Blessings, Gratitude, Love, and Friendship

Last night was great. I did homework, chatted with my room mate, chatted with a member of the Bishopric (just a quick getting to know you, they're doing it with everyone in my ward), met some new people, and got my stressful homework done with the help of some people I had just met. It was great. Because of last night I have a new friend.

It was funny because when I met with one of the counselors in the Bishopric he didn't believe me that I was from North Pole, Alaska. I even had to show him my driver's license, which has my home address on it, and he still didn't believe me. Silly guy.

Today we had a birthday party at school and everyone participated, just about. It's not a person's birthday. Today we celebrated the 125th birthday of the LDS Business College. No, the school has not been in that location for the past 125 years. They have actually occupied several different buildings. And it's official birthday isn't even until November! But we celebrated today. We even made it on to the news. For those of you in Salt Lake who watch KSL's 12 o'clock news you might have seen me and not known it. They were shooting when the President of the school cut a cake, and I wasn't very far from him.

There was ice cream, cake, cotton candy, popcorn, it was lots of fun. At 12:40 1,000 ping pong balls were dropped from the roof. 125 of those ping pong balls were marked with a number. The people who got those balls received a prize. I didn't get one but there were some good prizes. Most were gift certificates to restaurants close by.

After the birthday party I went to the temple. It took me less than half an hour to go through! All the temple workers that confirmed and baptized were grandpas. They were so adorable. Confirmations took a really long time because the man saying the prayer had to talk really slow. But the Spirit was so strong. The man who baptized me was also a grandpa. But he was speedy Gonzalez. He's the man who barely lets you breath in between baptisms. But I think I did 20 names (I stopped counting after a while) and it was great! :D

Then I came home and did some homework for a while. Then my room mate and I went over to an apartment and had dinner served to us by gentlemen. The meal was great and the company was so great!! I actually talked around men. I want to do that more. Ha, and I found out that one of the men is actually in one of my classes. Go figure!

And I was able to witness a blessing. It was special in so many ways. It was the first blessing I witnessed while I was away from home. My roommate sprained her ankle and it was a killer. So she had the men give her a blessing. One of the men had never participated in a blessing before, but the Spirit was with him and he did great. The blessing was wonderful.

I am so thankful to know that there are so many worthy priesthood holders here. If I ever need a blessing, I know that there are plenty of able-bodied men who are worthy and willing to help me in any way that they can.

I just love it here.