Hurricane Sandy

This week has been one full of lessons. Last week my mom called with news that a superstorm was coming. My first reaction was one that I imagine a lot of people had, "it will pass over us," or "I'll worry about it this weekend." Well, fortunately I have an awesome mom who in the midst of me not having wifi in my new apartment would call and give me updates on the storm. Well, Sunday came and went and nothing had really happened. The skies were gray and the wind was blowing a little bit but nothing too extreme. My friend from the ward, Whitney, and I made a quick last minute run to the store which winded up not being so quick. We waited in line for 20 or so minutes which is unheard of in NYC, the city of fast walkers and express lanes. That day before church I had packed an emergency kit of things my apartment and I might need if we were to be evacuated. My roommate thought I was ridiculous which I was fine with because I would rather be safe than sorry. The next morning we woke up and it seemed like nothing at all had happened. Once again, mom saved the day with information as to what was happening in New Jersey and in downtown Manhattan. By the end of Monday, I had gone mad, having been cooped up in a little apartment with a bedroom the size of a walk-in closet. I had done absolutely nothing all day. I couldn't even focus on my homework I was so bored. Today, I woke up fired up and ready to go help with cleaning up the storm. I walked up to Whitney's apartment and called her just as I was getting to her door and I told her I was going to go downtown to see if anyone needed help. Whitney threw her hair into a bun and put on her rain boots and we began the long walk to the end of the island. (When you look at google maps, we walked from 65th down to Barclay Street and back. Easily over 150 blocks) The further and further down we got the more deserted it became. There was no electricity and no open restaurants or businesses at all really. We overheard people saying that the roads we were walking on had been completely covered in water just a few hours before. Leaves and garbage were everywhere and in many places it smelled of sewer and vomit. I think I've checked my Facebook more in the last 48 hours than I have in my entire life. I am disgusted with the people living in my area and above, who are so self absorbed to be saying things like, "the news is blowing the storm way out of proportion," and "All we got was a little wind, what happened to the hurricane we were supposed to get?" Get off your butts and go see for yourself! I can't even imagine how bad New Jersey is. The sad thing about NY is that with so many people, we should be able to clean this hurricane up super quick, but people are already going back to work and moving on like nothing happened. People are stranded, surrounded by water! I am so blest to have the knowledge that we are all supposed to take care of each other. 

As far as food storage and water supplies go... if you don't have any, you NEED to go shopping! There is no excuse. I can almost guarantee that the two most popular items this weekend at grocery stores were bottled water and beer... that's right, I said beer. People, you are going to be taking care of your neighbors, and don't think you won't because people know which neighbors to go to, they're not stupid! Be smart. Not everyone was as fortunate as me. Another thing, have a few extra tanks of gas in your garage for when there is an emergency. Holy cow, I don't know why I feel the need to share all of this with you and maybe I'm just going off on a tangent, but man, this is ridiculous! Get off your butt and take some initiative!

Where I stand

Has it been a while or what? I guess the only time I write is when something traumatic has just happened. This semester has been amazing. I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere. Unfortunately it's also been a semester full of trials. 

I want you all to know that I know who I am and I stand for something. I stand for the good in this world. I stand for wholesome entertainment. I stand for every persons' dream to make something of the themselves while staying true to themselves. It can be done. Whoever says, "it will be easy," is a liar. I have really had to take a look into my heart and soul this last week and determine who I am and want to be. If we look at all our decisions in terms of eternal consequences it makes them easier. The problem is sometimes the immediate consequences for that choice are scary and full of unknowns. It wasn't easy to do, but I feel peace. The consequences, of this choice, are going to be both positive and negative, but the positives far surpass that of the negative. Today I took a step in the right direction and am proud to report that I am still holding fast to the iron rod. I'm so grateful for my parents, friends, home teachers, and patriarchal blessing that I went to for guidance the last few day. Thank you all for your prayers and support.

Burning Down the Dorm

Thursday night my friend Emily and I decided to make tacos for dinner. The kitchen in our dorm is a community kitchen, so we took all our stuff down stairs. We put a couple taco shells in the toaster oven and redirected our attention to the meat on the stove. Now normally we can leave the shells in the toaster oven for a couple minutes, but something was very wrong with it and when we turned around the shells were black. We hurried and turned it off and kind of laughted at how black they were, but also because we didn't know why they burned. As we stood staring at shells debating when we should clean out the toaster oven the toaster oven lit on fire. We still kept our cool and decide to close the door to it remove the oxygen from the inside. Well, it didn't work, the flames just kept getting bigger. At the point we realized that we couldn't put it out on our own, the situation became very serious. Emily hurried and unplugged it as we were all searching for a fire extinguisher, but it was no where to be found. I ran to the front desk and said somewhat calmly, "uh, there's a fire in the kitchen and we can't find a fire extinguisher, do you know where one is?" The main person on duty was on her dinner break to go get some soup for about 7 minutes. I ran back into the kitchen and saw a fire extinguisher holding the kitchen door open. By the time I got it to the fire the flames were about 3-4ft high and the entire toaster oven was engulfed in flames. As far as the fire extinguisher goes, while I was looking for one, a guy found one around the corner, not even close to the stove or anything. We were all looking at each other trying to figure out who was going to do it, and Emily and I were trying to figure out how to use it. Finally the kid came over with his extinguisher and put the fire out. Powder flew everywhere smothering the flames. At that point Emily grabbed her stuff and got the heck out of dodge, and I has to deal with the situation. Now you have to understand, I'm an RA at the dorm, so I had to actually deal with the whole thing. Within a few minutes after putting it out the fire alarms went off and 3 firetrucks came with probably15-20 firefighters. The whole building had to evacuate and in the meantime, we were trying to get a hold of our building manager present to come deal with them, but we couldn't reach him because, as we found out later, he was in the shower on the 10th floor, so he couldn't smell the smoke or hear the alarms. A lot of the students didn't believe that there was an actual fire, but not only that the ones who did hear the alarms thought it was one of their neighbors playing video games or laser tag. So all in all, my adrenaline didn't sign off until I went to bed. Four hours later I think might heart rate was still up. On Friday I had my weekly meeting with my boss and she said she saw the security tape of the whole thing and couldn't help but laugh at silent footage of people's arms flailing, trying to figure out how to work the fire extinguisher, me running to the front desk, and the flames growing larger and larger by the second, and in addition to that having the flames be inches away from the electrical box. (don't ask me what the electrical box is located right above a cooking area) As funny as it is, now, I realize that in an emergency and under pressure you need to know exactly where fire extinguishers are and how to use them. Thank goodness it was put out before it got any worse because there could have been some serious damage to the building and all of us involved. If you take anything from this post, take a good laugh and make sure you actually go through the procedure of a fire extinguisher with your family. It might seem self explanatory, but it not in the heat of the moment:) haha .

What doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger

The people I'm friends with here in NY have such good hearts. If they were to have lived in Utah, I'm not sure I would have given them a chance. Moving here has really made me take a look at myself and see who I really am and want to be. I am so blessed to have this experience to figure that out. Moving here I thought I'd be looked down on for my beliefs, but in reality, people actually support me immensely. I've become close enough friends with some of these people that they know some of my biggest insecurities. I'm still learning and discovering that standing out because of what I believe is not a bad thing. Sometimes I feel insecure about being Mormon because of all the attention I get. For instance, right now in my acting class someone is doing a scene from Angels in America, a play where the main characters are LDS. After a few minutes of the scene he started asking the people what research they had done on Mormons and within a few minutes everyone was informing the teacher that I was Mormon. All the attention was put on me. I felt a little awkward, but I just brushed it off. It''s kind of nice that it's out in the open now in that class. It is such a struggle to not hide my light under a bushel everyday. I'm not ashamed of what I believe, I just feel like I'm being judged all the time. People in my group have told me before that when they found out I was Mormon they wondered how I was going to make it in this "worldly business," and as much as we're friends now, I think they still wonder. I know I'm always being watched, that's for sure. Anytime a teacher asks me about relationships I've had, assuming I've had serious relationships, I can see peoples eyes shift to me wondering what I'm going to say. In a sense, a lot of the time I have to teach myself, because I don't want my teachers knowing all about my personal life.

Last week I was so overwhelmed. It wasn't the workload I was stressed over, it was what/ how I was going to deal with the questionable scenes I might, at one point, be asked to participate in. What am I willing to do on stage? As simple as it may seem, it's actually a very hard question that I've decided to deal with as the situations come. My mom keeps telling me, "You can't borrow trouble" so I guess I'll listen to her advice, for now, since mother knows best. 

Can I just say I LOVE NEW YORK! In all honesty, I can't believe I'm here, and to think that some people have never been here just baffles me. Get here people! I know you'll love it, and you most definitely will not be bored. 

Dynamic Duo

Living in NY in a dorm and being a student is not the easiest combination when I comes to making friends outside of school. 3 1/2 weeks ago Rachel moved to NYC as, what I believe to be, an answer to my prayers. I met her at FHE on Sunday the 29th of February before anyone could grab her and decided that she had to be my friend. (I mean, I wasn't that forceful, but whatever I did to convince her, it worked) She moved to NY to nanny 3 kids, but later found out the grandma hired her to watch more of the children's mother. I was finishing up finals that next week and this had a 3 week trial period so we decided to do lots of site singing. Between 9 and 4 when the kids were in school and after they were in bed at 8, Rachel and I were inseparable. Here is a list of everything Rachel and I did in about a 3 week period in no particular order. A story goes along with each one, so if you're interested in hearing about the event/day, leave a comment for me and I'll be sure to elaborate win a new post:)

1. Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island, ate rolo pretzel thingies
2. picnic on the staten island ferry
3. highline park
4. brooklyn bridge
5. central park 
6. ground zero memorial
7. Joanna (The psycho mama)
8. YSA Singles Conference Dance
9. Valentine's Day Party
10. cleaned the church twice
11. went to Bloomingdales
12. Brunch Crawl with our ward
13. Tried to win the lottery for tickets to Wicked ( I guess now I can say I have played in the lottery
14. we were given handfuls of candy at Hershey's Store in Times Square, for free
15. went into applebees and realized it was 18-20 for a regular burger, so we just ordered chips and fries
16. shake shack
17. subway- bought a footlong every time (I'm pretty sure we went here at least 5 times)
18. olive garden- unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks (When you're a poor college student to fill every limb of your body until you feel like you won't be able to eat for days)
19. Literally ran from the subway to the magnolia bakery back to the subway while eating peanut butter pie so Rachel wouldn't be late for work (delicious and completely worth it)
20. helped plan and set up a linger longer and everyone loved what we made
21. watched super bowl in NY & won the super bowl
22. dinner at rebecca's where she cooked in a crockpot for the first time ever
23. made chocolate chip pancakes and mud die buddies ( a really healthy breakfast if you ask me:)
24. watched The Vow on Valentines Day
25. watched The Next 3 Days on Netflix while eating cookies and apple
26. found out rachel was neighbors with one of my best friend in logan up until she was 8
27. rachel got kissed within 48 hours of landing in NY
28. Busted up at people rapping on the subway
29. Rachel took the subway to 42nd street thinking that where the church was... 42nd st is times square, nice try Rachel
30. rachel almost got mugged in Times Square
31. Rachel was saved by a guy on the subway who made sure a guy didn't follow her home
32. talked to NYC cops on horses who had real accents
33. Was thoroughly entertained by a man that calls himself the naked cowboy, in Times Square
34. Rachel was fired by the psycho mama and rehired by the psycho mom's moms within 20min... needless to say she decided the job wasn't for her
35. watched the sun set sitting by the hudson river
36. Went to South seaport
37. Just happened to fall upon the NY government buildings
38. saw China Town and Little Italy
39. saw a drive thru McDonalds
40. said we were both going to ask someone out, but never did- FAIL
41. went to church ever Sunday to a ward where no one took us seriously
42. rachel was homeless and living out of her suitcase for 3 days
43. Time Warner at Columbus Circle
44. Pizza & chips and salsa

I'm aware that this is a very long list and now that I look at it I realize why it is that I gained inches over my break:/ oops! This last week Rachel moved back to Utah:( I cried. I just don't know why she was here for such a short amount of time, but I know we're going to remain friends for a very long time. I just love her. We just clicked so fast! GOd wanted us to meet though, we know that. She lived in Logan until she was 8 and then moved to Kaysville. 3 years ago I moved to Logan and then a little over a year ago she moved to Logan for school at USU. Somehow we kept missing each other there so He brought us both to the other side of the country to meet. I love her and can't wait to see her this summer when she comes back to NY to visit hopefully. Let me know if you have any questions.

The Day of Love

Spring is in the air and everyone's twitterpated! I honestly don't know how people my age are getting married. Every night I get on Facebook, it never fails to show that there has been a relationship status change of one of my friends to "engaged to..." I just want to take a moment to say that President Monson is not talking to 18 & 19 year olds in Utah when he says that people need to be getting married... dating yes, but marriage! Although I'm not welcoming anything for myself right now, actually I'd prefer to stay far from a relationship, I can't help but wonder when it's all going to happen for me. I feel like everyone here is 28+ and not even dating anyone. I scares me that if I stay away from dating and relationships that I'm going to end up 30 or older and still not married. The sad thing is that there is nothing wrong with these people. Their jobs are just really time consuming and important to them. On Valentines Day I went to The Vow with one of my girlfriends and we saw so many guys from our ward/stake in the movie and on the street. I don't think I've ever seen so many mormon guys in one night here in NY. My friend and I couldn't help but giggle when as we were walking to the subway, the majority of the people getting off the subway were men, and it was only 7pm. I think Valentine's Day was made to remind men that there are more things in life than work. This seems like a man hater post, but be assured that was not my intention. Sorry if this didn't flow... I'm super tired tonight and was honestly just trying to get something on my blog since I haven't posted in a coupe weeks. Be on the look out for another post this weekend! I love you all! Happy Valentine's Day!

My Savior

Tonight I am so overwhelmed by my Savior's love for me. If makes me so sad to be surrounded by people who don't even have a slight testimony of him. I am so grateful to have him as my rock. I would be nothing without him. He makes me want to be better. I know that he died for me and he saw my face as he suffered and died. I wish people could see that there's more to life, and I wish they'd see how happy the gospel makes me. I love my Savior! I love him so much that I want everyone to love him just as much, if not more, than I do! This week I have received so many blessings, everywhere from getting 2 jobs through the school to having a girl from school be baptized. I am amazed at how his hand is in every aspect of my life. I hope the video below gives you something to reflect on, I know it did me... I sobbed the whole time. Have a great week! I'll be praying for you:)

Jesus Christ - His Hands

The Importance of Relationships

On Friday afternoon one of my friends brothers took his own life. When I found out the next day, my heart completely sank. How could someone, who gave and loved so much, have this happen to them? I am so thankful that I have an eternal perspective and know to be true that families are forever and that we can all live again. I think it is important that we are kind to our families and all people we come in contact with. Life is too short for spending our time and energy on offensive things that people have said or done to us. I think we need to serve and be charitable to one another so we can have the peace of mind knowing that we did everything we could when we are held accountable for our lives. I wish I had been more charitable towards my siblings growing up and am relieved that it's not to late. The moral of this story: Love the one you're with!

Follower Participation Needed!

Yesterday I walked into my room and thought to myself, "this has got to be the most boring room I've ever seen!" I decided that I want to cover my walls with goals and quotes and pictures that make me want to be better. So, here's what I've come up with so far, but it needs a lot, and I mean A LOT more work! I was wondering if anyone had some really good quotes or pictures or anything that either they could email me or send in the mail to help add some flare to my room, so I don't feel like I'm locking myself into a white walled prison cell every night. Hopefully this isn't too much to ask. I pretty much will hang up anything. cards, church handouts, pictures of friends and family, ANYTHING! Let me know if you are willing and able:)

Have a Positive Attitude

We can’t direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails. For maximum happiness, peace, and contentment, may we choose a positive attitude. 

Believe in Yourself

You can achieve what you believe you can. Trust and believe and have faith.

 Face Challenges w/Courage

Have the determination to make the effort, the single-mindedness to work toward a worthy goal, and the courage not only to face the challenges that inevitably come but also to make a second effort, should such be required. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, "I'll try again tomorrow."

Instantly

recognize Christ  

Read & Study Scriptures

Pray more sincerely

Some food for thought, with a challenge

The first night I got back to NY from Christmas break I was struggled. I was homesick and I hadn't even been gone for 48 hours. After receiving a blessing from a couple of guys in my ward, I decide the best thing to do was look for comfort the only way I knew how, through prayer and scripture study. Which then lead to some personal revelation of what one of my goals needs to be this year. First I looked up faith in the Bible Dictionary and here are some of the things that stood out to me:

• "To have faith is to have confidence in something or someone. The Lord has revealed himself and his perfect character, possessing in their fulness all the attributes of love, knowledge, justice, mercy, unchangeableness, power, and every other needful thing.  Faith comes by righteousness.
• Faith is a principle of action and of power, and by it one can influence any number of circumstances when occasion warrants (Jacob 4:4–7). 
• All true faith must be based upon correct knowledge or it cannot produce the desired results. Faith in Jesus Christ is the first principle of the gospel and is more than belief, since true faith always moves its possessor to some kind of physical and mental action; it carries an assurance of the fulfillment of the things hoped for.
• The effects of true faith in Jesus Christ include (1) an actual knowledge that the course of life one is pursuing is acceptable to the Lord (see Heb. 11:4); (2) a reception of the blessings of the Lord that are available to man in this life; and (3) an assurance of personal salvation in the world to come. These things involve individual and personal testimony, guidance, revelation, and spiritual knowledge. 

And then I had the thought to look up "follow," which lead me to "sheep." 

• Shepherds still, as of old, go before the sheep, and the sheep follow, being apparently more or less attached to their masters, whose voice they instantly recognize.

One of my goals this year is to become as a sheep. I consider myself to be very much a leader, and I'm not going to illuminate that trait from my personality, but when it comes to trusting in Lord I have to do better. Our lives so easily can become cluttered, stressful, and then before we know it we are lost sheep, unable to hear our shepherd calling . This year I want to be able to "instantly recognize" my Lord and Savior in all aspects of my life, and not just at church or when I'm trying to find the positive. In order to do this I'm going to more sincere personal prayers and read my scriptures every day. I started doing these two things Sunday night, and I'm already benefitting, and far less stressed than I was before break. If you're reading this, I challenge you to do the same and make this your spiritual goal to instantly recognize Christ in all aspects of your life, to read, and study your scriptures and more sincerely pray.