There's no turning back

Soooo...
As many of you know I'm going on an 18month mission for my church in June. In preparation I had to fill out a lot of paper work, get a bunch of doctor's appointments, and interview with my Bishop and Stake President. Yesterday I had the interview with my Bishop, which went great. And, I also finished all of my portion of the paperwork, so I submitted it and now it's really REAL. This means the ball is officially rolling and i'll probably (hopefully) find out where they are sending me in a month or so.

It's really real. Crazy!

I'm sooo excited, though. Lately it seems as though each day is one day closer to me doing this. I am really looking forward to having the opportunity to serve the Lord. I think that although this experience will be extremely challenging in some aspects, it will ultimately help me to grow and lot. If there is one thing I've learned through this whole process it's that the Lord always knows what is best for us. Even when we have no idea how our lives will turn out, somehow He does. That is so comforting.

Yesterday I found out that the President of our church passed away. He was 97 years old. What an incredible man he was! I'm happy that he is now with his wife and that we had the privelege of being led by a truly inspired man. The song, "We Thank Thee, O God For a Prophet" seems to have even more significance now.

I know what you're thinking...and no, i'm not dead.

HELLO FOLKS. Ok Ok...I know that i've been a real slacker when it comes to my blog, but aren't we all at this time of year? Here's the recap of my wildly fascinating and entertaining life:

These are from our church YSA trip with all of our friends to NYC on Dec. 16. It was so fun and we got to see the brooklyn bridge, ride the subway, visit 3 churches, see ground zero, see the tree at rockefeller center and tons of other stuff. It was tiring...but we made some fun memories. Plus, it was at the height of the holiday season!

Then on Dec. 22 Bethie graduated from Penn State. It was a glorious day for all.:)

Christmas was pleasant as we spent time visiting lots of friends and family, and then rang in the new year with some of dad's amazing food. I also went to my friend Becky's house for a church party on New Years Eve (pic below). We had fun drinking sparkling grape juice and lots of good food. As usual, i overdid it by eating WAY too much and not really listening to my body when it told me, "Stop eating. You're full." But I tried to catch myself halfway through the holiday season and managed somehow to only gain 3 pounds...which isn't good but isn't entirely bad either. Well, back on the sadle. I resumed Weight Watchers and have been doing pretty good.

I started J-Term on Jan. 9th...which at Messiah is one class for three weeks. I'm taking a Children's Literature class from 8-12 everyday. It's WAY more work than I anticipated, but i love it. My prof is excellent and I'm actually enjoying learning about all of the things about children's literature. It's like going to preschool everyday....and who doesn't love that? Today our group presented our final project. We transformed the room into a barn and literally brought in bales of hay from a local farmers market. It was a total nightmare to clean up, but everyone loved it and our prof was so impressed that it was worth it. We had to basically teach the three hour class by doing activities, powerpoints, presentations, etc... As you can imagine it was so much work, but we're so glad we're done and now can just sit back and enjoy the other groups presentations.

Among many other things going on in my life I managed to finish a lot of my missionary application... Now all i have to do is go through interviews and send it in..... then i find out where i'm going!!!! Crazy crazy thought. It will be a BIG blog the day i find out where i'm going.

So...what's new with everyone?