The Journey

With all my friends updating their blog, I have finally decided to update mine as well. That also means I am going to need a new background because the one I currently have is from Halloween. Anyway, I am just writing a quick update because I have to get up early tomorrow morning, but I am hoping that I can use this blog to track my journey to become a healthier as well as more spiritual me. It is hard, and life has been really rough on me, but I feel like with the support of friends and others knowing what is really going on. I also have another blog on the website I am using to help with the healthy part of my journey. It is on sparkpeople.com. If you sign up for the website, my username is jugglerchic so that you can say I referred you and we will automatically become friends on there. It is a great website with a wonderful community and I highly suggest checking it out! I will hopefully transfer some stuff from that blog to here since I do update it more often, but if not you can always join that site and read it on there. The site has earned the nickname the facebook of dieting! Anyway, here's to the new year and a new me! Cheers! :)

Questions

Ever since I have joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints I have seriously considered serving a full time mission. Now that there is a little less than a year until I can submit my paperwork I have been thinking about this and school and work a lot lately. All of these are big things that effect the rest of a person's life. I have decided that I do want to prepare for a mission, whether I go on one right when I turn 21 or later and I wanted to let my friends know. The one big problem is money. I need to get out of debt first and in order to do that I will need to put all the money I earn this next year towards that debt and then IF I have any extra it would go towards my mission. I have heard that sometimes you can get help with the funding of the mission, which I will look into if it looks like I will need to (which I probably will) but it really all depends on how work ends up working out. I do not use my savings account at all, so I have decided to make that my mission account and will probably just be putting my spare change and stuff in there for now. If anyone would like to help me with this, feel free to message me, but either way just lots of prayers and love would be appreciated! Thank you much!

As far as school goes I am trying to figure out my new plan for that. I could probably squeeze in a 2 year degree really quick if I leave for my mission a few months later than when I turn 21. The only problem is I am trying to decide between 3 degrees because I am going to SMCC which doesn't have as many degree options as I would like, but I would at least like to get something. Also, that would be more loans that I would have to pay off so that is another thing that I am worried about. Once again, lots of prayers sent in my direction would be wonderful as I will be praying hard for answers to all these questions as well!

Anyway, that is just a little glimpse of a few big things I am thinking about right now. I will post more details as I get and think of them! I am definitely going to be writing to several of my friends that are on missions soon!

SwagBucks

I have been doing horrible at keeping up with this blog, but my computer got a virus and my life has been crazy. Hopefully one day I will actually be consistent at this. Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know of an awesome site that I use. It is Swagbucks.com and you can earn points that you can use towards redeeming free things like magazines, jewelery, gift cards, and many other things! I am using it to get Christmas gifts this year and I love it! Please use the link below to sign up so that I can have you as a referral! If you want anymore information, feel free to leave me a message!

Zipcar

I have been doing a horrible job at keeping my blog updates, but I wanted to inform you all of a company that I just joined. It is called Zipcar and has car rentals. I am currently using a student account which means that I get a discount, but you should definitely check them out! Also, with the button that I am going to placce on my blog soon you can get $25 of free driving credit when you join and I will get the same! Thanks for checking it out!

MBP Giveaway - Shabby Apple Dress

There is this amazing blog I read called Mormon Bachelor Bad. I started reading through all their old posts about a month or two ago, and these guys are hilarious. There are a few posts that I admit I was a bit uncomfortable reading, but overall I love the honesty and hilarity of the blog. Anyway, they have decided to giveaway a dress to one lucky reader, and I'm posting because I am entering to win it and I want to give my awesome friends a chance as well. Here is a link to their blog! I highly recommend going through some of their old posts and seeing what they are all about. Here is a link to the dress they are giving away!

Love

Have you ever been in one of those moods where you just love yourself no matter what other people think? Well, I have been in one of those moods lately and it's wonderful. I mean, I'm not really flaunting it and trying to act better than anyone else, but I'm just at a high moment where I love myself, my personality, and the gifts that God has given me. It's awesome!

Anyway, just a short post today to get back into the swing of things in hopes that my posting frequency picks up again. :)

Dancing: Essential to Living

I absolutely love to dance. I always have and always will, even if it has taken me a while to get used to and comfortable dancing with guys. Every Wednesday night there is country swing dancing in Mesa. I hadn't been in three months, but tonight I finally went again! It was the best night I have had thus far being there. I danced even more than I usually do, and I am one of the awesome people that goes crazy and loves line dances! Anyway, dancing got me all hyper tonight, so I might be up for a while. It is a great form of exercise and a lot of fun so I encourage everyone to get out there and get their boogie on!

Me = SO HAPPY! :)

Tender Mercies

A few years ago Elder Bednar gave a talk about the tender mercies of the Lord. Although he gave it a while back, before I was a member of the church, a woman that is a great example to me introduced me to it. Here is a link for it, in case you want to read it after reading my post.

Click Here for Talk!

Anyway, onto my story. This week I have attended the temple 3 times. I went Tuesday and Thursday night and then Saturday morning (today). Today though I had the most wonderful experience I've ever had in a temple thus far. I went with two of my roommates, Caralee and Janessa, and we left around 6:30 am to do baptisms. When we got there we went through the typical process. There were only a few people there early in the morning. As we were sitting waiting to do baptisms a temple worker came over and asked if I would be willing to do some family names of a guy that had come into the temple, so I said yes. As I was being baptized for his family members I was looking at where they were from. A couple were from California and then these Maine names came up and I gasped because I was so excited to be able to do work for people from Maine in the Arizona temple! As I was doing the names I paid attention to a few of the last names so I could check to see if they were family last names when I got home, but I was so excited that I was holding back tears as I was being baptized for these people. When I did get home I looked up 2 of the last names I remembered and if I am not related to this guy I would be very surprised because both the last names are in my family line and one is very strong in my family's history! Anyway, I've been having a rough time lately and that blessing from God was amazing and I am so glad that I went to the temple this morning even though I woke up at 6. It was amazing and I am so happy now! :)