Week 10

Ohhhh what a week. Um, also. Can I say that I'm sick and tired of blogging? I'm sick and tired of blogging. But I'm going to stick with it!

Snack time during Sunday School featuring creepy Lauren in the background.

I FaceTimed Puerto Rican Spice when we were sitting next to each other! That was a dang good time. Shout out to you PR!!

Ummm do you remember how last week I had an allergic reaction last week? Well it came back on Tuesday. So I had to go to the Health Center to try to figure out what was wrong with me. But they didn't know. The doctor gave me some meds that are supposed to help with my immune system, but I'm a bit skeptical about those meds because it has been coming back off and on alllll week.

Sooooomeone brought home M&M's...we all know what that means. ;)

On Saturday I had a three hour cheer practice, and then me and my roommates drove to Idaho Falls to get Chick-fil-A and go to Target. (IT'S BEEN WAY TOO LONG!) I got a really cute swimsuit cover up from Target (Can I just say that Target has the cutest clothes on the planet? Yeahhh. They do.) I got it because I'm going to Montana for the 4th of July with some of my roommates and we're going boating! I'm so excited! But anyways, Idaho Falls was super fun. I wish we could have stayed longer, but I had a basketball game that I had to cheer at. 

I walked into my apartment after the basketball game and I found this: 

My roommates surprised me and put together a little girls night/sleepover! It was a real good time. We walked to get pizza and Krispy Kreme Donuts, then came back and just danced around and got real cray. Then we watched a scary movie. It was scary. 

This guy was cuhhhrackin me up in Sacrament Meeting today. He was totally passed out. And he literally almost fell off of his chair. Then he flinched during one of the other talks and all of his stuff fell off of his lap and made a huge sound. Hahaha. I don't know, you probs had to be there. #BYUIdahoSleeps 

Enjoy these little inspirational pictures:

 And here's my little inspirational thought of the week: 

Today for Sunday School we went to the Addiction Recovery Class. I know that sounds really sketch! At first, I thought it was dumb that they were making us go. But it was honestly the greatest thing ever. One of the members of the Bishopric taught the class. (Can I just say it was a dream listening to a non-student teach one of my church classes? Haha fo real though.) So the class started out with the teacher explaining how he thinks they should rename the class to *Character Weakness* Recovery Program. We all have those! There are 12 steps to recovery:

1. Honesty

2. Hope 

3. Trust in God

4. Truth

5. Confession 

6. Change of Heart

7. Humility 

8. Seeking Forgiveness

9. Restitution and Reconciliation

10. Daily Accountability

11. Personal Revelation

12. Service

We talked about Honesty, Hope and Trust in God today. 

Honesty: Pride and honesty cannot coexist. We are powerless without the Savior. We need Him every minute, every hour, and every day. If we think we can do it alone, we get to try.

Hope: We are blessed with the tender mercies of the Lord. 1 Nephi 1:20. "...the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty..." I was a little confused about this scripture at first, because of how it says that the Lord chooses who He blesses with tender mercies. But then I realized that if you choose Him, He will choose you. Super cool, right? Tender mercies are pretty amazing. If you want to read more about tender mercies, you should read or listen to this talk by David A. Bednar: The Tender Mercies of the Lord. "I testify that the tender mercies of the Lord are available to all of us and that the Redeemer of Israel is eager to bestow such gifts upon us."

Trust in God: Decide to turn your will and your life over to the care of God the Eternal Father and His Son Jesus Christ. He doesn't allow us to go through anything we can't handle. "...know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good...fear not what man can do for God shall be with you forever and ever." Doctrine & Covenants 122

Well, guys. It's been real. Bye. 

Week 9

I said last week was the shortest week of my life. Correction: this week was the shortest week of my life. This semester is going by crazy fast. 29 more days until SUMMER.

Pretty morning walks.

So funny story. One of the apartments in our complex is a handicap apartment and I guess that means that their smoke detector is really sensitive. So, the fire alarm has gone off FIVE times this week. It's like not even weird anymore. It's just super annoying. Especially when it goes off at 2:30 in the morning... yeah. That happened. But anyways, the fire alarm went off when game 6 (Heat/Spurs) had a minute left. Our friend brilliant friend Nolan was over and he had the idea to open up the blinds so we could watch the game from outside of our apartment. 

This was last night when it went off at 2:30. ^^^

This happened a number of times this week.

So here's my uniform, hot leggings and all.

I got beat up real bad at cheer on Thursday.

I love donuts. And Haley and Elyse! (And Nahiomi, Paige, & Netel)

Alright, now for the most eventful thing that happened this week! I went to the drive-in movie theater to see World War Z. During the middle of the movie I started getting really itchy but didn't really think much of it. Eventually I realized that it probably wasn't normal to be itching that much. I asked one of the people I was with if my face was red/splotchy at all, but it was super dark outside so we couldn't really see anything. Once I got home stripped down into shorts and a tank top, I freaked. Haha. I had hives all over me. I haven't had an allergic reaction like that in years. These pictures don't really do it any justice, but just know that I did not look pretty. Haha. Right when I got home and realized how bad it was, we called my FHE brothers over to give me a blessing. I was hoping that the blessing would be fast so I could hop into bed and try to forget this ever happened........Remember how I said our fire alarms go off all the freaking time? Well, right when the boys got here, it went off. What a joy. I was itching like no other and it was freezing outside and I was just real annoyed. Eventually, we were allowed to go back inside and they gave me a blessing. I'm so grateful for the Priesthood!

So yeah, it was an interesting week. I'm glad it's over. 

I was thinking, I've been learning so much since I've been at school here, so I thought I would include something important I have learned each week in my blog posts. I'll keep it short and sweet!

Repentance has been on my mind a lot recently. What I've learned this week (or at least have been reminded) is that once you have repented of what ever sin you've committed, it is gone. Gone forever. It didn't even happen. My old seminary teacher always gave us little quotes printed on sticky notes to put in our scriptures and I found one this morning: (It's a few years old, so sorry if you can't read a few of the words)

Just something to keep in mind.

Now here's some typography stuff I made this week:

Also, I found this quote today and I absolutely love it. I hope you do too.

“Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He can deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their soals, and pour out peace.”

Thanks for reading. Have a great week. :)

Love,

Lauren

Week 8

Well, that was the shortest week of my life. Hallelujah! 

Shout out to my amazing Daddy! It's really weird being away from home. Especially on days like today. Luckily I got to Skype with him today, so that helped a lot. He is so amazing and is such a great example to me. For sure the most hardworking and inspiring man I've ever met. I love you and miss you so much Daddy! <3

Here's week 8:

My week started out like this. Okay, a lot of my weeks start out like this. But like I said in my last blog post, I've been sick, so I was really not motivated to do anything at all.

This would be my math class. During the middle of class, my teacher said, "everybody stand on their chairs and repeat after me. NEVER DIVIDE BY ZERO." So, we did. 

It made me smile.

This is what I look like walking to class every single day because Rexburg is so freakinnnn windy.

I had to sit out at cheer practice on Tuesday because I was still feeling sick. Boooo.

Beautiful sunset! My deepest apologies to the people I was with who had to deal with me taking pictures of this beaut nonstop for a good half an hour. It was just so pretty, I couldn't help myself!

 Me and some friends made a fort. It was the most intense fort I've ever made. Do you see that yellow rope at the top? It went all the way out the door and was tied to a pole so that the blankets would stay up. We watched the movie Taken. I am so glad I didn't see that movie before I went to Paris! Man. One of the my friends that I watched it with is from Albania (the kidnappers in the movie are Albanian) so he was translating for us.

We cheered at our first game on Saturday! It was a lot of fun! I had done cheerleading in the past, but I did All-Star Cheer which is just competing. So this was the first time I had actually cheered for a team! Shout out to Netel and Elyse who were taking pictures and videos for me. :) *Don't ask about why we aren't wearing our uniforms.

To the G, to the O, yell GO! GO!

Me and one of the girls on my team, Alyssa, went to the "Party in the Hart" dance right after our game. We were getting a whole lot of weird looks because of the huge bows in our hair. I loved it.

Random picture of my British sweatshirt because I want to go back so bad.

I got this card (along with a $25 iTunes gift card!) in the mail from my mom. So sweet of her!

Represent.

Yay for wishes. :)

Deep.

Happy Rexburg Summer!

I love you all. :) Have a great day!

Love, 

Lauren

Week 7

T-Minus 44 days until SUMMER! This semester is going by crazy fast. There's a part of me that wants it to be over so I can see my friends and family and not have to worry about any schoolwork, but then there's a bigger part of me that freaks out when I realize I'm halfway done with my first semester of college. Where does the time go?! It feels like I just started. I have amazing teachers and am taking some awesome classes. I'm so blessed to be here! Well, here's what happened during my 7th week of college...

I'm way too sensitive, so when this little incident took place, I was crushed... After Devotional on Tuesday, I was standing in a circle talking to a group of friends. This random lady came up to me in the middle of my conversation and said, "you, come here," and continued on to say, "your skirt is too short for this campus." I was so upset. I'm still upset. Take a look at the length of my skirt:

Yeah. So that ruined my entire day. 

I got Kiwi Loco three times this week. Actually, maybe four...whoopsies.

Had a nice, casual conversation with this guy in Walmart.

Nahiomi and Elyse were getting some groceries in Walmart and this little 5 year old girl randomly came up to us and introduced herself and her little sister Sammy. It was the most precious thing ever. We played with them for a good 10 minutes.

I've been running with my cheer team every day and I've actually come to kind of, sort of enjoy it. It's a nice way to get my mind off of things.

We had a nice adventure with Nahiomi's car!

It's not even that weird to me anymore that I come home to my living room looking like this.

Sometimes I walk around campus at night and think about how blessed I am to go to school here.

Sometimes I walk around the library and take pictures instead of studying.

Friday was National Donut Day. 'nuff said.

I landed on my foot weird at cheer and so it was super swollen for a few days. It was my bad foot, too! No fun.

Here are some of my favorite edits from this week:

These are lyrics to one of new favorite songs. Go check out Echo by Jason Walker. He's amazing!

Throwback picture that cracks me up:

Annnnd to finish off the post, enjoy this picture of little Lowin.

Oh, I've been sick the past couple of days, so I haven't been able to do a whole lot. I missed Stake Conference today which I'm bummed about. But anyways, since I've been in bed a lot, I've been listening to a lot of music. If you have time, you should take a few minutes to listen to this song that MoTab sang in the October 2012 Conference. I'm obsessed.