AND....if you go to flourishingfamilies.byu.edu you see all about my internship and a "snappy" photo of me in my outfit:)

Life as Usual

Things are getting into a groove now. I have the most amazing research partner, her name is Jessie. We have a lot of fun:) We go to our interviews which last anywhere from 1 1/2 hours to 3 hours. Sometimes we get lost on the way, but my partner Jessie has a GPS...which helps a lot, and we have a Thomas Guide.

Being in Seattle is a huge switch for me though; coming from BYU where practically everyone is LDS to here where not a lot of people are LDS. It is neat though to meet lots of different kinds of people. One of my goals while I am here is to become more comfortable talking to people I do not know.

Things with the singles ward are going great!! There are a ton of really nice people:) Me and my flirty self have already gotten into a little trouble, but nothing i haven't had to deal with before...yet. haha don't worry. there are a lot of fun activities to go to and there are a lot of intelligent and talented people here. There are like 5 colleges in the area I swear! Just last night there was a musical fireside with a violin, cello, piano and vocalist performing hymns. It was amazing!!!

Work is keeping me pretty busy...I worked over 40 hours last week (that may be a 1st for me...like in my life), yet i feel more able to do things that are important to me than ever before. I've been going to the gym, writing missionary letters, making cookies, doing the dishes. The only thing i haven't been doing is calling my family...sorry:( that's what this blog is for right? I'll still try to be better. So i made up a new cookie recipe, we named them Mollys (short for Molly Mormons...meaning Mormon girls in general). The cookies are called this because they are Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cherry Coconut cookies. Like mormon girls these cookies are essential (oatmeal), sweet (chocolate chips), pure (coconut) and sassy (dried cherries). :)

Anyway, a word about this movie "fireproof". I'm sorry i watched it without you Meg, but I will buy it and then we can watch it together later...but you should watch it with Kar and Mom. The acting isn't super amazing and it's kind of cheesy, but the message is priceless! There is a song that plays during the credits that has been stuck in my head for the last week. It is like my new theme song. It is called "Worth Fighting For" by Warren Barfield. The lyrics are:
Love is not a place
to come and go as we please
It's a house we enter in
then commit to never leave

So lock the door behind you
Throw away the key
Work it out together
Let it bring us to our knees

Love is a shelter
in a raging storm
Love is peace
in the middle of a war
And if we try to leave;
May God send angels to guard the door
No, Love is not a fight
but its something worth fighting for

To some love is a word
that they can fall into.
But when they're falling out
keeping that word is hard to do

Love is a shelter
in a raging storm
Love is peace
in the middle of a war
And if we try to leave;
May God send angels to guard the door
No, Love is not a fight
but its something worth fighting for

Love will come to save us
If we'll only call
He will ask nothing from us
but demand we give our all

Love is a shelter
in a raging storm
Love is peace
in the middle of a war
And if we try to leave;
May God send angels to guard the door
No, Love is not a fight
but its something worth fighting for.

Cause I Will Fight For You
Would You Fight For Me
It's Worth Fighting For.

It's pretty much an amazing song and movie...go rent it tonight!!

A quick update

Well I am in the thick of it now. I have started my interviews with the families. I have already done seven! 43 more to go:) These next couple days are going to be crazy though, me and my partner have 8 scheduled for the next three days!! It's kinda fun. You never know what to expect when people open the door.

This is a random plug, but if you have never seen "Fireproof" (its a movie with Kirk Cameron in it), you really should!!! It is about marriage and it rocks. I'll write more about it later:)

And so it begins...

Today we started work...meaning we started calling the families. It was hecka scary and I made my partner call first. We called in the middle of the day though so only like 1/3 of the people actually answered, but miraculously we scheduled 9 interviews!!!! All together in all the partnerships we scheduled over 40 interviews within one day!!! Our bosses were impressed...I am ecstatic. No one even mentioned the swine flu. My first interview is on Wednesday!!! Yikes. That is the next hurdle!

Also we have started mingling with the singles in the area. We had stake conference this weekend so we didn't get to meet too many people, but we met some. There are tons of people here doing internships like us and ironically I have met a lot of people here who know people I know. Like I met a guy who knows my step-cousins the Andersons and tons of people who know people from my ward in Orem.

Two lips...uh I mean Tulips

I went to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival! and it was amazing:) Tulips everywhere of every kind of color. It was way fun. I'm not sure what else to say and pictures are worth a million words so here's some pics.

We did make up an awesome pick up line. Here it is:
"Do you like tulips? How would you like my two lips pressed against your two lips?"

Swine Flu:(

Don't freak out...I don't have the swine flu...yet. Apparently it came up from Mexico and all of Mexico city is closed and the US is thinking about closing the borders and 6 schools in Seattle have closed down because some of their students have it. We are worried because this could seriously inhibit the study. I mean really, these families probably won't want us, strangers, coming into their homes. Plus if we get it... We are just trying to be safe, staying out of really public places and carrying hand sanitizer with us everywhere!! Anyway so we haven't started contacting the families yet because of this crazy epidemic. Other than that...I am going to the tulip festival tody:) So i'll post pictures about that later.