Acronyms

Acronyms as mostly used in texting, in cause you didn't know. Something you truly might not have known is that a teenager can survive without one. Gasp! Teenagers withering in pain at the thought...I'm living proof so deal with it. The satellites that provide information to your phone revolve around the world, but the world does not revolve around your cell phone.
So since so many acronyms are used now-a-days, I decided to test your knowledge and skills with my blog title. POV: LDS College Student. Quiz time up. The answers are...POV stands for point of view, who is telling the story? Edgar the main character? His sidekick Micheal? Or a narrator who either tells it so the reader knows what the main character knows or with suspenseful paragraphs of the villain's evil plans? AKA (also known as) one of the biggest questions a writer must ask themselves before they start writing their story, or something that can drastically change it. As a writer, I felt this acronym was appropriate.
Second answer is...LDS stand for Latter Day Saint(s) short for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the church I belong to. Also known as Mormons for our belief in a second companion book of scripture to the Bible, the Book of Mormon. I will mostly surely talk more about my beliefs in several future posts. In fact, this is where future acronyms will mostly stem from. We like our acronyms. MTC, SYC, BYC, MoTAB...please stop me now. I actually am finding it hard to come up with more, but I'll surely think of more later.
So hopefully this blog will continue to expand your acronym vocabulary. Instead of LOLing, for something truly funny beyond words try ROFLSHICB (rolling on the floor laughing so hard I can't breathe) on for size.

Clear!

I lost the login for this blog a long time ago, and I never got back to this.
Lesson: The life of an LDS teenager is too busy to keep a blog or even remember you once had one.
I'm going off to college soon though, so this blog will let my family (immediate and extended) know how and I am and what I am up to. I am planning on majoring in nursing and having a carrier in geriatric nursing. Lots of scholarship application going on to pay for all that schooling. Since I'm wanting to enter the medical field, I thought Clear! was an appropriate title post and I clear my life to prepare to revive this blog.
I'm preparing another post to explain my new blog title which was previously Life of an LDS Teenager. A new chapter in my life, and a two year break before my last post and a nine month break before that one, deserves a new title. I think I will keep this one much more up to date.
Hopefully people will realize I've started writing again. Facebook will probably help. There should probably be a post about that too. Have a nice day!

News Flash: Global Warmers Freeze

Where I live, we just finished our coldest, longest winter yet. Okay, I live in the south, so for all you northerners you may not get why I'm so spazed about this. We had snow. Real SNOW. Not ice, not 'there's white stuff on the ground so we are calling it snow because that's all we'll ever get,' no, pure, white, FLUFFY snow! And it happened three times! Most of the time one ice is lucky for us. And we got Christmas snow. It is official that my state has never had Christmas snow. It's usually in late January or February when we get our ice. And on our second time, it was like ten inches deep! (Yeah, I know you northern states get like ten feet of snow, but so what?) And it stuck around for two days! Ice is there when you get up and got by 10. So, I think I heard environmentalists stopped calling their campaigns 'Global Warming' and I say, 'good move, good move.'

Trek Day 3

Thankfully people had some sense to sleep in that morning. Our breakfast was a casserole of tatter tots, sausage, and eggs. We also had some bacon.
We learned as we were waiting for breakfast to cook that one of the reasons the leaders had said we weren't hiking today was because there was only one IV left, and that they probably should have used it on someone but were scared to use the last one if we were going to be hiking. We also learned that five people had gone to the hospital because of the heat. Another thing we learned was that the miracle of the clouds hadn't stopped when we reached camp.
The people at the hospital had literally watched a huge storm with tornadoes, golf ball sized hail, and pouring rain go just south and just north of us. It was as if a barricade had blocked the storm from hurting us. We had gotten the cooling clouds but had missed the mass destruction that could have happened. We truly had a miracle that I will never forget. No wonder our leaders were inspired to make the theme for the trek "Never Forget." It was supposed to mean never forget the pioneers, but it has come to mean so much more. I think we also had another miracle, that we didn't run out of IVs and only five people had to go to the hospital. It was really hot out there, and most of us were able to keep going strong. Another stake president had asked our stake president if his youth should do the trek after he had heard how bad it had been for us, but he said that if the the other stake's youth were as strong as us, they would be just fine.
We had a handcart race, and that was fun to watch. Then we broke up into companies to play games. We played a game with two sticks, a bandanna, and two buckets. First those who wanted to play made two lines facing eachother with a good distance between them. Then buckets were placed a each end, and everyone got a number. The numbering was started on opposite sides, so you weren't facing your partner. Two smooth sticks were paces parallel to the lines of people with the bandanna between them. Then someone called out a number. Those two people then raced for a stick and tried to get the bandanna to thier bucket without using thier hands. It's a rough game since there are no rules except that you can't use your hands and you ran hit the other person with the stick. It's fun though too. Then we played tug of war.
Then we settled down and had a testimony meeting. We sang an opening song, then turned the time over to the parents of my ma who were return missionaries who's mission had been to make a trek in utah. They told the story of a lady who crossed the plains by handcart and had a fur hat ties to her head with a green scarf to keep her warm. She was in the Willie or Martan company, and one of the rescuers had had a vision with her hat and scarf in it and had the impression that he was to marry the woman with these on. His friend laughed saying that none of the refugees would have something like that, but the friend was actually the one who spotted the woman first. The man and woman were later wed.
Some girls sang a song, and then my 'grandparents' told another story. A man and woman had become engaged, but decided to wait to get to Zion to marry. This was not uncommon, and many of the couples on the boat they took also planned to do this. Some got married on the boat though, but this man and woman didn't. They crosses the plains by handcart, and the man got deathly ill. When he died she wept bitterly and asked for him to be tied in a tree where wolves couldn't get him, since the ground was too hard to dig a proper grave. She used her own shawl to cover him. She later married someone else, but a hundred years later people doing the work for those who had died on the trail got special permission to seal the original man and woman together.
Many people gave thier testimonies, but one that stood out for me was the one given by the brother that had gone into shock. In his testimony he told of his gratitude of so many people doing something to help him, individually. I know the young men don't have the young women theme, but it seemed to me that he had been stuggling with Individual Worth. He also talked about how the theme of this trek to him was caring for one another. He was eighteen, and I hope this experience will help him while he is on his mission.
Another testimony that stuck out was the last one. I knew the guy, and he commented how everyone was saying that thier family was the best. Before I had thought that this was kind of silly since we were supposed to be bearing our testimonies, not arguing about who's family was the best. But this young man's comment was that we all were a family. It didn't matter the 'family' or the company, we all had bonded.
I have learned a lot of things from trek, I would love to do it again.

Pictures will come later.

Trek Day 2

The second day was the hardest. I was tired from the night before and some crazy people decided to wake up early! You just pushed a handcart through mud for three miles, you should be tired! Well, anyway we had french toast for breakfast with some yummy bacon and had a lot of time to pack up because we were the last company to leave.

Thankfully, the trail mostly wasn't muddy at all, but there were some patches. Unfortunately, it was really hot and there was almost no shade over the trail (and to think we had walked in near almost shade when it was overcast the day before!). Thankfully, we moved fast and got lots of breaks. Unfortunately, we moved fast, so we caught up with the other companies ahead of us and the breaks we had were waiting for them to move.

Toward the end of the day, one of the boys pushing the handcart behind us nearly passed out, so we stopped to help. There were only three people pushing that handcart, one a girl. They had just been working too hard, so my ma lent the boy her basketball shorts that she had had under her skirt. We sat down in the shade to wait for the boy, but when it was time to get moving again, one of my brothers couldn't get back up. He had went into shock, so we threw everything out of the handcart, put him in it, and raced to the cars that were up the trail about ten minutes walking. Of course, we ran, so it was more like five. As we ran we passed the stationary orange company that the rest of our company had caught up to, and the slowly moving green company.

They were moving slowly because this was the part where the boys left for the Mormon Battalion, so it was only girls pushing. Not that girls are slow, but three boys, a man, and and two girls running as fast as they can move a lot faster (Me and ma were running behind, we couldn't catch up). We weaved around their handcarts and beat everyone to the cars. My brother was given an IV, and put in a car. Thankfully, he didn't have to go to the hospital. Unfortunately, one of my other brothers passed out and had to sit in a car as well because of the effort to get the first brother to the cars. One of my sisters also had to sit in the car. I was sooo glad that we had time to rest. I felt pretty bad, and another one of my sisters almost had to sit in the cars. Later, one of the adults said that he almost put me in a car because I looked so bad. I'm thankful he didn't try because I might have thrown a hissy fit if I had to abandon my family. It was great just to sit and watch everyone else come in. I felt a lot better after sitting down for about 20 minutes, maybe half an hour. The bad thing was that the trail where only the women pushed the handcarts had absolutely no shade. It was grass all around, so they couldn't even stop to sit in the shade. A lot of people got dehydrated.

We buried our babies here since it was Martin's Cove, and then continued on. We kept Dakota though since our ma's daughter had made it. One other handcart family kept theirs, but that was because they said it didn't die. They loved it a lot.

One of the boys from another handcart helped us since we were so depleted in numbers. After a little while we stopped, and many of us (including me) started grumbling that orange group wasn't moving fast enough and how it needed to stop stopping. Then the leader of our company came up and said that orange company had just said a prayer, and that we should too. So we did, then started off again. By that time I was on automatic, just making myself keep going, that I didn't realize till later that the hot, blazing sun was almost immediately covered by dark clouds, and that by the time we reached the fruit stand two minutes later that the sky was completely dark. We were able to eat watermelon and oranges and get our spirits up for the last leg of the journey.

As we rolled into camp, our family members came to greet us. This experience was later compared to heaven were the saints were reunited to their loved ones. We ate a diner of chicken and rice together and had peach cobbler for dessert. Our family was reunited and safe, and that felt good.

When we had the company meeting we were informed that tomorrow we wouldn't be hiking. We were going to stay in camp since it was supposed to be even hotter the next day. I don't think I've seen teenagers that happy, not even when my high school's power went out so we got a unexpected three day weekend, and didn't have to make the day up. We all feel asleep quickly that night.

Check out Day 1 again. I've added pictures and edited the post! Pictures for day 2 will come later.

Falling and Flying

I love this song by Mindy Gledhill because it makes me feel free. To listen it click on the title, then go to the fourth song on the player at the top.


The rain loves falling on my face,
Invite my soul to take a taste,
As thunder spreads its wings into the space above me.
I tilt my head toward the sky,
And laugh out loud as cars go by,
It’s been so long since I have felt alive inside.

Now I’m free to jump,
I’m free to fall!
Free to let it roll away when I drop the ball,
I’m not ashamed,
To break down and cry,
So come on precaution take a step aside,
Cause you see it’s falling that’s teaching me to fly.

There’s a breeze that’s blowing past my door,
And it’s bringing change like I have never know before.
It used to be that when it rained it poured,
But not anymore so give me more!

Now I’m free to jump,
I’m free to fall!
Free to let it roll away when I drop the ball,
I’m not ashamed,
To break down and cry,
So come on precaution take a step aside,
Cause you see it’s falling that’s teaching me...


To be a little bolder,
So hello queen and goodbye pawn,
I’m gonna turn my cheek and shrug my shoulder,
I’m gonna till I’m going gone,

Now I’m free to jump,
I’m free to fall!
Free to let it roll away when I drop the ball,
I’m not ashamed,
To break down and cry,
So come on precaution take a step aside,
Cause you see it’s falling that’s teaching me to fly.

Trek- Day 1

Trek was a wonderful experience. It was hard, but soooo worth it. The first day we packed up at the stake center and headed to a nature preserve an hour and a half away. There, we were slit into "families." A "family" consisted of a 'ma' and 'pa,' a married couple who were in charge, and usually four 'brothers' and four 'sisters.' The number of 'brothers' and 'sisters' was different for some families, but most had four each. Then each family got a 'baby' made of a bag of beans covered with cloth and a face drawn on it. They were heavy! My 'ma's' daughter had made one of the babies, so we got that one. It was a girl named Dakota. Each baby had a real story about a baby that had crossed the plains. Then each family got a handcart and they put all their stuff in it.

We started on the trail about 10 in the morning. It was really muddy from the rain the night before and there were many pits in the trail. My family would run down the slope, then keep running till we made it over the other side. It was kinda fun, but very dirty. I wore a really bad skirt for trek that day. It folded into its self, making it really cool to swirl around in, but bad for hiking through mud in. I had to grab bunches of my skirt and tie it over my head, then tuck in muddy bunches into the back of my skirt, into the strap my canteen was on, and into the strap for my bag. I got a lot of cloth very muddy. We were told that we were going really fast and so we felt good. But then we took a wrong turn and had to sit by our handcarts for a long time for our leaders to figure out how to make things right. Finally we just turned around and went the other way, but then about ten minutes later we stopped for lunch. It was frustrating to think we had wasted all that time. But of course, I couldn't even have lunch before something went wrong. When we (my family) stopped for lunch, we got out a tarp and laid it in on the grass beside us and I got out my bucket to get a plate. And I decided to place in right in the middle of an ant pile. And I didn't realize it until about ten of them bit me at the same time on each leg. I'm so smart. At first the bites stung pretty bad, but with the mud to deal with I was able to forget them and they didn't bother me.

After lunch we started hiking again. We got a long ways before we had to stop because the mud was too bad. They also told us that if we didn't pick up the pace we wouldn't make it to camp until really late. So we forged a new trail to get to camp quicker. And we did so well we had to stop and wait for a while because we were going to get to camp too soon. It was kind of frustrating, but it was also hard to gage how fast we were going with the mud. Right after waiting, not two feet down the trail (which we couldn't see before), was a huge mud puddle, named the Puddle of Doom, or Tara's Terror. It was the only real standing water adn it was just deep enough to seep over our boots soaking our socks. (It's nicknamed Tara's Terror because on the slide show of the pictures, there was a video of Tara walking through it yelping everytime she took a step.)

At camp we put up three tents, one for the ma and pa, one for the girls and one for the boys. Then we made a dinner of chili, cornbread, and chocolate cake by dutch oven. It was good. While we were tired, we still had a lot of energy. One of the girls in my family is used to falling to sleep with her Ipod and found it hard to go to sleep, so we talked for a while until we both feel asleep.

First stop-Baby Trading Post!

My family

Mud Slide!

Yes, the mud was that deep.

The Puddle of Doom or

Tara's Terror