Dad and Tyler's Visit and School

We'll start with the good stuff. Earlier this month Dad and Tyler flew out here to visit! Okay, they mostly came out for the BYU-Texas football game, but they got to visit us, too! It was so nice to see them, and especially nice to spend some time with Dad. They flew in Thursday night, so we went over to the condo to visit him. I don't have classes on Fridays this semester so I got to spend Friday morning with him, just the two of us! We went to Village Inn for breakfast and it was so fun for me to just talk with Dad. I was so glad to see him for a couple days. After breakfast I think we went to the bookstore for a while. Spencer had an hour between classes while we were there so we went to Jamba Juice. Just as we were getting ready to leave campus James got done with work and joined us. I'm having a hard time remembering the details of the rest of the weekend, but there was a lot of eating out. :) I only took one picture while Dad was here, so there you go. We went to get sushi at Kyoto and Spencer's dream of sitting at the asian table came true. You can't really tell in the picture, but it's a low table with a hole underneath to put your feet in. Tyler was out with his brothers this night. BYU ended up winning the game against Texas, so that was really exciting! Dad flew out the next morning, so we all said goodbye before the game.

This last month has been crazy. It has absolutely flown by and school is keeping me really busy. Too busy to blog, even. Okay, I probably could find time to blog, but I have been very busy. My classes are more homework heavy this semester so even though I'm only taking 16 credits (as opposed to the 19 I took the past two semesters), I feel like schools keeps me busier than ever. I probably have between 50 and 100 pages of reading for classes each week and then there are weekly writing assignments, quizzes, and lesson planning to do. My education classes are each requiring me to prepare a unit worth of lesson plans (8 to 10 class periods' worth), and there's a lot that is required to go into that. My Mammalogy class has a lab attached that requires me to memorize the order, family, genus, and species of about 15 mammals each week with their geographic distributions and related vocabulary terms. Of course, we study by related orders so it's hard to tell things apart by their pelt or just a skull. This week, for example, we have 8 species of shrew to learn. I'm not complaining, just trying to explain how busy I am. My workload is pretty stressful, and I'm trying really hard to not let it overwhelm me. These next three weeks will be the craziest of the semester though, so hopefully I'll survive and get some time to breathe.

Last night I was listening to the general Relief Society broadcast and their beautiful messages touched my heart. I am so grateful that general conference is this coming weekend because my spirit needs it. :) Anyway, they talked a lot about keeping our covenants, and a big part of keeping our covenant is to serve others. Mourn with those that mourn, comfort those that stand in need of comfort. I realized that I need to make a larger effort to be available to those who could use my service. School is really important to me, and I'm kind of a perfectionist about it to the point that it causes me a lot of stress. This semester I am going to try my best to let some of that stress go. I will do my best, but there are some things that are more important than getting all A's. (And to be honest, I think Mammalogy is going to kick my trash anyway.) I want to make the most of my last year here at BYU. Josh and Katy will probably be moving in January, so I want to spend time with them and with sweet little Carrina. I want to spend time with James and Miranda before we move all the way across the country from them. I want to be a better visiting teacher and relief society sister. I want to be in a mindset where I am not too busy and too stressed with my own things, even important things, to hear the quiet promptings from the Lord telling me to befriend someone who is lonely or to bring some dinner to a relief society sister who is having a hard week or just had a baby. I think I sometimes miss those kinds of opportunities and this semester I want step outside of myself and allow those to be more important.

Okay, James and Miranda are on their way over for a game night, so I'm gonna sign off! :-) Spencer's making us an orange, strawberry, banana, and other random fruits smoothie!! He's the best.