{Has anyone ever noticed that 'studying' is 'student' and 'dying' put together...}

Wow...is all I have to say about the first 3 weeks of Nursing school...I have been going to college for about 3 years now doing pre-reqs for nursing, etc...and it has always been busy and pretty stressful. But I didn't know what busy was until I started Nursing School about 3 weeks ago... It's very fun, I love learning about this, and if I didn't throughly enjoying every thing that I am learning I don't think that I would still be getting myself out of bed every morning at 5 to do either homework, drag myself to work, or drag myself to clinicals. We do our clinicals here in Provo at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center this semester. It is very convenient because that is where I work, and we are rotating between 3 floors right now and one of them is the floor I work on. All in all it has been very fun to be started on my major and seeing the end in sight!! I will have my LPN in December of this year and my RN in August of next year. It's a fast track program that I am doing so I will go straight through 5 semesters, for my RN and then do two more semesters after that for my BSN. Bachelor's in Nursing take a little longer than they do in other fields, but it is worth it in the end. Work is still going well, i'm at the same hospital on the same floor. One of my good friends that I work with is also in this program with me so we were very excited about that! We have 55 people in our class which is nice, it's a little bigger than a lot of other Nursing programs but it isn't bad because they have us split up into 2 groups. About 80 people applied to this program for this semester so it was a blessing to be able to be accepted finally!! I'm so glad that I am able to be on my way to such a great career. Especially in these hard economic times, one thing is not going to change and that is people getting sick. So I pretty much always have job security! And the pay isn't bad either... the hospital has told us that with Obama as president now our wages might be going up (yippee!) who knows if this is actually true, but hey it's a happy thought :) I am so glad to be in a field that I can go to work everyday KNOWING that I am going to change someones life that day. I can touch peoples lives just by doing my job and that is wonderful thing. It makes those 12 hour shifts a little less stressful to know that someone might not be alive with my help that day...I work in the Oncology (cancer)unit right now and as hard as it is to see so many people fighting cancer everyday, and some of them not winning their battle, it is a nice little wake up call everyday to how blessed I am to be healthy, to have a job, to have an apartment, to have wonderful roommates, to have the best friends that anyone could ask for, to have cousins and aunts and uncles that I am so close with, and most of all to have my wonderful parents and brother and sister. We are so blessed to be healthy and working right now, because believe me there are A LOT of people that aren't. I had two new patients last week that were just diagnosed with cancer. I don't know that there is anything harder than walking into a new admits room and see them crying and going to ask them what was wrong and hearing about their new diagnosis. I am so grateful for this chance to be in Nursing School, as stressful as it might be, it will be worth it!

{Remember Lot's Wife}

Here is the link to download Elder Holland's talk! It is called, "Remember Lot's Wife"
Enjoy!
http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=browse&year=.5

{Elder Holland Devotional}

Today we had an amazing Devotional by Elder Holland. He talked about not living in the past and looking to future. He talked a lot about forgiving others and yourself and not holding onto things that you should let the Lord take upon himself through the Atonement. It was an amazing talk!! I highly recommend you listen to it! It would be good to read as well, but to get the full effect of the message he was trying to get across I think you need to listen/watch it! He spoke with such power it sent chills through you when he said a lot of this stuff...He was pratically pounding the pulpit! The link isn't up on BYU's website yet, but I will post as soon as it is! Here are some of the highlights of his talk...

~Not to dwell on days gone by…the past is to be looked upon but not lived in

~Don’t miss the here and now and tomorrow because you are too concern with then, and there and yesterday…

~Forgive and forget earlier mistakes in life…that is not good, it is not Christian…it is against the Atonement of Christ. It is the worst kind of wallowing in self-pity

~When something is over and done with, when it is repented of as much as it can be repented of. It is not right to go back and open up that ancient wound that the Son of God died to remove. Let people change, let people repent. Is that faith, is that charity? Don’t dig it up.

~Such dwelling on past lies and past mistakes, is just not right…

~Do as the Lord himself says he does, "Behold he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I the Lord remember them no more."

~When honest effort is made to progressing, we are making the greater sin by recalling those mistakes, and sometimes that is ourself, we are so hard on ourselves.

~Bury your weapons of war, and leave them buried.

~Forgive yourself and forget, remember enough to not make the mistake again, but forget the rest.

~God does not care where you have been but only where you are going to go, more importantly where you are going to go with him.

{High on a Mountain Top}

On New Years Day Shayli, Colton, my Dad, and I went up to Powder Mountain and went might Skiing/Snowboarding. It was so much fun. I haven't been in so long so it was fun to be back on the mountain again! I snowboarded, I'm a much better skiier, but I have a snowboard So it saves on rental money if I just stick with the board...I fall so much though. The worst one was I got a phone call right at the top of the mountain right after I got off the lift so I answered it, I started to go down the hill slowly thinking I could do two things at once, I did fine, so I started going a little faster, a little faster, a little faster, then the Lord humbled me and I ate it so hard....my phone went flying! I'm sure everyone just laughed to themselves....I am so sore today though that I can barely move! But it was worth it!