SHOPPING! and some Visiting Teaching.

So my sister's and I got to go to the outlet mall in Park City. It was AWESOME! I loved it!
I spent a total of 27.?? dollars and I got 3 tank tops (Old Navy) 2 pairs of shorts (Gap) and one SUPER adorable dress (Liz Claiborne)
I got 2 2 dollar tank tops 1 1 dollar tank top, 2 2 dollar pairs of shorts and a 10 dollar dress. Can you tell I'm super excited about it?
It was so fun too because we got to go together and Clay wasn't even fussy most of the time. But just so you know he does get EXTREMELY heavy. But he's still super super cute. :-)
I was looking at pictures from when he was a newborn... so not as cute at current Clay. He's just turning out to be such a cutie pie.
Last night I went to do my Visiting Teaching and the lesson for this month was AMAZING. I loved it. Some of my favorite quotes were:

Elder Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles: “Reserved by the Lord for this time, [the rising generation] must now be preserved … and prepared for their special moment in human history! They have been held back to come forth at this time, but now they need to be pushed forward to meet their rendezvous. …

“Youth are not unlike prospective converts. There are those critical moments when their souls begin to tilt—toward the Lord or away from Him. These moments of decision cannot always be created, but when they occur, they must not be wasted."

What I like about this one is it says the rising generation and being single it's hard to relate the whole "be a good mother" lessons to my girls but my roommate Angilyn pointed out that we are the rising generation. So it's not saying we just need to help our children and nurture and raise them but we need to do that with our friends, boyfriends, spouses, everyone.

President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008): “Never forget that these little ones are the sons and daughters of God and that yours is a custodial relationship to them, that He was a parent before you were parents and that He has not relinquished His parental rights or interest in these His little ones. … Rear your children in love, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Take care of your little ones. Welcome them into your homes, and nurture and love them with all of your hearts. They may do, in the years that come, some things you would not want them to do, but be patient, be patient. You have not failed as long as you have tried”

You can't have a good lesson without something from our beloved Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley so I threw this one in. And I love the end. "You have not failed as long as you have tried" When we were talking in RS on motherhood it was brought up that motherhood is a super scary thing. I know I'm scared to raise a child. But this is just a nice quote. If you nurture and love them and be patient they'll be fine. And even though they may go astray we have not failed as long as we have tried. So don't worry Mom you're not a failure. :-)

And the last one I enjoyed talked a little on what nurture means.
Julie B. Beck, Relief Society general president: “To nurture means to cultivate, care for, and make grow. … Nurturing requires organization, patience, love, and work. Helping growth occur through nurturing is truly a powerful and influential role bestowed on women”
Something else that was brought up is it is built into us to be mothers. It's a scary thing but we have the nurturing gene built in. Kinda cool!

Devotionals Can Be Inspiring

Today I had the privilege and blessing of being able to listen as Brother Andrew S. Hogan gave a wonderful devotional on overcoming mental illness. He is an author of two books today he spoke on one. It is called Bipolar Disorder: 5 Steps to a More Peaceful Life.
http://www.byubookstore.com/ePOS/form=robots/item.htmlitem_number=1-932597-50-6&store=439&design=439#
It's a book that I would probably recommend to everyone because it doesn't have to be about mental illness you can relate it to any obstacle or addiction in your life. Brother Hogan is someone who has suffered with Bipolar disorder that started about 10 months into his mission. He did a lot of crazy stuff. He made a lot of jokes and turned a serious subject into something light and easy. He said "Everyone wants to know what it's like to go crazy but no one ever wants to ask you lucky few get to know without asking."

His 5 Steps are
1. Identify
2. Authorize
3. Understand
4. Control
5. Heighten

Just a couple things he said that stood out to me are....

Some obstacles are easy to identy- Ask yourself, "Do I have an addiction, even to something harmless like music?" because this may be a surface symptom of a deeper problem.

Don't ignore surface symptoms dig deeper. He told a story about a boy that had a headache so the mom gave him some medicine and then told her son to go to bed. When he woke up he still had the headache. Instead of telling him to take more medicine she decided to take him to the doctor. After an exam the doctor determined that the cause of the headache was a small sponge stuck up the child's nose! The problem wouldn't have been solved if the mom had just thought she could solve the problem with some medicine when it was nothing related to needing medicine for a headache.

Authorize yourself to have the weakness. Don't just ignore it or pretend it isn't there. Tell yourself it's ok and you do have the problem and allow for adjustment. He related this to his golf game and said he always would hit it to the right and be way off. He acknowledged his problem and proceeded to turn his body and then he would hit it straight...most of the time. He said "If life is gold do we have a weakness that effects out game" Until we make the authorization others can only watch. They will not be able to help.

We need to understand the obstacle and ourselves. We can not proceed until we know what is happening. Others may not understand but we can help them understand. People may see our weakness as darkness but that may be because they do not understand what is happening to us. We need to be willing to understand our obstacle.

Take control. Pay attention to what triggers our problem. If it is a problem like pornography avoid things that would invite impure thoughts. When he was first starting he would notice when he was starting to not think straight and he would have to take more medicine. Sometimes he wouldn't have his medicine with him and he would experience extreme difficulty. In relation to boating, our rudder to keep us going the right direction is Christ and prayer. That is all we need to do anything.

The final one is heighten. We need to rise above our problem. From where we are it may seem like our dreams are gone and hidden but if we rise above we will be able to see our dream more and more clearly as we rise higher and higher.

The last thing that stood out to me was "The obstacles we experience are tough but our spirits are stronger and have the power to get us through anything.

I hope you enjoyed his devotional as much as I did. :-)

In a weeks time

In just a week so much can happen in my life. I don't even understand how it happens. Remember last year when I did NOTHING? Well this year is completely opposite. I rarely make it to bed before midnight because I'm with my roommates or someone else.
I worked Wednesday night with Kennedy. It was super fun even though I hate working nights. If you've never been in Kara's this is what we do when we aren't selling chocolate and this is what we sell.

Some delicious truffles

Even more delicious truffles plus caramels and creams

We sell this way cute apron. But beware when the maniquin is wearing it "you can see the sides of her breasts"- Barbra, one of the older women that works at Kara's

Kennedy tried it on too.
After work we went to Pirate Island. Our new favorite place. We enjoyed a nice big pizza. This time we were joined by Jeremy and his brother. Kennedy's friends...

oAwesome pirates
Jeremy was super excited

The pizza was delicious
Kennedy and Megan bonded some more

Rewinding a big on Monday we had a wonderful FHE. We went to Bro. Moulten's parents house. It was beautiful. They had a sweet tandem bike which many enjoyed while the boys played basketball.




After FHE Laura went to the store and got these delicious Mango licorice things they were SOOOOO good. We even shared one.

At first I wasn't so into the idea...But we needed an awesome picture

Rachel came to visit! Reunited with Jason...


Look how beautiful she is!
They cuddled on the couch
And on Sunday we went on a nice picnic up the canyon it was sooooo beautiful. It was super exciting








We went to Squaw Peak after and took pretty pictures....we also creeped on this couple that was making out! AWESOME!

Also I found the pictures from before Kurt left! What a cutie! I miss this kid already. I do find myself going to text him then I realize he won't get it....sad day right?

Which way is out?

Saturday I had the wonderful opportunity of going on to the Crazy Corn Maze in West Jordan. It was really fun. They had a haunted one and a normal one. The haunted maze wasn't really a maze just something you walk through. Things would jump out and scare you and what not and I for sure screamed a few times. The ones with chain saws were pretty scary. Especially the one that had it and was swinging it at our legs... Was it really trying to cut our legs off? Not cool. There was one room that was totally black with white masks. All of a sudden a part of the wall jumped off. SUPER SCARY. (It was a person...not the wall falling) I think the worst one was one where this thing with a mask with nasty teeth was growling at me. It got up like way close to my face and wouldn't stop growling. Then I said "will you please stop growling" and he got closer and barked. I jumped so high and probably peed my pants. Oh this was a roommate date. And little did I know my date was as scared of this thing as me. He did not seem very excited to do it at all. But we survived the haunted part. Then we went on to the regular one. We didn't understand that you were supposed to find each of the numbers and get a stamp.... so we just went though and got lost. It was really fun spending time outside of work with Megan and Kennedy. All in all a wonderful date. Great people. Great activity. Great fun.
Our group
Top Row: Me Jesse Creepy Thing Megan Kelly (Kurt's Cousin) and his date
Bottom Row: Neil Dani Nathan

Our group in the maze Nathan Jesse Me Megan Kennedy JeremyJesse not cutting through the field

Apparently they like to skip and link arms

My favorite Kara girls in the entire world! I love them