Wow has it been an interesting, eventful past 5 months! I've decided as an update to list things that I have been grateful for these past months as I've started my new job and new life.

1. A working car
2. Parents who care enough to come out to visit
3. A sister who cares enough to come and visit to see where I live and offer advice
4. Friends who are willing to drive across the country to help me move and be positive about the unknown of what might be in store for me here
5. A healthy body
6. Co workers that make me laugh
7. Athletes that say thank you and appreciate the work I do
8. Coaches that say thank you
9. Students who participate in class

10. A neighbor who listens when you are depressed/frustrated and will cook you good food

11. Free cafeteria food

12. Free utilities

13. NO SNOW....yet

14. Patient people

15. A forgiving Heavenly Father

16. The Book of Mormon

17. Conference talks

18. My office

19. A space heater

20. People who say Merry Christmas

21. Notes/texts from people at just the right time

22. People who are willing to help

23. A friend who briefly taught me how to drive stick shift forever ago

24. A paycheck

25. The stars

26. A beautiful view

27. Hugs

28. Parents who taught me the meaning of hard work

29. A great education

30. E-mail

31. Books

32. A person who sincerely asks you how you are doing

33. The couch in my office

34. Prayer

35. T.V.

36. Just Dance

37. Walmart

38. The Spirit

39. The Savior

The list goes on and on of things that I am so grateful for. I'm excited for this Christmas break for a time to reflect on my life and to reflect on the Savior! Lately I haven't been too busy since all I have going on is basketball but after the break Softball starts up so I'll start to be a lot more busy so I'm going to enjoy the break the best I can! Next semester I'll be teaching a the same class again so I need to revise my syllabus and adjust my teaching some to make it better. All in all these past months have been great. I have had numerous ups and downs and nights spent in prayer and in the scriptures. I am so grateful for people who care and I am trying my best to care for everyone that I meet. I know I make mistakes and am so grateful for the examples that I have in my life. The people that I've met here have made me strive to be a better person and to be a better example too. Anyway, life is great! Time to start packing!

Southern Virginia University

Since June I defended my thesis and officially graduated with my masters. I finished my EMT course and passed the state tests and became a certified EMT. I'm still trying to work on getting my certification out here in Virginia though. And of course I moved to Virginia a little over a month ago and started my job here at SVU. So far I love it. There have been ups and downs since I've moved out here but I have been grateful for every day. I started out working long days covering 2 a day practices for football and volleyball among other things. It was a lot of work and stress trying to adjust to the new job and new place but things worked out and I learned a lot. Since school started I have mainly been focused on the volleyball team. My assignments here are mainly over womens volleyball, cross country, womens basketball, and softball. So I am mainly doing that but have also been helping out a lot with football and any other sport that needs help. Needless to say it keeps me pretty busy. I also teach a couple sections of a health and wellness class. So far I love teaching the class. I think I will really enjoy it because the material is interesting to me and I've always loved teaching. The students are all really nice too. Anyway, again so far I love it out here in redneck Virginia haha! I'm still trying to adjust to everything but one thing is for sure that I honestly love my profession and am happy with my job. My coworkers are fun to work with and the athletes are all really nice. I try to give it my all every day and prepare for everything that I do. I'm not perfect and have already made many mistakes but I'm learning to be more patient with myself and with others. Hopefully they are patient with me too!

So that's my life right now. It pretty much entails work, work and more work including weekends. I've also been helping out by covering the high school football games to make extra money. I finally got my cable working and just bought a new laptop so I do get a little too distracted perhaps with those things in my free time. Anyway I know this is where I need to be right now and am trying to make the most of it! I highly recommend SVU to anyone who is thinking of places to go to college. It's a really neat place!

Thesis

I'm defending my thesis monday morning at 8!! I'm so excited to finally be done with this! :) Everything is going well. I'm just trying to put together the slides for my presentation and then I'm all ready to go! My EMT class is really interesting too. I have a lot of studying and practice to do though. It ends on the 24th and then I take the state practical exam July 9th. No pressure!

It's been a while! I GOT A JOB!

Well it's been a few months since I last updated. Oops. I guess it's been a pretty dang busy last couple of months. Either that or I'm just lazy haha. So what has happened in the past couple of months? Well I finished my internship with the cheerleaders and cosmos. That was such an awesome experience and it was really hard to leave especially since it meant that I'd be without a job for a while. Also because it meant that I wouldn't be seeing all these new friends that I'd made this past year probably ever again! Anyway, it was an awesome year and I learned a ton! I also finished my last semester of school ever! Ugh I'm so glad to be done with classes. I love to learn new things but I absolutely hate tests and studying and all that comes with it! But it feels good to be done. I walked at graduation in April and that was fun...I walking in, sat down, listened to the speakers, walked across the stage and shook a couple of important peoples' hands and then proceeded to walk back out the door. No way were we going to sit through the hundreds of other people walking. So it was fun haha!

Now I'm just trying to finish up my thesis. I have it all written and signed off by my committee and just need the graduate coordinator to sign off on it but he has been out of the country the past week or so. I'm supposed to defend my thesis June 13th but I'm not sure if that's going to happen or not. It all depends on if I get it signed off in time. So yeah I worked on my research and basically wrote up my whole thesis in about a week haha. I didn't have work so I spent every day working on it so I could get it done! And I'm really glad I did! I got lucky too that things worked out with all my research and I didn't have any problems or anything. So that's where I am there! Maybe in a few weeks I will officially be done with my masters! Yay!!

Well the biggest news is that I GOT A JOB! I'll be an athletic trainer at Southern Virginia University. I start August 1st so in a couple of months I'll be moving out to Virginia! I'm very blessed to be able to find a job like this. I'm so excited! I'll be working with some great people in a really pretty area. Anyway so that's pretty much the biggest news as of late. I even bought a wii to celebrate. I've been wanting to buy one for a really long time so I finally just did it. Oh and I already found a place to live out there fairly cheap so things really can't be any better right now! I feel so very extremely blessed. I was worried for a while that I wouldn't get a job or finish my thesis in time. My committee chair was even telling me not to get my hopes up but I kept telling him that I was going to do it and he'd be surprised! With help from one of the doctoral students it's about to happen! My chair was shocked when I e-mailed him my completed thesis already. He told me he didn't think I would do it and I just told him that I told him I'd do it! :) It's funny because I always had this good feeling that I'd get it done. Same thing with getting a job. I honestly wasn't stressing about it but just applying for jobs like crazy. But I always had this feeling that everything was going to be okay. Call it faith or stupidity not sure but I just always knew everything would work out so what was the point of stressing! Anyway, i'm just glad that that feeling was right haha! So I'm excited for my new adventure in life. I'll get to do what I love in a full time capacity! And I'll be able to teach too which I love.

Well that's pretty much it. Just finishing up my thesis and working sports camps every now and then. I'm also hoping to take an EMT course offered here on campus. It's something I've always wanted to do. Welp that's it for now!

Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence

I have so much to be grateful for. Wow! So last semester I was led to believe that I was to be traveling to the nationals competition that my cheerleaders have in a couple of weeks in CA. But for some reason I was not on the list of people going whether it be money problems I'm not sure. Needless to say I was a little upset but was just going to get over it and wish them well on their trip. Well I guess some of the cheerleaders got together and talked to the coach about how they can make it so I can be able to go. The coach said that there is room in the vans and in the hotel but the problem is the airfare. So they did the nicest thing anyone has probably ever done for me. The team was asked to pitch in 7 or 8 bucks each to pay for my plane ticket. Isn't that the nicest thing ever. Honestly I love these guys and girls to death and am so grateful I have been able to work with the Cheer Squad this past year. I have learned so much about others and about myself. Every day truly has been great no kidding! So I'm going to Anaheim, CA with them in a couple of weeks for 4 days and couldn't be happier right now. I'm so excited to be able to help them be able to compete at nationals and to see them do stinkin' fantastic! I'm so grateful and humbled by this experience. People can be so good and so kind.

Last week I had a phone interview for an internship at U.C. Berkeley. I think the interview went really well. It was actually fun to talk to the two ladies who interviewed me! I should hear back soon. So I'm not quite sure what's going to happen. I haven't heard back from any of the other jobs I've applied for yet and have yet to see any new athletic training job openings in CA. So I'm hoping for some more options to come up. I'm still waiting on my thesis to finish getting reviewed by the IRB. So that's pretty much it! I'm just super busy with cheer and volleyball and the few classes that I do have. But I'm super grateful for my life right now and for the amazing people that I am surrounded by.

But behold, the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love

I figured I should grace my blog with the presence of another post! Yay! I just have a little extra time because I guess the volleyball isn't practicing today. I had a really good weekend though for the most part. Friday night I met up with some sisters from my mission and had a fun time reminiscing about the Philippines and talking about all the things that we miss from there. It was so much fun! Then saturday I spent some time with the cheerleaders at a performance they had at the gymnastics meet. That was pretty cool too. Then I met up with a sister that I taught at the MTC who came home early because of sickness. We had a nice long talk it was awesome! She's doing really well and hopefully will get back out there soon! Sunday was good with church and I caught up a little with a friend too. I had a great visiting teaching appointment that just got me so excited for the scriptures and the gospel and serving more. This morning was the best though. I got to the training room and worked out for a bit then got stuff ready for practice. I sat down to read my e-mail and got the best email from 2 elders I taught in the MTC. Apparently they are companions again and are zone leaders. To make a long story short they told me that they found a sister that I taught and saw get baptized in my last area. I hadn't heard from her since I came home and I heard that her family had gone inactive. But she's been going to church for the past month and the elders have been helping her! I love it! I just started to cry because I can't think of 2 elders that I'd rather have helping someone I taught and love in the Philippines! It's such a small world and these 2 elders are not even serving in my mission! They even sent me pictures to prove that they know her and scanned pictures of some pictures she has of me in her photo album! I took the moment to kneel down in prayer and thank my Heavenly Father for watching over the people I love in the Philippines. I was astonished at the love that our Heavenly Father has for us and for everyone around us. I thanked Him for answering my many prayers on peoples' behalf and for reminding me that He truly does listen to my prayers! Yesterday visiting teaching I was testifying to the sister who was having a hard time that God does listen to and answer her prayers and sometimes He just requires a little bit of patience but that she will see that answer happen and will understand why she is having the experiences that she is having. While I was testifying and teaching and talking to her I was thinking to myself a little bit...I was thinking "Do I really believe this?" Because lately I've been terrible with my prayers and have started to lose a little bit of hope and patience. I kept telling myself that of course I believe it but I just needed a reminder. And of course this morning I sure got one! Wow! I just can't explain in words how I feel right now. I don't know if the young woman will continue and stay active or not but I sure do hope so but all I know is that it's by the small means that the Lord confounds the wise and that if we are faithful and diligent He will encircle us in His arms of love. The gospel is so amazing! Well I could keep talking forever about this. I just felt I should share this.

Apparently I've been overdue for a new post. My bad. It's been a busy past 6 months or so haha. I started working with the cheerleaders back in August and have really loved it. I've had enough to do to keep me busy but not too busy. I've learned a lot about working with others and helping others. I'll admit when I first started I was a little worried. I wasn't sure what to expect since after all they are all cheerleaders haha. But I just started out the season getting to know all of them and all of the cosmos and have done great ever since. I've truly learned to love them all and to seriously appreciate them for the hard work that they put into their sport. They really do do some amazing things! The bonus is that I got to go to all the home football games and I've been going to all the home women's and men's basketball games. Tomorrow night's game is going to be intense!! My testimony has been strengthened about the worth of the soul. I have felt so much the Lord's love for the cheerleaders in many ways. I could share numerous experiences about chats that I've had with them and things that I've learned. The point is that I've been having a great time so far and a good attitude truly does go a long way! We are traveling to CA for their nationals competition the end of February so i'm excited for that. We get to go to Disneyland too! :) The next week after that we will travel to the MWC tournament in Vegas. That'll be a lot of fun too. So yeah that's the update with work. I'm currently looking for jobs for this fall since I'm graduating soon. I've applied for 4 jobs so far but the job market isn't that great I guess. I'm hoping that more jobs open up. It's hard to find some jobs because a lot of times they don't get posted online so I might not hear about them.

School went well last semester. I did well in all my classes and worked like crazy on my thesis. I ended up writing my whole prospectus in a couple of months and proposed my thesis the end of november. So now I'm just waiting for the IRB to approve my research so I can get started! Apparently it can take a long time sometimes. So I can't do anything with my thesis right now which is really frustrating! We are shooting to get started in february sometime. I'm knocking on wood though because I really need to get it done by june so I can graduate by august and get a job! We'll see! This semester I only have 2 classes for my major since I'm done with all the other classes so I'm not too busy with school. I'm taking a weight lifting class and racquetball class so I've been filling up my free time with a lot of working out and such. The first week of school I had so much free time but I got an extra assignment to help out with the women's volleyball team since their athletic trainer is supposed to be busy with track this semester. So far I just show up to practice and don't do much. So it gets a little boring at times. But it gives me more to do with my time. They are in their off season so right now their workouts are really easy.

Well that's pretty much it! Can't think of anything else going on! It was a great Christmas break and for the first time in a really long time I absolutely did not want to leave Cali and start school again. Normally I'm ready for school but I seriously am tired of it now and so ready to be done and graduated and out of Provo and out in the real world! So life is good but I'm ready to move on to the next phase of my life. I'm just hoping I get my thesis stuff done soon! I'll try to add more as I remember things.