Year Two (ow ow!)

So it's been exactly two weeks since I posted, and what an excellent two weeks it has been. I somehow managed to get all of my stuff packed up, I flew from St. Louis MO to Albuquerque NM to Salt Lake City UT, and didn't make a complete fool of myself in the process (notwithstanding my best efforts, as the man whose newspaper took a significant sip of my ginger ale would surely attest).

I feel like this is going to be a really successful semester too. My room has been clean almost every single day, I've been staying caught up (if not ahead) on all of my homework, and I feel like I know more people in my ward already than I did in my ward all last year. How awesome is that? Oh, and I'm not starving, I've been eating healthy stuff, I've been getting up between 8 and 8:30 (well, not on the weekends), I've been going to bed at decent times (again, not on weekends), and (I shouldn't even be congratulating myself on this) I've showered almost every day, even when I felt like I really didn't need to. I did laundry. I keep all my clothes hung up. I am striving for organization and excellent cleanliness and positivity and sociability and every good thing that I more or less abandoned this summer because, even though there were many excellent things about it, there was a lot that was frustrating, upsetting, annoying, boring, and overall unpleasant, whether I acknowledged it as such or not. Now I have such a better perspective on what awesomeness is.

We had an excellent cookie ice cream sandwich party, which I will label as even more than successful. It was fantastically awesome, we got to know so many people, and more or less landed ourselves a very popular, fun position in the ward. We're like ... cool. :) Haha.

Now for something a little embarrassing. Last Sunday (and by last I don't mean yesterday, but the first Sunday in our new ward, the day of Cookies on the Corner) I kind of cried a little bit in church. Haha. Yeah I know ... I mean, there was a changing of the bishop's counselors, I didn't know the old ones, and who the heck cries over new ones ... well, not me. But during the sacrament, I was kind of thinking/praying to myself, and I just felt this overwhelming sense of gratitude about being in this ward, and that all of us (the whole ward) have been put in it for a reason. It was just such a good feeling, feeling that things are going to go well for us here and that there's a purpose and just... idk. I cried a little bit. Felt like kind of a pansy, I mean, I should be able to hold these things back. I tried. I think I disguised it rather well, actually. Bangs can really come in handy, if you know what I'm sayin'. But yeah. This is going to be such a great year. I'm so happy to be here! So happy that I have such great friends! So happy and so grateful that things are going so well right now! I love life! :)