Big Gigantic News!!

Sooooooo.... I GOT MY MISSION CALL!!!!!!!! Lemme tell you the story first though. I turned my mission papers in at the end of April.  Two weeks later my stake president called me and told me that Salt Lake City called and told him to tell me that I had to go get my depression checked out before they could assign my mission to me.  I went and got it checked out by a counselor, and he told me I have really mild depression and that it won't affect my work in my mission too much.  So after that he told me that he would have my mission papers in by that next Tuesday.... well two more weeks passed.  By now it had been a month.  So my bishop made a couple calls and he found out that my counselor didn't turn them in until that previous Friday.  So now I was playing the waiting game yet again.  Another month passed and I had stopped waiting around for it to show up. My bishop then called again and told me that it had been delayed in Salt Lake because the lady who received my call had a heart attack and emergency surgery the next day so my mission papers had been sitting on her desk for a month.  So two weeks later I got my call.  I am going to the California Bakersfield Mission.  I report to the MTC September 17, 2014!  That's 73 days away! I got lots to do!!!

Pretty momentous day!

Here's the recap since April 27 (my birthday): I drew pictures all of that afternoon with my brother, my roommate, and my sweet boyfriend.  We ate a beef roast dinner and it was delicious! My parents gave me an envelope with my present inside.  They bought me a super fancy scripture case for my mission that can hold waaaaaaaaaay more than scriptures!!! Oh boy will I need that!  I'm excited for it to get here so I can play with it and see what all it does.  Anyways, then we all went downstairs and watched my baby videos.  Since my mom loved to take videos of me in the bathtub when I was little, I was trying to get my dad to fast forward the movie so my man wouldn't see..... but then on the video, my dad said "This movie will embarrass you on your 19th birthday!" We all busted out laughing!!! How on earth did we manage to get such a coincidence??!! Who would've thought that I would be watching baby movies on my 19th birthday sitting next to my boyfriend!!!! Surely not my father!  Haha! It was so funny!

I don't remember doing anything on Monday....... yup. Nothing interesting happened at all.

But today was Tuesday, and it was a fantastic day!  I got out of bed and I got ready for my day.  Then I met the sister missionaries in town and I went with them to teach their investigators!! It was sooo soooooooo cool! We taught two older men and they were really friendly and they were very receptive to the Spirit and would often comment on our testimonies.  I have much to learn, but I am so eager to go! I'm chomping at the bit to get out to the mission field and teach!

When I got home, I took my roommate into town and we just hung out and ate a cheeseburger (I've been wanting one for two weeks!!).  I really enjoyed being with her.  She's a fantastic roommate.  So afterwards, we went home and basked in the sunlight in my front yard.  It was nice and it was fantastically warm.  Then we made dinner and sent my sister off to go to the temple with her mutual group.  My sweetheart got off work and came to spend some time at my house with me.  I also got to finish my visiting teaching for the month.  It was fantastic!  After that, we all went for a walk and I got to hold hands with my honey and skip down the road. I love him so much!  When we got back to the house, I had to go to my interview with my stake president for my missionary recommendation...... AND HE SUBMITTED MY PAPERS!!!!!!!! So I should be getting my mission call in the next week to two weeks.

When I got home from my interview, I talked with my mom for a good hour and a half about everything that's been going on.  She's the best listener in the world! I'm going to miss her while I'm on my mission.  A lot.  But after that, my roommate decided she wanted to convince me to watch, "Woman in Black." Uh yeah.......... never again. That stupid movie scared the crap out of me!  Now I kinda want to turn on all the lights in my room and never fall asleep. BAAAAAD idea!! I have no idea how she convinced me to watch it.  Silly me.  So now I'm going to somewhat attempt not to have nightmares.  But it's soooooo her fault if I do.

~Hannah

Big BIG Day!!

My day today started out at 5:30 A.M.  I know, crazy right??!! Well it was one of my best friends' birthdays... I've grown up with her since 4th grade when I moved here and she has been a fantastic friend ever since.  But today Katie turned nineteen and I really wanted to make it a blast.  I love birthdays and I love events in general (but especially planning them).  So anyways, my roommate and I had already decided that we wanted to go to Denny's really early in the morning and so we thought, "Hey! Why not take her out for breakfast at an unholy hour??"  And so we did.

6:00 in the morning rolled around and my other friends showed up on my doorstep. There were four of us in total.  The day previous, I had gone and bought a birthday sash for her that read, "Kiss me, it's my birthday!"  I also bought party hats, party poppers, and noisemakers..... or what I thought were noisemakers (I made the mistake of buying the ones that you blow into and they unroll like a chameleon tongue).  So here are four young adults in my tiny little car, wearing party hats, and we made our way out to Katie's house.  When we get there, we knock on the door and her mom answers the door.  We hand her mom a party popper and we all go into Katie's room where she is sleeping.  We all gather around her bed and her mom exclaims, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATIEBUG!" and then all of the party poppers go off above her bed.  Talk about a rude awakening, haha! I mean those stupid party poppers are soooooo loud and they spray confetti all over the place.  But I have to admit it was pretty awesome.

So since my friends and I were all in our pajamas still, we simply jumped in the car and headed off to Denny's at the most unholy hour ever.  BUT IT WAS SO WORTH IT!!!!  I sure love a good breakfast! And that hot chocolate at Denny's is to die for!  So we laughed and talked and ate for a good hour or maybe an hour and a half.  Then we loaded back up into my car and we drove back to Katie's house.

As we came up on one of the last streets before her house, we passed Katie's mom who was on her way to work.  We got to Katie's house and then she realized that she didn't have a spare key.  We drove to her grandma's house just down the road and we got a set of keys to Katie's house from her.  Unfortunately, the keys weren't the right ones to fit the locks, so Katie broke into her house by climbing through her window. It was awesome. When we all got situated inside, we decided to play Just Dance 3 on the Wii until it was time to get ready to go back to town.

10:45 A.M. rolled around and we were all ready to go to town.  There was only one of our friends who had to work so she said goodbye and we parted ways.  I took everyone to the mall and we messed around in there for a while.  We bought Katie some presents and we just browsed and laughed and had some fun.  And just for the record, I spent way more than I had anticipated for today. Whoops. But was it worth it??? ABSOLUTELY! We had such a blast!  While we were at the mall, we crammed all four of us into a photo booth (which was only build for like 2-3 people.... they need to build them bigger dang it.).  Oh boy, wasn't that fun!

By the time we finished in town, it was about 3:00 P.M. It was kind of crazy.  We drove to my sister's high school, picked her up, and then went back to my house.  After playing with my crazy puppy, we took Katie home so she could have her birthday party with her family.  Gotta love that woman. Best friends forever!!

So since we had nothing else left to do in the day, my roomie took a nap (who wouldn't blame her?? we were up at an unholy hour!!) and I finished my missionary papers.

Guess what everyone! MY MISSIONARY PAPERS HAVE BEEN TURNED IN!!!! I am so excited! I'm going to be getting my mission call in hopefully 2-3 weeks.... or sooner if I get lucky!!! I am so excited to learn where I'm going and to learn what language I'll be speaking and when I'll be leaving! Life can't get any better than this!!! Holy cow!!!!!!!

Anyways, I am sooooooo tired. It's ridiculous. But I had to blog this!
~Hannah