GOING PRIVATE

Hey all who read this blog,

I have decided that for the safety of our sister missionary, I am going to start a new private blog to record her missionary adventures. This way, I can post her address and other personal information without having to edit every email she sends.

SO, if you want to be invited to read her missionary blog, please leave a comment with your email address and I'll make sure and send you an invite.

thanks!

Sydney

TOMORROW, TOMORROW... I LOVE YA TOMORROW!!

Tomorrow is the BIG DAY!! oh my goodness I cant believe I am leaving TOMORROW!! I felt like this day would never come and alas... I am being set apart in exactly ONE HOUR! So many people have asked me how I am feeling about leaving which is kinda a weird question to answer... good? happy? excited? scared? apprehensive? ready to go? all of the above? 

 

But I am so excited really... I think I will be recieving a HUGE wake up call and I am way excited for the new direction my life will take. I know that my mission is going to be a huge challenge and I will have many bad days but I hopefully will have many more good days. 

I am going to miss my family so much. My family means everything to me. I dont know why when I went through my teenage years I didnt want to hang out with the fam. My family has been my biggest support and my biggest cheerleaders. It will be crazy to be away as my family keeps growing, as new additions come and as all the little ones get bigger. I love my sisters, my brothers, and especially my parents. Thank you guys for everything. I really am going to miss you all. 

I am going to miss my friends. Oh goodness I love my friends. A while ago I decided I wanted to start a "Erins Cool People Club" and it would be a very extensive process of collecting all the cool people in the world. Well I really feel like I have collected quite a handful already. It is going to be so hard to not hear all the gossip of whats going on in everyones life and not being apart of it. I am excited to hear how all my friends lives change in the next 18 months and be the cheerleader from afar. 

I am so thankful for all the people in my life who have helped me, loved me, and supported me. I know as I go off into the bounty land of Kentucky that I have so many supporters here at home pushing me along and praying for me. Thank You. 

I really am very excited for this new adventure. I am so excited to be an instrument in gods hands and to show others the love I have felt from this gospel and the assurity that I know its true. I don't know if I know enough, I don't know if I am strong enough, and I don't know what challenges face me in the next 18 months. But I do know that heavenly fathers got my back, I do know that I am ready to throw myself into the work 110%, and I do know that with gods help I will be able to bring those who are ready into this amazing gospel. I hope I never look at missionary work as numbers of people I get dunked but more I hope I find my friends who have been missing something and who need the gospel in their life. 

So Enough of this Corny parade, I must go get set apart now.  I want to again say thank you to everyone! sadly enough I wont be seeing this blog for 18 months* But have no fear because the adventures will continue during and after :) Good luck with everyones life and please keep me updated on it (I really cant handle not being in the know for 18 months :) 

*p.s. My good sister Sydney will actually be taking over my blog while I am gone! LUCKY... So... hopefully if it works out as planned she will be able to post my weekly emails on here so that everyone can read! As well as some pictures maybe? I dont know? where am I going again? and also note that I am going to try and keep the corny-ness down to a minimum. but I cant make any promises. 

I hope they call me on a MISSION...

so I have noticed it had been quite a while since I had posted anything... but alas... I have nothing really to post... I have moved home and now all I have done is shopping, shopping oh and more shopping. Which this would be great for any other girl, but I hate shopping. So its been splendid... :) ha ha... but Sydney has been my saving grace since I have been home (seriously if it wasnt for her I think I would be taking only one outfit to the MTC) and she was also my photographer for my missionary photo shoot. So here are the fruits of her labor...

Missing Moab...

Today was such a dreary day. Well I guess not "Dreary" I mean we did get to exercise our American freedom of voting. But today I moved back to my humble home of springville from M
oab. So again this shouldn't be dreary, I mean I am about to EMBARK on a magical journey of preaching the good word. BUT still... it was pretty darn dreary driving away with the red rock landscape fading in the distance. I was telling one of my lady friends at work about how I was pretty sad and a tad bit emotional the last couple of days and SHE says that around here many women cry when leaving moab because of the red rock and the many SPIRITS who reside there... yeah... we couldn't decided if it was some hippy rumor who has smoked one too many, but whatever... the spirits were sad too. :)  But as I was packing and putting together everything I started thinking of the things I will be missing most from spirited moab-

I WILL MISS:

1) All the crazy characters that I worked with at the MAC.  Working at the MAC is unlike any job you will ever have. you REALLY are family. This is the only job that its not just a paycheck and something you do to pass the time. This is where people bust their butts working 40+ hours a week, where during the summer you could get called at 5:30 in the 

morning because someone forgot they were on the river and needed you to cover their shift at 6, where there is more drama than an episode of The real world, and where you work together to get the things done and push yourself to help everyone out. Its a family.

2) All the fun outdoors activities that were right at your fingertips: From Repelling to hiking to just going jeeping. There is always something to do. It is so easy to take advantage of your surroundings and not experience what is in your backyard, but once you step out of the routine, the world becomes a lot bigger (and thats not just moab) 

3) Talking to Jenn about ALL my problems: Really, I have a tendency to talk and to lay everything out... Jenn was always the lucky one who had to get the brunt of all my little dramas in my life. But she would always give such great advice from missions to boys to Mac drama- she heard it all. (Sorry about that Jenn)

4) Seeing my three favorite play dates every day.

Addie, Izzie, and Cooper were so much fun! Corny as it may be I loved watching them discover things and watch over the summer 

personalities develop. 

5) The 3 amigos playing in my room- from putting makeup on Addie, dressing cooper up in my moo moo, or the fact that jumping on my bed was the newest attraction! It was so fun! In the 

  I slept on an air mattress and Addie and Cooper thought it was the BEST thing. Every morning Addie would take me into my room and jump on the bed laughing her head off. Without fail a few minutes later a cooper would crawl around the corner wanting to join the fun with Izzie not far behind. I will miss them jumping on my bed and breaking all my stuff. 

6) Jasons FAMOUS Sunday eggs. Every Sunday Jason became the cook and always whipped together these really yummy eggs. Eggs aren't just a boring bland thing at the Taylors house- they become a delicacy! I loved them :) 

7) Getting ready in the bathroom with Addie- Every time I would go into the bathroom to

 brush my teeth, do my hair or even to wash my hands Addie would scream and run in after me,climb up on the toilet and insist on being part of whatever I was doing. She would take the straightener (when it was off) and try to straighten her hair, she would turn on the water and wet her face like I wet mine and she LOVED brushing her teeth (usually with my toothbrush mind you) 

8) Teaching the kids the good things in life- such as jumping on the bed, dipping Doritos in cottage cheese, how to climb up on their play place and go down the slide, to run with knives,etc. Pretty much any bad thing you want to put off teaching your child for as long as possible- I was in charge of teaching. Jason/Jenn, you are welcome. 

So I have SO much more, but I realized this is super long and I didnt mean it to be this long so... just know that I have loved Moab so much and there is so much that I will miss while I am here in springville and when I go to Kentucky. 

Jason and Jenn, thanks for seriously an amazing summer. I loved this summer and you guys were too good to me by putting up with all my randomness and dumb blond-ness Thank you guys for all you gave to me and for all you did for me! You wanted me to come down to be nanny, but in reality I think I just made it so you had 4 kids. But... oh well! I had fun! :) I will miss you guys a whole heck of a lot. Thanks. 

Chuckin the Pumpkins

So this last weekend was the blessed "PUMPKIN CHUCKIN FESTIVAL" Pretty much the biggest deal in Moab since... Chacos. Well at this festival people "chuck pumpkins" (crazy concept I know). Well I initally went with my family (the whole gang came down for Izzies church blessing) but as you can see from the pictures left with my friends-oops sorry family... 

The Pumpkin chucking was really so so much fun! I got to see a bunch of Moab-ites, see pumpkins get chucked very far in the air, wait an HOUR AND A HALF (no joke) for twisty taters, try on super cool hats, and most importantly enjoy fall-which I love. 

Melissa and I sportin the neato hats

see that small dot- thats a pumpkin. be amazed-now.

Maddi and myself cheesin it up

With the fun ones of the family.