The Hermana's prepartion adventures

I know, everything I claim as an adventure. But isn't life in general an adventure?

This is a quick update on life in well...the past few months...or several months...

First we'll talk about my lil' brothers mission farewell.

 There were so many people that came to Jake's farewell that people had to sit on the floor and down the halls!

 This is the kitchen/living space once things had calmed down a bit. At first it was WAY crowded. You couldn't see any of the floor. Just heads.

 Matt, Kimmy and the kids:) So glad we got a picture of all of them :)

 In front of the Provo temple.

Getting ready to drive to the MTC and drop him Jake off.

 The curb drop. Jake's about to enter the MTC doors. He loves his mission!

 Kade and I went bowling. Yes, I won but that isn't the point. I scored into the triple digits for the first time!!!

I also snapped a photo of Kade right as he turned around! He never lets me get a good photo of him and he's so handsome I don't know what his problem is!

Oh I'm sneaky! Got another photo of Kade eating London M&M's. Pretty sure they don't taste better than regular ones, but we thought it was cool.

 I ate lots of pizza...

Went to a dear friend's bridal shower. :)

 And watched as the Lady Wolves won state and my friend become MVP of the tournament.

Oh and Tyler threw "cloud" balloons/pillows/I-don't-know at me.

Mama says...

So obviously I haven't been writing as much and I could blame it on a lot of things, but I think my mom was right when she said it's because I have facebook again so I just post life on that. Kind of lame, I know, but it's probably true. So here is something I won't be talking about on facebook...

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I guess you could say I went back to the place of my "past" this week. (Clarification- I went to the location, not the state of life.) I was a little weary as the miles became shorter and shorter as I grew closer and closer and the miles grew longer as I drove farther and farther from home.

On my way I drove through a very familiar canyon. I had driven through the same canyon many, many times, but this time nightmares from the past flooded my mind. The canyon became ugly. It was trying to force spring to come, but winter still held on. It was muddy and plants only showed signs of death. And some parts looked like life never planned to return. It was ugly, just like pieces of my past.

As I drove on, my perspective changed and the canyon wasn't so ugly anymore. Like my past, the canyon resembled my own struggle to work past the ugly and over come personal challenges I faced. Some of the snow seemed purest white and reminded me of the atonement. The snow had to melt for spring to come, but it didn't mean the snow wouldn't impact the landscape and what it looked like in the spring. The earth had to grow.

Although, in a small way the canyon represented my past, I realized something else. Like my past, this canyon hadn't changed, but I had.

And I wanted to cry out and cry for joy because I had changed. I had changed for the better...and for good.

Sickness and health

I can't remember where I was, but it was church related. Maybe. But someone made a comment about how we don't realize how nice it is to be healthy until we get sick. (I've come to really appreciate my health in the past week since I've been sick.)

Well a little while later I was reading in 1st Nephi (book from the Book of Mormon) and his journey to the promised land. Nephi was confronted with some crazy opposition in his life. As I read his story I realized that there is opposition in EVERYTHING (and it talks about that in 2nd Nephi). I've been taught this principle my entire life, but I never thought that I would experience similar (and I use similar very loosely) opposition to Nephi. Now let me explain.

I feel like that for as long as I can remember I've been a pretty comfortable person. I don't really remember holding grudges or anything like that so forgiveness has never been something I've had real problems with. Then I get my mission call and I'm in a situation holding bitterness and unkindness in my heart.

To keep the story short, its something that I still have to work on today, but I have some tremendous help. With studying more about Nephi I came across 2nd Nephi chapter 2. In that chapter it talks about opposition and it also talks about Christ and His atoning sacrifice. While reading that chapter a thought came to mind...Christ atoned for EVERYONE'S sins. He even did for those that spat on Him, cursed Him, and those He knew that would crucify Him. I was blown away at this realization. How could someone have so much love for those that did such horrible things? And then I felt the guilt. Here I was holding this bitterness in my heart over something that is nothing compared to what Christ and Nephi went up against. Obviously Christ was and is perfect so I know I can't exactly measure up to him, but Nephi wasn't perfect. He even talks about his weakness in his writings. And although I may never have the faith and strength that Nephi had, my trial is small compared to his AND I know how Nephi had such compassion and love. Christ.

I like to think of it this way; you're at work and you have this really upset customer. You've done nothing wrong, but for whatever reason the customer isn't happy and your efforts to please them changes nothing. (Yes this has happened to me in real life.) Well in situations like that I always took comfort in that I had a manager who could help, who WANTED to help. So if there was ever a problem I couldn't handle I could always turn to my manager.

I'm not saying that's exactly how the atonement works, but I think it helps illustrate the point that we are never alone. Christ is there waiting for us to ask for help; He WANTS to help. He is there for us through all of our existence. We're not perfect and life is way too hard to work out by ourselves, and I think it was meant to be that way.

I still get tastes of bitterness every now and then, but I always try to remember that in the end this is just a small issue and big or small our Savior will take care of it. "I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men" (Doctrine and Covenants 64:10) and honestly I find that a relief.

Double Digits!!

That's right! I have 81 days until I leave on my mission. I'm in the double digits ya'll! Its a great feeling.

If you had asked me two years ago if I was going to serve a mission I would have given you pretty much a solid "no". It's not that I didn't think that a mission was a good thing, I just didn't see it in my future, or at least in the future that I had planned.

As we all know, I've been boy crazy my whole life and I had always planned to be married way before 21 (the age change hadn't happened yet). But Heavenly Father knows me and He knew that a mission was the right thing for me. And you know what? He's a pretty clever man. You know how He got me thinking about serving a mission?! He started pulling awesome returned missionaries into my life that often talked about their missions and He also gave me awesome missionary experiences that started a seed inside me that grew and gave me desire to share the Gospel. Clever.

I've had doubting moments and pondered whether serving a full time mission is the right thing for me, but you know who keeps me going? My future husband :) Yup, that handsome man who has yet to reveal himself. I think I've mentioned this before, but I keep a journal that I use exclusively to write letters to my future husband. Ya it's silly, but you have no idea what it's done for me; for example this whole mission deal-eo. Every time I doubt I think about how wonderful it will be to share mission stories with my husband. And it might be a little selfish that I don't think about those who I will be serving first, but I'm not perfect.

I found a not in my scriptures that I wrote in February 2009:

"I AM going to serve a mission! ...No boy is going to change that!"

I guess deep down I knew all along that I was going to serve. Glad I finally figured it out.

MY mission call :)

Life's been super crazy and I realized that I never announced where I was called to!!

So a couple weeks ago I was called to the Washington Spokane mission, Spanish speaking :D I leave for the MTC on March 27th. In preparation for my mission I get to go through the temple and that is one thing I am extremely excited about. Its been an amazing experience just in the few weeks of mission preparation. Although it has been a roller coaster of emotion and just pure craziness, I wouldn't trade if for anything.

I've had wonderful support from family and friends and honestly I don't think they realize how much that means to me. I've noticed that once I make a hard but important decision, Satan tries his hardest to keep me from fulfilling it. Well I don't know why Satan thinks he can keep me from serving, but he isn't messing with future missionary!

Here's some memories I've recently made :)

Ward Christmas Party Talent Show :)

 Hanging out because we can :)

My (kinda) dating sabbatical

I went on a date the other night with another guy I knew from high school. We'll call him...Captain America. Like I said before, the captain and I went to high school together; he graduated the year before me. Although we had a lot of mutual friends, I didn't really know him. All I really knew was that he was a really good kid.

Semi-long story short, Captain America and I didn't really get a chance to chat during our date for multiple reasons. In fact, we only had the drive home, about 20 minutes, to really talk and get to know each other better.

I've had awkward or conflicting doorstep moments before but that night was pretty bad. I don't think Captain America thought so, but I did. He gave me a hug... :) ... and I told him thank you and that I had had a great time. Now in the past if I went on a date, enjoyed it, and wanted to go on another one I would say something like, "I'd love to do something again sometime." Ya know, just to let the guy know how I felt. So I'm on the doorstep with Captain America and I'm about to mention that I'd like to go out again, but I stop myself. I'm going on a mission, why would I suggest that we go out again if I'm just going to leave? And would he think it's weird that I'm encouraging it when I should be preparing for a mission and not marriage? Oh, but what if we ended up dating and then he wai-  I stopped my thought process there and said "see ya" instead.

Well the next morning my mom is full of questions as usual. Typically I have to ask her what her impression was of my date, but this time she brought it up. And Captain America had impressed her. Great, now that I've vowed to not date for 18 months I finally meet a guy my mom is sincerely impressed with.

I don't know what I was thinking, but I figured that once I handed in my papers and the mission plans were final that guys wouldn't ask me out anymore. Guys are a wonderful distraction I could do without for a while.

Well I was wrong. Well, wrong about thinking that the mission thing would keep guys away. And even though I have other things to be thinking about, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that somehow, someway Captain America will ask me out again.

Man, I'm already a horrible missionary.

The Happiest Season of All

I'm always excited for the holidays, but this year is a little different.

For those who don't know, the LDS church changed the age young adults can leave to serve missions. Girls can leave as early as age 19 and boys at 18. This means Jake and I handed in our mission papers about 4 months earlier than we would have been able to previously and we could leave at any time.

Jake got his call a couple weeks ago and is leaving for Santiago, Chile on January 16th. I should receive my mission call in the next week or so.

(This is Jake's I'm-getting-emotional-but-can't-show-it face..hehe)

This will be the last holiday season I will spend with my entire family for 2 years. But as sad as that may sound, this will the last few months I have to prepare myself to share the true significance of the holidays with others around the world.

Thanksgiving was fantastic, but to be honest I was more excited for Friday. Jake went through the temple and what a Spirit that brought to our home. Saturday Jake took Kade and I to do baptisms and Jake got to do the ordinances. THAT was an amazing experience; one I know I will never ever forget.
I feel kind of bad because I noticed that I mostly took photos of my siblings and nieces and nephews. I guess subconsciously I realized that my sweet little nieces and nephews were going to be the ones who were going to change the most while I'm gone.

 OLIVIA! I haven't seen her in soooo long. She is the sweetest thing :)

 Kimmy and cute McKoy.

 Dev and Grandpa

 Bah! I love this picture. Jake mimicking Laina.

 Most of my nieces and nephews. Sadly we were missing a few :(

 Jake, Grandpa, and I

 Matt and Kimmy :)

 Oh and we got a musical number by Zach!

Jake after going through the temple. Gah I'm so proud of him!