The Temple

Being able to take out my endowments in the Washington D.C. Temple has been the highlight of my mission preparations, and honestly, when you look at it eternally, going through the temple is something that is more important to my life in general, not just a mission.

The peace and contentment I felt when it was all over was indescribable. Things were just so light, and the Spirit was so strong. I felt beautiful and powerful.

It's important to remember all of that now that I'm in what feels like an adjustment period. It's all a bit "whelming" and things that you don't yet fully understand are scary. I literally feel different. I don't quite understand that feeling; I think it's my Spirit recognizing that something of eternal significance just happened, and now I've got to keep the natural man from trying to tear that down. There are moments when I sit back and think, "What just happened?" and "Did I really do that?" The full weight of how sacred the ordinances of the temple are has really come to light, and I've had to sit and have faith that I really do have the strength and the power to keep the promises I've made.

It's all a learning experience, but I'm so blessed to have been through the temple. I want to go back so, so badly. I want to go again and again and just soak it all in. I can't wait to go to the Provo temple once a week while I'm in the MTC. I'm so blessed that the Fresno California Temple is in my mission bounds.






Laura was staying in the Hilton another night, so after the temple we spent all Saturday together. First, we went to Manoli Canoli, which we had passed multiple times on a previous trip to DC. We kept thinking we should go, but never did. So we went and had some appetizers for dinner, then a canoli each. They were so good! Then we just explored.


First, we chose "Historic Structures" in the GPS Point of Interest category. It led us to someone's house. It was very random, and very hilarious.

After much driving, we wound up heading to downtown DC.



There were these bike vending machines. They weren't expensive to use, but when you took one you had a $100 safety deposit on your card.


We stopped by the National Cathedral, but couldn't get very close. There was a lot of damage to the top by the spires because of the earthquake a few weeks ago, so it was all blocked off.


Somehow we ended up at the monuments and the mall. We passed the White House and drove by the Mall. Out of all the monuments, we'd never been to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, so we went there. On the way, we stopped by the George Mason monument (he wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights, I think).




We headed back after that to Laura's hotel and we had a sleepover. We ate Oreos and Cheez-Its and chocolate chip cookies and ginger ale and watched SNL and That 70s Show.

We had to part the next morning for the next 18 months, though she's going to Provo and I told her to go to the Provo temple and try to find me there, haha.

It was a great weekend, and now I've just to get through this last week.

Great Geauga County Fair

And other things.

Not much to blog about, mixed with a broken computer make updating terribly difficult.

My family went mini-golfing for our last FHE of the summer before school started.

Then I went to my first Hilltopper Football game since high school. Gotta love SVU, but it was nice to go to a football game with packed stands, screaming crowds, lots of refreshments, and a wonderful home field. Plus, we won, haha.

After that I spent hours at the Geauga County Fair, another first since high school. Not to brag, but we've got a spiffing fair here in Geauga County. Barns and barns filled with cows, pigs, chickens, goats, pigmy goats, sheeps, llamas, alpacas, etc. Then there are the buildings filled with the winning table settings, quilts, mittens, blankets, all manner of knit-work, and more.

It's also interesting because we live right in the middle of Amish country, so all the Amish youth are about riding rides and smoking. It's rumspringa at it's finest, and it's really weird. Like, do they know there's plenty of English young people who don't do that stuff? Because, you know, it kills people and is unattractive?

Then there's the rides.

Honestly, I must be getting old or something, because I could barely handle the rides at all. Now, it was like 90 degrees outside and the heat was terrible, but I just got so sick. I'm not an upside-down ride person, but even some rides that I thought I could handle nearly killed me. The tea cups on crack, as seen above, were ok. I was only a little dizzy. But after I went on this one ride, the Hurricane, I had to sit down for a good fifteen minutes.

However, the swings never fail to be wonderful. My favorite ride remains my favorite. We rode it multiple times.



Everyone took of their shoes and left them on the ground. I just put them in my bag.

The ferris wheel is also one of my favorites. It took forever to get on though. But I loved how it was an old fashioned two seater, rather than the big tub kind.

View of part of the fair from the ferris wheel. There's a lot more to the right.


After the fair, the biggest thing that happened in my life was my mission open house. I didn't get any pictures because my camera was dying and I was too busy talking to people, but my sister got some, and I'm just waiting for her to upload them, and then I'll do a longer post. For now, here's a preview. My family was amazing, especially my mother.


But the best thing about the last few weeks? This Sunday and today. I got my temple recommend finalized with my stake president, and then my temple dress arrived in the mail! I know it might be silly, but I really wanted a temple dress of my own. We looked and looked, and nothing was really what I wanted, or was in my price range. But then, on the last day of our web-scouring, when I was just about to pick one off the church site, we found this website online that had some nice stuff for really cheap. Then, the amazing part happened. Turns out, they custom make your dress! Just for you! We got the one below for just sixty dollars. It fits my petite frame perfectly, and is really beautiful. I love it.



I'm so excited to go to the temple this weekend. There are so many people (Cimone, Laura, and the Schneiders) who are coming up to go through with me, and that's going to be such a blessing. I'm so ready for this experience. To learn more about temples, and why they bring me so much happiness, visit here.

Shopping Stress

Shopping for clothes has never been so hard in my life.

It's exhausting, stressful, and painful.

After three entire days dedicated to shopping, I have one skirt, and a couple of shirts.

While the dress standards for sister missionaries have been WAY relaxed, it's still extremely difficult to find clothes that fit the specifics for my mission. It can't be too short, because it has to be modest, covering my knees when standing and sitting. But it can't be too long because I have to be able to ride my bike safely. Nor can the skirt be a pencil skirt, or too restrictive, because I have to ride said bike. You know what's in style right now? Pencil skirts. We've found plenty of skirts that are long enough, and are completely modest and acceptable for missions, but I couldn't ride a bike in them. It can't be a heavy fabric, because it's hot in California, supposedly. It has to be machine washable.

And you know what else? It's fall time in stores. So everything is in full on sweater mode. You know what I love? Sweaters. I love, love, love sweaters, and cardigans, and argyle. You know what I can't bring to California because it's hot? Sweaters.

I've been forced to look online, which is woefully spare, but you still have to spend hours looking through page after page after page, on a bajillion sites. Sorella Bella is the only sister missionary clothing site, and I'm contemplating a few items, but so much of it is so expensive. Not that everything else wasn't, but there's the shipping, and the fact that I don't get to try it on, so then I'd have to ship it back and exchange, and I only have a month. Plus, a lot of their stuff only comes in gray or black. I already have a gray skirt, and if I get black, I wanted it to be part of a suit. Their only black suit has long sleeves, and I'm not sure if it's worth it with the weather.

Let's get back to that expensive thing. I'm out $1000 because SVU is a thief and can't seem to find it in themselves to pay for the JOB I had on the Paladin. Where I did way more than $1000 worth of work. I've been a miser with my money for years now, which is what's allowing me to go on a mission at all, because my family is broke and only has enough money for rent and food. So I've got about $5000 to last my whole mission, so I'm short $2000, with no source of income.

Spending over $500 dollars on clothes, which looks like the only way to get what I need, makes me cringe and cry and gnash my teeth.

All the temple clothes and garments are on back order, I can't find a temple dress I like that I can afford, and don't even get me started on finding a bike.

I'm stressed. And not happy.

Elephant Shortcut

Once upon a time, there was a little activity called SVU Idol. It's where I fell in love with some musicians called Elephant Shortcut. One of the judges summed it up perfectly when she said, "I'd put you on my iPod."

Well, I'll be able to do that very shortly when they release their upcoming EP! And I'm here to help spread the word. Consisting of Georgina and Mitchell, Elephant Shortcut is music that you listen to once and you get addicted to. I would sit working on the Paladin for hours in my office replaying their videos on YouTube over and over again. Plus, Gina worked on the Paladin and she's really cool.

SVU hasn't had such a cool and wonderfully talented act in all the years I've been there, and I'm really insisting that you check them out. If you like what you hear below, go to their Facebook page and like it.

The two songs below were performed at The Fading Point concert this past spring. And they just happen to be my two favorite songs they've ever done, so it works out. Especially the second song, Two-Toned.

Mouse Trap

"The Greatest Decision..."

“The greatest decision I ever made in my life was to give up something I dearly loved to the God I loved even more. He has never forgotten me for it.” -Thomas S. Monson

I heard this quote for the first time in a small gymnasium in a church building in Massachusetts.

It changed my life.

One thing that I love about the Spirit is the clarity it brings. As I heard these words and then pondered on them for a long, long time, things began to click, click into place in my heart. Suddenly, every emotion was clear, and everything that had been confusing made sense.

I've had so many surprisingly negative emotions about my mission that I was flabbergasted. I love the Gospel, and I love teaching it. I couldn't understand what I was feeling. That was the first thing this quote did for me: it helped me make sense out of my emotions.

I believe the reason that I've had such a hard time accepting my mission call is not because of the mission itself; it's because I'm afraid of what will be left of my life afterwards. I've already graduated college; I'm not the kind of missionary who is going to come back and go to school and be around a lot of LDS people her age and get back into the swing of things. I'm coming back to nothing, and an empty bank account. My life is completely open and completely blank.

And I think that's been the hardest thing for me to let go of. I feel guilty for being so selfish, but it's better to be honest about it, I think. It hasn't felt like just a year and a half for me. It's every dream I had for what I wanted my life to be like. It's every chance I've wanted to take. It's every opportunity that was waiting for me.

It's my entire life.

(I know that it's pretty irrational to feel this way. I know that I'll get off my mission and life will go on. And it will be good. I understand that principle. I guess this is just the way the adversary is trying to freak me out.)

And that's where Mark comes in. Mark 10:17-22 to be exact. As I contemplated the quote from President Monson, I remembered these scriptures. It's the interaction between Christ and the rich, young man.

The young man is good. He has been keeping the commandments from his youth, and wants to know how he can do more. Truly, I believe that he was a stalwart example of living the Gospel.

The Savior's call was clear: give away all that you have, take up the cross, and "follow me." The scriptures say that the young man was grieved, and went away sorrowing for he had many possessions.

Now, maybe it's my weird way of wanting to think the best of people, but I've always believed that he did it. He sorrowed, and didn't have perfect faith, but I'd like to think that in the end he followed the Savior. It was just hard.

I am the young, rich man.

I've been blessed with the chance to give up everything. How many people get to serve missions in a situation like this? I don't have the thought of school, or a relationship, or work, or anything to distract me. I get to serve a mission with all my mind and all my heart; I'm "giving up" my entire life, every aspect of what it is now and what it could have been to serve the Lord.

As I've realized this, I'm becoming more and more grateful for that opportunity.

I love my God more than all the things I dearly loved and wanted for my life at this time.

And He will not forget me for it. I hope to have more faith and belief in that principle.

No: that promise.

It's Really Over

Today, I had that moment I thought I had been lucky enough, somehow, to miss.

I was sitting in the SVU library, feverishly typing away at the SVU Dance Company guidebook I was creating. It was fairly empty, but every now and then students would walk in and sit down on the computers.

As I left and walked up to the dance studio, I watched the athletes walk into their dorms. People were moving in.

On blogs and Facebook I see and hear about the people returning to BV to start another year at school.

And as I walked today, I really felt like it was over. Because it is.

I won't be taking another class with Dr. Cluff in Durham. I won't be moving back into the Chestnut House. I won't be buying school suppplies.

I won't be there at Dance Company auditions. I won't be there to lead the team, or choreograph the dances, or continue to do what I love.

In that great moment, I missed it all.

Then, I missed it even more because I realized that even if I was coming back, it wouldn't be the same. All of the people that made SVU what it is for me are no longer here. It wouldn't be my SVU anymore. I'd just be a ghost, wandering around, missing the good old days.

It's sad to know that when I leave this time around, I really won't be coming back.