last day on the job!!

I'm at my last day of work and I have to share a funny story. I work as a student secretary in the office of the Dean for the College of Education at SUU. Our offices are in a building called Old Main and there are all sorts of stories about a ghost who lives here. The stories are all different about why she's here and there are also a lot of stories about the elevators running by themselves and pictures being taken down, etc. So anyway, today we actually had some ghost hunters that showed up with their cameras and detectors and all that fun stuff! :) ha ha It made me laugh because it reminded me of the movie GhostBusters. So that's my exciting story of the day! I started working as a piano accompanist/orchestra aid at the middle school yesterday so this is my last day at this job. There are a few things I'm going to miss, like lunch at Costa Vida and quirky things like ghost busters showing up and the ladies I work with, but I am so excited for no more scanning!!! yay :)

Just thinking...

Once again I am at my job and everyone is gone to lunch. I need a quick break from scanning. It's so quiet! It leaves so much thinking time. So I was just thinking (ha ha bet you didn't see that one coming! :) ) and I decided that I have had a very good life! I'm feeling kind of nostalgic right now. I love thinking about all of my memories I've made, I have so many good ones and I'm even grateful for the kind of painful ones because they're usually the ones that have stretched me the most. I've had so many people touch my life. I kind of like to imagine Heavenly Father seeing me and saying "Ok I think Sheralee needs a little Jami Joy in her life" or "I better send Sheralee to SheraLyn because they would be best friends." Seriously there are so many people, cousins, aunts, uncles, siblings, friends, or even people I only know for a few minutes, who have little or sometimes really big influences in who I am. I remember this one girl who came to my young womens when I was probably about 13 and she was just a visitor, but we did this activity where they had us fill out a sheet about ourselves. I don't even remember what it was for or what exactly the lesson was on (terrible I know!) but I remember one of the questions was "who is your hero?" I remember when that girl read hers she said the Savior and I really could tell that she meant it! I didn't even know her but she just had this peaceful glowy kind of countenance and I wanted to be like her. I still remember that after all these years! I wish I knew who she is so I could thank her. Then of course there are people like Grammy Marilyn who do so many little things to show how much they love people. And spending weeks with my cousin Angie being so silly! I love those memories. And Sister Hinckley, although I've never met her, is so happy and down to earth and makes everybody who knows her a better person. I hope I can become like her some day. There are countless others...I am just so blessed to know so many incredible people! Hopefully I can live up to everything I've been given. So anyway, that's my thoughts. :) I need to post pictures from our LeFevre family reunion. We got caught in flash flooding!!! It was so exciting!

Hatch is moving up in the world :)

Yes it is true...Hatch has progressed to actual speed limit signs. Just thought I'd share the exciting news ha ha

The end of EFY!!

I finished my last week of EFY! It's been such a good experience and I've learned so much but I have to admit I'm a little relieved that I'm finished. When you're a counselor at EFY you pretty much live, eat, sleep (well you don't really get much sleep...but the bit that you do get), and breathe EFY! It's amazing to see what the gospel can do though and I'm so grateful for all the cool experiences I've had. I definitely think I needed it this summer. I guess the Lord knew I needed five weeks of 14-15 year old teenage girls. ha ha
This last week was one of my best weeks of the whole summer! Our kids were absolutely amazing. Their testimonies were so powerful. My heart was filled to overflowing so many times and it was definitely in need of some overflowing. :) A huge part of the reason it was so incredible was because of a boy in our company named Andrew pictured below(is pictured a word?....). Andrew is one of my newfound heroes. He has cerebral palsy so walking and talking and basically just controlling his body is a huge challenge for him. He has the best sense of humor and attitude towards life though. He bore his testimony on Thursday night and it was so humbling for me. He said, and these are pretty much his exact words, "Before this week I never really thought very much about the gospel except for once a day. Now I know for myself the gospel is true and I have felt the spirit so strongly. I want to be an example to my family and people around me. Before everybody just looked at me as a goofy guy, now they will be able to see me as a goofy guy who has a testimony of the gospel." That part made me smile because it was just so Andrew. Then he said, "My favorite quote from this week that I will never forget was when Bro. Hamilton said, "The Lord knows what he is doing." I know that is true. I have my disability for a reason." I wish you could have all been there to feel how strong his testimony is and to feel how much the Lord loves him. You can just tell by being around him. He has so much trust and faith that Heavenly Father is in control and so everything that happens is for the best. I want to be more like Andrew. He really brought out the best in everybody because when you're around him you just feel....whatever the word is to describe that feeling of purity and innocence and faith and light and happiness all rolled in to one.

My girls this week were all wonderful as well. At the end of the week I have them write letters to themselves that I'll be sending to them after school starts. This week a lot of my girls left them open so I could read them too and I was so proud of them when I read their testimonies and the goals they set for themselves to grow closer to the Savior. Every single one of my girls this week had faces filled with the light of Christ. I felt so inspired by them! I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father gave me this last week to finish off my summer and get me ready for school. I just felt really close to the Savior the whole week. I'm so grateful for prayer and for scriptures and for all the tender mercies I receive every single day. I wish I was better so I deserved them more but I'm working on it! Our session director played us a song at our Thursday night fireside that I absolutely loved because it expressed so much of what I feel. It's called "I Am" by Nichole Norderman. I would definitely encourage you to look it up and listen to it! He played us that song and then talked about how the Savior is whoever you need him to be. It's so true! I love knowing that I always have a best friend to turn to who knows exactly what I'm feeling.
Here are some pics with my girls this last week:

Fashion Banquet and First Cedar City Efy

Aubs and Shan are both on the Beautifully Modest fashion team this year so a couple of weeks ago (I can't remember exactly when, it's been so crazy this month it all just kind of seems to run together!) they went to Provo for a camp. Mom and I got to spend the weekend with the Graf's and it was so fun! We got to go to the lake and I finally got to try wakeboarding and wake surfing! I loved it!! We also got to stay at their cabin and go on a beautiful hike. Grammy Marilyn, Cherene, and Connie and her girls also came up Friday and Saturday and we all went to the fashion show to watch the girls. They both looked so pretty! It was kind of wierd for me to see how grown up they both looked! Can I just say how much I love my little sister? She is so amazing, I wish I was more like her. I'm so lucky to have a family who really feel like my best friends. These are a few pictures from the banquet we went to at the end of their camp. I should have taken some pictures of Connie's four-cheese ravioli...I almost died laughing when I saw it because I knew how much she wasn't looking forward to it. It really wasn't that funny but for some reason it got me giggling until I had tears running down my face. I love laughing until I cry :)

These pictures are from my first EFY session in Cedar City. It was nice to be close to home and know my way around campus but it was definitely one of my hardest sessions of the summer. I think it was a combination of being completely worn out and having some difficult teenage girls, but in the end I think I learned a lot. How would we ever grow without challenges right?