Back to school, again.

Something about leaving home this year has been harder than ever. I just so deeply want to be near my family and the anxiety I'm feeling over being far away from them is very real. Serving a mission taught me something that I thought I already knew, I learned to not take time with the people I love for granted.
The first week of school hasn't even started yet, but the journey already has to some degree.
Driving around the fire that's currently consuming the Columbia Gorge yesterday was a painful moment. The truly Oregonian part of me showed up to realize that the grief I felt was because I loved those trees that were burning. I felt a sense of loss that I wasn't sure I even deserved to feel, but Heavenly Father took those emotions and that moment to teach me a few powerful lessons that I am very grateful for. 
I'm loving the view from my current hotel room, looking out at the beautiful Idaho Falls temple, the peace that the gospel brings to my life is powerful. I know that everything will work out in the end and I'm so grateful for that knowledge.
Those are my scattered thoughts for now,  hopefully I'll be successful at posting regularly-  some semesters are easier than others!

Science, Life, and Everything

I think that Rexburg really decided not to do the whole winter thing this year, it's fine by me though! I'd much rather start spring (no matter how cold it is) early. It's kind of great to have no clouds in the sky and grass on the ground.
In my Biology class this morning my professor was talking about how matter in the universe naturally exists in a disorganized form. Basically the sun emits energy that plants absorb those plants are eaten by us or other organisms whom we eventually consume. Through this process (well through the Kreb's Cycle in the mitochondria) we absorb that energy and then release it as heat. That heat can't be recaptured and finds it's way out into the universe as just free energy. Once we've used it, that energy is no longer in an organized form and becomes useless to us as we can't reconvert disorganized energy back into an organized form that we can use. Isn't that cool? My biology professor's comment was that the universe is getting hotter because of our existence, so take that as you will! I love science, it's so neat. Some people argue that science and religion can't intermix, but really it just reenforces my belief that there is a God who created this existence that we live in because I just can't believe something as complex as that can occur by accident.
The other thing I realized sitting in that class this morning was the difference a teacher can make in his curriculum. That professor is so totally in love with the subject he's teaching that you can't help but listen and want to learn what he's there to teach. But then there's the teacher who treats everyone like they're still in high school even though it's an upper level college course and goes off on really unrelated tangents. That class is miserable and you can tell hardly anyone wants to be there. I don't know, I guess I just really began to understand the difference that can come about when people respect you and what you're saying. Speaking of which, I need to go to that class now so I guess that's all I have to say right now.

Holiday weekend

I'm waiting for the mail to arrive and because of that I am having a hard time doing anything school related, I'm just too excited! I'll probably bother explaining why in my next post (or at the end of this post if it shows up by the time I get around to finishing this), but maybe not- we'll see :)
I think this past Valentine's day was the first time I've actually enjoyed the holiday since I've been up here, it helps that I get along really well with my roommate and I've done a lot more with her than I have really done with my past roommates- it's taken me a few years to adjust to college life...
We did a Secret Valentine exchange with our FHE brothers, which was fun. I received GF flour and non-GF cookies... my roommates and anyone who visits have been enjoying those. The flour will be nice though, I've done a more lot of baking/cooking this semester for whatever reason.
On Monday we didn't have school so I helped one of my roommates make some Mongolian dishes, she served a mission in Mongolia and the Mongolian New Year is coming up. It took a few hours, but the results were wonderful.

Making dumplings

Finally mastering it!

Chopping all of this took forever

Rice with raisins, surprisingly good.

Potato Salad

Finished product.



It's been amazingly nice for February, no complaints here! The snow is mostly gone and it's been in the high 30's to 50's, so basically it's finally t-shirt weather! But really, it feels that warm after being so ridiculously cold for months. This winter has actually been fairly mild, but still unbearably cold, which is fairly typical of here.

Oh and the mail never arrived, the letter I was waiting for went to my home instead of coming here. My mission call showed up (again) I'm still assigned to the same mission, my new date is July 8th! I'm so excited to go serve the Lord, finally :)

Life is good :)

Do you ever just feel so happy that you can hardly contain it? Well that's what happens to me when I do well on math tests :) Biostatistics isn't necessarily easy, but I think I finally discovered a math class that I'm capable of understanding- and thankfully it's the only math class required for my major! Overall I'm doing really well in my classes, I still have almost all A's with an annoying B that seems perfectly happy to stay exactly where it's at. I'd be completely crazy though if I sat here and told you it was all my own doing, because it's not. I've seen the hand of the Lord in my life a lot these last few weeks, this semester has already proven itself to be overwhelming and stressful between balancing classes and homework with the desire I have to be at home right now. I'm not really homesick, I just don't want to be in Rexburg because I would much rather be with my family. Thankfully I've been given some of the best roommates I could've asked for and I know that the Lord knew months ago that I was going to need them and made it so that when life got hard we'd already have built the trust with one another to be able to support one another. In the last 2 months I've worked really hard at being better at studying my scriptures and my testimony of how it draws us closer to Christ has been strengthened significantly. I'm finally coming to understand what people mean when they talk about having a personal relationship with Christ and I'm starting to better understand how it requires us to have the desire to make the effort to draw nearer unto Him and when we make that effort He will bless us and we'll feel His love more prominently in our lives- not because it wasn't there before, but because we've become more aware of it.
I think it was 2 weeks ago now, but there was an armed robbery at a Walgreens up here- which took I think everyone by surprise. I discovered it because I was out with some friends and we couldn't get onto Main Street due to everything being blocked off- it was at least 4 hours later and they were just still taking prints. Of all the places to rob the guy picked a store (next to 2 or 3 banks mind you) on the same street as the police station and the court house- and since there isn't a huge amount of crime out here there were plenty of officers available to deal with the situation. It was kind of a startling discovery, but all is well.
Last Tuesday in devotional Elder Nelson came to speak to us- it was another amazing opportunity that we've been given up here. While he was here he announced that President Clark would be released as the President in April after graduation and that Clark Gilbert had accepted the assignment as president of the university and would take over during the next semester.
This weekend I went to the Idaho Falls temple with 2 of my roommates, it was so beautiful. I'm glad that we went before they close it down for renovation next month!

First weekend craziness

Who knew the first 2 days up at school before school actually starts could be so downright ridiculous. When I got to school on Friday I discovered that some extremely kind person had turned off all the heaters in my apartment. Keep in mind that the average temperature here this time of the year is well below freezing. So when I got here I turned all the heaters back on- and had to sleep at a friends place because 10 hours later it was still too cold to stay here. I also discovered that the toilets were useless because they were iced over and that when you turned on the showers nothing happened. When I came back this morning I was surprised to find mattresses and dressers and blankets and clothing and sheets and shoes filling the living room, kitchen, and bathroom sinks (weird, right?) As I walked back the hallway carpet was torn up and there was a guy talking on a phone looking concerned. Correctly assuming he was a maintenance worker I listened to his conversation to figure out what was going on. In the middle of the night water had started pouring into the apartment below us and they had gone and pounded on the manager's door. The bedroom behind the showers was full of a few inches of water- and that bedroom is where two of my roommates who had to salvage stuff from the flood this spring live. Apparently one of the pipes had broken and by turning on the heaters I melted all the ice and filled their room up with water. So currently the carpet in their room has been ripped out and is attempting to dry- they tried to dry it by hanging it over the balcony but it just froze solid cause it was a whole 14 degrees. And most recently the power in the back 2 bedrooms has gone out for some bizarre reason and flipping the breakers didn't help so we're kind of at a loss. I hope this is the end of the drama for the semester!

Thanksgiving Week

This week was a lot of fun. I missed my family, but I had a good time nonetheless and I wasn't near as homesick as I generally am during Thanksgiving and everyone else is off with their families and I'm, well, not. I had planned to get some homework done this week, haha yeah no. That so didn't happen, I took a quiz but that was about it.
Anyways I went to Utah with Allie and stayed at her Aunt and Uncle's house. On the way there we stayed the night in Hyrum in a church that has been turned into a church- which was super neat. The six of us (we traveled in a group of 6) stayed the night in the basement, and we were so lucky they had a ton of blankets to offer us! The heater for that area had gone out that afternoon, and for those of you who don't know- daytime in Idaho or Utah right now is pretty cold, but nighttime is awful! Especially since moving around keeps you warmer. We stayed in the basement at the house we stayed at the rest of the week, but we had a fire and a space heater which kept it fairly warm down there.
So we left Tuesday night and got to our destination Wednesday afternoon.
On Thursday we went out for lunch with Allie's aunt, uncle, brother, and grandpa at a really nice restaurant, called Elements, where we were served pre-plated Thanksgiving dinners (mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, beans, stuffing, and turkey). In the evening I skyped my family (as tradition requires) until their phone battery died. And I honestly think we spent the rest of the evening watching movies and reading.
On Friday, Allie and I took the train into Salt Lake- with the intention of going Black Friday shopping (don't worry, we had specific things we were searching for) but we ended up starting at Temple Square, and spent a long time there. Even in the winter, it's so beautiful. Someone told us that around sunset they'd be lighting the lights for the first time (well for this year) and we could come back and see it if we wanted. We ended up at City Creek next, which is where we had lunch, I got lasagna and it was wonderful :). We wandered the stores and then walked to Gateway- where we got lost in Barnes and Noble for a long time, I managed to limit myself to one book, which I've been wanting, and a journal which I do need a new one- plus it's super cool! We finally escaped the grasp of the bookstore and happened to wander into a little candy shop- yeah I know... By the time we finished there the sun was setting so we walked back to temple square to see all the Christmas lights. They were amazing. We sat down on a random concrete thing and were looking at the train schedule to figure out where and when we should meet a train. As we were sitting there Elder L. Tom Perry walked past us and with a smile asked, "You girls tired already?" We responded that we were starting to feel tired since we'd been walking all day , and with a smile he continued on to the large nativity set with his wife. Definitely one of the neatest moments from this semester.
Saturday was our actual celebration of Thanksgiving. Allie's cousins and their families came over and we had a traditional, large meal. It was nice to sit down to an actual meal with people- that hasn't happened in my world in a while, one of the things that happens when you're in college, the closest thing I've gotten to that is taking a quick break from homework to eat something.
Now it's Sunday evening, I'm actually sitting in the car listening to the album Lead Thou Me On by Vocal Point (my favorite) typing this, and we're headed back to school. I'm so not looking forward to finals here in a few weeks.

Friday and Saturday remind me that I have a social life

On Friday I was over with Lydia and Thomas and we were making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Lydia didn't have any eggs so Thomas ran across the street to get some from his own place- when he walked in the door he just said, "Catch!" and all the sudden there was a broken egg in my hands. I don't know how I managed to catch it, but it was awesome! Then I left with Allie and Laurel and we went to Cocoa Bean- so good! It was fun to hang out with both of them, we don't often get the 3 of us together anymore. Laurel left for a date and Allie and I headed off to the cheap theater to see The Giver. They did a good job on it- that was one of my favorite books growing up and I still love it, along with True Sight, which is a similar storyline. How do I always get off track? It's distracting. But I felt like they did a good job following the book. Guys! Mocking Jay part one comes out in 12 days! I think Allie and I are going to see it over Thanksgiving break :)
Last night Allie and I watched The Count of Monte Cristo- which one of the TV shows we both watch is apparently based on, it was great to sit and make all of the connections between the two. When it ended we sat and watched the season 3 finale of Revenge, just because we could. I had to run home to make it back before curfew- but it was worth it. Even if I had to deal with the unpleasant reminder that I can't run outside when it's below freezing because my lungs forget how to function properly.
Sorry, I don't have a lot to say- just done a ton of homework and than played on Friday and Saturday :)