaning, he had chosen to give her something with no meaning at all.

So she threw the paper flower away, not even bothering to shred or burn it.

She walked out into her shop, and picked a pure white rose, barely more than a bud. She inhaled its fragrance deeply as she took it back to her room, filled a vase with water, and set it in the middle of her table. The paper flower lay in the bin below it--the gift that wasn't a gift. Her white rose caught the light and glowed far brighter than paper ever could.

A gift to herself.

Gee Whiz Files: Bride Bingo

Something to think about if you get married in Salt Lake Temple? You might just be the game-winning number in somebody's game of Bride Bingo.

Church Office Building employees like to take their lunches outside on Fridays (the heaviest wedding day) and people-watch all the wedding parties. And yes, there is an actual game. It includes finding things like obscene numbers of bridesmaids, pick-the-terrible-color-of-the-week wedding colors, weird-colored tuxes, ridiculous shoes, etc.

I spotted a groom who looked like he was going to prom. Black shirt, red tie, grey-and-red Vans, and all.

And an extra bit of trivia for today's Gee Whiz Files: the highest number of brides married in the Salt Lake Temple in one day is about 120.

So Bride Bingo is not entirely impossible to win in one day.

Gee Whiz Files: The Underground

I can get to just about anywhere on Temple Square without ever setting a foot outside, thanks to the Church Office Building's underground parking lot.

Yes, even the temple.

Also, you can identify the door to the Relief Society Building (which, by the way, I don't think you can get into at all if you don't have a badge) from all the way across the parking garage because--go figure--there are three large, changed-to-fit-the-season shrubberies with flower ornamentation on them right in front of the door. In a parking garage.

Am I surprised?

Nope.

Gee Whiz Files: Jeeps

I know what you're thinking: what on earth do Jeeps have to do with working at the Ensign?

Well, since it's not published yet, I can't provide details on it (or anything for that matter), but let's just say I had to fact-check that there were no Intellectual Property violations on the word jeep. The Church is pretty careful about such things.

Anyway, here's the fun fact for all you Jeep-lovers out there: when you're talking about the WWII army vehicles, you don't capitalize it. It's just a normal noun. The registered-trademark-you-use-it-right-or-we'll-sue-you Jeep only applies to the civilian vehicle manufacturer. Now granted, current army vehicles are probably supplied by said manufacturer, so today's army vehicles would be Jeeps, not jeeps, but if you're talking about WWII-era jeeps, it's babycase letters all the way.

And yes, I just made up the word "babycase." Not sure why I never have before, because my brain always stalls momentarily on what to call non-uppercase letters, and I wasn't patient enough to figure it out this time.

(Relax, I know they're called lower case letters.)

Just a disclaimer: most of these Gee Whiz Files will have some connection to editing. If you are bored out of your mind by such things, I have no clue why you're reading my blog in the first place. But feel free to skip these posts if you want to. I won't be offended. Let's face it, I won't even be able to tell if you did or not.

Absent but Happy!

Yeah, so I promised a bunch of people that I would tell them about my first day at the Ensign... and now it's my third day. No one has heard anything from me about how it's going, because I'm bad at updating my blog. Scratch that, I haven't been able to update my blog.

I've been so. stinking. tired.

My poor father called me on the first night to see how work was, but I was crawling into bed and my brain had already shut off (at 8:00 at night, no less) so he didn't get much information. And even though I tried to tell him I loved it, the exhaustion probably sucked all my enthusiasm right out of the words.

Anyway, it's been really hard to adapt to the new schedule: up around 5:45, shower, makeup, make lunch, out the door by 7:00. My body just doesn't work that way. I'm a night owl. Always have been. All through college, I was smart (or stupid) enough to take later classes so that I could sleep in.

Not to mention that I have the hardest time falling asleep because my idiotic clock has THE LOUDEST ticking noise I've ever heard. It's annoying even when I'm fully awake.

Plus, working at the Ensign is such a spiritual high, and there's so much to do and learn, that it's completely mentally exhausting. Totally exciting, but exhausting.

And that's the long reason why I didn't update anyone about my first day. That, and the first day was, technically speaking, kind of boring. It was almost all orientation stuff, which would be completely irrelevant to anyone but me, and even I was (shh!) a little bit bored sometimes.

That being said, I'm completely in love with my new job! On the morning of the second day, I found a stack of proofs plopped on my desk, along with some early-stage manuscripts to edit. Ah! Nerd heaven! This is what I went to four years of college for! Since then, I've been briefed on the entire publishing process, given a chance to brainstorm ideas for the Small and Simple Things section of the Ensign, and prepped for my part in the pre-Conference editing that we'll be doing.

I feel like I've been working here for months. Which is weird, but I've clicked so well with all of the staff members that it really does feel like I've known them for a long time. As a result, I keep catching myself feeling guilty that I don't know everything yet, and then realize that, Duh, Lynnae, you've only been here for three days.

Oh man, but I could work here forever! It's amazing!

Anyway, that's an update. Longer than I'd planned, but there you have it. More to come. Also, I might start a "Gee Whiz Files" series with all the random-but-cool stuff about my life on Temple Square. Stay tuned!

Settling In

I think I'm going to love it here.

That's my first thought as I wander into the laundry room to do my (free!) laundry, munching contentedly on a gourmet chocolate from Mrs. Cavanaugh's candy store. Sister Johnson works there, see, and she took me on a little tour of Bountiful today so that I could do some grocery shopping and see what attractions were nearby. The list of attractions included Mrs. Cavanaugh's, since she works there, and the employees working today insisted that, as her tenant, I was entitled, nay, required to sample some of their candies for free. So they gave me a small goodie bag of their best chocolates and here I am, perfectly content.

Visiting my family in Texas was wonderful. I pretty much did nothing for a whole week, which, after the last month or so, was a fabulous change.

Granted, I did get some quality sibling-torture time in. I pretty much sat on, poked, and otherwise inconvenienced Ben for about an hour one night. But apparently he liked it, because he just wrote on my wall on Facebook telling me that it has been forever since I've been to Texas and when would I be coming back?

Right, Ben. I just left yesterday.

And I wasn't the only one doing the sibling torture: Jessica played a mean trick on me this week.

For some reason completely unbeknownst to me, she wanted to jump on top of me while I was lying in bed (and I did nothing whatsoever to provoke her... honest!), but I definitely preferred to be un-jumped, so I rolled onto my back and put my feet up so that any attempts to pounce would result in a classic case of footinthegut syndrome. She tried several times, and then seemed to decide to give up. She turned to the closet, pulled out a bottle of lotion and asked, "Foot rub?"

Oh yesyesyes! So I stretched my feet out for her and kapow! She pounced. Bullseye. Sneaky little devil. I'm never trusting her and lotion again.

Hyrum drew me a darling little pink ninja during FHE and I liked it so much that I keep it on my mirror now. See? --->

We were playing a Pictionary-ish game, where you had to draw a picture that represented one of your family members and see if the rest of us could figure it out. I thought she was cute, so I kept her.

The only downer about being home? Texas is hecka hot! And heat and I... let's just say that that's a relationship that will never happen. I felt like I was stepping out into a sauna every time I walked outside. Forget makeup--it would melt right off. (Okay, so the Mary Kay stuff that my mom hooked me up with won't, but that's only because it's awesome.)

Who would have thought that Utah would be considered fresh, green, and cool at the beginning of September? But it is, let me tell you. It's heavenly.

Anyway, so now I'm back, and I'm settling into my new life. I was supposed to go up to Logan tonight, but complications made it impossible, and to be honest, I'm kind of grateful. It's nice to have a whole day to putter around my room and get everything set up the way I want it.

And I start work tomorrow!

I'd be scared if I weren't so dang excited.

Thanks to the insistence of my mother, I'll be trying my best to blog pretty regularly about work at the Church Office Building, plus, I'll probably be letting you guys know what things I actually worked on or wrote, so that you can stalk my published work, if you choose.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying a luxurious bed, free laundry, and delicious chocolates.

It's Legit

Hello all! So I just got back from Texas today and I found a big old envelope marked "DO NOT FOLD" on my bed. Do you know what was in it?

This:

So guess what? It's 100% legit now! I'm officially graduated, diploma and all.

Happy happy happy day!

Now that I've shared that little bit of happy news, I'm going to go back to indulging my nesting syndrome and soaking up the gloriousness of a bedroom and living space that is all my very own.