Tender Mercies that teach lessons and bring smiles....

Earlier today I went to an auto parts store to replace Sarah's tail lights. So...I put them in myself (with a little assistance from Jordan) and called it good but tonight when it got dark we tested them and they didn't work ha...so we stopped by the store again and asked someone to help us. Turns out we needed a new fuse. SO.... this very nice man named Tony got a fuse from the store, opened it, and installed it for us. :) When he finished, he just smiled and said, "You don't owe me a thing, now just get out of here." He did that service for us and it was so kind. It made us both so grateful for people like that. Wouldn't the world just be such a grand place if all people were that way? It was a sweet moment for us.

Sarah and I had some Kohl's coupons that were only good today so we went and did some shopping for our missions and I got 2 adorable little dresses! Perfect for the Philippines. AND I got a great deal on them. I am so nervous but I get more excited every day to serve a mission.

After doing some fun shopping, Sarah and I did something spontaneous... yup. We went to McDonalds and got ice cream cones, and made root beer floats out of them and went night swimming. ha. We had such a great time together. Ughh. It kills me when I think about 18 months away from her. We are truly best friends. Sometimes I already miss her. Anyway, we had fun. So much fun. I love her.

Quezon City North Mission..... I'm coming. :)

Well... I leave exactly 2 months from today. I report to the MTC in Provo on September 28th. I am so nervous, and unprepared but I'm putting my SHOULDER TO THE WHEEL! I am going to own this mission. I'm going to totally work it. :) The tagolog language....yeah it's got NOTHIN on me :)

(Who am I kidding? I am so terrified. Power of positive thinking right?)

So I still have like $3,000.00 to earn for my mission and I am stressing out a little but it will all work out and the Lord will provide. (If you'd like to make a small (or big) contribution ha... send your checks to......... I'm totally kidding guys. But if you have a charitable rich relative, let me know, I'll give you my address. ;)But seriously.

Here is a very miniature list of a few seriously ridiculous things I am scared of on my mission.



-Eating rice 3 times a day and coming back 50 pounds heavier with rice cheeks.
-Completely freezing up and not knowing how to communicate in the language.
-Sweating my guts out (it's 90-100% humidity ALL YEAR ROUND).
-MASSIVE bugs.
-A companion who has a chronic gas problem. (ha...I told you it was ridiculous)
-Not getting any mail. ha.
-Running out of tampons and deodorant (they say to bring enough to last 18 months...crazy right?)



Alright so there you have it. I have some silly fears. But... I assure you I am working on overcoming some of those ha.

:)

Check this handsome bugger out!! Oh man, I'm so lucky to be in love with such a great guy. My roommate had a photography assignment for one of her classes to take some pictures of a couple and when Jared surprised me and came up here to see me about a month ago, we helped my roommate out with her assignment. :) I'm really white compared to him, but I've been in Idaho! He's been soaking up the Mesa heat. :) Little punk. Anyway....I have a lot to update so ill do it soon!

"You cannot give a crust to the Lord without receiving a loaf in return"

Oh it has been a long day today. I took Joshua to the airport this morning at 5:30. Drove back and went straight to my janitor job at 7:30, then went and did a poop scooping job. Came home and went to the gym. I ran a full mile and a half on my knee. It is feeling, hmm.... a bit sore and tight but I think thats normal. I haven't ran on it for 4 months. So that felt real good! Came home and showered and did some things, then went to work at Gold's for 5 hours tonight. Just got home. I am tired!

Well.... 2 more weeks and I am out of Provo. I will be unemployed and job searching again. Oh I hate to say I am not looking forward to it, but....I am not looking forward to it. I have been sending my resume and applying to places a lot the past 3 weeks but haven't gotten anything just yet. OH! And I am so nervous for school. I'll have to be a good student. man! But it'll be good for me.

The past 2 weeks (or however long its been since I have posted) have been pretty good. Working lots, being with Jared a bit, and just doing life. I learn more and more each day.

Conference was so incredible! There were so many incredible messages given to us. ALL things that are so obvious that we need to work on as a people. We have a long way to go but we'll get there. Each conference, I realize a little more and more how absolutely amazing, and really what a miracle it is that we have a Prophet that gives us revelation in our day. THAT'S INCREDIBLE! I get anxious to hear what they have prepared for us each time. I definitely have my work cut out for me for the next 6 months. So do the single guys.... (hahahaha... I realized this conference how grateful I was to be female!) I listened to the priesthood session yesterday and it was so so good! Monson's talk was wonderful. I loved what he said, "Choose your love, and love your choice." SO GREAT! Today I listened to Elder Oaks talk on desire. The story about the guy who cut off his arm to save his life was incredible. I can't even imagine. Here's a little part of it I really liked a lot.

"Desire dictates our priorities, priorities shape our choices, and choices determine our actions." -Elder Oaks

We underestimate how important desire is. Everything stems from desire. We cannot improve in any way without a desire to do it first. I loved this talk.

Family Night

Last Night I went to Jacob and Rebekah's house for FHE. AND...JOSHUA was in town! We had a yummy spaghetti dinner, then Rebekah made some cookies and Jacob shared an article from the ensign this month. It was really wonderful. It was actually the hometeaching message for the month by Elder Uchtdorf about looking for the good in all people and situations in life. I loved it. It is so applicable to all of us and that principle has already really blessed me in my life a lot. Life truly becomes so much more enjoyable when we can go about each day seeing the good things, not the bad in each other and in situations we are confronted with. The gospel of Jesus Christ is so true. It makes me so happy :)

**Jared and I went over to his cousin Andrew's house and helped them paint some things for their new home. It was good, and fun, but I got home so late and I am getting sick. Oh boy.....

Stop signs.... :)

So, last Wednesday, March 16 to be exact, I picked Jared up from school at 3 and I went and enjoyed the afternoon with his little siblings, Grandma Ray, Jared's Aunt Jenise, and his Mother Christine. It was very fun. We helped make 11 pans of lasagna that Christine was freezing for Jared's brothers wedding in April. Then Leah, Nathan, Tanner (some of Jared's little siblings) and I went outside and played some basketball for a while. It was so fun just being there and playing. But the day doesn't end anytime soon.... it gets so much better!

Ha. This is adorable. Jared and I drove up Provo Canyon the other day and we walked the trail to bridal veil falls, which for those of you who don't know, is a waterfall in the canyon. It really is beautiful. Anyway, it was an overcast day. Absolutely gorgeous outside. Not too cold at all, so we decided to do it and we went and enjoyed the waterfall and just kinda stood in a hug for a little bit (and he might have added a kiss here and there) when it started to rain pretty hard on us. HA... so I can't run on my knee so we just kinda walked along! It was great. So... we're walking and we come to a stop sign which obviously is meant for people in cars but I grabbed his arm to kinda stop him and looked at him and said, "We're supposed to stop here." Then I reached up and kissed him. (I know I'm pretty romantic huh? ;))


Anyway, I put my arms around him and said, "I can't see Jared so you'll have to look both ways and let me know when the coast is clear." His very sly reply was as follows, "Oh it's very busy. There are lots of cars coming both ways." ha, and OF COURSE there are NO cars out at all! ha.... so he kisses me again and eventually we continue. You know how strict those officers are now a days. We had to be sure we made a complete stop. ;)
On our way home, he kissed me at every stop sign we came to. ha ha.... and he switched up the route to hit as many as he could. It was so great. We just had fun.

***We also talked a little and I am definitely still going up to Idaho for school in April.

And now...... Jared and I. :)

Oh.... here he is. He's incredibly good looking and handsome and adorable and wonderful and just down right cute huh? ;) May I just say that last night we just had a lot of fun and I fell a little more in love with him. He's wonderful.


I love this boy. He's so great.

This is our extraordinary snowman. Isn't it excellent!? We named him Leonard. Lenny for short.

Ok, one night Jared and I went to a BYU basketball game and just for this ONE game, to support breast cancer, the team wore BRIGHT PINK nike basketball shoes. It was so AWESOME! Yeah, that's how ridiculously spectacular BYU is. We had fun. It was awesome to be there!

Roommates, Utah fun.

Alright ya'll, here are some pictures of my apartment, our awesome stadium seating we arranged, and my roommates and I.


Yes, here's our great stadium seating set up. Kinda just a fun change.

We made a 3 teared cake with vanilla and chocolate that was supposed to be a checkerboard cake but turned out more like, hmm..... a moo cow cake. still fun though.


My roommates made me go out to the hot tub with them.... it took a lot, but I finally consented to going.

PATIENCE!

YA'LL! Goodness gracious have some patience with me! I will get a picture of Jared and I and put it on here I PROMISE! ha, I love you all.

SO....today I went out and stood on the side of the street in the dog costume. It was my first day. I will be honest, and I am a little embarrassed to admit that I really had a hard time getting out there. I had to humble myself a lot ha. But, besides my face getting real itchy and sticky and sweaty from the dog head and the full body suit, it was good. A little girl took a picture with me and gave me a hug. ha. I connected with a lot of children... we'll say that ha.

ANYWAY..... life is good.

catching up..... I even posted some PICS!

Sarah and Catie came to visit! It was so great!



Sorry it's been a while... I got busy working and what not. I got the job at golds gym, 15 hrs a week, and I have also still been doing the janitor work, the poop posse (picking up dog poop), some secretarial work for joseph and mindy petramalo, and I just got a big dog costume yesterday that I get to wear on the side of the road with a sign and wave. Then I got offered the job at michaels but they wanted me to work sundays, so I turned it down and golds gym was a blessing. SO... life is crazy but good.

Jared confuses me, and is adorable and makes me happy all at the same time. He doesn't know what to do I don't think... but neither do I. I am still thinking about a mission because Jared has informed me that he doesn't want to date anyone but me, but that he has no plans of getting married anytime soon. SO... awesome Jared... what the heck am I supposed to do about that?! SO CONFUSED! AND...my parents think it'd be silly to go to byui because they don't have the program I want to pursue so they think that it'd be a waste of my time and money. So basically, I have a lot of big decisions to make, and they are hard to make and I really just don't know where I'll be in 6 months, or in a year, or whenever. but... I was comforted this week by President Hinckley's advice,

"Things will work out. Keep trying. Be believing. Be happy. Don't be discouraged. Things will work out."
-Gordon B. Hinckley

How true it is. Things always work out if we are living in accordance with the Lord's commandments and standards. Anyway... here are some fun pictures from this last week when sarah and catie were here!



AH, yes. the beautiful utah snow.



Ha! SO... I discovered these super yummy cookies that they sell at Maverick and I took these two lovely things there and blindfolded them and made them take a bite and now they'll never be the same because the cookie was so good! Chocolate chip, coconut, macadamia nut. uh, YUM!

This was the snow man that Jared, Catie, Sarah and I built. We named him Leonard. Lenny for short. It was a double date. Jared and I and Catie and Sarah. Very fun.

February 27 and 28 My first kiss.... Who would have EVER thought I would enjoy a kiss?!

Or more than one kiss... ;) Yep.... He kissed me ya'll. And it was great. Not awkward for a tiny minute at all. Just 100% wonderful and glorious. AND.... Right before he kissed me, he told me that he loved me. WHAAAAAAT? Oh good Jared, because well.... I love you too!

That's the update.

NEW NEWS!

I held Jared's hand...... ha. I KNOW! You all are wondering why we move so stinking FAST! Sorry ;) ha.... yeah 4 months later.... WE HELD HANDS! On thursday night. and I actually made the main move because he's a little slow but hey its ok. I'll let him kiss me. ;) I won't be making THAT move.

Little help from someone?

Alright you all.... All 3 of you that read this.... ha. I need someone to tell me if it is inappropriate to hug someone for 2 hours. Is that like, inappropriate? I have a roommate here that says it is ha, and I am the LAST person that would want to do something inappropriate ya know? So as silly as this question is, I'm really serious. Is it?

Jared and I hugged from 9:45 last night to 11:47. He told me he wasn't going to let go until I did, and uh, well..... ha. I didn't want to, so I didn't. And we enjoyed wonderful conversation and he was absolutely adorable and kissed my forehead and and AND! OH this boy is just sweet to me. He totally tried to kiss me and I got scared! He had my face in his HANDS! And he was totally going to but I got freaked out and kinda put my head down a little and so he kissed my forehead instead. Oh man. AHHHHDHAKDJFHALDK! I am way toooo scared and not good with this whole dating, cute stuff.

Sweet things.

Oh I saw the most adorable thing today. I was at the gym doing about 15 minutes on the bike just to loosen my knee up before swimming laps and this adorable old old couple comes in together and start working out of the machines. I proceeded to watch them for about 10 minutes and they just helped each other on and off each machine, and back onto another one. about 45 minutes later when I was leaving the gym, they were leaving as well. They walked out to their car and I witnessed this most ADORABLE ACT! This sweet elderly man had his wife's hand in his and walked her right around to the passenger side, opened her door for her, got her settled into the seat, leaned over and kissed her then shut the door and walked around and got into his seat. OH MY GOODNESS I about lost it. It was adorable. I hope that I can have a husband who will go to the gym with me well into our 70's and 80's if possible and work out with me, then open my door for me and kiss me! All because he just wants to. So sweet.

....

Oh boy. I guess Jared and I are dating? Yeah... I'm so nervous about it. The fear is kicking in... anyway, we enjoyed a nice Family home evening tonight together and he had his arm around me and made sure I was warm outside around the fire. He's a sweet thing. :)

I am so grateful for my family. For my friends. For the gospel. HEY! If anyone wants a good laugh, and some spiritual lifting, WATCH President Monson's BYU devotional address called "your choice". It's so funny and great. You have to watch it though because it's his face expressions and tone of voice that is so funny.

"You feel good in my arms."

YEAH! Uh huh... yep. That is what Jared said to me last night as he was hugging me. "You feel good in my arms." AND he kissed the top of my head. AHHH. Ha. He's adorable. I am just quite frankly head over for this handsome boy! He's too nice to me.

This Sunday was amazing. Really everything about it was. We had 3 incredible sacrament talks on prayer and receiving revelation and answers to our prayers, then a Sunday school lesson on miracles, and a R.S. lesson on the importance and eternal principle of work. A girl in our ward named McKay gave the lesson and really it was absolutely wonderful. She just had a visible love and testimony of the Book of Mormon, and the gospel and it radiated. She really taught it so well and I just got a lot out of every lesson, talk, and class I was in.

After church Jared and his cousin and his fiance all came over to my apartment for some checkerboard cake that we made Saturday night for fun. Anyway, they didn't stay long...just came over for some cake and left but Jared text me afterward and asked me if he could see me again so I went over to his aunts house where he's staying at 6:15 and I stayed there till 9:15. We played 4 games of ping pong. ALL of which I lost but I won't lose all of them next time. Then I asked him if he'd play some piano for me because I have heard he's real good but he denies it... so, it turns out he is really good. He plays a gorgeous version of If you could Hie to Kolob. It was beautiful. THEN... his family all came in and while his Aunt played, we all sang a few hymns.
His hometeachers came at 8:30 so I told him I'd get out of his hair and see him later but he told me to stay so I got hometaught twice today. It was great. ANYWAY... we went to Ward Prayer at 9:30 and then I took him home. (he has no car here, and I am borrowing Joshua's) and THAT is when he told me I felt good in his arms. WHaaa! So sweeeet. Then he text me later and told me his shirt smelt really good because it smelt like me ha. too funny. He's so good.

***oh! For anyone who wondered how my date went on Friday.... ha. We got a flat tire on the way to Sandy for dinner which was an hour away from Provo. So funny... anyway, I'm not exactly interested in the guy but I got free dinner out of it. (That's awful.)

BAGHHGHHGHH!! February 16, 2011

Today was an absolutely SPLENDID DAY. Work went well this morning. I was so sleepy that I wanted to come straight home and take a nap but I thought to myself....uh, NO. If I do that, then I will be incredibly groggy and unproductive today... SO... I thought to myself, well I need to get my exercise in and do my scripture study so I walked to the temple and did my study which ...may I just say, was wonderful. WONDERFUL! Read Mormon 9:28,31,48. I love them. They are such good principles and lessons for us to learn and remember. "...Ask with a FIRMNESS UNSHAKEN that ye will yield to no temptation, but that ye will serve the true and living God." Do you just LOVE THAT?! I love the gospel! I love the truth that we find in the scriptures.

Alright... I know that we all have times when we just feel like we wish we could be better. We recognize our weaknesses and imperfections but it is frustrating because we wish that we could just fix it! Well read verse 31. It's mainly the second half but it's such a great principle. We have weaknesses and imperfections to LEARN and to GROW from them. To become better! I love it.

Now... for the absolutely SPECTACULAR PURPOSE of this post.............................................. Dominique from Michaels called me today! I have a job interview on FRIDAY! I am so grateful. Here's the thing... she wants me to work every other Sunday and I told her I really would like to have Sundays off but she said we can talk about it. So please pray that she will just have a good feeling about me, and know that I will work my HINEY off for her and that she will just hire me without working Sundays.

**Oh, and I got asked out on a date tonight for Friday night. Yahooo...... :/ It's going to be fun because I am making a point to NOT hate it. ha.

It snowed hard tonight. It was beautiful to watch. I love it. Jared and I had a good conversation tonight that I think made us both go, hmm....we are NOT on the same page in this relationship at all! ha. anyway, we'll talk about it sometime soon and clear up the confusion.

Yesterday............Looooong day.

Oh yesterday was a long day, but a productive one. I had work in the morning. I went and cleaned the office, then directly after that I went and met this sweet little Hispanic lady at a huge office complex and she and I cleaned this huge 3 story office complex for about 3 hours. By this point, the right bunion in my foot and of course my knee were throbbing. I wanted to go home and just take a nap, but while Joseph and Mindy Petramalo are gone, I am covering some of their "waste removal" jobs. A.K.A. Poop scooping. So... I had 2 jobs to do. One only took about a half hour and the other one took me almost an hour and a half because it is a little more difficult to pry dog poop out of hard snow. Ha, BUT... I am still grateful for the opportunity to do it. I left there and went and bought a headlight for Josh's car because it's out and I took it to Jacob's and we replaced it but he broke the new bulb so.... we postponed it till we got another new one.

Ok here's the good stuff.... Jared text me and said, "Hey, do you have a minute, or 30?" ha...he's adorable. SO.... We met at the temple and just took a good walk around the grounds and just enjoyed the beautiful temple, the bright moon and the stars in the sky. It was a little cold and don't any of you think that I under dressed because I wanted him to wrap me in one of his wonderful hugs because I had gloves and a big jacket on but was still quivering a little bit. We'd been outside for about an hour at this point. He kept asking me if I was alright. I told him that yes I was a little cold but that I was fine. FINALLY.....he opened up his jacket and said, "Get over here" and wrapped me up in his hug that I am a little bit addicted to. It was adorable. Needless to say, we continued chatting as we stood in a wonderful Jared Tarah hug for a good 15 minutes. Seriously.... ha. He's adorable and makes me happy! He text me later that night ha and told me that I smelt good. He said his shirt smelt like me. ha.... cutie pa tootie. Tell you what. ANYWAY, OH OH OH! Funny story. While Jared and I were at the temple, after we had walked around a bit, we kinda stopped at this one spot and that's where we stayed for about 45 minutes. We'd been there for about 30 minutes already and suddenly a man, with a black beanie hat pops up out of a very small little space right between the wall of the temple and the bush. SERIOUSLY. I am not kidding! He just stood right up and walked off. He was probably 15 feet away from us and had been the entire time! HA! I laughed so hard! Jared and I kind of made a joke of it the rest of the night. ha....and we decided that he was probably there taking a nap or something and when we walked up, this poor guy thought we would just stop, enjoy the view and keep going! ha, but NO...! We stopped there and stayed for 45 minutes! Ha, so this poor man was probably just thinking, oh gosh, ok...this is going to look so bad ha but just walked up and left. Ya'll should have been there. It was hysterical! Anyway, such a great night.

A sinless sacrifice...

"His precious blood He freely spilt; His life he freely gave, A sinless sacrifice for guilt, A dying world to save." Today the sacrament song in church was 195, How Great the Wisdom and the Love. I paid close attention to the words of this song today and I am so grateful for the Sacrifice of our friend, and brother, and Redeemer Jesus Christ. A sinless sacrifice... he had done no wrong. I just can't believe it. I can't believe that he can do something so great for YOU and for ME...because he loves us that much. It's incredible. I am so grateful for that sinless sacrifice that was made.

I am so uncertain about my entire life. I am stressed out about my near future and I just want to figure it all out.

It's a new week. I hope I get a call back on a job tomorrow. Oh my goodness, please!

Don't worry. BE HAPPY!

WHAA! I am so happpy! Today was a great day. Other than the fact that my knee hurts. Bad. I think that when I fell the other day, I might have re torn my ACL. I am so scared about it. But I know everything will be ok.

Today I helped Joshua move his whole room into the other side of the basement at Gma's and then moved Jacob and Rebekah in and we rocked out to Pandora. I listened to a couple songs that quite frankly just made me HAPPY. Listen to "happy" and "on the bright side" by the artist, never shout never. They will make you happy. :) OH OH, AND "Don't worry, be happy" by Bobby Mcferrin.

Joshua, Jacob, Rebekah and I all went to listen to Amy Whitcomb's band play tonight and oh my goodness. I was inspired. She's incredible. Her band's name is "The Whits" so... watch for them. I truly think they will be big someday soon!

I went over to Jared's house to look at his family pictures that he just got...Mary Petramalo (a good friend of mine) took them for his family and I was wanting to see them. They turned out SO GOOD! I loved them. Jared makes me so happy. ha....so happy. And when he hugs me, he lingers....he just hugs for a long time and I love it!

I MISS MESA. I miss everyone there. I love you all!