Blessed Beyond Measure: Friend Edition

One of the service prompts for the Light the World initiative this year was to post on social media about an influential friend or friends. I'm not on social media very often, but it occurred to me recently that I could post here!

I wouldn't be able to pick just one friend to highlight. I am blessed to have many good friends, several of whom I've known since childhood. I intend to name a few (and hopefully I can keep it to just a few, or this post would go on forever!). :)

I'm grateful for Kiera, who's been one of my best friends since kindergarten. She was and continues to be a powerful spiritual influence on my life -- in addition to being a whole lot of fun! Kiera's example and observations were so influential in helping me start to recognize the voice of the Spirit. I'm grateful for her spiritual sensitivity and also for her bottomless well of forgiveness in the times I wasn't the greatest friend.

I'm grateful for Summer, who became a good friend the first year Kiera and I weren't in the same school class. We became a trio, and I so appreciate her kindness and love.

I'm grateful for Sara, K.T., and Mikayla, who are still some of my best friends! Elementary school wouldn't have been the same without them. I love their creativity, kindness, and genuine goodness. All three of them are the kind of people who just want to do the right thing, and the world is better for it.

I'm grateful for Andrea, Ana, Ashley, Lauren, Mandy, Bree, Jenny, Belle, Aubrey, Joe, Ryan, Connor, and all my other high school friends! We may not be in contact as often as we used to be, but they truly made my high school years happy ones, and I'm better for it. I'm also grateful for Kiera's sister Whitney, who I became much closer to during and after high school (once I started growing out of the "I'm older than you so we can't hang out" phase).

Thank goodness for Jill, Mara, Holly, Lynette, Kelly, Sketti, Ary, and Katelyn. Again, we're not in contact as often as we used to be, but they were the best roommates I could have asked for!

Jennifer deserves her own paragraph. Before Jennifer moved into our apartment, I was surviving on cereal, bagels, croutons, and rice. We bonded over food and Korean dramas and never looked back. To this day, she is my "best California friend"! One of the happiest days of my life was attending her wedding to a great, worthy man. She is such a caring, intelligent, thoughtful person and I'm blessed to know her.

I also have many friends whom I met outside of school. Mission friends, the Draper family in California, Francie, Provo Temple baptistry friends and the Yarwood family in Utah are some examples. I connected with the Drapers through music. I connected with Michelle through food and Primary teaching. I love both their families so much.

There are many other people who have touched my life, and I hope to make many more friends as the journey continues. Friends help make life grand. Especially when you're as lucky in your friendships as I am. I wish everyone could have even just one true friend.

New year, new semester, new start

Everything feels new today: it's the big 2013 (meaning the world didn't end last month), a new start, and my last semester of school. Graduation with my bachelor's degree in journalism looms on the horizon, just four months away. Crazy, right?

I also got a new phone and an almost new alto saxophone this morning while running errands with my mom! I feel like I've accomplished a lot today already, and I am so excited to get home after work and play my sax!!! I'm far more excited about the saxophone than I am about the phone, although it's a pretty spiffy phone.

I love the beginning of each new year because it's easy to think of it as a fresh start. A clean slate. Opportunities and tragedies may both be in store, and I'm excited to see where life takes me.

We have yet to replace Ary in the apartment. Hopefully Ary will be able to sell her contract soon, because it's zero fun to have to pay rent to a place you don't live in anymore. On the upside, Sketti, Jennifer and I talked to her on Sunday, and she's doing great in Germany! She'll be working there for a year, which means I probably won't see her for three-ish years (after my mission).

Speaking of my mission, I'm almost ready to turn in my application to be a full-time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sister missionaries in our church typically serve wherever they're called for 18 months (the men are typically out for 24 months). My brother Graig will probably leave on his own mission about the same time I do.

Getting into the Christmas spirit

 Katelyn wrapped our door. Ary added the "To: You From: Santa" sign. Get it? :)

 Four of the chemistry professors sang Christmas songs between classes in the Benson Building.

 Sara and Ary conspired together to leave everyone "Saint Nick" presents.

Service from roommates

 I took these first two pictures the same day it snowed. I came home to find Sara had stacked everything from our kitchen in the living room so she could strip and wax the floor single-handedly! She is wonderful. :)

Later on this same night, the power went out for several hours. We celebrated by playing games and watching movies by flashlight.

Ary, Sketti, Sara and Jennifer gave me these flowers when I came home from my University Chorale concert they couldn't attend. They gave Katelyn some too. I super appreciate their thoughtfulness. The flowers are now in a makeshift vase on the table.

One thing I can bake is biscuits/Jennifer gives me curls/TeddyPuppy reads

Katelyn, me, Ary

Ary raps about world peace- raw version

CREDITS
Videographer: Katelyn
Rapper: Ary
Singing the beginning of the Circle of Life: Sketti and I

Wonderful roommates... and "the new Party Rock" song

I sit here in a familiar living room- the same apartment as the one I stayed in last year- but three of the faces here were unknown until Jen and I returned from our trip to Cali the evening before classes started.

Their names: Sketti, Katelyn and Ary.

Sketti is very athletic. She's taking a lot of student activity classes this semester, is on the BYU women's rugby team and co-chairs the sports committee for our LDS ward. She's super fun and always game to fill needs around our apartment as she sees them. (She's especially diligent about loading the dishwasher. So far, I think it's almost always been her who's started it when it gets full.)

Katelyn is very kind. So far this semester, she and Sketti (they're buddies who met in Helaman Halls last year- kinda like how Jen and I are buddies who met in January of this year) have made us cookies and a couple signs with compliments for each roommate that they put up in the kitchen and on our bedroom doors. She helped me study for a jazz quiz and is tutoring Sketti in physical science. She was called to be our family home evening group "mom" and takes it very seriously. In terms of personality, she and I are pretty much as opposite as you can get: she's boy crazy, loves dressing up, doing hair and painting fingernails. Jen and I have gotten her to like City Hunter, so that's good. I'm excited for her. :)

Ary was the odd one out. The one who moved in without knowing ANYONE beforehand. Basically, she. Is. Awesome! Sara is her roommate, which I think she enjoys very much. Ary is majoring in German teaching, and since Sara loves German, they had some common ground to build on. Ary is not a shy person. She's the type that draws in everyone around her, with her wide smile and inclusive attitude. The-life-of-the-party sort of person. She's also a killer dancer.

This post is about how lucky I got with roommates this semester. Again!

These were waiting on the kitchen table when I woke up this morning. The note isn't signed, but I suspect Katelyn was behind this wonderful surprise. (I should add that we all agreed if we leave something on the table, that means it's fair game for anyone to eat.) The note says:

"My Dearest Roomies, I just wanted to tell you guys how much I love and appreciate you. It has been so great getting to know you guys over the last month. All of you are so incredibly talented and I have already learned so much from you! You guys are definitely very blessed individuals and are such strong examples of Christ and His gospel. You all astound every day with all the things you guys can pull off on a daily basis. I hope you guys understand how wonderful you are and please never forget it! You guys have shown me what it means to truly be considerate, how to really love your neighbor, how to laugh your way through life (I suspect this one may be directly inspired by me), that you can have a life and still do well in school, the importance of having a personal testimony and a firm faith in Christ, and how to be such a great example of service and pure unique talent. I really want each of you to know how much I really love you and how much I care about you! Please know how much I want to help you in any way possible and that I will be there for you no matter what! I hope that you have such a super fantastic day and that everything goes well for you. You really are talented and amazing! With love."

Yup, it has Katelyn written all over it. She's great. :)

Jennifer drew this picture to depict an idiotic YouTube video that went viral in about two days- it set a record for shortest time a YouTube video has scored a million views. It's a Korean pop song called "Gangnam Style" (pronounced gahng-nahm). I first saw it last Friday at my Book Club meeting, where I heard it described as "the new Party Rock" (you know it, the song that goes "everyday I'm shufflin', shufflin', shufflin'") because of how fast it became popular. It features a Korean man, probably in his thirties, dancing hilariously in a bunch of random places. If you look it up, be warned- there's a fair bit of suggestive dancing mixed in with the silliness.

Anyway, Jen only had to show Ary the video once for Ary to get the guy's moves down pat. I told you she's a killer dancer.