Feliz Pascua! (Happy Easter!)

I don't know when it got to be this time of year again but it's Easter. I don't know why I'm always so surprised by time going so quickly but it seems like it should still be around this time last year. And since it's Easter, it reminded me of the Easter Sunday two years ago when I started going to the LDS church about a mile and a half or so from my house. Sometimes it feels like it's been a lot longer than two years when I look back and I can't believe I haven't been LDS all my life. I've met some of the coolest people through the Church and I wouldn't change a thing. And since it's now Easter, it reminded me that I'm less than two months away from the two year mark of my baptism into the LDS church. I have both of my missionaries (as in the two that taught me) on Facebook and it's been so cool to see what their lives are like outside of the two years they were on their mission. They're both no longer on their missions, so I get to see posts from them on a regular basis, which is awesome. I think it's pretty cool to be able to see what they're up to now and not even just my missionaries either. I have a few of the guys who served part of their missions in the branch I go to on my friends list. You don't exactly forget the missionaries you interacted with on a regular basis. I don't think I'll ever forget the day I met Palmer (we got to talking about Cracroft, which is probably why I won't forget [just kidding, Palmer, I remember cuz you're awesome]). And besides, missionaries are some of the coolest people out there.

In the last post, I mentioned that I hadn't had a name yet for my new iPod Touch. I posted on Facebook about needing a name for him and my friend Dianna suggested the name I went with because I liked it. His new name? Vladimir. People look at me weird when I refer to it as Vladimir but I don't care. I got over it when they gave me funny looks because of Gir. Oh well.

Last Sunday before church started, I was in the chapel with my friend Bekah when she goes, "I have something else for you," after handing me the sunglasses of a friend that we've been passing back and forth between the two of us since January. After I asked her what she was talking about, she pulls a knife out of her bag and tells me it belongs to the friend whose glasses we pass between the two of us, stating that the knife isn't to be given back until he shows up at church on a Sunday. He isn't getting it back until he's in church on a Sunday and stays the whole three hours. I refuse to give it back until after he gets out of Priesthood and I'm out of Relief Society.*

The weather from Monday until yesterday was amazing! It was anywhere between 55 and 60 and sunny and it was so nice to see the sun again. I was outside pretty much every day and without a jacket. I've missed warm weather, so it was nice to not need to worry about the need for a jacket. It was nice to feel the sun warm my skin as opposed to having a jacket keep me warm.

After spending a bit of time, I've decided I more or less like the Vaccines. "If You Wanna" is a good song. "Norgaard" is another good one. The next group up on my list to listen to and decide on whether or not I like them is Night Rider. We'll see how that goes. But the Vaccines are worth it if you like music that makes you want to dance. It at least makes me want to dance. I don't know about anyone else.

*It isn't a very big knife and is within legal limits. It won't be used for anything outside of self defense while it is in my possession. Joey is also aware that I have it.

New iPod

So I bought a new iPod today. They're so expensive! The iPod Touch I bought was almost $250! It's crazy. I wanted to buy one with more memory but that wasn't in the budget since those are around $300 or more. The new iPod needs a name and I'm open to suggestions for what to call him. Yes, once again my iPod is a he. I don't do well with females in any format, whether it be human or technology. It don't matter.

RIP Gir

Gir is no longer in working order. He unfortunately drowned because I guess I didn't have a good enough hold on him and he fell out of my hand and into more water than he was capable of handling. He was a good iPod, despite all my complaints that he constantly gave me music specifically meant for Sunday when it wasn't Sunday and giving me music that wasn't meant for Sundays on Sundays. Now I get to spend $200+ on his replacement just because I'm not willing to spend $50 on one of those iPod Shuffles. I hate not having a screen to see what I'm doing, so that means I get to spend a lot of money on getting one with a screen. Grrrr. Here's to hoping this next one will last longer than two years.

Jehovah's Witnesses

Something happened around 6:30 or so this evening that hasn't happened in quite a while (a good year or so): Two Jehovah's Witnesses showed up at my door. I was kind of surprised to see them, especially after having been told that the last time a couple of them showed up, they were told a Mormon lives in the house (which got them to leave pretty quickly, apparently). One of the ladies was still in the driveway as the other was on the porch, trying to shove an invitation thing into the door when I finally got around to answering the doorbell (I was on one end of the house and on the second floor with the door closer to the other end and on the first floor). They didn't stick around too long after the lady on my porch said that they were the only church that went door to door like the two of them were doing and I mentioned that LDS missionaries go door to door as well. And I don't think they liked the sound of "stake center," either, but I can't be sure because I was looking down at the invitation thing I had been handed. I thought JWs were supposed to stick around for a while, too.

After they left, I've been looking through some of the websites Google finds to find out about that specific church. I find it a weird religion with a lot of rules. It makes being LDS look pretty easy. I'm halfway done reading the material on this website and it's a lot to take in in one sitting for what I've read so far. Their rules seem insane and it looks like the people in the "Governing Body" expect everyone to just follow blindly and not ask questions or think for themselves when it comes to what's written in the scriptures. How can anyone just follow like that without at least asking questions? The fact that I can go through the scriptures and interpret them myself makes me so grateful that I'm LDS and not a JW. I'm trying not to find websites that just bash the JW church but find materials that are specifically from the church since there's nothing better than going straight to the source. I think it a bit odd though, that I was given a copy of one of their magazines in the Tacoma Mall after an interview at the Old Navy there back in October. I read through it then but didn't really think anything of it. I recently refound the magazine and glanced through it last week. I might look it over again for good measure.

This afternoon when I was hanging out with a friend, we ran into someone that goes to the singles branch with me and her son at the park. I don't know what had possessed me to take Gir with me when I locked everything else up in the car but Gir caught the attention of the friend I went to church with and we got to talking about music and I let her go through the music. Everyone tends to find at least one band they like and she was no exception. Her little boy is so cute and he's a great kid. He has a ton of energy, which I'm totally jealous of. Then again, he just turned five years old and I'm almost 22, so there's no way I'll have that much energy again. He's definitely a good kid, though.

On the way home, my friend and I decided we were randomly going to pick some daffodils. They were just so pretty that it was hard to resist. How could you say no to something that just brightens your day and makes you smile? I just wish that I had picked more than the seven I had to fill in the vase more. It looks so empty that I want to go on a hunt to find more to fill the vase completely.

General Conference

The LDS General Conference was this last weekend and it was awesome! Lots of great messages. One of my favorites has to be this talk by Elder Richard G. Scott. Definitely shows what we should be looking for in a future spouse and it gives me hope in the opposite gender. It reinforced talks in church a couple of weeks ago given by a couple on marriage/relationships in general about how we should be with others. I can't wait to have a relationship like Elder Scott's with his wife.

I almost freaked out because I thought I had lost Gir. I had used him last night and thought that I had left him in a specific spot but as I was looking for Gir this afternoon, I couldn't find him where I thought he was. It took me almost 20 minutes to realize that he was on my desk in my room. I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't found him. Especially since I go no where without Gir and I have a busy day with institute and going to the library at some point to replace the card I had for 10 years and some how lost (I'm seeing a theme here over the last couple of days), among a million other things, and I'm going to need him. I thought I had left Gir in the car when I was driving yesterday and would have to wait to search it since the car I drove yesterday is my dad's and he was on his way home. But I found him and all's well.

When I was charging Gir (he was almost dead when I found him), I had iTunes going and on shuffle when a song came on that I didn't recognize (which isn't really too rare an occurrence since there's 16.34GB of music in my library). I looked to see who it was to see a band I don't remember putting onto iTunes. I'm still not sure about how I feel about Night Ranger, so I'm gonna have to listen to them some more and get a better opinion of them. It was really random.

So a couple of years ago, I decided to take on a huge project: Fix the quilt my grandmother put together 23+ years ago but stopped for the longest time. What got me back to working on it is a friend of mine is putting together a quilt of her own and I went down to her place last week to help her piece some of it together. We got a couple of rows done in about an hour or two, which was nice, and it was done a lot faster with the two of us than it would have been if it was just her. The picture only shows a very small fraction of the ripping that's happened to the poor blanket over the years. I've taken about three of the patches out and replaced them with denim from a pair of pants that I turned into cutoff shorts and there's another 3-5 patches that I still need to take out since they're beyond repair. That quilt's been to a lot of places (everywhere we've been since it was put together) and most of the time it was the blanket we took outside to sit or lay down on (obviously, by the picture). There were plenty of times where I used it on my bed in the winter to add to the collection of blankets I need to keep warm at night. It's definitely a well loved quilt, though, otherwise it wouldn't be in need of so much work. I just wish that the holes were taken care of as they showed up so there wouldn't be need for me to fix a ton of problems now. At least all the sewing is giving me something to do when I'm bored.