CameraCrazy&GoodFriends&FireNation

Wow I have a lot to catch up on, but I think I've had more fun in the past few weeks than I had all last semester. If not that, it definitely came close!
First of all, a bunch of the girls in my ward decided to do a little Harlem shake response to the one that the guys did.
Please enjoy this wonderful display of boredom and hyperness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuVPEOmxEKU

Other than that, we had our ward talent show 2 weeks ago. It was a lot of fun to watch everyone's talents because there are so many funny people in my ward! The best part however was definitely the skit that I was a part of with a few of my friends. We did a parody of the "Boys will be Girls" and "Girls will be Boys" YouTube video that the Harvard sailing team did. We called ours "Elders will be Sisters, Sisters will be Elders."
Please enjoy and hopefully you will find this as funny as we think we are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzzK9WZO36Y

By now, hopefully you can tell that I have the most incredible friends ever! I couldn't have asked for better friends to have while up here at college. I am so grateful for their influence on me and how much they help me when I need them or I'm down. I love it!
Jordan and I have become especially good friends with 2 girls in my ward, Micaela and Lindsay. We hang out ALL the time. It's actually come to a point where we have to ground ourselves from each other because we'll end up talking for like 3 hours and get nothing done. We're not even really allowed to eat with each other because we talk too much. When we do hang out though on weekends, it's so much fun.
Yay for doing random stuff and not caring what people think <3

Midnight In-N-Out runs. Totally typical right? haha

 Lindsay & Zac's "Zip Bong?" game. SO FUNNY. You apparently aren't allowed to show your teeth so they were trying to make each other laugh and it was so entertaining. Zac definitely makes the best faces!

Hahahaha so Jordan got her wisdom teeth out the other weekend and was on a lot of drugs. One time, I looked on my phone and found all of these random photos on my phone. I blame the drugs. lolz

This picture is hilarious because not only is it like 2 a.m., but look at Micaela's leg! It looks like it's my leg. When I saw this we literally laughed about it for a good 5 minutes. So funny. 

I love Lindsay! She always makes these crazy ice cream cones and it's hilarious. 

Mens volleyball game! It was such a good game. We were facing Stanford and it was definitely a good fight. We went to 5 games and barely won. I believe we're #1 in the nation for volleyball. Yay morms!

One time, we were talking about pie and then we were talking about pie shakes and how much we REALLY wanted one at that moment. So then we sweet talked Micaela into driving us to Sammy's in the middle of the day to get the best pie shakes ever! If you live in Provo and haven't been, you seriously need to get your butt down there. I recommend the Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake shake. It's heavenly.

To top off my fun activities with friends, we had a winter olympics on our President's Day holiday! It was SO much fun. There was a bunch of different countries (and fantasy countries/places) and we did all sorts of events like sledding, speed skating, human curling, a snowball fight, and soccer. I obviously had the best team, we were Fire Nation (from Avatar). We took the bronze but BARELY. We would've tied for 2nd I think but they mis scored the snowball fight and so we ended up in 3rd. It was still really fun though.

1st in soccer, but mostly because Sarah is on the BYU soccer team. (: 

I surprised myself and was actually really good at human curling. Except, it was more like sled down the hill and try to land within the target. At one point, I got hit pretty hard but it wasn't too bad. It was my favorite event!

1st place in the sledding relay! Everyone's sleds broke but it was still way fun. 

I wish this wasn't blurry, but 3rd place baby! Yay for bronze medals.

On other news,

I SUBMITTED MY MISSION PAPERS!!! 

Today is actually the 1 week countdown until my call should come in. I'm so excited. I can't wait to finally find out where the Lord wants me to serve for 18 months.
We cleaned off the map and I put up something official for Jordan's call to France Lyon!

Stay tuned to hear! I'm so excited.

Lessons from the Book of Mormon

So something that I really enjoyed talking about 2 weeks ago in Book of Mormon was Samuel the Lamanite. I always knew he was an incredible prophet, but after studying and learning from Samuel, he has by far become one of my favorite prophets. So we know he's a Lamanite from his name, but not only that, he was a Lamanite preaching and chastising a whole city of wicked Nephites. Before he even got to that point, he tried to preach to the Nephites, but they rejected him. When the Lord told him to try again, he was obedient and went back even though he had no idea how he was going to get through to them. He got up on that wall and had the courage to chastise the Nephites, speaking for the Lord in 1st person saying, "I will visit them with the sword and with famine and pestilence." (Helaman 13:9) Can you imagine the courage that would take? He's basically telling them that they're doomed because of their wickedness. Even when they got angry and started to throw arrows and rocks, he stood up there with confidence in the Lord. 
I'm grateful for Samuel's courage and the example he set. I could only hope that if I was in that situation, I would have the courage to share the gospel and be obedient to the Lord. 

Laugh of the Day: 

So this has been kind of a video & picture post so here are some of my favorite youtube videos lately. Each one gets funnier every time you watch it. SO GREAT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdVuSvZOqXM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48QYrEv3P7U

CalledToServe

This past week was a big one.
Jordan, my roommate and best friend, got her mission call!
I am so incredibly excited for her and I know she will be such a great missionary!
So where in the world is Jordan going?

Wait for it......

She is called to labor in the France Lyon mission! 

AHHHHHHHHH.

JORDAN'S GOING TO FRANCE!! 

This was such a crazy experience for me because I got to witness the excitement of someone getting called to somewhere they really wanted to go. Jordan has been learning french for 6 years now so it's exciting to see her go somewhere where she can use that! 

We both took French in high school together, but Jordan decided to carry on in college.

It's so fun to see a lot of my friends get mission calls because it is one of the greatest things to be able to share and witness their excitement. 

I submit my papers in hopefully a week so my time is coming soon! I can't wait to find out where in the world the Lords needs me to serve. 

So exciting! 

Lessons from the Book of Mormon: 

One of the the things we talked about last week was about the pride cycle. I can't tell you how many times I have learned about the pride cycle growing up in the church. I always thought it was the same story and order: prosperity, pride, destruction, repentance, and then back to prosperity. However, I discovered a whole new depth and understanding of the pride cycle in class. You can basically split up the pride cycle into the different paths leading to the 3 degrees of glory we will be separated into after we die. The traditional pride cycle we think of is basically the path to terrestrial glory. It's not terrible, but its not the best we can do. The Telestial slide is when we go from our sorrow from destruction right back to pride and sin. We fail to realize our sins and humble ourselves before the Lord and resort back to pride, forgetting the wonderful blessings of the atonement and the happiness we feel when we look to the Lord. Lastly, the Celestial staircase is when we humble ourselves before the Lord because of our blessings and prosperity and keep on that gradual climb toward exaltation. This is where we step back and are humble before the Lord for all of our blessings and prosperity and never fail to forget him. Of course, there is always room to jump down to a lower cycle or pattern, but it goes both ways. We can just as easily jump back up onto that celestial staircase as we can fall to a lower cycle. 

So then I guess the only thing left to question is: Where am I at this time in my life? If I'm not where I want to be, what can I do to get myself on that upward climb? 

Laugh of the Day: 

So these are the guys in my ward..... 

Please watch their Harlem Shake. BYU edition. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkpae0WXin8

GettinCrafty

Something I've always been bad at is documenting and taking pictures of crafts as I complete them.
So in an effort to be better at it, here's some pics of some things I've been working on and done in the past few months!

Sharpie Decorated Mugs

Making sharpie mugs all started when Jordan and I decided to gift these initial mugs for Christmas to our good friends. It's super simple, we got mugs at Walmart for only $3 and I used an ultra thin black sharpie to get the fine line. I wish I could say I free handed the initials, but I actually transferred the outline on. To do that, you find a font you like, print it off in the size you want, and then flip it over and outline the initial in pencil. After that you tape the initial onto the mug and then proceed to scribble, pressing firmly, around the border of the initial. This transfers the lead outline of the initial on the back onto the mug. From there, you just do a thick outline and then do very fine stripes to get the sketched look. After you finish all the drawing on the mug, you want to bake it in in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes. Make sure you put the mug in when you preheat it or else it'll be too hot and it could crack (I think). I also recommend letting the mug cool down in the oven a little bit before taking it out. Just turn off the oven after 30 minutes and wait 10-15 before taking it out to cool on the stove. You also might want to be careful and not touch the design when you take it out of the oven because it'll still be hot and could smear!
I failed to take a picture of the completed picture, but I actually did a chevron pattern around the mug on the "M" and "A" mug. I did however get a picture of the finished "L" mug for Lindsay. For that one, I used tape to get straight lines. It was tedious, but I think it turned out pretty well!

 

For this one, I made it for my best friend Will for his birthday! I just free handed this one, so no trick to share here!

 This is perhaps my favorite one! I made this one for Shelby and really need to make one for myself. I love me some grumpy cat. (I also freehanded this one).
A trick to free handing: Get a cup of water and some Q-tips next to you when you're drawing. The sharpie comes off with water so a Q-tip is perfect to fix mistakes you make!

 I used a dry Q-tip to smudge the silver around the eyes as well. It was tedious, but it worked out in the end!

------>
One of Shelby's favorite grumpy cat quotes.  It's not necessary, but something cool to add to the back of the mug.



So the next 3 mugs I made, I made them for my friends in Cypress. I can't really say which one is my favorite, but I really like how the initials, the "K" and "Stubbe" turned out on them.

Sharpie Decorated Bowl

So after my success with the mugs, I thought I would try out detailing a bowl! I made this lace bowl for Ash and Rob for Christmas. It was tedious because I had to use tape to get the straight lines, but I REALLY liked how good this one turned out!

A Hand Painted Tie

For Robbie's Christmas present, I finally finished his hand painted tie the other day! It is a VERY belated Christmas present, but I think its worth it right? 

I really liked how it turned out. 

I used Angelus Acrylic Leather Paint. I bought them here: http://turtlefeathers.net/text/angelus/paint.html and I am so happy with them! The nice thing about the leather paint is that its waterproof so there is no need to worry about smearing or anything. 

Artwork from my Drawing class at BYU

Modified blind contour

Gesture drawing 

Drawing from still life paying attention to space & sighting.

Doodles and Wannabe Typography

I've been on a typography and quote doodling kick lately so these are some that I did today. 

 

Letter Doodles

Anybody want a letter? I've really find joy in decorating them. I've done a few more than these two, but these are just the pictures I found. If you notice, Jordan wanted a decorate envelope so I made her one. Never mailed it (: 

I sent this missionary themed one to my friend Jason who is currently serving in Washington DC on a mission for the LDS church.

Lessons from the Book of Mormon: 

This past week in Book of Mormon, we read at the end of Alma and the very beginning of Helaman. Part of what we read was about Helaman and the 2,000 Stripling Warriors. Something that I've really come to admire about them that I never really noticed before is where the warriors came from.

In Alma 56:47-48, we read, "Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them. (48) And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it." 

I really like this passage because it explains a lot about the stripling warriors. They had grown up in the face of war, many of them losing fathers and family members and despite their inexperience, they weren't afraid to fight. Much of their character and faith is attributed to their mothers that taught them in the gospel to turn to God no matter what. Their faith was so strong that despite everything they had lost, they believed so strongly in the power of God. Can you imagine being a mother of one of the Lamanite warriors? You've lost your husband to war and after getting through that successfully raising righteous children, you have to send your son(s) to the same place. Not only that, but they have absolutely no war experience. 

The amount of faith and strength that these families had is so incredible that I can hardly fathom it. I admire these mothers and sons so much for their courage and faith and I only hope that I can be half the kind of mother that these mothers were someday. 

Laugh of the Day:

I played Apples to Apples the other day and landed with these 4 cards. Supposedly, the cards you win describe your personality.
That being said, it appears that I have all the qualities of a creeper/kidnapper. 

What? 
LOLZ.