Favorite Songs from Favorite Artists

I can't sleep and I felt like I should keep a record of my favorite songs from my favorite artists as of 2013.

• M83
• Midnight City - I love exercising to this song
• Reunion
• Wait

• Emily Greene
• Oceans and Waves
• Just Fine
• Starting Fresh

• The Weepies
• Gotta Have You
• Please Speak Well of Me
• When You Go Away
• World Spins Madly On

• The Temper Trap
• Dreams
• I'm Gonna Wait - The first time I heard this song, I laughed. This is the perfect theme song for people who have significant others serving a mission. For a bit, I thought this was a pretty corny song. I listened to this song enough though that it grew on me. I now consider it as one of my favorite songs from them.
• Fader
• Need Your Love
• Love Lost
• Sweet Disposition

• Florence + The Machine
• Cosmic Love
• You've Got the Love
• Dog Days Are Over

• Lifehouse
• Blind
• Halfway Gone
• Everything
• Into the Sun

• Owl City
• The Saltwater Room
• Air Traffic
• The Bird and the Worm
• Walk The Moon
• Tightrope - Another awesome song to exercise to
• Quesadilla
• Anna Sun
• ...so I bought the album not realizing that like half the songs were sketchy ;-p 
• Imagine Dragons
• On Top of the World
• It's Time

• Coldplay
• Lovers in Japan
• The Scientist
• Warning Sign
• Strawberry Swings
• Us Against the World
• Life in Technicolor II
• ...I just love a bunch of their songs...
• OneRepublic
• Secrets
• Stop and Stare
• Say (All I Need)
• The Killers
• Change Your Mind
• Read My Mind
• When You Were Young
• Only The Young (well, when it's just Brandon Flowers)
• All These Things That I've Done
• ...actually, I could just list all of their well-known songs as my favorite songs...
• Yellowcard
• One Year, Six Months
• Dear Bobbie
• Shadows and Regrets
• Ocean Avenue
• ...pretty much all of the Ocean Avenue album...

3rd to the Last Friday of School

Here's some great things that happened today:

 There was a cardboard box fortress in front of the WILK.

As Cassie and I were walking to the temple, a school bus was passing and a kid yelled to us, "GO MISSIONARIES!" It made me so happy that I looked like a missionary.

Me: "Dang you got dinner already! I was gonna ask if you guys all wanted to have dinner today."
Sarah: "Don't worry! I will have dinner with you in my mind...That would be great to tell a guy if you can't go on a date with him."

Bought my plane ticket for April 23 to Hawaii. Made my appointment to be endowed on April 25 in the Laie Hawaii Temple. (I can't believe I'm finally going to go through the Laie Hawaii Temple! I remember telling myself when I was like 4-years-old, "One day I am going to go inside this temple." MY DREAM OF GOING INTO THE LAIE HAWAII TEMPLE IS COMING TRUE!!!)

...this was just a little journal entry...

People are awesome! Rant Part II

It's amazing how fulfilling it is to talk to people. I tutored at the ELC this past night. I tutored a woman from Chile. Actually, we mostly just had a conversation for an hour and half. She also brought along her son. I really enjoyed talking to her and her son. We talked about things from mudslides to goths. Her son went off talking about Lego Star Wars. It was fun talking about things people don't typically talk about...or at least what BYU college students talk about.

This experience made me super excited for the mission. If I will feel this fulfilled merely by talking to random people...heck send me out to the mission field right now!

My Biggest Regret Being at BYU

My biggest regret at BYU is making myself too busy for people. The reason I felt so crappy my sophomore year of college was that I tried pushing myself by taking the hardest classes that I could. I devoted all of my time to school that I never gave myself time for others. President Uchtdorf says how I feel so eloquently below. This is a passage from his talk "Of Regrets and Resolutions" from this past General Conference:

"Men in particular sang this universal lament: they “deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the [daily] treadmill of … work.” Many had lost out on choice memories that come from spending time with family and friends. They missed developing a deep connection with those who meant the most to them.

Isn’t it true that we often get so busy? And, sad to say, we even wear our busyness as a badge of honor, as though being busy, by itself, was an accomplishment or sign of a superior life.

Is it?

I think of our Lord and Exemplar, Jesus Christ, and His short life among the people of Galilee and Jerusalem. I have tried to imagine Him bustling between meetings or multitasking to get a list of urgent things accomplished.

I can’t see it.

Instead I see the compassionate and caring Son of God purposefully living each day. When He interacted with those around Him, they felt important and loved. He knew the infinite value of the people He met. He blessed them, ministered to them. He lifted them up, healed them. He gave them the precious gift of His time."

For me, this is probably the biggest deal breaker for a future spouse. I cannot marry a guy who does not have his priorities straight. I cannot marry a guy who always sacrifices spending time with others for work or school. As important as work and school are, people trump work and school. 

I had to learn this the hard way. For me, I did not learn this lesson until I had to say goodbye.

Called to Serve in the Australia Bisbane Mission Mandarin Speaking

The first time I heard someone get called to Australia Mandarin speaking was my freshman year at BYU in my Book of Mormon class. When the guy in my class made the announcement, I thought, "that's like the sweetest mission ever." I was really envious of that guy. That was like my dream mission for a bit.

And dreams really do come true. I can't believe I'm actually going to Australia...Mandarin speaking too.

It's not until after I got my call that I realized how ignorant I am of Australia. I automatically thought the capital of Australia was Sydney, just because everyone talks about Sydney. The capital is really Canberra. I also did not know that Australia was divided up into states. As an International Relations major I should know this stuff. My first excuse is that we have never discussed Australia in any of my classes (even in my high school classes). My second excuse is that I have always considered Australia an insignificant country (until now). If Australia were to never exist, I feel like not much would change in world history. Hopefully my opinion on Australia will change after the mission.

So here's the 411 on my mission.

My mission covers the whole state of Queensland and a tiny bit of New South Wales.

Brisbane is the capital of Queensland. I'll probably be hanging out here most of the time because there's a Chinatown here.

Brisbane even has a temple. :)

more info to come

New Jerusalem Center Hosting Video!

It's a new and improved hosting video for the Jerusalem Center! I swear the other hosting video was made in the 80's. It was super outdated. This hosting video is pretty sweet. This new video shows the teachers and leaders that I got to know over this past spring/summer terms. It also shows a couple of my classmates. Also in one scenes, you can see the side of my face!!! The part where the female is teaching Hebrew, on the right side of the screen you can see the side of my face between the back of two peoples' heads.

Anyways, I think everyone who has the chance to attend the Jerusalem Center should go. Greatest experience of my life. Here's some inspiration:
http://ce.byu.edu/jc/video.php

Mission Assignment...MADE!!!

Just to clarify, I will not know when and where I am going until next week. The Bishop just texted me at 2:13 p.m. that my assignment was made down in the Salt Lake City headquarters.

I had a pretty serendipitous day leading up to my mission assignment.

My desire to serve a mission has been wavering throughout the semester. Some days, I would be like, "Just send me my call already so I can spend 18 months of my life doing something productive!" Other days, I would be like, "Please Lord, just tell the Apostles that I'll be such a crappy missionary that they shouldn't bother sending me!" Today, I was thinking the the latter scenario, even though I knew that the Apostles may be looking at my mission papers right at that moment.

I needed consolation. I texted my roommate after class to see if she was still on campus so I could tell her about my dilemma. She texted back saying that she was back at the apartment. I didn't want to be cooped up in the apartment while it was 60 degrees outside, so I decided to stay on campus a little longer and eat lunch at the JFSB courtyard. I sat there for 40 minutes by myself figuring everything out. I didn't get much progress with my dilemma within that 40 minutes. But, I did get the prompting that I should go running to the Provo Temple. I decided that I'll go running at 1 p.m., so I left for my apartment at 12:40 p.m. (it takes about 20 minutes to walk from there back to my apartment). I had a feeling that I should go through the back of the JFSB instead of around it to get back home. Lo and behold, right when I exit the JFSB, I run into the roommate I wanted to talk to. It's a good thing I ran into her at that time. She's leaving for New York for Model UN tomorrow morning. I won't see her until next week. We talked for 20 minutes. I felt so much more comforted. Something she said that really stuck out to me was, "Once you get your mission call, you'll know what to do."

I still went running to the Provo Temple from my apartment. I sat against a tree facing the temple. I sat there for like 30 minutes. I'm the type of person who considers sitting, pondering life for hours as entertainment. A couple things came to mind while I was up there. One was that I should buy my plane ticket to Hawaii for April 23. Another was the scripture Matthew 6:20-21. As simple as this scripture is, it helped me resolve my dilemma. I left the temple grounds at 2:00 p.m. Right when I was going to start running, my brother called. I must say, he was inspired to call at that time. He was speculating for like 10 minutes on where I was going to get called on my mission until I got a text. I didn't check who the text was from. He told me to call him back once I found out if they made my mission assignment. By that time I decided to check the text that I got a couple of minutes ago. It said: "Assignment made. Bishop." I told him that I didn't need to call him back because the assignment was made.

I felt like everything that happened beforehand put me in the right perspective to receive the news of my mission call. I'm super stoked for my mission call now!

Lessons Learned - Winter Semester

What I have learned so far this past semester:

- Do not try to put your hair up when coming out of your closet (I pretty much killed my funny bone).
- The BYU Subway does not take gift cards. (I waited in line for like 45 minutes)
- Do not take naps while you have your contacts in.
- Do not take tests when in a cranky, "I don't care" mood. You are going to do bad on tests if you do.
- If you want to do serious studying, do not go to the Wilkinson Center.
- Do not procrastinate anything that is important (e.g. Mission Papers).
- Buy plane tickets from the BYU Travel Agency, especially if you want a cheap ticket to Hawaii.
- Instead of telling people you're going on a mission, just tell them you might go on a mission. That way, a million people won't ask, "so where are you going?"
- Do not go running outside when the air pollution is bad. I could not stop coughing for two hours.
- Communicate with group members (haha Chinese class...)
- Learn the material through the homework instead of learning it right before the test.
- Bring a phone charger to school.
- Write down all of the dumb stuff your roommates say. It makes me sad that I forgot a lot of what they said.

Goodbye Winter Semester

As much as I love the weather warming up in Provo, I know what this implies. The transition to warm weather marks the Winter semester wrapping up. I find it amazing how some people cannot wait until the Winter semester is finally over. All it means to me is that I have to say goodbye to everyone that I met this past school year. At the end of every Winter semester at BYU, I have been an emotional wreck. Saying goodbye to people near and dear to me is pretty rough, even though I knew that we would be away from each other for only 4 months.

I know that this is going to be the hardest Winter semester by far. I will not be seeing anyone again for about 2 years. The feeling finally kicked in today. I was surprised at how much it bothered me. I started feeling physically sick as the thought crossed my mind.

Well, all I can say now is...YOLO!!!

...and still waiting...

I totally thought I would be getting my mission call by this week, but that's not happening. I was freaking out this past Friday because my bishop told my roommate that her assignment was made, but he didn't tell me the status of mine. We both turned in our papers at the same time too. I texted the bishop asking what's up. He told me that my papers are "ready for assignment." I was speculating all weekend long why my assignment was not made. I had quite the imagination this past weekend.

My bishop approached me about the matter before Relief Society. He told me the reason why they did not make the assignment is because my papers were not approved until the day before the assignments were to be made. My papers did not make it in time to reach the Twelve. I don't know why it took them a while to approve me. If it's for medical issues, the only issue that I have is that I am underweight. Seriously, being underweight does not mean I'm unhealthy. Even my bishop laughed at the idea of my mission papers being postponed because I'm underweight. At least I got approved.

Estimated time of arrival: March 20-22 :)

A Bipolar Moment

I had a major bipolar moment this past Thursday. One hour I was crying tears of anger, the next hour I was crying tears of joy (literally).

I decided to take my Chinese midterm right before my stake president interview for the mission (not a very smart idea). Out of all the places I chose to sit in the testing center, I sat right over the air conditioning vent. The testing center is cold enough just sitting around hundreds of other people. What made matters worse was that I was wearing a dress. So I was pretty much all exposed to the cold air. I was on edge by this point.

Only a couple of minutes into the test, I completely lost it. I noticed that we did not learn like half of the vocabulary, so I skimmed over the rest of the test to see what else was new (that we've never learned). I did not recognize the rest of the material on the test. I got upset. Really upset. I usually do a good job at controlling my emotions, but I totally broke down. I cried during half of this test. I sound like such a brat for crying over a test, but it was the most frustrating test I have ever taken.

I knew I couldn't see my Stake President. I'm pretty sure I drove the Spirit away completely. I was about to reschedule my interview. I had half an hour until my interview though, so I attempted to do some major praying and repenting before this interview. By the time the interview came around, I felt like I could go through with it. I was still on edge when I reached the Stake President's office. Talking to the secretary and a girl from my ward for a half an hour helped me feel at ease. Now that I think about it, these people were an answer to my prayers.

Finally at 7:20 p.m., I was able to get my interview with the stake president. During the whole interview, I was super excited. I could tell that my stake president was inspired by God. I was shocked at some of the questions he asked and comments he made. He addressed most of my concerns and desires about serving a mission. I was surprised how much I was spiritually filled during that interview. I started crying, once again, as I walked back to my apartment.

 And that was my bipolar day. I really did not know how to control my emotions that day.

Greatest T-Swift Song Ever

"State of Grace" from Taylor Swift's latest album is the greatest song I have heard from Taylor Swift. I swear I have been listening to this song at least 10 times a day since I first heard it in December. I feel like this song embodies the whole BYU experience (for most people). Here's the lyrics to this song because it is so great:

I'm walking fast through the traffic lights
Busy streets and busy lives
And all we know, is touch and go
We are alone with our changing minds
We fall in love 'til it hurts or bleeds or fades in time

And I never (never) saw you coming
And I'll never (ever) be the same

You come around and the armor falls
Pierce the room like a cannon ball
Now all we know is don't let go
We are alone, just you and me
Up in your room and our slates are clean
Just twin fire signs, four blue eyes

So you were never a saint
And I’ve loved in shades of wrong
We learn to live with the pain
Mosaic broken hearts
But this love is brave and wild

And I never (never) saw you coming
And I'll never (ever) be the same

This is a state of grace
This is the worthwhile fight
Love is a ruthless game
Unless you play it good and right
These are the hands of fate
You're my Achilles heel
This is the golden age of something good and right and real

And I never (never) saw you coming
And I'll never (ever) be the same
And I never (never) saw you coming
And I'll never (ever) be the same

This is a state of grace
This is the worthwhile fight
Love is a ruthless game
Unless you play it good and right