The sun'll come out...

So my last post was kind of a downer, huh? But yesterday didn't turn out so bad. :) I've decided that, whatever happens, happens; I'm not going to let it bother me, and I need to just move on.

Yesterday afternoon was the best part, though! I got to see one of my friends, Mary Helen, from when I was going to St. Theresa's, and we hadn't seen each other in, like, two years. We went out to the Sugar Bowl, a very cute, very pink (lol) ice cream place in Old Town Scottsdale. We had sooo much catching up to do! Then, we drove over to her house, where she showed me pictures from her family vacation to Washington and her trip last summer to...AUSTRALIA!!! Yeah, lucky duck!! She went there with some other teens for World Youth Day...from what I understand, it's kinda like a really long General Conference for Catholic youth. It was way fun getting to hear all about her travels and what she's been up to!

I've fallen in love with a quote I came across this morning. It went something like, "What you do for yourself dies with you, but what you do for others lives forever." When I read that, it made me want to run outside and give the first person I saw a ginormous hug, lol. Today makes it eight months since my baptism, and I also thought about all of my friends who have been so sweet to me, not only when I was investigating, but in the last several months, as I've been trying to find my way in the Church. I've really come to appreciate my true friends, and I love you all. :)

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow, because I am going up to Prescott to spend a few days with my grandparents! Yayay for family!! It'll be great to get to see them again, and it'll be nice to relax in some cooler weather, haha! Should be fun!!

Is today August 5?

It seems like August 5 is my own personal Friday the 13th. Every year, something wacky-crazy-unexpected-painful-tearful-yougettheidea happens on the same day...August 5.

The calendar tells me that today isn't August 5, but it feels like it should be. And the day's hardly just begun.

Oh joy.

The Holy Secret

So I just finished reading a super amazing book. It's called The Holy Secret. The book follows Michael and the conversations he has with a widower in his ward, Albert. Michael--and the reader--learns from Al what it's really like to love the scriptures, the Sabbath day, and the temple, and in the process, he also learns some important lessons about repentance, forgiveness, and loving and serving others.

I have learned so much from this book. It was like listening in on someone's personal scripture study. I'm hoping to read it again, but next time, I want to have my own scriptures and a pencil nearby. I especially enjoyed the part about the temple; now, I have a totally different perspective on why it's so important to go. The part about the scriptures was also really cool! There were so many familiar passages brought up and examined, but at the end, I'd be saying, "Huh, I've never thought of it that way, but it totally makes sense!" I love it when that happens...don't you, too? :)

"Mom, I think I wanna go on a mission."

"...you WHAT?!?!?!?"

Yup, this conversation didn't go quite as smoothly as I'd hoped...especially when she pulled the "I've-been-supportive-with-everything-else-but-this-is-going-too-far" line. :( Ouch.

I don't know what to do...I love my family so much, and my mom is my best friend. I know a mission trip is ultimately between Heavenly Father and I, but I don't know if I could do it if I knew how much she was against it. I don't want to upset her or do something that would make her unhappy...

There, now that I've vented a bit, we're gonna end on a positive note. I went to 5th Ward for the first time since, like, Easter. And it was seriously the best Sunday I've had in forever!!! All of the meetings were super amazing, and I felt so close to my Heavenly Father all day. But I was so exhausted by the time the day was through...I slept like a rock that night, lol.

The last few days have been sooo different, when I look back on the last two months. I'd been feeling so alone and afraid, and I hadn't felt that same happiness I'd felt over the previous months. I thought something was wrong with me. But since Sunday, I feel so excited and happy!! I feel like Sunday was a new beginning for me, and I've re-committed myself...to be excited about the Church all the time, like Mo; to be sincerely happy and loving, no matter what, like Abby and Lyndee; to be missionary-minded and know the temple, like Madison; to be not just a visiting teacher, but a true friend, like Brianna. The temple goal is a little hard to accomplish right now...I haven't even been since April, when we stopped in St. George on the way up to Conference. I really miss it. But once I have my license, I plan on going at least once a week.

Oh, and I'm going to see this tonight with my mama...

I am sooosososooo stoked!!!

And, as promised...if you want to see all of my family's photos from our vacation, go here and here.

I love you all. :)

ALASKA!!!!

Wowowowow!!! May 24 through June 3 were seriously the best days ever!! To celebrate our graduations, my family decided to reward ourselves with an Alaskan cruise! My 20th birthday was also on June 2, so we tied that into our little celebration, as well!

We drove to San Francisco all day Saturday, the 23. Boy, that was a loooonnng drive. But I loved every second of it! I loved looking out the window and seeing something different, and I think I almost have the Pride and Prejudice and the Becoming Jane soundtracks memorized, haha. We stayed the night in Oakland, and the next day, we drove up to my new favorite temple. I didn't think I'd like the Oakland Temple so much (I'd always thought it looked kinda weird in the pictures, lol), but it was so beautiful in-person!! It's right on the side of a hill and it overlooks the city. I didn't get to go inside, as it was Sunday, but we walked around the grounds and took a few pictures. Then, we drove down into San Francisco and got on the boat around 1!!

I wish I could give all the details about every day we spent on the ship, but I don't know if you'd really enjoy that too much, lol. So...I'll just do a quick rundown on some of the highlights of our trip.

We stopped at four different ports--Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, and Victoria. My family isn't a huge fan of tour groups, so we mostly explored on our own. We went whale watching in Juneau, which was amazing!!!! Kevin, the captain of the boat we were on, was super cool. He had a really long beard and couldn't get over the way we were dressed, especially my mom and I, haha! "I'm freezing the Arizonans!" We saw two pods of killer whale, lots of humpbacks, bald eagles, and sea lions. We even saw one humpback do this, twice:



And the same whale came up about 5 feet away from our boat!! Coolest thing ever!!

When we pulled into port in Skagway, we rented a car and drove up to Whitehorse, Canada. The drive up was breathtaking. It was like another planet!! We saw two bears, one black and one brown. And it started snowing on the way back down! Yuppers, snow in May...it looked just like a Christmas card!

And we can't forget the ship...the Sea Princess!! The food was amazing...you definitely couldn't say you were hungry while on the boat, lol. There was a 24-hour buffet, which was both a blessing and a curse. I loved the waitress we had at dinner; she was from Romania, and she always called my family her "sweeties" and she called me her "little angel!" Aww!! I'm going to miss her. :( Chris and I also enjoyed watching movies in the Princess Theatre, and they also showed "Movies Under the Stars" on the deck, but it was way too cold and windy for us "Arizonans," lol.

Kind of a funny story...every night, we'd get the "Princess Patter" delivered to our staterooms, describing the next day's activities. On Saturday night, I was looking at the Sunday morning activities, because I'd heard they'd be having an interdenominational church service and was planning on going. I found that one, and then looked at the 9am activity: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Service!! Yuppers, they had a Sacrament Meeting on the boat! It's funny, though, because it was held in one of the bars on the ship, lol. So now I can say that I've had the sacrament in a bar, lol! I hadn't been to church in over a month, so it was great being able to take the sacrament again.

Another story...we ran into a psychic!! We were in the elevator headed to the buffet for lunch, and a couple was going to the same deck as us. We were having small talk in the elevator, but when we got out, the lady stopped our family and told my parents that "your children love you very much and you have done a wonderful job with them." My parents thanked her and got in line for the buffet. I'd started walking with them, when she touched me on the arm and said something along these lines: "You are very musically talented, and you shouldn't give it up. It is your gift, and you bring joy to those around you when you share that gift. And what you've been thinking about the piano...go for it." How could she have known about my music?!? I'm definitely not as musical as I used to be, so I hadn't told anyone on the ship that I could play anything. And how did she know about the piano?! I'd been thinking about starting lessons again...dodododododododo it's the Twilight Zone. lol!

Anywho, we celebrated my birthday at sea! I woke up that morning and when I opened the door to go down to breakfast, I found three "Happy Birthday" balloons--purple, pink, and red!--taped on my door! Then, at dinner, I was sung to by our waitress and her assistants and got a special birthday cake, with a pink candle! And then, as it was the final night of the cruise, they had Baked Alaska for dessert!! The waiters all paraded around the room with them, and they played "Feeling Hot Hot Hot!" It was the coolest thing ever!!

So that is basically our trip in a nutshell! I will post some pictures soon! We got off the boat on the 3rd, spent the night in L.A., then drove back home yesterday. I'm so sad it's over...we had the best time!!! But Chris and I are already planning on doing another cruise next summer, possibly to the Caribbean!!

So you wanna be a [fill in the blank]??

Elementary school teacher?
Speech-language therapist/pathologist??
Counselor???

Maybe I'm not quite finished with school yet, after all...

This morning, my family drove up to Flagstaff, so that my dad could walk in his graduation from NAU. He got a Master's in Career and Technical Education. I'm sososo proud of him!! He's been dreaming about getting his Master's for years and years and years, and he was finally able to get it in one year, while still working full-time. He's worked harder than anyone else I know for this, and now it's time to celebrate!!

Chris and I have a few more finals left, but we're wrapping things up and getting ready for Wednesday. Honestly, though, we're more excited for our convocation on Saturday. No offense to y'all Obama-lovers, but we wish he wasn't speaking at our commencement. It was pretty exciting when we first heard about it, but now our graduation has just turned into a huge hassle. Chris and I have to get to the stadium by 3pm...the ceremony doesn't start till 7pm. Our parents' tickets say they have to be there at 3:30. When they first saw that, they were thinking about avoiding all of that by just going to our convocation, but they're going to get there at about 6 instead and hope that they'll still be let in. I'm hoping and praying they can get in...it wouldn't feel right without them there, because Chris and I wouldn't be there in the first place if it wasn't for them.

Anywho, now that I've vented about that, haha...two weeks from today, we'll be on the road to San Francisco, and two weeks from tomorrow, we'll be leaving on a big boat, on the way to Alaska. Yuppers, our graduation present to ourselves is a 10-day Alaskan cruise! We're super excited...this will be our first vacation in years!! And the best part (for me, at least)...we'll be on the boat on my birthday!!! Woohoo, I never imagined that I would be celebrating two decades of life while on a cruise ship, haha!

One week.

That's how long I have left before I graduate. I've been feeling a flood of emotions as the date looms closer. It's mostly been a battle between excitement and fear.

I am currently at one of those times in life when I'm closing the door on one chapter and opening another. Of course, this brings to mind the big "c" word--change. It's definitely exciting to think about trying new things and getting out of my comfort zone a little more, but it's also pretty scary.

I'll be 20 in about a month, but I'm going to be done with school in two weeks...I don't feel ready to be done. I feel like I should still have two more years to figure things out. Lately, I've been wishing that I could have gone to high school and gone through the same experiences that all of my friends have gone through. I haven't wished that in years. It's frustrating, because I thought I had accepted Heavenly Father's plan for me...I don't want to be bitter and fill my life with regrets and "if onlys."

I don't want this post to be a downer, so I'm going to shift gears and end on a positive note. Let's look at the good things about graduating...

1. I'll be done!! Yay!!! haha, I am really happy about it, I promise I'm not all doom and gloom! And I'm excited that I get to share my graduation with my best friend and my brother, Chris. And our dad is getting his Master's from NAU this Saturday, woohoo!!

2. I'll be able to work again. I've really missed having a job, but since I made the crazy decision to complete 42 credit hours in a year, I didn't really have time for a job. Be happy in your worrrk! (Bonus points if you can name the movie!)

3. The possibility of a roommate. Since I won't be going to ASU, I may have to switch to another ward. *tear* But I'm thinking of trying to find a roommate in the 5th Ward boundaries sometime in the fall semester. So if I do have to say goodbye to my wonderful ward family, it'll probably only be for the summer. And we can still keep in touch until then!

4. A mission...? This is still way, way, way up in the air, mostly due to timing. Because I'd be done with school, I wouldn't have to worry about making the transition back into study mode. I've talked about the possibility a bit with my parents, and they think if I do go, that I shouldn't leave when I'm 21, but that I should stick with my job for awhile (if I find one I like) so that I'll have something for when I come back home. But I have been seriously considering a mission since pretty much right after I was baptized. I'm so grateful for missionary work, because I know without it, I wouldn't be who I am today...I really want to give something back and help others find the same joy I have found.

So there you go. A sneak peek at the workings of Rebecca's brain, lol.