Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Senior Pix
Monday, November 30, 2009
DREAMBOY!!!
thanks to leah's sister-in-law brynna, i had one of the prettiest dresses at the dance, and really did feel like a princess even if i complained about my hair...
Thursday, September 10, 2009
uh....
Thursday, June 25, 2009
quantities II
i've lived in the valley for 6 months
i missed only 1 day of school this semester (thanks cam and rob Knotts was super fun)
i got straight A's this semester (and E,E for those of you who know what E's are)
i went to the beach 0 times while here
i met HUNDREDS of new people
i was the only girl in my english class
i canned 6 bottles of jam (nectar berries from the back yard)
i bought 4 new pairs of jeans while here
i'm taking MORE than 100 lbs. of junk back to AZ
i've driven 1 time in the last 6 months
i've watched more hours of television this semester than i probably have in my whole life combined
i've used 1 toothbrush this whole time
i turn 18 in exactly 60 days
i met 2 people from holland (my 2nd cousin once removed, and his girlfriend)
i land in tucson in about 18 hours
i can think of 0 more things to write
but i really had a blast this last 6 months...so many people have touched my life, and i don't know how i could ever thank them enough. my heart will never be the same thanks to the west hills ward. and i learned SO much about the world and people and culture and everything at school. it just has been a very positive thing for me. but i'm now excited to press forward and apply everything i learn....
Sunday, June 21, 2009
closing time
so leaving is going to be rough. not that leaving st. david wasn't, but that all felt very temporary, and i felt like leaving there was finding a new me, and it was exciting and scary all at the same time. now it's like i've found the me that i'd set out for, but a peice of that will be left here. i hated who i was in st. david, and i love who i am here, so how can i take all the good and move it to the setting of the bad? i mean i am going to hang with a different crowd.
mostly i'm just venting my thoughts here, so sorry. but leaving here is definately worse than leave AZ was
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
the AMAZING power of prayer
today when i got to my 4th hour class my teacher decided that he was going to be nice and instead of giving us a test, he let us watch a movie. well i wasn't paying attention to the film at first because i was talking, but once everyone settled down i realized that the movie had to be rated R because it had a lot of profanity. well i didn't want to make a scene and i knew we weren't being tested on it or anything so i got my MP3 player out so that i could just not watch the movie. well when i looked at the screen i realized that i had forgotten to charge my MP3 player last night :O oh no! there was like a very minute green part of the battery left showing and i knew that meant taht it would last about 10 minutes and we had 30 minutes left of the class. well i said a little tiny prayer in my head about not wanting to have to watch the movie but that i didn't want to have to embarass myself and inturrupt the class just to inform everyone that i dont watch R movies.
i sat and stared at my back pack listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers because i was afraid to change the song because i thought it might use more battery up. well totally miraculously i looked at the clock and noticed that it was time to go. the bell rang, and as soon as i stepped out of the classroom my music went of. i took my MP3 player out of my pocket and it was dead.
heavenly father loves me, just the same as he loves anyone else. i'm so incredibly grateful to know the things i know and have the standards i have
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
weekend!
it's not my fault i get bored. i have a feeling now that i have camille's old digital camera there will be many more random videos!!!!
i went to the city walk at universal studios this weekend with some of the girls from my seminary class and it was super fun. here's some pic plus some random ones i took of myself. i know i get camera happy but whateves...
this is my cancer patient pic. it looks like i have no hair!!!!
i didn't wanna rotate these ones...and you can see my forhead wrinkles that my dad makes fun of
forhead wrinkles again. well sixhead wrinkles is what stinky ross would've called them
this was a barbie store taht i thought was awesome!!!
this is jen not wanting a picture. she's one of the greatest people i've met here
freak candy store called "it's sugar"
this is julie with katie behind her. katie is jen's little sister...julie is in our seminary class too
and this.... this is me with the halo guy...it's true love!
Friday, May 22, 2009
how white is WHITE?!?!?!?
first of you have to understand that 85% of my school is latino, and then they bus people in from chinatown and koreatown and then there is a percentage of black, so white is definately the minority. it doesn't bother me, but it makes for some really funny experiences.
first off is the most embarrassing one. prom. well ya see, uhm, being raised in st. david sometimes it's assumed that you understand things that you don't. so in the car with my date and his mom on the way to prom they asked me what it was like living close to the border. well uhmmm...i told them some experiences, and while doing so i used a term that i didn't exactly know was bad. the day after prom, i went to rachelle and asked "uhm, rachelle...how derogatory of a term is'wet-back?'" yea you can laugh at me if you want, but i hadn't realized that that was even mean. well i knew it wasn't nice, but i didn't think it was offensive. well yea. so my prom date who actually happens to be mexican probably thought i was super rude. no wonder i don't talk to him;)
today while in history i was talking to this kid who is half chinese, half jamaican. well he asked me if i liked the movie that we were watching and i told him that i hadn't really actually watched much of it, and he JOKINGLY responded "it's because it's about a black guy huh?" well i was joking back and said "of course, because you know that i hate black people." just as i said that i looked up and a tall black kid sitting two desks in front of me that doesn't know me, turned around and raised his eye brows. i quickly explained that i was joking and my friend backed me up, thankfully.
there's more but i don't have time... it's so fun and interesting to live in a more diverse place. i'm definately learning a lot.!
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
mormon PROM pix
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
the ULTIMATE weekend...
anyways...more about prom another time...
sunday the 3rd i went to the twilight convention "twi tour" with heather and zach and rachelle and scott. it was so CRA-CRA-CRAZY!!! first off, i've never ever seen any one so hot in person. check him out!
that's right! that does indeed say "To Elise <3 the good Dr"
you can tell by my dork face that i was totally twitterpated ;)
anyways...it turned out that alice wasn't their, so laurent was their instead. he was super nice and stuff but he looks kind of stoned in my pictured. that's okay though. it's still a picture with him.
i also got to take a picture with emmett, and mike newton with there but who the heck cares about mike. lol uhm well emmett's picture will come, and same with prom pics. anyways it was super fun to see heather zach rachelle scott and the girls. we don't see any of them often enough. it's was nice to have time with heather where their wasn't a million siblings running around and being able to talk to her one on one and get to know her better and understand her better.
<3
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
SPRING!!!
these are some petunias under the big front window that i planted a few weeks ago
i try to talk to them every couple days to encourage them to grow...
these are the pansies that i planted really early in the spring (Feb)
they're finally getting big and filling in
Thursday, April 23, 2009
the los angeles temple
so we'll start with sunday of my week. sunday was a rough day for me....taking the sacrament has been really special for me lately, and sunday it especially touched me and then the patriarch spoke. he didn't talk about patriarchal blessings, but he talked about free agency. he gave some examples of people in his life. well to try to make this shorter, one of them was pretty much the only member in his family, and made some really good choices as a teenager ALONE and has now been a bishop and stake president. the other had a strong family and had been raised right, but made some not so smart decisions at 17 and ended getting married and then divorced and has never really been happy and can't seem to understand why his life is hard. well of course by the time he was done saying that i was crying. i just couldn't help but see the me that i was 4 months ago growing up and ending up shacked up and knocked up in ghetto little st. david. it would have been so easy to get there. well then we were getting ready to go on a temple trip and i needed another interveiw with bishop to get okayed to go, and he was out of town. well that was discouraging cuz i really felt like i just needed to be there and that i was ready to be there. well then after young womens i talked to the couselor in the bishopric and he said that bishop had put my name on the temple recommend list before he left. i was ecstatic! well then after church i ended up calling natalie and just crying to her and actually almost yelling at her about how dumb i was and how the things i had done had jeopardized so much....then came monday
well after school....as you know from the below post....we went to go try to get me into some english classes so that i could graduate at the end of summer. well then that went to pot and i was really upset. two days in a row i bawled my head off for making dumb decisions that made life so much more complicated. well i talked to Dad about options and i ended up just being mad and crying more to him and i honestly think i may have scared him a little bit because i was a mess. well after lots of talking and lots of prayers on elise's end..we decided that the decision can't be made yet, so i may be here another semester, but that mostly only means i'll be able to go to GIRLS' CAMP BABY!!!! in california (sorry all you amazing arizonites). then comes tuesday....
when i got home from school i had an email asking if i would meet with the bishop for a temple recommend interveiw. that scared me a little bit of course, but i knew it would be fine cuz i knew that i was temple worthy. well then i also had an email from the oh so marvelous Alison asking if i would help her with her math homework. yea, she's smarter than me, so that didn't work out so well. but it was fun. then we went to the interveiw. of course that went well. then i got home and decided that i had some big decisions to be making in the next couple days/weeks so i would go to the temple fasting. well then when i went to bed that night i read my scriptures, as always, and then knelt down to say my prayers and open my fast for the following day. well for some reason i couldn't get myself to dedicate my fast to my decisions. i just felt like i was stressed and that my fast would be hard and irreverent if doing that. and i couldn't get this impression to shake that i needed to fast for something else...something so much more important...and then for the first time in my life i opened a fast of gratitude. i knelt there bawling my head off (3rd night in a row) and thought of all the things i had to be thankful for in this beautiful life. and then after closing my prayer i decided that along with my fast all of my prayers on wednesday would be prayers of only thanksgiving.
well of course i was asked to give opening prayer in seminary, so i asked for one thing for all of us kids in seminary. so prayer has become a bigger part of my life in the last few years than i thought it ever could be. well at school here it's become something that i can rely on seeing as i don't know too many people and even those that i do know i don't want to become so close with them that their veiws will start effecting any of my decisions. so multiple times during the day i had a hard time trying to think of things to be grateful for instead of asking for help and strength throughout the day. then school ended and i got to have the humbling experience of doing baptisms for those on the other side of the veil.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Stress Mess...
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
light in the dark!
okay first off, this sunday i fasted that i would have a better week and that i would feel like i was happier at school and wanted to be there and fit in better. by tuesday evening i was like floored by the mood fasting can put you in. it had been a couple of really good days and i finally felt like i was getting to know people in my classes and wasn't afraid to talk or whatever. well the tuesday night i watched the broadcast and decided to take notes so that i would really pay attention. of course i got a little emotional at a couple parts but there was one thing that hit me relaly hard. president monson has said some funny things and kinda been joking around a little bit while talking about the differences in todays world and the world that he grew up in. well of course after explaining what a blessing all the technology we have is he pointed out that it can easily be a downfall and that there are so many immoral things that we can get into. well then he posed a question--does this give us permission to be immoral because it's all around us ?? then he did something that just hit me so hard. he was totally blunt and straightforward and answered that question for us "NO. the answer is no. absolutely not." and then after that profound statement he continued to explain that it wasn't no because of dangers or because it can ruin your life but the answer is "no because it's wrong." then wednesday came.
the morning was a little rough because a gay kid in my PE class was talking to me about seminary and he was kind of teasing me about going to church every morning and stuff (he's a friend though, so it wasn't mean teasing just awkward) then i actually was happy to have the opportunity to talk to one of my friends miranda and tell her that i was a mormon and her response was "Ooh....that's why you don't have sex." i almost laughed out loud but i was like yea and we had a good talk and it was cool. well the rest of the morning was really good and i actually found myself saying a prayer of gratitude at lunch for a very obvious answer to my fast. well then 4th period came. first off you need to know a little background for that class. there's 5 girls of at least 30 kids and my teacher likes me. i sit right in front by him and i have the highest grade in that class (i think) it's still a 'B' though which is proving that that class really doesn't apply themselves. well he (my teacher) asked me if i wanted to buy tickets to a breakfast to support his volleyball team. i thought that maybe i would, but then he told me it was on a sunday. i tried to be nice and only said that i didn't leave the house much on sundays. he responded by saying that i could bring grama and grampa and that it would be supporting the school, so i (teasingly, yet stupidly) was like "mr. sheriff, that's against the ten commandments!" i know that sounds really awkward, but it wasn't that bad cuz we were joking around. so we talked a little bit about keeping the sabbath day holy and it was good. well then he and one of the boys in my class started talking about a girl on the volleyball team who's like a really good basketball player
the teacher got out a poster to show Alex who this girl was, and there were two of the boys volleyball players in the picture. and me, being who i am, made a comment that one of them was hot. well of course that made me teacher interested. he asked me which one so i told him. his next comment was "you should hook up with him." i was definately not expecting that to be the reply. i gave mr. sheriff a face and was like i don't think so. he was like "no seriously, go up to him and tell him that he's hot and ask him if he wants to hook up." i was totally appalled! i couldn't believe that people actually did that let alone that my teacher was encouraging me to do so. i explained that i don't just "hook up" with people. mr. sheriff was like "I see. you want a nice real boyfriend that you can bring home to grama and grampa." and i couldn't even just let him live with that. all i could think of was "no. the answer is no. absolutely not." i looked at the teacher and was like "i don't even want that." he and alex were taken by surprise that i didn't want a boyfriend. so mr. sheriff assumed what he assumed was the only thing left to assume. "oh, so your a lesbian." statement, not a question! and alex was like "that's exactly waht i was thinkin" there was no room for me to explain. that was the end of the conversation. of course i don't think that either of them really believe that i'm a lesbian, but even if i was that would be totally socially exceptable. a few minutes later the bell rang. i was absolutely furious!! i walked to my next class on the brink of tears. and it wasn't that they had assumed i was a lesbian. it was that neither of them could even fathom that there was still good (or a desire for good) in this world still. if i wasn't doing what was wrong and sleeping around with the volleyball team, i must not be straight. i was totally just dumbstruck. i felt so awful. did they honestly not know?? was there no even prospect for good in their minds??? english was kind of a blur and danny commented "wow elise, you're kinda staring into space. you don't look like you're really there." and i wasn't. my mind was going 1000 mph and i was trying to find some solution in my head. then i walked to 6th hour still stunned even to the point that i couldn't even flirt with michael (poor kid doesn't even know me:) then 6th hour gave me a little hope. i don't even remember what kim said but she said something that put a smile back on my face and i remembered that i may only be one in a few here, but that there are 13 million saints across the world that have the same standards as me.
anyways...that's my first real experience with really different beliefs. i mean i've talked about the church a lot of times since i've been here, but usually i try to avoid it and end the conversation at the beginning. not because i'm ashamed, but because it's complicated. but pres. monsons words have already had a toll on me. i hope that this conference will have much more of that spiritual feeding in it. i'm sure it will, and i'm eager to hear what else our prophets have to say about how to live in this world. well ....i guess thats all for now....until we all unite again...9:00 saturday morning!!! <3