Silliness

There are always some silly fun times had with the EFY gang- especially after eating food in the various college cafeterias...makes us a little crazy, ill, delierious, you know, whatever...here is documentation of one such time. Karly, Brittany and I thought we'd see how much we could come up with...Bonnie gets her cute little face in there a couple times too. This is really a talent I have people. My face is like Gumby or something. I never run out of spontaneous ideas...Karly and I start out cute:

The Lord's Hand

Many thoughts are streaming through my head, as they often do when I start to detox from a summer of jam packed experiences at EFY. So, while I have a five hour layover at the Denver airport, I will share a bit. I am on my way to Oregon to spend time with my family, for which I could not be more grateful. I love my brother and sister-in-law and nephews a whole heap and they are so much fun!

The Especially For Youth program is near and dear to my heart because of the youth of the Church and the world who need help and encouragement and support and good examples. I have cherished my last five summers that I have spent wholely devoted to this cause. It has strengthened me, tested my limits, tried my patience, taught me many things, and I hope made me a better person. All this becaue of the wonderful youth I am able to watch grow, the wonderful counselors and friends I have been able to work with, and of course the eveidences of the hand of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ in the details of my life and the lives of others.

All kinds of things happened this summer, but I want to share a completely wild situation that came up this last week. A girl named Jaedyn (I think she would be okay with my sharing) came to EFY in St. Petersburg, Fl all the way from her home in California. It's pretty random and rare to come from across the country since the EFY program is in many states. On Tuesday she was having severe headaches and nausea so our wonderful health counselors, Brittani and Chelsea tended to her. It turned out that she had been having bad headaches for months. I will skip over some deatails but basically for the next couple days we could not get the pain under control and she couldn't keep any food down. It was finally decided to take her to the emergency room with her father's permission. She quickley got a CT scan (which the emergency room doctor later said was completely not something he would have done under normal circumstances and it was by "chance" that he deicided to that day) Well, the test showed a mass in her cerebellum about the size of a plum- a tumor. They rushed her in an ambulance to another hospital and I met up with them there. I had some unique and emotional experinces talking with her parents over the phone and sitting with Jaedyn and the health counselors in the hospital for a couple hours. They got her in super fast for an MRI that lasted two hours and it was clear that she needed to have surgery ASAP. (By the way, I have a brain tumor...in case any of you don't know or forgot....lol...cuz I forget all the time...but it all came back to me during this experience...I was also 15 when it was discovered)The doctor said there was a 95% chance that it was benign. That was soooo relieving. I got that information over the phone as it was pouring rain on our games night and Dave and I were coming up with an alternative plan and improvising with 300 kids and carrying speakers and a stereo system in the rain (just giving you an idea of the insanity and business of life in this job) Back to the hospital I went later that night with our session director, Brother Dixon so he could give her a blessing. Meanwhile, everything worked out great with both of her parents getting flights out to Florida. Her mom's ward actually paid for the flight and got her in to stay at the Ronald McDonald place. Thursday was the surgery, and after four hours her dad called me and said everything went great and they got it all and it wasn't cancerous. YAHOO! Well, after a few more trips to the hospital, packing up her stuff and amongst everything else going on to make the end of the week run smoothly...I concluded my summer of EFY...my last session ever. That's the story.

I speak of the Lord's hand in the details of our lives because things could not have gone more smoothly with this situation and I can't help but feel that the only reason Jaedyn was in Florida this week was because that is where she needed to be, not for EFY, but either to find this tumor thanks to our thorough health counselors or to be at this particular hospital to have the surgery or to have her parents forced to fly across the country to bring her family together in a unique way or something. I don't really know, but I have felt the Lord's presence so closely during all of this and couldn't help but notice how efficiently everything was done and how quickly it all was taken care of.

All of these experiences I've had at EFY in the past couple summers out in the South would not have been a part of my life had I never moved to Florida. I wouldn't know some of the most wonderful people and best friends I have (that goes for friends I have from Orlando too). I have been so uplifted and inspired by amazing session directors and the examples of their wives, by wonderful co-workers and friends, and by tender fun little teenagers. Life would I'm sure be great in other ways if I had made different decisions and been doing different things, but I know that we are in particular places at certain times meeting specific people for a purpose and I know that if we live our lives in a way that keeps us in tune with the Holy Ghost and our Savior we will be in the best places and the best times making the best decisions.
I love all of you so much! Espeically if you have the patience to read all of that...ha ha Thank you for being my friends!