Love me some rain

Rain makes me really happy. I like to hear thunder. I don't really enjoy lightning. It's scary. But rain, the smell, the sound, the sight, it's beautiful. If my mother didn't tell me to stay inside if I can hear thunder, I'd totally be out in it. Probably singing and dancing. Because in addition to liking rain, I like singing in the rain. And Singin' in the Rain. The end.

That's Against the Honor Code

That's against the Honor Code!

Once upon a time, I worked for the Student Honor Association (SHA) on BYU campus. My job was the best on campus, pretty sure. We were to educate people about the Honor Code and encourage people to live by these standards. I learned so many awesome skills, and I got paid to do things like design thank you cards on Adobe Illustrator, sing in a choir, and hand out free hot dogs. ;) My favorite thing was at the beginning of fall, summer, and winter semesters, we did a show for New Student Orientation (NSO). The show is called Tradition of Honor. It originally consisted of a number of campy skits illustrating various principles of the Honor Code, and a couple of movies as well. I helped write one of the skits, "Stick to the Honor Code," a play off of High School Musical's "Stick to the Status Quo." (Is anybody surprised I'd come up with that?)

Stick to the Honor Code!

The show got revamped in the last year or so of my employment, dropping most of the skits in exchange for more professional dance and music performances and dialogue to teach the principles. Even the videos got redone and were way more awesome and professional. We had Jericho Road come a sing, Max Hall came a spoke, we learned a Young Ambassador dance, etc. It was pretty cool. Both versions of the show were fun for me. I was really involved in putting them together.

The one skit that remained in the newer version is the well-known "That's Against the Honor Code" angels (pictured above). I know that skit backwards and forwards. I even transcribed the music for future generations. I know every part and the exact timing of everything that makes it sound the best. It's one of my favorite things ever.

Tonight for the first time ever, I was in the audience for Tradition of Honor. The first time. I was in the summer show before I started at BYU, in the fall show when I was going to NSO, and every show after that till I left on my mission. I think that's a total of nine shows, if I calculated correctly. And I miss it.

They did a pretty good job tonight. It was mostly the same as I left it, although the music of the angels's song was changed a bit (so much for all my transcription work, eh?) and the timing was definitely off in some parts, but some things they did were really neat too.

For two and a half years, my whole pre-mission BYU career, SHA was my life. I'm so grateful for the opportunities I had, and even more for the people I met and befriended. I was certainly blessed. The Honor Code angels are real, and I love and miss them.

Mission: Arizona Surprise (not Surprise, AZ)

I've been a terrible blogger all summer. I apologize to my devoted followers...all eight of you. ;) I've been hoping for pictures to illustrate what I've been up to...and have failed miserably. But I'll do what I can. I won't try to catch y'all up in one go. That'd be crazy. But tonight I'll let you in on my Arizona trip. :) Aren't you excited? It was a month ago.

So we met Saturday morning about 8:30 am. It was a really really long drive. We stopped in Hurricane and ate lunch. Then we drove a whole lot more. One of the guys was super excited to see a tall cactus...and there were plenty of them. We got there like 8 or so and had dinner at Garcia’s. We also did a quick grocery run to Food City--ghetto! It was awesome...greeted by 3 black men, at least one was security, then the music was Hispanic and I swear there were more Mexican candies than the typical stuff. And lots of signs in both Spanish and English. White cashier though. It was totally awesome shopping there.
One elder had to be picked up at the airport, but they got lost, going to the wrong one.And my maternal instinct kicked in apparently, because I was unable to sleep until they got back...until everybody was safely in bed, I could not fall asleep. So I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep that night either. Not much napping in the car in either direction either. I wanted to make sure the driver had company to keep her alert.
Sunday morning we met at the church at about 7:30 and rehearsed our musical number. I arranged it, a combo of Army of Helaman and I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus. It sounded really good. Then when President and Sister Woods arrived, the look on their faces made the trip there so worth it. I loved President’s look of surprise when I walked up to him, then his joy in seeing so many of us. There ended up being 30 of us. President and Sister Woods' talks were great of course. I think the most memorable part for me was that President basically taught a first lesson for his talk. It made me really happy. In between the two of them, our “missionary choir” sang. When they announced it, I looked to see if they would react at all, but nothing registered until we all got up to sing. Then it was awesome. They actually joined us. I think Sister Woods cried the whole time (that’s what I was told anyway), but I could see President singing along.
After sacrament meeting, we went to the basement of the church and they instructed us, kind of like zone conference. It was neat. We got a big group picture too:

a tad blurry, but it took me a month to track this down!

a sisters' picture

On the way back, I tried sleeping a bit, and sort of dozed but was still aware of things. My phone then rang. Somebody had left a suit jacket at the house, but somebody was flying back that night and could bring it...if it belonged in Utah. Well after much phoning around and getting numbers of people and finally getting a hold of those driving through an area with terrible service, we learned who it belonged to. However, it's still sitting at my house, because he hasn't come to claim it yet!
We got back about 2:30 in the morning...I unwillingly woke up 5 hours later and went to work. I don't necessarily recommend such crazy travel patterns, but it was a lot of fun and it was great to surprise the Woods! Mission accomplished.

I got caught

Once upon a time, I was leaving work, just about to walk out of the Wilk, when I saw a coworker of mine coming out of Campus Craft and Floral. She was lugging a big ole piece of furniture...I don't even remember what it was, a desk or something? Anyway, I obviously stopped and asked to help, I mean, who wouldn't? I helped her carry it out to her car and didn't think anything of it. A few days later, she came looking for me, and gave me these:

So this picture isn't that fabulous, but these are two little gold coin things that say stuff like "Caught in the act of service," and "For demonstrating our value criteria," and "Thank you." I thanked her, but really didn't have a clue what they were for. Turns out they're awarded to people who do good stuff and are worth a dollar each in the Twilight Zone of the Bookstore. I used them to buy lunch the other day. So yeah...how do I end this post? This is slightly awkward...umm... Moral of the story: never suppress a generous thought. That'll do, pig, that'll do.