Honduras

Festival of Colors

There's nothing quite like thousands and thousands of people throwing chalk directly into your face and chanting "hara krishna, hara krishna" at the top of their lungs to celebrate spring!

We went to to festival of colors at the llama temple in Spanish Fork. Crazy and wild, yes, but you gotta live it up while things like this are still fun, right?! Pretty sure every high school and college kid and their dog was there.

Honduras...One life at a time.

The past week and a half has been incredible....
I am so so so lucky I was able to go to Honduras with One Life at a Time.
People ask how it was, and it's difficult to even begin to express how much I loved it! It's difficult to imagine how much you begin to truly have a love for people when you serve them. Experiences like I had change you.

Going on this trip put a lot of things in perspective for me. It helped me realize what's most important, what I want to do in my life. I got a glimpse of just how much Heavenly Father loves each one of his children. We have no idea. Each one of us is in a different circumstance, born to different parents, live in different countries...but the love Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ has for every single child is the same. As I held children in my arms at the orphange who were sick and lethargic or screaming from getting teeth pulled, I was filled with the love for them. They are not forgotten, and have just as much individual worth as any other person on this planet.

I was blessed to be surrounded by such amazing people. The Dr. and Dentists gave up a week of time and money to use their abilities to serve others. I was continually impressed by each person who came. Everyone had something to contribute, whether physically evident or not.

I have so much in my life. Because I live in the circumstances I do, I feel it a responsibility to help others. It's addicting....the more you serve the more you want to continue to touch lives.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is what truly brings happiness. This is because we receive more blessings through being obedient. I felt the power of missionary work, as each young adult came in to have medical and dental exams. There was story after story of young men and woman who are the only members in their family, or just joined the church a year ago, or had no parents, but who had so much faith and trust that they want more than anything to serve a mission. One girl came in to see the dentist. She began filling her papers out over a year ago, but has just been waiting until she can see a dentist to turn them in. These pre-missionaries realize what's important, and will do everything they can to serve their Heavenly Father.

I have hundreds of pictures to sort through.....but for now, this video brings all the emotions back. :)

blah, blah, blah....

• english analysis paper (on some book I didn't read all of....oops)
• informative speech on eating healthy (kind of hypocritial when you haven't been grocery shopping for over a month and are living on whatever edible things you can find left in the fridge)
• social work program application (yay:)
• research paper on mental illness advocay

check, check, check, check.

That doesn't even count all the quizzes to take and books to read. It would nice to have a solid 48 hours to not have any homework to worry about. Ya, that would be great.

This past weekend was good though....twizzleberry, sleeping in our blanket fort (yes mom, we are still allowed to do stuff like that), insitute lifetime conversion conference (SO good, the speakers were fantastic), fast sunday, fireside watching in our fort (yes mom, we left it up for 2 nights and our apartment did look like 9 year old boys lived there)

And in 72 hours.....I will outta this place, flying far away to another country. Honduras, here I come!

Jesus Christ is the Way

"There is no other way nor means whereby man can be saved, only through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ." -Helaman 5:9

Cabin Time!

Cabin weekends are one of my favorite things in the whole world. What's better than spending time away from normal life, wearing sweats all weekend, no make up, playing games, eating food, watching movies, playing more games, fires, playing in the snow, and eating more food?!

Snowshoeing, cooking food, Spades, mafia, poker, animal noise game, signs, BS, scum, fire, smores, sleeping 4 in a bed, ice skating, going to Huntsville... I am lucky to have these friends:) We are pretty dang funny. You know it's a good time when someone pees their pants a little:)

And yes, my eye is half closed in that picture. Freaky. That's why you alway take two.

And yes, we are wearing the same clothes in every picture.

Barbara

Last week I was able to talk to an amazing woman.
My friends and I went to Legacy House to visit with the people and sing. There are a few people we especially like to see. One of these is Barbara, and incredible 80 year old lady.

We walked in and asked if we could just come talk with her. She was so happy to have company and people around. I was so touched in the half hour we spent with her. Barbara is so full of wisdom and even spunk for her old age! She asked us all about ourselves and we were able to find out about her life and family. She was constantly telling us how life can be if we make it good, to take advantages of opportunities, to not do anything we will regret later. This sweet lady shared so many memories and things that are important to her.

It was so sad to hear her tell how old people are "put on a shelf". To see tears in her eyes as she felt so loved that someone would stop by for just a few minutes to talk to her. When we asked if we could be her adopted grandkids, it was almost too much for her! She could hardly believe that we wanted to keep coming back to see her. Before we left we sang a few hymns. Back in the day she directed choirs and music was her thing. It was evident how much love was in that room as we sang "I am a Child of God" to a sweet 80 year old lady and she struggled to remember the words.

That retirement home is full of people like that. The world is full of people like that. It's easy just ignore any one elses loneliness, to just think about our problems. But by simply acknowledging another human being, by taking 2 minutes to say hi to them, it can make a world of difference. I don't think we ever truly know how much one life can be touched by our words or actions.

Free Crappy Portraits

Send a picture to Free Crappy Portraits, and some random person will draw a picture of your pretty little face. How cool is that? Pretty cool.

Thank you freecrappyportraits.com :)

To see the picture I sent in click on the link.....

http://www.freecrappyportraits.com/fcp/2012/2/8/rip-roaring.html