I am hereby called to....

This post is a little long in coming but it is now finally here. On August 8th I got my mission call to the EL SALVADOR SANTA ANA/BELIZE mission. I will be speaking Espanol and entering the Provo MTC on December 19........FOREVER away!!! In the mean time, I have moved home for the semester to enjoy my family and to have some time to prepare to leave. Now that I am here I love it!......but I have a lot of time on my hands. So with some of this time I decided to do a little research on the area of the world in which I will be living for the next year and a half (this research is only coming over a month late.....shhh!). My mission contains about a third of El Salvador and all of Belize so sit back and enjoy some of the fun facts that I found.

EL SALVADOR

Actual Name: Republic of El Salvador

Religion: 57.1% Roman Catholic,............0.7% Mormon (I guess I am needed)

Life Expectancy: 73.69

       Male: 70.41

       Female: 77.12

Fertility Rate: 2.04 children per woman

Major Infectious Diseases: rate of risk= HIGH  (gulp!)

Area: slightly smaller than Massachusetts

Terrain: mostly mountains with narrow coastal belt and central plateau 

Natural Hazards: it is known as the Land of Volcanoes; frequent and sometimes destructive earthquakes and volcanic activity; extremely susceptible to hurricanes.  (double gulp!)

Randoms Facts:

- El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America and the only one without a Caribbean coastline.

- It is home to 65 airports: 5 paved runways, 60 unpaved runways. (oh dear!)

-The national anthem of El Salvador is one of the world’s longest.

BELIZE

Name: Belize; used to be British Honduras, renamed in 1973

Official Language: English but 50% speak Spanish and 75% speak Kriol

Independence: Granted by Britain in 1981 but Guatemala tried to claim them as a territory. Ever since there has been tension between the two countries.

Terrain: 60% over Belize is forested but some in coastal plains while some is mountainous.

Elevation: 0-3688 ft (that's going to be a change!)

Natural Hazards: hurricanes, hurricanes, and HURRICANES!! After the capital was destroyed twice by hurricanes in thirty years, they decided to move the capital to another city. (Smart!)

Crime: homicide rate in the capitol is the sixth highest in the world (another gulp!)

Fertility Rate: 3.6 children per woman

Religion: 40% Roman Catholic...15.6% proclaim to be irreligious (Mormon didn't even make it on the list!)

Random Facts:

-Area is only slightly larger than El Salvador.

-Only country in Central America with British colonial heritage; they are a parliamentary democracy but  don' t drive on the left side of the road.

-The economy of Belize is based on agriculture and tourism.

I am sure that this might have been a bore to read but I definitely learned a lot! Hopefully when I return in the summer of 2014 I be able to give a much more spiced up and personal account of these countries! 

*I would like to thank wikipedia and the CIA website for this information

Tie-dying with the Guys

The last time that I attempted to tie-dye a shirt it was a disaster. The only colors left were pink and brown and there wasn't really much of them left either so the shirt ended up mostly white. I have been wanting to successfully tie-dye a shirt for a while now and finally found some willing comrades with which to do it: Taylor and Tyson! (We invited Amanda too but she didn't come.)

We went to Wally World to get our supplies. You would think that girls take more time and are picker about clothes shopping but I beg to differ. We were in the men's t-shirt section forever trying to find shirts that were long enough but not too wide for both Taylor and Tyson. Ha! Who knew that men's clothes are so complicated?!

Once we made our purchases we drove back to the "Brown House" to start creating our master pieces. We had each tie-dyed a shirt once previously so we had an equal amount of experience. I went for the safe/typical tie-dye shirt pattern but both of the boys were being more creative. I got done quickly and was very entertained watching their creativity flow. :) 

 

We finally all finished:

 

Tyson's and my gloves had holes in them so we ended up with very colorful hands. I had concluded that I would just have to go to work the next day with a green hand but Tyson was not pleased with his colorful fingers. He came up with the idea to use rubbing alcohol to get it off. It worked so I joined him in color-removing. We eventually found out that bleach works even better but you have to wash your hands pretty quickly afterward or else it starts to burn.

We finished cleaning and then parted ways for the night. We left the shirts with Taylor (who doesn't have to pay for laundry) to wash and dry the next day. Thank you Taylor! For the sake of the blog I forced them to get together the next day and model our finished products:

I thought that they were all pieces of art but both of the boys refused to leave the house wearing their lovely new shirt. What a shame! 

I am so glad that I have some friends from home going to school with me up here. Seeing a familiar face is so refreshing sometimes! Thanks Taylor and Tyson for helping me accomplish my goal of producing a good tie-dyed shirt and having fun with me in the process!

Who Knew?

On June 9th I ran my very first half marathon! My sister Wendi signed up to run in a while ago but ended up going on a cruise instead. I week or two before the race I decided, what the heck, I will run her race. I hadn't trained for it at all but if it was already paid for I might as well burn some calories, right? I have tried twice in the past to train and run half marathons but both times I got sick the week of the race and couldn't run. I had never run more that eight miles straight before in my life and that had even been two years ago. I was expecting to walk a good chunk of my race. Well I started off running and never stopped! I ran it in 2 hours and 15 minutes which is about 30 minutes faster than I had been hoping! Because I crossed the finish line at an unexpected time there was no one to cheer me on or take a picture so this picture taken before the race is the only one I have. I am sure that the only reason why I could run the whole way was because it was nearly all down hill. Thank goodness! I didn't do much the rest of the day because I was tired and my knees were killing me so I just relaxed. What a good day! Thanks Wendi for letting run your race!

Warning: Pure Silliness Ahead

In my spare time this semester I have preoccupied myself by making a patchwork quilt. This has been a VERY time consuming project but I guess that is exactly what I wanted it to be. As I have been sewing and quilting recently I have been watching some of my favorite movies: Christy, Pride and Prejudice, and Anne of Green Gables. I have thoroughly enjoyed them, probably more than I ever have before. I LOVE THEM! (Since I am a girl,) as I look back and reflect upon why they are so amazing I have to admit that it is because they are all good romances. I promise that I like them for more than the romance though! The other day I sat there thinking about all these movies and I started comparing the men and asked myself which one I liked best. It was a hard choice because they are all so good!

This is Neil McNeil from the tv series Christy. He is an amazing doctor who chose to work in the tiny backwoods town of Cutter Gap because he is loyal to and loves his people. He is stubborn but rugged and has a Scottish accent!

This, of course, is Mr. Darcy from A&E's version of Pride and Prejudice. He is extremely wealthy but yet is still teachable and learns kindness and humilty in the movie. He doesn't smile much but when he does...look out!

This is David Grantland from Christy. He is the preacher for Cutter Gap. He works so hard to bring religion and what he knows is right and good to the people in those mountains. He also has to compete with Neil McNeil for Christy's affections.


This is Gilbert Blythe from Anne of Green Gables. Gilbert and Anne have grown up together since Anne came to Green Gables at age 12. He has always secretly loved her but she is too headstrong to see it and accept it for many years. Through all the years and rejections from Anne he stays ever loyal and in love with her. He is also amazingly smart and becomes a doctor.



Like I said, they are all GREAT choices! But I was able to choose the one I liked the best. Drumroll please..............




GILBERT BLYTHE!!

I chose him because he is just a normal but amazing guy who fell in love with an awkward looking and acting redheaded twelve year old. He didn't give up! He is smart and could have had a prestegious career but chose to just help normal people who needed him. He always put Anne first, giving up jobs and opportunities when he knew it would benefit her. I can't even describe how great he is! You will just have to watch the movies :) I was probably a little biased to him though because, out of all three stories, I think that Anne and Gilbert's the most romantic. Actually I might venture to say that it is the MOST romantic story I have ever heard, watched, or read! That is saying something because I have read and watched more romance novels and chick flicks that I would like to to admit.

Thanks for putting up with my random ramblings! And if you know these stories and men please feel free to share who you would choose.

New York City!

My Dad took the ladies that work at his office to New York City to attend the Vision Expo East. Naturally he took my mother too but I lucked out and got to tag along! Needless to say, NYC was extremely foreign and a lot to take into my sheltered little mind. I feel like this picture gives a pretty good visual to my reaction to NYC and lasted the whole time we were there!

Okay I know that I am posting a lot of pictures and it is in hopes that they will tell the story better than I can. I do not have it in me to give a play-by-play accounting of the trip so you will have to be satisfied with random pictures with some commentary.
This is the Empire State Building:

At the top of this huge building you could see for miles. I have seen sky-scrapers before but most of the time there are several close together in the down town area of a city but the rest of the city is normal buildings.....well not NYC. There are ONLY sky-scrapers there! The view was pretty astounding! This is only a sliver of it:

And this of course is a lovely self-taken picture of my parents and I at our best (wink) while experiencing this amazing view:

In the midst of pure building we found a piece of beauty and tranquility, namely Central Park:

There were tons of carts that tourists could ride in to see the park. Many were horse-drawn but the ones in this picture are human-drawn (bicycles):

Unfortunately the leaves were not out on the trees yet but we were lucky enough to see some pretty cool blossoms:

Another day we rode a ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. I must say that it looks a lot like all the pictures but it was still cool to see in real life. They were doing some construction at the base though so we couldn't go inside.

On the same day and right after Lady Liberty we took the ferry over to Ellis Island. We took a tour that explained the whole immigration process through Ellis Island. It was quite fascinating but kind of scary too. It was really cool to learn about though.

Our hotel was only one block away from Broadway and we were lucky enough to get to see the Broadway showing of Wicked. I have seen it before but it was just as good the second time...AMAZING!

The first few days we walked almost every where we went. After those looonngg walks riding the subway was even more cooler and more appreciated. It truly amazes me the crazy maze of subway stations under all those streets and buildings! And it is quite efficient! I thoroughly enjoyed riding them and felt like a subway pro by the end of the trip. My one complaint is the smelly condition of many of the subway stations. We rode in a few taxis and after surviving those near death experiences the subway looked even better!

We took the opportunity to just walk down Broadway one night. There were all kinds of stores and people everywhere. I saw several limos, some normal, some pink, and some were Ford Excursions! There were many street musicians playing all kinds of music.

We found a three-story M&M store with just about everything you could think of to buy. Dad was instantly drawn to Ms. Brown with her glasses and just had to get a picture!

This is all of us ladies standing in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was huge! We went to the Nature History Museum too but I liked this one better. I even recognized some of the pieces of art that I studied in my art history class :)

At first I was not very excited about going to see the 9/11 memorial but some of the other ladies were so we went. I am so glad that we did! It was very touching and good to remember and reflect on that day and the lives lost.

We are posing in front of what is known as the "survivor tree". It survived the 9/11 attacks, then was moved somewhere else only to be torn up in a wind storm. They brought it back to its original spot and it is amazingly still alive!

On Sunday we went to church in the Manhattan Temple. The temple is on the first two levels and the meeting house was on the third floor. It was SO nice to find something so familiar and peaceful in the midst of the foreign, chaotic city!

Here is one of the crazy limos we saw on Broadway. The streets are so narrow and busy, I do not know how this car turns corners!

This is an example of not only the pure sky-scrapers but also show the variety. None of the building are a like. It almost feels like it is a competition to come up with the coolest twist in the arcitecture of a sky-scraper.

Something that was very frustrating to me was the inability to see very far. I guess I have been spoiled with wide open spaces.....well they don't exist in NYC!

This was a random piece of art that we ran into on one of our walks. This one was pretty unique but random art work on the street was quite common.

This was another random thing we passed on that walk. People had formed a circle to watch these black guys break dancing on the street. This is how they make a living....crazy!

Well we experienced SO much more but I can't share it all. It was really cool to go and see all these things but it made me very homesick. I would take Eagar, Arizona any day over NYC!

New Things I Appreciate

As most of you know, I am taking a break from college this semester and doing some soul searching. This as left me at home with a lot of time on my hands. I want to assure you that I have been soul searching but I have also had time to devote to other things. Very few of them are exciting but they have taught me to appreciate things that I never have before. So I thought that I would share a few of them with you:

1. sudoku

2. talk radio

3. reading the newspaper

4.wonderful parents

5. sunshine in winter

6. an old piano book I had forgotten about

7. the ability to take a nap if I need one (or want one)

8. Mom's golden oldies (50's and 60's music)

9. how much information is online!

10. indexing

11. and great friends who still care!

Just Keep Crocheting...

Merry Christmas everyone! Mine was a little small but great. It was only the Browning families in town and Wendi and I with my parents. At least we still had some kids to make Christmas so much more exciting. It was my turn to give a gift to Holly and her family. She asked for a movie so I got it for her but then I realized I had some extra time on my hands. I also needed an excuse to watch Christmas movies so I decided to make everyone in her family a pair of slippers.

Here are my wonderful foot models: (Luckily they all fit their feet)

I know that this picture doesn't show off my slippers very much but I just wanted you to see my sister's beautiful family that brings such joy to my life.

Love you guys!