So yes, I have already mentioned how much I love Og Mandino, but
how could you not? SERIOUSLY. This guy is the MAN. I love this little reminder
that sometimes life is about doing the little menial tasks that help us get up
the mountain. I also like the reminder that in today’s “let me have it right
now” attitude, that the most important things in life take time to develop and
we may not receive them when we want them. One of my new favorite quotes from
Elder Holland is “Don't you quit. You keep walking, you keep trying, there is
help and happiness ahead. Some blessings come soon. Some come late. Some don't come
until heaven. But for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come.
It will be alright in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.” First of all, I love the anaphora in this (the
repetition of how it all starts with “some”. Wow I am a nerd. But seriously, I
love me some repetition!) Second of all, I LOVE that promise! All the blessings
we want in life will eventually come true. We just need to have faith in His timing.
What a wonderful thought!
Here are a few pictures from the last month:
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| Michal and I celebrating in the office! |
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| My beautiful mani/pedi. Nothing is more relaxing than this! |
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| My letter from President Uchtdorf!!! |
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| For some reason, when I see this I start to laugh hysterically. |
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| This cake has "I Carry Your Heart" by e.e. cummings on it and I ADORE IT! |
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| Good reminder! |
Now onto some highlights:
- Art walk/rooftop concert. So my friend/old roommate Lindsey invited me to go do this art walk in downtown Provo and it was super fun! You walk around to all these different places and look at modern art. Being a weird nerd like I am, I very much enjoyed it. We then went to part of the ‘Rooftop Concerts,” which is exactly what it sounds like: a concert on the rooftop of a parking garage. It was one of those moments where I felt like I was in a movie because I was this cool college kid going to a concert on a roof. It was pretty cool but we couldn’t really hear him because we were in the back and it was PACKED! Anyways, it was very fun!
- Getting groceries. This really shouldn’t be an ‘item’ on my highlights because it is obviously something I do a LOT of the time. However, when I had just moved into my apartment, I realized I didn’t have a car/knew my roommates well enough to ask for a ride to the grocery store. Being the expert walker that I am, I decided I would just walk to the grocery store which is about a ten block distance. Not too shabby, right? Well, let’s keep in mind that I had literally NO food because I had just gotten back from my week break in Colorado. So I go to the store, buy all the delicious foods I have been craving. I then proceed to the check-out, where I realize that I have just spent $100 worth of groceries that I was going to have to carry ten blocks. So I make it around 2 blocks and promptly give up. I try calling Linds, and huzzah! She tells me she can come pick me up! Great! Until about two minutes later when she calls to tell me that her sister had the car! Around this time, a lady walks by asking if I need any help. I politely tell her no, I am okay! (Which in hindsight, was a STUPID decision!) It was literally a “and the clouds opened and God said, ‘I hate you Kelsey’” type of moment. So then Linds offers to walk to where I am and help me carry them home (Have I mentioned how much I LOVE this girl? She’s great!) So I am sitting there and this car whizzes past me, sees me, flips a rather scary U-turn in the middle of the road and stops by me. Yep, you guessed it, the missionaries were coming to my rescue! They got out of the car and asked if I needed any assistance. Too bad the only thing I was thinking was, “Holy guacamole I haven’t seen missionaries in forever. They’re so cute! Oh my goodness.” So to not be weird, I told them I was fine and that I had a friend coming to help me. I don’t think they really believed me because they started to tract in the area near me. At this point, the lady who originally asked if I needed help has come back. (She was walking around with her son in a stroller) She sees me still sitting there and says, that’s it! I am going to drive you home! Can I just say that she was my personal angel! I have never had a moment where I so desperately needed help and then some random stranger came to my rescue. All I have to say is what a tender mercy!
- Two Saturdays ago, I was really bored and all alone (all of my roommates are from Utah so they went home for Mother’s day) so I decided to walk to the great Gandolfo’s, which is seriously INCREDIBLE! I walked there and on the way back, found this perfect reading tree. For those of you who watch Gilmore Girls, it is like the tree she finds that fits her back perfectly. So of course, being the weird person I am, I had a book the Great Gatsby, in my purse. So in the delightful sunshine, I sat and ate/read. It was seriously one of those perfect random moments. And, I LOVE that book. I just watched the trailer for the new movie though and I am a little concerned that it will end up like
- I got a pay raise!!!!!!!!!!:)
- It turns out here in the Sonic has this deal that after 8 pm all of their shakes are half price. A couple of weeks ago, all of my roommates were home and had nothing to do, so we went and got shakes! It was really fun because we were singing “Call Me Maybe” at the top of our lungs when our waiter was here! I love summer!
- I went fishing. Yep. It was pretty Huckleberry Finn of me. I texted Spencer a couple of Fridays ago and told him we had to do something and said he was going fishing. So of course I told him that I would hang out with him after but he said we should both go. So I went fishing. Which mostly consisted of Spencer fishing and me swinging on a swing. I did try casting the line a couple of times but I lost one of his bait hooks after the third time, so I quit while I was ahead and just sat there chewing on fake Buckwheat wishing I was in overalls so I could complete the effect. But this is another addition to the list of “Things I NEVER Thought I Would Do.” So wahoo to me!
- So everyone knows that I adore President Uchtdorf. Maybe a little too much? Anyways, I have been planning to write him a letter since January of this year and I still hadn’t done it. Possibly because I didn’t want to be TOO creepy. So I finally got down to it and wrote him a letter! I wrote him telling him how much I appreciate his talk “Your Happily Ever After” and then bore my testimony. I might have slipped in that my roommate, Bergen, is in his home ward. And yes, you read that right. MY ROOMMATE IS IN PRESIDENT UCHTDORF’S WARD! I am going to meet him. It is seriously my goal. Anyways, I wrote him thinking he would write me back but everybody kept on telling me that He probably wouldn’t. So I got sick this past Wednesday and just won’t get better! It’s kind of frustrating! I was hanging out with Linds being my CRAZY hyper self (let’s just say I was so hyper that I thought my chair was a horse and I was super hyper. Who says you can’t have fun without drugs? Just send people who think that my way, and they’ll understand) and all of the sudden I got serious and told her that the only thing I wanted in this life during that exact moment was for President Uchtdorf to write me a letter. Anyways, I resumed my crazy antics, which brings me to the point that Linds and I would be very business owners. I can’t really expand, but just trust me when I say that. So anyways, on Saturday, I walk to get the mail and I open the box and see a letter inside from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I ripped it open as fast as I could and JUMPED for joy screaming “oh my goodness” on repeat for about a minute. Can I just say that Heavenly Father really does care about us? Here I was just a day before sincerely wishing that I would get a letter from President Uchtdorf and the NEXT day, I get one! Most people would look at this as a coincidence, but there is just no way! No matter how small, or let’s face it, weird, our wants are, Heavenly Father hears our prayers! And he makes it happen! It is the shortest letter but I know these words will help me be happy for the rest of my life. I joked to my rooomate Bergen that I will change the lyrics to “My Favorite Things” from Sound of Music to “when the dog bites, when the bees sting, when I’m feeling sad, I simply remember that Uchtdorf wrote me, and then I don’t feel soo bad.” Seriously. On Sunday, I woke up super sick to an empty apartment thinking to myself woe is me. Then I remembered that I had that letter and I was so happy!
- Speaking of “My Favorite Things,” whiskers on kittens don’t do it for me, but Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Therapy and their Cheesecake Brownie makes me want to marry it. Seriously. Smith’s (which is the equivalent to King Sooper’s) has had a 2/$5 sale on Ben and Jerrys and so I have decided to branch out from my usual Fro-Yo Half Baked and I am so glad I did! Both of these delicious flavors make me want to eat ice cream ALL the time. Which is a problem because I’ve been sick for the past few days and therefore unable to work out. Oh well, it is totally worth it to be fat for this ice cream!
- On Friday, Michal and I celebrated because it had officially been a year since her missionary had been out in the field. This celebration mostly consisted of being going through a WHOLE box of Kleenex and then Christine, one of our full time staff, took us out to Malawi’s pizza! It was so fun! And to top it off, our boss let us go early, so we went shopping and I got a mani/pedi for my cruise. While I was getting my nails done, the lady told me I had ‘hands made of cotton.” Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. What does that even mean? Well I asked her, and after her repeating it a few times, (I had a hard time understanding her!) she told me that my hands didn’t weigh a lot. So that’s cool. I’ll take a ‘skinny’ compliment even if it is about my hands. I was telling her that I could care less about my clothes or my hair, but I absolutely love when my nails looked good and shared a philosophy from one of her clients: You see your nails every time you look down and you only see your clothes/hair when you look in the mirror. Why wouldn’t you spend the money on your nails? I LOVE that and have officially adopted it as my new motto. I went to get my pedicure which made me nervous for two reasons: I hadn’t shaved my legs and my feet are ticklish. For those of you who haven’t had one, then I’ll explain. When they give you a pedicure, they rub a TON of lotion and oils over your WHOLE leg and not just your foot. At this point, I really had to go the bathroom because I had been there for a while and the whole “rubbing-my-foot-with-oil-when-my-feet-are-uber-ticklish” thing was not fun. I seriously almost kicked the lady in the face twice. IT TICKLES SO MUCH! But that’s okay because they ended up fabuous!
- I went to a soccer game! Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Kelsey at a men’s soccer game. How did this happen? Well my roommate Bergen asked if I wanted to go and I said yes! (Must have had a brain aneurism). One of the guys that has been in our ward, Rich, plays on the team so that was pretty cool. Regardless of the really irritating Mariachi style band that came with the other team, I would say it was a great experience!
- It’s the final countdown! I officially will be in Florida in two days for Disneyworld/our cruise! I CANNOT WAIT!
Anyways, it’s been a pretty good life out here in Provo. I just want to close with one of my favorite “I have a black and white personality” quotes:
“I will greet this day with love in my heart. And how will I do this? Henceforth will I look on all things with love and be born again. I will love the sun for it warms my bones; yet I will love the rain for it cleanses my spirit. I will love the light for it shows me the way; yet I will love the darkness for it shows me the stars. I will welcome happiness as it enlarges my heart; yet I will endure sadness for it opens my soul. I will acknowledge rewards for they are my due; yet I will welcome obstacles for they are my challenge.” And yes, you guessed it! It’s from Og Mandino! Anyways, I love the positive attitude of this man and I hope to maintain that attitude when I have to return to good ole Provo after being in paradise! Love you all!
