Back Home too Soon

Out on my mission I was having problems with my knee's. I had gone to see some Dr's for it and ended up having to do some physical therapy. Because I only had insurance through the mission they only pay for 3 visits. The Dr. that I saw she thought that 3 visits would be enough. So I was transfered to the Kirtland Visitor Center so I wasn't waslking and doing stairs all the time so we could get my knee's better. A week ago Wednesday (a week before transfers) I got a phone call from my mission president to see how I was doing. Before he called me I was planning on saying I'm fine and that I'm ready to go out and start working. But when I started talking to him I couldn't tell him that I was good to go. I was still having pain once in awhile in my knee's and was worried about going out and doing all the thing's that is required as a missionary that it would start back up because it wasn't completly healed yet. So after talking about how I'm feeling and their (President Vellinga and his wife) thoughts we decided that it would be best to come home to get this solved. So I'm back home a year before I thought I would be. I'm doing better and feeling better then I thought I would be doing. I don't know what's in store for me but I do know that the Lord has a plan for me and that I was sent home at this time for a reason. A reason I may never really know but I'm ok with that.

27 DAYS!!!!!

I cannot believe that I'm down to counting days! 27 days to go and I'll be going into the MTC!!!!! I am so excited but kind of nervise, only because it's something new that I've never done before and a huge change in my life! I feel like I have so much to do but don't really know what to do! I have to stop putting it off and get with the program! I don't want to be packing and cleaning the whole time my sister and her kids are here! Not only do I have thing's to do but I'm dealing with Satan working on my weaknesses and trying to get me down! Before I got my mission call I was told that the last month is going to be the hardest. Not only cause I'm wanting to leave but because Satan is going to be working harder on me! When I heard that I thought, "Oh I'm not going to let him get me down and nothing "really" hard is going to happen!" Oh my gosh was I ever WRONG!!!!! He has been working on my emotions of feeling bad (really bad) for my mood swings and thing's I say. The hardest thing to work through has been just within the last couple of days! I had a friend, that knows my weaknesses, turn nasty on me and use those weaknesses against me! She knows me so well that it kinda scares me! She knows too much about me that she's using every little thing against me and Satan is playing with those emotions and telling me that it's my fault and I should of known better. I will admit that I have let her walk all over me because I HATE confrontation so I just let thing's go instead of standing my ground! Through this thing I wanted to get back at her for all she's done to me that I allowed her to do! I'm not going to go into details of what happened. After many prayers, tears and not knowing what to do my BFF called me and we were talking about it and she said something that I hope I will always remember when someone does something wrong to me or something wrong happens. She asked me if I ever thought about "what Christ would do if He were in this situation?" When she said that, I knew what I was suppose to do! Even though what happened to me was very wrong and not fair I knew I had to do what Christ would do! I have to turn it over to Heavenly Father, let it go, forgive and learn to love her as Christ would! I have also been trying to figure out what I'm to learn from this, how it can help me grow and become a better person! A few people have told me that Satan is doing all he can to discourage me so I wont be the best missionary I can become! He know what I am capable of doing and he "does not" want me to do it! What I do know is through the help of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ I can get through whatever is thrown in my way and accomplish anything! Satan may throw thing's in my way but he CANNOT keep me from going and becoming what Heavenly Father knows I can become and doing what I need to do because I have strength from Heavenly Father to do it! Once next week is over this will hopefully be over for good and I can focus on what's most important in my life right now!

Work and Babysitting

I decided that April 12th will be my last day of babysitting and April 14th will be my last day at work! I figure that will give me enough time to get the rest of my stuff packed and do last min shopping and getting ready. Plus my sister, niece and nephew are coming April 17th so I get to have time spent with them and not have to go to work or babysitting! I have 7 weeks of babysitting and working left. It's so crazy to think about but I'm so excited cause that means I'm only 2 1/2 weeks left before I go into the MTC!!!! It's funny to think that a year ago I was so set in NOT going on a mission and if you told me that I was going to be getting ready to leave on one I would of thought you were crazy! But here I am getting ready to go on a mission! I am so thankful that Heavenly Father helped me to have a change of heart! I can't wait to go teach the gospel and serve the Lord full time! I need to be better at managing my time better so I can do the thing's that matter most like studying the scriptures and other books I'll be using! I'm so glad I get to share the gospel and be apart of the church growing!

IT CAME, IT CAME!!!!!!!!!

IT CAME!!!!!!!! Thursday Feb. 9th my mission call came! Wednesday on our way home from Utah I was trying not to get excited that it could be there when we got home! But when we got home and it wasn't there I was kinda disappointed! So Thursday all day while I was babysitting I was wanting to call my mom and ask her if it came just cause I couldn't take any more waiting and not knowing! I told my mom not to call me and tell me it came when it did cause I didn't want to be waiting for time to go by so I could go home and open it! But I couldn't do it so about 3:30 I called my mom and asked her and she said, "Are you going to put make-up on?" I freaked out and started to squeal! The kids I was babysitting looked at me like I was so weird, well I kinda was at that point! I was so excited and now I had to wait! So we played for a little and then Lincoln and I started watching funny videos online to pass the time away! Their dad came home and I went home and did my make-up cause you know I can't have pictures taken without make-up on! HA! Well that didn't take long at all and then there was more waiting cause my aunt couldn't get there till about 6:20! I kept walking back and forth being very impatient! Everyone got there and we called my sister's and brother and then I opened it!

This is what I got to look at while I waited! Not that fun! I wanted to open it up right then and there!

 This was while we were waiting for the phone calls to be made!

 I asked if everyone was there and could hear me and Amy (on the phone) was like JUST OPEN IT!!!!!!

 I was so excited to see where I was going.

 Not 10 words into it I started to cry! I felt so overwhelmed with the Spirit and so happy that it's finally here and so real, really happening! I kept telling myself I need to compose myself so I could finish reading and see where I was going! While I was trying to compose myself I looked down a little and saw where I was going before I read it! HA! That helped me get myself together cause excitement took over! YAY!

 I am going to Cleveland Ohio and am speaking English! YAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!! I was so excited all I could do was squeal! Everyone was laughing at me! Oh my gosh it's so real now! I can't wait to leave and serve the Lord! I never thought that I would be going on a mission but here I am with the call in hand and super excited to go and spread the Gospel!

Painting!

This last weekend Mom, Dad and I went down to Utah to go to Carter's baby blessing and little did we know that we'd be helping painting their down stairs to get ready for carpet to be put in. We all helped in some way but my dad and Shawn did most of it! When we started they had me paint on the wall along the ceiling. NOT FUN!!!! So I told my mom that she can do the trim! So I did corners and the shelves! Here's just a few pictures of the fun we had!

 I wanted some pictures of me painting so Heather took a few. The one right before this that I deleted, Heather took a picture of my butt. Not funny! She also said something right before she took this picture. That should explain the face! Ha

 She told me to smile so this is what she got! Ha. See how much fun I'm having?

 Shawn took over doing the trim! I'd rather have him do it then me because if he messes up it's his house!

We ended up staying a day later then we planned so we could help with packing and getting thing's done for them to move. Dad stayed down there to help them get things packed and loaded into the moving truck! It was a good weekend and had fun visiting and being with my nieces and nephews!

Hammering Bent Nails! :-/

Last week I got to help my dad with fixing up out barn a little! Let's just say I don't hammer nails really well over my head! I think I bent more nails then I got in! Even though I was really struggling to get those nails in and hated being up that high on the ladder I had a fun time helping my dad and spending some time with him!

This is one of the several nails I was trying to get out after I bent them. It was not an easy thing to do over my head!

I learned that I could somewhat hammer the nails in straight if I used both of my hands and used the bigger hammer, which meant it was heavier! I ended up just getting the nails in as far as I could before I bent them and let my dad finish getting them in! So really I wasn't that big of a help with hammering! Oh well!

Mission papers are off!

I went and met with my stake president and everything went really good! He has no concerns and thinks I'll do great and it will be a great thing for me! He did tell me that they normally can't send papers in 90 days before the available date because they are usually waiting on the person to turn of age to go but not in my case. The first of Feb would be my 90 day mark but he said he would try to submit them and see what happens. He told me he might not get to it that night because he had some meetings but said if he didn't get to it that night he'd do it the next day (Friday) and if he couldn't submit them he'd call me and let me know! So all day I'm waiting but hoping I wouldn't heard anything from him. I told my mom if he called the house phone she was to call me and let me know! I didn't hear from her all day while at work and when I got home I asked and she said no calls! My aunt made pizza's for dinner and brought them up to our house and hung out with us for awhile. Every time the phone rang I was, "please don't let it be him". Well I never heard from him so that means their off on their way and now I get to wait.............................. He told me it would be about 3 to 4 weeks! I've heard people getting it in 2 weeks but I'm going to be down in Utah that weekend that's the 2 week mark, although it'd be nice to come home to it but I think I could wait 3 weeks but I'm not so sure about 4 weeks or longer! But I guess if it's going to take that long I'm going to have to wait! I'm not that good at waiting for thing's I know are coming just not knowing when they'll come! I pray it won't take longer the 4 weeks! I'm so excited and would like to know where I get to go serve a mission for my Heavenly Father!

?????????

Tomorrow I am going to meet with my Stake President so we can finally send my papers off! I have a friend that asked me if I was going to have a map for people to guess where I might go so I went and got a map and some pins to mark guesses. I'm righting every ones name down that guesses and where they guessed. This is what I've gotten so far! More guesses are welcome. Because the pin heads are big I can only put pins so close together so some of the pins have more then one person guessing and that's part of the reason why I'm keeping a list!

I am really excited but also nervous only because it's an unknown adventure. I know that this is what I'm suppose to be doing so I'm moving forward and putting my faith and trust in Heavenly Father to help me be the best I can be and do what He wants me to do!

First really snow of the season!!!!!!

Yesterday the news was talking about this big storm that was coming our way! We didn't get it as bad as other's and I am very thankful for that! The first time I heard that we were going to get snow I thought it was going to be Wed. night but last night the news was saying that we were going to get snow this morning! When my alarm went off at 6:30 I looked out the window to see if it had snow and oh guess what it didn't. I kinda just laughed but little did I know 30 min later it started to snow and hard to! In about 30 min we went from seeing the road and grass to them being covered with snow. I really don't like the snow so I wasn't enjoying it. I am very thankful that I didn't have to go anywhere. They've been talking about how bad the roads are and many slide-offs. Around 1:30 it stopped snowing but then started to rain. Oh how tomorrow's drive isn't going to be fun. Here's a few pictures I took.

 This was just after it started snowing!

 It was super windy and you can see which way the wind was blowing. Wasn't very fun for me because it was blowing right to my door. I was going in and out of my parent door all day! It was annoying to have to clean in only to have it pile up again!

 I was babysitting today and we went out and played in the snow. While we were out there I was throwing a ball to Cheyenne and started throwing in on to barn. The first couple ones rolled right down collecting snow on it's way down. The last time I throw it up there it went a little too high and got stuck. It's kinda hard to see but it's a little to the left of the line on the right side at the top! Guess we just have to wait for it to melt for it to come down! Cheyenne didn't really like it. She kept looking up waiting for it to come down! She even put her front paws on the barn doors! I thought it was funny! :)

Even tho I don't like the snow I'm very thankful I don't live in any mountain area.