I Have to Give a Talk Tomorrow!

I have to speak tomorrow at church. I'm a bit nervous. But I hope and pray that it will go all right. My topic is Mosiah 4:6-7 and how we can come to better understand the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
I'll let you all know how it goes. I might even give you a synopsis of it on here tomorrow after I give it. Please pray for me. That's all.

Flashback Friday- I Miss Jerusalem!

All of these pictures were taken on my last day in the Holy Land! Look at the sky! Isn't it amazing!? These pictures don't really do it justice, but they give you a good idea! This is part of an entry from my journal from my last day there:

Thursday, December 20, 2007
I love the clouds here in the Holy Land, the sky in general is pretty amazing! I really think the sky here is so much more beautiful than in America. I'm not kidding. The clouds, the colors, the way the sun shines through the clouds. It is all so beautiful! Today is our last day in the Holy Land. It rained earlier today. It is chilly and cloudy right now, but I feel a warmth in my heart. I am so grateful for the time I've had here in the Holy Land, in Egypt, and in Jordan.

I like to think it rained today because the city is crying because we are leaving. And now the sky is orange, dark blue, light blue, and golden yellow because God is painting a masterpiece for us before we leave. He wants us to remember the city in this way, in all its beauty and majesty. I am so grateful for God's beautiful creations. I am so grateful for this magnificently beautiful last day in the Holy Land.













We went to the Old City for one final tour! This is Shaaban. He's a souvenir shop owner in the Old City who loves and caters to the students from the Jerusalem Center!


The Western or wailing wall!

A view of Jerusalem! To be continued...

My Nativity Project!

Here's my cool nativity project! I know I've told most of you about this project, but I don't know if some of you have seen it. So here it is! I've really enjoyed working on it. I've made two nativities so far and plan on doing some more.
The project came from Lara's relief society meeting. There was a lady in her ward who had step-by-step directions of the project and decided to share it. I'm glad she did. I enjoy working on it although I can only do so much at a time.

Davin is So Cute!

It's been exactly a month since I posted on here. Church was cancelled again today because of the stupid, stupid snow. That's the second week in a row that my ward has been cancelled. Lara and Glen's ward was not cancelled last week, so I went with them. But we had sacrament meeting today in the house and it was lovely!

I work forty hours this week and I'm not very excited about that. Valentine's Day is a week from today and that's why I have so many hours at work.

Here's a cute picture of Davin and me. (Davin's the cute part of the picture:) He has a little smile on his face. He's so cute!

U.S. Botanical Gardens = Beautifulness!

Yesterday I had off of work and I really wanted to do something fun. At first I was going to walk to the library which is about a 3 mile walk one-way. That would have been fun except the sidewalks to the library had mountains (literally) of snow on them and I really did not want to walk on the busy road.

Since that didn't work out, I walked toward the metro and went to downtown D.C. instead! It was cold and windy but it was fun! I wandered through the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden. I really liked it and it amazed me how a person can make something so beautiful out of a piece(s) of metal! The time and effort and thought that must have gone into making the sculptures is awesome!

After the sculpture garden I went to the US Botanical Gardens. I loved them! Actually I think my favorite part of it was the desert room and the cool Christmas displays they had up! I loved looking at the different cacti. I especially liked the Old Man cactus and the barrel cactus! I love nature! Being in nature has always been a way for me to feel peace. These gardens are beautiful and I highly recommend visiting them if you get a chance.

The Barrel Cactus! Thanks to Wikipedia for these pictures on my post!

Unfortunately since I did not plan on going downtown when I left the house, I did not bring my camera with me. I have a few pictures from my phone, but I have no idea how to transfer them from the phone to the computer. (If anyone has any idea how to, please let me know.) But if you want to see some pictures from the gardens when Lara and Glen and family went you can look at their blog.

Old Man Cactus! I touched the cactus and the hair is soft!

My First Broken Bone!

OUCH!

SNOW!

Recently I have not liked the snow. I think I've lived too many places where it was cold and snowy in the winter (Minnesota, Russia, Idaho, Utah, and Ukraine). I came to Virginia with the idea in my head that it rarely snowed and when it did it only lasted a day or at the most a week and it happened in January or February. I did not prep myself for the snow we've had in the past couple of weeks. A couple of weeks ago it snowed about 4 or 5 inches and and it stayed for a few days because it was so cold. I was not happy about that.

Then Friday night it started snowing and it snowed all day Saturday. In the final tally we got a whopping 20 inches of snow, which is a lot for Virginia. At first I was not very happy about it then I decided I should play in the snow. It ended up being a lot of fun! I went sledding and made a snow angel and attempted to make snow balls and walked through the deep snow! It was fun! Snow is beautiful even if it is cold and slippery. It makes the world look so bright and clean! And we will have a white Christmas! YAY!