home!

i have finally reached it:

HOME!

nothing describes the relief that was felt 

when i saw the familiar interstate exits after ten months.

i almost cried.

but after over 29 hours in the car, i was ready for my own bed.

my grandparents were saints, and helped drive me the 29 hours to k-town.

my grandfather is a history nut, so one of the stipulations of the cross country drive,

was that we had to stop at a couple of historical sites on our way. 

stopping at winter quarters, missouri and nauvoo, illinois only added two hours to the drive.

they have some great visitors centers at both places, 

and we were able to learn and see a lot of neat things.

and of course, my grandfather got to show his extensive knowledge of Church History.

the poor ladies at both visitors centers didn't hold a candlestick to his vast knowledge.

it was really cool though to learn more about church history at those two places.

the gorgeous nauvoo temple.
rebuilt in all its pre-fire glory.

since i have been home, i have been busy!

got two jobs.

have been to multiple doctors' offices.

been used as a pin cushion to get vaccines.

filled out paperwork for my mission for 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

and have gotten my t-shirt quilt almost ready for the quilters.

i am one doctors appointment and two interviews away from submitting my mission papers

and i am ecstatic!

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goals:

1. read and study the scriptures and Preach My Gospel daily.

2. finish my mission papers and get them submitted.

3. get my t-shirt quilt into the quilt shop.

4. go out with the sister missionaries at least one every two weeks.

5. practice the hymns so i can play more than two sufficiently.

one of the saddest weekends.

goal update:

1. i'm using an excuse that it got busy at work with the take down of everything, 

but i truly had the time. i just didn't make the time. 

and i've kind of missed the boat on the having it read by the time i get home. 

that day comes in four days!!

almost home bound. almost.

2.  the ball is currently in his court. i'm pretty sure of his answer,

but it's in his court.

3. i saw them on saturday at lagoon, 

and i was able to genuinely say "congratulations" to both their faces.

yea for small victories.

4. i have to compile a new list of addresses, 

because my list is very outdated at this point.

so many new missionaries, so many calls.

and no time to write them all.

5. progress is being made.

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i really hate goodbyes. and saying goodbye at lagoon was one of the hardest things ever.

living with a group of 30+ people every day, all day for five months,
really makes you a tight-knit group.

like seriously.

i had to say good-bye to one of my best guy friends
friday night after one of the most perfect dates ever.
he has helped me through a lot of relationship stuff, and is almost the perfect guy for me.
but it didn't fit right.

saturday morning came, and rae was going to come with me to lagoon,
but because of some homework and church things, she had to back out.
this was the start of one of the longest days ever. and one of the best.

one thing you should understand about me, i'm not a huge adrenaline junkie.
i do not enjoy rollercoasters; i like it when my stomach does not sit in my throat.
i found all my friends, and was able to hang out with everyone for a little bit.
thankfully, hilary was on the same page as me, and we hung out together.

there was a LOT of reminiscing and a lot of laughs.
the first time in almost two months that most of us were all together.
two of our bosses spent a lot of hours putting together a slideshow
of pictures of this summer and i almost cried on several occasions.

we got all of our bosses into the bumper cars and had a blast.
even watched two of the guys slingshot themselves into oblivion...
scary stuff.

i really don't love saying goodbye, and it was hard.
but it had to happen.

i will return.

the square dancer.

an update on my goal keeping.

1. not doing so hot. 

i went to utah to visit some family last weekend and it totally got me off. 

i spent sunday and monday in utah and i didn't read. 

terrible excuse, but i got off and i haven't gotten back on, yet. 

that's on the to-do list for today.

2. i really need to talk with him and 

i found my opportunity: this weekend we are going camping as a crew, 

and i think i can get a captive audience on the ride up to the campsite.

3. i have accepted it. he is getting married. 

in other news: BAMBI is engaged! Team Danny has won! 

4. i need to write one of my missionaries back 

because she was nice enough to write me!

 i missed the boat on my guam missionary (literally and figuratively), 

but i can message him now, so no need to waste a stamp.

5. getting better... but i could still use some improvement. and some = a lot still.

i took one of those online surveys yesterday because i was killing time before work 

(admittedly, i should have been packing or reading my scriptures or Preach My Gospel).

this one was titled "what type of dancer are you?" and

apparently i fit the profile of a square dancer.

i thought it rather fitting.

i love country music

i spent about five hours each week for two semesters dancing to country music.

these are the reasons they thought i fit the profile:
You are old-fashioned and you plan to stay that way.
Your values are old school and you make no apologies for it.
The music of today makes you shake your head
and wonder what the world has come to.

yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

this week.

is off to a rough start. like seriously.

monday was a long day. we didn't have a show that day, so the boss-men took the majority of the crew and went and played lumberjack on the mountain. 100 trees, cut for posts and rails, and 12 soaked and sore crew members later, they were really ready to come home. celeste, baby tiff, pat, and i were asked to stay down here and cover the office and prepare for the week. i helped pat in the office until lunch, and then celeste and baby tiff gave me a baptism by fire into the life of a cook. i helped make ranch, bagged brownies, sorted raw chicken, and pretty much just tried to keep up with these lovely ladies. we stopped a little early and had dinner ready for the crew when they got back. and we cleaned the house. but guess how long a clean house lasted. if you guessed less than 12 hours, you were right.

tuesday. can we just take a moment of silence that this day is over? like really. let me preface: two weeks ago, we got a phone call asking if a group of 200 people could come to the show. we can only take 170 people on ten wagons. 200 people would require bringing over two wagons that are used on the mountain and praying that they didn't bring any more people. we let the lady know we could work it out and the stressing began. the coordinator for the group decided that it would be too much of a distraction to have alcohol at the event (which is usually not allowed, but with private events, we give them the option, but they have to work it out and we just lay it out.) she sent us payment for the tickets, as well as the gratuity for the evening, a couple of days in advance, but then we got an email a couple of days ago, asking how many ABOVE 200 people they could go. we cried a little inside and said, we could do about 205 before we had to started strapping people to the top of the wagons. (sarcasm, of course.) we had a lot of people booked on the other show, so we had a double last night. which is UNHEARD of this late in the season [our last day is friday]. david, our foreman, pulled all sorts of strings and brought oodles of help in to drive teams and help the cooks feed 200 people before midnight. i don't know if i should be grateful or cry because i missed the opportunity to see a 12-wagon show, but the group didn't bring 30 people (something they can't even explain), but it relieved a huge burden for the cooks. feeding 200 people is a lot of chicken, beef, beans, corn, the works. and we don't have hours to get them from the chow-line. plus, it's a tad bit stressful to keep 200 people warm while it's 40 degrees outside and you only have enough lap blankets for about 170 of them. needless to say, david and chris were stressed. which in turn had pat stressed. who in turn had me stressed. it was a relief to have that crazy day OVER with.

and the week is about to get crazier. we will have 11 wagons on our last night and the next couple of nights are over 100 people. those are good sized shows for the end of the season. i'm excited for the next couple of days because anything will be easier than the last couple of days. let's just pray that no one else calls and asks to bring 200 people tomorrow.