"Hope is putting faith to work when doubting would be easier."

So Mark's interview went pretty well. He's got almost everything else done for his application except for a reference letter and the physical test, which he does on Monday. Unfortunately he's gotten some sniffles this week so hopefully he'll be fine on Monday! We have a good feeling about everything though and will be anxiously waiting an answer when he's done with all the application stuff, which will be a while...so annoying!

Other than waiting for that, we're doing pretty good. We're both reaping the consequences of procrastinating though but that's our own faults :) Teachers just seem to like having everything due at the same time and it's so awful! Especially for a huge procrastinator like me; I've never gotten over that one little fault of mine :) But it'll work out...I work better under pressure on papers anyway... It has been GORGEOUS this week though. It's pretty awesome here. The weather has been in the upper sixties, so it's been nice and warm and the trees are all changing and the leaves are falling off and it's so awesome! I just wish it could last all winter! OH and I got a letter from my old roomie Emma, who is on a mission in Chile so that was SO exciting to get. She's doing fabulous and I can't wait for her to come home in February! My other roomie, Maria, just left Tuesday from the MTC to go to Ukraine so hopefully she's doing good her first week there! I also got pics of the Rivas babies that same day so that was exciting and happy too...they are SO flipping CUTE! I can't get over it...

Some other good news for you...I talked to my grandma on Sunday who had just went to visit my "stepmom" Terrie for two weeks. She just went to help her out and help her though one of her chemo treatments. She updated me on her status and everything is going pretty well. She told me the facts about what's going on cuz I was still a little hazy. Terrie's been officially diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (I think I got that right) and has been going in for chemo treatments. In all she has to do 8 and she's just finished up her 4th. After her third they said that her tumor had gone done over 50% which is awesome. (It originally was 9inches long and hit her kidneys, lungs, and heart, now it's 4 inches or so).

So hopefully by the last round it'll all be gone! Grandma R. said that Terrie has a very positive attitude though which is so good! The only problem she was having was, of course, dealing the chemo, which makes her pretty sick, and she had trouble "visualizing" the chemo getting rid of the tumor, which the doctors told her she should do. Grandma R. gave her a nice visual to help- using Pac Man, so think Pac-Man Terrie! :) tehehe....

Her son Terrell is there keeping good care of her so we're pretty glad about that. Such a good kid watching his mom! He just graduated from a culinary school in San Francisco so apparently he's an awesome chef and treats his mama like a queen. Which is perfectly awesome I think! Moms are the best things ever. Anyway, I haven't met her kids yet (Terrie has two boys and a girl) but they all sound awesome! Just like their mom. She is seriously one of the sweetest, nicest people I've ever known and all I here is good things about her! Keep up the good work though Terrie...we're all praying for you! :) :) :)

Well, I'm about to close up shop here at work (don't you just love how I spend my time here? :) tehehehe, so productive!). So that's all for today...sorry no apartment pictures yet! I'm a slacker....but it runs in the family apparently...(Annie, Mellisa, Monie...I could go on.... :).

Oh! One more thing....(just cuz I have pictures :) One of my friends got married last week, which was exciting and I am very happy for them. So I went to the temple and watched them come out and took a few pics while I was there and at the reception which Mark and I went to. So here's some pics of that for you!

"The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live." Flora Whittemore

So Mark has decided to apply for the Navy. He wants to join their Civil Engineering Corp and we both think it will be a great opportunity for him. He would be involved in a lot of building and overseeing on naval bases and would gain a lot of experience in his career field by doing that. He would have to go through officer training in Vermont after he finished school here at BYU and then we could go pretty much anywhere! That is if he gets in...but yeah...so he has started the application process and today he is going up to the UofU for an interview...eek! I'm going to go up there with him and wander around the career fair or something while he goes to his interview. (The guy is coming to the career fair there which is why Mark's doing the interview there). SO yeah...we're both pretty excited and nervous about it but hopefully all goes well! It'll definitely be a big change/event in our lives if he gets in...that's for sure!!! I'll let you know how it goes though! Oh and sorry about no pictures yet of the new place...we finally just got new internet at our apt and I'm still not done with everything, everything. I do love it though! So much better than our last place!!! I'm very happy with it. :) Anyway- yeah...I'll be back soon!

When we lose one blessing, another is often, most unexpectedly, given in its place. --C.S. Lewis--

I am so full of gratitude right now that I couldn't help but blog about it! I don't even really know where to start but here we go! So today was a pay day for both Mark and I, and as poor married college students, every pay day is very needful and exciting. Today just happened to be a most wonderful payday and very, very unexpected too! First of all Mark got paid more than he thought so we were pretty happy about that little factor. But later on today when I went to check our account online, our total was double what it should have been. I was a wee bit shocked and had no clue what is was for but definitely wasn't going to complain about it!

So what really happened was that Mark has been trying to finish his FAFSA for a while now but lost his W2's so he had to request more and blah, blah, blah. So last week he finally finished all the forms and sent it off. We thought it would take awhile to here back but lo and behold! There it was, a nice little pile of money for a pell grant in our bank account that we did NOT expect to get! First of all, we thought he'd just money for next semester since this one has already started but the Lord decided to bless us and give us some for this semester as well. I was talking to Mark online (we were both at work) and he said he yelled out loud he was so happy! (I couldn't cuz there were people in my store but I so wanted to!)

Anyway, we are SO excited and happy and SOOOO grateful for this wonderful blessing! The Lord is really looking out for us and we couldn't be more grateful for His love and help! When we follow His commandments, we really are blessed so much! We've been getting by with just enough for our needs, as most college students do, but this is certainly going to help us out so much. We'd just like to say how thankful we are for our families who do so much to help us and especially we'd like to thank our Heavenly Father for everything He does for us and continues to do for us.

"Home is where you can say anything you like because no one listens to you anyway."

So, as some of you already know, Mark and I are moving! Probably really not the best time to move, right in the middle of the semester, but that's just how it worked out. :) It's actually just a block away from our complex now but this time it's in a house! We're in the basement part of it and have a couple living on the main floor above us, who seem pretty nice from the 5 minutes or so I met them. Anyway, I've been looking around for a while for a house to live in cuz I don't like living in the massive complex we we're in for many a reason I won't get into right now. Let's just say a big part is that I am a bit sound sensitive (as my family well knows... :) and our neighbors (on both sides and below us) are all really loud and it drives me nuts, especially when I'm sleeping! And we all know that Tara needs her sleep...it's just a given. My Aunt Tawnya told me once that she and her mom were both the same way with things annoying them like that so I say it's all genetic :) But I still love you G-ma Rose! :)

Anywho- I started packing up and moving stuff over this weekend and today and tomorrow we're going to finish up! Oh...and about the new place. The main reason I like is cuz it has a washer and dryer! Yay! I hate paying for laundry and having to deal with going there and switching and so on. It's just a pain! But we have one now so I'm happy. Another nice thing is that it has two rooms (both are pretty small but oh well). So now we can use one for a bedroom and the other as a study/guest room! It was kind of annoying to be stuck in just three small areas at our other apartment especially when Mark was studying and I wanted to watch a show or something...he gets distracted WAY to easily to be in the same room for that. So now he can study and I can study or do whatever and we won't be in each others way! The new place is also furnished except for a bed...well it has beds but twins. Annie said we could kick it old style like on "I love Lucy" and each have a twin bed but I was like, no Annie, we can do better than that, they make into bunkbeds! :) Mark thought that would be fun but I said no....Our new landlord though knows a guy who works at a Mattress Warehouse and he got us an awesome deal on a queen sized bed with boxspring and frame (only $100!). He's pretty cool for a landlord, very funny old guy. So we're picking up the bed tonight and moving stuff in. Which just gives me another reason to procrastinate my homework of course! I'm so bad at that...I promise I get it done, just usually right before it's due :)

It's going to be a pretty busy week though, with moving and working a lot and school and then Saturday I have a good friend getting married so we're going to go to her reception. I was gonna go to her wedding ceremony at the temple but sadly I have to work in the morning cuz I'm such a good person. Two out of four employees are gonna be gone that day out of town and I had originally asked that day off before but felt bad leaving the entire shift to the only other girl...I'm just so darn nice, but really sad to miss her sealing!!!!. The reception will be fun though, and hopefully the cake will be good! I do love me some good wedding cake...mmmm...yummy....

Well just as a bit of an ending, although it's gonna be on a good note, it's getting to be very wintery here! I'm NOT very happy about this fact at all though, I HATE cold and I HATE the snow that makes it cold (although it does make the mountains look pretty and we've had some awesome cloud action lately). I have a feeling it's gonna be a very, very cold winter here! It usually doesn't start snowing until the end of October but it's already begun and I guess I just need to face the facts. That's what I get for living in Utah I suppose! I do love these mountains though! SO amazing!

I love to see the temple, I'm going there someday

Well first of all, sorry to all those that are not LDS because this is mostly about goings on in the church and such, so I'm sorry if you don't all understand how excited I am about some things I'm going to talk about. :)

Anyway, this weekend is our Church's General Conference which consists of two days (Saturday and Sunday) of sessions where the leaders of the Church speak to the members. There are two sessions each day which are two hours long. It happens two times a year, the first weekend of April and the first weekend of October. It is a very wonderful and uplifting time and I love it! I didn't appreciate it as much when I was younger but as I've gotten older it's become a very special time of the year and I love listening to the council our leaders give us. I especially love going to the actual conference center and listening to it in person. It's such an amazing experience to sit there with 21,000 people, over a hundred General Authorities of the Church and often the entire 360 person Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Needless to say, the new Conference Center is HUGE!!!!! (they say that it can fit two full size Boeing planes inside of it....holy crapt that's big!!!) It is an extremely AWESOME experience, let me tell you.

(yes, this IS actually a top view of the conference center, it has tons of plants and walkways on top of it and it's pretty fantastic!!!)

(isn't it awesome???)

This past weekend I actually got to go to the session of the Relief Society (our Church's organization for women) and be there at the conference Center filled entirely with women, except for the few GA's that spoke :) I went with my sister-in-law Amy and we had a great time!

Anyway, to sum that up...I LOVE Conference weekend! I was sitting here this morning watching the first session and the President of our Church, Thomas S. Monson, announced five new temples, which is always super exciting anyway (we currently have 128 in operation around the world and they are all magnificently BEAUTIFUL buildings!). Among these new five he announced a new temple in the greater Kansas City area of Missouri!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now being from Missouri, this is super, super, super exciting for me and my family. It is also exciting because of the historical significance of that area from the beginnings of the Church. I did find it quite interesting that they chose to say "the greater Kansas City area" instead of a specific location so right now I have no clue where it's actually gonna be but it's still exciting! It most likely will be in Farwest Missouri but it could be in Independence or Liberty as well so I can't wait to hear specifics! We're hoping they'll mention more when my family goes to their stake conference in two weeks. Currently my family has to drive a good 3 hours to the temple in St. Louis, which isn't really all that bad and it's a gorgeous temple, but one near Kansas City will definitely be closer!

(this is a picture from Farwest that my sister Annie took, her husband did landscaping stuff there for a while and they got to go up there quite a bit. There is really nothing around there, just lots and lots of gorgeous Missouri land!)

I have always loved our temples, everything about them is amazing. They are built with such care and are done with as much perfection as a building could be. I would love one day to just travel around the world and seeing these awesome buildings. Currently I have been to/seen in person the Nauvoo Temple, St. Louis Temple, Salt Lake Temple, Manti Temple, St. George Temple, Mt. Timpanagos Temple, Bountiful Temple, Oakland Temple, Mesa, AZ Temple, and the Birmingham, AL Temple. I think that's it, besides the ones I've just driven by like the Jordan River Temple. I love taking pictures of them though and am gathering quite a collection. Here are a few of them.

Anyway, that's pretty much all I have to say right now, except I guess to say that I LOVE TEMPLES! I have had such wonderful amazing experiences there and am so eternally grateful for the blessings they bring to my life!