Life

Life is stressing me out. I feel so over whelmed with at LEAST one test a week and homework every night. Every weekend I have a marching band competition or something else going on. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but too much can really become a stress rather than something fun faster than you want it to. I'm sitting listening to MOTAB (Mormon tabernacle choir) by myself. And it is SO soothing. I just want to cry with relief that I know that I am lover by my Savior Jesus Christ and that when the second coming comes I will get to see Him, and it will be a day of rejoicing. I'm thankful for everything I have; my friends, family, home, school, church, leaders, and just about everything else I have! I am so fortunate, even though I am not rich, I do not get everything I want, and I have no fame. I feel great with what I have; scriptures, the one and ONLY true restored church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, seminary, prayer, and temples. Yesterday I had a marching band comp. in Grand Junction CO and I had to get up at 5:00 in the morning and be there at 5:45. It was so much fun during the day except I let Satan get to me. I am amazed with how sly he is at doing that. Well done Satan, but too bad for you, I'm not stupid like you are. I have friends and family that support me and comfort me when I'm down. I was being pestered consistently by someone in the band that will remain unknown, I got sunburnt in my eyes, I had a very painful headache, and I was a bit excluded on the ride home, however near the end of the trip as I burst into tears, I was able to text my sister, and my best friend hugged me with comfort unceasingly. Take that Satan! God will forever protect and comfort His children against you. With Becca getting married now, in the Payson Utah temple just fills me with joy. A new brother! Welcome to the family Caleb :). After all my pains and struggles, I strive to unceasingly thank the Lord for the things that He does give me. Because my blessings, are uncountable.

I'm Not Big on Posting

If you can't tell already I'm not big on posting often. Occasionally I get back on but not very often. On the last day of summer I got the opportunity to spend time with London and go to the lake. That was fun, and I'm grateful for friends.

(We look kind of funky because the camera was right in front of the sun so we couldn't see anything.)

So yeah that was fun. And school started last Wednesday and that was interesting. My first day of high school. :/ I was SO nervous. I'm still adjusting but over all it's pretty much the same thing as middle school. I can't wait to get the play started so that I'm actually be involved in something. 

The first day of school in 2008 and 2015.

I finally made it to the first weekend after school started. So me and my friends decided to do something. First we had the band aid concert. Auburn and Sadie performed with the marching band at the farmers market and as a colorguardist I went and supported them. That was really fun! And the night before we performed at our first football game. We did terrible but I don't care because it was fun! 

Using some old flags we found in the band room for our first performance which also made it hard to perform.

Auburn and I after the halftime performance

The band-aid concert at the farmers market

Paddle boarding at the lake :)

And then earlier this week I took out my messy bun and got a lions mane :0

And just barely I dug up some 8ft sunflowers in our backyard. and I played with some of them. And I just like this picture :)

"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows. That's what the sunflowers do." -Helen Keller "Like wildflowers; you must allow yourself to grow in all places people thought you never would." -E.V. "Be thankful for what you have. Your life, no matter how bad you think it is, is someone else's fairytale." -Waleayen

And last but not least, I just got my braces tightened. I have a power chain on top and I want to die. But at least my gaps are all gone now! My future teeth are coming to be! 

A Spiritual Emotion

Hello readers. Yes, that is mainly my family. Tonight, I lost my wallet. This is the second time and I think I'm more disappointed in myself than the actual fact that I lost my wallet.  I can't believe this is the second time! But anyways, after searching for a long half hour, I decided to go to bed. As I sat on the tip of my bed to set my alarm I decided to choose a slow song to wake up to. I decided to wake up to the glorious voice of Mindy Gledhill. I chose her song "All about your Heart" slow version. As I began to listen to the first part of the song, a wave of emotion came over me. I could feel my Saviours love as I was feeling defeat. What a wonderful feeling that Heavenly Father places upon us when He wants us to feel His love. I slowly began to cry as I felt so blessed to have everything that I do have. I'm pretty sure that loosing my wallet tonight was my Heavenly Father trying to let me know that He really does love me. And even though I have been given my trial, it is only to make me stronger. I know He is not try to stress me out, but to help me feel His love. And I love Him back just as much.

Bluff Trip

We took a Bluff trip and it was really fun! We went to Bluff Utah and learned about the story of Hole in the Rock. We learned what happened to the pioneers when they were told by God to travel to the indian territory buy their sheep. As they were successful, they had many trials along the way. They thought the trip would be 6 weeks but instead the trip turned into 6 months. There were food shortages and it was really hot, but they put all their faith and trust in God and they made it. In one of the rocks along the san Juan Hill the pioneers carved "In God we trust".

It's hard to see but they carved it into this rock. It's right above the word crew if you can see that well.

It was all just so amazing to me. I can't even comprehend the pain that the pioneers went through. I know that God put us in these days because He knew that we would be the strong ones, but when I hear what these people did, I don't even start to compare to them. I love the pioneers and what they did for us. They are such amazing people in our history. After we hiked up the hill we hiked back down to the river. We were playing around down there for a little while until Kiersten got injured. She stepped on a 2 inch long russian olive thorn and it got stuck in her foot. They had to cut her foot open but were unsuccessful in getting the whole thing out. Well it just happened that while they were helping get the thorn out of her foot I just happened to get hit it the face by a 3 inch wide stick thrown directly at my face with all strength. It hurt tremendously and I tried to bee tough through it considering someone else was already injured. But it turns out I did need medical attention and I was soon after attended to. I thought I was just bruised, but I was bleeding. I had gotten the deepest cut on my eyelid. I was bleeding like crazy and my bishopric gathered around me trying to figure out how to help. They wiped all the blood off of me and put a bandaid on my eyelid. Well, this left me with a black eye and a bandaid on my eyelid allowing me to barely open my eye. They soon after gave us both blessings and we had a testimony meeting after that. It was such a blessing to be able to have the help I received and that my eye is ok. Aaron bore is testimony in church today about how lucky Kiersten and I were to be able to have a blessing next to the San Juan River, just like the pioneers. This really affected me because it helped me realize that it wasn't bad luck for me to get cut on my eye, it was a trial and a blessing to me that Heavenly Father had given me. Even though I look pretty scary with the cut and black eye I am still grateful for that experience to be blessed at San Juan Hill and not have a more worse injury like going blind in my left eye for the rest of my life.

(I also really enjoyed the fresh watermelon!! ;))

Teeth Pulling Day

So today I got 2 teeth pulled! It wasn't all that bad, except I was kind of anxious. They numbed me up which ended up being super uncomfortable since I was numb for 4 and a half hours. However, the numbing shot on my gums above my teeth didn't hurt, it was the numbing on the roof of my mouth which KILLED. I'm fine now, and overall, it wasn't too bad. They said they would let me go once my heart rate went down but it kept on going up and down from 85 to 100 so finally they just let me go. I have to go again today, so sorry that this is another short post. Here's some pictures!

P.S., I can't wait for the "tooth fairy" tonight!

Reality Town

So I've been kinda lazy lately if you haven't noticed and so I haven't posted since the dinosaur age. Anyways, my post title is called "Reality Town" because it's something that we do in Moab your 7-8th grade years of school. You pick a job, dress up like your job, get a life scenario (this year I had a 3 year old boy and a husband with no job- and I had to pay for HIS car!! What the heck?!?!), and you do what regular adults do except all in one day. So I had to buy a car, a house, dental insurance, clothes, groceries, etc. You only have them money that your job that you picked out gives you, and you have to buy certain things. It's not that interesting, except for one part-- the costume contest! Last year I was a flight attendant for delta airline, and I won first place with the costume contest. I got awarded a $15 iTunes card! Woohoo! This year I took second place, and I got a free movie ticket! Not too shabby! This year I was a delta airlines pilot. Not much of a move but if you can't tell I like flying! (I won't actually do this when I get older) This time I want to use my movie ticket for the new movie Cinderella coming out on March 13th. Yay I'm so excited!! Anyways, it's a short post tonight. This pictures below are my costume.

Braces

Well that's it- they're on! I am officially a brace face. And it kills. Children, I do not advise you get them, they are extremely painful. I am sitting in pain, moaning like a dying person. Excuse me- feeling like a dying person. I can't post anything more because I have other things to do. However, here's a picture:

Parents are Coming Home, and Rough Times

Well, start off by looking at my photo of the day:

Can you tell I'm excited for my parents to come home from their cruise? One week of no communication, no parents, and having to make dinner on my own is way too much. Tomorrow my glorious parents will be arriving home and can I just say, I'm excited. I made this poster and will proceed to put it on the front of my house. I can't wait. I can also say that this week has been hard. I've had had over 20 tests in the past 10 days, along with many other side things like mutual, friends, church business, and doctors appointments. Although I love it all, it has all been killing me for the past little bit. I have been missing school SO much lately it's a little scary (although I do love missing it). So what I have coming up for the last bit of February is getting my braces on, going to the acupuncturist, baptisms, tests, 4 birthdays, and many more other things. These are all fun but at the same time? I don't think so. I complained to my teacher because I had 5 tests out of 7 hours in one day and all he could tell me was that that was what college was going to be like. Finals week, or aka death week, when you take all of your tests. I also have been taking responsibility in babysitting, making dinner, and taking care of someone's dog. STRESSFUL. I tried to make chicken, which turned out to be one of the hardest things to make ever and had many incidents with that. I have been making dinner for the past week for personal progress and most all of the meals include meat. Well, every time I fried meat, the grease popped on me which hurt, of course. But when I made spaghetti, I tried to boil pasta and fry meat at the same time which was disastrous, and I don't advise it. But anyways, the meat popped grease onto my face which hurt a lot, but it continued with a big water bubble splashing out of the pot and landing on my foot. That hurt a lot, and when I tried to make a gravy for chicken pockets some of the gravy popped out of the pot and decided to land on my finger; which was the worst. I still have a burn on my finger from it. I could go on more, but I assume that you've heard enough. So yeah I've been a bit of a complainer for the past little while, but aren't we all complainers? I suppose we shouldn't be, but we are. I challenge you all to stop complaining as much as you do, along with me to try and stop complaining. There are so many worse things happening to other people and we need to stop complaining about our minor problems are recognize and comfort others with bigger problems. I was feeling pretty bad for myself one time when a lady told me a story of what had happened to her in the past week. She told me that she decided to go up to Salt Lake to go Christmas shopping. Well, she bought all of her presents and went to a hotel to stay the night. During that night, someone had broken into her car, and stolen all of the presents. As disappointed as she was, she continued to go home without any presents. When she got home, her car got stolen during the night. The list continued to go on and I realized that I had so many great things and I was still complaining about what I didn't have. As I press on in life I try to become less selfish and see others through Christ's eyes. I challenge you do do that too.

Parents on a Cruise

When your parents are living with you and they don't leave often, or for very long, we don't seem to miss them. Well I can tell you one thing, once they leave to country for one wee and you're not allowed to call, text, or email them, you tend to miss them quite a bit. My parents left for a cruise just yesterday morning and I already have cried more than three times. When your parents are home, don't take them for granted! Now that my parents are gone for one week, I'm mourning for them to come back. I have to go to school, and they get to party. I stay at home, and they went to Mexico. Not fair. I can't call, text, or email them. I can't wait for them to be back. And I know you've probably heard this a billion times, but don't take your parents for granted.

More Acupuncture, Orthodontist and Tests

So I went to the acupuncturist again and it was the same old. Except, this time I got 18 needles put in me. I got one on the top of my head, one on each side of my neck, three in each arm, three in my stomach, and three in each leg. I got a request for a picture, so here it is:

Anyways, you've probably heard enough about that. So today I had my orthodontist appointment. I'm pretty excited to get braces, just to get straight teeth with a pretty smile. They made me pull my cheek over to the side so that they could get a picture of the side of my teeth. One word, ouch. When she did it, all I could think was that my cheek was going to rip open or my lips were going to separate. It hurt so bad. Then I met my soon to be Orthodontist, he's super nice. His grip was strangely tight though, like hulk shaking my hand. I felt like he shattered my hand! We talked for a long time and he FINALLY told me the problems with my jaw and when I could get braces. He told me I had a very unique jaw, one that not many have. He said it was "classical". He said it was a good jaw to have but it was a bit small. He told me that they are going to have to pull 2 of my teeth. This terrified me. All I could think was that at least my teeth will be straight. With those two teeth gone then my two front teeth that stick out in front would be able to move back into my jaw. They said it would be two years with them, and then I should get them off. This means that I'll have them off for prom and all of the important stuff, which is what I wanted them off for so I won't mind having them on for 2 years. I'm officially getting them on on Feb. 23rd. Yay! The only stress I really had today was all of my stress. I had 5 tests out of 7 classes! I had a test every hour except two! And not to mention I was gone for one of the hours that I didn't have a test! I'm doomed. I had a test in science, health, english, band and choir. It was TERRIBLE. Not to mention, (and not to be rude), I had Mr. Bockman for two of those tests! Although, he did let me play on my phone after I finished. I hope I can survive my life.

New Schedule

So today I met with my school counselor to prepare my classes for 9th grade (My first year in high school). We talked and planned out things, which were all pretty easy. The classes I got were interpret science A and B, Honors English, Honors Math, Computer Technology, Health, P.E., Spanish A and B, geography, seminary, and Drama. This excludes the classes wood shop, clothing, chorus, band, and cooking that I also wanted to take. I just hope that this all won't be too much for me to interpret, especially honors math and english, and Spanish. I hope I survive! I also want to do (MAYBE) is Volleyball, Color guard, and the fall play/musical. Although I'm still not quite sure if drama includes the fall play...? Lets hope so because that's what I'm getting! No going back now... Oh! I forgot! Today I also baked these oreo cookies for Lindsay's Laurel mutual activity. Hopefully they taste good.

Posting Frequently, Doing Service, and Hiking

I have been pretty prompt on posting lately and it's been a great succeed for me! Maybe this is just another way for me to use my time more wisely than I have been. Lately I've been... lazy. Only this picture can describe how I've been spending my time:

So yeah I guess you can see that this blog is better use of my time! But anyways today we had a church activity, and we were going to go to Goblin Valley, but it rained. So we all meet at the church, thinking that we're going to go hiking, while it was raining. But once we got there, all dressed up in hiking clothes, they tell us we're not going. So now we're all like well now what, we're all ready for it and we're not even going but then, they told us that we we're going to help someone in our ward move. This was ok for me, especially because I've moved twice and I understand how hard it is and it would be nice to give some help. So we went to this house, and we were all like whatever, everything's great (except that the fact it's still raining) and we're all good. We made a fire line and everything went smoothly- that is until we got to cleaning. So me and my cousin Sadie decide that we were going to clean the bathroom so were like ok yeah sure and we take a clorox wipe bottle with us. Well, this just happened to be a EXTREMELY dirty bathroom and we ran out of wipes (not like there were even that many because there were only 5 but you know, whatever). Well then I was given a window wipe which was ok except it was dry, so they told me just to get it wet. no problem there right- wrong. The water was turned off! Well how in the world am I supposed to clean a house with no water?! Or paper towels?! So then I improvised and found a spray bottle that hadn't been packed yet and so we used that. Well here comes problem two- I get the mirror all wet, and then there's no paper towels!! Great, this is just great. No I've made their mirror look like crap and there's nothing to clean that up. Well I decided that nothing was going to change so I move onto the next thing, vacuuming. Ok that's easy I thought! Well it was easy, if you call vacuuming the entire room 4 times in a row. The dirt just kept coming!!! Well I finally finished that and I decided that I was going to make someone else vacuum the next room. So I give the vacuum to Sadie and she vacuums for like 20 minutes and finally finishes. By then, she had turned the power to tools, so when she went to vacuum the hallway, dirt was flying all over. She thought the bag was full, so we emptied it. Nope, not the problem. she starts it again, and there goes the dust again. Well it turns out that both of us were too blonde to realize that the switch had been turned to tools, not the bottom vacuum part. Well that solved that problem. We finally finished packing and cleaning up all of their stuff, and the job was done. We had packed their stuff up in the rain and cleaned the entire house. SUCCESS! Then we debated for a while to o hiking. We decided that we weren't going to go to Goblin Valley for sure, but instead we went hiking to Corona Arch. Well we got there, and the rain had died down. We were all pumped and having a great time by then, and the day had been passed by pretty well. So you know boys right, anxious to get to the end, and always having the energy to run around. Well, I'm not a boy. So we start the hike and the boys are just running in the front and of course the leaders are trying to keep up with them and we were trying to keep up to the leaders. Well, fitness and me don't exactly cope with each other very well. When I got to the end I had felt like I had just ran a marathon. Apparently I'm out of shape (Isn't that weird? I live in Moab and I'm out of shape, and I never go hiking). We got up there and we stayed up there for probably a half an hour and chilled with each other for a while. The day had been great. But that wasn't the end, we hiked back down and went to the golden bar campground where our other leader had brought us lunch. How nice! We got sandwiches, chips, soda, and cookies (plus some candy, nice and sugary!). After that we went home and I got to relax for a while. Then I went shopping for a while, and now I'm here at home resting. My last day of January was actually good! Hope yours was too!

Corona Arch

 (Of course I didn't take this because it was raining when I went)

Living my Life Like it is

                   So living my life is difficult. I have stomach pains almost everyday, and it's hard to make it to school. I always have pity for myself because of the way I always feel. I know I'm not perfect, but I have definitely done some things wrong. Why do I have pity for myself when there are people in the world around us dying, every minute. So why do I have pity for myself when I have days that I do feel good and can enjoy myself and people are dying or are going to die? The Lord has blessed us all with billions of blessings and why don't we thank Him for it? Why don't we thank the Lord for all the blessing he has given us? Because we are humans, we have a part of us that is selfish. That's why. We always  have a part inside of us that always feels bad for the little problems that we face. Well I've learned from many inspiring people around me that we need to stop thinking about ourselves and care about other people for a change. We should start praying to comfort other people who have lost a loved one recently, or are struggling from hard illnesses like cancer. I have learned that the Lord blesses people that care for others more than themselves. I challenge you guys to try and recognize the problems that other people are going through that are harder than your own problems, and help them. Help other people that a blind of the church, help them to the church. I heard somebody once say, "Those who don't try to teach about the gospel will be charged with it at the judgement seat." This was such a powerful statement for me because I realized that I wasn't trying hard enough to help others. I hope you guys can try harder than me.

The Doctor's Office

So I know it's been a while since my last post, I know, my bad. However, I have been sick for a long time so I kinda have an excuse. Because I've been sick, I've missed out on a lot of things. Finally my parents scheduled an appointment with the acupuncturist to see if he can solve my problems; which would be constant stomach pains that come and go for days (which I have had for the past couple of years). So today came the day, and I traveled up to Salt Lake for my appointment. We were a little early so I had to sit in suspense and have a stomach full of jitters. The day before my mom had told me that since it was just a consultation, I wouldn't actually be have the acupuncture done; or as I like to say, get needles injected into my body. My mom lied. I got there, and one of the first things he did was put needles in me! I was hesitant, but my dad was obviously too strong and won the war of if I was going to get the needles or not. He had me lay down on the bed (I thought I was going to die), and he unwrapped the needles. Of course by then I was being a cry baby and was crying silently but you know who cares that I was totally miserable and nervous. No one. So he goes on with it and he sets the first one on my leg, then he kind of flicks the top of it and in it goes! you have now reached the inside of my skin; congratulations! He kept going on and finished my legs and arms. Then he gets to my stomach and that was when I got really teary and apprehensive. Yet, I feel nothing. I lied there for 25 minutes staring at the wall with these needles in my skin, and I got an itch underneath my eye. I thought I was going to DIE. I sat there for about 5 minutes trying to just tough it out, but it got WORSE! Finally I had my dad try to come over and itch it but he's so gentle it was still there. After probably 15 minutes my battle was over. The itch had gone away. HALLELUJAH! He finally came back and took them out. I was relived; I could move again! I guess I was so nervous I couldn't exactly hold still and relax, so it wasn't exactly a good time. (The whole reason for this was to get my blood flowing, especially because he said I'm low on blood, and my body can't receive nutrients, so that's why we had to do all of this) Anyways, he wants me to do that for a week but I don't exactly want to do it ever again, so this could be a hard thing for me. But, he put me on some pills that I have to take every day to detox my body. He says, "Can I give you some herbs?" I was just like sure! But when we picked them up, there were 4 bottles! I was like wow that's a lot. Then I realized how many I have to take each day and I felt faint! I have to take 16 pills each day!!!!! This better work because I'm not taking 16 pills a day for nothing! There was one last thing that we did, a hair test. She cut some of my baby hairs off and sent them in to be studied. Through this study they will figure out 300 foods I'm allergic to, any metals I'm allergic to, and all the foods my body can tolerate and can't tolerate. I thought that this was awesome, which it is, except for it take 6 weeks to get the results and it's quite the bundle of money. Not to mention, I'm getting braces really soon (next week will be my consultation, and then I'll get braces to be precise), and they are not cheap! My body is starting to cost a LOT of money. Thanks to my parents because I definitely don't have all that money. All I can do now is hope that we can find a solution to my mysterious stomach problems.