keep on keepin' on.

lately i've been feeling like i keep messing up. i don't live up to my divine potential, and sometimes i straight up fail at doing what i should. i know we all make mistakes, but that doesn't stop me from being hard on myself when i do.

today i had the opportunity to bear my testimony in sacrament meeting. i randomly thought of matthew 5:48-
"be ye therefore perfect,

even as your father in heaven is perfect."

being perfect is a tall order, one i fall short of constantly.
but i know the savior wouldn't give us a commandment we couldn't live up to.
no, we will not attain perfection in this life. but if our ultimate goal wasn't perfection, what would we strive for? i am grateful that i will always have something to work on. i am grateful that no matter how good i become in one aspect of my life, there are a hundred other things i can work on next. yeah, it's kinda exhausting sometimes. intimidating, too. but i'm grateful that so much is expected of me, because when someone expects a lot of me, it gives me a reason to keep trying!

i love the gospel of jesus christ. i know that jesus christ died for the sins of the world. i know that through the cleansing power of the atonement, we can all return to live with him someday. the book of mormon teaches that "we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do" (2 nephi 25:23). we could never make it to heaven on our own. contrary to popular belief, the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints does not teach that as doctrine. we know that "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of god" (romans 3:23). THANKFULLY, heavenly father loves us very much and he provided the atonement so we can live with him again. we need to do the best we can: keep the commandments and endure to the end, and the atonement will take care of the rest. :)

all this is a result of me feeling down on myself for making mistakes. look how the spirit and the scriptures can turn a negative outlook into a positive one! i love the church. i am so grateful to be a member of the lord's kingdom on earth, what a blessing it is in my life! :)

piece by piece and bit by bit, i will break this down for you real slow.

ahh. how i love something corporate! i got to see them in concert friday night! they've been my favorite band since 8th grade and the last time i saw them live was t10th grade... they sound as good as ever, and i got to go with the lovely elaine. :)
i don't have any pictures from the show, but i just wanted to express my love for this awesome band. if you haven't heard any of their stuff, i suggest you look them up!

so right about now, i really miss provo. everyone's back up there, starting school and having fun. of COURSE i'm soo excited to go to hawaii. but i had such a great semester there and i can't help feeling a little sad that i won't be going back. i miss my roommates! and i miss living by annie!! -sigh- oh well. i probably won't miss it once i'm settled in laie. :)

on a random side note, i really really love it when my friends burn me cds. i've gotten so much new music this summer and it makes me super happy!

annddd i think this is the end of my really random post! bye!

summer ending.

so! as promised, i went to yosemite and to my dad's house. i was in jen's wedding too, but my camera was dead so i don't have any pictures of that. :(

HALF DOME:

without a doubt the hardest physical test i have put my body through. 17 miles, 4,800 ft elevation increase... insanity. so hard, but definitely glad i did it. :)
the three of us on top of the dome! love them!!

on the way home from the lovely yosemite, we spent the night at my dad's house and woke up early to take the boat out on lake isabella. the water was PERFECT. so glassy, and warm. got some great wakeboarding in!

(2008)

(2010)

i love this girl. erica, thanks for being my best friend. :)

let's see. besides that trip, mostly i've just been working and hanging out. having a great time meeting new people and hanging out with old friends. it's been a really great summer and now i'm almost off to hawaii! two and a half weeks and i'm outta hereeee.

more summer

so! it definitely has been awhile since i've posted anything.
well, let's see. since last time, i got a job, went to the river, went to my dad's house, took a road trip to san francisco, worked a lot, and went to the beach a little. river= freakin awesome. dad's= fun. road trip= highlight of my summer so far!

the river trip was with the saddleback ward. it was so much fun! hot, relaxing, great friends, great wakeboarding- couldn't have asked for more (except maybe one more day there!) hanging out at my dad's for the weekend was really nice. we rode his motorcycle up into sequoia national forest, and went out on the lake- i got to do some more wakeboarding!

now for the road trip...aryanna, erica, and i drove up to san francisco to see our friend madeline, who goes to school at sf state. on the way up, we stopped in santa barbara for lunch, san luis obispo for dinner, and stayed the night at our friend sutton's, in santa cruz. the next day, we backtracked a little bit and went down to the monterey bay aquarium! that was so fun. i'm obsessed with the sea horses and penguins :)



we got up to san francisco later that night, and spent the next 3 days exploring the many faces of this fabulous city.






it took awhile to get there, but it's turning out to be a really great summer.
coming soon: camping trip to yosemite, jen's wedding, and possibly wakeboarding at my dad's again. ohh yes. :)

summer!

hi! well, it definitely has been a long time since i've posted anything new!

last semester was great: classes were tough but i did pretty well. missed california at times but got used to utah. got accepted to byu and byu-hawaii. had my first calling as a teacher. had wonderful roommates (whom i miss very much). and lived next door to my best friend (miss her too). such a great four months!

i learned so much and i definitely know i was supposed to be there last semester. i am transferring to hawaii in the fall... which is of course WAY exciting, but it's also hard. i mean i just got used to provo, had a wonderful roommate, lived 2 seconds from one of my best friends, finally got into the school i've been wanting to go to for 2 years... and now i have to start all over.

-sigh-

oh well. i am excited for what my new adventure has in store for me. :)

it's so good to be home!!! i just love southern orange county. a lot. it's been gorgeous; between 70 and 80 degrees and perfectly sunny and breezy for the past three weeks. no more worrying about a freak snow storm. yay! i'm just hanging out with friends and looking for a job right now... i need a job, bad!

that's it for now.
i'm off to the beach. <3

burnt out.

oh, i am so tired. so so so so so tired. i have two more finals tomorrow and i don't know how i'm going to get through them. well, biology won't be too bad. but math, ughhh math. math is gonna be the death of me! i did some extra credit, and there's a curve at the end, so i'm banking on that to help my grade. without those things i'd be toast. in 24 hours i will be done with the semester. (21 actually). oh boy. that is exciting.

on the bright side, i've had a nice relaxing day with my roommates... becky, whitney and i went out to lunch (britany was already on campus studying so she couldn't get sucked into our plot to not study). then, whitney and i went and laid out by the pool. it's such a lovely dayyy! we laid out for almost 2 hours, got some color... and studied a little bit.


as a nice study break, (okay i'll be honest i wasn't even studying) I GOT TO SEE ELDER HARDER! yep, cody's been set apart as a missionary for the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints :) he was up on campus today so i got to see him for a few minutes. how exciting.

and then, i bought us some german chocolate fudge from the byu bookstore. since he's going to germany i thought it was appropriate. and i just wanted chocolate...yeah. it was delicious.

so, now that it's 7:30 and i've done about an hour of studying all day, i'll wrap up this blog post so maybe i won't fail my finals tomorrow...

(disclaimer: despite all this complaining, i really am happy. no worries :) life's great.)

oh, you know.. just.. going crazy.

Hello!

so last weekend was general conference. and easter. and some friends from home came up to utah. it was a great weekend! saturday, i went up to salt lake for conference. saw both the saturday morning and saturday afternoon sessions, and hung out with drew, cody, and our new friend louie in between the sessions. it was great fun. my favorite general conference talk was "You Are My Hands" my President Dieter F. Uchtdorf. It was about love, and how we as disciples of Jesus Christ are called to love and serve others. watch it! it's a two-part video on you tube, or read it at http://www.lds.org/ :)


on easter, i watched conference at home, and then went up to salt lake to have dinner at drew's grandparents' house with a few friends. it was way fun. it was nice to be with a family on easter; this was the first easter i wasn't with my family. it was a great weekend and a great holiday, though! cody code is going on his mission in t-minus 9 days! how exciting. he's gonna be so great, but i'm gonna miss him tons!! here's a picture of our last hug (for two years)!






(okay i lied. i actually snuck in one more after this was taken.)

this past weekend, i got a whole lot of nothing done. i did go to the temple twice, to a volleyball game, and saw the last song and alice and wonderland... but not so much homework or studying. oops. yeah, it's good now and then to have a fun, relaxing weekend... but i start finals on thursday so maybe this past weekend wasn't the best time to take a break. ha. i'll make it through finals.... i think.

i have a 7-page biology paper i just started today due tomorrow, two math assignments also due tomorrow, two finals on thursday, teaching a lesson in relief society sunday, and two more finals next tuesday. hahaha. crazy 9 days. but after that i am done!

okay. i should probably stop blogging and get back to all the stuff i need to do!