B.Y.Who?

Well, here i am at BYU! can you believe it? crazy. i've been here for about 4 days now and since school doesn't start til next Tuesday it's been nice to just settle in and wander around trying to get my feet under me. I am making curtains for our living room....look at me go :)

FIRSTLY, I'm reading a REALLY excellent book, it's called "The Hiding Place" and it's by a woman who hid Jewish people in her house during WWII, and eventually got arrested because of it. I can't tell you how it ends because a) that would be lame of me, and b) i'm only halfway through the book so far :) But holy heck it's amazing, and it's been really nice to sit around and READ, because there never seems to be enough time for that. The best part is that it's a true story, and the people in it are the most devoted Christians I can ever remember reading about, or I guess meeting in real life, either. Their story continually inspires me with their absolute, trusting faith. Beautiful.

Things are getting better a little at a time. I was pretty scared when i first got here, but they've only been improving and my courage level is on the upswing, so i figure it can only get bigger and better from here, right? The truth is, even though lots of scary/frustrating/overwhelming things have happened, SO many good things keep happening to balance things out. Tender mercies from heaven. For example...

1. I went to buy my books all by myself on Tuesday, and even though it went well I found myself getting frightened by the sheer number of people and places on campus. However, on my walk back to my apartment, I ran in to no less than 3 people that I know. What are the odds? It really made me feel better, and a lot less alone.
2. When i got back from the bookstore i found myself locked out of my apartment...luckily, right when i sat down on my porch swing in despair, a girl randomly wandered by who used to live here, and she taught me the secret to breaking in through the window. Problem solved!
3. Wednesdasy night i decided to be brave and go check out the local frisbee scene. GAH! (that sums up my response...) Everyone was really nice but they were SUPER competitive. It might seem like frisbee is something silly, but considering that my entire social life revolved around my
frisbee team last year, i was realllllly counting on having that in my life again, just for something familiar and stable i guess! So, even though it wasn't awful, i wasn't feeling too optimistic about playing on this team.....but THEN, yesterday, a friend-of-a-friend randomly called me and told me they had heard that i play frisbee, and they invited me to play with them last night. So i went, and it was perfect! Definitely more my flavor of frisbee-playing. Plus, these boys all went to high school with two of my best friends from my freshman year at SUU (Justin & Mike), so being around them felt really familiar. (And let's be honest, the number of "familiar" things in this place are minimal, so I was grateful.)
4. Yesterday i auditioned for concert choir. I had heard it was pretty competitive, but i wanted to be in it SO bad that i knew i had to try anyways. And, well, like most other things seem to be in Provo, it was definitely COMPETITIVE. I did my very best at the audition, but they won't post the list until next Wednesday, and i think they were trying to let me down easy....so....i'm not really expecting to make it, honestly. But, somehow it didn't make me feel too sad, and when i came home i decided to see about adding another class to my schedule in place of where choir would have been. Turns out i am NOW taking guitar lessons from one of the professors, AND i added another religion class. It's a family genealogy class, and the truth is, my patriarchal blessing says i'm supposed to do stuff with that but i've never really known how. But hopefully this class will get me rolling in that area of life! Hooray!
5. I've been hunting online for a job for about 2.5 months now, and nothing was coming through, so i was getting discouraged. WELL, about a month ago i had interviewed for a job i REALLY wanted...it's for a public relations office (basically like newspaper writing but ten times less stress, plus ALL the stories are happy and positive, so no more feeding off conflict and yuckiness!) Anyways, the people were super nice and it seemed to be a perfect fit for my schedule, but it turned out they didn't have a position open for me in the
end....HOWEVER, yesterday right after my discouraging choir audition, i got an email from them saying that a girl quit and they wanted to hire me! I start this afternoon :) I'm just so happy.

Well that's a small taste of all the crazyness and wonderfulness and Tender Mercy-ness that's been going on in my life these last few days! I just feel so blessed. Part of me is still scared for all the unknown that is still sure to come this semester, but this week has done so much to remind me that Heavenly Father is SO aware of me. He truly REALLY wants me to succeed, because (as you can see) everytime something happens that makes me want to sit down and cry, something
wonderful is not far behind it. And with Heavenly Father backing me up like that, how could I possibly fail?

Life is an awfully big adventure. I never planned on being in this exact place at this exact time in my life (honestly, who would PLAN on picking up and starting completely over as a senior in
college??) but planned on or not, it is already proving to be EXACTLY what needs to be happening to me. I'm just so excited about all the opportunity and new possibilities i have ahead of me. I'm sure I will have a plentiful plethora of stories to share...

So stay tuned :)