Count your many blessings .. name them one by one.

1. Dance. Dance. Dance. And dance.
2. That I don't work at Wal Mart. And my job. I really do love it.
3. Ashley Gardner.
4. Emails that I get at four in the morning.
5. Homemade chicken noodle soup.
6. Hunter Hayes. I recently went on a .. I don't know what you call it. But I recently decided I really like his music.
7. Christmas treats at Halloween. Details ...
8. MY FAMILY.
9. Halloween.
10. The Book of Mormon.
11. Those people who can send you one text that makes you happy, even after you've been feeling kind of terrible, and just tired of life, all day. I had one of those today and it was very nice.

Silly Makayla

My cousin Makayla is one of my best friends. We do all sorts of things together. And, she's five. What better age to be? The other day, she was over and we decided to look through all of my pictures on Facebook. It was hilarious. Here are some of her responses, with the pictures in no particular order.

She simply could not understand why we all "wanted the apple." 

"Ooh, this picture looks yummy!" When I explained to her that it was cooking spray, she just pointed to the picture ON the cookie spray, saying she wanted to eat that. 

This picture she found fascinating, since she just started learning to do Irish dance. She also found it hilarious that Megan had her eyes closed. She told me, "I think it's too bright for her." I told her I thought Megan was probably just blinking. And so, in every picture of my class that followed this, she had to find the "blinking girl" (Megan), the "biggest"--or tallest--girl (Camille), and the "smallest" girl (Kathleen). 

"Hey! WHAT is his mouth doing?" 

She finds laughing pictures especially funny. She wanted to know if Ben was laughing also, because she "couldn't see his eyes," so she "couldn't tell." 

She laughed really hard, and said, "You can't find each other." That made me laugh too, then I explained to her that we were lost in the picture and that's why we were doing that pose. She asked where it was that we were at and how many times we'd been there. When I told her it was Ben's yard, she was so incredulous. "You got lost at his house??" When I told her we were just pretending to be lost, she asked me, "You LIED?  You're not lost?" It was so funny. 

She had to show "Aunt Deanne" how "Charly was being the cow." Even though she was there, evidenced by that fact that she's in the picture. She's such a funny little girl. 

She thought it was hilarious that I had "paint all over my face." Then she was very concerned about how I got it to come off. 

"Hey! You have pizza!" 

Makayla really enjoys looking through my pictures with me, and her favorite thing when we do so is to "find Charly," or other people she knows in the picture (and especially herself). This one threw her for a loop though. She couldn't figure out which one was me.

She laughed when she saw this one, because we were "sleeping." When I told her we were just pretending, she laughed and pointed to the pillow behind Ben's head, saying he had "fluffy hair." She laughed and laughed at that. 

"What in the world?? How is he doing that?" to Ben being upside down. She went through and pointed to the other three of us, saying in turn, "I can do that," and then pointed at Ben again, saying she couldn't. Less than five minutes later, though, she was insisting she could and wanted to show me. 

She wanted to know how we were upside down, until she figured out that it was the camera that was upside down and not us. 

This picture is probably the one she laughed the hardest at, just because of Barbara's face. She thought it was absolutely the funniest thing she had ever seen, I think. 

She liked this picture because she was in it. Then she went through the faces that each of us was making in it and made those faces. It was very cute.

She was in such a silly mood, but we laughed really hard at times. I sure love that little girl. 

TWO letters today ..

I think that I have been doing a lot better at keeping my blog updated as of this last week. And I want to keep that up! I think my visit to see my friend from dance in Provo helped motivate me; we talked a lot about our blogs. Well, hers, since I hadn't even looked at mine for probably two months.

And so, even though it's pretty late, I wanted to very quickly write on here about a wonderful thing that happened today--I got two letters! From two of my best friends who are currently out serving missions. One was a package thing from Jeremy. The other was the first letter I've gotten from Christian Kerr. It was the first because, well, I just recently sent him a letter, despite him already being out for quite a while. I definitely could do better at writing to my friends who are out.

That's it. The rest of my day was boring. I went to school, then went straight to work. And now I'm going to bed. Finally.

Some weeks .. end with Sunday.

This week was very, very hard for me. I seemed to have a lot of trials, and most all of them were my fault. Which did not help make me feel better about them. But, then, I was very blessed with a very wonderful Sunday. Can I just say, I love Sundays? I really do. I think they're my favorite day of the week. Yesterday was an especially great one!

It started off with church, of course. I am one of the most blessed girls I know. One of my huge blessings is my ward. The ward we live in is so full of love, it chokes me up at times. The lessons were great, just what I needed and I felt the renewed sense of motivation to be better this week than I was this past one.

Then, I came home and spent time with my family. My family is another one of those huge blessings I have. It was wonderful to be with them for that time.

I had an appointment with the stake president as well. I am finished with my papers now! All I have to do now is ... wait. Hopefully not for too long. But the meeting with President Baer was wonderful. He taught me a lot about the scriptures and church history that I didn't know before and I felt light as air coming out of his office.

And then, I had a date. It was actually the first date that I had planned (as opposed to just being asked out) since my break up with Ben. I was so excited all week for it! And, it proved to be as great as I was hoping it would be. The people there were so great, all of them, and we had a BLAST. We just goofed off basically the whole time. We went to my grandparent's basement, where we had dinner, played games, made brownies (hooray!) and watched the Joseph Smith movie. We really had so much fun. I haven't been on a date that fun for a very long time.

We're cute. These girls, they're just my best friends at work. They're crazy. I'm not kidding. But I love them anyways. 

Poor Ashley got pushed over and fell off her chair. Hahaha. 

Aaaaww. 

Sometimes, Quinn just likes to sit on people. And Taylor, apparently.

Here we are, just chilling on the floor.

This picture. Oh my. 

We're just being fat. From all the brownies. Of course.

When I got home, I sat down to email Jeremy and it was late enough that he was on!! And I got to talk to my cousin. That was probably the best blessing of the whole day. I sure miss him, but he is doing wonderful things in Finland and soon, I'll be out too. That thought fills me with so much excitement! 

I love my family, I love Jeremy. I am so grateful for all the wonderful people the Lord has blessed me with, and for the Gospel. This week was hard, but it ended with a most beautiful Sunday. My heart is full.

An Answered Prayer

So I'm updating my blog twice in less than a week. I know. Crazy. For right now it is, anyways.

I just wanted to share something that happened to me yesterday. Yesterday was a hard day for me. This week has actually been a toughy for me. I'm not sure why. I have just felt very frustrated with a lot of things and then frustrated that I was feeling frustrated. But yesterday was particularly bad. I got home from work and worked on some things that I needed to, but I felt like I didn't get enough done and also, I just wanted to go .. I don't know. On a date or something. But. I didn't. Because I had a ton to do and also, no boy.

Well, I was feeling lousy when my brother and I went to the temple. It was nice, but I couldn't do baptisms this week and as I was sitting in the chapel, watching my brother do his baptisms, I felt very .. lonely. I was missing people. A lot. And I was feeling discouraged for not being able to overcome certain things in my life, things I have been trying very hard to overcome. And I said to Heavenly Father, just in my mind, I need something. I don't know what. Just something.

I was expecting maybe a Facebook message or text or something. I wasn't sure. We came out of the temple; I checked my phone, Facebook, etc. Nothing. Then, as I was getting something to eat, Jon came downstairs with his Ipad. Jon and I both really like Mormon Messages and often share with each other new ones that we find. He had this one to show to me last night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr8xvw0cgw0&list=PL295254BDC885BDB5&index=6&feature=plpp_video

It was exactly what I needed to hear. It was the something that I told Heavenly Father I needed. Jon was such an answer to my prayer.

God knows what He wants me to be. He loves me, I know that. Sometimes it's hard to see that He has something great planned for me, because I have no idea what that great thing is. But, I do have faith in Him, and I know that He will help me in my life always. I just have to take the correction He gives me, and follow His path.

So. I'm going on a mission.

My papers are done and filled out. I have an appointment with the bishop Wednesday and can hopefully talk to the stake president next Sunday. It's crazy to think that I'm going. Actually going. Every time I think about it, it .. I don't even know what to think. But I also get this really excited, happy feeling. I know this is right. 

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/welcome-to-conference?lang=eng

I'm sure you've all read this or seen this or heard this. Pretty much everyone is freaking out about it. And I have heard so many girls say that this was answer to their prayers. Well. I wanted to talk about my story with this for a minute, how it was an answer to my prayers and how the Lord has been preparing me for this for a long time. 

When I think of how many factors have gone into it, it blows my mind. I don't even know quite where to start. I guess I'll start by saying that I was not planning on a mission. When I was younger, I thought that a mission would be something I would want to do. Then I grew up a little and started liking boys a lot more and I honestly just wanted to get married. I didn't want to leave when I was twenty-one. When I got home, I'd then be twenty-three and, even though I know that's still young, it seems really old to me. There were a lot of things in my life that made me think that a mission, as good as it would be, just wasn't for me. But the Lord knew better and He helped me out by getting me ready for this. 

First of all, one of the big reasons, as I said before, that I didn't think I would go is because I really wanted to get married. When I was in high school, I really just wanted to be with someone. I don't really know how to explain the feeling, but I'm sure everyone has felt that before at some point. I think it is a natural and good desire, to want to love and be loved by someone. I understood that I should wait for high school to be finished first, plus I was dating my hundred guys. However, I did not see how I could possibly make it five years without finding someone and getting married. I didn't want to wait that long. 

I also was very worried about the timing of it with Jeremy and his mission. If I left right when I turned twenty one, I might leave before Jeremy got home and then have to go almost four years without seeing him. That was just about the most unappealing thought out there. Two years is long enough. Two and a half years (as it now will be) is pushing it. Any more than that and it just does not seem like a very good thing at all to me. I miss that kid so much, I can hardly stand it at times. 

So. The timing works better if I can leave right now. I will get home just six months after Jeremy and will be only twenty-one. The Lord has blessed me, as well, to now be okay single in my life. That sounds a little silly, but it's very true. At any other time, even just a week before, I don't think I would have been as willing to go out when they announced the age change. When I was in high school, I just wanted to fall in love. I wanted it badly. Then my first year of college, I did just that. Right after my boyfriend and I broke up, however, I still don't think I would have been ready to go. I had to go through a process of figuring some things out and being truly happy again. The timing of it was perfect. 

Another thing I keep thinking about is how the Lord has put things in my life to prepare for this perfectly. I already had gotten my wisdom teeth out as a Junior, so I didn't have to worry about that. I haven't ever had any major problems with surgery or sickness. I haven't had anything in my life that would stop or slow the process at all. I have some student loans from last year that I need to pay off before I leave, but even in that respect, the Lord has blessed me tremendously. This past summer, all my plans for my life (particularly my plans for this year) all just sort of broke apart. I have to admit, I was not happy about this. I liked my plans. I was a little heart broken to see them not work out. But it turned out better. I was able to live at home this semester, going to SLCC for school. It allowed me to save up money which I can put towards my student loans, kept me from needing to take out any more loans, and let me keep my job which is still earning me money to put towards my loans and to put away in savings. 

In regards to the student loans, the Lord has allowed me with another blessing, another way to pay it off no matter how soon I leave. Last summer, I had a 2003 blue Mitsubishi Lancer that I absolutely adored. And it adored me back. It was such a great car; I wanted to drive it for the rest of my life. And then, some lady ran a red light and .. it was totaled. Really badly. As in, the estimation to fix it was 7,000 dollars. Definitely not worth it. So, we got rid of it and eventually (after a lot of headache) our wonderful home teacher sold me the car I drive now, for the best deal I could ever have asked for. That was a huge blessing in my life. At the time, I felt that it was a big trial to me; I loved my car and it caused me a lot of worry and stress. My grandpa gave me a blessing, in which he promised I would see this as a blessing someday, despite how hard it was for me at the present. My grandma reiterated this later, promising me that I would see blessings in the long run. I've often wondered about that, and kept a lookout for those blessings. Now I am seeing them. I can sell the car I have now, to be debt free and able to serve a mission. I know that if I had my blue car still, I would never sell it. I would have someone keep it for me until I got home from my mission. If that was the case, though, I would be a lot more worried about money right now. I would not be able to be starting my papers, because I would need to first figure out how I could pay off the student loans. What a blessing to me that I have been able to drive this car for the past year and a half and now am able to use it to enable me to serve the Lord! 

And then this summer happened. This summer was not what I expected at all, but it turned out to be FULL of blessings. The biggest of which was, how close Jon and I got. Both Jon and I were having a rough summer and we were able to be there for each other. The way the Lord prepared us for that is a whole other  story, longer almost than this already-forever-long-blog-post. But, Jon and I started doing different things together. We started running, early every morning. We went off TV shows, movies, video games, processed sugar, meat for the most part, a lot of animal products. We got chickens and built a chicken coop. We wanted to eat healthy and got way into healthy living. We tried to find ways to serve our ward and bring them closer together. We started working on this project of gathering family stories, particularly from our grandparents. We decided we wanted to memorize hymns and scriptures and quotes, all sorts of things. We were doing it all together, which not only brought us very close, but made it easier; and Jon was definitely better at most of it than I was. It was great though. We both needed something to get us through the hard times we were having and what we did together was perfect. Then one day, we got thinking that a lot of the stuff we were doing would be great preparation for a mission. Before the age change, if we both went on missions, we would have left at the same time since I'm two years older than him. So, we made it official and started preparing for a mission, even attending mission prep classes despite how young we were. We went to mission prep all summer. When we heard about the age change, we could not believe it. This is probably the biggest way the Lord has prepared both my brother and I for missions, much earlier than we were anticipating. 

There is still a lot I need to do, in a small amount of time. I feel like I should have been studying harder and learning about the gospel more my whole life, even with the little helps the Lord has blessed me with. However, I have not felt this right about something in a very long time. I know that this is the right thing for my life right now and I also know that, even after all the things the Lord has done for me already, He will continue to bless me as I do this. And for that, my heart is full of gratitude.