i love sundays. and my roommates :)

so today was a great sabbath day. all the talks and lessons at church were so great and it just brought the spirit into my day and made me feel so calm. i was really stressed before church because i taught relief society today. the lesson ended up going well, better than i thought it would, because of the great comments from the wonderful girls in my ward. and mostly because of the spirit.

my lesson was on agency: our freedom to choose. i love the topic of agency, it is such an amazing blessing to us. our Heavenly Father loves us so much that He won't force us to choose what is right; He loves us so much to want us to make our own decisions. we are free to choose our actions but we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions, however. i know that the commandments are to make us free, not to be a burden or to restrict us. when we choose to keep the commandments, we are then free to do so many other things that negative choices may have prevented us from doing. for example:
"if there is a sign that says 'no swimming, whirlpool' we might think that this is a restriction. but we still have many choices: we are free to swim somewhere else, we are free to walk along the beach, we are free to go home. but once the whirlpool has us in its grasp and we are pulled under, we have very few choices. we can try to escape, or we can call for help, but we may drown" (gospel principles, lesson 4).
i have a personal testimony that obedience brings blessings. i have seen it in my own life and in the lives of others. it is truly an amazing principle and as we are obedient to some commandments our desire to please God only increases as we recieve blessings and feel good for our righteous actions. :)

after church, my fabulous roommates and i FINALLY took roommate pictures! (we've been meaning to since the beginning of january). here are a few of my favorites:







i feel so blessed to have these crazy girls as my roommates. they're the best. <3

BYU's left and right!

I got into BYU!

And BYU Hawaii!

Eeeeek. It's so hard for me to say no to BYU!!! I've always wanted to go there. But I can't ignore an answer to prayer. So, BYU Hawaii it is.

a weekend away

so, over the weekend i stayed at a cabin in brighton with my best friend annie and her family. it was so much fun! we left provo friday afternoon and spent the evening friday eating good food, playing games, and just relaxing.

saturday we hit the slopes. it was snowing all day, but not too hard and it wasn't too cold so it was alright. the snow was PERFECT. and i did better at snowboarding than i had before. it was all-around the best snowboarding day i've ever had!

there were a couple mishaps, however. for one, my binding broke! a screw came out which made the whole thing loose and unable to keep my boot in. as it was breaking, i wiped out pretty hard and my right foot came out of the binding, the board proceeded to spin around my left foot twisting my ankle pretty good. it's not sprained or anything, just a little swollen, and i boarded on it the rest of the day without any issues. but later, when we got off the lift and i attempted to buckle in, it wouldn't work. my boot would not get in there and then i realized the binding was broken. so i walked back up to the lift and talked to ski patrol, told them it was broken, and they decided to take me down in a tobaggon. haha. annie's dad made fun of me for that for sure.

saturday night we went out to dinner and then we left sunday mid-day.

it was such a fun trip and i'm so glad i was able to have a weekend away!

first post, ever.

so, this is my first time using a blog... i apologize if i don't get the hang of it for awhile.

i decided to start a blog for a couple reasons... so my friends could keep up on my life, so i can have opportunities to share what i'm up to/what i believe/ etc, and also, because i have 6 hours til my next class and i can't go home (& homework for 6 hours is absolutely out of the question).

well, i've been living in provo, utah, since the beginning of this year. definitely an adventure. i've been going to school at the BYU Salt Lake Center, which has been good. just been working on finishing up some GE's. i didn't get into BYU for this current semester, but i felt like i was ready to move out and be on my own so that's why i'm at the salt lake center this semester. kinda a half-way point between a community college and a university... i like it, although the 50-mile drive two days a week is not my favorite thing in the world.

so, just to put it out there...
I'M GOING TO BYU HAWAII IN THE FALL!
yep. prettttty excited. let me tell you the story:
my mom does customer service for a medical company, and she ships orders and stuff to people who call in to order their medical products. well, about two weeks ago she got a call from a lady in the health office at byu hawaii. they chatted a little bit, and my mom told her my situation, how i'm in provo now and trying to get into byu for the fall. the lady told my mom to tell me to apply. so my mom told me and i thought about it... i had never really considered byu hawaii, i've always wanted to be in provo. but once she mentioned it i thought about it all the time.
so, last monday, i applied to byu and byu hawaii. i figured it wouldn't hurt to try both and see what happened. well, last thursday, three days after applying, hawaii told me i was accepted!! three days are you kidding me!? i was so excited. but i still didn't know what i was going to do, because like i said i've always dreamed of being at byu (provo) and there were a lot of pros and cons for each school. well i thought about it, and thought about it, and waited for byu to get back to me...STILL waiting... and finally i just prayed about it-- i asked the Lord if He wanted me to go to byu hawaii this fall, and i felt overwhelmingly like i should.
so, that made my decision.

i'm way excited! and nervous, i have no idea what to expect! but i just feel like everything fell into place so perfectly and so quickly. and then when i prayed i felt real good about it. so i think this is what's right for me. i've had fun in utah but i am excited for a brand new adventure next year! paradise, here i come! the problem will be getting me off the beach and into the classroom...

:)