Because I Have Been Given Much

Whate'er Thou Art, Act Well Thy Part. 

It seems as though every time I reach a point where I start to think I know exactly where my life is  headed, Heavenly Father reminds me that He has a plan for my life and that He knows what I should be doing much better than I do. In fact, more often than not my perspective is so limited that my plan is lacking some key elements. 

Also, this is not helped at all by the fact that I can be very stubborn at times and refuse to acknowledge that I may be wrong about something. 

And with that...the most recent (and so far possibly most life-changing) thing that I finally recognized is in Heavenly Father's plan for me...and which I finally realized I have been fighting and avoiding thinking about for over year. 

I will be serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 

This realization (and it was without a doubt and realization and not a decision) came quite suddenly and surprised me, however from the responses I've gotten in the last day and a half, evidently I was the only one who didn't see it. Although, looking back on the last year I can identify several moments where I could have realized I am supposed to serve a mission if only I hadn't been so certain I knew better than Heavenly Father. 

Funny how that's never ever true. He ALWAYS knows better than me. 

To make a long story short, my cousin Stephanie was teaching Relief Society on Sunday, February 23rd, and I was sitting there just thinking and out of nowhere I just thought "I am going on a mission" followed quickly by "what?? Where did that come from??" But as soon as that thought ran through my mind I knew that it was true without a doubt. And that's that. 

I will be submitting my mission papers as soon as I get home from London, at the end of August, and anticipate leaving after this Fall Semester. Stay tuned for more.

I could not be more excited about this amazing opportunity, nor more humbled by the incredible responsibility that missionary service is for me. I am so blessed to have the knowledge of the true church on the earth today and to have a testimony of the truth of the gospel and it's teachings. I look forward to sharing this gospel with the people wherever I am called to serve. 

Until then I will be humbly preparing myself physically, mentally, emotionally, and most importantly spiritually by serving as much as I can now while I await my opportunity to hasten the work on a full-time basis. 

Cheesy Dates

Ah dating. The quintessential activity at BYU. That mostly awkward, occasionally enjoyable thing that humans, for some weird reason, thought would be a good idea to make into a social norm. 

Yeah... that. 

Suffice it to say I haven't really done much of it here due to the lack of males in my ward (that would be 29 to the 140 girls)...and well my roommates and I were just kind of bored of that. So we decided that it would be a good idea to ask guys out for a big group date. (Spoiler alert: it was.)

The road to getting to this date, however, was kind of a crazy one. Because of certain frustrating personality flaws that I possess, I have at various times claimed to be against dating (yeah, um, I'm NOT), but I came into the room on Monday night to find my roommates discussing plans for this date that we had kind of talked about a few times before. 

It didn't really take them long to convince me to ask someone, but our first couple ideas got killed before long for various reasons. After having discussed it for some time, we all decided who we wanted to take and proceeded to ask them (it may or may not have been around midnight when this happened..) They all said yes and we were in business!

And then everything kind of started to fall apart.

 

Thursday both Michaela and I found out that our dates had forgotten something that they had going on and wouldn't be able to go. She got another date right away...but due to a lack of planning, I had absolutely no back-up date ideas. None at all...and by now it's the day before and it's a long weekend so everyone is out of town. 

By Saturday morning (the day of the date) I still don't have a date and the only prospect was possibly getting set up with one of my roommates friends from last Semester, and they haven't even started trying to get ahold of him. Basically I was 101% positive that I was going to be chilling in my room for a few hours while my roommates had a date in our kitchen. (Spoiler again: I was 101% wrong).

After yet again having the joy of visiting the testing center on a Saturday afternoon at 2 pm, I came home and decided it would be a good idea to go play the piano for a while. That was definitely a wise decision, as while I was playing one of my good friends from last Semester came in and said hi, and then ended up inviting me to hang out with him and some of his friends right exactly then. I almost said No actually, but then I stopped and realized that it's not like I had any other plans (still no date), so in a moment of "eh, why not?" I went. 

I had soo much fun just playing pool and basketball and hanging out and not worrying about anything for a while. Turns out Michaela's date for the night was there too and while we were talking about the date he was about to go on I get a text- at 5 pm I found out that in fact I DID have a date at 7 pm, with a guy I had kind of met twice but never even talked to before. So there was that. 

Cue minor freak out. 

Cue MAJOR freak out. 

Ok. Fast forward to actual date. There was no better almost stranger for me to go on a date with. We all had SO much fun just doing the most random things. 

Of course food is a must, so we made pizzas. Hunter and I's was a little indecisive. Half alfredo, half red sauce, cheese that didn't melt, pepporoni, and a few random meats and vegetables that kind of just got tossed on there. But it was good regardless.

While we were making Pizza, someone opened a bag of the dollar store cheese and it kind of exploded everywhere. My date's natural response was to start throwing cheese in the air....and what could follow after that but a cheese fight? (Don't worry we took it outside) I will admit, that is one of the stranger things I have been a part of it, but for anyone who has never participated in a cheese fight, well... I highly recommend it :)

The whole gist of our date was playing Minute to Win it games and basically that just required a lot of spontaneity. I fit 16 pieces of dubble bubble chewing gum in my mouth (that stuff will never taste the same again), we stacked dice on top of a fork that was stuck in our mouths, and Hunter had to try and get a penny out of a pair of nylons using only one hand. Also we drew our cheese fight out in chalk on the ground outside and somehow that escalated into leaving our numbers on the ground for the general population to find and call/text (more on that later....maybe, just know it became an adventure) 

After our adventures we headed to one of the guys' apartments and watched the Croods. Hunter and I had quite an enjoyable time watching as everyone else cuddled and we awkwardly slightly touched. 

Suffice it to say that good times were indeed had by all :)