Special Thoughts Jars

For my YW for Christmas this year, I am making these jars for them. I complied a list of 366 quotes from General Conference, quotes I like in general, things of that nature. (366 because next year is a leap year so there are 366 days in the year) It took a while to compile the list, to cut the quotes, and then get them to fit in the jar. But I love how they turned out, and I hope they all love it!

Youth Conference Weekend

Yesterday, my ward started Youth Conference, and it went until today. We drove down to Cedar City and ate some lunch at a park near the temple there, and then took a picture on temple grounds. We originally had wanted to head in and do some baptisms in there, but we didn't have the time.
I took a "wedding pic" with one of my YW, we had so much fun.

After the CC temple, we headed down to St George, and did some temple work there, it was a delight. After more pics (Which I haven't received yet - hopefully soon), we headed to the house we had rented. 

After we got to the house and all that jazz, we had a Chopped-Style cooking show, which I was the judge of. I had to give them specific ingredients, and then they had to use them all. They did a great job! 

 (Ah a sideways pic)
The one with the longer treat - that one is a roller coaster. The other one is sushi - a Cali roll and some sashimi haha

Then the next morning, I went for a run and snapped this pic before the sun rose. It was beautiful and quiet and so peaceful. 

Then, after the morning spent at Sand Hollow Reservoir, we came home! We were tired but we had a lot of fun. 

Achievement Unlocked

So for the past few months, I have been working on my Personal Progress. I won't pretend anyone reads this or isn't LDS that reads this, so I won't explain. After I had been working on it, and was really close to finishing it, I learned that leaders actually do less in terms of the activities. There are a bunch of things they have to do under every value, 8 in total, with 6 experiences under each value, plus a 10 hour project. After I was almost finished, with 2 value experiences remaining and 1.5 of the value projects, I learned that leaders only have to do 3 experiences under every value, and 3- 10 hour projects. Whhaaaaaaat?! I was done ages ago! So tonight at YW, they gave me my award. My YW made me feel special, they made me a laurel crown, like old-timey Olympians got, and made me feel cool. Here am I with my crown:

 And then afterwards, of course we had to take a pic with all of the Laurels there, because it was such a fun celebration of everyone.

I'm just so proud of it, I'm very glad I finished it. My next goal...getting the Honor Bee!

Small, small, small

Tonight for my youth activity for church, we went to (what I thought was) a Firefighter Graduation. We had been assured by the boys that it was going to be amazing - that the firefighters were going to set fires, put them out, all sorts of cool things like that. So when we went, I was surprised to be led to a conference room with rows of chairs lined up. Turns out, what we went to, and I don't know if it was a graduation, was just a sort of speech given. The current men's basketball coach of UVU is a man named Mark Pope. He is a former NBA player, and he gave a talk/speech for the event. It was amazing. He told us some great stories, and though it wasn't remotely LDS-based, it was really awesome. Of course, all I could think the whole time he was talking was, he is really tall! So afterwards, I ran up to him, told him I loved his talk, and asked for a picture.

I felt like a tiny bug next to him! I had a slightly red face here because I was a little embarrassed to ask him, but I did it! I had a YW of mine take the picture, and after it was snapped, I said thanks again, and practically run out of there. And now I can say I've met an NBA player! It was a fun night, even though it was nothing at all like I thought it was going to be.

An Epic Selfie

Tonight for my Young Women’s activity, we combined with the Young Men, and played Minute to Win It games. The games were pretty fun, one of them was to hang hangers from each other (probably should explain better), move cotton balls from the table to a bowl with just your nose, stack Oreos on your forehead, stuff like that. Husband and I were on different teams, and we kept sending selfie’s of ourselves to each other, but we added more people each time. When I send the first one, I had 2 girls with me, and then he sent one with 3 guys in his, and then we kept going until this last selfie, when I think I won:

There are 12 – yes, 12 people in this. Husband jumped in this selfie that went to him, but even though we only have foreheads of some people, I’m still counting them as whole. So, I won the selfie contest, and our team won the Minute to Win it games, and it was a victory evening all around!

Return Safely

I have safely returned from girls camp! Yes, you’ve read that right. It was an all right week. It was pretty fun, for the first part of the week, and then the second park went downhill, and no fun at all. But the beginning I will hold dear in my heart.

We dressed our YW president, Sis C for the Miss Shalom pageant (we were robbed!)

And we got together for a big group picture right before we left today.

I’m still trying to decide if I’m glad I went or not. I bet in a few weeks, when the feelings of camp aren’t so raw, I will be grateful that I went, so I look forward to that. The greatest thing though, was coming home and taking a shower. After 5 days, I was filthy! It took 3 washings to get my hair clean, and then I scrubbed every inch my skin, but then I felt fantastic, and ready to take on the world.

Women’s Conference 2015

Well, today draws to a close the BYU Women’s Conference of 2015. It was awesome, I learned a heck of a lot, and I had some great yummy food, good spiritual feeding, and some fun and laughs. Chelle and I went together, this is our second year of going. We had a blast, and can’t wait for next year!

Here’s to hoping next year will be just as awesome!

Forever Starts Today!

Today, after 3.5 years of marriage, I got sealed to Husband. I’m not going to pretend any non-LDS people read my blog, and explain it, because no one reads this, so I’m ok with just moving forward. We got up bright and early, having to be at the temple at 7:00. I had my amazing friend Chelle take the pictures of the day, and she started off by taking this amazing pic of the temple:

So fantastic! So, we went through the endowments, (I was the only one doing it for the first time, everyone else had already done it) and then, after that the sealing. It was pretty cool to be doing that, and Husband and I made awkwardly flirty faces at each other during it (winking, etc.) because we didn’t know what else to do with our faces. Then, we came out, and got some good pics, and fab family pics.

It was a pretty amazing day, and now, we’re together forever!

A Baptism

Today my niece and nephew were baptized, and they live in St George, so we made the trip down to see them. I left after work yesterday, and got there at about 10:00. After checking into the hotel, I was getting ready for bed, and was in the middle of washing my face, and I realized, I didn’t pack any underpants. None. So I put on my clothes (since I was already in my pajamas) and went to find a Walmart at 11:30 at night. Luckily, we found one, and I got what I needed. Then, when I was getting dressed the next morning, I realized I also forgot a slip. Sheesh, I’m surprised I had anything, with how many things were going wrong! Luckily, my skirt had a built-in slip, so it wasn’t too bad, but all day I felt weird without it.

Finally, it was time for the baptism, and after going and sitting down, I was handed a program. I scanned it to see when I would be giving the talk, and:

They spelled my name wrong! Dang it! I pointed this out to my parents, and we had a good chuckle, and I wondered out loud if, because my name was spelled wrong, I didn’t have to get up and talk. It was my turn to get up and talk, I was giving a talk on the Holy Ghost. Luckily, Chelle had really hooked me up with both an awesome talk, and a great object lesson. I gave the talk, and was SO NERVOUS during it, I was so glad when it was over.

The day was pretty awesome, and I’m really glad I got to be a part of it. Hopefully the nephew and niece had a day that they’ll never forget!

Conference Weekend

This weekend was General Conference. Since I think everyone who reads this already knows this and knows me (because I’m not deluding myself into thinking that strangers read this, but if there are any that do, hello! Welcome!) Then you know what it’s about – but in case one doesn’t, General Conference for the LDS faith is a bi-annual meeting for all members to listen to our prophet and apostles speak to us, to get new instruction, or to learn new things. As a kid, I loved conference weekend because it meant no church, but I hated conference weekend, because I thought it was just so boring. But now as an adult, I get more out of it, so I enjoy watching it now. This weekend was no exception – there were some really good talks and messages I heard.

Something that bugs me about this weekend, and I don’t know if everyone experiences it, but I have a few family members and friends, that aren’t practicing Mormons anymore, and that’s fine, I literally don’t care what you do with your life regarding religion (or anything else, really) but the thing that I care about is that they will watch snippets or hear about snippets and then proceed to spend the weekend bashing it via the social network. I don’t understand why they feel the need to take something that’s meant to help us, and make it about an issue, or turn it around into something ugly. The more I read that happen this weekend, the angrier I got at these individuals.

I’ve found recently that when people leave the LDS church, there are a few different ways of them doing so. There are the fade-away’s, the ones who just sort of go, and there’s not a fuss, and they leave us alone, and we leave them alone, and that’s that. And then there’re the types that when they leave, they feel that they need to denounce every single thing that the church has ever said or done, and they won’t rest until every single person they know feels the same way about everything. I just don’t understand, why can’t we all just live and let live, and let each other feel whatever way we want about religion? I mean, isn’t that what America was founded on, anyway? Freedom of Religion? Let’s keep this tradition going that our forefathers built this country on. So if anyone needs me, I’ll be over here, believing what I want to believe, and I’ll let y’all keep on believing what you want to believe, and we don’t have to worry about each other at all.