the year I hated God

The year I hated God.
Great post title right?
Whether it's pretty or not, it's the truth.
I wasted a whole year of my life hating God.
In 2013 I was happy and content at SUU.
I had grown a great faith in my Heavenly Father and was willing to do anything for Him.
So when He asked me to go to BYU, I went.
No questions asked.
And I was so excited to go and see what He had to offer me there.
I moved all of my stuff into my new apartment ready to make some friends, but
I soon realized that I was alone.
BYU is a very hard place to build deep and meaningful relationships with people because you see the same person about twice a semester unless real effort is made.
In addition, a lot of my roommates were gone constantly.
So I had no roommates, no friends.....
I started my major that I was so excited for and.....hated it.
I was miserable.
As the semester and year went on I ended up entangling myself in some abusive relationships.
Then I ended up in the hospital.
And all of my sadness soon turned into anger.
I was so angry at God.
He sent me here.
How could He send me here and then let all of these bad things happen?
Why hasn't He stepped in to save me?
Why? Why? Why?
A year after my anger started I ran into the missionaries.
And every Mormon knows the ending to that...
Well maybe not my ending.
I dropped out of school, despite lots and lots of teasing.
I can handle the teasing and I can handle the lack-of-a-degree-stress, but I could no longer handle the school and the city that I was in that brought me so much pain.
After this decision I was able to feel the spirit again and eventually find happiness and peace in certain areas of my life.
And that peace and happiness was able to grow.
And my relationship with Heavenly Father began to mend.
Even though I still feel a lot of anger and hurt for the situation that I have been put in, I have been able to come to a sort of peace.
I may not know why I was sent to this place or why those bad things happened to me.
I might be forever broken because of those things and I will never know why.
But ya know what?
I'm here now.
I made it through.
Everyone says that our trials make us better people.
Honestly, I have no idea if I am a better person.
Maybe without these trials I would be kinder or funnier or more trusting.
I can never know if I am better for these trials.
But, as cliche as it sounds, I don't think that I would trade those trials out for a pain free life.
I'm here, and alive, and still not a serial killer.
So that's something!
But really, I'm glad that I spent a year hating God.
Because now I'm not just a blind follower, I'm a believer by choice.
And now when I feel love for God I know that it is real and not just something that I was taught.

no teeth

This picture just does not do justice to the FUNNIEST story in the world.
OKOK, I have a crap load of laugh worthy stories,  but right now this one makes me do that crazy smiling-when-you're-alone-and-everyone-thinks-you-must-have-just-farted-or-something smile.
So, there is an old (obviously) woman at work who has false teeth.
She also has dementia.
And the combination does not do her mouth well.
Because she often forgets where she sets those chompers and then they are gone for MONTHS and nobody can find them.
One particular day I noticed that she had lost her teeth again.
After dinner we were watching a movie and she was sitting next to me.
Suddenly I hear her say, "Oh there they are."
And I turn to look at her as she is unrolling her false teeth from her sweater sleeve.........
*oh of course! My sweater sleeve! Why didn't I think to look there sooner???*

adventure blogs

Reading adventure/travel blogs is probably my absolute favorite thing in the world.
So here is a list for everybody to check out my favorite ones.


A Restless Transplant

America Y'all

Mr. + Mrs. Globetrot

The Flybird

The Little Red House

Toaster Life

World of Wanderlust

civil war

I got home from work one night and my roommate started asking about the residents I work with.
She wanted to know if they were old enough to remember the civil rights movement.
For some reason, in my college dropout mind, I interpreted that as the civil war.
At work the next day I start talking to my residents.
And, like an awkward Canadian, started asking them if they remember the civil war.
No.
No they didn't.
Because the civil war and the civil rights movement are definitely not the same....

Crazy, not "crazy"

When did "crazy" become a word with such a bad connotation?

True, the dictionary doesn't cut the word any slack in the negative department.

But "crazy" has a whole separate meaning: extremely enthusiastic, passionate.

When I was going through all of my depression at BYU I seriously thought that I was "crazy".

I would think this all of the time.

And I would just tell myself that once I found someone that loved me then I would be just fine.

But ya know what?

I found that someone and I'm still Crazy.

(If not more so)

I told my cousin that it was actually kind of comforting to know that I was still Crazy.

Because it meant that I had never lost who I was.

I wasn't being "crazy", I was being Crazy: in the better sense of the word.

I was depressed because I was being extremely passionate about people.

I was just being enthusiastic about the Gospel.

And when those things weren't Crazy about me I got sad.

So even though most days I have the "Ugh. I'm so "crazy"" feeling,

Most of the time I get the "Yeah, I'm Crazy and I like it" feeling.

And for those that think this post is just something nice to read as you pass the time, think again.

We are all Crazy.

(Some are bad "crazy" but....most people are just good Crazy.)

We are all extremely passionate and enthusiastic about something.

And we all have that thing that makes us different: a past, a struggle, an illness.....something that others don't quite understand.

And all of those give us something.

Maybe it's passion to live better, to do better, to run a marathon, to climb Everest, to enter a chosen career.

Or maybe the passion hasn't been found yet.

(Let's be honest. I was "crazy" for a long time before I realized I was Crazy.)

Whatever it is though, we are all Crazy.

So let's embrace the Crazy and not be ashamed of it.

We're not "crazy" as the world sees it.

We're just becoming passionate.

(At least this is what I say to make myself feel better when I might actually be  being "crazy"....)

flight tickets

So, as you know, I'm headed across the pond to the lovely Europe.
My cousin Kelsey and I have been preparing for this trip of a lifetime for about a month now.
And the first thing we figured out was the flights...naturally.
And now we will play a little guessing game.
Who can guess how much we are spending to fly into London??
If you guessed $800 then you're........WRONG!
If you guessed $400 then you're......RIGHT!
That's correct! We are flying into London, with insurance for only $400.
Crazy right?
I was pretty proud.
And can you guess how much it is going to cost us to fly back from Europe?
If you guessed $1000 then you're....WRONG!
If you guessed $500 then you're.....RIGHT!
Yup, we are flying roundtrip to Europe for only $900.
Crazy right?
Well, let me tell ya how we were able to perform this witchcraft.
First, our dates were very flexible.
I wanted to fly out on the 8th but it was considerably cheaper to fly out two days later.
Second, check different flight websites.
There might be two bargain flight sites with completely different prices.
Third, Sometimes buying two one-way tickets is cheaper than flying roundtrip.
Fourth, Make connections.
Not with people, but with flights.
For our flight home we found that to fly home from Athens (which is our ending point) was over $1000 just as a one-way.
But, flying from Athens to Zurich is $90 and from Zurich home is $500.
So obviously, we are adding onto our trip and doing that.
Basically you just have to research a WHOLE ton!
Don't settle for the first flight.
Look at different websites and find connecting flights.
Here are my favorite websites that we used:
Skyscanner.com (Which allows you to see prices for the whole month)
kayak.com
cheapoair.com
studentuniverse.com (Seriously THEBEST! Sign up with a student email and you can get amazing deals. Like...$100 off your flight? Awesome! Be sure to mark your dates as flexible.)


And there ya have it....witchcraftery.

number five

I did a little bit of snorkeling.
Which was number five on the bucket list of mine.
There weren't any fish to see but there was....human legs and....water.
Still, it counts.
I had a Groupon to go up to The Crater in Midway and sit in mineral water inside a mountain.
And it was pretty cool.
But first we had to stop at a swim shop where Derek bought me a new swimming suit.
(He just couldn't stand the thought of me wearing a suit from a thrift store.)
It's brand spanking new and my body just doesn't know how to handle it.
It's a whole rags-to-riches ordeal.
Anyways, when we got up there we got our life jackets on like good rule followers do and then...
Stole some snorkels.
(In the name of The Bucket List and all)
Once we looked deep enough into the water, past the abundance of legs and water, we were able to see some sharks swimming at the bottom!!
Just kidding, that's a lie.
But it was still pretty epic.