1. I have been to MY real STUDENT ward two times now. I absolutely love it. They start with Relief Society, sunday school and then sacrament meeting. I was really leery about this and thought it sounded like the worst thing ever. I surprisingly loved it. I wish all of our wards could meet in this order. It's nice because all the classes prep you for the last hour- the most important. Plus I know when I arrive to church, I'm always in a hurry and not thinking about spiritual things. Relief Society is always quite the social part, so it's nice to have that first as everyone sprinkles in. 

I'm going to be real honest here. I have made some friends but I was still praying to have an actual "group". Like if there was an event going on, or if I wanted to go out to eat, I had people I knew would want to come. I was hoping church would be the place to meet those people. Lucky me, my prayer was answered the first 2 minutes of church. Of course the RS president came up to me first and was super friendly. But after I met the sweetest girl. We started talking and just became instant friends. You know, like those people that you just click with? And have the same humor and everything? It was great. We have since become BFFs. 

Of course another important aspect of every ward- the dating pool. All the boys in my ward are "local". Which means they live at home, and are students or off track. I am actually pretty happy about this because they are more in the same boat as me. I have a bit of "FOMO". All the girls in my ward live in the same apartment complex. I was worried about being forgotten and missing out on activities because i'm not their neighbor. Having the boys also live away kind of balances it all out. It's perfect. Anyway, each week I've found a few more cute boys. So I am in luck. 

My FHE group doesn't have the best attendance. The first week we had 5 girls and 1 boy show up, so we just combined with another group. It ended up being super fun and we played my favorite game "4 people on a couch". We will most likely combine with them here on out. Last week we tried to do our thing one more time and only 4 girls showed up. We decided to make cookies and leave them at our "brothers/sisters" houses to get them to come. We ended up reverting back to our junior high days and we "door bell ditched them". It was exhilarating. 

2. I had to interpret devotional. I wasn't really nervous about looking out to thousands of my peers. I was more nervous about all the interpreters taking notes on my interpreting. Luckily, in my interpreting training, we always had peers evaluating us and giving feedback. So it didn't stress me out too much. Getting all the feedback later was worth it :) Oh and the actual devotional message was so great. When we aren't interpreting we are supposed to be taking notes about the interpreters, but sometimes I take my own "spiritual notes" about the speaker. #rebel

One more fun thing about interpreting in front of the whole school- a lot of my friends came up to me after- like missionaries that served in Tucson, my BIL, old elementary friends, etc. It's always fun reconnecting!

3. It has been birthday central around here! Payson's sister had a birthday last Wednesday, so we celebrated at Olive Garden. Of course Rexburg doesn't have "fancy" restaurants, so we made the trek to Idaho Falls.

Yesterday was my roommate, Angela's birthday. It was her first birthday away from home (besides on her mission), so we tried to make it special. We surprised her with a decorated house, flowers, birthday cards, and a birthday pin. In the evening we went to Buffalo Wild Wings (also in IF) and eat way too many wings. Plus the best mozzarella sticks I've ever had! As soon as we got back, she blew out her candles, and then I had to run to a study group (to interpret) so I missed out on the cutting of the cake.