I hate being pore, but other than that life's good

Life's been busy, but life's been good. Last week took forever, but yesterday was great. I went running for the first time since winter began. The weather was beautiful! I so wanted to have a picnic, but had no one to picnic with. But if it is warm again this week, I am so going on a picnic. Yesterday I also made brownies and then went on a group date to see Wreck it Ralph. That movie is adorable! It was my first time seeing it. So cute and creative. Nothing very exciting other than that happened this week besides taking three midterms and working twice. I work so little hours it's quite ridiculous, but at least I get to eat really good food after most shifts. So long as there is food, I eat as much as I possibly can after work.

I am getting really tired of being pore. I'm sick of it. I've decided I never want to be pore again. I don't care about owning nice things, or living in a nice house, or owning a nice car, or buying expensive clothing. I don't care about any of that. I am just sick and tired of not being able to afford groceries. It was either Monday or Tuesday, I realized that I was still over a hundred dollars short for paying rent, and when I went to my cupboard, once again, all I had to eat was pasta. Pasta is not bad, but I had been eating nothing but pasta for the past couple of days, and I was sick of it and really wanted to go buy some food, but I didn't even have money to pay rent. And so I started to stress out and panic. I can not tell you how many times I have done this this semester, where I go to my cupboard, see the small amount of edible food, and start to panic.

I think something is wrong with me. Last semester I came to the realization that grocery shopping stresses me out. Well eating now stresses me out. I continue to eat, probably far more than I should, but every time I do (with the exception of pasta because I have plenty of it) I feel intense guilt, because once I consume that food item, I no longer own it. That's probably why I pig out after work, because I know that the food will just be thrown away if it's not eaten, and food has become more valuable to me than anything. I know, I know, it's a stupid way of looking at food. Sooner or later, it has to be consumed, and it's not a sin to eat food, but I still can't stop thinking "I shouldn't have eaten that. I should be stretching out my food, make it last longer, because soon I'm going to run out again."

It's a very unhealthy way of looking at life, and this is why I have decided I hate being pore and never want to be pore again. Anyways, that same day I panicked when I realized all I had to eat once again was pasta, I called my parents, they put money in my account, and I finally went grocery shopping for the first time since I don't know when. Occasionally, I'll go buy one or two items, but as I have said, shopping stresses me out, so I usually wait until my parents can buy groceries for me. It was one of the most liberating feelings! To be able to go to the store and say, okay there is money in my account, so I don't need to feel guilty. I can buy food and not stress about it. I have felt so much better ever since. Even with work and quizzes and midterms and papers, I am a lot happier knowing that when I come home, there is food in my fridge.

So usually I post something inspirational I have learned in my college journeying. Well, I learned that I hate being pore. Yep, let that inspire you. Other than that, besides being super busy with school, life has been good. I'm making friends, friends in my classes, friends in my ward, and friends at work. I'm getting super excited for my mission. And I am considering switching my major to Human Development after all since all of the classes I want to take are human development classes, rather than classes about the family.

That is my life. It is crazy and I am crazy, but it is a good life.

My reaction to my call

So I have had a lot of people ask me what my reaction was upon receiving my mission call. I think people wonder this mainly because of the fact that I am going to Salt Lake City. One girl told me sorry that I was going there, and if she had been called to Salt Lake, she would have cried. Well I've been thinking about it, and if someone would be unwilling to serve somewhere just because it is close to home, then they aren't serving for the right reasons. Serving a mission is not about seeing a new country or new culture. It is about leaving the Ninety and nine and finding the One lost sheep. Yes Salt Lake is close to home, and yes it is known for its large Mormon population, but there are still lost sheep there and they have every much of a need to be found as those in Europe or South America. That is what I am doing on my mission. Finding and bringing home the One lost sheep.

So what was my reaction when I read my mission call? It was this:

Am I excited? Yes. I am excited to share the gospel that I love with my neighbors. I am excited to learn Spanish. I am excited to share the Plan of Salvation. I am excited to the serve the Lord, and I am excited that the Lord has a plan for me and it includes the people of Salt Lake.

Well this is a short post, but here are some pictures of when I opened my mission call.

Baby Enoch is not camera shy. He loves getting his picture taken. So cute!

Friends and family waiting anxiously for me to open my mission call

Not the greatest picture of me, but here is me preparing to open my call.

Me with baby Enoch. He really thought the cameras should be on him and did not complain when I let him be in this picture with me.

My cousin Samantha and my Aunt Teresa on the phone with my cousin Kristin, narrating my every move as I open my mission call.

Finally Receiving my Mission Call and what I learned

Well I finally have my mission call :) Utah Salt Lake City West Mission, Spanish speaking. I leave May 22.

So last Friday, after going to a mission call opening for a friend, my excitement over the mission call returned.  The week began and I had a strong feeling that this would be the week that I would open my mission call. And everything seemed to be working out. I wasn't scheduled to work at all that weekend, yet the next week (this week) I would have a lot of work that I really can't afford to be getting out of. (I'm broke) So it just seemed perfect that my mission call should come that week and I could go home to Vegas to open it. However, that Sunday was Stake Conference, so I never saw my Bishop to ask him if my call was on its way. In a way, I was afraid of making any plans to travel to Vegas until I knew for sure I had my mission call, but there was no way of knowing. But I kept feeling I was going to open it this week. Finally I decided to take a leap of faith and assume it was coming, and plan on coming down to Vegas that weekend. Not long after, my mom asked my Bishop if my call was in the mail. He said it had been assigned the previous Friday but had received no confirmation that it was in the mail.

I was crushed when I found out. Week after week it kept being put off, and finally it felt like I would be getting this week, only to be told that it wasn't coming. I was perplexed. If they assigned it last Friday, why didn't they put in the mail? What are they doing with it? Holding on to it? I supposed that whatever feeling I had had all week was just my own wishful thinking, that it wasn't the Spirit telling me I was going to open my mission call this week. That's what hurt the most: thinking it was the Spirit, putting my faith in that, and that having that faith crushed.

Finally, after thinking it over, I decided to go home that weekend anyways, because I was out of food, and I really wanted to eat something other than peanut butter and plain pasta, as that was what I was eating for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

That night, after my parents had already gone to bed, my dad felt for some reason like he should go downstairs and check my mom's phone. He did and she had received a text from the bishop saying that he had just received confirmation that my mission call was in the mail. My mom immediately called me, and the moment she said that, I burst into sobbing tears. I think I scared my mom; she couldn't tell if I was happy or sad, or if I was even Celeste, because I went into hysterics, I was so relieved.

We figured that my call had been put in the mail that Wednesday, and so then the question was, would it make it to my house in time? Before going to bed, I read in the Book of Mormon about having a trial of your faith before experiencing miracles. Immediately I felt calm and decided to just have faith that my call would make it to my house in time for me to read it this weekend.

Well the very next day it showed up in the mail at my parents house. Which means it had to have been put in the mail much earlier than Wednesday. I was so excited. I knew with all my heart that I HAD felt the Spirit earlier that week telling me I would open my call this week, and I no longer had any doubts that that would happen.

Friday rolled along, the day Lexi and I planned to drive home...and it started to snow. Lexi was pretty nervous, but I was very calm. I knew we were going to make it home and I was going to open my mission call. And we did make it home safely.

So Saturday night my family came over, we ate really good tri-tip, friends and neighbors came over, and I opened my mission call. It was pretty unexpected. Salt Lake City. My dad guessed temple square, so pretty close. Everyone keeps laughing though that I am only going 45 minutes away from where I currently live. But I know this is where the Lord wants me to be, and I am excited to learn Spanish as I have been wanting and trying to learn Spanish for many years now.

And well, now I am back in school, in the middle of midterms and it's kind of daunting the amount of work I have to do this week. But I'll get it done. Because that is what I have learned throughout this, is that I have to have faith before God will show His power and give his miracles. I have also learned that I can recognize the Spirit, and I have to have faith both in myself, in my ability to feel and recognize the Spirit, and in the Lord that he will keep His promises.

Questioning my sanity right about now

I am doing so much better. I've still got a cough, but I don't expect that to go away for a long time. Still don't have the mission call yet. Crossing my fingers that next week will be the lucky week. At this point, I've kind of lost my excitement over the mission call to be honest. After waiting so long, I'm no longer thrilled. Just like, whatever, it'll come eventually. I've got this feeling like it's just never going to come. Like I'll just keep being told, not this week, next week. But not next week, the week after. And not the week after, but maybe three months from now. My Dad told me "don't worry, it'll come. It's like Christmas. You think it will never come, but then it does." Yeah, but Christmas has a deadline. You can't keep pushing Christmas back. Whereas my mission call is 3 weeks late and still not here.

On the bright side, the snow is melting! We are finally in the 30s and it is beautiful! Blue skies! I am SO glad for the warm weather, and the fact that I am feeling a lot better, and I got two letters in the mail today. I just took a test for Human Development, and had the odd experience of my score failing to show up on the screen, and questioning my sanity, wondering whether I had either forgotten my ID number, or somehow it showed up but I missed it. I seriously stood there for a long time wondering whether I had memory problems or vision problems. I finally went back up to ask why my score never showed up, and after a couple minutes of searching, they finally found my test and realized that it hadn't been scanned. Good thing I went back and checked or I might not have gotten a score for that test!

I am entering the midst of midterms, yet I'm really not freaking out about it like I usually do. I'm just taking them one at a time. Oh, and speaking of my Human Development class, it is absolutely fascinating! I cannot stress how awesome I think it is. I like to call my mom and tell her pretty much the entire lecture (even though the majority is stuff she already knows being a nurse) because I can't get over how cool it is. Like babies are built in with the ability to walk - walking is a reflex! I did not know that! What babies have to learn is how to balance their weight, that's why walking is difficult. And when babies are born, they can't see very well, only like 8-10 inches away from their face, which coincidentally is about the distance from your face to your arms if you are holding the baby. That's so cool! Haha I seriously could talk all day about human development. I kind of wish I could switch my emphasis to Human Development, but we were told in our Intro to SFL class that there's not much you can do with Human Development other than become a professor, which I don't want to do, so I'm probably just going to stick with Family Studies.

So yesterday, I was having intense sugar cravings. Like really really strong. Nothing sounded even remotely good, but bread and sugar. Finally, I gave in to my cravings and made sugar cookie dough. And ate it. Not all of it, but a good portion. Yes, I made sugar cookie dough just to eat it. I had no intentions of cooking that dough. I am so unhealthy. A little while later, I decided to weigh myself, since eating that much cookie dough is so unhealthy. Just to make sure the scale was accurate, I used three different scales. And they all told me the same thing. In two weeks, I have lost roughly 6 pounds. And no, I have not been trying. Well that explains the sugar cravings! I don't feel so bad about eating all that cookie dough now.

Well, today's my sister Allison's birthday, so I am going to get off so I can call her and wish her a happy birthday. Then I am going to go watch a mission call opening for one of my good friends Amber. Ta ta!

On the road to recovery

Well I am getting better. I am so bored of being in my apartment. I'm totally well enough that I could be around people, but most of my friends live a little too far for me to walk still. I walked to the Creamery last night. That was a terrible experience. I think I will have to wait one more week before I make an hour-long walking trip to my friends. If only the roads and sidewalks weren't covered in ice, I might be able to use my bicycle, but I fear that might be dangerous.

Speaking of ice, we had a ton of that on Thursday. If you are a fellow BYU student reading this, you will know exactly what I mean, but to my family from the desert, let me try to explain to you the anomaly that was freezing rain. It was below freezing...yet it was raining. I am quite used to having it snow and then melt as soon as it touches the ground, but this was the opposite. It was raining, and as soon as it touched the ground, it froze. Every sidewalk was covered in a layer of ice. BYU was a giant ice skating rink. We had no friction. And in case you didn't already know, I have to walk 30 minutes to get to school. But Thursday it took me an hour and a half to get to class (I was SO late). I was slipping and sliding all over the place. I fell three times, and the third time was the worst. Utah just loves to have these underground parking lots underneath apartment buildings with SUPER steep driveways. Well I slipped at the top of once of those, landed pretty painfully on my hip, my hat and umbrella went flying (for the third time), and I founding myself sliding down the driveway. I flipped over to my hands and knees and dug my fingers into the ground, trying to find something to hold on to, but there was nothing and there was no friction. I slid, crying from landing on my hip, all the way to the bottom. And then I was stuck down there. Because the ice was so slippery, I couldn't get back up the driveway! I hugged the wall trying to pull myself up the driveway as my feet continued to slide everywhere. A man came and helped me out of there, retrieved my umbrella and hat, and saw me safely to the street where there was less ice. Looking back, I now find it hilarious, but at the time I was in pain and I was still very sick from the flu. I had a paper due that day, and so I knew I had to go to school, but I still did not feel well enough to leave my apartment. Luckily, a woman gave me a ride to campus after that third fall.

I'm doing better now, but I am recovering very slowly. My body has started this sort of coughing that sounds like I am wheezing and honestly it sounds like I am barely coughing at all, but in truth I am coughing as hard as I possibly can. But there simply isn't enough force behind the cough to get the fluid out of my lungs. And yet, my body continues to try. So I cough...and I cough...and I don't stop coughing...and I don't get any relief...ALL NIGHT LONG!

But really I am doing better, I'm just complaining because I am tired of being sick. I want to be well already!

I made a most interesting connection the other day. So I haven't had much of an appetite all week. For a while I couldn't taste anything, and even now I still really don't have an appetite. And so I ate very very little for quite a few days in a row. Originally, the only thing that sounded good was bread. I craved a sandwich. And then I started craving fruit. And then I really started wanting cookies. Cookies, brownies, ice cream...any sort of sugar would do...but I didn't have any. And I figured it's unhealthy anyways. So I continued to starve myself. Then I saw something online that reminded me that when you starve yourself, your metabolism slows and your body really needs energy in the form of carbs. That's when I stopped and went "wait a second. Bread? Fruit? Cookies? I've been craving carbs all week. Oh. I think it's about time I ate something." So yep that was my brilliant discovery. Sometimes I amaze myself...mostly that I could be so stupid.

And that was my week. The take home message is don't starve yourself, and watch out for frozen sidewalks.
The end.

Back to School Again, Except for Today

Since I have been in bed all day, I guess now is the perfect time to update the blog. This semester looks like it will be better than last semester. I am taking Mission Prep, New Testament, Strengthening Marriage and Family, Statistics, Ballroom Dance, Intro to SFL, and Human Development. My Human Development class has really got me thinking. I want to work with children, and I'm starting to wonder if maybe Human Development is a little closer to what I am interested in than Family Studies. It would still be the same major  (Family Life), just a different emphasis. Obviously I just started the course, so I don't want to jump to any conclusions yet, but it's got me wondering.

I'm definitely staying within the Family Life major though. I feel very confident about that. Last Friday I had my first class for Intro to SFL (School of Family Life) and I felt so strongly that I had chosen the right major. The speaker told us that if you ask anyone, "in sixty years, looking back at your life, what would you consider a successful life?" the majority of people will first think of their family and close relationships. In the church we are taught that the family is essential to God's plan and (besides Christ himself) is the most important thing in the church. The speaker than told us "So congratulations on choosing to study the most important thing in the world." That's when it really hit me. After all this time of considering pretty much every major out there, I felt the Spirit tell me "you have chosen well."

Last week was very fun. My FHE brother Mark came up to visit us one day. It was so great to see him. Our FHE brother Kenny sent us a picture of his first baptism with the captioning "The definition of SWAG." And our FHE brother Drew sent us a Christmas card, which is his first form of contact with us since he left a year ago. On Friday, I got to spend time and sleep over at my Spring Term roommates' apartment. We watched like 4 hours of "Say Yes to the Dress" and also watched Peter Pan. It was awesome.

My mission call has been temporarily postponed, but I'm hoping I'll get it in two weeks. I should have gotten it this week, so that's disappointing, but now that I am sick, I guess a trip down to Vegas this weekend to open the call wouldn't have been the most fun thing. I've been lying in bed most of the day. Yesterday I started to feel like I might be getting sick, but my symptoms weren't very clear. I felt chilled all day, and my body felt sore all over, and I just felt kind of icky, but other than that, there didn't seem to be anything really wrong with me. Then that evening I started to get a headache and a fever. The headache was mild though, and the fever didn't last too long, so I figured whatever I had, I would be better soon. And then I went to bed.

Last night was one of the worsts night I have ever had. I woke up every hour, sometimes multiple times an hour, because my body temperature kept fluctuating. Even though I had my electric blanket on, I woke up the first time curled in a ball shivering very hard, unable to sleep because I was so dang cold. I turned my electric blanket on to the highest level, put on my house coat, and fell back asleep, still shivering. An hour later, I woke up covered in sweat. My body temperature had dropped. So I turned down my electric blanket, took off my house coat, fell back asleep, only to wake up an hour later freezing again. This lasted all night long. By morning, I had an intense headache and my legs and back really hurt. I've been taking Motrin so for the majority of the day I haven't felt too bad, it's just when the medicine wears off that my fever comes back.

Even with being sick however, I still experience little blessings in my life. Yesterday I was running late for school, when someone offered to give me a ride to campus. Such a blessing! And my Relief Society President brought me a very delicious brownie when she found out I was sick. And I am ever so glad that my sister Kimberly gave me a Massaging Body Roll for Christmas because that helped the muscles in my legs to not be so tight.

Well, I've run out of things to say, so I'll end here and wish you all that you don't get sick.

Happy New Years!

My vacation is pretty much over. I leave for Provo tomorrow morning. I really hope this next semester is better than last semester. These last three weeks have been lovely, exciting, fun, and full of love. The first week of break I worked on my mission papers. That was a whole lot of needles. You know how this summer I discovered that I have a fear of needles when I went to have my wisdom teeth pulled? Well that fear resurfaced again, and I almost fainted while getting my tuberculosis skin test. I say almost because I could still hear, I was still conscious, but I blacked out and I went limp, so I pretty much fainted. After that I was terrified of the following shots and blood tests I had to go through that week. But luckily, I was able to get through them with no more fainting spells.

The next week was of course Christmas. My sisters and their families came over for Christmas Eve, and then we went to my sister's house for Christmas. Then two days later we left for Florida. We spent the first day in Epcot, which we all enjoyed a lot. It was fun to say "We're off to Mexico! And then we'll go to China. It's right next door!" The next day we went to Universal Studios, where we spent the majority of the day in Harry Potter World. It was truly amazing. Extremely packed, but magical nonetheless. I took pictures of pretty much every inch of that place. I drank butterbeer and bought myself a wand. The rest of the day, I proceeded to cast numerous spells on my family and the people around me.

Sunday was hilarious. The plan was to drive to my sister's hotel, pick her and her husband up and go to a church that was near them. Unfortunately, we got lost. Pretty badly. By the time we got to the church...church was over. The only thing going on was the Spanish branch's Sunday School. Well at least we tried.

New Years Eve was in the Magic Kingdom. The majority of the day was happy and magical with the whole family smiling and laughing. But having woken up at 6 in the morning (which would be 3:00 Vegas Time), by 11:00 pm we were exhausted and getting cranky. But it was exciting to count down in Magic Kingdom and watch the amazing firework show. It was the most exciting New Years Eve any of us has ever had. We spent New Years in the Animal Kingdom, and the following day in Hollywood Studios. Finally yesterday, before we flew home, we went to Gatorland, which was really cool. The gators were huge and ugly and I got to feed and play tug-of-war with a giant tortoise as it tried to eat the stick in my hand.

And well, I'm in Vegas again, watching Aladdin. It was a great week, and starting tomorrow, it's back to reality. : ( Well at least I got three wonderful weeks of much needed vacation. Happy New Years Everyone!