Tacos For Breakfast

For those of you who may not be familiar with my crazy life, I recently returned from serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for 18 months in Arkansas/Missouri/Oklahoma/Kansas. It was pretty much the best thing I've ever done with my life. So, to be totally honest, I've had many thoughts about my first returned missionary blog post. But then tonight, during the Women's Session of LDS General Conference , I felt that I just needed to post SOMETHING so I could get some of my thoughts out there into the universe. So here I am, late-night blogging. One of the speakers tonight referenced John 16:33, which is one of my all-time favorites. I was expecting this transition of coming home to be really hard. I had heard horror stories of returned missionaries sitting in their basement for two days not knowing what to do with themselves, or waking up with their mom at the grocery store and having a panic attack. I had many dreams about being hom

I was reading through my journal and I came across an entry I would like to share. January 11th, 2015 (slightly edited for the sake of privacy of others) Friday night, we were all at the apartment across the hall (2304) talking to a girl who recently returned from her mission. We were talking about the Lord's timing and being in the right place, at the right time, with the right people. I bear testimony that all those things apply to my life right now. While we were talking, I strongly felt that my life plan is supposed to change. I don't know what it's supposed to be yet, but I know that my plan of working over the summer and going back fall semester, then going on a mission, is supposed to change. I'm not quite sure if I'm supposed to attend spring semester and work in Rexburg, or just go home in April and get a job. Right now I'm thinking the plan is going home in April and preparing to put in my papers in July. I feel like the reason the plan is chang

May and June have been FULL of super fun adventures! Let's document them, shall we? May 13-19: Oregon! I went to Oregon to see the boy! It was delightfully awesome and I definitely have a special spot in my heart for Oregon now. LGB-->PDX! First stop, Portland Temple<3 Wow look at that stud, what a cutie I told him to look happy for a picture I've been off wheat since September, and this was my first bite of it since then. A McDonald's hamburger was a terrible choice. Just dreadful. We went to Silver Falls State Park and it was INCREDIBLE! I love nature. <3 OoooooOOoOOOoooo So many TREES! I LOVE Portland This snapchat pretty much sums it up We went to this cute drive in! With a painful goodbye, it was PDX-->LGB June 6: Jane's Baptism! YAY my dear dear friend Jane was finally baptized! I love her so much and I'm so incredibly happy for her. It was so great:) I've never seen so many people at a baptism e

Dear Dad, I don't know where to start, so I guess I'll just dive in. It took me leaving home to realize how much like you I am. I tell REALLY dumb jokes, and when I laugh really hard, I make the same face that you do when you laugh really hard. You know, the one when you squint your eyes a lot, your face turns red, tears start coming out of the corners of your eyes, and your shoulders start shaking? Well I do that too. We used to fight a lot, and that sort of sucks and I wish I could go back in time and cherish my time with you when I still lived at home full time. However, it just shows me one more way I am a lot like you. When I believe something, I believe it WHOLE HEARTEDLY. I am absolutely sure that I'm right and it takes a lot to convince me otherwise. I will look up stupid facts, definitions or a distance on a map just to prove I'm right, sound familiar?:) I hate being wrong, and I can find competition in almost everything. But ya know, it's this same

   If you have talked to me at all in the last few months, you probably know that I have made the choice to serve an 18 month mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I could be assigned to serve anywhere, from Pocatello, ID to St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Russia and I couldn't be more excited. Since I am currently working on my paperwork in order to receive my call, and then I'll just be waiting and waiting some more, I thought I would write a post about my choice to serve a mission, and why it is so important to me.    I've thought about going on a mission pretty much my whole life, but until very recently, the age requirement for girls to go on a mission was 21. Like many Mormon girls, the thought was, "well if I'm done with school and not married, I'll go on a mission. But that's years away so I don't have to think about it now." However, in October 2012, my mindset changed. In the LDS church, twice a year we have

Wow look how cute we are To be completely honest, Mother's Day stresses me out. It's supposed to be a day to celebrate amazing moms everywhere, but I think we underestimate the amount of pressure this puts on children and fathers everywhere. That may sound odd, but hear me out...    I have the same to say about my mother as President Lincoln did. However, my mother is an angel in a different sense. Rather than a heavenly angel, my mother is an earthly angel. She is kind, loving, thoughtful, sensitive, empathetic, spiritual, talented, and beautiful. While she taught me many important things about how to live life once I had temporarily left the nest, the most important was how to treat people. When I was younger and I would complain to her about how annoyed I was with one of my friends, or how I couldn't believe how rude and stuck up someone at school was, my mom would always try to put a positive spin on things. She would say "maybe they just had a bad day,