I ACED A TEST!!!

I'm still not sure why my life is so blessed right now, every day. It's amazing. Everything is great in my life. I'm constantly in awe with how Heavenly Father has and is blessing me, daily.

The highlight of this weekend, was that I ACED A TEST!!!!!!!!!! I got 100% on a test! A real academic test, not just a volleyball test or something. It was my Orthopedic Impairments test, and I took it last night (Friday) at about 9 pm, and had studied much of the day, and I aced it!!! I couldn't believe it! That never happens! I was so happy, and am still kind of in shock that I actually got all the questions right! There was a short-answer part to it too, so I don't know what I'll get on that, maybe not 100%, but I feel pretty good about it.

Anyway, I just can't thank Heavenly Father enough. Oh, and I took my first Anatomy (Functional) lecture exam, and I got a 95% on that one, which I was also very pleasantly surprised at! I love my classes, and I am so thankful to be studying subjects I enjoy, and to be doing well. God is so so good to me.

Today I was able to go to the temple to do initiatories, and there was a really long wait, but it turned out to be great, because I got in some good BOM reading, and read this whole talk about reverence in the temple, and how to make our temple worship a better experience. I had even moved on to the Bible, and was trying to find the story of Daniel and the lions' den (I've been wanting to read that for a while), and then my name was finally called.
But also, I saw Sarah Sheley (my RS Pres. in my ward at Crown Apts. last year, I love her, she's hilarious. She and I became good friends.), Lisa Tate, and then Sara Scott (married now, I forget her new last name). I got to talk to Sara the longest, after I was done, and it was really fun to talk to her.

And, going along with what a great day today was, I also got to go work out, at Liberty Square (hehe), which I've been wanting to get back into this whole semester, but haven't, and today I had time, and for days now, since I planned on going running today, I'd been looking forward to going, and it was SO good to run and work out! It's been way too long.

Then I tried to go see Peter Pan on campus, but it was totally sold out, and as I was leaving I saw a poster for the Contemporary Dance Team's dance concert, which I had been planning on going to, since they were so nice to do the flash mob dance for us, but I had forgotten about it. Today was the last day, and the matinee had just begun like 15 min. before this, but I ended up just buying a ticket real quick and going to it. It was good, some of the dances were really interesting, but it was neat to see. The dancers are all really fluid in how they move, it was cool to watch. Even the 5 guys on the team. But I got to see Rachel Robison, who is the president of the team, and is who I coordinated with for the flash mob. She co-coreographed the dance, and basically led it. So I got to see her after, which was so worth the $12 I paid to see it. I was glad she knew I came, because I told her I wanted to, when they were doing the TBT flash dance.

Anyway, it was great.

Tonight I picked up Rachel Dickson (now Secody) and we headed up State Street to Pleasant Grove to Chelsea Ford's birthday party. It was really great to spend time with Rachel and catch up with her, and hear the updates on her family and their struggles. She is amazing and so strong. She is pretty much the rock in her family. It makes me even more grateful for the stable and strong family and life I have been blessed with.

And it was really good to see Chelsea too. It's always so fun to reminisce about the mission...such good times. Rachel and I also both reminisced quite a bit and told and repeated funny stories about Sister Rigley, who I trained and she greenie-busted, and who is training right now! And who comes home in a week and a half!!!! I can't believe she's already coming home! I still feel like I just trained her! Time sure flies. Rachel is going to go to the airport to see her, and I would SO love to, but I have class and can't. Bummer. But I'm so excited to see her!

Okay, back to homework, so I can go to bed, so I can get up and go to church at 8:30 am (not 8:40, like I've thought...:).

Life just keeps being so so good

Heavenly Father is so good to me. I am so blessed. Every day I just can't believe all the good things that happen to me, and how much more my Father in Heaven keeps blessing me.

I'm just going to ramble about things that come to my mind and updates.

So things with Kayla are continually getting better. She really likes Alisha and me, and we like her. Sometimes I'm not in the mood to humor her or give her attention, but other than that, she really is great. She is even washing her hands more!!! Hallelujah! That seriously has brought me so much relief, because for one, she is cooking in our dinner group this Wed., and if she hadn't started washing her hands more, I honestly was considering either not eating here, or talking to her about the seriousness of hand washing before then. But alas, I don't think I'll need to do either of those things, at least not immediately. I might talk to her about the reason hand washing is such a big deal to me one day, if the opportunity presents itself, merely to inform. She is an intelligent person, and I'm hoping that the reason she hasn't been in the habit of hand washing after bathroom using has been because she has been uninformed.

Also, tonight our home teachers were over and, first of all, funny story about that. The message this month is about full-time missionary work, and one of our HTs, Beau, was going on and on about serving a full time mission and how great his was, and how great sisters are in the field and what amazing things they can do, and if we girls have ever thought about serving (but didn't stop for any response), and just on and on about sister missionaries and how great serving a mission is, etc. And the funniest part of all of it was that he was pretty much looking exclusively at me during this shpill on sisters serving missions. And I was just trying to be polite and listen, slightly nodding in agreement at times, trying not to laugh at other times, due to the irony of who he was looking at while trying to sell this mission idea. Then afterward, the other one, James, looked at me and was like, "Didn't you go on a mission..?" And I said yeah, and then I think Beau felt slightly awkward. I found it really funny.

Anyway, at the end James suggested we go around and talk about the best and worst things in our lives right now. I said pretty much everything in my life is going really well right now, that life is really good, but I did narrow it down to the best thing being my BYUSA program going really well right now. And my worst, haha, I just said was that I'm not dating anyone, but that it's fine. :) Anyway, what Kayla said is what I'm getting at. After talking about her worst, she said, "This might sound really cheesy, but the best thing in my life is my apartment and my roommates. This is the happiest I've been here." Or something to that effect (second part). It was so sweet, Alisha and I were so touched. She said that even though other things in her life aren't so good, she can come home and everything's okay. It was so sweet. And I was grateful to hear that because hopefully it will make me more sensitive to her and more patient with her quarkiness.

This weekend has been great. Friday night was the best. It was the BYUSA Activities retreat, so most of the ED's were there, and all the event leads for this semester were invited. Not all came, but there were a good bunch of us there. But it was such a blast, oh my goodness, it was so fun! Last semester I went as well, because my "event" is all year long, and it was a lot of fun last time, but I didn't really know anyone very well, if at all last time, and so I wasn't really able to be myself or really get out of my shell. But this time, I know all the EDs so much better and others from the office, and Elise was there (my new co-director), and we have become practically instant best friends, so it was SUCH A BLAST!! I love her so much, and we are like 2 peas in a pod when we're together (and Sam's [her boyfriend, who I love too] not there:).

Highlights of the retreat include:

-Having Elise there

-Having Blair there (another event lead, who I've become good friends with in the office)

-Being crazy and hyper (myself:) with Elise

-Ryan and Blair in footy pajamas (aka onesies :). Hilarious.

-Playing games with everyone, including Mafia, Murder in the Dark, and "Honey I love you, will you please give me a smile?"

-MASSAGE LINE

-Getting a massage from a boy named Brandon, who I just met that night, who I wasn't legitimately interested in, but who is attractive and initiated flirtation with me

-The massage line flipping (Brandon's request..) so I then massaged Brandon, who continued to flirt with me (mutually) and who smelled really good.

-Having some long missed physical contact with a male (completely appropriate, don't worry. It's just been a really long time since I have, and I miss it and it felt so so good.)

-Hanging out with Ryan (Greenburg). He is one of the most hilarious people I know, and so much fun to just be around.

-Being the easiest one to make smile/laugh in the "Honey I love you..." game, so I got picked on, but it was really fun, I liked the attention because I was so much more comfortable with everyone at this retreat and knew people

-Brandon continuing to repeat that I said I was "easy" haha :)

-Staying up til 4 am

-Hugging all the late-late nighters goodnight as we last ones went to bed

-Getting a hug from Brandon, that he promised me, for massaging his back extra (good hug:)

-Sharing a room and bed with Elise. I love that girl.

-Elise continually saying things like, "I'll do what Melissa does." I felt like I was back in elementary and had a best friend that we both just always did the same thing and followed each other around

-Elise always wanting to sit by me and me by her :)

-Being able to make entertaining "comebacks" (remarks, really) towards Johnny (the obnoctious one, as opposed to the other Johnny, who is so sweet and lovable)

-Not having to ride in the same van as the obnoctious Johnny on the way home

The retreat was so much fun, and I'll be honest, I have re-lived that massage line many a times in my head, haha

But I just love Elise so much, and I cannot even put into words how grateful I am for her in my life, as part of TBT, but also as one of my very best friends. We have clicked so quickly and so well, it's been amazing, and so much fun! She and Sam are in my volleyball class too, and that just adds to the fun.

It's really late and I need to go to bed so I can have a productive day tomorrow, but I just love life! I am so blessed and so happy.

Oh, and one more thing, Steve (Madsen) called me today, totally out of the blue! I was so surprised when I saw it was him, but it was so good to talk to him. Surprisingly good. We only got to talk for about 20 min., cuz then I had a meeting, but it was really great. He asked all about my life and what's going on and what's new, and I him. And it made me miss him. He is such a great guy.

Goodnight!

Life is SO good

So we just started a new semester last week, we are now close to the end of the second week, and I feel like I have a whole new life than I did last semester. Like I've started on a whole new page or new era of my life. It's so great. And it's mostly because I moved. It's been like this breath of fresh air.

It has been so great. I only have 2 other roommates, which has been different, but I'm loving it more and more all the time. We all clean up after ourselves, we all do the dishes, they're both nice, we all get along, they both like and respect me. Alisha is my room-roommate, and Kayla is in the other room. Alisha I absolutely love. She is so sweet and fun, she's also our RS Pres. She is great, really easy going as well, so nice, I like her a lot. Kayla is quite the girl. We are friends and she likes me, and we get along pretty well. She is just different in many ways than me. She is very blunt, very particular..but I know she respects me, and she's told me she likes me on more than one occasion, so that's good. She cracks me up too. She is very smart, and if I haven't been around her yet for a long period of time, I find her really funny most of the time. The thing I like least about her is that she doesn't wash her hands after using the bathroom. GROSS!!!!!!!!! I can't think about it for very long because I can't handle the thought or understand why people ever don't exercise that habit. We kind of had a slight explosion of emotion the other night (some might call it more of an argument) over this issue. She was about to eat some of the chocolate I had bought for her to try, and I knew she had just gone to the bathroom and didn't think she had washed her hands, and I was eating off the same chocolate bar, so I just couldn't handle that. So I called her out on it, and it totally took her back, and I think even offended her (even though she said she wasn't). Anyway, later that night, after we both had some strong reactions toward each other over the situation (I was appalled that she didn't think that was gross, and she couldn't believe I would say something about it), she told me she would try to do better at washing her hands. But seriously, that is so disgusting. There are so many diseases you can spread or contract from not washing your hands! I mean, what mother doesn't teach her children to always wash your hands after using the bathroom??!?! She called me a "germaphobe" during all this. I'm not a germaphobe, but I'm sorry if I don't want your bathroom germs or to get ecoli or ebola virus from you. So nasty.

Anyway, I wasn't planning on going into that story.. It's past 1 in the morning, and I just wanted to write real quick because my life is so blessed right now. So many good things happen to me every day, and I wanted to jot some of them down real quick and start writing more about the hand of the Lord in my life, daily. Plus, Joel (Anderson) inspired me tonight on our way home from the library to write before I went to bed, because he had that goal.

So just to name a few that I can't think of right now, good things in my life:

-ELISE BECKSTEAD. She is my new co-director for TBT, and she has literally been my heaven-sent hero. Words cannot describe the stress relief it is to have a partner to share the load, to support me on my level of responsibility, to bounce ideas off of, to help lead and make decisions, and to just help. Plus she and I get along so so well, it has been so fun to become better and better friends. I would definitely consider her one of my best friends right now. I thank Heavenly Father every single day for her. And she got into my volleyball class, so we have VB together on tues, thursdays too, which is so fun!

-As previously mentioned, my move. My new apt., new ward, new roommates. I LOVE where I live, it's a few blocks closer to campus, but most of my classes are in the Smith Field House or RB, and I just live a block south of campus, at the southwest corner of campus, so I am so close to pretty much all my classes, it's SO great. Also I joined the dinner group Alisha (my roommate) was already in, and there are 12 people in it (wow, yeah), so I'm making friends with them, b/c we see each other every night at dinner, and people are already so friendly to me. And oh yeah, I already got a calling last week, RS teacher, and I already taught on Sunday, which I was really grateful to be able to do, because being involved in a ward, for me is the best way to like the ward and get to know the people in it. So I felt like that was a divine calling and assignment, to teach my first Sunday, because it made me more excited to be there (minus that I was sick and not feeling very well that day at church), and got me out of my shell right away. I love teaching, I feel sort of in my element when I do, so it was really great to be able to teach my first day there and so the girls could also get to know me a little right away. Oh, and I was so blessed and the lesson went well, I thought.

-My parents came down yesterday (Tues) to see my apt. and then for the TBT events, and I was so happy that they did! It was so fun to see them and have them down here, and that they got to see what I do every week with TBT.

-The TBT events of yesterday!! First of all, there was the flash dance/mob in the Cougar Eat at 11:30 am, which was SOOOOO COOOOOOLLL!!! Oh my gosh, it was seriously the coolest thing in the world! I think partly because it's been almost like a dream of mine to see a flash dance on campus for TBT almost since I started doing it, and it actually happened yesterday. It was so amazing, and one of the most fulfilling and rewarding things of my life.

Then we went out and did our usual weekly booth, gave out hot chocolate this week (mint and regular), and it went really well. It was so so so so so so so so so so SO cold, but so much fun! Yeah, the consensus was that while we were outside for nearly an hour and a half, it was somewhere between 2 and 9 degrees. Aaah! We nearly died.

-My new TBT committee members and how literally God-sent they were.

-Good friends, namely good guy friends I have had great interactions with this week: Robbie, Joel (love him), Cory (married physics buddy) today, Matt Witzel (in my Nut. class); then also have seen Andrew (Elder) Jackson, Elder Goodman, Ben Smith (all at the TBT booth). The highlight that day was seeing and talking to Robbie. He was in my ward last summer when I still lived in Crown. We're just friends, and he is so great. We run into each other pretty regularly, usually it's him stopping by the TBT booth, or I'll see him in the BYUSA office. This week I saw him on Mon. and we walked together for a min. and chatted, and then he came by the booth on Tues. and then came over and hung around and talked to me for a few min. We mostly just joked around, but he is such a great guy. I would consider him a good friend.

There is more, I know, but I have got to get to bed. But God's hand is in my life every single day. I am so extremely blessed. I joke about not having friends cuz all my friends have gotten married or are dating someone, but really, I am so blessed to have a lot of friends and a lot of great people around me. I may not have a best friend or significant other or people that I actually hang out with a lot, but I really am blessed with many friends at school, in my classes or just that I see on campus.

Anyway, life is so so good. I am so happy, and so grateful to have been led here where I live, and to this place in my life. Heavenly Father is so good to me.