Hi, I'm Alex and I am a Mormon

Ok, so I was watching the very interesting and well done news of Idaho. They cover stories like the local high school play, or the local girl who made it to the final show of America's Got Talent as their top stories. I usually watch, judge, and laugh at such meager news stories for entertainment. Last night I was not at all suprised when they decided to cover a story about the new Mormon ads that are out. They asked people around town what they thought of the new ads. My roommate decided she wanted to watch a few, so we looked them up and they are actually really awesome. These are two of my favorite, but they are all pretty much awesome. Watch and enjoy! Ps. I might have teared up a bit during the one with the mother with 5 children.

Chasing Pavements

This is an awesome music video that Devin showed me. It has a whole dance with them laying down. It is really cool. Watch and enjoy!

T-14 days till...

The count down has started till the third book in the Hunger Games trilogy comes out! With the help of my co-worker, Melissa, we have officially hooked the entire office (mostly just the girls, which is the entire office staff!). We looked up the times and locations of the midnight party which we are fully planning on attending. 10 pm, Teton Mall, Barnes and Nobels. Excited yet? Well you should be!!

How to Have fun in the Burg!

You might ask, how does one exactly have fun while going to BYU-I in Rexburg, Idaho? Well, this blog entry will answer that question for you.

Big Judd’s: A ridiculous place about 15 minutes away from Rexburg. It is a burger place and boy is it good, and boy does it make me sick every time I eat there. They have this challenge where you can eat their 1-pound hamburger and you get a picture on the wall. I am ok with never accomplishing this challenge.

My preschool team. They are awesome and we took a trip to Big Juds.

Bon Fires: One of the many bonuses of having friends who live locally is that they know what to do and how to do it. Bon Fires is one of these things! Roast mellows, socialize, cobbler, horse shoes, and of course, a fire.

Bon Fire in the middle of no place with EVERYONE!

Ward Functions: Fact: I live in the best ward ever. This semester we had ward Olympics (which my FHE group won) and we also did the 50-lap relay (and our ward got 2^nd)! So much fun!

Ward Olympics and this is most of my FHE group! Wade's World!

50-Lap Relay. Jordi, Me, Holli, Valerie, Kami.

Rodeo: I don’t think this was a real rodeo, but I don’t know any better. BYU-I students got the chance to ride a steer. Both Leanna and Tim rode and both did awesome!

Rodeo before Leanna and Tim rode!!

“R” Mountain: We hiked “R” mountain at like 10 at night and it was so much fun. It was a full moon and so we didn’t need flash lights. On the hike up we gathered wood and ended up having a fire when we got up there. The fire smelled so bad, but the mellows tasted pretty good!

At the top of "R" Mountain. Me, Valeria, Kami, Holli, Danny.

Campus activities: These are actually pretty fun. They organized this huge water day and they had a huge slip and slide, water baseball, watermelon, and lots of other things. Another thing was Extravadance. My old roommate, Brooke, was in it and of course she was amazing.

Water day on campus. We are all wet from the slip and slide!

Valerie’s House: My roommate, Valerie, lives in Blackfoot and she had us over for a little camp out in her yard. Roasted mellows, ate hamburgers, watermelon, had a fire, and camped in tents. It was so much fun!

Holli, Valerie, and I at Valerie's house. So much fun!

Service!: During Spirit week on campus there was a service project making blankets and making cards, it was a great experience.

Kami and I at the Service Project.

FHE: Fact #2: I have the best FHE group ever! We have made shirts, went to the park and played ultimate, played in water, made graham candy houses, went four-wheeling, went and had ice cream and I am sure we will be doing so much more!

FHE when we played ultimate. I was the one that got booted over to the other FHE team and we totally dominated!!

ST. GEORGE!!!: Technically this isn’t in Rexburg, but it was organized with people who live in Rexburg and we drove from Rexburg.

Day 1: Friday. Drove 8 hours to St. George where Dave’s Brother, Dan, greeted us in his amazing house. Dan made us smoothies. We ended to night by watching Sandlot.

Day 2: Saturday. Made sandwiches and had tons of food. Went to the lake and found some cliffs. The pictures say it all. It was so much fun, and so beautiful. That night Dan grilled chicken for us and made us this huge dinner.

This is me jumping off of one of the cliffs. We swam to this little Island. You can see the shore in the distance. It was a pretty hefty swim, but so worth it!

Day 3: Sunday. Went to church. Had an interesting Sunday school teacher, he was very dramatic. Had a funny Relief Society President. She called us “Dave’s Harem.” Made me laugh. Then we went home, played games, took naps, ate another awesome lunch. Then we went to Stari’s, Dan’s wife, parent’s house. I thought Dan’s house was big, but this thing was crazy big. First we jumped on their trampoline, then we played volleyball in their backyard, and tether ball. Then we had Kabobs, which Dan cooked. Then we played soccer in their indoor soccer gym. But before all this we got a tour of the full gym they have, the full theater room they have, and the rest of the huge house. Crazy fun!!

This is Julie in the sand box that is underground/ under the trampline. So awesome!

Indoor soccer! I scored at least 3 times. Kind of proud of myself :)

Day 4: Monday. We decided that we needed to go on a hike before we left St. George and it was the best decision made all weekend. It was just outside Cedar City and it was through a river and up waterfalls. Once again the pictures don’t do it justice, but it gives you the idea. It was almost like a mini narrows hike. Then we drove 5 hours to my house where my wonderful mother provided dinner for us, and then the remaining 3 hours the Rexburg. Best weekend EVER!!

Climbing up the waterfall. Devin, Kami, Valerie, Rachel, Julie, Dave, and me at the very top!

The whole crew again! Love this picture!

Boating: Another plus about having roommate that live locally. My roommate, Holli, has a boat and her father took us on Saturday. I only went tubing, but they have wake boards, skis, slalom, knee boarding, and the skyski. It got really cold, and that is why I stopped once the sun went away. Still so much fun!!

Boating on Holli's boat and she isnt even in the picture. I am on the tubes all the way to the right.

Upcoming events: Jordi’s cabin in island park, floating the river, more boating, swimming at beaver dick park, Rigby lake, water fights, and more fun things that involve me getting tan!!

Back to the Burg

I have now been home from Jerusalem for almost 4 months and it has been even longer than that since my last entry. I apologize and will try to be better…not that anyone reads this thing anyways.

This winter semester has been a crazy one. From school to dating to working to being ill, it has been a ride!

Lets start with school. I had the opportunity to take some really good classes this semester including Social Psychology, Social Problems, Adult Development, a Vocal class, Professional Development and a religion class.

Favorite: Social Psychology

Reason: We studied things like; why people get mad, why people help, personality, aggression, understanding yourself, the need to justify, and other awesome and interesting topics. Class was so much fun and interesting. We also had such a diverse group of people that it made class that much more interesting. Downfall was the tests….killer.

As for my social life, it has been a lot of fun this semester. Lucky me had three engaged roommates, so they were pretty much useless when it came to a social life. I ended up meeting tons of new people and had lots of things to do. Not much more to say in this area…maybe it wasn’t as great as I thought? No, it was great!

Working is work? I am now working in the office mostly, which means I get to talk to some very interesting people when they come in. I am in on most of the scoop and I am learning how to do tons of stuff. Part of me misses the kids, but then I get the chance to work with them on Mondays and Wednesdays. They are fun and cute, but they have their moments. I think I like them better from a distance…

As most of you know it has been an interesting semester with me being sick most of it. I got sick at the beginning of the semester and just never really recovered. I got sick again about 2 weeks ago and it got really bad. Body aches, headaches, temperature, extremely sore throat, and the feeling of death approaching. Tuesday morning I went to the Health Clinic on campus, they looked at my throat and then sent me to a specialist who sent me to the hospital to have emergency surgery to have the abscesses on my throat removed and take out my tonsils. Went to the hospital where they hooked me up to an IV. By this point I hadn’t been drinking water because it was extremely difficult so getting the IV in was an interesting experience. It took about 10 minutes of them tying my arm, flicking the back of my hand, and sticking me a needle to find the vain. Once they got it in, they gave me some morphine so I was no longer mad at them. They gave me a few more drugs, took me into surgery and I was a goner. Next thing I know, I am awake and life still sucks. If you don’t have to get your tonsils out when you’re an adult, I recommend that you don’t do it—not a fun experience. My mother was awesome enough and drove to Rexburg to get me. I went home for the rest of the week, which means that I missed a full week of classes right before exam week. Exam week was fun J

That pretty much sums up my semester.

See you again in 5 months! (Just kidding. I will try to be better about writing in this thing)

Boker Tov!

It has been a while and I apologize, but then not because I have been having too much fun! A lot has happened and so I wont be able to tell about everything. We went to this biblical park, crushed our own olives and eventually get our own oil, went to the Dead sea, and went to Jordan!

So the Dead Sea was pretty cool, but I honestly loved hiking and swimming in the near by waterfalls much better. We had to pay like 6 Shekels (a little less then $2) to get into this park and we just hiked up to these waterfalls. I climbed up the waterfall and jumped off and it was so much fun! I wish we spent more time at the waterfalls and then less time at the Dead Sea, but it was still super fun. This park is also part of several tour groups, so we had an audience while swimming and it was kind of funny. They probably thought we were idiots, but we didn’t even care. So after we were in this park for a couple hours we walked over to the Dead Sea. First off, it is really gross. Second, it was the weirdest thing ever! I could sit in the water and raise my hands and feet our of the water and not have any problems at all. That was a lie. I had problems getting out of the water because it took some work to get my feet under the water to stand up. The rocks on the side of the “beach” were coated in thick layers of salt. So there was a big group of us that were all just hanging out and talking in the water and all of a sudden we see this guy just covered in mud. So Jeremy and I decided to go find where his source was because we wanted the full Dead Sea experience. He ends up leading us to it and handing over piles of mud. I can not even begin to explain the odor that was coming from this sometimes expensive product. I almost threw up several time, but I got the pictures and the experience! I swear I could still smell it after several showers, but I knew I was just making it up. So overall, Dead Sea experience was good and we are going back!

Now JORDAN!!! I LOVED Jordan. I liked it better then Egypt just because it was a lot more relaxed, but Petra and Jerash was just as cool as the Pyramids. First we drive to Petra and we get there pretty late so it is already dark. We went and walked around the streets and talked to the shop owners and we ended up dancing with a bunch of Jordanians and tourists in the streets outside a restaurant. We had just had our Arab dancing night so we knew all the dances and everything. It was way cool, but not as cool at PETRA!! We get up pretty early the next morning because our tour guide wanted to get there first. Great idea because there really wasn’t that many people there in the morning. I have tons of pictures without others in it and the weather was awesome. I don’t really know what to say about the famous treasury in Indiana Jones, except it really is that awesome. I would love to be able to verbally express the grandness of it all, but I know I cant. The details and the idea of it all being carved out is just amazing. We also hiked up to the Monastery which is just as huge as Petra and I had never heard or seen pictures of it before. Petra was huge and there are caves everywhere and carvings and theaters and just awesomeness. The colors of the rock are also indescribable. I think I got a few good pictures of the colors of the rock. So moral of the story: PETRA WAS AWESOME!

I had never heard of Jerash either and this was also pretty dang cool. It is an ancient Roman city and it is huge! This girl in our group went to Rome not too long ago and she said that Jerash blew all of that the pieces. There were remains of hundreds of pillars, a theater, fountains, and churches.

The last big place we went to in Jordan was the River Jordan. First off, it was really gross. I took a picture with my finger in the water and I had to hanatize it right after. Second, it was really skinny, probably seven feet. And Israel is right on the other side of that river.

I know my blog entries get long, but I just get so excited about everything I get to see and do and I don’t want to leave anything out. So if you don’t want to read details, I am doing great, having a blast, and I am not returning as the person I came.

Grandpa Elder Holland

I felt like this topic deserves a separate post because it was so amazing and this experience alone will make me a changed person. I had the wonderful opportunity to spend 48 hours with Elder Holland. He came two weekends ago because he had some church business in Lebanon. He was in charge of the Center and he always makes a stop here. He came on Sabbath (Saturday) and we got to eat dinner with him before he gave his fireside. The fireside started with a musical number given by 8 people in our group. They sang Master, the Tempest is Ranging. It was the most beautiful musical number I have ever experienced. I have never really been a huge fan of the song, but the arrangement and the voices were all just too perfect. I started crying at this point and I knew I was in trouble. Elder Holland, as we all know, is amazing. He spoke on mercy and how is the Christ’s main attribute that we all need to work on. The ultimate example of his perfect mercy is the Atonement. Before he got into the heat of his talk he spoke on the Center and his love for this place. Then in the Elder Holland tone he commanded us to never return as the person we came. He said if we did we would be a disappointment to this church. I mean, I was always motivated to be a changed person, but now it is on a different level. I don’t mind the extra encouragement. Everyone I spoke to thought that Elder Holland was speaking right to them during his fireside. But they are all WRONG, because he was talking to me! J He influenced us all and we all needed to hear it.

Elder Holland was staying in the Center so we got the unique experience to see him several more times. We saw him later that night and got a picture with him. We also got to see him the next morning. A bunch of us were going to the Dead Sea so we were all upstairs waiting for our taxi and all of a sudden someone grabs my neck. Lo and behold it is Elder Holland. He just stood there for a few minutes and talked about going to the Dead Sea and told us to have fun. I feel like he could be my grandpa or something. He is very kind and very funny. His wife is very cute and little. I received hugs from both of them. I know that this experience alone was awesome. Combining it with the fact that I am in Jerusalem just makes it that more unique and that more amazing. I am definitely a changed person.