Bananagrams!

So, my roommates Kallie is in love with the game bananagrams! If you know the rules of bananagrams, you'll know that it is much like scrabble, but you are each building your own set as fast as you can. Every person starts out with 14-21 tiles (depending on the number of players) and you leave the rest in the middle. Everytime you run out of tiles to use, you shout "peel" and every person must grab a new tile. You win if you are the first person to use up all your tiles after the pile in the middle has runs out! Kallie loves this game, because she can make all sorts of fun big words and swap out as many tiles as she needs to get the cleverest ideas to put down. On this particular day we had two special people join us!: Our buddy Cristian, and our roommate Amanda!

 So, confession, I also happen to love word games like scrabble and bananagrams! Every time I complete a puzzle, I can't help but feel so proud! (and of course... I HAVE to take a picture!!!) Sooooo, here are my clever word combinations!

Then we decided to get really creative and only make puzzles using words for the upcoming holiday: Halloween! Here is my clever Halloween bananagrams attempt:

I'm not gonna lie... I think I did quite well!

Happy Halloween!

Special visit from my dad!

This week I had such a special chance to spend some time with my dad!  He was here for a few days for a business trip (which never happens!) and so, being the great daddy that He is, He met up with me and his sister, my aunt, Diane, and bought us both lunch AND dinner! It was so nice to spend some time with him here in my own town and to just have him to myself for a change. It so rarely happens that I get to spend any time with my dad since he lives so far away, so this was such a special treat for me! We went to Kneaders for a delicious lunch in the new City Creek Mall and spent some time wandering and seeing what shops they had. We only went into one store: Bose. He he. We went all the way up to where he'd be staying to get him his hotel and then took some time to drive around and visit the old places we knew when we lived in the area. It was fun just to chat about life. He gave me some good financial advice and listened as I vented my frustrations about not having a job when I graduate and not knowing where to go from here. He's a great Dad and is always willing to listen to these kinds of things and offer advice. Believe it or not, He even lets me talk about boys, lol. He's the kind of guy who just wants his kids to be happy, and I'm so thankful for that!

The best part of the day was when we met up again with Diane and Dad took us to dinner at The Roof on the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. Diane and I are very unaccustomed to being treated so well, so we were in awe of the entire thing.

Every seat has the best view of the Salt Lake City temple, and the all-you-can eat buffet was spectacular. I had never eaten so nicely in my life!

Better than the food or the location, however, was just getting to be with two people who have meant so much to me over the years: my aunt and my dad. They may never fully understand what an impact they've had on me throughout my life-my dad for being there and providing for me well beyond the necessary and my aunt for her every Sunday dinner and for caring for me and being a friend and treating me as if I were her own daughter. (Not to mention being my most faithful writer while I was on my mission). She is a stellar individual and hardly has any time for herself. It is a miracle to me that she does so much and manages so well with so little.

 It was a special evening indeed, down to the beautiful live piano music being played the whole time. We arrived at just the right time as well, because the sun was just casting its golden glow upon everything as we were seated.

Before our meal was through it had sunk deep behind the mountains in the distance and left only the beauteous aura of the temple just outside our window, shining in the darkness.

What a moment in time which I shall never forget! The feelings of peace on that rooftop, the ambiance, the food, and my family. It was a night (and day) never to forget!

Family Night at the Cornmaze!

So as part of being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I get to participate in what we call Family Home Evening. It is one night set aside every week-usually Monday- for the family to get together and have a spiritual thought and spend some time doing some kind of fun activity together. As a student at Brigham Young University we still get to participate in "FHE" but with our roommates and other members of our apartment complexes. Every Monday our "family" still gets together for a spiritual message and a fun activity. This particular week our family decided to go to a local corn maze! It's such a fun way to get to know new people and build and strengthen friendships, as well as a way to establish a group of individuals on whom you can count for whatever social activity or need. Here is my FHE group sitting near a pumpkin patch at Cornbelly's Cornmaze. It was fun to navigate the maze and try to stick together, despite it being very dark! We got scared a couple of times as we paid our entrance fee by what appeared to be nothing but bushes and hay, but really was really a couple of employees dressed up to scare! It turned out to be a fun night as we also rode a few play tractors and on the swings and slid down the giant slides in burlap sacks and fed the goats and played in the pumpkin patch. Activities like this remind me that I am never too old to be a kid. :)

left to right: Grant, me, Nicki, Brian, Nate, Amanda, Emily and Dave volunteered to take the picture. :)

Roses are Red

This might be the silliest thing I've ever blogged about, but this week I was given a single rose. I've been given roses before and have seen them given to many different people, but this particular rose just seems to me to be the most beautiful and perfect rose I've ever seen! I couldn't help but take some pictures of it! (This is only a portion of what I took!) It truly is simply a gorgeous red rose!

Missionaries whom I love!

Just had to post really quick about my most recent district! It started out as a threesome with Elders Smith, Fenn, and Parke. Then a week later, Elder House came into the MTC and a week after that, He was put in our district! So now we have four amazing missionaries to work with right now. Each one brings something different to the classroom. Elder Smith brings in the comic relief with jokes like "mais ou menos" and "we shuparred." (As me what they mean later.) Elder Parke has just brought so much spirit and love, despite his sometimes sadness and homesickness. He just makes us smile every time we see Him. Elder Fenn is so dedicated and sincere and is just one of the most amazing missionaries I've ever met! He's hardworking and just seems to really understand what being a missionary and teaching to investigator needs is all about. Elder House is very well versed in the doctrine and has a great knack for leadership as well. He is kind and caring and concerned for others and doing what's right. They all are, actually!  We've been working with them on making sure each Elder has an equal amount of time to speak during the lessons and it's been great to see those who tend to speak the language better step aside humbly so their learning companions can have just as equal an opportunity for growth and learning. I just feel so much love for these missionaries and wish so badly that I could go out with them into the field. Perhaps someday, I'll be sending Elders out of "my own." Ha, but that's a long ways away. Until then, I feel so content and happy working with such missionaries full of spirit, love, dedication, and service. Ha, if I could just spend time with them all day, I would, but that definitely would not be a good use of the Lord's time, lol. Elder Smith is leaving us this week, which will be very sad! but it will be good for him since He'll be going to the Missionary Training Center down in Brazil. He'll have a great experience there! I just wish I could express how much I love this work and being so closely involved with the servants of God five days a week. It's such a blessing to be a teacher and I pray this period of my life goes slowly... ever so slowly... for it will last only a short while before I need to be moving on to different jobs and stages of my life. Until that happens, I will keep loving and working with these missionaries. How wonderful they are! If only I could be half as amazing as they are, lol!

Visiting Teaching and beyond!

So, we got to do some real service this week for the girl we visit teach: Katalin. Jessica (my companion) and I LOVED having someone actually ask us for help with something for a change, so we jumped  at the opportunity to help Katalin decorate the cultural hall for her 200+ person mission reunion. It was so fun to go there and put our artistic eyes to good use. Jessica is a big fan of interior decorating and I'm an art major, so between the two of us we were able to arrange the room and set up some nice table displays. Katalin spent hours creating these fun little circle fans made of paper which she gave us to arrange in what is hopefully an aesthetic manner. Here's how some of it turned out!

That's Katalin working away.

and Jessica posing next to the wall decoration.

and sort of the overall room. I had to leave before everything was finished
to go to work, but it was still so fun to help out

Let this be a lesson to all you visiting teachees out there. We visiting teachers are HAPPY to help, and we'll do a good job of it, too! :)

Happy October!

A quick sketch done during class to get you in the mood for the season:

Happy Autumn-time!