Blessed

The Lord has blessed me so much in my life. I do not recognize this as much as I should. I have the most amazing family that cares immensely about me. I get to see them all within a week, it will be the first time we are all together for Christmas in quite a while. I can’t wait!

I go to the most amazing university in the entire world, and I have no idea how I got accepted. I get to take amazing classes that prepare me for the secular world of careers, and I also get to learn about Heavenly Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and their gospel—in my classes!

I have the most amazing roommates, and I am incredibly sad that Carrie will be leaving next semester. But I am looking forward to my new roommate, and more experiences with Jen, Ahlin, Leah, and Sarah. Love you girls!

My best friend is a wonderful example to me. Today he hit his year mark on his mission. He willing is giving two years of his life, putting back education and a career, to serve the Lord. I am so blessed to be such good friends with him. I’m so proud of him!

I have been kind of a brat about my family moving. Seems silly to even care since I don’t live with them anymore, but Minnesota meant so much to me and it was sad to see my family leave it forever. But this move is such a blessing to my family. My dad was able to keep a job in this rocky economy. My parents were able to get a beautiful house. I was able to have a wonderful job this summer that ended up blessing more people than just me. Heavenly Father knew what He was doing when He wanted my family to move.

I am so blessed. :)

Chrysanthemum, Chrysanthemum, Chrysanthemum

Today I taught my very first lesson, with the very first lesson plan I have ever written. I work (and by work, I mean I go there for a class and don’t get paid) in the BYU preschool. We are required to write and carry out a lesson plan for interactive literature (which means you read a book and do an activity). For my interactive lit I read the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes (awesome book!) and we made name collages.

I was nervous. Yes, I am admitting I was nervous to teach preschoolers. But mostly, I was nervous because there are 3 other teachers my age in the class, and one professor behind the glass observing me! Yikes! But I had nothing to fear because it went GREAT! Obviously if I did it again, there are definitely things I would change, but the kids loved the story (apparently a mom came in before I worked there and read the story and none of them listened—go me for keeping their little attentions!), and loved the collages. One boy, though, did comment, “If you move the book a little to the left then everybody can see it.” Yeah. I got corrected by a 4-year-old.

Here is my name collage:



To top it all off we had frosted flake treats for snack.

I love preschool.

Caved.

I am against blogging. For myself. Or atleast, I used to be against blogging for myself. I have no qualms with anyone else blogging. In fact, I think its great. I really enjoy a good laugh now and then from a roommate’s blog, or being enlightened as to what is going on in my now very far away brother and sister-in-law’s lives, and I even like reading random blogs every once in while (for example, when I was trying to decide what African country to go to this summer I found a very helpful blog of an American family that moved to Ghana). Now for me to actually blog though…that is where I ran into problems. First of all, it is one of those things that everyone these days is doing. Sometimes, I just don’t like doing things that everyone else is doing. Second, I felt as if a blog was such a waste of time. I have a facebook and that is already a huge waste of my time, yet since I have one, I still use it and I still watch all my free time fly out the window. Third, I really do not think I have anything interesting to say. Honestly, who wants to read about what I am doing in my life? Oh that’s right, my mom!

I have obviously overcome these insecurities about blogging. And I will tell you why. My first objection, the one of not wanting to cave into popular demand, is just ridiculous. Obviously if so much of the population, and especially my friends who share similar goals and interests, enjoy it, then there has to be something to it. (Now don’t twist my words and think I will start applying that to drinking and other completely unmoral behaviors; this statement is only true within moral and non-worldly bounds). Second, it may not be such a waste of time. I have begun to realize that I am soon to be parting ways with so many friends and family. One brother and his wife have already moved to the other side of the country. My roommate (CVD) is studying abroad next semester, with another (JenKerr) close behind. Then another (SarahMaines) is taking off to live in London with two more (Layuh and Awelin) trying to get internships in NYC and DC. Other than the sad fact that all my friends are leaving me, this poses the need for us to stay in contact and know what is going on in one another’s lives. As to the last reason, well, people are maybe just going to have to deal with my blog being boring. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. I don’t care.

Hello world of blogging, here I come.