I love Provo.

I think I love Provo. The last few days have been just pure bliss. And why? I have no idea. Nothing extraordinary has happened. No new adventures. No new sights. But I am just running around grinning like a goof. And I think the only conclusion is that I love Provo!

Wednesday was spent first at home. I made the girl's beds for them since they had to run off to class and worked on some random things. Then I went out and ran errands. I picked up pictures and included them with a letter I mailed to Isaac. I renewed our movie that we hadn't had time to watch the night before. I bought bags for Megan and Nicole (the bookstore sells these great 4 dollar bags). I stopped by the office and said hello to my boss and coworkers who are there for the summer. And happiest of all I ran into Sarah and got to spend more than an hour catching up with her. I shared thoughts about London, we told giggly stories and laughed just like old times. I love her so much. When the girls got home at 6:00 we started our movie but had to pause it because I left a little while later for Jordan's bachlorette party. P.F. Chang's (SO yummy) and a lot of girl talk. It was a really good night. It was really good to see Sam and Jordan again too, I hadn't seen them since we left London and switching from every single day to not at all had been strange. When I was driving back I had my windows open and just let the music blast. It was the perfect temperature outside to just soak up life. When I got home I may or may not have kept the girl's up late talking. :) What can I say? I've missed talking to them a lot.



Thursday morning I had to drive up to Salt Lake to the Apple store to see if there was any hope for my iPhoto Library. It had crashed in London. And even though I hadn't lost any pictures I really didn't want to have to rebuild/reorganize it all. But sadly no luck. It was corrupted for whatever reason and I was going to have to start all over. On the way back I stopped to get gas. I love my car.... 35 miles to the gallon. So so nice!

Then as soon as I got home we put back in the movie to finish it. It was called Luther and told the story of Martin Luther. Obviously some of it was fictionalized... it is a movie after all... but I was so impressed. It was very very well done. Excellent acting. And such an amazing story and topic to learn about. Martin Luther did the best with what he had to find and fight for truth. He recognized the need for individuals to have access to the word of God and translated the New Testament to make that possible for the German people. I am so grateful for Martin Luther and those around him and how they influenced the world so that we can have what we do today. He was a remarkable man. I would definitely recommend the movie. After that we went out to run a bajillion errands... return the movie, buy bread, buy medicine, buy stuff for dinner... but it was so much fun to be with Lyss and Eva with the windows down and the music blasting. Also, I had found that I got A's in all of my London classes. I was so excited not only just for the 4.0 for Spring Term but because I pulled that off while in London! I also heard from a friend and the combination of those things and the happiness of being with friends just had be dancing around. I was seriously bouncing off of the walls happy! And that's what it comes back to... nothing really... just happy to be alive!

When we got back the girl's were supposed to do homework but we may or may not have had a long conversation instead. :) The evening was a lot of fun... we made dinner for a bunch of boys that the girl's had become friends with... David, Morgan, Ryan and Moose. We had a bbq... I made hamburgers, Eva did smashed potatoes, we had salad and watermelon. So yummy. And the hamburgers turned out perfectly. I always get worried when I cook things like hamburgers because you can't taste them before they are done... but they smelled yummy while they were cooking and they turned out just about perfect.

I got to talk to Lyss more and then just before I went to bed I pulled out an old conference ensign I had brought with me and flipped to a random talk. I ended up at the talk President Uchtdorf gave at the Relief Society Broadcast last fall. It is titled Happiness, your Heritage and you can read it here if you don't remember it. I love that talk. A lot. But I found something in it last night that just made me so excited... near the end President Uchtdorf quotes James Barrie (author of Peter Pan... who if you haven't noticed I have a huge new love and respect for) and says "Those who bring sunshine to the lives of other cannot keep it from themselves." Obviously I heard that quote when he gave the talk and I've read the talk since but that quote hadn't even stood out to me like it did last night. If you know anything about me you know how much I love sunshine. Or maybe more appropriately I love what I have chosen sunshine to represent. Sunshine is my symbol for happiness. It is love and friendship, joy and beauty. It keeps things from being dark and lonely and scary. Sunshine is all things good in life. I don't know if I'm explaining that very well. But trust me... sunshine is happy to me. So that quote says those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves. I want my life to be a life filled with sunshine for the reasons I have just explained. And J.M. Barrie just gave me a perfect answer for how to do that better. Fill other people's lives with sunshine. So that is something I am going to be working hard on and trying to do... fill other people's lives with sunshine. How? Well I explained that for me sunshine is love and friendship and joy and beauty. So if I can bring those things into the lives of the people around me then their lives will be filled with sunshine and if I associate with people full of sunshine then my life will have more sunshine in it. Which is what I want. I want my life to be filled with bright, happy, sunshine. A few weeks ago I commented on the piece of the Berlin Wall that is outside of the Imperial War Museum in London... It says Change Your Life. I've kept pondering on that a lot. And it has really stuck with me. I've really realized that I'm not going to change the world. I'm not. I used to think that I would. Actually I was sure I would. I had it all planned out how I could get to Congress. I had lists of things that I would change. I knew people would listen because obviously I was right. But I've grown up a little bit. And I'm not going to Congress anymore. In fact sometimes people laugh at me because my major is technically Family Life with an emphasis in Human Development. And they look at that and say what are you going to do? Be a mom? And my answer... actually yes. I do have career plans if my life takes me that direction. I would love to do Marriage and Family Therapy. I think I could do very well there. But the reality is that I really do want to be a mom. And that's it. So how does that relate to the Berlin Wall? Well, as I have been thinking about it and realized that I'm not going to change the world I started to wonder a lot about what I could do. I'm just Rachel. Nothing extraordinary. Just a little girl trying to find a place in this world. And that is where the wall helped me. I can change MY life. That simple. Okay that isn't simple. It will take a lot of work and patience. But the reality of that is that I CAN! I CAN change my life. Little by little and step by step. And then I can help those around me, in my little sphere of influence to change their lives. And in the end I think if I can help even just my children realize their worth and potential I think I will have done as much or more good as I would have trying to change the entire world. That was a long thought. And it isn't a complete or finished thought by any means. It is still developing. But I'm going to do my best to share sunshine with those I can reach.



This morning I started the long process of rebuilding my iPhoto Library. It actually has turned out much easier than I expected! Lots of pictures I thought were only saved at home magically appeared and almost all of the sorting I had previously done was still there! It is still tedious because there are quite a few duplicates, etc... that ended up there and needed to be sorted out but it should be all put back together really soon. Which makes me so happy because I value pictures a lot. I also ran a quick errand up to campus to get my new ID card. I know, I know. You never did that during the semester?!?! No I didn't. I never go past the Wilk and I never made time. But I ran up today and did it. In about an hour I'll be off to a dinner for Jordan and Greg and then tomorrow is her wedding! So happy! For now... I'm just going to run outside and soak up the beauty that is Provo! I love it here!