This last weekend before my mission was super busy and full of Halloween parties!  Instead of writing about it, here are some of my favorite pictures:

^^breadstick bones^^

^^skeleton veggie tray.  so cute!^^

^^just dance michael jackson edition^^

^^we attempted to throw a sultan costume together in two minutes and this is the result^^

^^trick or treat^^

Happy Halloween everyone!

I leave for my eighteen month mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in six days.  It's all I've been thinking about lately, and until quite recently, most of my thoughts went a little something like this:

1. I'm currently 19 years old, which is 228 months.  18 out of 228 months represents only 7.895% of the time that I've been alive. 
2. The current life expectancy for women in the United States is 79 years.  Assuming I live to be that old, my mission will have only taken up 1.9 % of my life.
3. The fifth Harry Potter movie was released on July 11, 2007.  The sixth Harry Potter movie was released two years later on July 15, 2009.  So there was more than 18 months between the release dates of those two Harry Potter movies.  
4. Assuming I've slept an average of 8 hours a night for my entire life, I've spent 55,480 hours of my life sleeping.  There are 8,765.81 hours in a year.  And after doing some simple division (yay math majors), I calculated that I've spent over six years of my life doing nothing but sleeping.  So I think I can spare 18 months of productivity and hard work.
5. According to the Huffington Post, about 69% of couples have an engagement lasting close to or over 18 months.  So most people could get engaged before I leave, and I could be back in time for their weddings!
6. I'm only going to have one birthday while I'm on my mission.
7. My family has lived in Brazil for almost 18 months even though it seems like we moved here yesterday.

And when it comes down to it, it doesn't really matter if 18 months is a long time or not because no matter how long it lasts, my mission won't be a sacrifice at all.  True, I'm giving up 18 months of my life, but I know that I'll be getting so much more in return.  I'll be spending my time doing something that will actually help change people's lives.  I have the opportunity to live in another country, experience a different culture, and learn to love the people I will be serving.  And when I remember that, I can't think of a better way to spend 18 months.

For the past three months I’ve been living with my family in Sao Paulo preparing to go on my mission to San Pedro Sula, Honduras.  I leave for my mission in ten days, and while I’m really, really excited to go, the closer October 30th gets, the more nervous I become.  Before actually going to Honduras, I’ll be spending six weeks in the Mexico missionary training center where I’ll be learning Spanish.  I’ll arrive in Honduras in the second week of December, about two weeks before Christmas.

Before I leave, I wanted to write a little bit about what influenced me to serve a mission.  The story begins about a year and a half ago when I received my patriarchal blessing.  Before I got my patriarchal blessing, I hadn’t really thought all that much about serving a mission because the missionary age for girls was still 21.  I was only 17 when I got my blessing, and, at that time, I was focused on starting college and my family’s move to Brazil, so I wasn’t really thinking about what my life would be like in four years.  When I got my blessing, I was surprised to hear about the opportunity that I would have to serve a full time mission because it hadn’t really been something that I had given that much thought to.  Afterwards, I read and prayed about what was said about me serving a mission, and I knew that it was what the Lord wanted me to do.  However, at that time, it was still four years away, and I kind of pushed it to the back of my mind.

Fast forward a couple of months to October 2012: my family had already moved down to Brazil, I had been at BYU for two months, and it was time for the October session of general conference.  My roommate and I were watching the beginning of conference on my laptop in the kitchen while we made cookies to snack on during the other sessions.  We were bustling around the kitchen when President Monson got up to welcome everyone to conference.  He talked about the dedication of three new temples, announced two new temples, and then said the following:
Tears of happiness and understanding were streaming down my face at this monumental announcement, and all of a sudden, everything made sense.  The opportunities and promises spelled out in my patriarchal blessing weren’t four years away: they were right around the corner.  Right after President Monson announced the age change for missionaries, the choir sang my favorite primary song: “I will follow God’s plan.”  And to me, this was Heavenly Father’s way of telling me that he really wanted me to serve a mission.  And that moment I knew that it was exactly what I was supposed to do.

The next few months were busy and crazy as I counted down the days until I could submit my mission papers.  When my bishop told me that my call had been assigned, I couldn’t focus on anything that entire week!  I rushed home after class that Wednesday, grabbed the mail key, and ran out to the mailboxes.  The mailman was still putting mail in the apartment mailboxes, and when he saw me, he smiled and said, "I think there's something here for you!"   

I wanted to open my call right then and there, but I had to wait for my dad to get home from work so that I could Skype them from Utah while I opened it.  After what seemed like forever, my family was all together and it was finally time for me to open my call.  I was so excited and emotional that I started crying before I even opened the envelope.  But nothing has ever felt more right than when I read I was called to serve in the Honduras San Pedro Sula East mission.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I love weddings.  I love them a lot.  I love the photography, the colors, the dresses, the flowers, the happiness.  And every once in a while I get on this wedding-planning high that will last for a couple of weeks: I'll spend hours looking at wedding blogs, watching wedding videos, and scrolling endlessly through Pinterest's wedding section. 

Naturally, I can't wait to plan my own wedding.  It's obviously somewhere in the unknown future, and who knows when it will actually happen, but I'm still really looking forward to it.  Granted, I'm only 19 and probably shouldn't care that much about my future "best day ever" quite yet, but my wedding-loving hormones tend to disagree.  Call me crazy.

October is one of the best months of the year because October means Halloween and Halloween means having unlimited excuses to watch Hocus Pocus aka the best movie of all time.

And here are 13 reasons why:

1.  The sass.


2.  It displays realistic family relationships.


3.  It teaches valuable anger management skills.


4.  This.


5.  These two.

6.  It's an amazing example of optimism.


7.  It teaches girls how to have self-confidence.



9.  "Don't you see what's going on here, sisters?  All Hallows Eve has become a night of children in costumes running amuck!"


10.  The Sanderson sisters danced all night to the best song ever.


11.  It inspires a deep love and appreciation of children.


12.  The synchronized choreography is jaw-dropping and awe-inspiring.


13.  Even though it's 20 years old, it just keeps getting better with age.