He Knows...

Today at institute we talked about 3 Nephi 11 & 3 Nephi 17. It was incredible. This quote touched me the most.
"We know that Jesus experienced the totality of mortal existence in Gethsemane. It's our faith that he experienced everything--absolutely everything. Sometimes we don't think through the implications of that belief. We talk in great generalities about the sins of all humankind, about the suffering of the entire human family. But we don't experience pain in generalities. We experience it individually. That means he knows what it felt like when your mother died of cancer--how it was for your mother, how it still is for you. He knows what it felt like to lose the student body election. He knows that moment when the brakes locked and the car started to skid. He experienced the slave ship sailing from Ghana toward Virginia. He experienced the gas chambers at Dachau. He experienced napalm in Vietnam...He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism...He understands both the physical pain of giving birth and the immense joy. He understands about rape and infertility and abortion...He understands your mother-pain when your five-year-old leaves for kindergarten, when a bully picks on your fifth-grader, when your daughter calls to say that the new baby has Down's syndrome. He knows your mother rage...when someone gives your thirteen year old drugs, when someone seduces your seventeen year old. He knows the pain you live with when you come home to a quiet apartment where the only children are visitors, when you hear that your former husband and his new wife were sealed in the temple last week, when your fiftieth wedding anniversary rolls around and your husband has been dead for two years. He knows all that. He's been there. He's been lower than all that. He's not waiting for us to be perfect. Perfect people don't need a Savior. He came to save his people in their imperfections. He is the Lord of the living, and the living make mistakes. He's not embarrassed by us, angry at us, or shocked. He wants us in our brokenness, in our unhappiness, in our guilt and our grief." (Chieko Okazaki, lighten up, 1993)

We are not perfect and we know it. We need to strive to be perfect but we never will be and that's great about life. We can always improve ourselves. :) ---there is always room for improvement.

Love-O-Meter

Last Thursday at institute we got out Nick's IPad and did the "Singles Ward Connection" (Not the real name, we renamed it.) You put your name age and the other persons name and age. Then you put your finger on there Ipad so it scans your finger print. Once it's done it will tell you how compatible you are with each other. Nick is not compatible with anyone. I think the highest he got was 51%. I could be wrong. I only did that with Erik and we got 62%.  And with this random kid at the CES Fireside and got 52%. We stayed for about an hour to an hour and a half after institute had ended. We sat in the hallway talking. It was awesome!
At the CES Fireside yesterday we learned how to point to an attractive someone (Girls, never point with your fingers.) This is how
"The Boys" said it's done. And I quote, "Don't point with your fingers! You point with your lips." ~Nick Strong.
And you pucker your lips and point them to whoever you think is attractive. <---- This got us all laughing. We had all the wardies in a huge circle just laughing hysterically. I believe Erik was the ladies man of the night. He got the spotlight quite a bit.
There was a competition Nick did with some of the girls in our ward. (For the girls to get a ride back home.) Nick was supposed to talk to 5 girls he didn't know and the girls had to talk to 2 guys. I believe it was ALMOST a success. All that matters is that we all had a great time :)

Bigger or Better

I have done tons that I haven't been able to post. It's hard to stay updated.
Last Friday was the Institute dance!! Oh my, it was a blast!!
I am on the Institute Activities/Dance Committee. We showed up two hours before the dance to set up (open walls, help DJ, get kareoke and game room ready, move chairs and tables) and eat food!! Everyone is so sweet and the guys are amazing!
Before the dance started we played "Get-to-Know-You" games. It was great! It felt like EFY! Literally.
It's so much fun! I met tons of new people! During the dance we all hung out! More and more people would join us. It was great.
As a committee member we have to rotate every 30 minutes to check wristbands and modesty. If their shirt (girls) was too low we would give them a t-shirt they got to wear! Yay for modesty!
Our theme is "Come As You Are" So they come as they are and if they are not modest we get to help them become better. Make sense? Good.
At the dance we had about 700 BYU students show up. WHAT?!??! BYU comes to OUR dances? Apparently, Orem Institute of Religion has better dances then BYU. I have no say, cause I've never been but what they told us is what i'll go with. To enter then dance you need a wristband. We give out 2,000 wristbands. (Get them in advance) Only 2,000 are allowed in the dance. Reasons why...
1.) The a.c. wasn't working.
2.) We only have so much room.
3.) In the future students will get wristbands in advance
4.) We have 6,000 students on campus and 7,000 off campus
We do have wristbands at the dance but we run out quickly. Since we love BYU students we do let them in the dance.
This was the first dance and about 1,000-2,000 students couldn't come in the dance because they didn't have wristbands. Believe it or not.
Overall, it was a great turn out! We have these dances every 3-4 weeks.

Sunday was the CES Fireside. Elder Dallin H. Oaks and Sister Oaks spoke. It was great! Sister Oaks cracks me up! Afterwards we had TONS of fun sized chocolates in the back. We all stayed to talk for quite sometime! We get to the car and I have a missed call. Who could it be? Missed call from Tyler Griffin. Yay!! I call him back and we talked for about 45 minutes. It was great to hear from him! How I miss that kid, Even though he is only 20 minutes away. And 10 minutes away from UVU.

FHE Monday! For FHE we played Bigger or Better! We split into teams and the game started. Nick Strong, Michelle Kelly, Me and one other girl (can't remember her name, sorry!) were a team. The first house we went to had a sign by their doorbell that read, "Please ring doorbell. Residents are hard of hearing and baby sleeps through a train wreck" Haha we got a kick out of that. We started out with a tiny used candle and got a really cool rooster thing from Peru? We took the rooster and got a flat soccer ball, we took that to the Cutlers and they gave us a Unicycle!! Wahoo! We took the Unicycle and got a Razer Scooter. Yes! We headed down the hill and took the scooter and traded it for a wood table thing and we took the table to the Kirbys and they gave us an Alligator stuffed animal! Which won us the game (it was between the alligator and a broken lawn mower)! Thank you Kirbys! The Kirbys really didn't want the table so we told their kids to take the table back to the house we got it at and to say "do you have anything bigger or better than this?" the people said "no, but we have this razor scooter you can have." The kids ended up taking the scooter and the table. We headed to the Berrys and they told us to take a carpet that a previous group had. We had a great time! After FHE, we headed to Harts for free drinks!! It was great fun! We came back and the girl put the carpet by Michelles car just like we said to. We found that a bit funny :)

Trafalga Tuesday! I went to the Trafalga in Lehi! It was so much fun. I felt like a kid again! We did Lazer Frenzy!!! Let me tell you what it is. You go into this dark room and there are lazers shining from one side of the room to the other and you have to get from one side to the other, with out touching the lazers. It was a blast!! We won 31 tickets! And got Disappearing Ink!! We did Go Karts and wow either i'm a horrible driver or the go kart had problems :). We also went on a Frog ride. It's like the rocket but 1,000 times smaller. It was still so fun. That is were I felt like a kid again. We signed up for the last Lazer Tag game! We had 14 on our team (3 of them were little cute girls) and 12 were on the other team. The group I was with was so much fun! The team we were playing, not so fun. They had played a previous game (two games in a row). So they knew the best spots. We all had fun! Though we got creamed!!! Oh well :) The point of the game is to just have fun!
As we head to my house we get a text from Jordan Dresen. On how Trafalga went. We get this crazy idea to go visit him. So we drove around for 45 minutes trying to find his house. Haha oh my. I thought my house was impossible to find! Nope, he wins. We finally get to his house and he showed us his BYU homework and blog. And we talked about BYU stuff. We were there for about an hour. It was really fun. Afterwards, I get this crazy idea to get my disappearing ink. So I did. I got Jordan pretty good! He was a bit worried since he was wearing his BYU Riseup shirt (which I really wanted) It didn't really work cause it was Navy Blue. But hey, he was still worried. I told him what it was not long after I squirted it on him. And we all just had fun messing with the ink.
On our way home my friend REALLY had to go Potty. So we pulls over and has me drive the car! Haha oh it was great!

I AM...

COME AS YOU ARE

I AM...outgoing, curious, smart, female, male, short, tall, hungry, shy, poor, enthusiastic, magnanimous, spontaneous, fun, tired, independent, inspired, busy, athletic, goofy, artistic, friendly, honest, faithful, blessed, happy, incredible, unique, a student, me, amazing, spirited, nerdy, animated, creative, fit, energetic, hopeful, energized, great, learning, positive, dedicated, motivated, tolerant, random, dependable, healthy, compassionate, caring, marvelous, real, committed, peaceful, grateful, loving

Have you thought of who you are? Of how many blessing you have? Have you thought of how lucky you are?

Think about it.

You may be tall. You may be short. You may be spontaneous. You may be shy. You may be inspired. You may be artistic. You may be goofy. You may be tired. What ever it is...You are always you and you are always blessed.

This is our THEME for this year!! I am really excited to start institute! They gave us this t-shirt to wear on Tuesdays with courage! They call it "T-shirt Tuesday". UVU is covered with people wearing it. It's soooo awesome!!! I love UVU it makes me happy being there. I wouldn't want to go to any other University.

"I ask you to make participation in institute a priority...Think of it. Friends will be made, the Spirit will be felt, and faith will be strengthened. I promise you that as you participate in institute and study the scriptures diligently, your power to avoid temptation and to receive direction of the Holy Ghost in all you do will be increased. Divine favor will attend those who humbly seek it. That is a promise which I leave with you."
~President Thomas S. Monson

“Someday everything will make perfect sense. So, for now, laugh at the confusion, smile through the tears and keep reminding yourself that everything happens for a reason.”