Amazing is my favorite word

Hello, all. I will tell you about my fantastic last two days. So, Sunday I got up, searched all over campus for a vending machine that sold milk (for my cereal), and finally found one. I got back to my apartment, ate breakfast, got ready for church, and went to testimony meeting. It was raining, but a lovely day nonetheless. I've decided that guys singing hymns are amazingly attractive, by the way. Cool stuff. I bore my testimony about Ether 4:12 and how when it says all things that are good come of God, it means people's actions too.

Got home, went to lunch, came home again, took a nap, then went to Annalisa's for dinner. Ken, Kelsey, Vance, and Jared were also there, in case you were wondering. We had (fantastic!) pork, apples, sauteed zucchini and squash, and chocolate pudding for dessert. My compliments to the chef (oh, and Ken made the pudding and cut the apples). After dinner, we played speed scrabble, which is very fun and which Vance is amazing at. I missed the fireside, but that was okay because I was spending time with wonderful family members.

This morning, I got up, got ready, went to breakfast, then went to devotional, which was taught by my friend Stephanie's dad, who's a BOM professor. It was fantastic. We talked about how, in the scriptures, there's the verse that says basically "Be thou perfect, even as thy Father which is in Heaven is perfect". But he said that this verse didn't mean we can't make mistakes. The original Greek word was "telios," which means "complete". In the Book of Mormon, Jesus repeats the verse, only this time he says "Be thou perfect, even as I am perfect, or as thy Father which is in heaven is perfect". This is because he's been resurrected, so he's complete, like a God. So, even though he's sinless, he wasn't "complete" until he was resurrected. What Brother Swift taught us instead is to be "diligent" in keeping the commandments of God. I thought that was really cool - instead of being a perfectionist, and giving up at every small failure, you can just keep on trying to be a good person. That lesson was awesome, and very meaningful.

After devotional, I had class. For group assignments, we read a chapter each night and then present it to the other group the next day. Then they have to teach the chapter WE read to Dr. Gong, and we do the same with their chapter. We did this, and then he pretended to have the ambassador to China on the phone, who wanted advice on what he should do to improve the situation with China, and we had to tell him what to do, based on what Margaret Thatcher said. It was pretty funny. Dr. Gong's cool. Then I had lunch and went to the library where I worked on homework for, like, 3 1/2 hours. Crazy. I went to dinner, where I sat with a fun group. Robert convinced me to try drinking jello through a straw, and I decided I don't like blueberry jello. Then we had 30 minutes to burn before going to the Maeser building (where, ugh, all of the honors stuff is, and it's all the way across campus...) so we went for a walk and talked about neuroscience (he's a neuroscience major, by the way) and language and fun stuff. Then we went to Home Evening with the rest of the LSH kids. It was very fun - an awesome lesson (I volunteered for opening prayer because the conducting/lesson guy offered blessings... :) on the honors program and learning and lifelong opportunities. Then we went outside, where there were a giant twister board, ultimate frisbee game, DOZENS of donuts, and a bocce game. Guess what I played? Yeah, you guessed right.

Then, we walked home. There was a thunderstorm and the clouds were PURPLE!!! Amazing. It wasn't really raining though. Did you know the Eyring science center has a whole weather station that tells all the outside conditions? It's awesome. ANYWAY, walked home, then unpacked a bit and here I am!

Love you all lots, and have a wonderful week!