Thursday, February 17, 2011

Uruguay.

It's possibly the coolest place I've ever lived. I've spent the past two months here and I still have a few weeks left. I love getting to know my family, I love being in the sun and I love being surrounded by a different culture.

Here's a summary:



 Punta Del Este. 
 my crazy sister. 
 Her Birthday Party :)
 Montevideo Temple.
 He's the best
Minas! 
my love. 
 family.
my new friends :) 
insane soccer games  
CRE 
climbed that ish. 

 triple piggy back
Piriapolis
 wisemen day!
 herms :)
 look at my sick jerssssey!
 bienvenidos a aregentina!
 love him
 aregentina
 argentina
 arg
Montevideo. 

i love it here. 

Monday, February 14, 2011

only the beginning

I've always wanted to start a blog. I'm not really sure who will read it. I'm not even sure that I'll tell people I have a blog. I just want to try it out because for some reason, blogging sounds a lot more fun than writing in a journal.

Well. I've been in Uruguay for 2 months now. I have two weeks left. It's crazy how time flies. What is even crazier is that after this, I will have completed everything I wanted to before I get serious with my career. During my senior year in high school, after I was accepted to BYU, I planned out my first two years of college. Every month, has gone as expected with little variation. I planned on where I would live, who I would live with, what classes I would take, that I would spend the two months after school to go somewhere to practice spanish (Mexico), what summer job I would have, and that my sophomore year of college, I would take a semester off to live in Uruguay. And now, everything I have wanted, has been fulfilled.

After I get home in two weeks, the possibilities are endless. I have a bunch of plans but nothing is set in stone. In the spring I want to room with Melissa in Liberty Square, summer, I want to be a sports camp counselor at BYU and I know that in the fall I'm rooming with Caitlin and hoping to start the accounting program... but other than rooming with Caitlin, nothing is for sure.

You always hear it said that "life is short."  Life is actually pretty dang long. 70, 80, even 90 years is a huge chunk of time.  it's the phases of life that are short.  i am never going to be able to get back those years i spent swinging around on the monkey bars, building forts, and riding bikes, and i'm never going to get back those years in high school where I came home to a home-cooked meal with my family. did i milk those phases of life for all they were worth? it's hard to say.


So many people are always in anticipation of the next part of their life,  but I think that we need to embrace every stage. If we are always waiting for something else, we will never enjoy what is right in front of us.

I'm always finding myself happy in the stage of life I'm in. I remember when I was in high school, I was with my best friend britnee, and we were in our last weeks of senior year. So many people were like, "I'm so ready to be OUT of here!! On to the real world blah blah blah" I remember just sitting on the senior couch with brit and we were just like "we love high school. it is so fun and as excited as we are for the next stage of our life, we wish we could make this last longer because we are going to miss it."

Right now I'm in Uruguay. I love spending time with my family here, I love being in the warm summer, going to the beach, not working or studying and just taking time to get to know my dad's family. Although I love everything about here, I know that I only have two weeks left; as sad as it will to leave and be finished with this phase of my life, I will be happy to be in Oregon for for a couple weeks, and then i will be happy to go back to Utah for the spring.

I believe the secret of life is to squeeze everything you can out of it. Even the boring times you can turn into an adventure. If you are living in a way that seizes every opportunity that comes, and you grab it with both hands and a positive attitude. That's when youve got everything figured out.