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?

help!

I'm on student government for SUU this next year on the Activities board and I need help! I'm in charge of a lot of activities, one of which is called Thunder Night that we'll be doing once a month and I need help coming up with ideas. It will basically just be like a "field night" type of thing for students to come and hang out and de-stress but I'm not sure exactly what to do. We have a field scheduled that is about the size of a football field and some of our ideas have been ultimate frizbee, flag football, snowman building contest (in the winter of course), etc. I have a $1000 budget for each semester so I need to think of cheap things that would be fun for a big group of students so if you have any ideas please please please let me know! Thanks :)

Another amazing week of EFY!

I love EFY!! This last week I was in Ephraim and I think it was probably my best one yet, even though they've all been wonderful! I had another group of 14-15 year old girls (I think it must be calling in life or something because I am never with the older girls) and I loved them so much! My group this week had sooo much personality and were all very loud and extremely hyper, which was funny because I'm just the opposite, but we were all best friends! We had so much fun. I felt like they were all my little sisters, except not quite as good as Aubree because she's irreplaceable of course, but we really got so close. It made me laugh when they would come tell me their boy stories and it made me cry when they would confide some of what they dealt with at home and I just loved everything about them. I got home on Saturday and it felt so good to be home with my family and sleep in my own comfortable bed, but it was really hard to go to sleep without having a devotional and singing a hymn and praying with my girls. I guess it's sort of like a mini-mission. It's hard to go back to real life after you focus so much on the gospel and have a set schedule where you're kind of separated from the world. Mom thinks EFY has ruined me because we went to a play last night and it seemed so offensive to me! I guess it's just because I haven't watched tv or had to deal with any of that stuff for a while. I'm glad though, it's so much easier to have the Spirit and feeling the Spirit makes me feel so happy. :) It's the best feeling in the world! It's funny though because every week I get so scared and nervous the night before the kids get there. I always feel really overwhelmed and like I won't be good enough...but then it always works out alright. That's one thing our session director talked about a lot this week, how sometimes when something really good is about to happen where you can make a big difference Satan works on you to make you too scared to follow through so you just have to keep faith that everything is in the Lord's hands. One of my friends just got home from his mission and in his talk he said his mission president told him that when he's feeling fear about something he should just think, "Why would Satan want me to be afraid about that?" That's something that has helped me alot. We have so much potential but a lot of times we let our fear stop us from growing. Just something to think about.... :)

So anyway, this week our company's name was "Raised in Incorruption." yeah...try coming up with a cheer for that one! It's not easy trust me. We had 12 boys and 12 girls and it was great to watch how they interracted and changed throughout the week. There were some at the beginning who struggled and thought all the spiritual stuff was a "waste of time" but through prayer and the spirit it was amazing to watch how their countenances changed. I loved it! They were all really good friends by the end of the week and we had a blast together.

Oh I just remembered a funny story that was a classic EFY moment. On Tuesday night we were having our devotional and my BC came to observe me. She laughed when she saw who my girls were because she said, "Usually there are one or two girls in a group who are the spunky, loud ones, but you're whole entire group is!" But it was great anyway and it was good in devotionals because they all loved to participate, maybe even a little too much at times when someone would tell a story that reminded every other girl of a story and everyone wanted to share. Good times. So anyway, on this particular night when I was being observed we finally got to a point in the lesson when everyone was really focused and the Spirit was there and I was silently cheering that we were making progress...and then a centipede started crawling up the wall. One of the girls said, "Ew what's that?!" Then Aralie (the girl in the picture below) jumped up said, "Don't worry I'll get it!" and proceeded to take off her flip flop and start slamming it against the wall and the floor where little pieces of centipede were flying every which way. Add to that 11 other screaming girls jumping around and you get a very spiritual experience. :) ha ha ha It was so funny it made me laugh even though the mood was completely destroyed. But yeah, that's a good summary of efy for you! oh and did I mention that in the boys dorm on pizza night after devotionals it ended in a 2 story pillow fight?

Scripture study every morning is one of my favorite parts. We have a little lesson taught by one of the counselors about different things we can do to make scripture study more effective then we get 30 minutes of personal study time. It's so nice to have that much time set apart every single day. I wish it was easy to keep that schedule in real life! It's so cool to read the different stories and have those "ah ha!" moments when it makes sense and applies exactly to something you're experiencing. I had some of those moments/tender mercies this week. Did I mention how much I love efy? :)

After a week of barely any sleep at all I'm always exhausted by the time Saturday rolls around. I was going to drive straight home but I was too tired so I stopped by the Manti temple and took a nap there. It was sooo pretty so I took a few pictures! I love temples too...even more than efy.

4th of July Fun

For the 4th of July our family hiked Kanarraville Falls. It was beautiful!! I can't believe I've lived in Cedar for so long and didn't know I was that close to such a beautiful, fun hike! There are even a bunch of waterfalls you can slide down! If anyone is ever in Cedar and needs something to do let me know and we'll go.

I love Mom's face in this picture :)

...and Dad's face in this picture :)

The Fellowship of the Unashamed

ok so I got this really cool quote from my BC at EFY this week and I love it! so I decided to share it with you all. It was quoted by Henry B. Eyring but I'm not sure who said it originally. I'll post pictures and stuff from my week later. It's called "The Fellowship of the Unashamed."

I am part of the fellowship of the unashamed. The dye has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made; I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I won't look back, let up, slow down, or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure. I'm finished and done with low living, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tainted visions, worldly talking, cheap giving, and dwarfed goals. I no longer need pre-eminence, positions, promotion, plaudits, or popularity. I don't have to be right, first recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean on His presence, walk with patience, am uplifted by prayer, and labor with power. My face is set, my gait is fast and my goal is Heaven. My road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions are few, my guide is reliable, my mission is clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, divided or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of the adversary, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity. I won't give up, shut up, or let up until I have stayed up, stored up, and paid up for the case of Christ. I must go till He comes, give till I drop, preach till all know, and work till He stops me. And when He returns for His own, He will have no problem recognizing me. My banner will be clear.

Happy Birthday Becky!!

Today I would like to say Happy Birthday to my good friend Becky Eastmond! You know those people who come into your life and you know their influence will never ever leave you because there's just something about them that changes something about you? Well Becky is one of those people for me! She was my neighbor for many years, my young womens leader for a few years, and one of my best friends forever! :) I can't even count the times she did little things that helped me feel so much better about myself and life in general, she definitely follows the spirit and I'm so grateful that she does. So here's to Becky! Thanks for your friendship and example. I hope your day is the best! This bundle is for you.... :)



(yes they actually have pictures of grass bundles on google! who knew?!)