74. Shake an Apostle's Hand

Who? Richard G. Scott.

When? April 15th, 2011

I went above and beyond on this one, folks. Not only did I shake Richard G. Scott's hand, but I hugged him too!

He came to Lethbridge for a YSA fireside* and when it was over, me and my friends, Shirls and Wendy, waited in a tiny hallway as he finished a meeting with the Stake Presidency*. When he came out he greeted us and I had the biggest, stupid grin on my face as Shirls told him about my goal to shake an apostle's* hand, then my uncle (who was there because he's in the stake) told Elder Scott that I'll be getting married. That's when I got my hug and Elder Scott told me that he hoped I would be very happy.

You know, in the church the apostles tend to be glorified as these out-of-this world men, but really, they're just like me and you except they have serve as special witnesses of Christ. I loved meeting Elder Scott because you could tell that he wasn't trying to be anything special, but at the same time you could tell there was a special spirit about him. I could feel the love he had for me and all the other YSA there as an extension of the love that Christ and Heavenly Father have for us.

If you ever have a general authority visiting in your area and you have a chance to meet them, take it! Because it is totally worth it.

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* - YSA? Fireside? Stake Presidency? Apostle?? What is all this?

It's mormon lingo. We have our own little language within the church mostly comprised of acronyms. YSA stands for Young Single Adults and it is comprised of the unmarried members of the church between 18 and 30 years of age. A fireside is when we all gather at a church building to listen to counsel given to us by leaders of the church. A stake presidency is comprised of a man and his two counselors and together they govern over a body of members of a couple thousand people grouped together in congregations of about 400-500. An apostle is one man of twelve who is at the very head of the church with the prophet and his two counsellors in charge of them all.

A new day

I have a new favourite artist. For a long time I've loved the works of Andy Warhol. You know, his colourful prints of marilyn monroe, his classic campbell's soup cans and his banana.

Then I discovered Banksy, the secretive London graffiti artist, whose street art exposes the skeletons of the world's closet and also reminds us of what a beautiful place it can be/has been.

Enter my new love: Candy Chang. Her website describes her as a public installation artist who likes to make cities more comfortable for people. I'm still discovering all the inspiring works she's done and I've loved every single one. My absolute favourite is what she's done with the side of an abandoned house in New Orleans. She transformed it into a giant chalkboard with the words "Before I Die" painted on it. They left chalk out so people can write down the things they want to do before they die. The response has been impressive.


Here's my favourite comment that was written on the site:

"you know what I abslolutely love about this?
the purity of it all.
reading this, the thoughts of all these people, make me realize that deep down, after all the materialistic bullshit we put ourselves through every day, our human race isn't too bad after all."

I want this done in my city! This is something that every city needs. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we all realized that everyone has hopes and dreams of a brighter future? I am on the verge of starting a new life with the wonderful young man I love and who loves me in return. I want us to be happy together and when we have kids, I want to raise them with love and teach them to make good choices.

Before I die I want to raise a family that loves each other and will make the world a better place. World peace has to start somewhere, right?

I just have one thing to share...

My ring is in =3

Look what i can do with no pants.

Well folks, I'm feeling particularly unmotivated to put pants on today so I decided to take advantage of it and post a little something.

Sidenote -- I went to bed without pants last night and when I woke up I never got around to putting any on. It's wonderful! TMI? Maybe. But no worries, I will be sure to put some on before I step out the door. Or before I go upstairs. Whatever comes first.

Moving on -- I've got a few exciting things to share with you all. I'm sure you'll be very happy for me if you haven't heard already...

I'm getting married!! To Johnny. Duh. I suppose that since I'm gonna be marrying the guy you should at least get to know his real name.

Wait. Nope. I change my mind. He is my Johnny Lingo and that is how he will stay on the blog. (Besides, if you know me in real life, you most likely know Johnny in real life too). Sorry folks, but the number one rule of any superhero is never wear a cape because it can get caught in things and kill you. And the number two rule is always protect your loved ones.

Tee hee, I have a loved one.

Anyway, I suppose you want to hear all about the proposal and whatnot? Good, cause it's a good one.

First he had to ask dad's permission and boy was he nervous. But it was cute. What he did was he went out and bought 48 cans of pineapple and 2 real ones. Then he printed off 50 little cow pictures and taped them to each can and pineapple. Then he brought them over to my house while I was at school one day and my parents were at home. Then he started taking them out one by one and when my parents saw the little cow pictures, they had a pretty good idea of what was going on. (If you don't know the backstory here, you need to read my first post about Johnny and then you need to watch this little movie (it's been split into three parts that you can find here. here. and here.) and you will get it) Anywho, once all the cows were on the table he gave my parents his speel talking about how we love each other very much and how we'd like to get married but with their blessing first. I'm told that my dad put on his typical tough-guy-father face and my mom put on her I'm-so-happy-I-could-cry face. My mom gave him instant approval and dad said no but then mom smacked him and he changed his answer.

So that's the permission part. The proposal was much more exciting.

We went skydiving. No joke. It was pretty wicked. He went first and then I went after Johnny. When I landed on the ground he gave me a hug, got down on one knee and proposed with a watermelon as the jewelery box. Naturally, I said yes and everybody went home happy. You should see my ring! It's so pretty and shiny. I got to wear it for a day and I couldn't take my eyes off it. It's been sent away to be resized now and I have a very nice Walmart substitute for the time being but I want my opal ring!

Pictures will be coming soon, but right now I've gotta go get some pants on.

Today's blog has been brought to you by...

Recently I've felt the need to blog. But I've been at a lack of things to say. I'm pretty good at going off on a tangent about random subjects so I asked my good friend, Jules, to give me something to talk about. And here it is:

Yellow.

I know I've mentioned that I don't have a favourite colour because I love them all (except green, sorry Trudy), but yellow has always had a special place in my heart. Generally I love warm colours the most, but yellow is the best because red is always associated with romance, which makes me barf; and orange, while it is bright and cheerful, can also be slightly obnoxious.

But yellow. Yellow is a happy colour and instantly brings a smile to my face. Except when it's a lemon, that brings a pucker, but think about it. The sun is yellow. The sun brings life. And life is - awesome. The sun is warm and and bright. And when it's sunny, I turn brown. What's not to love???

Here are a few of my favourite yellow things:

Yellow gum boots.

There was a girl in my high school who used to wear yellow gum boots all the time and it made me so happy. I used to have my own pair of yellow bootish type things, but then they got a crack in the heel, so now they are no more.

Dandelions.

I know they aren't the prettiest flowers, but when I was a kid I used make dandelion bouquets for my mom all the time, so it brings me happy memories. I hope my future kids will do the same thing for me.

Pineapple.

For some reason, when I was a kid, I wasn't a huge fan of pineapples. Now that I'm older, I love it! Usually when there's a fruit tray with pineapple on it, I will only eat the pineapple. Plus I've got a great story with pineapples to share with you. But I'll save that for another post...

Reminiscing

I know I said this in my first April post but I'll say it again: I can't believe it's been a year since our big Australia trip! A year ago today our trip was winding down as we spent the last few days of it with family in Tonga. Do you remember how I tried to upload a video of it to youtube last year, but it wouldn't because it was too long? Well it's up now!

Here, have a look:



If you want, you can also take a look at some of my posts from April of last year to check out some awesome vacation photos.

Just a Little Something

I've had such a busy time these past couple weeks with the last week of school and exam studying, but I'm in the mood to blog something so I'll leave you with the lamest joke I've ever heard:

Jon: What's a pirate's favourite letter?

Jane: Arrr?

Jon: No, you'd think it'd be arrrr, but it's actually the sea.