To start off, for Christmas this year my family decided to go on a cruise! We went on a 5 day Carnival cruise to Progreso & Cozumel, Mexico. It was my first cruise so it was definitely a cool thing to experience. Luckily, the extent of getting sea sick was just feeling queazy the last day at sea because the ship was really rocky. However, all of the good food and relaxing hours on the boat made up for it. Overall though, my favorite part had to be the two days we spent in Mexico. I really liked how we went to both Progreso and Cozumel because I got to see two very different parts of Mexico. In Progreso, its much more rustic and not as modern as opposed to Cozumel which is very modern and highly centered on tourists.
Our excursion in Progreso consisted of a van ride an hour from shore to a place where we hopped on bikes and biked out to snorkel in two cenotes. For those of you who don't know what a cenote is (because I didn't), here's the official definition from dictionary.com -
Ce-no-te [suh-noh-tee]
noun
a deep natural well or sinkhole, especially in Central American, formed by the collapse of surface limestone that exposes groundwater underneath, and so metimes used by the ancient Mayans for sacrificial offerings.
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| There were dogs everywhere! This one was just chilling while we all grabbed bikes from this little pavilion. |
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| I asked our tour guide if this was a petting zoo, but he responded saying that people were raising these animals to eat. "That's Christmas dinner right over there! Ha!" |
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Our next stop was in Cozumel where we got on a boat and rode to a snorkeling spot off the beach. After we snorkeled for awhile, we went and spent the rest of our time on the beach. It was cool because there were these huge inflatable slides and different things that were fun. I got to paddle board too which was also something that I really enjoyed.
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| The water was absolutely GORGEOUS! |
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Eating a snow cone and taking a picture with the creepy Mexican grinch pretty much made it the best Christmas ever!
Overall, the cruise was such a fun experience and I'm so glad I got to spend it with my family! I will admit that the cruise ship itself got boring after awhile, but it was actually kind of nice to have nothing to do and nowhere to be all day. We went to a lot of shows and cool things at night, so I was grateful to just relax a lot during the day on the ship.After we got back, I spent a lot of time with friends and family and tried to soak up as much of the Texas warmth as I could before I had to return the icebox more commonly known as Utah. For New Years, Briana and I drove out to Friendswood to spend it with the Ellsworths. We sang karaoke, played Bunco and ate all night so it was definitely a ton of fun. We had a confetti fight at midnight and that lasted for a good hour. Who knew chunking little pieces of paper at your family could be so fun?
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| This picture cracks me up |
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| confetti angel! |
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| Isn't he the cutest?! |
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| This was shelby ALL through the fight. |
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| What the night ended with. #classic |
1. Establish more of a sound sleep and study schedule
2. Watch, listen, or read some kind of guidance from general authorities every Sunday
3. Run & exercise more
Still working on some, but I think these are pretty sound for now...
So now that I've caught up, here's a little update about how my life has been in January 2013 so far!
1. I'm in all new classes (totally weird and different from high school, but I love it)
2. I'm in a drawing class and am TOTALLY loving it. I'm so excited to be doing art again in a conventional manner.
3. IT'S FREEZING HERE. Like seriously, in the negatives and 1 digit degrees.
4. I have an 8:00 class everyday. You know what that means? I get no sleep. I am currently in the process of trying to establish a normal, healthy sleep schedule and I am failing.
5. I'm about 90% done with my mission papers! I just have to finalize a few things and then I can submit them!
6. I conquered the stomach flu or some kind of bad stomach bug last week and didn't get Jordan sick! YAY.
7. I'm in 2 religion classes (Book of Mormon and Mission Prep) and I love it! I have such great teachers that leave me so spiritually enriched after each class. It's great.
Actually, in talking about my religion classes and Book of Mormon, I just want to share a little bit of what we've been talking about.
I've never been a great scriptorian or been able to interpret difficult scriptures on my own, so I absolutely love it when a teacher or speaker explains scriptures and doctrine in a way that I totally understand. For me, Brother Griffin does that. This past week in Book of Mormon class, we talked a lot about the devil and how he works in so many great ways to trick you. In Alma, we learn of Korihor who was deceived by the devil so much so that he truly believed that what he was teaching was the truth. In our lives today, there are Korihors all around us. There are always going to be people and things that distract us and try to sway us from the truth. However, when we fall into these traps and remove our center focus from Christ, a domino effect can happen on our entire lives. It occurs like this-
No Christ = No hope = No Future = No prophecies = No forgiveness
This proves the importance of centering ourselves toward Christ and how only through him are we able to grow and become better. So just as there is a negative domino effect, by adding just two simple letters to the first one, we have a much more desirable domino effect-
Know Christ = Know hope = Know future = Know prophecies = Know forgiveness
I love this because it lays it out so plainly. In Alma 30:52, Korihor writes after being struck dumb, "I know that I am dumb, for I cannot speak..." This is a lesson for all of us because we can see the effects of hearkening to the devil's voice. We gain nothing from following the devil, but gain SO much from following and knowing Christ. This is such a comfort to me because it only strengthens the fact that God and Christ are always there for me. If we trust in him and follow him, we will be blessed and be so much happier because of it.
Laugh of the Day:
While in Cozumel, I decided to paddle board in the ocean. I had only paddle boarded once before in California where the water was much calmer, but I loved it so I decided to give it a shot. It was a little bit more challenging, but I managed to balance pretty well. Once I mastered just merely staying up, I decided to try to stand on only one foot. I could easily do it in California, but because the water was much more rocky in the ocean, it wasn't the same. Needless to say, I had quite a few falls off the paddle board. This was pretty funny in itself, but the funniest part of paddle boarding was when my brother Frank swam over and we both tried to balance at the same time. This was proving to be VERY difficult and we ate the water so many times. I can only imagine what we looked like because when you fall from a paddle board, it's not always so graceful.We had so many falls, but so many laughs. It was worth it.
you can not add that pic...
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