Yay for early morning revelations!

I am in Rexburg for the moment. It was a spur of the moment trip to hang out with Carly. I've only been here for one day so far (not even one day) and this has already been a great trip for me. I've already learned so much. I've learned that I've changed a lot more than I thought I had. I've learned that my future is wiiiiiide open. I can do whatever I want to and I mean whatever. Anything.

Last night before we went to bed, Carly read to me her blog that she has been working on for her senior project. She graduates in just two months which is awesome. Her blog is one for giving advice to people who want to go to BYU-I or who are going to BYU-I. One of her posts was about choosing a major. She said that we need to choose a major of something we actually like doing. We can change it at any time and we don't need to be afraid to do so. Basically, we can be whoever we want to be. She told me that she wrote that post with me in mind. Probably because I've already changed my major once, from Music to English Education. This didn't really hit me, or sink in, until this morning when I woke up. 

Carly and her roommate are still asleep and it's 10:16 am. I can't sleep in past 9:30 no matter how late I stayed up the night before *cough* 3 am *cough*

But I woke up feeling like a new person. I feel completely different. Confident and determined. Like I want to move forward in my life and I want to figure out what I want. This is a GREAT feeling. I feel happier too. Wow, didn't know this was what Rexburg could do for me. I need to do something with my life. And this is the perfect time to do it.

When breaking up with my boyfriend, I lost complete interest in boys. And I didn't know why. True, I've only been on one date with a boy since then but still. I didn't know what Heavenly Father wanted for me. I didn't know what I was supposed to do with my life. And so I just kept praying and going to the temple and reading my scriptures, hoping and trusting in Him that I would be lead to my next step. Well, I'm still not there but at least now I have the desire to find the next step. And now I know why I don't care about boys right now. I need to get my crap together. 

I'm going to research all of the majors at BYU-I and figure out what I want in life. No matter what it is. After that first semester of coming back from the mission and actually doing a decent job in my classes for the first time ever, I have the confidence that I can do whatever I want to do. And now I actually trust what my patriarchal blessing says about my schooling. I can do whatever I want to do. Anything. And I will succeed. Just got to figure out what that is. Also I've realized that I belong here in Rexburg. From the first moment that I drove in and saw everything and started remember all of the good times, I just felt like I was home. I've missed it here. And I feel more confident and more myself. I don't feel that at all in Provo. So I may be moving back here. We'll see. For now, I'll  just figure out what I want to do. 

But I know that God has a plan for us. We need to seek his help to know what it is and what we are supposed to do. But He will reveal it to us if we are patient and trust in Him. 

And man, am I happy right now :) 

Again, it's been ages....

Here's what happens when people get home from their missions. 

1. They are super happy to be home and be with family again, love lazing around, watching tons of movies, catching up on the music, stalking people on Facebook (seeing who got married and who had kids), and enjoying the free time.

2. The boredom kicks in (of course this would happen, they just spent 1.5-2 years walking around talking to people all day long). And the desire to move on with life. This stage sucks if there is no post-mission plan. 

3. Moving on and getting a life. But also losing some of the spirituality that used to be there. Hitting an all-time spiritual low, not because you're slacking or not following the commandments, but because there is a lack of service. 

There are more steps but I still have to figure out what they are.

I'm on the 3rd step right now. It's not a fun period of time. But if little acts of service can be found everyday then it should get easier over time. 

Post-mission life is great. You get to see how much you've changed when you weren't paying attention to yourself. It's so true that if you lose yourself in the service of others, Heavenly Father will change you into who you need to be. He will make you strong enough to survive the rest of your life. Okay, better than survive. He will make you strong enough to succeed. 

I'm so grateful for my mission and all the He taught me while I was on it. Can't wait to see where He takes me next. 

Love,

Q

Long time, No write

Hello people of the world!
It's been a while....
But life is good right now. I'm getting ready for my mission.
And I find out where I'm going this week (hopefully).
I'm also kind of freaking out. If you've never gotten a mission call before... well then you don't really understand the tension and scariness of getting that letter.
It's also super exciting, don't get me wrong.
I'm just dead scared to open that thing. That letter is going to tell me everything about my life for the next year and a half...
It's going to say where I'm going, if I have to learn a language, and when I'm leaving.
Luckily, I'll still have time after I get it to prepare. I put June 1st as my availability date so I still have about 4 months at least.

For those of you that don't know how the calls work, let me explain.
We don't choose where we go. The leaders of the church in Salt Lake City choose for us. They pray about it and call us to the place where we will serve the church and the people best. They call us to the place where we are needed.

So, because of that, I'm incredibly excited. This is going to be an amazing opportunity for me and I can't wait.

And that's the deal with the mission right now.
I'm also taking three online classes (American Foundations, English, and Book of Mormon part 2).
And I'm working whenever I can get work. So yup :) That's life.

Love,
Q

Another Big Decision... My life seems to be full of them these days

Alright alright. So I know the semester's not quite over yet (14 days!) but I haven't written anything in a REALLY long time so I felt that I should let everyone know what's going on.

Life has been really interesting lately. It kind of felt like I was just floating by. I still have good grades and everything but I wasn't really feeling anything, yah know?

Classes are good, I just can't wait to get home. I'm not trunky, I swear. Just impatient I guess.
So anyways, two days ago I think is when I decided that I'm not going to come back here after winter break. It was kind of a huge decision for me.
I fasted about it and prayed a whole bunch. I even took my scriptures to my math class cuz I knew we wouldn't be doing anything but going over excel projects. I talked to a bunch of my friends about it, and my mom, and my dad. A lot were for it and a lot were against it. Ultimately, it was my choice.

If I chose to stay then I would take a bunch of classes and just go along like I'm doing now.
I would have stayed at Carriage House with my amazing roommates that I love and it would have been a bunch of fun. Taken the easy road I guess.

The other day, I was talking to Kayleigh about next semester and how odd I was feeling about it. Something felt off about me staying here and I honestly couldn't see it happening. Now I understand why.
Anyways, I was talking to her and at the end of it I made the statement that staying home would be out of the question. She automatically asked me why I thought that. I didn't have an answer.
This opened up and whole bunch of possibilities for me. It made a lot more sense in my head that I stay home. I would save my parents a bunch of money, be able to get a job, spend a lot of time with my family, help my sister as she grows up and has to deal with high school and that insanity, help Mom with the kids and driving around, prepare for my mission, take classes online, and just be a lot happier.
It didn't take me very long to decide what I should do.
Needless to say, I called Mom and told her what I was going to do and then called Dad and told him. They were both very supportive of me and I'm super grateful for that.

Now, I'm just waiting... I get to go home and stay home. I'm so at peace right now with my decision. It makes me really happy. I know this is what I was supposed to do.

I'm so grateful for my parents and the Gospel that they taught me to live. I'm grateful for an Heavenly Father that can direct me where I should go and tell me what I'm meant to do in my life. I don't know what I'd do without him.

Well, anyways, that's what's been going on in my life recently. That's the big discovery. And I couldn't be happier.

Love,
Q

Foxy and Hottie

Today I miss my best friend.

My mom posted something about her coming over and giving her a Blizzard. It made me realize how much I am missing this amazing girl.
Anna and I have been really good friends since soccer in Middle School. I think we played on the same team for 3 years and it was a lot of fun.
We were also in band together in middle school and we would harass our band teacher. It was the funnest. High school came around and we still stayed really close.
Track and XC and all the adventures involved.

She's always been there for me. We basically grew up together.
This last year was probably the best. Senior year and I had a class with her every trimester. It was always super fun even though the classes sucked. We had all sorts of crazy adventures, like getting to school the day after Valentine's day and realizing that there was candy on sale at Alberton's! And running down the halls at school before it started to jump in her car and go get some :)
We would also ride around in her amazing Mustang with the top down and blasting Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy and singing at the top of our lungs.
Canoeing at Lake Oswego and getting Cold Stone afterwards. Going to see Batman and getting Noodle's and Company and just being crazy.
Stache-attacking Jaclyn's house and getting random Blizzards.
I miss all of our adventures. I miss running around like crazy people with my Foxy. I miss the baking parties and talking to her about boys and all the hilarious drama that comes with being best friends.
I miss having someone that I can talk to about anything and everything and who's always there for me.
She's my best friend and my adopted sister and I'm so grateful for her,

Ranting and Raving

So I'm not the type to rant and spill my guts on the internet (My mom usually does that :))
But something just really "got my panties in a bunch"
I went online to look at my grades because you can do that because of the cool/super annoying thing that BYUI does.
I have pretty good grades if I may say so myself (not including math, which I've never been amazing at). I still have 100% in 3 of my classes and A's in 2 of the others.
The only exceptions are Math and my favorite class, Humanities. I'm not being sarcastic or anything. I really do love that class. It's the one that's like AP European History (which I loved in HS) but with music more incorporated.
In that class, my teacher hasn't had any assignments until this last week when he assigned an essay. I wasn't a hard essay. We just had to compare the story of Orpheus to an opera that was created based on the story.
When my teacher assigned that, on I-Learn (where the grades and assignments are posted) it said that all the kids in the class had 0% because no one had turned in the assignment.
I turned in the assignment online just like we were told to. But because I wasn't using Microsoft Word to make it, the program I was using saved the file in some weird format.
I sent it to my mom before turning it in to have her edit it and I tried to save it in a different format to get it to her. It worked out just fine. She got the essay and we fixed it all up.
I turned it in on Friday. I made the deadline and I thought everything was fine.

Today when I checked my turned in assignments that needed to be graded I saw the essay that I had turned in. Next to it was a big fat 0.... ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

I emailed my prof and asked him if his TA hadn't been able to open it or what was going on. Hopefully he'll get back to me soon... Ugh I'm just so frustrated right now. I wish that I could have just printed it off and turned it in like that. That would have been so much easier.
So anyways. Done with the freaking out. I'll update this when I get a reply... stupid stupid stupid...
-Q

Well... That makes a whole lot more sense...

Okay so I know it's been ages since I've written... so shoot me... College life is busy
General Conference was this weekend (like you didn't know)
The only thing I really remember was President Monson announcing at the beginning of the Saturday morning session that boys can now go on missions at 18 and girls can go at 19.
Blew my mind.
I honestly can't remember anything else very clearly. The first thought in my head after he said that was, "I'm going."
Then there was a moment of sheer panic followed by a moment of intense excitement. And then the rest of conference, my emotions switched back and forth between the two. I felt like Rapunzel in that one scene in Tangled where she's at war with herself.

So, I'm going. Now I know and everything makes a whole ton more sense.
I never really was solid about what I was going to do after this year in college. It didn't feel right to come back for another year and I had no idea why. What was I going to do? Where was I going to be?
Well... Now I know :) I'm going to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I'm so excited. I figure that I'll finish out this year and turn in my papers as soon as I can. I'm going to write June as my availability date to have some time at home and to earn some money (hopefully) and everything will work out :)
I love General Conference. It explains so much and helps me understand everything.
Well, time to finish some homework. Just thought I'd let you know :)
Love you!
Love,
Q