The Alchemist

I highly, highly recommend this book.

My favorite quote from the whole book:

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."

This has more significance to me than I can explain.

Second favorite:

"What you still need to know is this: before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we've learned as we've moved toward that dream. That's the point at which most people give up. It's the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one 'dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.'"

Thank you Jon Reyes for recommending and lending it to me.

What's New

So I realize it has been a long-elephant-trunk time since I've posted. It's always at work that I end up posting so I never have pictures. Otherwise I'm rarely on the computer, it's kind of nice.

I think there are several things I need to update on. Here we gooooo:

1. Moving. I moved from building 4 to building 2, same apartment complex. May I just say that building 2 is so much better. The ward is way fun...I have so many friends in the ward. I've made more friends in this ward in 3 weeks than I did in my old ward over the whole semester. I also love my roommates a lot. They are Lacey's old roommies (she moved out). Basically it's pretty wonderful and I'm rarely bored.

2. Work. I got trained on what's called "counselor support." I still answer phones but what that means is now I only talk to counselors. So instead of getting 50 calls in 4 hours, I get between 5 and 10 calls in 4 hours. I'm not complaining.

3. Summer classes. I'm taking them. Sociology and persuasive writing...woo.

4. Zach. Long story short: We hung out, we swung on swings, we walked around a park, we kissed. Might I add it's the same park where both Lacey and Katherine were kissed. ;] We started hanging out a lot more. I really liked him. We talked about relationships and decided that due to things he's going through right now, we wouldn't date each other. I've been fine with that and have learned to see him only as a friend. He has become one of my best friends. He's a really cool guy and we hang out basically every day. That might end soon. I really hope it doesn't...

So basically that's where my life is at right now. Classes end I think June 17th and I'll probably be home that weekend. I'm excited to see all my AZ buddies :] ....

Pictureless Yet Again

Sorry homies, I'm at work again so I don't have access to any pictures (except on Facebook, which I am not allowed to access :[ ). So you will have to suffer through yet another black-and-white reading.

So home was AMAZING. So amazing. I have the greatest pictures but I think most of you have seen them on Facebook. I can't believe Jorge LEAVES in 9 days!!! My little Forehead going on a mission! I'm so so sad but so so happy. During his farewell talk I just kept crying. It was amazing. I can't believe Jorge, he's so incredible!!! I just love his testimony, it's so simple and pure and powerful. And man I think part of my crying was the fact that he was crying. And Sister Birch. And an old lady in the front. And Jorge's mom. Big surly Travis even almost cried. It was great. And as sad as I am I won't be able to really talk to him for the next 2 years, I received such a powerful impression while he was speaking that this is obviously the right thing for him to be doing, that there is nothing else more important or better for him at this time in his life. He is going to be an amazing missionary, I can't wait!!!

This past weekend was fabulous. My roommate Katherine had a friend from home who goes to BYU-I come down to visit with her roommate. Their names are Sara and Jane and let me just say they are some of the funnest girls ever!! We're trying to convince them to transfer down here...and I think Jane's gonna do it. Saturday was the Festival of Colors at the Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork. It's for an Indian holiday. It was a BLAST as usual. See Facebook for pics, or maybe I'll post some on here soonishly. Later that evening me, Katherine, Jane, Lacey, and her/our friends Felicia, Cody, and Allen went up the canyon and had a bonfire. Quite marvelous. Pictures of this on Book of Face as well.

So Saturday did not conclude the fabulous weekend. Sunday was great. Sara and Jane were driving back up to Idaho at 11, so Katherine and I skipped our church (which is at 10) to stay with them. We then went to Lacey's ward at 1. It was their Fast Sunday so we got to hear the testimony meeting. It was sooo good. So many things were said that I needed to hear. It was perfect, I guess I don't really know how else to describe it. Things were said like choosing happiness now, not waiting to be happy but finding happiness every day. Relying on God through hard times. Dealing with homesickness. It was just amazing.

After church my home teachers came over. Actually one home teacher came and he brought his roommate with him because his companion just left on a mission. My home teacher's name is Brett and his roommie's name is Zach. One of the very first things Zach said when he walked into our apartment was: "You guys don't have a TV!? I'm going to find you one. No really, I am going to find you one." So random but super nice??? It totally caught me off guard. The lesson was about praying to be an instrument in God's hands to help people join/come back to the church. Brett asked me to think of a specific person and I did so. I'm not going to give up hope on this person, as stubborn as he is haha.

At the end of the lesson, they asked the typical, "Is there anything we can do for you?" And I said, "Yes actually....do either of you know anything about cars?" My car is basically dying. My roommate Mikelle said it sounded like the transmission but Jonny said he didn't think it was. Anyways, it turned out that Zach knows a lot about cars. I told him what was wrong and he said he'd help me. I said, "Oh my gosh..thank you so much, I have completely been stressing out about this the last 2 months!!" And I was just freaking out haha. And this also caught me completely off guard--he just looked at me and said, "Hey, don't stress out. It'll be okay, it's just a car. I'll help you." It totally calmed me down. What in the world!?!? Who is this boy!?!?

We had an Easter devotional last night so he said he'd come over a bit before then. As Katherine and I lay so comfortably and 6-year-old-ishly on my mattress watching The Little Mermaid, my phone rang. It was a 480 number...somewhere from home. I answered it and it was Zach. !?!? He's from Gilbert it turns out. So....weird. So I go out to meet him in the parking lot. He's still in his Sunday clothes and starts looking under my hood. I held his tie and sunglasses for him (PS--he smells soooo good. I might have sneakily smelled his tie in fact). Then he decided maybe a white shirt and engine grease shouldn't mix, so he ran back to his apartment to change and get something for my car. When he got back he was like crawling all over the ground under my car, still in his Sunday pants. I couldn't believe how nice he was being...I kept apologizing and saying I felt bad about him getting dirty but he just kept saying, "Girl, don't worry about it. It's totally fine." (By the way, super cute how he always would call me "Girl." He also says my name a lot, which I like as well. :] )

So after he looked under the hood for a bit he said he wanted to ride in it to see if he could get a better feel for the problem. So we drove around for a bit. Unfortunately Mikelle was right, my transmission's going. Apparently first gear is totally shot. And when the transmission completely goes, my car will basically be totaled. So many memories in my car!! The road trips with friends and the Sonic-eating with Travis and the rocking game and so much more... Ahh sometimes I wish I wasn't so sentimental....ugh. But he told me a few things I can do to prolong its life.

Anyways while we were driving, he asked who I was going to the devotional with. I told him I was going with Katherine and asked who he was going with. He said no one, then asked if I wanted to go together. !!! Of course I said yes. So we went to the fireside together (which was so so good by the way, there was tons of music). After the fireside he invited Katherine and I back to his apartment for a bit, and then we all went over to Lacey's and played the game Curses. It was a lot of fun.

On the way to the fireside, I told him I made him cookies for helping me with my car. It turns out he's on a no-fast food/soda/dessert diet. Boo. But he said, "You know what you can do instead? You could make me a delicious, low-fat dinner." Soo...is that basically a date?? Oh man. The latch on my hood is missing a bolt so when you shut it, you have to literally slam it for it to close. He told me he was going to find a bolt and put it in for me. He was also looking for the transmission fluid because he has some stuff to put in it, but he couldn't find where it was under the hood. So he told me tonight after he gets off work at midnight (he makes synthetic diamonds for a drilling company..!?) he'll look up my car model and figure out where the transmission fluid is in the engine and come back and put that in for me.

So basically I am, as my dad would say, twitterpated. I just hope he's not one of those boys who's super nice to everyone and doesn't realize girls thinks he likes them. That is my story.

Sherwood tomorrow night!!!

Why I Like My New Job

Sorry this post will have no pictures--I'm at work so don't have access to any of them. :]

So as I mentioned before, I got a job at BYU Independent Study. Basically I answer phones. And it's super chill.

Here's why I love my job:

-It's really relaxed. In between calls you can do basically whatever you want as long as it's not Facebook or online shopping. Hence my blog-updatingness. Also, I read a lot of Harry Potter. Aahh.

-The people I work with are super nice and don't mind that I ask a million questions. Also my cousin Matthew works here.

-We have "teams." And I'm on the best team--Team Bangarang. Team Bangarang in and of itself is something too long for one bullet so I'll write more in a minute.

-I get to practice my Spanish. Hardly anyone here speaks Spanish so whenever we get a Spanish call, it often gets transferred to me. I just got done with one in fact. :]

-It's 20 hours a week but since it's not a hugely demanding job, it's perfect for my schedule, and I get most of my homework done during work.

-You sit wherever there's an open computer, so you sit by a lot of different people. Great way to get to know people.

-I have an extension!! Like on the telephone! How cool is that? In case you all want to know it's 41888. I feel important.



Alright so here's why Team Bangarang is great.

-No other team (as far as I know) has actually named their team. Furthermore, our team has a blog. That is right. teambangarang.blogspot.com

-Back in the high school age of myspace, my display name was (and I think still is...haha) Bangarang.

-The term "bangarang" comes from the Lost Boys in the movie Hook. Hook is in my top 5 favorite movies, and I've always wanted to be a Lost Boy. I'm completely serious!!

-Our team mascot is Darth Vader. FYI I have a Star Wars poster hanging in my room. Also when you go to our blog, the Imperial March plays.

-Every Friday we have team meetings in which our team leaders are supposed to go over policies with us. Hah. Here's what we've done for our team meetings since I've worked here:
1. Had a pinata. Proceeded to get the head of the pinata stuck in the rafters.
2. Went to the creamery to get ice cream.
3. Took "awkward family photos" which can be seen on the team blog.
4. Had a Mexican fiesta. Basically we just ate tons of Mexican food.
5. This week we celebrated my and Hollie's birthdays by having cake and ice cream and taking that personality color test.


So basically, if you overlook the every now and then super-rude-crabby-shouty calls you get (nothing any worse than what you get at OSP), Independent Study is a great place to work.

Nothing will ever take the place of OSP in my heart though.

I will be home Thursday March 18-Sunday March 21 (for Jorge's farewell, which is super bittersweet) and I can BARELY CONTAIN MY EXCITEMENT!!!!! I dreamed about it last night.

Later.

I'm Moving to Mexico.

You may ask what I have been up to since I last posted. I give you permission.


Oh you want to know? Okay well here it is:

Katherine turned 21 on February 8th. She'd never had her ears pierced. Since my roommate Ashley and I have both pierced our own ears, she decided she wanted us to pierce hers. Here she is icing them up:


Well, we made two mistakes. 1: We used a small needle. 2: We did one at a time. Results?
1: The hole made by the needle wasn't big enough for the earring so it literally took like 10 minutes to get the earing through her ear.
2: The first one hurt her enough that she chickened out and wouldn't let us pierce the other one. She still has only one ear pierced. And as I mentioned before, she's a ballerina, so she has to wear her hair up in a bun every day. I love her.

One night Katherine and I decided to go dumpster diving. She'd heard Krispy Kreme throws out their left-over doughnuts still in their boxes. I'd heard that floral shops throw out bouquets of flowers. Here is our start-of-adventure picture:

And here we are at a dumpster behind a floral shop:

Here's the dumpster. Unfortunately, this floral shop seems to mutilate their flowers before throwing them away. Maybe it's the tactic they use to prevent people from dumpster diving.

Well, while we were digging through this trash can, we both heard sirens. We started freaking out because we knew some guys in a car at the stoplight had seen us, so we booked it to my get-away car (hah...my get away-away car that literally takes 10 seconds to move when I'm pushing down the gas pedal now and shakes violently...poor car :[ ) and drove away. Run from cops: check.

So after that adventure, we made our way over to Krispy Kreme. Unfortunately they were still open and were not due to close for another hour or so. Here is Katherine with the grocery bags we brought stuffed up her shirt:

She walked into Krispy Kreme like that. Awesome.

We also checked dumpsters behind a bridal shop and a furniture store. The only thing we got was a wooden crate that we'll burn whenever we end up having a bonfire in the canyon. So not so successful.

This is Katherine's, Lacey's, and my "sexy" picture:

If you ask me, we fail. Katherine looks ready to hurl, Lacey looks like some sort of peeping tom, and I look like Voldemort about to cast a curse.

We've been playing cards a lot. Here's Lacey. She fractured her wrist snowboarding. (Following photos courtesy of Jonathan Carroll. Annie's cousin, for those of you who know Annie.)

Here is Katherine.

And here I am.

Jonny kept incessantly flashing the camera in my face so to retaliate, I took this picture. Yes. Jonny and I have been married since my sophomore, his senior year of high school and we have 7 children, one of which is named Farakashitamaha, who lived in Syberia in a previous life. Our parents are in the same stake (I've known Jonny since I was like 6) and his dad regularly sees my parents. He always says to my mom, "So how's my daughter-in-law doing?" In fact, once I saw Jonny's sister at a fireside and she said, "I'm so sorry, I don't remember your name...I only know you as Jonathan's wife..." Lol. Let me just say this boy is so hard to read. I'll leave it at that. If you wish to know more, you may inquire within. Haha.

And now to address the title of this post: I'm moving to Mexico. For real. Here is a picture of Jorge representing Mexico. Don't worry it's not racist, I think he would greatly appreciate this.

So yeah I'm totally serious about Mexico. If all goes as planned, I will move to Mexico in either August or January for 4 months to teach English. I'm super super excited. The whole trip only costs $2500 (things like this are usually around $7000) and that includes airfare, food, and housing. I can't waaaaiitt!!! Hopefully it all works out. Plus the whole $2500 is tax-deductible since it's for service, so the agency said lots of people do fundraisers and get great outcomes.

Now I have to go to FHE (bowling!) so I must goooo but I suppose I probably have more to post. Oh yeah, like this is my third week at work and it's going swell. I'll post more later. Looove you all!!

P.S. Rhonda--remember our sad faces when someone didn't let all the pizza board things have their turn??? Well I making pasta from a box tonight and realized there were a few stragglers stuck in the bottom and I HAD to get them out so they wouldn't feel left out...I thought of you. :D

Okay, Rhonda

Happy Groundhog Day. If I read correctly the groundhog DID see his shadow, and as long as the however many more weeks of winter are like today and yesterday (not too cold, sunny, snow is melted) then I'm down. Otherwise...death.

We had cleaning checks 2 weeks ago or so. My roommate Jade asked me to put any dishes that were in the sink into the dishwasher and start it right before the checker lady came (Jade's job was to clean the kitchen but she was gonna be gone for cleaning checks). Well apparently I don't know how to start a dishwasher or make it run right or something.


It was gushing out. This picture doesn't even do it justice.



Neither does this one.
I swear I've done the dishes at home before. I don't know what the deal was. Anyways, it was hilarious but unfortunately I was the only one home to witness it.

Here's all of the roommates.
Katherine (notice she is not using a giant knife nor a nail file):

Mikelle:

Ashley:

Jade:

And me:

On another note, we have to do oral presentations (dang I had to ask Katherine how to spell that word, all I could think of was "presentaciónes"...oh! Thinking of mixing Spanish and English, yesterday I was talking to my mom on the phone and talking to my friend Tito, who many of you know, on Facebook. I was talking to my mom in English and Tito in Spanish and let me tell you, my brain did not like that. I kept trying to respond to my mom in Spanish and it just came out a garbled mess. Back to the sentence this set of parentheses is interrupting) in my Spanish class. So far I've done it on a singer named Julieta Venegas and a war called La Guerra Sucia. This is my last one for this class, which ends at the end of Feb. And I'm doing it on Lucha Libre!!!! (Mexican wrestling...like Nacho Libre.) While I was looking for Youtube clips I could show my class, I came across this and I fell in love.




His luchador name is El Rey Mysterio (real name: Óscar Gutiérrez) and I love him. Unmasking is really embarrassing/insulting/sad/angry/what have you so that is why he looks so distressed but oh my gosh he makes distressed look irresistable. I am crazy. I've watched this clip like 20 times. Anyways.

Well...as I told you, Rhonda, I would probably update my blog since I have tons to do this week and I often resort to blogging instead of homework. Tomorrow I have my Spanish presentation and a 5-page essay due in another class (I'm only on the third page and out of juice), then I have a finance midterm that is today through Thursday and another midterm for one of my family classes at the end of this week. Funny I don't feel too stressed. Good/bad.

Oh yeah and I got a job. It's at BYU Independent Study, I start next Monday. My cousin Matthew works there so he'll probably get to train me part of the time. 20 hours a week...hope it works out.

I love and miss you all!!!

The End.

A Log.

So I have decided I will start a log (and hopefully update it frequently) and document all the wonderful things my roommates do that are worth remembering.

Here's a summary of my roommates:

Katherine (20, 21 in Feb): Ballerina. Princess. Very gullible and lovable. Quite impressionable. Has her crazy moments and when I say crazy, I mean crazy. Loves to pretend she has a crush on me.

Mikelle (22): Great facial expressions. Hot librarian look. Super down to earth and blunt about everything, in the kindest and most hilarious way possible. Haunted (according to her). Out of control.

Jade (20): Normal. Very smart and responsible. Retires to bed early that she may not be weary. Arises early that her body and her mind may be invigorated. Sweet.

Ashley (18, 19 in 7 days): Gorgeous. Looks like your stereotypical hot babe who can get any guy she wants. Basically true. Fun to chat with. Loves dogs. Super motivated and independent.

Night of Thursday, January 14, approximately 8 pm:

Ashley and I had gone to In-N-Out. We got way too many fries. As a result, we threw a large number of uneaten fries into the bag. Threw the bag into the garbage.

Approximately 9 pm:

I looked up from the couch to see Mikelle hovering by the garbage can, eating fries out of the thrown-away bag. Yes, she was eating out of the garbage can. This gives a new meaning to "poor, starving college student."

Early Morning of Friday, January 15, approximately 1 am:

We have an issue with dishes. I don't know if we eat too much food or if we just don't have enough dishes/utensils, but everything is always dirty so we either have to wash something every single time we eat or we improvise. Katherine improvises.

I walk into the kitchen to find her eating oatmeal out of a teacup with a giant knife. Like the kind you cut a watermelon with.

A few moments later she ganders into the family room eating frozen Yoplait yogurt with a nail file that reads "Sterilized In China."

That is all.

New post below this one as well.