GENERAL CONFERENCE IS THE BEST!!!

So General Conference was this past weekend…

Well, actually, it was totally righteous, but you know ;)

HO-LY COW. THAT WAS FREAKIN’ AWESOME!!!!

Need I say any more?

OH MY UCHTDORF. He is one amazing man!! His talk was one of my very favorites!

And Eyring always touches my heart…

And of course the Prophet is just the holiest man alive.

I LOVE THEM ALL!!!!!

I’m not going to talk much more about it, since I have a TON of things to tell you! Maybe next week I’ll pick out one of my favorites or something :)

But just let me say...

If you missed one of the sessions, GO AND WATCH IT ALL!

Here, I'll even make it easy for you and give you the link:

CLICK ME FOR AWESOMENESS

And if you’re not LDS, I’d highly recommend watching a few of the talks. It’s really uplifting and inspired! It’s not preachy at all. For example, Elder Holland talked about depression. If you’re struggling right now, check his talk out!

And if you’d simply prefer to read, they’ll have it all written out by next week, and I can post the link for that :)

ANYWAY… I got the wonderful experience of actually attending General Conference!

Nothing could make this weekend any better, right?

WRONG!

I got to spend this wonderful weekend with my famiry!! (aka family)!! Well, minus my sister and her husband :( BUT I GOT TO SEE MY BRUDDER AGAM :D YAYAYAYAY! 

Adam (I call him Agam) is the bearded one! hahahah :)

Man, I missed my family so so much. We're such goofs. We always have fun!!!

Example #1:

I forgot to bring my razor in all my stuff that we took up to Salt Lake, so I asked my mom if she had one. 

My dad piped up, "I brought an extra blade, if you want!" 

Then Adam immediately inserted, "Yeah, the one he uses to shave his BACK."

I was dying laughing. I was probably laughing for a good 5 minutes!

Uh, yep. That's my family for you! Weirdos with a great sense of humor. I love them so much! :)

But really, this is how I feel when I'm with my family:

They're a good influence on me ;) Hahahaha.
I'm truly happy and laugh my heart out when I'm with my family though. We always have a ton of fun together!!

Okay, another funny story! So we were waiting to get out of the Conference Center after the Saturday afternoon session, and a couple asked if my brother would take a picture for them. So of course he was being a goof and being funny like his usual self.

Afterward, the guy looked over at me and pointed to Adam and said, "He's a good one!" 

Oh yes. He just did that. He thought my brother was my boyfriend.

I smiled and said, "Yeah he is!! … ...He's my brother." 

He felt so awkward... It was fantastic!!

HAHAHA. Adam and I cracked up about that one for a while :)

Saturday night after Priesthood we all went out to Tucano's as a late celebration of my birthday and a early celebration of my sister-in-law's birthday. That restaurant is CRAZY yummy! If you’ve never heard of it, it’s a Brazilian grill that has a buffet, and then these guys come around to you table and shower you with MEAT. MEAT EVERYWHERE. Holy Martha it was delicious.

With my parents at Tucano's!

I also got some belated birthday presents, which was great! My brother got me a stuffed animal bear. 

And oh my, let me tell you...

I think it's kind of a tradition or something… For as long as I can remember, for my birthdays Adam almost ALWAYS gets me stuffed animals. And I love it! Especially because I got rid of a lot of my huge collection a few years ago. So now I have a very soft stuffed animal bear from Alaska to keep me company!! :D

So basically everything was perfect this weekend! Well, except for one part… I was/am pretty sick. Since Thursday I've been sick-ing it up. I've been having killer headaches, stuffed sinuses, drippy nose, sore-as-heck throat, coughing… Yeah, the works. And my voice is basically gone. I've actually been told it's quite sexy. But it's probably the worst cold I've ever had.

I just wanted to eat a bunch of sugar and die happily...

I had it coming though. I haven't been sick for almost an entire year… So I guess I kind of deserve a killer cold :P

So, understandably, I was pretty miserable this whole weekend. My daddy offered to give me a blessing on Friday, but I turned him down since I figured I'd probably just start getting better the next day, since I thought it was at it's worst. 

Boy was I wrong on that one. I think my dad really likes to give blessings, especially Father's blessings, so now I feel bad now that I realize how often I turn him down. Usually it's because I feel like it makes him go out of his way, but he's just being a really really good dad. 

On Sunday after getting back to Provo, he told me he and my brother were going to give me a blessing. My brother anointed me, and my dad gave the blessing. After getting up and giving them hugs… BAM. MY SINUSES WERE CLEARED.

I was ready to go running!

Okay, maybe not that much, but...

PRIESTHOOD POWER IS SO REAL.

I love the Priesthood so much! It's so incredible. And I'm SO SO SO lucky that I have worthy priesthood holders in my family who aren't just willing to use it, but WANT to use it to help me. I'm not completely better by any means, but I'm definitely better. I can't imagine how much worse I'd be right now had I not had that blessing! I am one lucky girl, and blessed beyond belief.

If you ever are struggling or sick, ask for a blessing!

Even non-members can get a blessing if they want :) Ask the missionaries! They’ll help you :)

And I'm just gonna throw this out there... If you have any questions, feel free to ask me!!

Although it’s been awful being sick, something good came out of it! I wasn’t able to work today! Which may seem weird, because I love my job to death. So yeah, I was a little sad, but it made it so I could FINALLY e-mail back and forth with my beloved Elder Gibby!!! :D

But first I'll start with his activities of this past week!

Elder Gibby and Vance have been the leading companionship in the mission the past two weeks with their lessons and overall success. He had a baptism this past week and has another baptism tomorrow! And he of course loved General Conference, especially Elder Uchtdorf. Great minds think alike, no? :)

Okay, now back to the part where I got to e-mail back and forth with him!!!

Oh my gosh, I'm so dang happy. E-mailing back and forth makes things seem more real!! Communication through mainly e-mail once a week is great, but... It's really easy to feel like all my memories are just a dream. Sometimes I feel like I have a make-believe boyfriend... So it was great to be able to talk to him in real time!

I asked him what the most important thing he could recommend to me for preparing for a mission.

His reply:
"The most important thing... Learn to love the scriptures. Learn to love to talk to people you have never met, and just prepare spiritually by doing everything you can do right."

YOU CAN BET YOUR SOCKS I'M GOING TO DO JUST THAT!

He asked me what he could do better for me. He knows he's limited since he's far away and on a mission, but I think he feels like he's not doing enough for me.

Silly boy! He's e-mailed me every single week along with sending occasional letters, HE SENT ME A PACKAGE (Waaaay more than he had to do. I wasn't expecting that at all!!), and he's been supporting me and encouraging me for these past seven and a half months. He's trying his best, and I think that's what matters most. I'm not his number one priority, and I shouldn't be. I'd be content with him just working his hardest to be the best missionary he can be, and he's already doing that!
He's really so good to me and makes me so happy! :)

Elder Gibby said that we should e-mail like that more often, but I told him that I can't because I work every Monday afternoons :( All I gotta say is that I did some bad planning on my part by working then... Bah :(

Who knows, maybe something will happen and I'll get another Monday free this semester... Adam said that we could probably coordinate it while I'm out on my mission too. If so, that'd be awesome!! :)

679 Days Left! :)