Dinner and awards

I just spent like 20 hours making awards for my kids! I made them individualized with a picture of the kid and what their award was for! Man I'm a nice teacher! But it is the end of the year and so I have the slideshow and the awards ready for manana...let the countdown begin. Only 4 days left of school! Then one day of teacher meetings on Friday and then freedom...and off to the pool and college for the rest of the summer.

life

well...life has been interesting lately. I love life and it is so good to love it again! I have been sad and in pain for the longest period of time that I have ever experienced half wondering if i would ever find joy and be happy again. Well, this week was the continuation of the growth I have been seeing. Each day gets better and now i can see a future; a future of happiness and me being me again.

I have changed in so many ways, but not changed enough yet...but now there are things I know that I needed to learn from this. Everyone has their "things" they have to go through in order to become who they ultimately want to and need to become. I have learned so much in the last little bit that I wouldn't have learned otherwise. There were moments that I wished the pain would just pass and there were moments that I chose to not let it pass, because that meant that I had to move on, but now I know that it is easier to cling onto pain, live through it and allow yourself the time and space and tears needed to learn what you need to and move on, all the while keeping that part of you that learned so much in you tucked away for the moments you need to be sympathetic to others or to get through another hard thing.

How good it is to know that there is a God in heaven who guides us if we will only trust in Him. I wouldn't be the person I am today if I didn't know the truths I know. I am grateful for growth and for pain and for a Savior who allows me to not be alone even when i have felt that i couldn't get any emptier. He is real and He is my Savior.

I know we all go through the things we need to in order to grow and become what it is we are supposed to be and unfortunately those things are hard. sometimes so hard that we think we won't make it, but I often think of the story in the Bible with the apostles and the storm and the 4th watch, that they needed the storm to calm...He didn't come to rescue them until it seemed they would perish. I'm grateful for a Heavenly Father who trusts me enough to let me row on (sometimes feeling so alone) even until the 4th watch and just when i can't do it anymore, he swoops in and rescues me and I am found brighter than I began. That is what truth does to you. It makes you find out who you are and what you believe and then when you've passed through the fire you are that much better for it.

Those are a few thoughts I have had and things I have learned in the last 5 months. He never ever leaves us alone (even when we feel like it) but is always there to cast our burdens upon and to help us stand when all we want to do is fall. God is good! He is merciful and kind and tender and ever there. I know Him to be our Creator and our Master and I'm so thankful to know these truths that pull me out of the ruts of life that would otherwise leave me to perish.

Wordle-life

This is a really cool thing that I was told about by a friend of mine. All I did was put in my blog address and it randomly made it from the words on my blog. Pretty cool! if you want to do one, just go to www.­wordle.­net

spring break 2010 the california adventure

So spring break consisted of many wonderful things including :
• magic mountain
• me throwing up after the second ride (I'm not as resiliant as I used to be!)
• reading a lot (but still not finishing my book(s))
• Erin and Kevin fakely getting engaged (see pic)
• All of us wearing blue to magic mountain without meaning to
• Kevin and Cooper wearing red without meaning to, but a lot of great photo ops on that one!
• a lot of eating
o cheese cake factory, denny's, Norm's (Bu-Tar's request), Mc Donalds, Burger king, sizzler
• kryssi almost getting bit by a seal
• a crazy lady letting her kids play right by the wild seal
• taking a picture with the seal (he looks like he totally knew he was posing!)
• arguing
• seeing dolphins (completed the whole trip!)
• losing Kryssi twice
• laughing in the water
• hitting my head on the bottom of the ocean as a huge wave took me down with it
• boogie boarding (apparently known as sponging)
• sleeping in!
• burying Kevin and Cooper in the sand
• eating chocolate muffins and lots of candy
• giving away brownies
• reading (did i mention that already?!)
• digging free cups out of the basura
• annoying Michael by taking a lot of pictures (some really cool ones I might add)
• laughing at Cooper and Kevin's childish ways
• going to Hollywood
• Rodeo drive baby! (pretty woman hotel)
• Almost getting bit by a pelican (I heard that Kryssi did…guess she didn’t learn with the seal!)
• Laughing
• Driving
• Sleeping
• Reading
• Swimming
• Hot tubing
• Electricity going out on the morning we left
• Drinking too much soda and caffeine
• Eating way too much
• Playing hang man on my phone with But-ars on the way home
• Getting gas
• Figuring out where we were…thank goodness for Iphones and GPS
• Going to Target to get lemonade
• Swimming
• Erin only getting burnt on one side of her body!
• Kryssi getting way burnt everywhere.
• Me not getting burnt at all
• Cooper’s face matching his red shirt
• Michael hoping I was wrong…but not to worry I was right once!
• Shopping at the Farmer’s market
• Getting parking validation
• Paying parking garage fees
• Switching cars
• Going up and down the elevator
• Watching Shrek 2 and 3
• Paying for movies we didn’t watch in our room
• Drinking really expensive water in the room
• Bringing a lot of stuff to the beach and leaving half of it there
• Getting talked to by the lifeguard 3 times
• Watching the seal get hauled away…sad
• Taking more pictures
• Getting water showered on me while fully clothed (thanks Kevin)
• Saying “hi, how are you?” to a man walking with a walker by the beach and him saying “Hey thanks for talking to me.” I wanted to go back and give him a hug. I totally should of.
Overall it was a great trip!

7 years

I have decided that 7 is my lucky number for some reason! I'm not one to gamble, but it turns out that 7 is the perfect number (or so the philosophers say). Good things have happened to me on the 7th day or something to do with seven...well today marks 7 years that I got on a plan and came home from my mission (so I'll really arrive in the US tomorrow (it takes 24 hours to travel from Uruguay to the USA)but 7 years it is...it seems like more and in ways seems like less, but wow I love those people. I'll post some pictures later when I scan them,because, well that was back in the day when we actually used a thing called "film" and my batteries were literally duct taped onto my camera! (I didn't get a digital camera until 3 years later as a graduation gift from college from my brother (that camera has since been stolenn on the beaches of California and replaced twice, nicked by a hammer while making a "lehi legacy" book and now as previously mentioned is stained by the yellow and pink cornstarch colors of the festival of colors from yesterday!))

A lot can happen in 7 years. I've learned a lot. I've learned that love is probably the most important part of why we are here and we should never be ashamed that we love, even when that love is unrequited or unaccepted.

-God loved us so He sent His son
-If ye love me keep my commandments (John 14:15)
-The greatest commandment is to love (Matthew 22:36-40)
-36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great acommandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
-1 Ne 8,11 The rod of iron (the word of God) leads us to the tree (love of God)
vs22 "And I answered him, saying: Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things."

-Charity is the greatest of all (Moroni 7:45-48)
45 And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail—
47 But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.
48 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen.
-1Corn. 13:1 1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

There have been moments in the last 29 years of my life that I have feared charity, because I didn't know how to get it or was unwilling to do the work to get it. Recently my experience has taught me that if you want something bad enough (or even if you don't want it, because it seems too hard to get) that you have to give your all to it. I have spent sleepless nights figuring out how to get over certain things and have found myself on my knees praying with all the enegy of my heart to get rid of the pain and to find peace...and when I was done praying, I felt an overwhelming peace not solving my problem, but opening my heart and filling it with charity toward all men, allowing them to be who they are so that i could be allowed that same priveldge, knowing then what I know now, that the Lord sent us here to bear one another's burdens, to feel pain and love so that we could qualify to make it home to him again, bringing with us our fellowmen in love and purity, not just forcing us back, but us choosing our way back and that is his pure love. He loves us so much that He lets us choose, which is a thing I never supposed or understood until I had to let/allow others to choose what they will and love them anyway. I think that is a piece of charity. It's coming...little by little, but now I don't fear it as much, because I know it's obtainable, but only if I do it in the Lord's way and not my own...and so it circles 'round "If ye love me keep my commandments" and we do that by loving his children (ourselves included) as He does (or at least trying as He does)...working on it!

Happy 7 years to everyone!

"When the rest of the world looks through the lenses of momentary pleasure, it is only through Christ that we can understand how momentary this life really is, yet the choices we make here on Earth determine eternity." 1-19-2010 B.P.

Festival of colors

I have heard about this festival of colors to ring in the color of Spring for years, but never went because I only ever heard about it the day after when I saw everyone's crazy pictures. Now my camera will never be the same. the yellow and pink pixie dust will forever remain apart of my already very well used and worn camera. So basically, you go to the harichrishna (sp) temple and buy some "chalk" which is really edible, colored, scented corn starch and at a certain time they say that it's time to throw it up in the air. I crowd surfed for my first time ever. It was fun (short lived, but fun!) and when the chalk flies you literally can't breathe! It is crazy and fun! We hugged people we didn't know and rubbed love on each other with the colors! It was great fun! followed up by a freezing cold dinner at Parker's Drive in after the sun was working its way down.

Simplicity

I was looking at pictures today and came across this one I took 4 years ago. I am amazed at how simple life used to be and how simple it can be. Sometimes when we just take a glimpse really quick we miss so much, but then when we look deeply there are so many things we never saw. Ever since my mission I have loved looking at Dragon Flies. For some reason I would find them dead all the time and I have like 3 in my journal from my mission. I am fascinated by their wings. How is that there is something so simple and delicate with holes in it that keeps them in flight? I don't know, but when I look at a dragonfly I know that God is in heaven and He knows a whole lot more about life than I do! So that's what I'm hanging onto today! Happiness and knowing that He knows a lot more than I do and sends me angelic things all day long! Today was a happy day! I laughed a lot and my students kept asking why I was in such a good mood. I didn't know myself and I can only attribute it to the fact that I prayed really hard on my way to school that I could be happy! So my dragonfly is another thing that made me happy and help me remember that He's there in his heaven and is watching gently over me. That is what I know today.


The other picture was a leaf bug I almost stepped on as I was walking on the football field. It represents for me (what I'm searching for right now) that just under your nose is something you just might not see, but if you look at things from a different angle you will find it and see it. So that's where we stand for now...keep on looking, sometimes from different angles!

Changed my whole day...take a look

Valentine's Weekend

My desk when I walked into my room made me cry for all the love I felt from all the people around me. I couldn't help it, but feel so much overwhelming love. I had so many emotions in me all at once and just was overwhelmed at how loved I am. I have a lot of good people taking care of me. Thanks everyone!


My Desk at the end of the day with tons of valentines.

Silly String wars make us silly

12:52pm January 29, 2010
Well I have had some fun today! Silly string is fun and not fun to clean up , but once it dries not too bad!!! I did a lesson on initiative today in student government where I sprayed silly string on everyone, then gave all of them a can to spray on each other. Everyone was saying “This is the funnest day I’ve ever had at school…” Then we before we cleaned it up, we read this story called “The Dog Poop Initiative”. It is a story about some man walking his dog, he poops and everyone avoids it but doesn’t clean it up. They just point it out and say, “Watch out for the poop” during the soccer game etc…well, no one does anything about it, but point it out and complain about it. Then this man and his son come to the game and simply get a piece of paper or cardboard and pick it up. There isn’t a big hoorah about it, but they just keep playing and no big reward is done for the guy who took the initiative. I was trying to teach them that we all have choices and some have good consequences and some have bad and some just have regular ones like picking up poop and no one really rewards you, but you feel good about you, cause you helped out. I told them, “Now we have this whole classroom full of silly string, I initiated it, knowing that I would have to clean it up and I invited you guys to join me, but you didn’t have to and you don’t have to clean up. Life is all about choices. You can choose to help or you don’t have to…but we are leaders and even when there isn’t going to be a reward we should dig deep down and not only do the fun part (spraying silly string everywhere) but we should do our part to clean it up, even if it’s not fun. Like everyone wants to help set up for the dances (we have one this next Friday) but no one wants to stay behind and clean up…the choice is always ours…I hope you guys will be leaders and take the initiative, even when it’s not fun and there is no reward…pick up some poop!” They all got right on it and we cleaned.

2 periods later my room was clean, like no silly string had ever been in here, and then I was innocently teaching and Mr. G came in with his own can of silly string and sprayed me down! Little did he know that I still had like 30 or 40 cans (from the last dance) in my room! I told my class it is now retaliation time! We all got armed with 2 cans each and after getting locked out, my hand slammed in the door and laughing like crazy (it was the hardest and most I have laughed in a long time) Mr. G learned to not mess with someone when you only have 1 can of ammo and you don’t know how many cans of ammo the other guy has!

After they cleaned up, I saw one of my students with a homemade hat made of a Styrofoam bowl that said, “I cleaned up poop today!” Now, that made me feel good!!! And so the dog poop initiative lives on! Thanks Jenni Call for giving it to me!!! And thanks Mr. Ettinger for not being too upset that we got silly string everywhere! It’s all cleaned up now, cause we all picked up some poop today!! And thanks Mr. G for being a good sport when you didn't know how much amo I had!!!