Elder Rogers

About 3 years ago, I started dating Spencer Rogers. About 4 months after that, in June, he had obtained a copy of the Book of Mormon and started meeting with the LDS missionaries. By October, he had decided to get baptized, but was not able to until the following June. He was baptized on June 23rd 2007. The next June (2008) made him eligible to serve a mission. He worked full time to raise money to get on that mission. Through frustration, discouragement, and all the other struggles, he finally made it. Elder Rogers entered the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT today!!



This is Elder Rogers with some of the missionaries who taught him!

On a happier note!

Ok so I have been going to the gym a LOT lately and I am stocked full of natural energy! I can't make myself sleep or stay asleep! I think I scared Kim this morning, I was bouncing around all morning. Long story short, I feel great. I love working out. AND ALSO ever since I started working out more consistantly, my body has been craving fruits and veggies which is WEIRD, for those of you who don't know my fruit and veggie quirk.

In other news, aside from my body freaking out, I have decided to revive my musicality by learning to play the guitar!! Whoohoo! So I don't have to worry about finding a piano, I can just pick up a guitar and sing/play my heart out! So yeah, that's what I'm buying with my tax return, a guitar. So that's what I'm doing this weekend, guitar shopping. Yippee!

Happy Valentine's Day

AKA Singles' Awareness Day

This has been my first Valentine's day in seven years not to have a "valentine". Not really sure how I feel about it. It's not like I was ever a huge fan of the holiday, I just always happened to have a boyfriend when they day rolled around. I was actually looking forward to today though, I pre-made the decision to revel in it and be my own valentine and go out and clean my car or shop or something. When I woke up this morning, however, I had a sore throat, and it was more or less a blizzard outside so that knocked out about half of my plans. On top of that it turned out to be a pretty emotional day, with my own issues and those with my parents. Well I finally decided to pick myself up and do some of my homework which included reading selections from Margaret Fuller's The Great Lawsuit. It's early American women's rights literature, a lot to soak in. Anyway so I was reading it when this statement slapped me in the face:

"If any individual live too much in relations, so that he becomes a stranger to the resources of his own nature, he falls after a while into a distraction, or imbecility, from which he can only be cured by a time of isolation, which gives the renovating fountains time to rise up... Union is only possible to those who are units."

How true this statement is. The past few weeks I have really done a lot of praying and trying to figure out what it is the Lord wants for me/from me right now, and this statement really does sum up a lot of what I have found He wants me to do. I need to be on my own for a while, learning and growing, "renovating" if you will. I know I used to be a whole and complete person, a "unit" but somewhere in the past couple years at BYU I kind of became complacent, it's ridiculously easy to do at BYU, believe it or not. Last night I completely finished a journal for the first time. I started it 02-13-06 and finished it last night, 02-13-09-- three years. The beginning of that journal records me at my worst, the middle records me at my best, and the end records me at some sort of plateau, in a rut, trying to make my way back to where I was in the middle, if not higher. Man I used to be on fire! Even just last spring I had such a great relationship with the Lord and such a huge desire to serve. Last spring I got a phone call asking me to take a girl to the hospital and I sprinted all the way across campus to get to her and stayed at the hospital all night with her. This semester, I was put "on call" to take a roommate to the hospital if it were necessary, and I...didn't find myself quite as willing; I know I would have done it, but I would not have been happy about it. I don't know what happened to me! Or how I let it happen! But I've got to fix it.

Here is comin', a better version of me.

GAH! I can't get the italics to go away! I just wanted them for that one quotation!! Sorry, it's really bugging me!!!

I almost forgot

I got accepted to the English Ed program! I was too bogged down last week to really get excited, but now that my burdens are lifting I'm pretty stoked. This fall I get to go out to schools and be in classrooms doing teacherly stuff and that excites me because I am, admittedly and proudly, a nerd. : )

St. George Adventures

This weekend I took a spur of the moment trip to St. George. It was way fun. The only thing I had planned was the hotel and a haircut. The rest was just me, Lisa (my car), and my camera (who doesn't have a name) exploring, taking random roads, and seeing what there was to see. It was relaxing and liberating and warm and beautiful and much needed.