Addendum...

My last post sounded sort of negative...sorry about that...I have many positive things to say about EFY. Unfortunately the nature of my role here is to put out fires all the time and trouble shoot and deal with any speed bumps in the flow of the program. BUT, meanwhile there are fantastic things happening! Many excellent lessons and devotionals and constant spiritual upliftment! I do love being in an environment where I am continuously learning more about the Gospel and the Savior, and watching the excitement in the youth as they gain a testimony of these things. Here is an email written by one of the young ladies who attended EFY in Miami:

“Hello! I just wanted to say that I am so grateful that you were inspired to bring EFY to the South Florida area. It could’ve never come at a better time. Living in South Florida , we don’t get many opportunities, especially like this. Most of us wouldn’t be able to afford it any other way; and most of us, nay, all of us really need things like EFY. It has truly impacted my life. I’ll never forget this experience.
I’m going to turn eighteen in a month and will be going to Relief Society and college soon. I wholeheartedly believe that you have ’saved’ my adulthood and future. I never realized how important it is to be aware of our standards and such. Every decision I will make to stay close to the Church and keep my standards—even the seemingly insignificant ones—can and will be traced back to this once-in-a-lifetime experience. THANK YOU!”

Too Busy!

I just wanted to let you all know that I'm alive and kicking and living the insanely busy E.F.Y. life! There's probably no possible way that I'll be able to keep up with blogging, but for now I will say that I am living the life of humidity, living out of suitcases, finding hairballs and dead bugs on dorm room floors, showering with a drain that doesn't drain, hanging out with teenagers all day, wearing pants and a polo shirt, hearing Mississippi accents all day, eating who the heck knows what all the time, laughing it up constantly with Dave and our team of BC's, getting approx. 5 hours of sleep every night, traveling a lot- with an expired driver's licence, driving rental vans, being technologically inclined, trying to successfully be the go-to-gal for every possible thing you can think of, and uh....lots of other things. I worked a week in Miami already, and again, I think I just won't ever talk about Miami. I'm in Columbus, Mississippi currently, and two weeks ago I spent a week in Orlando with my old roomies and pals and it was excellently fun...pictures will come someday. Hope all is well with everyone! I don't have so much time to look at your blogs, but I'm sure you're doing fun summer things!

Women of Steel!

Lisa, Jess, and I competed in a mini-triathlon on the 17th in American Fork called "Woman of Steel". It was awesome! I've been training pretty well for a few months and seemed to make it with quite a bit of ease. I will push myself harder next time! We swam 300 yards in a pool first, and it was way fun! They tried to have some order to it all, but there were just people everywhere and arms flailing. It was a funny sight. That part was fairly easy and then we ran over to our bikes, which felt crazy because I always wear board shorts, but not that day! I felt a little naked running across the field. The biking was fun, but a little humiliating for me because I used Kevin's good old mission bike- a mountain bike with like 10 speeds. Ha ha! But I'm glad I had a bike to use! There were lots of hard core road bikes passing me the whole time. Oh well! I will remedy that for next time too! It's pretty awkward to switch to running after riding a bike for 11 miles, so that part was a bit rough...but then off we went, running our 3 miles into the finish. WEll, I say "we" but really there was nobody around me. I was a lonesome dove. It was a beautiful hot day and we loved it!

The finish line! Horray! We're hot mamas! And here's Jessica showing us that she wet her pants the whole time she was running! (She's 3 months pregnant!)It was hilarious! Love you Jess!

A Day in the Life...my favorite radio DJ, a sleeping homeless person in my yard, and the best weekend

Yehaw! So this is Chunga! He's my favorite little morning DJ. Lisa and I went to the 1,000,000,000th song event at Legacy Mazda a couple weeks ago mostly so I could meet him and get a free T-shirt (which of course was an XL and I ended up giving it to my dad). Anyway, I listen to 101.9 every morning and laugh at the commentary. I even call in during "What's Happening Hot Stuff?" from time to time and end up on the air talking with Chunga, Chelsea, and Cort to tell them some sort of nonsense. For example, last Friday morning I called to tell them about this:

So, I had gotten up at 6 to go running (which isn't a very regular occurance) before a full day of EFY coordinator training. It was still slightly dark outside and as I walked out down the stairs I see this lump in the dead center of our grassy courtyard. Hmmm...what's that? I got closer and realized it was a person in a sleeping bag, asleep. Why? Who knows! I'm pretty sure I identified it as a woman. There was a walking stick next to the bag...so, homeless? hitch-hiker? out-door granola type? kicked out by spouse? I was a little freaked out, but took off running. When I came back, she was still there. After I showered and got ready and went to leave, she was still there...amongst cars starting all around to go to work. I snapped a picture real quick and off I went. I had to call Chunga about this one. He suggested the warm water in a cup, dipping hand prank so she would pee the sleeping bag, but I was already gone at this point, and I don't know if I'd have the guts to do that to a complete stranger! ha ha Anyway, weirdness... I loved coordinator training:

What a great, uplifting weekend! This is our Eastern U.S. team. Ben (bottom left) is our awesome administrator. He's the best boss ever! I love him! The rest of us make up his coordinator team running the program all over the Eastern states! Talk about some amazing people to be surrounded by for a whole weekend. There were about 20 other coordinators there also. I wish it could have lasted longer! I loved every minute of it and appreciate the affect all their characters will have on me forever. And I'm excited to work with my partner in crime, Davey. EFY 2008! "Sure and Steady" Here we go again! Another sweaty humid summer!

Babies Babies Babies!

In the past five months, 9 of my friends have given birth (and Kim's baby girl is coming any minute)! Here are pictures of just five of them that I've been able to see in person! I love them all, and am so happy and excited for their cute parents. I'm proud to have such good examples of new mother's in my life to look to when my time comes! Try to play a matching game!!!! Some of these little bundles of joy are a couple months older now, but for the sake of the game they are all newborn photos...In mixed up order: Chloe Ruth Carnley (Carrie and Daniel), Dylan Michael Hacken (Tiff and Mike), Sydney Gifford (Natalie and Jason), McKay Charles Allen (Rachel and Charlie), Aubrey Kate Sorensen (Brynn and Glen) Who do you think is who???

The Swimming Revelation

So, I will no doubt sound ridiculous and ignorant to some but I JUST figured out why I was getting so tired when I would swim laps! You see, I'm training for a mini-triathlon and it's in two weeks. I've been working hard, but I just never could seem to free style swim the full distance (12 legnths) all at one time. I kept thinking it was strange that I seemed to not be in good enough shape to make it, but I would get soooo out of breath! WEll, yesterday I was swimming along on about my 3rd lap about to drown and I had this revelation: I completely hold my breath when I'm under water! Then I quickly blow out before I come up for air. DUMB! I got kind of hopeful with this discovery. So, I started to make sure I was blowing out the whole time under water and then breathe in when I come up... Never holding my breath at all... Novel concept? Well, apparently it took me like 20 years of my life to figure it out. All of a sudden I could swim forever! I swam 24 lengths after that without stopping! So exciting for me! Thanks for reading :)

Diary of a Traveler

Over Spring Break, I ALWAYS flee Utah...I'd be crazy not to. This time I went to D.C., New York City, and made a quick little visit to Miami. D.C. was mainly inspired by my desire to visit with one of my best friends and all time favorite roommates, Amy...who now has a husband, Eric. It was delightful! We had loads of fun and tons of laughs and I even became a pro at the game Settlers of Catan...well, I lost everytime, but... So, about the laughing... Amy and I both have this condition (Mandy, her sister, has it too. So does Brynn). Brynn and I named the condition "Attacks" a long time ago. What happens is basically this: something really weird and trivial happens that some might not even think is funny, but somehow it brings on this insane laughing attack which then turns into heaving sobs and tears...not tears just from laughing too hard; REAL TEARS! REAL SOBS! My theory is that we are all quite happy-go-lucky-hyper people most of the time, but we are also deep thinking emotional beings who supress those feelings a lot and when the "Attack" comes our inner soul just bursts out with random emotion. At least that's how I think it works for me. Amy and I both had one of these said "Attacks" at different points during our visit. Amy:

Her Attack was brought on by me getting slammed in the lower abdomen by the swinging metal bars at Eric's work that only open for a brief second after he swipes his ID to get in. We all tried to make it through on one swipe and I was last...
Me:

This one was brought on by the bitter cold Siberia winds that were whipping all around the Washington monument as we waited to go up to the top. I did not have enough clothes on and there was NO SHELTER anywhere and I just basically lost it. Here are some of my favorite photos from the Nations Capital:

In front of Capital Building

View of the White House from the top of Washington Monument

I love Arlington Cemetary! It has such a heavy powerful spirit that makes me feel patriotic, AND the perfect rows of headstones do wonders for my OCD

Good times...Eric was a great tour guide!

Off to NEW YORK CITY I go! I met up with Davey, my excellent co-coordinator at EFY, Rob, my favorite pal from Orlando who also lives back in Utah now and even drove me across the country, and Jen, my little buddy that I teach with at the Snow Springs institution for mostly disrespectful children. It was beautiful weather and we had a fantastic time! We stayed in a slightly shady part of Brooklyn, but inside it was nice and comfy. Check out the "Recent Entertainment" section of my blog to read about some of the shows we saw. Here are some photos:

Davey, Rob, and I on the ferry over to the Statue of Liberty

They added a Harry Potter section at the FAO Schwartz!

Have I mentioned that Central Park is the third happiest place on earth?


I love walking across the Brooklyn Bridge...we did it two mornings. It's even better at night, but that didn't fit in to our schedule. (By the way, last time I was in NY with Jamie, Erin and Adam we thought we were walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, but it was the Manhattan Bridge...ha ha! I just realized that this trip)

This next sequence of pictures is my happiness and joy with my cream cheese, nutella, and peanut butter bagel from the Peanut Butter & Co.







Traveling always has it's ups and downs! Luckily the ups most of the time out-weigh the downs. I had a rough hit this time though when I flew from NYC to Miami to train some counselors for EFY this summer. They lost my luggage for 24 hours so I did the training with no make-up, jeans, and flip flops after washing my underwear in the sink and drying them with a hair-dryer. THEN when I got my bag back it was mutilated and all my programs I bought from the Broadway shows I saw had been stolen from the front pocket, along with a songbook I bought and other various paper materials. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Therefore, I will keep no pictures to remember the Miami experience.