Balancing work and fun and school is quite a juggling match. Get too much of one and every other part of your life is out of whack but if you don't get enough, same problem. I think I am learning better how to manage my time, at least it feels like it. This week I managed to complete all my homework in the early afternoon or later at night, but always managing to get it turned in on time. I wrote three papers (two of them were the same, just differently formatted for different classes). I studied a lot of hours for some major tests next week and managed to do my econ homework (never an easy task considering my teacher never really seems to teach us enough to understand how to do the math). My work schedule is going to get easier soon and I will only be working three days a week instead of four, which shouldn't be too bad. As for the fun this week....there was tons of it. Considering I had to stuff in family home evening, watching a movie for humanities, Joe's mission call,and other things. For family home evening, we made play-doh. Yes, we are extremely mature college kids. We had to use it to sculpt the other people around us in order to get them to know them better, making something that was unique to them. Needless to say....mine was an Xterra that had been flipped over. I guess you can't get more unique than that. Tuesday night was a homework night, but people still came over (people always come over) and we talked and had popsicles and got in some stress reliever stuff. Thursday night I broke in my projector watching The Kite Runner for humanities ( how cool of class is that, you have to watch amazing movies and he wanted them on a big screen)! I also go to go visit Karsten, Julie, Brynn, and Brooke and get some good food, do laundry, and take a huge dent into my ever growing mountain of homework. Friday, I made pumpkin spice cake. I didn't even stick to the recipe, I experimented. Kind of a scary thought, I know. But it turned out amazing. So somehow I figured out how to cook between getting up here and not having a clue at home. I think it was because I always did watch you cook mom and I kind of absorbed it subconsciously. Thanks for that. Friday night we went on my first completely random adventure and saw Kung Fu Panda at the dollar theater. Best movie of my life. I think the panda couldn't have been more like me even if he had my reddish brownish hair. After that we ran to a 24 hour IHOP (an amazing invention) and played around at a park for hours and hours until it was almost Saturday morning. Last night, Joe got his mission call to Ecuador. It made me realize that all my friends are actually going to start leaving soon for two years and come back complteley different people. David leaves in about a week and a half to get up here. He will soon be out there preaching the gospel. I know that they are all ready to do it, but at the same time it kind of makes me both excited and scared to think that mine is approaching ever closer. It seems to be the constant question up here as to where are you going on your mission, or when are you turning in your papers, etc. I am one of the youngest by far, so my answers are always the farthest away of anyone. But at the same time it feels like there is not enough time to be prepared. Not enough time to get to know the scriptures well enough, to develop all the people skills I will need, to get the rock solid testimony I really need. Im praying I will be ready and my faith is that the Lord will help me to get there. Well, I think that is enough rambling for one week so I will write more a week from now after the marvelous start of General Conference.

This week life got busy. Never a dull moment is how life is going to play out from now on. I managed to secure a job from the MTC. I work in the dishroom unloading, loading, scrubbing, getting trays off the carosel, etc. Its not a bad job at all and pays much better than almost anything else I could get. I work there Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturdays from 4:30 to 7:30 PM. I also have to work everything third Sunday which is really a bummer, but I guess the missonaries still have to eat on Sunday too. My first test also occurred this week and that had some interesting results. The first half of the test was over a chapter the professor had never told us to read or look at all. And we had never covered it in class either. So I had to guess on the first half and got a 100% on the second half which meant that I got a 78% on my very first ever college test. It was slightly depressing but it shouldn't be too hard to recover from as long as he doesn't pull the same stunt on every other test this semester. Yesterday Christine and I had a cooking date where we made strawberry ice cream, blueberry muffins, and pumpkin bread and muffins. It was amazing and all the food turned out great. Most of it is already all devoured by my roommates and a few other people who randomly dropped by yesterday. This upcoming week is going to be very busy with a bunch of papers to write, homework to complete, work to do, classes to go to, and tests to take. But I think I can manage.

Life Starts to Settle Down

Everything has started to settle down. No more wandering around lost. No more auditioning or tryouts (although I am still job hunting). No more random first meetings or outings. Everything now has a purpose, a routine. All my classes are great, none give way too much work or breeze by at the speed of light. I have been able to learn so much from all of them and I will see exactly how well I have learned as I start having some exams next week (so wish me luck/pray for my success, I would be forever grateful!). Lots of adventures happened this week form Walmart trips to sand volleyball and eating some finally authentic Mexican food to baking up a storm. But the single most defining moment of the week was the trip to the temple. I have had the strongest urge to go ever since I have been up here, but never made it down. I would sleep through my alarm or have to go run buy milk or whatever. Excuses just kept piling up and getting in the way. But I knew I had to go. So on Saturday I woke my roommates up and we all made our way down there to go do some baptisms and just bask in the quiet spirit that one can always feel there. Nothing can compare to the feelings of peace and happiness that hit me as soon as I walk through the temple doors, no matter what temple I am visiting. Its a wash of comfort and understanding and love that wash away all the cares and worries of the outside world. The Spirit whispers that everything will be ok, that you made the right choice in coming, and to just relax and take it easy. Heavenly Father's love engulfs me whenever I go and I know that He knows me individually and all that I want or need or care about. He knows all the ups and downs of my life and rejoices or sympathisizes with me. He sent His Son to die for me and there is no greater gift than that in being able to return to live with Him someday. I have always had a testimony of these things but the realization hit me very hard this time as I was waiting to get confirmed and baptized yesterday. Weekly or bi-weekly temple trips are now going to happen, no matter what tries to stand in my way. The Spirit that is felt there clearly beats anything else I could possibly be doing or should be.

The Saga Begins (Or college does anyway)

Classes started this week at BYU on Tuesday and with it the realization that college is so much better than high school. There are no more of these "clique" things, no more extremely smart people vs. those who arent (yay me category there), no more not fitting in/always feeling out. Its just everyone going to class everyday and those who work do fine and those who refuse to work, don't. You can sit next to anyone, talk to anyone, go on random adventures with anyone, it really doesn't matter anymore about what your "place" is supposed to be. Everyone is outgoing and willing to chat. This week was filled with fun, random outings. Monday we stuffed in as much last minute before school fun as we could by just playing around with people we had met all over the place. Tuesday was filled with interesting classes. Psychology was amazing! It has to be the most interesting subject I have ever studied. Economics is the class from heck...only common sense works there and since that is the department in which I lack the most, this creates a problem. Book of Mormon is just SWEET! There is no other way to describe it. A whole hour of complete spiritual overload (the teacher just knows how to get the spirit there when he teaches, it rocks!) Then I have all afternoons off, so I go to my apartment, pig out on food, and then decide what adventure to go on for the day. Tuesday was grocery shopping. Fun stuff let me tell you. You never know what food I might end up getting, so my rommates are just learning to get ready for surprises. (Granted they have also already learned I am by nature clumsy...so yes I am the entertainment of my dorm.) Also, Sarah stopped by! We had fun going to the creamery and invading Perry's dorm and just talking to her. Oh how I miss Mesa people and how well we knew each other and could just go no the most fun, random adventures. Wednesday I have beginning social dance, mission prep, intro to humanities (I dropped chemistry...), and then orchestra. Well, last Wednesday I had to do tryouts which were interesting to say the least. I guess I did better than I thought though because I made the symphony orchestra up here. Thursday night Samuel came up with the brialliant idea to hike the Y at midnight. And we for some unknown reason all agreed. So we hiked up the mountain in the pitch black darkness and completely unadjusted to this thing called altitude (meaning we can't really breathe up here yet). It was worthwhile though, on the best views of city lights of my life. Only Wind Caves can even compare. Friday, I only have one class so then I hang out with my aunt and we get lunch. Then I go to her house and do homework and laundry and just escape from the crazy college life for a few hours. Friday night was a huge Heritage party and dance. Sadly, the music up here was just like a Mt. View dance....so there was all the dirty songs and the cuss words and whatever else. Fun to dance to yes, but the spirit refuses to stay. You would think that they would require the DJs to play music that holds up the standards that we all have to live by, but apparently not. Saturday was okish, definitely better towards the end. Lifeguard tryouts I failed at and so now I have no job and therefore no money. Kind of necessary thing to live by, so I will see how that works out. But then all my roommates and I went on a DI trip and it is now my favorite place in the world. It totally creams Walmart, bar none. You never know what you are going to find to play with or what's only going to cost a dollar and therefore worth getting (we now have a giant football pillow due to that reason). After that we threw a huge movie night at my dorm and got a lot more people to come than any of us thought possible. We ended up having to steal all the furniture from the lobby just to get everyone a seat. After that I caught a runaway hamster and took it over to the hall advisors. Then I ran food over to Amanda and Sherrie (Texas girls from NSO that are now practially best friends). We talked till 2ish in the morning. We had so many church meetings today, it was simply glorious. There was stake priesthood meeting, regional conference, and then a fireside and a standards night tonight. There is never a dull minute here that is for sure.