A beautiful place

Hello again! It's been a while. Tooooo long for me. So lets get going again, sound good?

Last Saturday was my birthday! I got to do a lot of fun things and had a great day. One of the places I went was sprinkles cupcakes. Yum!

Then I remembered how close the San Diego temple was to sprinkles and decided to go to the temple grounds. While I was there I had my brother take some pictures outside with me. I'm so glad I did. Because the temple means SO much to me. I love the peace and joy I feel when I go to the temple. I love the wonderful feelings I get there. It is amazing how even outside on the temple grounds how you feel. My favorite primary song has always been: "I love to see the temple. "

(Picture by me)

"I love to see the temple".

1. I love to see the temple.

I’m going there someday

To feel the Holy Spirit,

To listen and to pray.

For the temple is a house of God,

A place of love and beauty.

I’ll prepare myself while I am young;

This is my sacred duty.

2. I love to see the temple.

I’ll go inside someday.

I’ll cov’nant with my Father;

I’ll promise to obey.

For the temple is a holy place

Where we are sealed together.

As a child of God, I’ve learned this truth:

A fam’ly is forever.

This song means even more to me now that I have been able to go to the temple. And I can not wait for that wonderful day when I can be married and sealed in the temple to my eternal family. I am so grateful that I am sealed to my own family!

It was a beautiful Saturday and I'm so glad I had that chance. It was a perfect thing to do on my birthday!

Click HERE to read a poem I wrote about the temple a few years ago.

Canada, eh?

Aaron received his Mission call this afternoon!

He is going to....

The Canada Toronto mission!

But that's not all..... He'll be speaking Korean!

He will leave for the MTC in October.

We are excited for him!

EFY

Last week I had the chance to go to EFY. I went to EFY in Utah at BYU. I got to sleep, eat and live on campus for a week. Nothing like going to college there,but it was still fun to do. I roomed with my cousin Emma and we had a fun time. It was such a spiritual week but also really fun because you got to meet so many amazing people. I took SO many pictures and am posting a lot of them because my blog is a journal to me.

Me
Our room wasn't quite to clean...
So, time for a little story. Me and Emma were down a hallway looking for out dorm room. A girl pops her head out of the door and I see her and I'm like "Lexi is that you?" and the girl is like "Marianne?". Well Lexi and me are 2nd cousins and turns out she was on my floor! She wasn't it my company but it was fun to see her. And yes we were surprised!

Well that wasn't the end of surprises! After we got to our dorms we got to meet our girls group. Everyone was nice and we got to know each other. (Below is our girls group).

After that we got to meet our company. (2 girl groups + a guy group).
This is our whole group on the last day. (Including some random kids that obviously wanted to be in our picture.)

Well when we met our whole company I found TWO more 2nd cousins! (I already knew my 2nd cousins but didn't know they were coming). It was so funny, so surprising and crazy.

Me & Marin (2nd cousins)
Me & Sofia (2nd cousins)
It doesn't even end there!! Below is a picture of Kylie. I met her and me & Emma were talking to her about Texas. (That's were she's from). After having one conversation we figured out we were related by marriage. We were all stunned and were laughing! It's amazing how we got into the same group.

Okay I'm done with my stories of relieves. :) Moving on.

We had an amazing couple, Brother and Sister Murphy that got to speak to us everyday. They gave the most inspiring talks and got to know you personally. They were awesome!

This is Madi. She was my counselor! I liked her and she was fun.

This is Becky, the other girl counselor. She was way more fun than Mandi, so I'm glad she was there. So each morning after our group devotional (Witch was WAY to early) we would have a company devotional and then our personal scripture study.
I read my scriptures here one day. It was so pretty!
One morning we woke up to a sky filled with hot air balloons!
Two girls from my ward were at EFY in a different session but we were able to meet up with them a few times and we went and got Ice cream with a girl who was in our ward but is now up there at BYU for college. It was really great to get to do that. :)
Yes the ice cream was great too!

Me
Most of our company at lunch time

One of my other friends Larkin was at EFY too! (But in a different session). It was still fun though because we go to got to some classes together, eat dinner together one night and she came over to our dorms while me and Emma packed all our stuff up. :)
Me and Taylor. We became really good friends!
Me and Emma
And these two. Identical twins. I'll be honest I still can't tell you witch one is witch!
Maddy, Sarah, And Emily. Maddy and Sarah are from Vista!
Tye and Preston. They were best friends and did everything together!
Nolen eating a hamburger.
Mallory and Kate. I got to know Mallory really good.
The other Girls group. My Camera died right as we were taking pictures of our group.
A picture I took while we were walking up to dinner.


There was only one night that I didn't like. Game night. Outside. In the pouring rain. With shorts and T shirts. With lightning and thunder. So fun. BUT we made it! Until they let us all go back to our dorms because there was so much rain and lighting. (All of us below at game night before it started raining bad.)


Our company got to be with each other almost every moment of the day and it was really fun. By the last day everyone was really good friends with everyone. Our group was really close and we had so much fun together. At lunch we would eat and play games together and even during our free time we did stuff together too.

Getting ready to jump...
Playing games.

I am so glad I go to go to EFY! It was an amazing experience for me and I want to go again for sure! Of course I didn't post all the pictures or write out other fun things we did but this was part of my experience at EFY!

I'm a lucky Ducky

Hell0! Since I knew you'd all miss me horribly while I'm at EFY I thought that I would make a blog post and then have blogger post it later. So I really did this blog post back on sunday... and now you all get to see it on Wednesday! Yea! Now we are all happy. :)

I thought of what I would post and I could only think of one thing.

My adorable niece that I am going to miss so much while I'm on vacation.

So that's what you get for your blog post. Pictures of her! I am so lucky I get to be HER aunt. :)

Well enjoy and I will blog as soon as I get back!

Hope these pictures bring you some happiness.... they bring me some! :)

Repelling can be fun!

I was sad I have not gotten a chance to blog this week! I was gone at my church's "Girls camp" this week. AND blogger has not been working for me! And in about an hour I leave again to go to another church youth group program. It's called EFY. So I'm doing a quick post.. sorry that's all you get.... for a while. :)

So, I got to go repelling while I was at girls camp. It was really fun! Here are some pictures if me. It was only a tiny bit scary.

And the picture above is when I am finishing up.
Thanks for reading! Have a awesome sunday.

Happy Dad's day!

Happy Fathers Day to my Dad!

My Dad who: Speaks Japanese! (He lived in Japan for 2 years)

My Dad who: Is is very polite & Friendly and always says "Thank you".

My Dad who: Is good at having fun. He took us to the beach last night... just because!

My Dad who: Plans trips for us. Like the trips to New York, DC, Boston and tons of other great places.

My Dad who: Loves his Family, encourages them, supports them and teaches them great lessons!

My Dad who: Takes us to the store just to buy ice cream.

My Dad who: Loves to play Frisbee. Watch out! He's REALLY good. :)

My Dad who: Is very calm and understanding.

My Dad who: Is amazing!

I love you!



"Papa John" and Brianne "Flying". (Brianne is his biggest fan!)

Yes sir! My Dad loves milk! So do I!

And happy Fathers day to my Grandpa. He is such a great grandpa. He has helped me with so many things in my life, and I am so glad I have him in my life.

And Happy Fathers day to my other wonderful Grandpa who is no longer with us. He will always inspire me and he'll always be an amazing example to me! (Sorry the picture is so small!)

Happy Fathers day!