So, over the summer, my sisters told me that I needed to start a blog so as to make it easier to stay in touch. At the time I laughed and didn't think much of it, I mean I thought that Mom would keep me informed. Well, apparently I was wrong and so therefore, I have decided to start a blog, because I really am missing the fam!

I'm not going to lie, my first two months here have pretty much been some of the most dreadful ones of my life. There was all the stress of moving out on my own, and starting classes at BYU, and then some other stuff that happened at that point that I don't want to get into, and I was homesick, and then to top it all off I got into a car accident in the beginning of October that totaled my car and just left me feeling hopeless. But thankfully, I was able to ask for a blessing and got confirmation that all of the bad things were going to pass, and that I wasn't alone, that the Lord is always with me! I still had some hard times after that and continue to have them but I really am doing a lot better!
My roomates are pretty much amazing and I honestly don't think I could have been given better ones for my first year away from home! Jessica, my friend from CO and my room roomate, is so much like me sometimes it's like we have the same brain. I'm so glad that I made the decision to move in with her. My roomates Kaela and Michelle are pretty awesome too! We laugh so much it's ridonkulous, and we are always doing fun things! Friday, I had a craving for Chipotle, and Jessica and her friend Ben (who is also from CO) know what amazing food that is, so myself, Jessica, Ben, Michelle, and Zach all piled into my car and drove half an hour to Sandy to get some Chipotle because that's where the closest one is! Then Saturday Michelle, Jessica, my friend Matt, and Michelle's friend Austin and I all went Ice Skating! It's so much fun, unfortunately though it doesn't lead to much studying! haha Nena is also living in Provo (just across the street in fact), and it has been so great to live close to her again, she really has been a fantastic support to me, a friend to lean on, and an ear to listen to me whine about how crappy things were! I have also had the privelage to see Flora a few times since moving, even though she lives in Rexburg she is closer and she has family that lives in Provo.

The pictures that you are viewing, are of what myself and my roomates have come to call the stairs of DEATH! Hiking up and down these stairs constitutes a large portion of my life here at BYU. Look steep? Believe me, they are even more daunting in person, especially when you have to face walking up them at least twice a week with what feels like 40lbs of books strapped to your back! haha Lately my friend Matt and I have been going running in the mornings, and when we do we usually run up these stairs....(ok, so he runs them, I more like power walk them...I have to take each step individually because two at a time just feels like too much of a stretch and I'm worried about falling on my face! haha) Suffice it to say, because of this I have been going up these stairs even on days when I don't have a class that meets at the top of them.

To be quite honest when I first started classes at BYU it weirded me out a little, I had never been to a school where they pray and sing a hymn at the beginning of each class! The spirit really is amazing though! The devotionals every week are exceptional (except when the hijack it for junk like "The Opening Ceremonies of BYU's Homecoming Week" Give me a break!) and it feels like there is always some fireside with a GA of somesort being held. Two weeks ago we got to hear from Bishop Burton and two months before that it was Elder Holland!

I learn so much from all of my classes and I feel like I'm doing well in all of my classes (of course two of my classes are bowling and ice skating), the only possible exception to that would be my Calculus class, though I got two 80%'s and a 90% on the tests we've taken so far which, from what I understand is better than most. I think my favorite class so far this semester is a 3-way tie between Survey of World Religions, Book of Mormon, and Bowling. Bowling is just really fun, I've seen my game improve and my 'teamates' Sydney and Rob crack me up! And then I just feel like I've learned so much from Survey of World Religion and BOM. The semester is almost over though, we only have a few more weeks till Thanksgiving (which I get to go home for :) and then after that there is a week or two more of classes and then finals! I'm so excited for my classes next semester! I'm taking Latin 102, the 2nd Half of the BOM, Family History, World Civ. pt I, History of the Middle Ages, Tap Dancing, and Piano! So I think I just may make it through! The other day I was reading in 2nd Nephi, and it's the part where Lehi was teaching about the importance of the Fall of Adam and Eve and in one verse he said that if they hadn't fallen that Adam and Eve would have had no joy for they would have known no misery and I had this epiphany: In the long run it really is our trials and the hard times, the moments when we feel most miserable, that make us happy, because if we didn't know what that was like we wouldn't have that contrast between sorrow and happiness, and we wouldn't know what joy felt like.

"I testify that the bad days come to an end, that faith always triumphs, and that heavenly promises are always kept." --Jeffrey R. Holland, CES Fireside, Sept. 2008