MISSION CALL!

I got my mission call to the Utah Provo Mission!! I'm excited to get to go back! I'll also be serving in the St George Temple Visitor's Center for a while. I report to the MTC on the 3rd of Feb 2010! What a great new year it will be!

I'm excited to serve the Lord in whatever capacity He needs me to. I'm thankful to be going to such a familiar place, surrounded by people that accept me. I'm so sure of how true this church is! I know with all that is in me that the Prophet Joseph Smith really was a prophet of God. He was visited and spoke with heavenly messengers. He translated the Book of Mormon. It is inspired of God and it is scripture. I know that a prophet of God leads this church today, President Thomas S. Monson. I know he is truly called of God.

How grateful I am to pay tithing, as it were, on my 20 years of living. I know the Lord will bless me in all that I say and do, as I strive to humbly teach His children.

My EPIC day.

Today was a very epic day. Here is what happened:

1.) I ate goldfish under the kitchen table with my 4 yr old niece. She made me share.
2.) I ran across my huge backyard (screaming) to jump in a pile of leaves with my niece.
3.) I shoveled leaves with a snow shovel (it's more effective I think).
4.) I had hot chocolate with mini mini crunchy marshmallows.
5.) I roundhouse kicked a tree stump down to the bottom of the yard. (I got one down in the time it took my little sister to get 3...But mine was bigger I swear!!! Can we say that she has more Scot in her than I do?)

E.P.I.C.

Indeed. :D

Joseph Knight

After reading an email from my cousin Brad, where he asked me some questions about our mutual ancestors, I set about to learn what I could and pass on the info. I had a skeleton of knowledge compared to what I have found.

My 6th great-grandfather is Joseph Knight Sr. His history is woven in and out of the history of the LDS Church and closely follows that of the Prophet Joseph Smith. He was there when Joseph's brother Alvin died, there when Joseph finally received the plates from the angel Moroni. He was there to bring provisions to Joseph and his young wife, Emma, as the Prophet translated the Book of Mormon. He was there when the church was founded. On that day, some were baptized into the church. Joseph said"I had thoughts to go forward". But he did not. He wanted to "examine" the Book of Mormon more closely. He regretted that he did not go forward that day But I should a felt better if I had gone forward". He and his family were baptized just a few months later in June.Joseph Knight was there when Joseph Smith was first accused and tried falsely. He followed him to Kirtland, Far West and Nauvoo. He died while crossing the plains, in Mt Pisgah, Iowa 1847.

Joseph Smith said of him: [He] was among the number of the first to administer to my necessities, while I was laboring in the commencement of the bringing forth of the work of the Lord, and of laying the foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For fifteen years he has been faithful and true, and even-handed and exemplary, and virtuous and kind, never deviating to the right hand or to the left. Behold he is a righteous man, may God Almighty lengthen out the old man's days; and may his trembling, tortured, and broken body be renewed, and in the vigor of health turn upon him if it be Thy will, consistently, O God; and it shall be said of him, by the sons of Zion, while there is one of them remaining, that this was a faithful man in Israel; therefore his name shall never be forgotten.

And he is not forgotten. As a daughter of Zion and Joseph's descendant, I proclaim that he was a righteous and faithful man. May many generations after me proclaim the same!!!

St. Paul's Cathedral!

Today we went in to London to see St. Paul's Cathedral.

This magnificent edifice, built by Sir Christopher Wren has withstood almost 300 years of London's history. And that is just the Cathedral we see today. It's foundation lies upon the foundations of other cathedrals built bearing the name of St Paul. There have been at least 3 before the current one, if not more. Indeed, a cathedral to St. Paul has stood on this very spot since 906 AD!

I don't have a lot of time to write, but i will say that we went into the crypt and saw the burial places of Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, as well as that of Sir Christopher Wren and his wife. We also climber 507 steps to stand on the outside of the dome and take in the magnificent views!

(DeAnna, taking in the view of London from St Paul's)

(It was rather windy up there!)

Here's a link to a virtual tour of St Pauls!

http://www.sphericalimages.com/stpauls/virtual_tour.htm

CHEERIO!

Her Majesty, the Queen

We didn't fall asleep last night until about 2am....jet lag is still hanging on to us, but only by a thread now! I had the front desk call us at 8am to wake us up...it was hard to get out of bed but we did it!

We got in to London about 10 am or so...got off at the St James Park station and walked over to Buckingham Palace! This would be our second time seeing the exterior, since the first day we met our friends out in front of the Palace.

We "queued", or stood in line, for about a half hour to get tickets! But is was entirely worth it.

First, we went through the state rooms. They were so grand and large! A few of the highlight include the Throne Room, the Ballroom, the State Dining Room and the Music Room.

The Grand Stairs....

It was delightful to go up these stairs! In fact it was more than delightful...because I was actually listening to the audio tour and there was grand music playing at the same time I was walking up the stairs! I felt like a princess..

The Throne Room

The Ballroom

The ballroom can serve many functions, from being a ballroom to being a banquet hall. I can only imagine what the balls are like at Buckingham Palace! On the first day of a state visit, the Queen entertains the visiting head of state with a banquet. This tradition is as old as the institiution of monarchy itself! 160 people can be seated in the ballroom.

The State Dining Room

The magnificent State Dining Room, though smaller than the ballroom, is just as grand, if not grander. It commands a beautiful view of the west lawn in addition to seating 46 people.

The Music Room

Finally! The best room in the house :D I loved it!

After seeing the State Rooms, we got to see the Queen's Gallery, and the Royal Mews! That's all I have time for today!!!! I'll update this post later...

(Windy!!)

BM, V&A and Mind the Gap

We stayed up until 1am London time watching Star Gate:Atlantis, trying to beat jet lag. I think it was efficient, although DeAnna woke up and couldn't fall back asleep. We came back from London today and I crashed...I only meant to sleep for a little while and have them wake me, but they didn't! And they went to sleep as well. It wouldn't have been a big deal if it hadn't been 7pm! I woke up after my "nap" and probably won't go to sleep till 1 or 2....just about the time they wake up from their naps. Nasty jet lag! Messing with everything....

Despite the jet lag, today was a great day! We walked to the tube station and rode all the way in to Holborn, where we took another walk to the British Museum. The British Museum was actually founded in 1753!

The British Museum houses so many treasures from not only Great Britain, but from around the world! Excavations from Egypt brought quite a few such treasures into the hands of Europe and the English.

One of the most interesting treasures brought back from the excavations is the Rosetta Stone.

The Rosetta Stone was key in learning Egpytian hieroglyphs. As you can see in the picture above, there are three different languages. The first is Anicient Egyptian hieroglyphics. The second, Demotic Egyptian and finally, Greek. Each section contains the same text, only in a different language. Using the Greek to translate the Demotic, and then using Demotic to translate the hieroglyphs, the code was cracked and the rest is history.

There were so many things to see at the British Museum! From Egypt to Assyria, from Mummies to Norse Swords it took us 4 or 5 hours to get through the museum!

Another interesting thing we saw was the wrapped mummy of a young woman named Cleopatra. Although she wasn't THE Cleopatra, it was still interesting to see! Because of CAT scans and X-rays, British scientists were able to determine how old she was at the time of death. She was 17.

One last AMAZING thing we saw at the BM.

This is one of two pillars that are called the Gate of Nimrud, built by Assyrian king, Ahsirnapal II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashurnasirpal_II). They are GIGANTIC!

After the British Museum, we grabbed a bite to eat from a nearby TESCO (small-ish grocery store) and walked to the Bloomsbury Square Gardens. We loved eating in the open air! A pigeon came waddleing by, so I threw a piece of bread at him. Then another pigeon came by...and another! Before too long there were 5 pigeons in front of me! Just when I thought I was going to have to hide my lunch, a little old man came walking into the park with a bag of bread crumbs. He dumped them on the ground and pigeons came from EVERYWHERE!!! It was funny to watch...

After lunch we took a tube to St. James Park and went to see Buckingham Palace, but unfortunately, it was closed today!!! So we had to walk back to the tube...but we decided to hop over to the Victoria and Albert Museum (commonly referred to as the V&A)! It was fantastic! What gets me the most about London Museums is that the buildings are phenomenal! And even better than that, they were built to house museums!

One of the highlights of the V&A was the Raphael Gallery. Raphael was a famous Italian artist from the late 15th century-early 16th. His work is PHENOMENAL. He was a contemporary of da Vinci and Michaelangelo. When I walked into the gallery I had no idea what to expect. What I saw floored me.

Huge paintings! Room sized, at least! They actually weren't meant to be paintings, but cartoons for tapestries! Artists would paint a "cartoon" or a guide for weavers as they worked on the tapestries. Fantastic!

Well, after looking around at the V&A for a couple of hours we decided to head back to the hotel. It has been an awesome day!

For anyone who is still curious about the title of this post (and for those of you that actually scrolled back up to check the title :D ) here's an explanation!

When riding the tube, there is a recorded announcement made for every station you come to. A lovely British woman's voice says "The next stop is Charing Cross" or "Please step away from the doors". My favorite however, is, "Please mind the gap between the train and the platform". Mind the Gap!

LONDON!

So, after much diliberation and a lot of planning, Mom, DeAnna and I stepped onto a plane in Salt Lake City that took us to Chicago, got on another plane that took us to Philedelphia and finally, we boarded a plane that brought us to LONDON! AH! I still can't believe that we are here, even though we've been here for since Tuesday!

Yesterday, we went into London to meet up with some friends of mine. We went to so many things! We met them in front of Buckigham Palace, at the Victoria Memorial Statue.

(Buckingham! Note the crowds!)

(Victorian Memorial)

I told them 10:30am, although we didn't get there till around 11. Never, ever, ever ever have someon meet you by the Victoria Memorial between the hours of 10am and 12 noon!! The reason for this is because the Changing of the Guard occurs at 11am, and there are HUNDREDS of people EVERYWHERE! Luckily, our friends, Em and Cath are very tall, so we could see them easily. We waited and saw the changing of the guard, because we were already there, and because we couldn't really get out! The bobbies (police) were directing traffic, but mostly holding it as the band and the new set of guards came down the street.

Eventually we got out, and made our way up the Mall past St. James' Park. It was a pretty walk and I had to pinch myself a couple times because I still couldn't believe we were in London

(View of Big Ben through the lawn chairs)

(DeAnna and I in a telephone booth)

(In front of the Trafalgar Square Statue)

We walked to Trafalgar Square and went inside the National Gallery, an art gallery that holds art from some of the most famous painters alive! We saw paintings by Renoir, da Vinci, Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Monet! When we waked in to the room with the Monet paintings, I was floored to see his painting of the bridge over his lily pond! I love that painting! I seriously sat and stared at it for 5 minutes! This is the real deal! We also saw Van Gogh's painting of sunflowers!

(Right outside the doors of the gallery)

After the National Gallery we decided to grab some lunch...we went across the square to Tesco's and bought some sandwhiches. Then we hopped on a double decker bus that took us right past Big Ben (which is actually the name of the bell inside of the clock tower) and the Houses of Parliament. We hopped off by Westminster Abbey and then walked over to the tube (subway) station right under Big Ben. Along our walk we got to stand in the shadow of Big Ben! We got off the tube at Victoria Embankment and ate our lunch in the park.

After we finished lunch we hopped on the tube again to go to Covent Garden.

It is an open air market under the shelter or what appears to be an old train station. There are shops inside and out, and performers everywhere! There are human statues and acrobats, as well as musicians! I bought a scarf there!

We hopped back on the tube to go to the Natural History Museum, where Cath and Em (along with their friend Katie) showed us the giant whale and the giant baby! It was an experience I won't forget!

(The giant whale...and us!)

Too jet lagged today to go out. I'll have another update tomorrow!

EFY 2009 Begins!!!!

Oh! I have spent the last two weeks glorisously working at efy! It has been a huge blessing, and also a ton of fun! But it has seemed more like 2 months than 2 weeks! Each week is beautiful...

It seems like I have never left efy. On my first week back it seemed like i had just had a wonderful week off and came right back to it! Except that I have grown A LOT since last summer!

Madeline (one of my co-cos from last year, and a BC this year) and I were talking about that tonight. This summer is a lot different because of who I am now.

Okay, so recap for week one....
I was assigned to amazing co-counselors, Spencer, Ryan and Stephanie! I was so hyped to be with them! Then, about 11pm on sunday night I got

a phone call saying that I was being moved to a different building, that I would have a new co and that I had all new girls!!! Two girl counselors had been unable to make it to work the week, so I ended up getting their girls! I had 16 total, all to myself!

It was insanity, but at the same time I worked really hard to know

each of

them and to spend time with them. They are amazing young women! Each is fighting her

own battle, and, hopefully winning it! I had a girl who gained a testimony of prayer and the love

that her Heavenly Father has f

or her. It was a wonderful, touching moment. There were some difficult moments as well through the week, but thanks to the Lord and Jessica and Aaron's wonderfu

l team, I was able to make it thr

ough in one piece!

Our session director, Brother Searle, was also incredible! He and his wife were so focused on working with the youth!

Week 2......

I was so excited to only have 10 girls this week! I rem

ember last year that I thought that was a lot of girls! No longer..... :D The apartments we stayed in for the week made a world of difference in our devotionals and in how much time I was able to spend with my girls. Devotionals were 100 times better in the living room of the apartments than in the dorm halls!!! I felt that focus was a lot better than it has been. So that is a plus to the apartments! They do have some negative aspects, but for the most part they do just fine :D My girls were wonderful this week!! I was very impressed on monday night when we got back the apartment and they started talking about modesty...having a real discussion on it! I felt like I was going to pass out! They were amazing! Brother Rob

ley was our session director and was he amazing! I felt that he really worked hard to be with the youth and reach out to them. But he also reached out to the counselors as well! One other highlight

, I got to sing a song from the efy cd to 800 people! I wa

s grateful to have the opportunity to bear my testimony through song! The song is titled "I Will".

Melissa, Colby and I!

Brother Robley!

Week 3...

Begins in 2o hours!!!!

Where Heaven Meets the Earth.

After about 6 months of battleing cancer, my dear daddy passed away this saturday, at 8am. He was admitted to the hospital on friday afternoon after passing out at home. He regained consciousness and my mom called the paramedics. The doctors said that he had thrown a blod clot, so they took him into emergency surgery to place a screen in the main artery that came from his legs, to stop the blood clots from entering his lungs. I was in Provo taking finals at the time, so I rushed up to Logan to see him and the family. I was able to be there before they took him in for surgery, and our little family had a prayer together. He made it out of surgery just fine, and then they placed him in a room. We stayed for a little while, but when it looked like he was stable, I decided to head back down to take my next final in the morning. I hugged him good-bye and walked out the door. I felt bad for leaving, but I wanted to get that last final out of the way so that I could just spend time with my family. On my way down in the morning, I called my brother to see how dad was doing...and got to tell my dad that I loved him. He was in a lot of pain. 15 minutes later, he passed away. I feel so blessed to have been able to talk to him before he passed, and even though I found out about his passing sitting alone in an Institute parking lot, I was still comforted. 

   A lot of thoughts are running through my head right now. I feel sad because he will never be here to see me leave on my mission, see my wedding, or my children, or to give me a father's blessing. I will miss him so much. Yet, I am reminded of the beautiful, eternal covenants that my parents made when they were married for all eternity in the temple. My father kept those covenants, and I can be a peace concerning our reuniting. He will be my daddy forever. Nothing will ever be able to take that away, as long as I live my life the best that I can. I'm thankful for Heavenly Father's gracious plan of....happiness :D. It truly is. 

  I feel a lot of peace. There are moments where I am struck with the realization that he won't be here. The morning after I woke up and thought "Who will squich all of the spiders?". I don't like spiders crawling in my room and I always called daddy to come squish them for me. Or, "Who is going to eat that strawberry ice cream? Because none of us girls will touch it". It's the funny, small things that remind me of him. Today it was my FAFSA. Daddy always took care of that stuff, and he did all of it but the last little bit....and it was so frustrating. I missed him.

  But, one of the rare blessings, is that I get to take my dad one my mission with me. How many people get to do THAT?

Efy Counselor Thoughts

Alright, so it's about time that I posted about efy.....

To start out with, I was an efy counselor last year. Efy (or Especially For Youth) is a program that helps teenagers come together to be with friends of their own age, standards and religion (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or the Mormons). They come for a week and get to experience a fun, spiritual week!

As a counselor, it was my job to teach and love each of these precious youth. I think that doing efy was the best thing that I have ever done in my life. These youth.....they are so good, so wonderful, and so amazing. They have many challenges to face, and I know that they face them with faith. I had such a beautiful summer teaching...though I think I learned more than I ever taught! It was 8 weeks of beautiful bliss and blisters!!

I reapplied to be a counselor this year, and 6 weeks after my interview I was given contracts!!! So far I have 4, which I am very grateful for! I cannot wait. Seriously, I can't!! I'm so excited for it! To be in the presence of such wonderful youth and to be able to teach....I love teaching. There truly is no greater call than to teach. But more than teaching, I love to watch the youth discover the principles that I am teaching. I try to ask questions of them, make them search deep inside for the answers, so that they are comfortable in searching, comfortable in sharing, and comfortable in doing.

One of the greatest things about efy is the (almost) immediate love that I feel for each of the girls entrusted to my care. For some, it came the moment I met them. For others, I learned to love them. I felt God's love for His daughters. I was so grateful for that blessing. It was so easy to love them!

EFY is amazing. I'm so glad that I have been able to be a counselor and that I will be a counselor again this summer!!!

6 weeks and counting!!

What I Have Learned...March 2008-March 2009

My friend challenged me to make this list! Now, make one of your own!

What I Have Learned, March 2008-March 2009

• I have learned that stressing gets you nowhere...except towards a bigger headache.
• Life is always better when you have a Jamba in your hand.
• Never use a plastic utensil in hot grease.
• Family is more important than anything else you have going on. Always.
• a^2 + b^2 =c^2 Thank you Pythagoras.
• If you aren't feeling happy, go serve someone. It's a natural anti-depressant.
• Never let your passions over rule your head. Never let your head over rule your passions. Balance them!
• Don't make the Spirit tell you more than once to do anything
• Miracles can happen
• Being an EFY Counselor is hard work, harder than anything I've ever done...but the experience was worth more to me than the what I put into it and sacrificed.
• Be nice. Everyone is fighting a hard battle.
• Wear good shoes. And don't wear the same pair every day.
• Running, jumping and chasing teenagers will cause shin splints.
• Sprinklers are heavenly in the middle of August.
• Never take more than 16 credits a semester
• Never take a class before 8 o'clock am.
• Don't take any kind of flack from people. Stand your ground.
• Remember to smile, even when no one is looking. It will make you feel better.
• Every problem on the earth could be solved if people weren't obese (courtesy of Health Professor)
• Listen to music before falling asleep at night.
• Don't let your best friend leave on his mission without calling him and telling him good-bye
• Focus more on others than on yourself
• Don't unload on people. Usually their load is bigger than yours.
• Try to be as helpful as you can, at home, in class, at work.
• If someone is asking you for money, it's because they need it. Don't turn them away!
• Eat an apple instead of candy
• EFY Polos do not look good on anyone.
• Quitting a job is okay.
• God is really good at His job, so, let Him do it!
• Don't be so worried about things. Everything works out in the end
• When you get anxious about homework being due, or having a test, relax. Usually the professor doesn't show up on that day.
• Don't tell everyone your life story.
• Try not to drive the same way to work and school every day. It will make you crazy.
• Skip class just for the sake of skipping class. But don't do it too often.
• Stand up for what you believe in, even if it's under attack and you are the only one who will fight back. (Courtesy Ethics and Values class)
• Only take classes from professors who give 30%+ of their class A's (courtesy pickaprof.com)
• Being in a wheelchair is rough business. Don't do it unless you really have to. And then, love every moment and try and find the good in it.
• Always respect everyone, able or disabled, kind or unkind, different or the same.
• Always follow a prompting.
• Let everyone know how much you care about them.
• Never leave a question unanswered.
• Listen to what people are saying, don't just brush them off
• Dream big.
• Sing like no one is listening.
• Be curious!
• Learn enthusiastically
• Thank the bus drivers :D
• Live with no regrets...if you have regrets, fix them!

love, Anne

Thinking.....

I'm a pretty nice person...really,I am! But, I have a lot of character flaws (yes friends, A LOT). I've been working on one of those flaws lately. I tend to be critical of people, taking offense at little things that people say or do, wondering why they don't have any manners etc. I've been trying lately to look for the best in people, to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Sister Marjorie Hinckley once said "Be kind. Everyone you know is fighting a hard battle."

I agree. We are all going through hard things....because life is hard!!!! True, some things may be harder to get through than others, but at the moment the thing we are going through is probably the hardest thing ever.

All I want to do is try to be able to remember that when someone says something curt to me, when they are sarcastic or when they are out to be offensive.

And all I ask is that others think about that before they say things. Nothing can hurt more than a friend who is short with you, or demands something from you in the very hour that you need their arms around your shoulder.

An Everyday Hero

Every morning I get up in the freezing cold to go to school. I drive the same way and listen to the same radio stations. I park in one of the farthest lots and take a shuttle into Main Campus (yes, we're almost as cool as Disneyland). Getting on the shuttle can sometimes be a problem because it fills so quickly. If you're there at about 7:45 you can probably get a seat, but when we pull out at 7:50 all seating and standing room is taken, and we pull out of the parking lot.

My purpose in writing this is not to bore you out of your mind with the trivial affairs of my life, rather, it is to set the background for An Everyday Hero.

I've only seen him twice on the shuttle when I ride it. Maybe he gets there earlier and takes the previous shuttle. The first time I saw him he climbed on the bus and took a seat. As the shuttle began to fill he looked around anxiously and then settled back in. A girl took one of the last seats and a couple of guys walked on and stood holding the bars above their heads. Just then, a young lady stepped up the stairs and looked around for a seat. When she couldn't find one she simply stood where she was and reached up for the bar above her head. It didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary to me, just a normal day on the shuttle.

Suddenly, the young man next to me stood up and graciously offered the young lady his seat.

What happened next surprised me even more than him offering his seat. I saw other young men on the bus getting our of their seats, offering them to the nearest young lady. He had started a chain reaction.

What a man. I don't think I've meet one in such a long time (with the exception of a few of my very gentlmanly friends). I was pleasantly surprised. I don't think he'll ever know it, but to me, that day he was a hero.

It doesn't end there. This morning I woke up, ran through freezing temperatures to my freezing car, which I then drove to the school. I ran to the shuttle and sat down, eager to be out of the cold. The bus filled and he got on just before we pulled out. There were a lot of girls standing, but he was standing as well, so he couldn't do anything about it. At our first stop we dropped off quite a few people and a seat cleared next to me. He sat down, but only after he had checked to make sure no girl was standing. Just then, just as he had sat down, another passenger boarded the shuttle. It was a young lady. And what did our friend do? He could have easily sat back thinking, "Well, I just sat down and we really aren't going that far". But he didn't. Up he popped, out of his seat offering it to her.

Even if no one else noticed, he was a hero to me.

Box of Chocolates

Life is like a box of chocolates.....before you know it, it's all gone!

Life is like a box of chocolates....always full of surprises!
Life is like a box of chocolates...you never know what you're gonna get!

People are like a box of chocolates....there's always a surprise inside!
People are like a box of chocolates....NUTS!

Candles!!!

Today I discovered a new way to have fun. It's outrageously old fashioned, but that fits me! Missy and I took a couple of candles to the back porch and started breaking them apart-using hammers! We smashed those candles into bits. I collected the bits and put them in a couple of tin cans. Then I took a glass jar, and my candle warmer-plate, stuck the jar on the plate and dropped in chunks of candles! It's melting as we speak. I'm going to layer the different colored waxes in the jar I think. Who knows, maybe I could sell candles eventually??? It is great fun though.

I think I can trace my candle fetish back to the days when I was a pioneer. Haha. I'm not THAT old! I used to volunteer at a living history museum/historical park. We would go once a week to a certain house all decked out from head to toe in pioneer costume and do different kinds of pioneer chores, while visitors watched and asked us if we were really pioneers (giggle). One of those "chores" was to make candles! We would melt the wax then dip the wick into the wax...one layer at a time! It could take 30-45 min to make a decent candle and patience was required!

I loved it though. And I love candles. And I'm excited to making them again!

The Best Semester of My Life

This semester has been the best ever!!! My classes are all PERFECT and my professors are so nice! My schedule isn't overloaded (I'm only taking 12 credits) and I'm interested in all of the classes I'm taking!

Here's my classes:

Astronomy-To start out with, my professor is a great-grandpa! He makes jokes about being old and talks about Copernicus and Galileo as if he grew up with them! On top of all of that, we meet in the Planetarium....which has reclining seats! So, we get to sit back, relax and listen to our professor joke around! It's the best!

Health for Elementary Teachers-At first I thought that this class might be a bit boring, you know, because it's about health. I was completely wrong! Our class room is 10' by 20' ! You can't help but get to know each other and smile in a room that small! We spend a lot of time talking about how to present health topics to our classes. Way too much fun. The class consists of mostly girls, with one exception, our man, Brad. I think he enjoys that class just a bit too much. ;)

Public Speaking-My professor is a Theatre Major who served as an officer in the army! You can only imagine how awesome that is...I've already gotten into a clump of people...we're working together on a project and enjoying every moment of it, though we tend to talk more about relationships than the actual project :S

Math 1010-Math. Oh boy. Not my favorite subject, but I'm beginning to understand it better! On the first day of class, everyone filed in and took their seats quietly. I looked around the room and noticed that most of my class mates look like teenagers. Which they are. Exciting. I watched a couple of other people come in, a woman who looks about 50 and a younger man in a funny winter hat. He came in out of breath...and was late by like 5 min or so. At that point I was getting impatient. Where was our professor??? He was late. My attention got pulled back into the classroom when the man in the hat leaned over to another student and asked "This is Math 1010, right?" A common question for the first week of school. After a nod from the other student prompted him to ask another question: "Is this professor good?". "Well, I've heard good things about him..." the other student trailed off. "That's good.." the man in the funny hat rose from his seat "because I'm your professor!". Laughter erupted from my mouth while other students sat there stunned, others simply stared. It was a good joke.

That's just a little peek into....The Best Semester of My Life!

Standards...

Being Mormon can be pretty tough at times. You are a strict observer of your faith, which I hope, is true for most Mormons.

We don't drink alcoholic beverages, coffee, or tea. We do not use tobacco, whether that's for chewing or smoking. We have been counseled by our church leaders to not date until 16 years of age. We are counseled never to watch, read or participate in anything that can harm our spirits, including (but not limited to) reading/watching violent or pornographic media (We have been counseled to never watch R-rated movies, and to be wary of most PG-13). We dress modestly (knees, shoulders, backsides, and chests covered) and cleanly.

Everyday we not only represent our church, but we represent our Savior. We took His name upon us at baptism, and try to act as He would in our situation. We believe that lowering our standards will cause the influence of the Holy Ghost to withdraw from our lives and we are left without light in a darkened room.

But keeping our standards is not the toughest part about being Mormon. It's the ridicule (and hurt) that we face when other members of our faith choose not to uphold the standards that they profess in. I can take any other kind of ridicule/persecution/call it what you will. Anything but that.

It hurts me that those members choose to take so lightly the counsel that they profess to believe in. I guess every religion has its hypocrites, but I had hoped that ours was different.

I just don't understand why people won't live what they say they believe. If you don't believe in it, great, take yourself somewhere else and do what you want with your life. But if you believe that Joseph Smith is a prophet, then you believe that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet. If you believe the Book of Mormon is true, you believe that they are prophets and that all the counsel they give is truly from God. If you believe this, then you know it is wrong to disobey any of the commandments and that it is wrong to lower your standards! Don't you get it? You have promised to keep the commandments! One of those commandments is to listen to the warning voice of the prophet!!!

I plead with you to not just talk Mormon, but to live Mormon. If you believe it, then DO IT!