Because who doesn't love pretend campfires?

In our Relations class yesterday, where we talk about the four most important types of relationships [with God, our family, ourselves, and our fellowmen] because it's a single's ward so none of us are married, we were asked what kind of time do we give to these relationships? Do we give priority time, prime-time so to speak, or do we give our left-over time? The lesson was about communication, not just talking, but communicating and while I feel like I definitely put priority on developing this in specific relationships it became obvious to me as well as the two of my roommates also in the class, that we have been seriously lacking in apartment communication with especial regard to one roommate.

The past couple of months have been difficult for everyone to say the least. Tension has been tangible much of the time and tempers easily ignited. We had all thought for a while that we would just rough it out till April. The decision for some of us to live in a different apartment come fall had already been made and we figured that we'd just hold our breath and plow through but recently it has become more and more apparent that this strategy wasn't working for any of us really. Even though the apartment has been split nearly 3:1 none of us have felt good about the situation and the stress was making every other stress in our lives that much worse. So upon the kick in the butt that we received yesterday, it was decided that something needed to be done. We're only 3.5 weeks away from the end but none of us felt like it would be right to let it go any longer. We needed to sit down and air things out, clear things up, and just generally try to make the situation better.

Now, we are an apartment full of anti-confrontational people which means that even getting such a conversation started proved embarrassingly difficult. While we had been planning what we would like to say in order to keep ourselves on track and to keep the discussion from becoming unnecessarily ugly, I had suggested that we start with prayer, something somewhat out of character for me to suggest generally. I suggested it again, however, when we had actually congregated in the living room. Luckily, ours is a Mormon no-judgment behavior room and as incredibly cliche as it sounded to ask for prayer I'm incredibly glad I did. With a coffee table functioning as a non-flammable campfire at the center, I felt the spirit in our apartment for the first time in too long. I am always afraid that no matter how well I try to say something I will always make things worse and I was afraid of coming out the other end of the discussion with everyone the worse for wear but I know that the Spirit was there and helped us all to stay calm, fair, and honest. And we were able to understand each other and bring things up without making it sound like a blame-game session. Things may not be the same in our apartment as they were at the beginning of the year but because we made the effort to communicate and have promised to continue doing so, I think things will be a lot better for everyone as we head into the final stretch.

I honestly think this was the best way to start my week because even though I felt ridiculously tired this morning for the time I went to bed, it's a blessing to be able to see the week ahead and not cringe at the prospect of struggling through more tension and stress at home.

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In other news:

Tim and I were able to go do baptisms on Friday morning and we opted for Timpanogos instead of Provo because Provo is where everyone goes and it takes you 2 hours on average to get through. Plus, I'd never been inside Timp.

Beautiful, isn't it? I can't find a better picture of the windows which are my favorite part so you'll all just have to go see them for yourselves. :P I'm so excited for summer when the trees will actually look like this.

We figured it wouldn't be as busy at Timp but we were really surprised when we got there and were in and out in 40 minutes. We're hoping that the next time we go we can spend some more time inside, having a better idea now of the time it takes to get there and through.

I'm so excited to be able to do more in the temple. Chelsea's wedding planning is exciting and fun all around but I think my favorite part is how excited she is to get her endowment and to learn more about those things. I'm already incredibly jealous of her just for that. I can't wait to go through, even if it means getting my mind blown as Tim's described it. I'm excited to learn and to grow, to gain a greater appreciation and love for the temple and the blessings it offers my life.

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I'm working in partitions today, haha.

For the past week, week and a half, I've had a really hard time motivating myself to do things which means, of course, they've been building up. It's bizarre how I can make a list of things to do and then when I get time have absolutely no drive or interest in doing them. My mission this week, then, is to get my butt in gear and even get ahead where possible. It should be easier with as much as Tim works this week ; ) With only three and a half weeks of classes left it feels like things just slip through my fingers no matter how hard I try to hold them but I know that I'll get through it one way or another. It might not be the most graceful landing but hey, I never said I was graceful :P

I am pumped for General Conference in two weeks! It's only really since coming to college that I've learned to look forward to General Conference which sounds horrid but it's true. This year is even more exciting because my lovely mother scored my some tickets to the Saturday session so I'm going to see it live for the first time ever. You could say that I'm rather psyched about the whole business : ] I've been to the devotionals where we've had General Authorities, we even had the entire Presidency come [on different days] my Freshman year. I've witnessed a room full to the brim of excited, chatty college students become almost instantly silent at the appearance of the prophet of God. It still gives me chills to think about so I can't even imagine how amazing it will be to be in the same room as all of them at once for two hours. The immensity of it all might just kill me, lol.

Well, it's supposed to rain today so I brought my massive golf umbrella to work with me. I really should buy a smaller one, or at least a golf-sized one that folds down much smaller than mine presently does. As much as I dislike being out in rain there is a part of me that hopes it rains because the last time I brought my umbrella it didn't rain and I looked like an idiot walking around campus all day with this huge, useless umbrella :P Besides, the flowers need watering so they can grow big and beautiful. I almost typed "strong" but then wondered if "strong" is really a good adjective to describe flowers.
At any rate, here's to hoping for a good, productive, and stressless day for everyone!