sisters.

my sisters and i were all home together one evening (which is super rare) and decided to make a video together. we had so much fun! just being silly, and goofing around...some good sister-bonding moments going on. this was back in marchish of this year. so this post is for my girls...my little sisters.

dental radiology.

yayyy!! i got my dental radiology license today! i completed the course and passed the test and can officially take dental x-rays all day long if i so desire:)

date night.

just yesterday we had a super fun date night! we were stoked because luke works friday and saturday nights a lot, and so we don't always get to do stuff. we started out the evening by going to an argentine restaurant, so luke could have a little taste of some things from my mission! and next door to the restaurant was a little store where they sell food from argentina. i was lovin it! i saw a whole bunch of different things i used to buy at the grocery stores. i kept wanting to buy stuff, but we settled with just a few treats for after dinner.

 chicken empanada, so yummy!

 and then "milanesa a la napoletana"

a thin piece of breaded beef, fried, then you got ham, cheese and salsa (which is like spaghetti sauce) on top. one of my favorite dishes. YUMMM!

then afterwards we went and saw BRAVE at the dollar theater (we've been waiting for it to hit the dollar theater, so we were super excited).

 when we got home, we found four raccoons just hanging out on our roof. 

this is luke watching them from our bathroom window. we've heard raccoons can be pretty feisty, so we decided to watch from a safe distance.

 if you look closely, you can see one of the raccoons making his way down the stairs. his eye is glowing. he was staring at me.

and then we of course had to have alfajores, another argentine treat.

 Three cookies with dulce de leche inbetween each cookie, and then the whole outside is covered in chocolate. 

READ THIS.

 ok. so i finished this trilogy just a couple of weeks ago, and it was awesome! it's called MISTBORN,
and the author is BRANDON SANDERSON. if you like fantasy (like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings), then you will seriously love these books! i did. i'm not a fan of the covers, so DON'T judge them just by looking at them. they can be misleading.

soooo, MISTBORN is about this crew of underground theives that come together to overthrow the empire; which just happens to be ruled be an immortal god.

there is a "mood trailer" which i guess means they are trying to get it looked at to make it into a movie, so the movie trailer says this about the story....

"a thief with hidden powers, meets a survivor with a secret that will threaten an empire. when evil rules the world, the thieves must take it back."

(CHECK IT OUT)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0TOVHEnfe0

i also read this book (by the same author) and i loved it as well! it says it's sci-fi but i would say fantasy. super good! this one is about two kingdoms that are on the brink of war. One king is forced to send one his daughters to the other kingdom to marry the God King, in hopes of forming an alliance. things are not as they seem though! this book is full of surprises! and i couldn't put it down. again, weird cover, don't judge.

                                                     

one year.

one year ago from yesterday, i was on a plane....flying home from my mission in argentina. it's crazy for me to think that i have been home an entire year since my mission. it feels like i have been home for so long, but it also feels like i was on the mission just yesterday. i have so many great memories. the mission is definitely one of the hardest things i have ever done in my life. sometimes i even feel a little bitter because of some of the trials i passed through. but i know they were for my own good, and that i am stronger because of them. i am so grateful that i had the opportunity to serve. i love the gospel of Jesus Christ with all me heart. i really do. and i know that His church is on the earth again.

i just wanted to put a little excerpt from one of my last letters home, this was a very special moment for me:

"Saturday Sonia was supposed to have her baptism interview. The elders came down from another town to do it. And as we are waiting for the bus to go to Sonia’s house, she sends us a text message saying to forgive her, but she is just not ready for baptism yet. A few minutes later we tried calling her, and her mom answered…sonia had already left. The mom told us that they didn’t want us to come by anymore to teach them. (we had been teaching the whole family for 2 months) so that was a major blow. That one really hurt. I cried and felt like a failure.

Saturday and Sunday morning all my thoughts were, “what did I do wrong?” “why am I here if i’m not helping anyone?” and all that other stuff. I grabbed my scriptures and sat on my bed and decided to say a prayer. After the prayer I opened my scriptures to wherever and began to read Mosiah 2; King Benjamin’s address. Verse 17…

“and behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.”

I don’t know how many times I have read this scripture…I even have it memorized…but Sunday morning it was the answer to my prayer. I remembered a story that President Eyring had once told about his father. They had been pulling weeds for hours, and his father had been pulling weeds in a place where they had already sprayed to kill the weeds. And when they told Pres. Eyring’s dad that he had been pulling weeds where they were already going to die, Pres. Eyring’s dad began to laugh. And Pres. Eyring said “dad, how can you laugh, all your hours of work are wasted!” and Pres. Eyring’s father responded, “I wasn’t doing it for the weeds.” I realized that my efforts were not wasted, like Pres. Eyring’s father…I was in the service of my God. And I felt that Heavenly Father was telling me that.

We need to pay better attention the scriptures…It’s God’s way of talking to us. When we need to talk to God, we pray…but when God wants to talk to us, He uses the scriptures…they are His words."