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.

Mission farewell PARTY!

 

Jennifer will keep TeddyPuppy for me until I get back. I didn't want to take him with me to El Salvador. I thought about it- he is a nice little piece of home- but concluded it would be a childish thing to do. Missionaries are supposed to rely on the Lord, not stuffed animals from their childhoods. And besides... he could get lost.

Lots of people came in support of Graig and I: family, friends and neighbors. We were happy to see them all!

 Anderson relatives group shot

 Graig and I with our Grandma and Grandpa Anderson

 Henrie relatives group shot

 My friend Zach returned from an LDS mission in Paraguay just in time to tell me goodbye

 Friends who came to the Sunday brunch at our house:(back row) Joseph, Jennifer, Mary, Jill, Mara, Josh, Amanda, (front row) Sara, Ashley and me!

 Literally supported by my aunts and cousins :)

 Graig and I with Sister and Brother Southard- best home teachers in the Church!

 I will miss my friend Jill a lot. She's a great strength to me. We'll write each other, though!

 More friends: Tyler, Katelyn, me, Carron

I'll miss Katelyn lots, too.

 I love this family! We've been neighbors for close to 20 years- pretty much my whole life. Graig and I grew up with their kids. Tina (in the pink) was also our preschool teacher.

 Great family friends, the Browns

 Representatives from more family friends, the Caprios

 Jennifer is such a good friend that she's practically been adopted into my family. :)

 Whitney wasn't able to see our farewell talks, but she came Monday night especially to say goodbye. I've also known her for most of my life.

 

Somebody must have told me a joke! 

My mom's friend Sarah Brown is a freelance graphic designer. She designed these business cards for Graig and I. Lots of people exclaimed about how cute they were, so I thought I'd include her information here. Her email address is sarahbrowndesigns (at) gmail.com; just send her an email for quotes and design samples. She's designed logos and shirts among other things, and as you can see, she's good at what she does.

La galleta más grande del mundo

Jennifer and I made awesome cookies today. They were awesome because a) they had crushed Heath bar bits and dark chocolate chips, b) they were yummy and c) there were a lot of them (about four dozen which, yes, we shared). With Jill, Mara, Sara, Chance and Liz (the latter two were over para hablar español conmigo). :)

Jennifer mixing awesome cookie dough

After baking four dozen medium-sized cookies, we used the last of the dough to make la galleta más grande del mundo! Note it's bigger than my head.

A diorama of the Earth and Moon

Dream 10-5-11

In the dream, I was an astronaut.

Mara, Sara, Jill and I were the crew on a new line of spacecraft. NASA had a fancy, official-sounding name for it. We just called it "Marshmallow."

The unique thing about our ship was the giant sail made entirely of marshmallows (the big kind). It worked just like the sail on a boat- don't ask me where the wind came from once we were out in space. Dreams don't have to make sense.

The maiden voyage of the Marshmallow went like a charm. Mara, Sara, Jill and I got to go to the moon and play Frisbee in its lessened gravity for a few hours. When we re-entered the atmosphere, however, our already-singed sail just burned up completely. We managed to land the ship in a field somewhere in Russia, but in order to get it back home to the States we had to go out and buy more marshmallows, go back into space, and return to the right place the second time. (Russian marshmallows must be tougher.)

In the middle of the dream, I dreamed (or did I?) I woke up because Mara was saying something about marshmallows in her sleep and I was all excited- "Are we having the same dream?" "...the moon..." "Maybe you're having the same dream, but from your perspective!" (I asked her about it the next morning and she told me I was crazy.)

Later that day, I drew roughly what our ship looked like in my head.

A closer look at the marshmallow spaceship...

Timp hike

Sara invited Mara and I to hike Mount Timpanagos with her family yesterday. We spent Friday night at the Djurich house so we could all get up at a whopping 3:30 a.m. (so we weren't hiking in the hot part of the day).

Sara read us a bedtime story, "Where is My Cow?" by Terry Pratchett

(This is Rachel's room, where Mara and I slept. We were excited and very entertained by the wide expanse of glow-in-the-dark stars covering the ceiling. Also she has a super comfortable bed. "We pretty much died in that bed," as Mara said.)

Sara on the trail at 5 a.m.

Mary and her friend Savannah- 5 a.m.

Mara. 5 a.m. I had to take a picture of this.

Sunrise from the mountain

Sunup

Hiking- Mr. Djurich, David, Mara, Mary

One of the many waterfalls :)

Pretending to eat moss at Emerald Lake (Sara)

Emerald Lake

Mara, Mary, Sara, David, Savannah

Mara

Small waterfalls (to the side of a big one, which is not pictured)

Everyone was pretty tired on the way back down

Mary surveying the waterfall

Mara and I were super sore when we finally got back to the Djurich house. Everyone was tired. Mr. Djurich fed us fried chicken, which we devoured. Everyone showered and then Mara and I crashed while Sara and Mary veged playing Legend of Zelda. We woke up in time to go back to Provo with David, and Sara crashed while Mara and I did laundry and swam for a bit. (We needed the weightlessness to give our muscles a rest.)

After church today, we went and visited Jill at Wyview. She serenaded us on the guitar outside for a little while, and we talked a little bit. It was nice.