Drawing an end to the Summer

Well it's my last week (or rather half a week) in Vegas. I leave to go back to Provo on Wednesday. My mom and I staid at my grandma's house in Lompoc, California for two weeks. It was beautiful there. I went running all the time, even in the middle of the day, and didn't have to worry about the heat. I am no longer training for a triathlon, I am training for a half marathon, and I managed to run 7 miles, so about half way to my goal. My family and I then spent a week in San Diego. That was a blast. We visited Old Town the first day. The second day we rented and rode bikes to the Aquarium at Scripp's and my sister and I splashed in the ocean that night. Wednesday we went to Sea World. Thursday we went kayaking and snorkeling, and that evening my family and I went to the San Diego Temple. And then Friday we went to the San Diego Zoo. It was such a fun vacation. We were all very disappointed to come home to hot and ugly Vegas.
And now the summer is already over and I'm about to start school again. I am very excited to go back, but I am also kind of weary of how busy I know I will be. I am taking 16 and a half credits, and I will be starting a job with BYU Catering, I want to keep exercising and training for the half marathon, and I would still like to have a social life.
Coming home has been good for me. I really did learn more about myself just by coming home. I'm starting to realize the effect I have on people, and how I can influence people to do good. So many people need me in their lives I'm realizing. I realize that there were people in my life that fell away, that made wrong choices, and I never said anything because I didn't want to hurt their feelings. But now they are gone from my life. I could have said something to them, and I probably wouldn't have really changed them, but I could have set them thinking in the right direction. I don't know if that really makes any sense to any one else, but I guess I've just never really thought about how much I affect people, or how much I could affect people if I opened my mouth more.
I need to be a role model for my siblings, but also for my cousins, and the younger girls in our ward. I know that my coming home for the summer has been a blessing to my mom, that it really helped her. I love my family so much, and I am so glad that I got to spend the summer with them. And now I am going to go spend some time with my mom, since this is my last Sunday at home with her.

Beautiful California

Guess where I am? Lompoc, California! It is so beautiful here. It's in the seventies. My grandma just had surgery so my mom and I are here to help her. We got here Monday. Yesterday I helped my aunt set up her classroom, and today I ran six miles. 'Twas quite an accomplishment for me. I can no longer do the triathlon I was going to do, so instead I am going to do my first half marathon. It's going to be hard, but now that I am in an environment where I can actually exercise outside, I am going to be training every day for it. I really want to push myself and become good at running. Throughout my life, I participated in lots of activities and sports. I never did any of them for very long, but I think that was good for me. It made me well-rounded. I would get good at something and then decide I was ready to try something new, develop a new skill. Well now I feel I am ready to try something new, and that is a half-marathon. So a good portion of my time here in California is going to be training, utilizing the good weather while I can. I will be in Cali for three weeks. Two weeks in Lompoc, and one week in San Diego.

Last Thursday, my friend Lexi and I drove up to St. George and we spent a day in Zion on Friday. We did three different short hikes, and then on Saturday we drove up to Provo to see some friends. We stayed at our old roommate Alicia's house. It was so nice to see her. We had so much fun. I am sad that we won't be rooming together again in the Fall, but we fully plan to see each other all the time. We also saw another friend Daniel and then went to a missionary farewell for our friend Michael. It was great to see them and just hang out and eat good food. Lexi and I were very sad to say goodbye.

I am excited for the Fall because I now know people at college that I can go visit when I want a break from studying. It will be very different from last year, as I am staying in a real apartment and with all new people, and I will probably be super busy again with 16 1/2 credits and a job, but I am very excited to go to King Henry. I am even ready to start classes again. Not ready for the homework load, but I always enjoyed going to my classes. I like learning.

Well I am going to go outside and enjoy more of this beautiful weather. Ciao!

Summer Days

Days go by pretty slowly in Vegas. It is so dang hot out. I don't know what temperature it is today, but for a couple days it was 115 degrees out. We don't dare venture outside during the day because of the heat. I teach swim lessons in the morning and the rest of the day is spent indoors, cleaning, watching movies, scrapbooking, or reading, until it's dark and I can go on a walk or run. Yesterday my sisters, mom, and I went ice skating. I got a real good work out then. I used to ice skate back in high school, and I was getting pretty advanced, but I haven't skated in years, so it was really nice to push myself to go faster and faster and to practice my jumps and spins. I was never very good at spins, but I used to be really good at jumps so it made me sad when I could only remember how to do two different jumps. My arms are all scratched up, my knees are bruised, and I've got a blister on my toe, but I don't care. It was so much fun to get back on the ice.
I've gotten used to being home. I miss BYU and my friends, but it's definitely nice to not have a busy schedule and lots of homework. Next Thursday, my friend Lexi and I are going up to St. George and spending a couple days in Zion national park and then we are going to go up to Provo to see some friends and a missionary farewell. Then the day after we get back, my mom and I are driving to Lompoc, California to see my grandma. I'm going to be spending a lot of time in the car. But my mom and I are thinking about taking a detour to San Diego and maybe Los Angeles on the way. That will be fun.
Well I have been trying to train for my triathlon. Occasionally I will wake up early to go running or bike riding. But unless you want to wake up at 5 am, you really can't do anything outside in this heat.By 8am we are already in the 100s. It's a good thing my triathlon is a short one, because I am not getting very much practice in. I'm debating whether or not to go running tonight. I don't like the idea of running in the dark, especially in Las Vegas, but I can't go during the day. Hmmm...
I got an infection where they took out one of my wisdom teeth. Lucky me. Everything was going great. After two weeks of intense pain, I no longer had chipmunk cheeks, I could eat normally, and the pain had been reduced to a dull ache. Then I woke up one morning and my left side of my jaw looked like I had a golf ball in it and I was in intense pain. The dentist ordered me some more Loratabs, but unfortunately, they upped the prescription, and so when I took a whole one like I usually did (instead of half of one which I was meant to have taken) I got extremely sick. When I finally went into the dentist office, I must have looked either really sick or really loopy. They said I had an infection and gave me antibiotics. On the way home though, the Loratabs were making me feel even more sick. I almost passed out as I came in the house. My brother helped me lie down on the couch and I slept for a long time. My mom gave me my antibiotics and then I slept some more. That night I only took half of a Loratab.
Since I have been taking the antibiotics though, the pain and swelling has gone significantly down, to which I am very grateful. In a way its a shame that that bottle of Loratabs went to waste as after the first day I didn't need them any more, but I am also glad that I no longer have to experience that horrible nauseous feeling nor the pain I had in my jaw.
Well, that's all I have to write about. My days really just haven't been that interesting. But maybe soon I will have more to share.

Hurray for the Red White and Blue!

Happy Fourth of July! This was a really great Fourth of July. It is one of my favorite holidays. I have so many great memories of Fourth of July's. There is the memory of lighting sparklers on my nana's trampoline. The summer my mom made a bunch of fourth of July crowns and we went around door to door selling them. The Fourth of July in Lompoc with my extended family, watching the fireworks display and playing at the carnival. And then the many Fourth of July's where I like to ride my bike, no matter how hot it gets. Here in Vegas, July is the hottest month, and so it is usually blistering hot outside. But no matter how hot it is, I realized that it has kind of become a tradition for me to ride my bike of the Fourth of July. I haven't done it every year, but I have several memories of doing it when I was younger. I liked to ride my bike around my neighborhood, just smelling the barbecue and other smells of summer.

Today I realized that I kind of picked up that tradition again. Our stake was having a Fourth of July 5K run/bike ride early this morning. My mom, dad, and me were planning on riding our bikes for the 10K. So we headed out at 6:30 following all the other bikers. Little did we realize that we weren't in the race for the 10K, we were doing the 25 miles. I got ahead of my parents and was by myself, so I didn't have anybody to ask, but I kept thinking, surely we should be turning around soon. And then I passed the turn-off to Mt. Charleston. That's when I realized I had to have gone more than 10 miles and I STILL wasn't to the half-way point yet. And I hadn't eaten breakfast that morning...or drunken any water...and I didn't have any water with me...

I prayed that I would stay hydrated and I would reach the half-way point soon. I stayed in good spirits though. I kept giving myself a pep-talk the entire time and felt really great when I finally reached the half-way point. Thank goodness some other kids had stopped there too and so they gave me some Gatorade and water. Took a breather, and then I was on my way back. I met up with my dad and then he led me through a short-cut so I ended up only riding a little less than 23 1/2 miles instead of the full 25. It was the best work out ever! I really felt great afterwords. Sore, but so energized.

And then we went on a hike. Haha I sure got in my exercise today. We hiked big falls, but we didn't make it to the top because a boulder had fallen in the path. But it looked like the river and waterfall were dried up anyways, or at least only trickling, so it didn't matter and we had already had a pretty good hike, so we headed down. It was perfect timing too, because it started sprinkling on us, and just as we reached the bottom and got in our car was when it really started to rain. It's a shame it's raining here and not in Utah or Colorado where they really need it. The rain water will just sit on top of the ground and then evaporate and do us no good here.

Anyways, we got home and it was raining at home too, so I decided to go swimming in the rain. It was such a magical feeling. Then my family barbecued and ate lots of good food and then watched fireworks in the park. My nephew Hyrum was so cute running around flapping his arms in excitement at the fireworks. Later, we did sparklers, and my brother and I ran around in the park grass with the sparklers, spinning and jumping and yelling "Hurray for the Red, White, and Blue! Hurray for the Fourth of July!" just like little kids. I probably looked so silly, but I didn't care what people thought of me. We had fun and it's the Fourth of July so you are supposed to celebrate.

So basically, this was an awesome Fourth of July. Much better than last years which I spent at work as a lifeguard, wondering why in the world anybody would want to go swimming at night in an indoor pool when they could be watching fireworks outside. This year's was spent with family, fireworks, good food, good exercise, swimming in the rain, cool air, and overall just a magical feeling in the air.

And now I'm off to bed because I teach swim lessons in the morning. Happy Independence Day!

Home Again

I'm back in Vegas again. It was a hard decision to come home for summer term. But I decided I really needed a break from school, I was getting burnt-out, and by staying at school I wasn't really getting ahead. So we had finals last week, that wasn't too bad, and then my parents came and picked me up on Thursday. I realized then how much stuff I had as not all of it would fit in the car. Our car was completely stuffed, I felt like a pretzel, and we couldn't see each other, there was so much stuff in the way. But I am home now. My parents and my brother and I went to the temple on Saturday and we are going to try to go once a week, but since the Las Vegas temple will be closed for a month, we are going to drive up to St. George on Friday. I'm excited for that. Saturday we also went to my cousin's graduation party and a wedding reception. Sunday was Father's Day and it was nice to have good food and play games with my family again. I've also been reunited with my best friend Lexi and so we worked out together today. We are training for a triathlon.

It feels extremely weird being here though. I already miss Provo. I got here and it felt like waking up from a dream. For a little bit I wondered if Provo really happened, because everything was the same here. The sights, the sounds, even the smell of everything was the same. Like I had stepped into the past. It was so strange. I'm still not used to it. It's like, I've left that part of me behind, and I don't want to go back to it. I like it here, but I don't want to go back to the way I used to live, to the old Celeste. I learned so much in Provo. I felt like I became someone.

You see, at BYU, the majority of students go through an identity crisis for a period of time. Because you get there and those things that define you in high school-suddenly everyone has those. Everyone plays the piano, everyone's smart, everyone's friendly, everyone's spiritual. And you wonder "who is me? What makes me different?" And the beautiful thing is, you find out just what does make you different. The high school definitions are gone, and you really see who you are. You become someone. I realized that I am more than the shy girl who played the piano and got straight A's in high school. I realized that there is so much more to me than that, and I shouldn't limit myself to that definition of myself.

Not only that but I gained so much confidence in the process. I was always so scared of what people thought about me, but having roommates who were wild and crazy made me realize that the people who really matter in your life, your true friends, are the ones who don't care how weird you are. The more I acted myself around people, the more I realized that everyone has their own bit of crazy, their own weird, their own awkwardness, and so if someone can't get over my weird, then they just don't matter.

It took me a while to come to that conclusion winter semester, and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to be myself with my Spring term roommates. But right from the start, as soon as I met my roommate Ashley, I decided I wasn't going to care about what she thought, and I wasn't going to beat myself up every time I thought I said something stupid. I was just myself around her, and immediately we hit it off and became like sisters. I couldn't have asked for a better roommate.

So you see, I feel like I became someone at college. I have posted plenty of things that I have learned at college on the blog before. And now that I am home, I hope that I can just keep progressing, keep becoming the person I am supposed to be. I am looking at this as a new challenge: being able to face the past but not become the past.

With that, I shall end with Disney's famous and beautiful saying "keep moving forward." And to myself I say "welcome home."

My Testimony

Well lots have happened in the past two weeks. Midterms, ward activities, relief society activities, fire alarms, temple trips, running in the rain, drawing projects, spying on and making fun of EFY kids, preparing for a triathlon, getting a sunburn. Mostly all fun stuff, but nothing too terribly exciting to report about that anyone would be interested in. Except spying on the EFY kids was super fun. There was a little couple right outside our window and all of us were crowded around our window watching them awkwardly get closer and closer together, while we screamed at them to just kiss already. When they finally did, all of us cheered. It was SO funny. It's become our new favorite thing to do: creep on the EFY kids, naming them and narrating their week-long relationships.

Yesterday I was fed twice! Lunch at the Relief Society Activity, Dinner at the Ward Activity, and then today was fast Sunday, so no breakfast, and then there was a Break-the-Fast, so free lunch! I haven't had to make food for 4 meals in a row!

Spring semester is almost done. Only one more week of classes and then finals and then I move to Wyview for summer term. I'm starting to get pretty burned-out of school though. I so want a vacation. I like all of my classes, except for drawing, but I just really want to take a break. My drawing class isn't bad, but it's so boring! And my teacher really wasn't meant to be a teacher. Sure, he's a great artist, but he's not very good at teaching.

Yesterday I had a pretty weird dream. I don't really remember the beginning, and what I do remember doesn't make much sense (most of my dreams don't) so long story short, this man had captured me and I knew I was going to die, but I was calm. I knew without a doubt in the dream that I was about to go to my Heavenly Father. I knew that even if he killed me, I would simply be passing on. And I was struck with wonder in the dream, because I knew it with all my heart. I didn't die in the dream. I actually got away from the man. But that's not the point. I woke up and thought, "it's true. I do know that. With all my heart, I know that there is life after death, that I would go to the spirit world, and someday I would be with my family again."

I've always believed that, but I remember times when I've said my prayers late at night and not felt like anyone was listening. I believed, but a little part of me wondered "what if it's all fake? What if no one's there? What if I really am all alone?" It's been a long time though since I've wondered that. I noticed yesterday when I woke up, that I no longer ask myself that question. This past year has been filled with so many wonderful experiences, my testimony has grown so much, I know now without a doubt that there is a God and I am his daughter. There is no way I could question that.

My testimony has grown so much here at BYU, and I knew that and I have said that before, but it wasn't until I had that dream where I stood death in the face and was totally calm that I was able to measure just how much my testimony has grown. Why am I sharing this? Because I was told to bear my testimony as often as I could, and so while I bore my testimony in church today, I'm going to do it again.

I know that there is a Father in Heaven. I know that Jesus Christ is his son and he atoned for all of our sins and our sorrows. I know that he will always be there for me when I need him. I know that we will all live again, and I know that families can be together forever. I know that there are prophets on the earth today, and I know that Christ loves me and that I will return to live with him again.
This is my testimony. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Epic Falls, Ward Reunions, and "The Best Two Years"

Weeks go by so quickly in Spring Term. Already we are halfway through. Let's see, this week I had my midterms for my folk dance classes. I had more projects for Drawing. Friday night my roommates and I watched "Aladdin" and made smores in the oven. We made them with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. So good! Oh and Friday right before my my dance class, I had the most epic fall ever. So there is this hill right outside my apartment, and instead of going around it on the steps, I usually skip down it because it is faster. Well, Friday it was raining...So I took about two steps and all of a sudden I was on my back and I slid all the way to the bottom. It hurt pretty badly, and it was pretty embarrassing, but also super funny.

Unfortunately, my hip hurt pretty badly from the incident, like I pinched a nerve in my hip, and I was limping all the way to Dance. I wasn't able to dance, and afterwards my teacher took me to the physical therapist for the dance majors and she said that my hips were out of place and a fall like mine could have pinched a nerve. So she put my hips back in place. So weird feeling, let me tell you.

Saturday was a mini reunion with all the people still around from my previous ward. That was so nice to see them again! Two of my old roommates, Alicia and Carolina, came down and it was so great to be reunited again, to listen to the crazy. I seriously got in the car with Alicia and Carolina and felt this overwhelming feeling of "home." We all went up to some canyon and roasted marshmallows over a fire. It didn't last very long though. It seemed like we had barely been there and then a park ranger told us it was almost curfew. So we had to pack up and leave. But Alicia, Carolina, and I went back to our old apartment and we just stood outside it and looked up at our window. It was so weird, because that had been our home for a year and it felt like we were supposed to go up those stairs and all would be back to normal. It was hard to say goodbye to Alicia and Carolina again.

Well today I gave my first Gospel Doctrine lesson. I think I bored them all. I tried to make it interesting and to keep everyone interactive, but only the same couple people would participate. I could see some people asleep in the back and others doing the bobble-head. One girl told me she really enjoyed my lesson, so I'm glad at least one person seemed to get something out of it. I enjoyed learning about the lesson, I just think I bored everyone else.

After church today, my roommates and I watched "The Best Two Years." I'd never seen it before. I really liked it! And it's gotten me thinking a lot about missions. I think it would be really cool to serve a mission. Super scary, but so rewarding. I always thought, oh if I decide to go on a mission, I hope I go somewhere like temple square, because the thought of going tracting, and in a different language in a different country, would be terrifying. But watching "The Best Two Years" made me excited to share the gospel like that. I live in pretty much an All-Mormon society at the moment, living on-campus, and so I don't get the opportunity to share the gospel. Watching the missionaries go door to door and preach the gospel made me want to do it too. I wish I could go to a foreign country and learn another language and immerse myself in the Lord's work. I don't know if I ever will go on a mission, but I definitely want to at least go on a couple's mission, and I encourage all young men to go on a mission. It is seriously one of the greatest decisions you will ever make.

Well, that's all I got for tonight. Goodnight world! Hope you have sweet dreams.