The Lord watches over us... Always.

Today I got a phone call beginning with the worst possible phrase:

"Don't freak out, but..."

Followed up by quite possibly the worst possible phrase:

"Your dad was in an accident and is being taken to the hospital by ambulance."

Needless to say, I freaked out.  I was terrified.  My mom didn't have much besides what the medic said, which also wasn't much.  It was basically composed of an assurance from my dad that he was alright, which if you know my dad seriously doesn't mean anything.  At all.  My dad could have had his arm chopped off and he would tell people he had a slight flesh wound.

So him saying he was alright, yet complaining of neck and back pain, was terrifying.  Want to know what happened (as far as we know)?

My dad decided to go help out some members in our ward even though he was tired and just wanted to sit on his butt and play Farmville (I added that very last part.  It's true though...) but he knew he needed to go and help them out.  So he was on a normal yet semi-busy two lane road, minding his own bees wax when a lady decided she wanted to get to the other side of the road.  Think of a chicken.  Unfortunately for both her and my dad, it wasn't a good time to go and she hit my dad.  Right on the driver's side door.  Mind you he wasn't in a truck or an SUV, but our PT Cruiser (which is obviously a beast and cursed since I wrecked it last summer...).  Airbags deployed and my dad got hurt.  

When they took him to the ER, it took foreverrrr to get the results back for his x-rays, so for a long time all we knew was that he (while wearing an uncomfortable neck brace) burned his right arm and most likely broke his left wrist.  

It was so hard not being home today.  He already had to go to the ER back in March or April after playing volleyball with adults in the ward, and that was hard enough.  But today, not knowing exactly how he was and not being there with him was terrible.  I cried a lot and said a lot of prayers.

Finally, the results came back and mostly everything was fine.  He did indeed break his wrist and the only other injuries he sustained were the burn on his arm, which he says doesn't hurt, and some soreness, which should be expected really.  It is seriously such a huge blessing that he wasn't hurt worse and I know that all of the prayers offered up today played a role in that.  

Now, we just have to worry about whether or not the car is totaled...

BUT!  My dad is okay, and he still gets to go to St. Augustine this weekend with my mom and a bunch of other people for a wedding!  He'll even fit in with this weekend's colors...

Talking about it increases it.

It's cool.  You know how they say the more you bear your testimony, the greater it becomes?  Well, I never really had that until tonight.


Tonight on the way home from my brother's show, my niece and I were talking about Christ.  It started by her saying she was going to marry a prince(/her dad) in the temple and somehow transitioned into monsters in her room.  We talked about how my brother had Jesus come (he said a prayer to help her) and He made them go away.  We talked about how even though monsters are mean and scary, Christ still loves them and doesn't hit them (she asked...).  I told her how one day He will come back to Earth and hold her and tell her how much He loves her. And how He'll play with dolls with her.  


It was such a simple conversation but it was so amazing for me.  We say so often how Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us more than we know, but telling it to a three year old made it take on a new meaning.  I know that they love us.  I know that even though we don't always feel Them, and maybe we don't understand why things are so hard and think that maybe they've forgotten us, they haven't.  


Go talk to a kid.  Tell them about the love we're given from our Savior and Father.  You'll discover the same thing, too.

I forgot how much I love them.

This was like my favorite band/song freshman year of high school.  No one knew who they were yet.


I apologize for the kinda inappropriate album artwork...

If I pretend good enough, it might just be true... Right?

I know that's not proper grammar, but who cares.  It's not like I'm an English major.  Because I'm not. ;]


What am I pretending, you ask?


I'm pretending that I'm at BYU.  This is all just a really long lonely dream and I'm really still at school.  I still have my dreadful Italian class and I still wake up early three days a week to work at the testing center.  I still see my friends every day and I still have a ward where people talk to me and want to be my friend.  


I still have classes and homework and horrible Italian quizzes and Tall Club and devotionals and the dollar theater and Sunday night culture dinners and friends.


I don't have a car (or maybe I still do ;]) and I take the bus everywhere and hate it.  I sell my plasma and go to Fortune's to pig out on Chinese food with my friends. 


It's 55 degrees and wonderful and we do our homework outside but get distracted by random conversations and ranting and get in trouble for sitting in our kitchen chairs outside so we go in and end up sleeping on each other or watching a movie and getting nothing done.  Then we go to the Creamery and debate whether or not we should get (ice cream, cookies, chips, fruit, yogurt, cookies, soda, gummy worms, ice cream, cookie dough, cake/brownie/cheese cake mix) and end up getting it because we can and don't need it.


We tell each other where we are using north, south, east and west based on our proximity to Y mountain. 


I miss this.  I'm thinking if I keep my eyes closed long enough, it has to come true, right?


I think 9 1/2 weeks will be just enough.

Dear Farmington,

You kinda suck.  


You have one mall.  Really?  I mean I'm not the type to go shopping all the time, but when I do, I need more than 64 stores.  I say this because 95% of those stores are those weird ones that no one goes in because they're just weird...  And it's the only mall for three hours.  


People here are also the worst drivers I have ever seen in my entire life.  We just to complain about Utah drivers - especially their (lack of) parking skills.  Here, it's worse.  Hard to believe, I know.  How long would you guess it takes me to drive 4.5 miles to get to work?  Just guess.  You're wrong.  15 minutes.  There is no flow of traffic here.  The speed limit is 35 and you get stopped every block at a red light.  Ridiculous.


There are 43,420 people who live here.  There's one post office.


On the plus side, if you drive an hour to three hours there are a couple of fun things to do.

Ever gotten stuck in a tunnel made by a 5' Native American?

Well I have.  Just yesterday, in fact!  It all happened when we went to Mesa Verde!  We decided to go on the Balcony House and Cliffside House tours.  Balcony was by far the hardest.  There wasn't any one thing that was really strenuous, but overall, it was exhausting.  There were stairs, ladders, crevices, and, best of all, tunnels.  One tunnel was two feet wide and a little less than three feet tall.  Needless to say, I got stuck.  I was panicking (yes, that's the correct spelling) before I even tried and I was really panicking when I got stuck.  It was terrifying.  I literally couldn't move.  Most people crawled through on their hands and knees, but I was still too tall and hip-ie for that.  So I had to lie on my stomach and attempt to wiggle through.  Except I couldn't wiggle.  I was legitimately stuck.  I finally got my arms out so that I could pull myself through by hooking my arms on the walls, but it hurt haha Once I was out of the tunnel, I was just in a bigger tunnel.  I could at least kinda stand up before going through a medium sized tunnel to escape and climb yet another ladder.  That part, at the time, was pretty awful.  My chest hurt for a little from having so much anxiety but once I was able to cool down and relax, it was actually kinda funny... kinda.  


It was really awesome to look around Mesa Verde.  There are some really incredible sights to see.  The people that lived there amaze me with how they were able to build and develop homes in the sides of cliffs.  If you are ever in the area, I highly suggest that you visit here!  It's worth the parking and $3 tour fees for SURE!


If you wanna check it out, go here :]

A Whole Year

has passed since I graduated high school.  An entire year.  Today.  How crazy is that?  My life is so different now.  I'm so different now.  Parts of me really miss high school and the friends I had, I guess still have.  But I'm glad for the changes I've made.  I'm way closer to being completely independent.  Being away from my family doesn't scare me as much anymore.  Yeah, I really do miss the simplicity (even though it didn't seem so simple then) of my life then, I am grateful for the changes that have occurred this year and where I am now.  


I'm still feeling rather nostalgic, though.

Hidden Meanings

So first off, let me apologize for how ugly my blog is. It won't let me change the background so I was forced to do this until I can figure something out.  


Now onto the real purpose of this blog.  I just finished the first Harry Potter book for the very first time.  Yeah yeah, get it out of your system and just flip out openly about how shocking it is that I've never read them.  I just couldn't get into them when I was younger, ok?


So anyways, as I was reading the very last chapter, when Harry is telling Ron and Hermione what happened when he and Dumbledore had discussed, there was something that really hit a chord with me in relation to the Gospel.  I'm just going to type it all out on here.


"D'you think he meant you to do it?" said Ron.  "Sending you your father's cloak and everything?"


"Well," Hermione exploded, "if he did - I mean to say - that's terrible - you could have been killed."


"No, it isn't," said Harry thoughtfully.  "He's a funny man, Dumbledore.  I think he sort of wanted to give me a chance.  I think he knows more or less everything that goes on here, you know.  I reckon he had a pretty good idea we were going to try, and instead of stopping us, he just taught us enough to help.  I don't think it was an accident he let me find out how the mirror worked.  It's almost like he thought I had the right to face Voldemort if I could..." 


Some of you may be confused by this, but to me, it makes perfect sense.  Heavenly Father knows everything that goes on down here.  He's not ignorant of what we do or face on a daily basis.  While some people think it's terrible that He doesn't stop bad things from happening to good and innocent people, He's just giving us the chance to prove ourselves and grow.  He knows our strengths and weaknesses and He already knows what sins we are prone to commit.  Instead of stopping us, He teaches us enough to get through all of our trials and burdens.  He allows us to learn things about Him and the Gospel so that we can be strong and capable enough to survive.  He knows we eventually have to face Satan and defeat him so He teaches us what we need to know to succeed.


I don't know about you guys, but I think that is just awesome.  

A Three-Fold Message

I have three things I wanna say.  Some things are a rant and some are just musings.  It won't be too hard to differentiate.


1.  The English language is so strange.  Why do we greet each other with things like "Morning,"  "Afternoon,"  and "Evening?"  While I realize these are shortened versions of the original phrases, why don't we ever realize how silly we sound?  We're basically stating what time of day it is.  We're not actually saying hello or goodbye, we're just stating the obvious.  It's just odd to me.  Just odd.


2.  I just finished reading a book called "Where I Belong."  It's LDS fiction and it was really good.  There was romance, which is always good when you're lame and single haha, but there was a really good lesson as well.  It taught that sometimes it's terrifying to live life the way you're supposed to when it means possibly giving up on your life's goals completely but that if you have complete and utter faith in the Lord's plan for you and hold tight to the rod, you will be enriched and obtain a greater fulfillment than you ever could have on your own.  It's kinda like that trust game where you fall backwards and hope someone catches you, except you're jumping from some unknown building with an unknown height.  Blindfolded.  You have to have greater faith than you think is possible.


For me right now, that faith is concerning death.  It's kinda morbid, I know, but for some reason it has just terrified me recently.  It's kinda like... what if everything I've believe my entire life is wrong?  What if there is nothing after this life?  It's scary.  The only way to describe how I feel when I think about it is like this:  Take a deep breath.  Don't let it out but hold it in.  Indefinitely.  Feel that panic setting in?  Even though mentally you know that all you have to do is exhale and inhale again and you're fine, your body's natural instinct is to panic because it's not getting what is vital to survive.  


That panic is kinda what I feel when I think about death.  Mentally, I know that all I have to do when that time comes is let go, and I will be greeted on the other side of the darkness by something much greater than this world.  I just have to let go and take it in; I'll be alright and even better than before.  Part of me, though - and I'm not sure if it's physical or just another mental part - panics.  Maybe it's survival instincts.  Maybe it's Satan testing my faith and scaring me away from the Gospel (yeah I know it doesn't make sense, but when does he make sense?).  I know I'm young and have nothing to worry about.  I have faith, especially because of my Patriarchal blessing, that I will live a long life.  It still brings a paralyzing fear about inside some part of me, though.  I think once I've actually done something with my life worth being proud of, this fear will subside a bit.  I still have a lot of living left to do ;]


3.  Why is it that girls, and guys I guess, who don't really follow the guidelines of the Church, can get into BYU but people who try so hard to be the best they can be and follow every commandment to the best of their ability can't.  There's one person in particular that I'm thinking about.  She dresses immodestly, does things that there's no gray area excuse for (like drink alcohol), and then some.  It just disgusts me.  Especially because there's no way this person's Bishop doesn't know about it.  No way.  It's all over Facebook.  Yeah, I shouldn't be judging.  Yeah, maybe this person neeeeds to be at BYU.  But still.  It just irks me because this person doesn't deserve to be honored with being a BYU student.  At all.  Ugh.