I touched a camel!

It's Monday night, and that means FHE. Tonight was so much fun! Our group went to a local straw maze and just had a blast. This particular maze had a couple of really cool animals that we were able to take pictures with and just enjoy petting. 

I love this picture! It's like we're laughing at each other. Such a silly camel.

And yes, this is a baby kangaroo named Rudy. Adorable!

Of course we all split up once we got in the maze and the straw cut off all noise so silence was almost loud. I made an alliance with my two roommates Robin and Emily and one of our FHE brothers Gui. Of course, we got lost countless times and went in a ton of giant circles. But guess what?! We were the first ones to finish. Yeah, that's right. Maze couldn't keep US in. 

Gui, Emily, Robin and I after the maze

Our group about to get all sorts of lost.

Spiritual High

This last weekend has been one of some insane spiritual highs and I love it. Feeling the Spirit is an incredibly empowering feeling. At this moment, I feel like I can do anything simply because Heavenly Father is holding my hand every step of the way. He wants me to succeed more than anyone else, ever. 

I've been thinking a lot about how the internet has made it so easy for us to touch the lives of people we've never even met before. This weekend, I've been touched by a woman I've never met, but will soon. Her story has deeply touched me and through reading her thoughts and story, I feel the Spirit. I want to do that for someone. She has no idea the impact her words have had on my life, nor will she ever. Or the countless other people who know her or who don't know her but perhaps stumbled upon her blog. 

Heavenly Father is there. He is real. He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. I know without a doubt that He understands our struggles, doubts, fears, and anxieties for the future. But the amazing thing is, He will help us overcome all of that. The love that my Father in Heaven has for me is something I will never comprehend. I don't need to. It's not important for me to understand how it works, only to know that it does. 

I'm not a huge David Archuleta fan but this just makes me happy.

I'm a little drunk on you, and high on summertime

Summer is nearly half-way over and I hate it. I love the heat and the sun and the water. With all the students gone for the break, it's like a ghost town here. I miss my friends but I'm lucky to have a local best friend. Meaning, she's here just as much as I am.

We're kinda silly

I seriously lucked out with this girl! We have so much fun, it's ridiculous. At the end of the break we're going to Washington for a little bit and that is going to be an adventure for sure. We're both ready to go... like yesterday. 

Besides Rach, some of my other friends live around here still so we have some fun as well. 

Mesa Falls with Jared.

This girl..love her! We make random trips to the mall.

So basically, what we learn from summer is how to pack as much as possible into one day and love every second of it because it won't last. Soon the sun will go down and a new day will start, a day closer to the first day of school or work or something else. Yuck

River Adventures!

It was a GORGEOUS day here in Rexburg and a few of my friends put together a trip to a local river for some fun. They rented some kayaks, paddle boards and tubes.

Me, Dan, Janelle, and Cam on our way to the river. 

Janelle and I in the truck, ready to float!

The river

Oh yeeeeeah!

We love the sun!!

I started out on a tube but eventually switched to a kayak and I fell in love. It was an awesome work-out but it was incredibly fun. But I did have a little adventure with my kayak. I found that I really liked going over the rapids. Hopefully, I'll be able to go again soon and experience some better rapids. 

We came up on an old bridge that only had the stone pillars left and I saw that the best rapids were on the far side so I started paddling over to it. I thought that I was clear but somehow I slammed into the stone pillar on my side and the river's current tipped my kayak sideways and water was rushing on me, pinning me to my kayak. I was in shock, stuck, unsure of what to do, clutching my paddle. Eventually I realized there was nothing I could do to get myself out with the kayak so I kinda rolled off and grabbed my life jacket that was under my legs on the way. It was incredible how fast that water moved.

The guy that was just ahead of me is a life guard and he immediately went into that mode. I struggled over to his paddle boat and assessed my injuries. My leg was scratched up and bruised and the bottom of my foot was slightly cut and there was a little chunk of skin missing on my hip.

Eventually my kayak dislodged itself and was caught by another of our party and I got back on. It was quite the experience.

Now I sit here on my bed burned to a crisp...looking like a tomato. Basically I love my life and the experiences that I have. Whoop!

Split Second

There are billions of people on this earth at any given moment. The chance of meeting a specific person out of those billions is nearly slim to none. It's incredible to me how through a series of random events and occurrences we meet certain people. Circumstances really have to be just right to meet people. Minute choices that we make can change the course of our lives.

It's so difficult to wrap my mind around just how much our lives are interconnected as humans. The webs of our lives reach around the world and have changed people, have changed us. How has my life, my personality, my help changed the course of another life out there?

Our lives really are made up of instances, split second decisions really. It's a lot of pressure if you think about it.

I'm pretty addicted to this song by the way.

Life Lessons Through Film

I'm pretty sure I've told y'all before that I'm a projectionist at work, meaning I work with the digital projectors as well as the film projectors. Sometimes, things just don't work the way they are meant to work and a few days ago one of my projectors had a little accident. 

All that black stuff on the floor is a cute little movie called The Lorax. When I saw this mess when I went to check on the movies I nearly had a heart attack. I'd never had to deal with any real film issues before so this was pretty new to me.

To fix this tangled mess of a movie I had to patiently sit on the floor and feed the film onto the correct platter with the rest of the movie. It was a boring, tedious, tiring, at times even a little frightening Of course there were also moments when the film would simply slip through my fingers, doing exactly what it should but then it would catch and I would have to follow the film into the mess and work out the tangles. When the last little bit finally slid through my fingers, the relief and happiness at being done was almost too much for my little self.

As I was sitting in church today, it hit me, life is just like that tangled mass of film sometimes. There are times in our lives when we're just scooting along no problem when suddenly we get off track and things just seem to pile up and it seems like nothing will ever be the same. There are times when we must look to our Heavenly Father for that extra help in unravelling a particularly difficult knot in our life. Eventually everything will work out though. There are a few eternal truths and that is one of them.

Oh, Hello there officer...

I'm not one to break rules. I follow logical advice. I don't go exploring in places that it's obvious that they don't want outsiders. I'm cautious, so what. Well, those natural character traits of mine have been tested over the past couple days.

Looking back the story I'm about to relate is pretty funny and I'm going to enjoy telling it but at the time I was beyond anxious.

So, a new..er friend of mine wanted to show Rachael and I something on campus so he had me drive back behind a building by the agriculture equipment. We turned off the car and started walking away when suddenly Jon stops, putting his arms out to signal us to stop as well. He then frantically tells us to get back in the car. Once back in the car and trying to calm down, Jon explained his sudden desire to be back in the car, a security car had just backed out of the building we were parked somewhat behind. He tells me not to turn my car on and not to do anything but I'm really just wanting to get out of there. Even though, now looking back we really weren't doing anything wrong or bad so we probably wouldn't have even got in trouble. There's just something about authority and darkness that freaks me out. So I make a decision, turn on the car and suddenly my headlights flare into life. I reverse and get ready to get out of there and the security guard is standing in the middle of the road waiting for us.

From the backseat Jon is coaching me, "Okay, Bri, just let me do all the talking. I can handle this, it's going to be okay." As I press the button on my window I say, "Alright, Jon. This is all you." But here's the thing, as soon as the window was coming down, I freak out and start talking a million words a minute, making up some story about being lost and just wanting to get off campus. Believe me, I was mortified by every word coming out of my mouth and how scared I sounded.

Now, let me tell you something else about last night that just added to everything. Gale. Force. Winds. Strongest wind I've ever been in, in my life. The dust was even thick enough that you couldn't see for very far. Just seemed to make everything that much creepier.

After dropping Rachael off, we made our way out to the cemetery just because we could. Once we were out there (after getting lost once) it was pretty late and the wind was adding a giant chill to the air, we turned the car off so that there were no lights at all. Luckily by this time I wasn't waiting to see some crazy man. Jon suggested that we go lay down on top of a plot. If it hadn't been so dang cold I would've wanted to stay a little longer because the stars were so bright. So gorgeous. You could see every one of them. I miss that. I love the stars. But two seconds out there and I was shacking with cold. So we left.

Basically, my weekend was an adventure. Perhaps one that I didn't want at the time but one that I'm glad to have had.