Thursday, April 23, 2009

The national animal is the kiwi.

My family is talking about moving again.

This time, it's New Zealand. Yeah...They're looking at moving sometime around next March...Mom and Dad first, then Chris (and I??) a bit later. When I got home from church on Sunday, I found out that Dad had already been doing some research for me..."Look, there's Mormons there! You wouldn't be the only one!" haha.

Honestly, I don't know what to do...I don't know if I could leave everyone I love and everything I know behind, but my family is the most important thing to me, right up there next to the Church.

I don't know...I'm definitely gonna be praying about this one a lot...alotalotalot.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Happy Easter!!

Saturday, April 11, 2009

"The future is as bright as your faith."

Last weekend, I had the amazing opportunity to go on a Mormon pilgrimage with some girlfriends to see General Conference in Salt Lake City!

Jenny, Brianna, Candice, and I began our journey early Friday morning. We had a blast singing along to Wicked and Anastasia. On the way up to Provo, we stopped at the St. George Temple, which was absolutely beautiful, to do baptisms! After that, we were on the road again. We dropped Candice off at her mom's in Provo, drove by some of the highlights (the Provo Temple, BYU, and the MTC), and then headed to Springville, where we'd be staying with Jenny's mom, who was an absolute sweetheart!

Candice decided to stay at home and watch Conference with her family, so Jenny, Brianna, and I got up early Saturday morning and drove out to Salt Lake City. We were planning on just trying to make it into the afternoon session; Jenny said she'd stand in line while Brianna and I explored Temple Square. But when we got there, we decided to make up a sign, saying we needed 3 tickets. As we were walking through the crowd, we passed a group of people and overheard that they had some extra tickets!! They only had two for the Saturday morning session, but Jenny told Brianna and I to take them, as we'd never been to Conference. Brianna and I were ecstatic!! As we were heading back to the Conference Center, though, we realized that the tickets were in different sections...lol. But we made it in, haha! It was so amazing being inside the Conference Center; when I walked in and saw the organ for the first time, I got this really silly grin on my face, haha. I couldn't believe I was actually there!And then when the prophet walked in...ahh, so exciting!! This was also the session when they announced the new Apostle: Elder Andersen!! I almost squealed when I heard who they had called, not only because I could put the name and the face together, but his talk in the last Conference had a big impact on my decision to be baptized!

After the morning session, I met up with Brianna and Jenny again (thank goodness for cell phones!!), and we stood in stand-by for the afternoon session. We were right near the front of the line, but we still had to stand in line for almost two hours. It was sooo cold!! We ended up putting blankets on our feet, haha! They let us in about five minutes before the session started, so we missed the first couple of minutes.

We drove up one more time to SLC on Sunday morning. The sky had cleared up, the sun was out, and it was sweater weather, yay! Candice's mom had 3 tickets for the Sunday morning session, and she was so sweet and gave them to us!! This session was my favorite; each talk that was given has inspired me to "get off the sidelines" and strive to become a true disciple of Christ.Afterwards, we explored Temple Square a little bit and got some pictures.The Salt Lake Temple is amazing!! As I was looking up at it, I couldn't stop thinking of the early Saints and their incredible faith.We picked up Candice at her grandparents' home in Bountiful and then started the journey back home, while listening to the afternoon session of Conference on the radio. I've labeled this session the "TT"--Temple Talks, haha. I haven't been able to go to the temple as much as I would like to, but I'm hoping to start going at least once a week, once I get my driver's license (soon, haha!). We stopped in St. George one more time, to get some photos of the temple.
And then we were home!! What a wonderful, edifying, testimony-building weekend!!