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!

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???