Happy Valentine's Day!

So we had this nice girl in our ward give a talk last week related to Valentine's Day. And basically it was along the lines of how we should be more sincere about the holiday and if we're single to not just say 'oh it's single awareness day'! But actually take it seriously and if anything give valentine's to friends or something. It reminded me a little of two years ago when my roommates all concluded that technically valentine's day should be great for everyone, because we all love our friends or relatives. So we can think of it in relation to that instead of boy friend or girl friend. Anyways in recent years Valentine's Day has been better I think, because I've started thinking of it more like that.


Last year I think it was I had a co-worker who was like 'I hate valentine day because I don't have a boy friend.' So anyways I've thought that before as well, but this year has been super great because I decided to make it better. Just as the girl in our ward was talking about and yes it was already something I'd thought of doing before.








Of course all it really goes back to is just having a good attitude in life, because if you haven't noticed life never goes how you want it. Even if you've got the perfect plan going it's still not going to go as planned. So anyways interestingly enough I still have many friends getting engaged these days as usual, so nothing has really changed at all. But this still has been a better holiday then past years, because I've decided that I really am great being single. AND I have concluded that single people can do lots of great things in life in fact probably more. :) So be happy with what you have got!!








Happy Single Aware...opps! HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!




p.s. If any married people read this I am meaning single people can do more in relation to things such as traveling. :)

Parable of the Poincetta!

Well I've officially decided that putting pictures on blogs is a bit of a pain, because the blogger machine doesn't seem to like to be workable. So I did have this fine picture I was going to show, but sorry it's not going to be here this time. But anyways it was pretty interesting because during Christmas we had this Poincetta and I guess it got over fertilized, because suddenly over night the plant died. Well oddly enough there were 3 leaves that never died and every single day I looked at the plant thinking the leaves would be officially dead. But they never were and so somehow these 3 leaves just stayed alive even though they'd been over fertilized. Well I decided that this is like us in life and how many times tons of bad things happen to us. So we could easily give up, but as many of you know that isn't the way to do it. And the best people alive are those who had the worst trials, such as being over fertilized. But were also the people who didn't give up when life got hard. So remember to be like the 3 leaves on the Poincetta that should have died, but didn't die.


This actually reminded me of a guy I once knew who had been living with his sister in his parents house while they were on a mission. Well some sort of electricity explosion happened and the house blew up with them in it. The sister was upstairs and he was down stairs, so the sister wasn't burned as bad since she was on top. But since the guy had been in the basement the house caved on top of him. I don't know how he even survived, but basically he ended up with a lot of burns and health problems. Which was super sad since he was only like 30ish, but when I originally met him I would have never guessed anything. Because he totally didn't act like he was bitter about something and I actually found it out from someone else. So anyways I was just super impressed that this guy kept on with life and didn't give up, even though it was a pretty serious ordeal.


Sometimes we might wonder the purpose for major trials, but I just ran across this video. I'm sure most of you have heard the story, but you should listen to it again!! :D


And just remember to be like the Poincetta and NEVER give up!!


And there is a purpose to it all of course, just check this little video out and you'll see what I mean!! :D


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDrhvm9EnJ4

As of two weeks later I remember Christmas break being fun anyways! :)

I'm a little slow, but I was having a hard time figuring out the new changes with down loading pictures on blogs. But anyways here I am attempting to keep my new years resolution of blogging anyways! :D But Christmas break was super fun and I even did random hobbies that I used to do and kind of stopped doing.

So these pictures are the random hobbies I started doing again and also fun stuff I did with family! :D

 I read lots of books!! :D

I looked at the Christmas tree which was super fun! ;)

I put on some decorations that I found, which was this angel I got from being in the Relief Society presidency. 

I made a decoration, which consisted of stuffing colorful things into the empty glass ball. :) It looks cooler in real life just so you know!

 Remembered Jesus, even though of course I always do that so it wasn't just a random thing I did. :D

Talked to my mom about these 3 wise men we have at our house. Apparently there was a great aunt of ours who made them and we inherited them. :) 

 We ate peppermint candy, even though the bottle was still half full when I left for Logan. Which means peppermint really isn't popular at our house. ;)

I happened to find some yarn and such in a bag in my stuff in my down stairs room. And so I decided to crochet again and ended up crocheting the whole break since it was so fun. :D

I crocheted so much that I made hot pads, scarfs and even an attempted hat. But that didn't really work out so swell. :/ (the hat didn't)

It was great fun having snow and also that led to it being cold. 

So we drank lots of hot chocolate. :D

We made a family news letter that I apparently inspire every year. ;)

I made a new No Bake Cookie recipe with coconut instead of peanut butter. They went fast so that's why you only get to see the recipe. ;) 

I scrap booked a bunch since I found alot of undone pages, which got left undone due to new inventions such as the internet. But it was super fun! :) And I'm planning to do more of it in the near future!

Well lots of other fun things happened, but it's always nice to get back to life after holidays. So have a fun year friends! :D 

New Years Resolutions!

So I have decided that I should do more realistic New Year resolutions this year. Since last year that is what I did and I actually kept most of my goals. Whereas most years I keep maybe one of them or more like none of them. It's pretty sad, but I decided with my Mom that most resolutions don't happen because they aren't realistic goals. So this year I'm going to follow in the same pattern of last year and make realistic goals! :) So I'm not making known what most of the goals are for the year of 2015, but one main goal is that I decided that I'm going to be a regular journal/blog writer. So don't be alarmed when I happen to have an updated blog fairly often. :D Since I actually know of a website where you can print your blog off of, so it's basically the same as journal writing except that unlike journals there can also be pictures involved.

Stay tuned for more blogs from me! :D

Some interesting facts of the week are that it's super cold here and there is plenty of snow as well. So it's been fun going out in the snow and drinking hot chocolate. :D

Here I am with curly hair for Amanda and Paul's wedding!!!                                                              

Marvin and Nelson kissing Amanda good luck possibly!! :D                                                                 

I've been rather busy with many things during the holidays, in fact I'll have to tell about that in another posting later. But one thing I have done besides the 'snow fun' has also been doing scrap booking and family history. Some lovely pictures I've found have been from family weddings and etc. :)

It's real!!

There is this guy that is super young, probably like 3 or 4 years older then I am whose on the high council in my parents stake. Well he talked at our ward today and told about how he has a hospital related job. And his uncle apparently had a heart attack recently, well I'm assuming it was a heart attack because he said his uncle had 'several cardio lapses'. (I think is what he said) But due to that all the doctors thought he'd basically die, although this guy knew he wouldn't. Not due to false hopes or whatever due to it being a relative, but because someone had given him a blessing basically saying 'you will survive.' And now his uncle is home from the hospital and did not die obviously. But I kind of just had the thought, which he didn't even reference to in the talk at all about. But I just thought 'well the blessing worked because they had faith, but if they hadn't of had faith he could have still died.' So funny enough after church we were watching this movie about this guy named John Tanner. And he had a bad leg basically where he couldn't even really walk. And due to lack of technology all the doctors told him he'd die if he didn't get rid of the leg. Well he didn't want to do it and was basically planning to die, but then met some LDS missionaries. Who wanted him to get baptized and he said that he couldn't get baptized due to his bad leg. Well basically they gave him a blessing and he walked again. (and his bad leg never returned again) Strangely enough the doctors, absolutely none of the doctors could save him. And then through some miracle his leg was saved and he didn't die.

I just thought it was funny that all these faith related stories or talks at church came up today. Just so you all know faith is a real thing and I've never had any form of illness just leave like that. (because I generally have good health) But I've had things happen where I was in a bad situation and someone just showed up that shouldn't have. Kind of like the other day I was driving and basically got what is called 'road rage', because this 4 hour trip turned into 5 1/2 trip. Due to missing an exit on the freeway and then my car decided to be silly, so I was having minor problems with that. But when I was fairly close to my parents house I was sick of the drive and started speeding, but also was distracted due to the problems and I'm blaming it more on that. Haha. :) But funny enough I got pulled over and luckily just got a warning. I'm extremely glad about that. But the funny part was that I seemed to fair alot better after the interruption of getting pulled over. So apparently talking to someone, even if it was a policemen, helped me to lose the road rage. And the drive for the next 45 minutes was much better, so yeah don't miss exits is all I have to say. :) But apparently that saying is true about how God will send you angels to help you in life, although generally in the form of people. :) So I never like getting pulled over, but in this situation the getting pulled over was a good thing.

My point basically though is that faith is real and can seriously help us in life, even if it's not a huge miracle. But even in the minor problems of life and all you need to do is pray, along with having the faith to make the miracles happen. (or receiving blessings)

Thankfulness is Vital!

So I was at my parents ward today and this new family in the ward gave talks. Well at first I was just thinking it was going to be more of the 'introduction' to the ward type talks. Turned out that the kids talks were a little that way. But the mom ended up with lots of time and she actually gave this very profound thankful type talk. At first she was talking about how everyone has a story for their life and so she said that she had some stories to tell about her family. And so she told how when she was 7 or 8 her dad had died. But it was because they'd all been gone for Thanksgiving and her dad was the Bishop, so he came back early for some ward business. Well turned out that there was some poisoning or something like that coming out of the vent. So her dad was the only one poisoned due to being the only one who came back early. Which hugely affected her since she was only 8 when this happened.

The next story was about how her husband had gotten a job with the oil field out in the Uintah Basin and was commuting all the time from Ogden to Roosevelt. (3 hour drive at least) Well they were all going to move out to the Uintah Basin, but after saving for some time it was diagnosed that she had thyroid cancer. Luckily it is the easiest cancer to cure, so she was better within the year I think it was. Well before they could move something else happened, which was that her teenage son started having serious back pains. He wrestled and it seemed like it was connected to the wrestling. Well turned out he had to go to Primary Children's hospital and they found out he had bone infection in his back. (which is not common) So that took alot of time to get better from and then they had to start saving again to move. Well finally after 6 years they're finally moved and her husband doesn't have to commute anymore. (but he had been commuting for 6 years)

If you haven't noticed this seems like a depressing talk and not only that, but she also mentioned that her husband's sister died a year or two again. So yeah it was a pretty depressing talk, but actually the moral of the story wasn't to make everyone depressed.

Because then she went on to talk about how due to these terrible life events she started thinking about it. And came to realize that God isn't going to make everything be bad that happens, so that must mean there is at least a tiny bit of good happening. Well during the last 6 years she's started paying more attention to the good things that might be happening as well as the bad things. Apparently it was a pretty effective theory on life as well, because she managed to survive the terrible trials.

Well I think the reason why I really happened to notice this talk more then others was because I've actually been thinking about this same thing alot lately.

I tend to read alot of pioneer type books and a few years ago I read this book by Janette Okes. (or read it again after 15 years) But I was really surprised to read about how this girl married this guy and they moved west in their wagon. Well due to how far they moved she literally never saw her family again and all they could really do was write letters. Due to it being a novel the author made it so the girls parents happened to save money and visited one time after she'd been married 10 years. But I was so surprised and then realized that of course if you only had a wagon you couldn't move far away and expect to go back. So anyways this story randomly came to me again the other day and so I realized that we're all majorly fortunate to have:

1. Internet (facebook, e-mail and etc.)

2. Cars

3. Phones

4. Airplanes

So technically if we move far away then we really can go back to where our relatives live at least once a year if not more. Meaning due to modern technology we are pretty blessed!

Over the weekend we had a pump problem and didn't have water for almost 2 days. So my Mom and I were doing dishes by boiling storage water. Which means that we're majorly blessed to have electricity and things such as pumps to give us water.

Another common thing that happened back in the day was that people died of illnesses that most definately can be cured now. It's funny but when I go home we tend to watch shows like Little House on the Prarie alot. So anyways I ended up running into some of the seasons at the library since I volunteer there and all. Well I happened to be watching this one Little House on the Prarie episode where Laura's brother died. The symptom's were that the baby was losing weight and none of the doctors could figure out what was causing it. So then the baby died and only lived like a month or so. Another one when Laura was older was about her baby that died due to an unknown cause. Basically the baby died in the night, but now days we'd call it SIDS. (sudden infant death syndrome) So anyways the point being that we are majorly lucky to have modern technology.

But anyways my main thought lately has just been that times might be hard, but there are always things we have that are good. Basically we're never alone on anything and sometimes all we have to do is look around for the good things in life. Since sometimes they'll be there but in a small way, but they are there.

So my challenge to all of you is to be thankful for the good things in life, even when life is harder then hard. And especially now that it's not November I'd say it's still a good time to be thankful!! :D

Thanksgiving!

Well life has been pretty eventful lately! :D Since it's been Thanksgiving I've been in Roosevelt. It's been pretty fun because Marvin and Arie have randomly come around. Although Marvin got stuck fixing pumps and cars half the time. But since he likes cars he probably liked it though. :D But Mother and I were cleaning down stairs and I found some mission stuff, which was fun. 

So this is a flag my companion and I made in Puyallup for a zone meeting. The Elders said we were at an Olympics and we all had to have a flag for our team. So we made it like this because the ward in our area was called the 'Sunrise' ward. Well that companion went home and I ended up being in the area longer then her. So I pretty much inherited the flag. :D

Also we've been going walking alot to avoid unhealthy ways since you end up eating alot on Holidays and all. So we've seen some cool sunsets this week as well!

And we've also had no water for two days, so that's been interesting and all. You know kind of like being a pioneer. ;)