Practice What You Teach

Over Christmas break, I mailed in my application for a passport. Starting the day after I got back to school, I began faithfully checking my mailbox every single day for that little booklet that would grant me access to England, France, Scotland, and Wales. I mean, I knew it would take a few weeks, but I was holding out hope that my passport application was somehow just so wonderful that the process would be sped up. After weeks of endless let-downs my enthusiasm maybe only slightly faded. I still checked the mail every day, but I had resigned myself to the fact that I would have to wait for weeks on end. This weekend was my roommate Alyssa's birthday, and on Saturday night we were having a party at our apartment. Our mail generally comes around 4:00, but the afternoon passed in such a blur of grocery shopping, cleaning, and baking that I realized five minutes before our friends were coming that I had neglected my daily trip to the mailbox. I figured that since I had to take the ...

1. Outings with the family . I just love that there is so much to do in DC around Christmastime. We went and saw Christmas lights, drove to D.C. to see the National Christmas Tree which in Jenn's opinion was in a word "underwhelming," went after Christmas shopping and got some incredible deals like a pair of heels that was originally $80 for $23, drove up to the DC Temple to see the lights where I ran into my good friend Anna who's serving as a missionary there, and went to the National Harbor to see the gorgeous Christmas decorations and explore the harbor and all of the cute shops. 2. Christmas lights with the Buhlers. It's become a yearly tradition to go on a Christmasy outing with our good friends the Buhlers over break. This year, we went out to dinner at Cici's, and definitely became the most exciting table in the restaurant. We seem to attract a lot of attention when our two families go out in public together! Then we went to see the dr...

       Since I'm apparently way too tired and burned out to focus on homework, I thought I may as well write a little blog post about Thanksgiving Break! I got to drive down to warm, sunny, California for the break with my lovely roommate Alyssa to visit her family! It was a full house as her grandparents and her brother and his wife and their adorable little daughter Addie were also in town for the break! We got there on Wednesday night and Alyssa's wonderful mom had dinner waiting for us! She's the best. On Thanksgiving day, we ate our hearts out and then just relaxed! I also got to talk to the entire extended family on the phone! I am so excited to see everyone in just two more weeks! There's never a dull moment, that's for sure. Then, Alyssa's sister in-law talked us into venturing to Target, which opened for black Friday, which is now apparently Black Thursday at 8 pm. The line at the first Target we stopped at literally wound through the entire shopping ce...

Last Christmas, I was over at my grandparents' house as is our yearly tradition and my grandpa and I were hanging out in his office. We were talking about the recent lowering of the age at which girls in the church can serve missions from 21 to 19, my age at the time. I told him about how I had prayed a lot about the decision to serve a mission, and had felt that it was not what I was supposed to do, at least not at that point in time anyways. I told him that even though I had reached this conclusion, I had an itch to travel and see the world. Grandpa paused for a second before saying that he thought that every college student should have the chance to go abroad and experience a new place. He encouraged me to seriously consider going on a study abroad. Me being the planner that I am started immediately asking myself tons of questions. When? Where? How? I knew study abroad programs weren't exactly cheap and I had to pay for it somehow. Despite all of my questions, the more I tho...

The summer after I graduated, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir did a concert at Wolf Trap. During the concert, Alex Boye performed two solos with the Tab Choir singing back up. Amy, Matthew, and I were all sitting with different people, so we were sitting there texting each other about how much we loved him. The three of us have this maybe only slightly far-fetched dream of one day singing in a Gospel Choir, and he's kind of our inspiration. While Matthew's been on his mission, we've been sending each other Alex Boye music, which in our case means he sends me mp3 files of Alex Boye songs and I send him back names of songs to look up because frankly technology makes no sense to me. Just last week he sent me a recording of him singing "How Great Thou Art" which I'd actually never heard before and it was beautiful. Anyways, a couple weeks ago, Women's Chorus was asked to perform at the Christmas lighting ceremony at the River Woods shopping center in Provo. I frea...

I realized today that I haven't actually posted on my blog anything about my semester. I finally have a little bit of free time tonight, so I thought I'd give a little update! -Taking 17 credits and working has definitely made my life a little crazy. So far my grades are good though *knock on wood.* Despite the slight craziness of my class and work schedule, I absolutely love my major. I can't even begin to describe how wonderful it feels to know that I'm on the career path that I'm supposed to be on. I have no doubt that I am supposed to be an Elementary Education major. A lot of times while I'm sitting in my classes I wonder what I've gotten myself into, but I know this is what I am supposed to do and that the Lord will make up for all of my inadequacies! - I'm singing in the BYU Women's Chorus this year, and it has been an amazing experience! I've gotten to perform in my first concert, and then be a part of the Homecoming Spectacular along...

      Today I was thinking about how I would respond if asked the question, "why did you spend eight hours of your weekend listening to a bunch of talks?" For me, there are several answers to this question. First of all, I try to always go into Conference weekend with a question. I keep this question on my mind as I am listening to the speakers. Without fail, each time I am blessed with inspiration and answers. This time was no different. Every single session there has been something that I have starred in my notes and transferred to my journal that has been an answer to the question that I had on my mind this time. It feels as if the Lord is speaking through his servants directly to me.       Conference combines two of my favorite things, words and music. There is always a Mormon Tabernacle Choir number that touches my heart. This time, it was "O Divine Redeemer." This piece has a special place in my heart. I will never forget the conversation that I had...