Other updates from the last 3.5 months

Since I last wrote in Sept 2014, other things that have happened in my life:

-Trip with friends to St. George to see Joseph in the Tuacahn (that's been on my bucket list for a while), and while we were down there we played sand volleyball, did some swimming and hot tubbing, watched Divergent, visited Grandma Gurr on the way down, and went to church. Fun weekend! People included: Jamie, Julene, Jenna Tiller, Tron, and Josh; and Matt and his friend the first night, on their way to Vegas to rock climb.

-Trip to San Antonio in Oct. to surprise Sally for her birthday. It was so fun! Such a fun trip. Usually I am about ready to go home when it's time, to get back to my people, to my routine, etc. But this trip I had no desire to go home. I could have stayed for days longer! It was so fun. And so fun to be with the kids! Little Keelan became my little buddy, it was so sweet. :)

-Grandma Gurr's passing. A bitter-sweet thing. She had a totally unexpected stroke one Sunday at church, and died 8 days later. Sad to see her children sad about it, but so happy for her that she gets to be with Grandpa and her two little boys now, who died when they were small. And also so grateful that I got to see her just a few weeks prior, on my way to St. George with friends.

-Dated Darren Christensen, from Tinder. Chatted some on Tinder, then found out we were both going to be in San Antonio at the same time (him for work, me to surprise Sally for her birthday), and ended up meeting and going out there in San Antonio, is was a marathon date, he kissed me at the end, then we dated for about a month. He is a great guy, but not my type for marriage. He hasn't been real active in the church for a long time, didn't serve a mission, doesn't have a degree, etc. Which are usually all red flags. But for some reason I felt like I needed to give it a chance. I ended things because I don't click with him.Conversation with him isn't stimulating for me. He grew up in Ephraim, hasn't been to much school, and sounds uneducated, in how he talks, which kind of drives me crazy, haha. But we had multiple gospel conversations, I helped him start reading the scriptures again, and we talked multiple times about schooling, encouraging him to think about going back to school and get a degree. I ended things because I knew nothing was going to happen long-term. It was really a surprise for him, and was a major bummer, and I felt terrible. Worse than normal, because I felt like he was more fragile than other guys, being not super strong in the Church and what not. And I still really wanted to stay friends and talk and stuff, so I could keep helping him (I left that last part out when I talked to him about it.). And at first things were different, and I thought he wouldn't want to talk anymore, but I just felt so bad about things it was killing me, and we ended up hashing things out again and I told him how bad I felt and he asked me if I was having second thoughts about things, and I said, well as far as long term with us, I still feel the same. And I said, let's just do the friend thing for now, and who knows, maybe there could be something more again later. He was good with that, and then things were good, and we were friends again, and we've still been able to talk about stuff like the Gospel and education, etc.
And now, a month and a half after I ended things, he still texts me every day, without fail, and almost every morning sends me a "Good morning" or "Good morning beautiful:)" text. He's a really sweet guy, I wish I felt more for him, he would be a great husband, I think. Not to mention he's great at giving massages! haha. He's a massage therapist, that's one thing that he does.
Anyway, so that's Darren. :)

-Went to Disneyland the weekend before Christmas!!! Oh man, that was SUCH a fun trip! Tron found cheap flights, so a bunch of us went out there last weekend. Including Mark, Cambri, Jamie, me, and the four of us flew in Thurs night, and spend all Fri in the two parks, then the other four, Tron, Jeremy, Audrey, and Loren flew in Fri and spent the day there with us all Sat. It was such a fun trip, and so fun to be there for Christmastime! Everything is Christmas-y and the Castle is covered in lights and icicles, and different rides are decked out Christmas-y..it was so great. One of the highlights for me was seeing the Aladdin show in California Adventure, it was Aladdin the musical, basically, and it was so good! So fun! Another highlight was going on Splash Mountain twice in a row with Jamie, because it was cloudy and chilly so Mark and Cambri didn't want to go, and going twice because the line was five min. And our FACES on the second time down, haha..SO funny! Good times.

Christmas Eve at work

Wow, it's been a while since I've written.
So I worked on Christmas Eve (two days ago), just an 8 hr shift in the day (which  turned out to be like a 10 hr shift, but whatever), and it was a fine shift, busy, but good. But one of my patients that I had had that day, I had the day before too, and his name was, well we'll call him A. Nash, for HIPAA purposes. He's this single 33 year old (or so?), who is from Iowa, and is an alcoholic. He came out to Utah a couple years ago for a girl mostly, is what it sounded like. That girl didn't work out but he can't afford to move back to Iowa, so he is stuck in Utah. But he basically has no one here in Utah. No friends out here, no family. And he really wants to NOT be an alcoholic. He works at Trader Joe's, and if he didn't show up to work today (Friday), his last chance at work was out. After taking care of him for a couple days, I just really felt this love for him, and wanted to help him and/or be his friend. It just kills me that he has no one out here. And I even talked to his mom a few times on the phone, and she said the same thing, that he doesn't really have anyone out here. And no one should have no one. I am so blessed to have so many good people in my life, friends and family, and I don't know how I would get through life without these people. AND not to mention the Gospel.
I just wanted to help him so much. And of course, with so many other patients I have, I thought, he just needs the Gospel. It would help so many people in their life.
I brought up the Church once the second day, by asking if he was religious at all. He said he was spiritual, but not religious. I told him I was LDS and what a blessing it was in my life, and what a great support the missionaries could be for him, and told him to let me know if he would like me to get them in touch with him.
So when I was discharging him on Christmas Eve, I wrote my email address and the website mormon.org on the last page of his discharge papers, and told him that I don't usually do that, but that he is welcome to email me, that I would love to support him or what not.
That was two days ago, and I haven't heard from him, which I'm not super surprised about, but I do hope that I do. I would love to just be someone that he can talk to or what not. And that could have been a dumb thing to do, but I felt good about it, and I was glad I did it after. He was really appreciative of me as his nurse, and was very sincere in thanking me for everything, which I really appreciated. And he thanked me for everything a couple times. Nice guy.
Anyway, I guess I just wanted to write about this experience because it's experiences like this that make this job, that is sometimes really hard and exhausting and not fun, very worth it and fulfilling.