Holocaust

So, today at school we had this Holocaust survivor come and speak to us. It was just a tad bit random, but whatever. I had heard her speak before, and she is so funny. She actually spoke at a fireside one time because she is actually a Mormon convert and a member of the El Dorado Stake. I was a little surprised though that she didn't change her presentation much from the fireside presentation. She even included scripture references from the Bible and also talked about how she had "someone watching over her" that protected her while in the camps.

She told us how it was just her and her mom, but to protect themselves they had to pretend to be sisters. I also really liked that she was very upbeat about it all. She said that she knows that we all learn from bad experiences and that they must happen for a reason. I thought that was really interesting because Sophmore year you have to read Night by Elie Weisel, another holocaust survivor, who had a very pessimistic view following his life in the concentration camps. He also talks about that he rejects some of his Jewish faith because of his life in the camps. She was just the complete opposite and actually is featured in the video record of Holocaust survivors downtown talking about her experiences.

She was just so forgiving to all the Kapo, SS and other people who were just following Hitler. She even said that she understands that they were also prisoners because if they spoke out, they would face the same fate. What was a little funny is that she even feels a little sorry for Germans who had nothing to do with the Holocaust, but still feel guilty for the treatment of the Jews. Her spirit of forgiveness was just so overwhelming, that it was shocking, she was so at peace with all those who had wronged her. Wow, if she can forgive the people who killed her family and nearly killed her, I think that we all should be able to forgive. I know that I surely need to work on that because I have a hard time sometimes forgiving people or myself for the little things. I mean, what could be worse than mass genocide? I sure can't think of anything, and I hope that this may have got you thinking.

P.S. I don't intend to offend anyone with this post. Please don't write me a bunch of angry comments, I just think that everyone in this world could use a little bit of forgiveness. We aren't perfect, I know that I am indeed far from it! So please, this post is just a thought-provoker that I thought others might enjoy.

Called to Serve

Well, this morning in seminary we learned about Jonah. --For those of you who need refreshing, he was called to teach the barbarians of Ninevah. However, he tried to avoid the call and fled on a ship. Subsequently he was swallowed by a great fish until he was ready to accept the call and vomitted out 3 days and nights later.-- Our teacher then asked us the customary, why did Jonah try to flee considering he knew he couldn't hide from the Lord, should he have been fearful, why/why not, would you have accepted the call, etc.

Then, SURPRISE, Sister Seymour, the seminary principle came in and issued us "mission calls". They were actually kind of cool because they were all personalized and everything. But, there is a catch, it was REAL! (not in the churchwide sense though) It reads,

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Carmichael Stake
8276 Deseret Ave.
Fair Oaks, CA 95628

May 16, 2008

Dear Sister Hale,

You have been called to serve a mission to the Bella Vista Mission in Fair Oaks, California. You are to report on Monday, May 18, 2008.

Brother Abbott will serve as your mission president for the duration of your missionary service. He will teach you and guide you so that your missionary service may be of great benefit to yourself and others that you serve.

The requirements of your missionary service are as follows:

1. Have Perfect attendance at seminary and school for the entire week.
2. Wear missionary attire to seminary and school for the entire week... No name badge is required.
3. If you are asked why you are dressed up, you must answer that you are serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
4. Give away one Book of Mormon to someone who is not a member of the church.

There are many in this area that want to find the truth, but "know not where to find it." (D&C 123:12) Your example will be a beacon of light to many wandering in darkness.

You will find great spiritual blessings in missionary service. Blessings abound in true service. One of the blessings that you will receive when you complete all of the requirements of your missionary service is all of your tardies and absences erased for the year or an extra 50 points in credit.

May you find great joy in serving the Lord!

Sister Seymour

WOW!!! WOW! That is going to be HARD!! I don't wear skirts at school, ever, so I think that that will be very hard, along with giving away a Book of Mormon. The rewards are pretty awesome though, but they don't really matter to me since I don't need either, but oh well. I'm kind of nervous and excited. It will be hard to just not give up, but I am sure it is very minimal compared to what you really experience on a mission. Still, it is a "mission" of sorts and I KNOW it will be a great experience.

So, that's what I'll be doing next week, it will be fun. :-D

AP Testing, YAY!!!

You may be surprised by the title of this blog considering I just recently posted about how much it sucks. (in AP Testing, Arrgh!) Well, I am singing a very different tune today and guess why. There are many reasons but I'm sure you can guess the main reason, AP testing is OVER!!!!

Today I took my 2nd and last AP exam, Chemistry. It was a bit harder than I expected, but I was able to do a lot on the multiple choice, finishing all I could early. The short answer was harder than I had hoped for. I wasn't able to finish every question and some questions I just didn't have a clue. :( Oh well, all I need is a 3 for college credit and I think that I at least did that well. I hope!

Also, today I cut my first class, although I don't think it will count as a cut because I can get it cleared, I think. So anyways, I cut my 5th period which didn't really matter since we were just hanging out, "studying", for our test that we have tomorrow. So, instead of going and being INCREDIBLY bored, I went with my chem class to Red Robin to celebrate the end of AP tests. It was so much fun because we got the waitress, whose name was Francesca (sp?) to bring this guy in my class a pink balloon. He didn't know that we asked for it. She brought him 2 pink and 1 purple balloons and with a straight faced tied them on his wrist and patting him on the back saying, "Here you go" all sweet like she would to a little child. We all BUSTED up laughing. It was so funny. (If you don't think it is, then you just had to be there and have been in the class with these 2 guys all year.) So yeah, today was amazing and, is A day that will live on in history! :-D I just HAD to blog about it. :)

Late nights, Busy life

Last night I went babysitting for these really cute 2 little kids. You may know the Gleasons, well that's who it was. Anyway, I was only expecting them to be gone for a couple of hours for dinner or something so I didn't take any school work to do. By the way, they only have basic cable so I was planning they would be home before I was even able to finish Numb3rs (9-10pm). Well, it didn't quite work out that way. They picked me up at about 6:30 and the kids were in bed by 8:30, good, plenty of time to just relax and watch some TV. So, I tuned in to some show about funniest sitcom characters for about a half hour and then numbers. Numbers ended and they still weren't home and nothing else was on but news. BORING!, but I watched anyway thinking they would be home any minute. I fell asleep, News ended, another program started, and they still weren't home. I wake up at about 11:30, still no sign of them. Finally, at about 11:50, they show up, I was ready to go home. It was SO BORING and unproductive, I had at least 3 hrs. of homework that I could have been working on. ARGH! Oh well, that was my Friday night.

Then, this morning, I couldn't get anything done because I slept in and then went to Shirley's baby shower, which was very fun, by the way. After getting home, I got to spend time with Corrina, Jaron, David, and Grandma T. Needless to say, I haven't gotten ANYTHING done! And of course, my blogging right now is also just wasting precious Chem studying time. So, I had better get on that since tomorrow's Mother's Day, I have to go to 3 sacrament meetings, and who knows what we are doing after all that church. (The 3 sacrament meetings are because Alex is singing in our ward, I'm singing in La Sierra ward, and Jon and Nate are singing in the singles ward.)

AP Testing, Arrgh!

Well, today I just took my AP US History Exam to earn possible college credit for the class. YAY! It was surprisingly easy, compared to what I though it would be like. I reezed through most of the multiple choice, and I got done with my 3 essays early! It was a bit exciting to know that I wasn't totally History illiterate.

(My History teacher is a total slacker, he doesn't teach us, he mainly lectures his opinion and then tells us to read the textbook. It totally sucks/sucked. His tests I think are WAY harder than the exam was, whih was really exciting because I've failed more than a few of his tests.)

Anywho, I still have one more AP Exam to go, Chemistry. I really am not looking forward to it because I haven't even looked at my review book, which I should have been doing since January. Oh well, I have been doing really well on my teacher's practices tests, and he says that he chooses the hardest questions and grades more harshly than the test graders. So yeah, that's the news in my life today! Hope I didn't bore you to death. :-D

Hello Bloggers, Surprise!

Hey ya'll. :-D
Wow, I have finally joined the blogging world. This is probably a surprise to most of you since I have been saying I don't have time. Well, I decided that instead of wasting time re-reading all of your old posts, maybe I should create some of my own. :-D
Yeah, so, um, hopefully I will make this interesting, keeping you posted about my "exciting" High-School life. (I'll be lucky if I don't put MYSELF to sleep with how boring my life is! :-D) So yeah, this is me, and I'll try to keep things current, but I make NO promises.