I'm Thankful For...

A great many things. First and foremost, I'm grateful for the gospel. I know most people say family and friends, but from the gospel, I can have the most amazing family for time and all eternity, and I can have some spectacular friends who help strengthen my testimony and are wonderful examples to me. I'm so thankful for the wonderful joys the gospel brings to my life. My roommates left me alone this year and as I was sitting here thinking of something to fill my mind, I was able to make s a list of things in my life I wouldn't have if not for the gospel.
The Atonement. The most wonderful and awesome part of my life. The ability to recognize my sins and repent and be cleaned. The comfort that it brings in times of hardship. The peace it brings when all I can feel is anguish. The Atonement is truly a blessing in my life and I'll never stop being grateful for it.
Eternal families. This concept is hard to grasp in the human mind. We think of life on earth incredibly long, when really, compared to the eternities, it's amazingly short. I love my family. So much. More than I tell them. So of course I'd want to have the blessing of being with them forever and ever and ever! And when I'm sealed in the temple to the man of my dreams, a worthy priesthood holder who will love me forever, I'll start my own eternal family. When I think of having kids, my heart swells with joy that I'll be able to raise God's children. But mostly, I'm excited to get to know them and to love them and spend forever with them. Why have a family if it's not going to last forever? Mortality is so short! Definitely not enough time to share with the people I love the most. With an eternal family, I'll have forever. It's a comfort.
Temples. The House of the Lord. What a better place to be than there? The peace and comfort and pure joy it brings into our lives is beyond measure. So many wonderful things happen in this amazing place. My favorite being sealings, and a close second is baptisms for the dead. Every time I go do baptisms, I can feels heavenly Father's approval and love. I know that those I am baptized for are present and I can feel their gratitude. It's such a wonderful feeling. The temple is a great place to be. I love love love that I can literally look up the street and see it. White and pure and beautiful. The temple is my favorite place in the whole world. No matter where you are, if you're in a temple, God is with you. Where else would you want to be?
My family. My parents. My wonderful brothers who look out for me and my heart when I'm stupid and careless with it. My sisters who are more of an inspiration to me that they know. I love them. So much. I'm grateful for Heavenly Father's infinite wisdom in putting me in this family. Oddly enough, they made me into the person I am today. They strengthen me and love me without end, regardless of my mistakes. They don't care. I couldn't have asked for better parents to lead me in this mortal life. They are shining examples in my life and they love me. It's hard to grasp sometimes how much they love me. I don't think I'll ever really know a parent's love until I have my own children. And I hope that when I do, I'll be just as amazing parent to them as my parents were to me.
My friends. I probably have the most amazing compilation of friends anyone could ask for. Sure, I've had friends that come and go in my life, who doesn't? But even then, I've learned from them. I've grown with them. Some have brought me closer to myself, and others have brought me closer to Christ. I am so thankful for their influences and guidance. Once again, Heavenly Father's wisdom proves itself.
I'm grateful for this school. BYU-Idaho. It truly is the Lord's school. So many things have happened that have opened up the path for me to be here today with these amazing people. All because it's what the Lord wanted. I love that I can open class with a prayer and feel the Spirit touching my heart as I study and learn. The proximity of the school to the temple is another blessing in my life. I love that I can walk up the hill before class and do baptisms and receive inspiration.
All of these things have been brought about because of one simple farm boy. I'm so grateful for the prophet Joseph Smith and his sacrifice. I once heard an apostle say that the greatest sacrifice was that of Christ. And the second was that of Joseph Smith.  He laid down EVERYTHING for the word and the world. For me. He didn't know what kind of impact it would make on my life and billions others. But he knew what was true and he didn't let anyone tell him differently. And for that, I'll forever be grateful.
And last but not certainly not least, I'm thankful for God's love. It brings me to tears every time I think about it. In this world, we're led to believe that unless we're perfect, we aren't loved. But in the gospel, we're taught that we're loved because we're not perfect. We are His children. Every single one of us. He loves us so much. It pains Him to see us here going through such trials and hardships, but He loves us, so He let's us endure such things. But he sent us the gospel. He sent us His Only Begotten Son to die for us so that we can live with Him again. It's an amazing thing to feel God's love for us and know that no matter where we are or how we feel, God loves us and wants the best for us. So many times in my life, especially lately, I've had the chance to feel this amazing love and I'll never get use to it. I'll never stop being grateful for it. I only wish everyone knew what I know.

These are just a few of the things I'm grateful. If I tried to write all of my blessings down, it'd take me a few hours. And even then I'd be leaving things out. I hope that this holiday season you've been able to count your blessings. You'll see that even with everything, life is an amazing journey and it will all be worth it in the end:)

A compilation of some awesome pics:)

Halloween

I tried to open it.... Yep..

Me and Evan. My pillow pet my wifey got me for my birthday:)

Me and me when I was a baby. For reals. We look exactly alike. It's odd,

I wanna see your peacock:)

I will eat you. Zombie apocalypse here I come:)

This Is The Oldest I've Ever Been:)

Well this has been an exciting month! I can't believe it's almost over! So weird! Let's start at the beginning:
My birthday.
It's only the best part of the month... Besides General Conference. Which was great. Loved it. But back to the point. For my birthday, my roommates and FHE brothers and sisters threw me a surprise party. Complete with a pinata. Do I have awesome "family" or what? I have probably the best friends out here any girl could ask for. I truly enjoyed my birthday, one of the best I've ever had this year. 

Dora

 

 

Killer Dora

You can't see it, but Bryan (FHE Dad) added the mean eyebrows to dear Dora and then we put some scissors in her hand. I guess she got tired of helping other people find their crap. (Direct quote the the lovely Miss Madi.)
Midterms came and went and I finally got my financial aid. Now I can pay all of my bills and have no more money left over. I AM accepting donations in the form of food, winter jackets (cute but warm), and money.
I just can't believe I've been twenty for two weeks! It's crazy how fast time flies when you're old! But really, I've been having a blast this month.
Last night, Madi and I decided we weren't going to stay in on a Friday night when there were parties to be partied. So, we did our make up kinda funny and headed out. We hit up a party in Hemming Village, but it was pretty lame, so we went to the cheap theater instead. Ryan met us there and we watched The Help. Awesome movie. I suggest you see it. Then we came back here and stayed up till... 3:30 vowing to wake up at 9 to get some work done...  Did that happen? Not really.. More like 11 to eat some cereal and watch TV.

Before the movie

After the movie

Today, Katie and I went with some kids from our complex to shoot guns with our bishop. All together there were 11 of us. Katie, Colten, Ryan, Nick, Ashley, Michael, Janessa, Corbin, Josh, Bishop, and me. It was so fun. We were out in the middle of nowhere Rigby for like three hours shooting at flying targets, dinosaurs/squirrels/gophers, and washing machine doors. I also think there was a bed pan out there that I managed to hit. I also managed to hit the tiny green dinosaur thing from a good 100 yards away and a flying clay pigeon. Go me! We then literally raced home. Well, partially home. On the dirt road back to the paved road, Colten, Bishop, and Nick had a contest to see who could drive the craziest. Yep. Bishop was fish tailin' everywhere, Nick almost t-boned us, and Colten was driving backwards! It was awesome! I felt like I was in an action movie! Haha.

Ryan and I getting thrown around in Colten's truck

Thankfully, Colten was keeping his eyes on the road when Katie and I took this

Me, Ashley, Janessa, Micheal, and Corbin in the back photobombing us

Waiting in line to shoot:)

This is when I hit the clay pigeon Katie threw

He does the signature Pixar face really well, Corbin does

I don't know why he is making that face...

Us girls:)

After that, Ryan and I went for a quick run to Walmart which turned into an hour and a half run to Walmart, D.I., Walmart again, Albertson's, and then Broulims. But! I managed to get this amazing costume for Monday and also some ingredients for some delicious cookies I'm going to try and cook tomorrow. Super excited for that. Then, I wound down the night with a good movie and some good friends.
Some pretty crazy stuff has happened this month. It's been a blast and I hope the rest of the semester is as amazing as this month has been.

Singing in the Stadium

What a trip! I love stadium singing! For those of you who don't know what it is, basically, students and locals gather under the stadium at 9:30 on Sunday nights every week and sing hymns a Capella for half an hour. It's so awesome. The Spirit is so strong there. You don't have to be a good singer. You don't have to know the songs. As long as you have access to a hymnal, you're good.
I love starting my week like this. It's such a high. I just come out of there feeling good and I go to sleep with hymns buzzing around my head. It's such a great experience. Last fall and winter I wasn't really in to it. I kinda wanted to go, but no one wanted to go with me and so I never went. But now, the kids from the complex all go and it's a great way to get to know each other. You grow so close spiritually to these people you are singing with. Tonight, we actually had a random girl come and start singing with us and then she gave us all hugs when she left! It's was so weird, but not weird at the same time. I love it.
So far I've been pretty amazing. My roommates are such a great support for me, even though they don't realize how important they are to me. I've made some great friends with the people in my complex and with the people from my ward. They are all super awesome.
I love that I can walk up to the temple whenever the heck I want and do baptisms. It's such a great privilege to have a temple so close to the school. I'm definitely taking advantage of it as much as I can. I love looking across town and seeing the temple there standing like a beacon to us. It's beautiful and peaceful. I love the blessings it brings to me.
I'm going to hit the hay while I still have "If You Could Hie to Kolob" stuck in my head.

Climbing the Butte and Jumping the Monkey

So much has happened! I'm making awesome friends and really coming to love my roommates.
As some of you know, my complex is boy/girl/ Meaning there is a boys building and a girls building. Four apartments each. Six people per apartment. We've really gotten to know the people in our complex and I can honestly say I love all of them. They are all super special people with such strong testimonies. It's like a spiritual vortex when you walk into the parking lot.
There is this mini mountain over by R mountain called Menan Butte. Michael, Nick, and I climbed it one night in hopes of watching the sunset. Well, we got a little lost and didn't get to the top of the mountain in time, but we trekked on. The climb was difficult but totally worth it. From the top, you can see all of Rexburg. It was gorgeous. Especially the temple. Once again, it was illuminated at the top of the town, the brightest light out there. I couldn't take my eyes off of it. As the three of us made our way back down, the sketchy way, we made plans to go back and watch the sun rise. That will be fun.
This past Saturday Michael, Corbin and I went to this place over by St. Anthony called Monkey Rock. It's pretty much just a mini waterfall. But what's really great is that about 400 yards up from the waterfall there is a bridge that is about 30 feet above the river that people jump off of. So, guess what we did. Yep. We jumped it. Let me tell you. I've jumped higher. But this was still pretty scary. Because you could see the rocks on the bottom and it looked higher than it actually was. After Michael jumped.. Twice.. I finally pushed myself off and took the plunge. What a rush! But the landing.. Wow. OUCH! I jumped from a sitting position, and managed to land on my right side mostly. Hot dang. That was painful. The water was so cold, it knocked the wind out of me! I could barely make it to the river's edge. But it was so fun. I couldn't bring myself to jump again, though. Maybe if the water had been warmer.. But Michael did a back flip. That was totally worth watching. I came out with some battle wounds. I have this big bruise on my upper arm and spotted bruises on my thigh. My thigh and arm were swollen all day yesterday. But like I said, totally worth it.
This semester is going by so stinkin' fast. I'm so excited. So far I'm doing great in my classes and loving it. I'm sure that will go away as soon as it starts snowing, though. But for now, I'm living life and loving every minute of it.

Rexburg: Part 2

I'm back in "The Burg". And I love it.
I've reconnected with some old roommates. Connected straight up with my new roommates. Made new friends and met my niece. She's super sweet.
I've been ultra busy.
Yesterday I unpacked and hung out with Ellie some. And I had dinner with Keaton. Some of you may know him as Elder Benson. He served in my ward last summer and is now in the same apartment complex as me. I visited with my brother and sister and their kids and then came back here and crashed. I was soo tired.
Today I got to hang out all day with Sonja. We ran errands and watched movies. We got Little Ceasers pizza with... CRAZY CRUST!! Neither of us have the option of crazy crust at home, so we were super excited to get some when we came back. We brought it back to my place and tried to watch a movie, but we couldn't get our TV to go to the right channel. So we took our movie, our pizza and our DVD player to Keaton's and watched it there. Super fun. And then Sonja and I went a chilled in the "back yard" and took a mini nap and played on the swing set they have and threw around a football. Then we went to Jedi's for dinner. Played the Wii, played with Piper (cute as can be) and then hit up Green Lantern at the cheap theater with Keaton. And now I'm super tired. Tomorrow I get to go to the temple. I can't think of a better way to start the semester than at the temple with people I love.
I'm super happy to be back here. I forgot how much I love it here. The people are just super nice and the weather is amazing and the landscape is gorgeous. I missed seeing Jedi and Aubrie whenever I wanted. I missed Tucker and his cute sayings and I missed Piper, even though she was super young when I left. I'm so glad to be back. I feel at home. I know what to do this semester tho. I guess you can say that last year was a trial run that I failed. But this time around, I will totally do things right. More work, less play, makes Auvie get straight A's.
The summer was a whorl wind of emotions that I have grown from. I'm so grateful to be back here on stable ground. I'm so grateful for Christ and his atonement and the rock He was to me when I was being flung around. I've learned to depend more on Him and less on myself. I can't do it alone and I don't have to. I guess I didn't know that last year, but this time I do and I'm better for it.

Let the Count Down Begin

Wow. Well, in case I haven't already told you a billion times, I am for sure going back to school in the fall. I know it was all up in the air last week, but as of Sunday, I have all of my classes registered and I'm currently working on an apartment. I can't even begin to describe how excited I am.

But I'm going to try anyways.

I know not too long ago I was a little iffy about going back to Idaho. But then I decided that Idaho is where I need to be. And that hasn't changed. I put aside my fears and trusted in the Lord.. But then, when I saw that I was back in, those fears started creeping in again. All of these "What if's" I had before came back to mind. And then the pounding in my chest wasn't because of excitement, but because of a nervous anticipation. I'm so ready to be back in school. I can literally feel my IQ drop every day I'm not learning something new. I'm a dork, I know; but I love learning. It's... Fun? Don't hate. But even then, that didn't over power my anxiety about going back. Sometimes I still wonder if it's the best idea.

I texted a friend of mine from Book of Mormon class and he said he was happy I am coming back. He was pretty excited to hear that we could pick up our morning routine again. He missed me:) That really helped me get over this feeling I had. I was worried that I wouldn't fit in. That people would be able to see through me and see my mistakes. But I have come to realize this is all in my head. Once again I'm excited to be going back. This time I'll be more prepared. I kind of feel like last year was my trial year and I failed so hard. But I'm given another chance and I'm not going to mess it up.

Don't get me wrong, I will miss Alabama and the people I know here. I have grown so close to so many new people, it's ridiculous. It's just what I needed. It helped me remember that I can make friends and that people do like me for me. I can't believe I ever thought any different.

I'm going to go out with a bang. Would you expect any less of me? I have about four weeks left and I plan on spending as much time as I can partying it up and throwing it down. Care to join me?

Stay tuned for more; this is just the beginning.



P.S. I have used the semicolon twice in this post, and I used it correctly. Be proud! My IQ hasn't dropped THAT much!