Preston's mission call...

I almost forgot to mention...Prestion has his mission call!!! He is going to the Mozambique, Maputu mission and will report June 8th. He will be speaking Portugese (and probably a few other dialects in the meantime!!!). He is very excited to go and I know he will be an awesome missionary! Here are a few facts about his mission:

• Has the #2 highest death rate in the world
• The country that has the #1 highest death rate is also in his mission, Angola.
• According to Preston, Angola only has 1 branch with less than 10 members.
• The median age in Mozambique is 17.
• The percentage of people living with HIV/AIDS is 12%
• He has to get a bunch of crazy immunizations before he leaves!
• Official language of Mozambique is Portugese, but it is not the most spoken language in the country

We are super excited for Preston and know he will be safe and happy! I am so grateful for missionary work and for the great experience it is for my brothers.

Change is in the Air...

So I have some major changes coming up in the next few weeks. I interviewed for an Intensive Care Unit position at Timpanogos Regional Medical Center and they offered me the job earlier this week. It really is what I have been hoping for since day one of being a nurse. Not the position neccessarily, but the move to the Orem/Provo area. I am excited to find a place in the next couple of weeks and then start a new job. It should be a good career move as a step up from the Telemetry unit that I currently work on. Some of the new patients I will see will include critical shock, sepsis, post open heart surgery, acute stroke patients. My patient load will drop from 4-5 patients to 2 patients. They will train me for 4 months at which time I will hopefully be ready to go. It will be a lot of learning in a very short amount of time because I have a lot of new equipment and procedures to learn. I am excited by the atmosphere of the hospital. I am excited to be closer to my brother Eric. There are some sad things to leave behind: good friends, my current job, and my wonderful family away from my family, Brad and Linda Waddoups. However, this well get me out of my comfort zone and increase my learning opportunities.

So...if you hear of anyone needing a place to live in South Ogden, send them my way! I need to sell my contract!!!

Holidays!

So this is a little late in coming, but I thought I would mention the holiday season. I worked quite a bit, including Christmas and New Years Eve, but I enjoyed the days off. My family and I went to see the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert with David Archuleta. That was a lot of fun. I drove home several weeks in a row and enjoyed having Eric and Preston there on their breaks from school. Christmas Day I got off work at 0730 and was home by 1000. We opened presents and then I slept for a little. We were able to spend time with both sets of grandparents which was nice too.

A few weekends ago I went to Provo and spent some time with family there. My cousin Leslie left on a mission and she was speaking in church. It was fun to see Christensen family. I spent the night with Brenda and Travis's family and had a riot with them. We played games and made breakfast and had a good time. Eric and I had a blast. We went shopping and I got more clothes than I have in a while because Eric kept telling me I should buy them. We also went skiing at Sundance. Conditions weren't the best, but we had a really good time. We also went to the BYU-TCU basketball game and had a great time there as well.

My birthday was this last Sunday and I was able to go home after church. I had a nice time with that as well.

This coming Saturday we are all skiing at Jackson Hole. Hopefully I can get some pictures taken and share soon.

Tis the Season!

Wow what a beautiful time of year! I just got back from watching White Christmas with a friend tonight, which was fantastic! Then when I got home I discovered that some secret friend had left a CD with beautiful Christmas music on it for me! I instantly felt so loved and mindful of the true meaning of the season. Christmas is all about love. The love of our Heavenly Father to send Jesus Christ to earth to redeem and save us all. The love of Jesus Christ to give up his life willingly to save me. The love of answered prayers. The love of family and the wonderful relationships therein. The love of friends. The love that we can show to each other all through the year. It feels so close at this time of year however, and I am grateful for the opportunity to feel that love so often. Christmas is a time where I feel so close to my Savior and my fellow man. The Spirit is so near at this time of year and I feel warmth and peace. I realized as well that I need to share the love that I feel for others. I need to do something special for those around me every day during this special season. It shouldn't be stressful as it so often becomes, but rather a blessed opportunity to tell those around us we love them!

I am also grateful for Thanksgiving and the fact that it starts this season off. I am so blessed and I would like to share some of my blessings with you:

• I have the most beautiful family in the world. That includes my wonderful brothers, parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and adopted family!
• I have a knowledge of the gospel and the love of my Savior and I am learning to develop a relationship with him.
• I have a great job where I learn everyday and I get the opportunity to serve people who can't help themselves.
• I have a warm, safe house with roommates that really are exceptional.
• I have plenty of money to live on, give away, and enjoy too!
• I have one of the finest educations around. Yes, it has been a year since I graduated!!!
• I was blessed through the trial of losing my sweet Grandma Christensen. We have been watched over and comforted, and I feel her close to me.
• I have a car that is reliable transportation and that is paid off!
• I have health and strength and youth with all of its blessings.
• I am blessed to be able to date some great young men and develop myself so that I will be ready for marriage someday.
• I am blessed to be able to enjoy the wonderful outdoors in so many grand ways!
• I am blessed with a challenging church calling that keeps me humble and wishing I could be better.
• I am blessed to live in Ogden which is stretching me and teaching me things I could probably learn no other way.
• I have so many great friends that mean so much to me and teach me so much!
• I have prayers answered on a daily basis and I know that I have a loving Heavenly Father who is guiding my life.
• I am blessed to live in America with its freedoms and wonderful opportunities. I am grateful for the men and women who put their lives on the line to keep it that way.
• I get to be home for part of Christmas for which I am so excited!

I truly am blessed beyond measure. Just some thoughts as I sit with a full heart and grateful that it is Christmas again! If anyone has some ideas for some service to share during this season please let me know!

Fall Happenings

So I realized that it has been forever since I posted last! I have actually been having a lot of fun recently, I guess too much fun to take the time to post! So I believe this will begin and end with football. As mentioned before Eric and I got season passes. We have had a lot of fun going to the games and Preston has been able to make it a few times as well. BYU hasn't had the greatest season ever, but the last ocuple of games have actually been pretty good. The offense is finally improving and I am excited for the BYU-Utah game again!!!

I think this is a touchdown pass, but if not just imagine that it is. This was the first home game which they did win. As you can see we were sitting really close!

I have been practicing my baking skills this fall. This was the apple pie that I made. It was so much fun! I have also make apple crisp, peach cobbler, and zucchini bread on multiple occasions. Maybe there is hope that I will turn into a cook yet!

Another football picture! This is back to the first game with my two brothers! Ignore the goofy smile on my face; I was really happy!

Conference weekend meant the whole fmaily got together and we spent the weekend in Island Park listening to the words of wisdom from our wonderful church leaders. It was also just an idyllic fall weekend with the most beautiful fall weather. We floated Big Springs between sessions on Saturday. Here is Pres soaking up the sun.

Dad in his kayak. It was one of my favorite float trips ever!

Mom, Cam, and I. Cam looks like he just woke up, but we sure had a nice time!!!

Sampling of the beautiful colors on our drive to Mesa Falls. Gorgeous! I sure had a lovely time with my family that weekend.

I also got to accompany Dad, Grandpa, and Cam on a fishing trip. We froze almost to death, but it was fun and the boys caught a lot of fish. I drove the boat. Here is Cam fishing like a pro, a cold pro.

Dad found success!

Another weekend at home. Dad, Mom and I went to a pumkin fest. There were some cutouts for children and lets just say we had a little too much fun with those! Cam AKA Spiderman.

Dad as the Donkey, Cam as Shrek, and me as Fiona. Like I said, too much fun!

Finally back to football. My whole family came up and got to go to a game together. We had such a good time! My mom hates football and she even came. It was warm and sunny, especially considering it was November! My family also came to church with me on Sunday. It was SO nice to have them visit for a weekend! At the game we ran into my Aunt and Uncle Wilcox and their family. Here is the whole group.

And here is my awesome family! I love you guys so much!

So I am on call tonight which is so nice sometimes! On Saturday I am getting my wisdom teeth out which I am terrified about, but it should be okay. Most people live through it, I am told. Then I have a week off and will get to enjoy Thanksgiving with my family! Oh I just love the holidays! Gratitude post coming soon!

Circadian Rhythms

So here I am again, at work, wide awake and it is 3 am. I never thought that I would end up with this weird schedule. I find more and more these days that I can stay up easily until 2-3 am, even after being up all day. Then 8 am hits and I am soo sleepy! This presents a problem on the days I don't work, especially Sundays. Waking up for 9am church is almost impossible. I slept through turning off my alarm this last Sunday and woke up at 8:30. Let's just say that I was a few minutes late to church. I don't really know what to do about my sleeping habits. I think the only thing that will help is getting back to day shift, and that could be years! So in the meantime I guess everything will be out of whack!

I spent another fun Saturday in Provo with Eric, Preston, and Marybeth. The Cougars lost this game unfortunately. But we were able to buy some nectarines, eat at In-N-Out, and hike the "Y" in the dark! I enjoyed spending some time with my brothers. I also took a different route to Provo. It was a little longer, but the fall colors were out in full swing and were so, so beautiful! (My car also reached 36.5 mpg on my dashboard!!! Love it!)

Conference Weekend is fast approaching and I am so excited! We are spending the weekend in Island Park! It looks to be a good weekend!

Grown up...

So Monday I took another step towards being "grown up"! I bought my first car!!! I had spent months looking and even more months saving for it! I bought a silver chevy cobalt. I like it a lot and I really like the feeling that I paid for it completely with cash that I had saved over my six months of working. I like the feeling that it is completely mine and that I have full responsibility for it. Wow, how weird! I will include pictures in my next post. I went home this last weekend to look at cars my parents had found. We had a nice weekend. It would have been better if I didn't stress so much about buying the car. You didn't know that buying a car involves a breakdown or two on the way to get it! Apparently it does for me. Thanks to Mom and Dad for helping me out so much and letting me use their car for all those years while I was getting through school!

Other happenings...Eric and I have season passes to BYU sports. We went to the first football game a few weeks ago. We had a blast, and Preston was able to come too. I will post pictures next time.

School has started for all three of my brothers. I have to admit I am going through withdrawls! I don't miss homework, tests, and studying, but I miss a lot of other things! However, I am still learning new things every time I work so that is good.

Speaking of work...I took an advanced life saving class and I learned a ton. I feel a lot more confident in my abilities to save someone who codes.

Just some random thoughts at 2:30 in the morning! Night shift messes with everything!