More EFY fun!

I finished my second week of efy! Yay!! This week seemed to go so much more smoothly, probably because I actually knew sort of what I was doing! My girls this week were amazing though! I felt so blessed. I didn't even have to worry about them at all and their testimonies were a huge inspiration to my own! I was at Utah State in Logan and I wish I would have taken pictures of my dorm room and the cafeteria food so that you could all feel sorry for me. :) ha ha jk. It was pretty bad though! Besides the food and living conditions the week was so good! Our session director, Bro. Chidester, was so thoughtful and personable and I felt like so many of my prayers I've had lately were answered! I feel like a new woman. :) It was definitely a testimony builder that the Lord is aware of our struggles and what we need to help us along the way. So anway, here are some pictures of me with my girls on pizza night. We were feeling just a little bit silly... My co-counselor McKenna was so cute and we had a lot of fun together. She reminded me so much of my friend Katie and it made me miss her but we laughed a LOT throughout the week. I love friends like that who you can just be silly with! We felt like little kids again and it helped relieve the stress of taking care of so many 14 year olds for a week.

Picture time with our company....no I didn't realize that I was wearing the same outfit that I wore at my last efy company's picture time. Maybe I can make it a tradition! :) ha ha jk

My girls:

All the girls in our company:

How most of our week really was spent:

Our whole company "Under A Bushel" (that was our name):

And one of the best parts my trip was after EFY was over and I got to visit my BFF Jami!! It was so fun to hang out with her again! We only got a short visit and I felt bad because I was exhausted and spent a good portion of my time with her sleeping...but it was still wonderful just to see her again. She is so thoughtful and remembered pretty much every favorite food I think I've ever mentioned liking. It felt so good to be with a friend who I know cares about me so much. It was a good reminder that the little thoughtful things you do are what show how much you really love someone. She always makes me want to be a better person whenever I'm around her! Hopefully I can be more like her and love people that same way.

While I was in Idaho I also got to visit my friend Chase's ranch in Leadore and I wish so bad that I had taken my camera because it was soooo beautiful!! There were green rolling hills with yellow and purple wildflowers everywhere and streams going through bunches of Aspen trees and a reservoir we visited in the mountains with pine trees all around it...it was incredible. It reminded me a lot of Hatch only bigger and with more grass. I loved it :)

Oh p.s. I forgot to mention that I sang the theme song all by myself in front of 400 people! It was scary but fun! :)

my first EFY session

I successfully completed my first week of EFY! It was so much harder and exhausting than I imagined it would be, but I had some really good experiences that made it worth it. I was a counselor over fifteen girls who were all between the ages of 13 and 15 and I guess I forgot what an emotional and somewhat awkward stage of life that is. :) It was a rough time getting everyone up and going in the mornings and separated from cell phones and on time to meetings and wearing modest clothes all the time but we made it through! I loved my girls so much!! It's amazing how Heavenly Father can bless you to feel a little bit of the love He has for His children when he puts you in a position of responsibility over them. It blows me away sometimes when I think of all the little things He does for us and the people/experiences He leads us to in our lives that help us to learn and grow closer to Him. I was struggling with some things myself and there were so many times throughout the week when I just felt the Savior's love so strong and knew my prayers were being heard.
My favorite part of the week was probably the devotionals we had every night. We all got in our pajamas and would gather in one of the girls apartments to study the scriptures together and I taught them a lesson on one of the Christlike attributes from Preach My Gospel. It was so cool! I haven't had very much experience teaching in church and stuff besides Visiting Teaching so I felt like I grew so much! I loved it when I was teaching and I could feel the Spirit so strong and I knew that Heavenly Father had something He wanted my girls to learn and understand. I loved how excited they got about the stories in the scriptures! It was so fun to watch how interested they were and to see when the Spirit touched their hearts. It was such a testimony to me that the light of Christ is something you really can see in people. It makes them so beautiful! Wow that sounded really corny.... I also loved saying prayers with them after devotional right before we went to bed. Honestly, I just loved them!! It's cool how feeling the Spirit can bring you so much closer together.
My other favorite part of the week was Thursday when we had the Young Women's activity. All of the girls in our session (there were probably about 200) gathered in the chapel and we had a morningside type thing from our session director. (Oh that was a cool thing too...my session director was the same one Jami and I had when we went to EFY at BYU-I! It brought back so many memories that I love) Anyway, the first thing we did at the YW activity was stand up to say the YW theme. I was feeling kind of emotional and tired that morning anyway, so as soon as we said "We are daughters of our Heavenly Father who loves us and we love Him" I just started to cry. Then we sang the EFY medley and the girls sounded so pretty singing the Sisters in Zion part so that got me going again and I pretty much just cried for like 2 hours straight. I'm pretty sure my girls thought I was crazy. :) I haven't cried for so long...it was kind of wierd. It felt good though and I felt so peaceful and loved. Bro. Kunz (our session director) spoke about when the Savior came to the Americas and the people got to feel His wounds and spend time with Him "one by one." Then he had us imagine what it would be like if the Savior walked into the room and we all had the chance to spend some time with Him just by ourselves and how it would feel. The spirit was so strong! It was amazing and a huge answer to my prayers! I realized that I am so lucky because even though I can't see the Savior face to face right now I still have the chance to pray and spend time with Him every day. I think I've been so focused on myself and other things that I forgot to really spend time with Him and feel the peace I need. So yeah...this has pretty much turned into a novel but it really was so amazing!

Our company's name was Made of Light and we had so much fun getting to know each other. It was cool to watch the kids "bond" and build friendships. They were so funny!
My girls!

Our guys were seriously so amazing! They were so funny and so thoughtful! It was cute to see how they helped each other build their standards and testimonies. They made up a ribbon dance to the song Colors of the Wind from Pocahontas for the Variety Show that was so funny I thought I would die laughing! I tried to video it but my camera ran out of batteries halfway through so it didn't work. The little boy in the middle front of this picture was dressed up like Pocahontas and the rest were behind him doing an interpretive dance with streamers. It was beyond description. :)

The counselors were really cool and fun to get to know as well. The girl with black hair on my right was my roomate and so was the blonde girl in the picture below. They were both way cute and fun girls and I'm so happy we had the opportunity to know each other and be friends!

Pizza night!

Two of my girls during scripture study. These two were so sweet and pure! They reminded me of the kind of person I want to be and I'm so greatful I got to know them for the week.

This kid was amazing! His name is Taylor and he was in our company. The picture isn't very good so you can't really tell, but his left arm was cut off right below the elbow when he was born. He had such a good attitude though and it was really cool during the variety show because he played the guitar while his friend Kade, who was also in our group, played the piano and sang. They were actually really really good but the coolest part was watching how Taylor played. He taped his pick to the end of his arm on a little cup thing and used that to strum the chords. He was so awesome.

For our service project we knitted hats.

California

Okay I have to apologize because this blog is going to be ENORMOUS but our trip to California with the Heap family was a blast and the only way for me to give you the full effect is to show you! A picture is worth a thousand words right? Just think how much it's worth when you're getting a thousand pictures! :) Seriously though, it was so so so much fun! So here's a little (ok so maybe it's more big than little) taste of our trip!
First we stopped at the beach which was great because none of the Heap girls had ever been to the ocean before. I think Bree's face in the first picture says it all.

We weren't going to get in the water because it was so cold and windy.....

....but we couldn't resist! It was worth freezing.

DISNEYLAND!!! The main purpose of our trip was going to Disneyland and yes it was very magical. Maybe I just forgot to grow up or something but I still find myself very fascinated by all the little rides from the movies and the cute little houses, etc.

Our hotel was very nice and only a couple of blocks from the entrance to Disneyland. Can I just tell you how much I love staying in hotels! I don't know why, I have just always found it to be so fun! Especially if there's a pool. So yes I'm a dork and included a picture of our room in my blog. It did have a very cool curtain to separate the bedroom section from the living room section which I thought made it even better, but that's just me. No I am not very easily entertained.... :)

the haunted mansion left us scarred for life

Um...I guess Dad had a little accident on Splash Mt. :) hee hee

Storybook Land is still one of my favorite rides. The miniature villages and castles are just so cute!

Once again Bree's face says it all!

If I could live in Tarzan's treehouse I totally would

Ok you have to notice the little boy in the lefthand corner of this picture. He was so hilarious! We never met him before this ride but he was so cute it made my day. He started bawling when we hit the first rapids and spent the whole rest of the ride half laughing half crying. He was so cute! Then at the end while he was still crying/laughing he said, "I love this ride!...Can we please never go on it again!" Maybe you had to be there...but it was really funny.

My mom is so cute :)

Poor Aubree spent a good portion of the trip feeling miserable. She was the only one in our family who threw up (sorry that's kind of graphic!) although the rest of us felt quite sick. I think almost all of the Heap girls spent at least part of the trip throwing up as well so unfortunately their first Disneyland experience wasn't quite as good as it could have been. Luckily we were all ok on the way home though. Otherwise that could have been a very long drive!

Indiana Jones was definitely a family favorite as far as rides go.

Sitting next to the twins during the 3D Bugs Life movie was amazing :) They were so funny screaming and laughing through the whole thing. I loved being with them! One of the highlights of the whole trip for me was when we were on the ride Soarin Over California and I looked over at Marissa's face. She had the biggest smile on her face and her eyes were all lit up...it almost made me cry because she looked so incredibly happy and awestruck! I decided that's one of my favorite feelings in the whole world, when you know someone you love is that happy. I know this is kind of a wierd thing to think of on a ride at California Adventureland, but it made me think of the resurrection when all our family will be able to be together again and we'll be with the Savior and so happy. Marissa's face looked exactly how I imagine that feeling will be. I'm so glad we're together forever!

I finally went on the Maliboomer and it was awesome! I love getting so scared before a ride because you don't know what to expect and all the adrenaline builds up and you're sitting there waiting to go and you're laughing and your heart is pounding!!! and then your finally go and scream your guts out and it ends in like 5 seconds and you wonder what you were so nervous about, but it was fun so you go again :)

Toon town was the perfect picture place. We had so much fun in Minnie's house! If I couldn't live in Tarzan's treehouse then I think I could be equally as happy in Minnie's cottage. ha ha

Micky Mouse!!

And that's our trip!