a new version of twilight

Enjoy:

a mother's love

One of my favorite billboard's in Natchitoches is for Red's Ribs - their tagline is "More tender than a mother's love". It makes me think of these pictures I took when I made it home for spring break, as Tim was on his way out. The first is a family inside joke, but my favorite is the last, Mom's "if you speed, you die" speech.

general conference

In between sessions on Sunday, April 5th we set up a little picnic for the YSAs outside the temple (which happens to be right next to our stake center....which happens to be a block from my apartment). The weather was lovely as we enjoyed our PB&honey sandwiches and chit-chatted.
These ladies are two of my favorite people in our ward: Sodjne Denou (pronounced So-ja-nay, she's from Togo, Africa) and Jazmin Carter. They are both always smiling and I honestly have never heard a mean thing come out of either one's mouth. I think that kid is one of Sodjne's little brothers.

spring formal

On April 3rd we had our annual YSA Spring Formal. This year they pulled out all the stops and we had it at an old plantation here in Baton Rouge, Magnolia Mound (a large improvement over the stake center). Anthony, a guy from my ward, asked me to the dance a MONTH in advance.....grimace. I finally told him I would go with him if he wore a suit. And was he ever wearing a suit when I picked him (and his cousin) up! We arrived a few minutes late and strolled in like a human OREO. I laughed at the sight of everyone's incredulous looks. The dance was fun, except that Anthony would not leave my side so I didn't get to dance with everyone else. We left early and watched a movie with Adam and Erica. I didn't want him to try anything funny so I wrapped myself in a huge blanket like a cocoon - problem solved! All in all it was a fun night but I finally had to tell Anthony last week that we were never gonna be more than friends....another grimace.

PS - is it just me or do I look a lot like Aunt Janet?

tower of BOMs

On Monday, March 30th, some friends and I joined our missionaries for a table sit in Free Speech Alley. We usually get a table out there once a month and hand out copies of the Book of Mormon and pass-along cards and pens and keychains and the like, without much success. Then our elders had a grand idea. We usually just had 15 or so BOMs and maybe people who wanted one wouldn't get one because they didn't know if they cost anything and they maybe thought that someone else would want one more and there weren't that many so they'd just keep going. In all the table-sits I've done, we've maybe given away 5 BOMs this year, most of those to Asian exchange students who barely spoke a word of English and had probably never heard of Mormons. So this time the elders made a couple of large FREE signs and brought out at least 120 BOMs with the missionaries' contact info or a pass-along card inside and we basically had a tower of copies of the Book of Mormon. In the four hours we were out there, we gave away 80 copies! And this wasn't us shoving them in people's faces, forcing them to take one. Most of the people were actually excited to take one. It was pretty dang cool. Even if only one person calls the missionaries in the near future, this was a major success in my opinion. And it was lots of fun, too.

Towards the beginning, Elders Baker and Brown:

These guys have the best facial expressions.....

After a few hours, Alanna looks like a hippie and we've made a serious dent in our pile!

smokin' hot!

I know, I know, it's been forever and a day since I've posted something of substance (meaning - not a dumb video clip), but I've been quite studious this semester and haven't really gotten around to it. Now that I'm on spring break I figured I have no excuse not to spend a little time posting a few pics from the past few weeks.

On March 12th, I came home to a smoke-filled apartment. One of my roomies, Jiffy, had put some cheesy toast in the toaster oven, set it on broil, and forgot about it until she heard the handle fall off and hit the counter. It had melted off, and a hole had just about burned through the top and burned the bottom of our cabinet. Fortunately it wasn't my toaster oven, but we're still waiting for her to buy us another one. And almost a month later, some our cups still smell like smoke.......