Crunchings and Munchings...

I apologize for the very short entry tonight, and for the lack of pictures after my promise, but it’s 11:12 pm here and I really want to get some sleep before my first Monday on the job, so I’ll be keeping it brief... Was that someone cheering? (Indignant glare, momentary flash from “eyes of hate”)

Today, in summary, we ate a lot of food. Valerie and I both slept in until a little after 9, and I only had time to eat an orange before we took off for church. Little did I know that this orange was the only food actually belonging to me that I would eat all day!

After our church meetings, we had a munch’n’mingle with our gigantic ward, which had approximately doubled over the week from the students and University of Utah interns coming in. They served pancakes with butter and syrup—extremely delicious, and perfect for my “still-in-breakfast-mood” stomach. They also had leftovers, so I took some home! Hooray for cold pancakes! Perhaps tomorrow I’ll pick up some yogurt to eat with them :)

After our munch’n’mingle, we took the Metro home and only had time to rest for a little bit (and I called home—got to speak with Mama and Sarah!) before our Potluck dinner with our floor, which had been organized and planned for all week by some very ambitious people in the Barlow Center. We had tacos with rice and chickeny meat, corn, lettuce, salsa, sour cream, and other delicious stuff, and a very sticky yummy brownie dessert with ice cream! But this was not all....oh no, this was not all...

At 5-ish a group of us took off to take the Metro up to Silver Spring in Maryland, for a “Dessert Night” (is anyone groaning yet?) for all the new members of the Washington D.C. 2nd ward. I was really too full to eat much here, but they had a nice veggie tray and cookies and donuts and stuff, so I just nibbled on a bit of this and that. I was getting very sleepy by this point, and it wasn’t even time yet for the CES fireside with President Monson! After talking to as many new people as I could handle for an hour or so, I went into a quiet room and called home, and got to talk with Dad and Daniel. It was definitely a highlight of my day—I love my family so much :)

Anyway, soon the time came to travel up to the stake center and see the fireside, so we took off (and stopped at the Washington D.C. temple on the way! It was really gorgeous and looked very big, but my friends told me it was actually smaller than the Salt Lake temple. Hmmm....I guess it just looks bigger because there aren’t any other big buildings around it). I was having serious trouble staying awake by this point, but kept myself focused by taking notes on a church program I had in my scriptures, and it turned out to be a really helpful technique. Not only was I able to stay awake and focused on the words of President Monson, but I really felt the Spirit very strongly during several parts—at one point, I was even crying and shaking, it was so strong! I am so happy to know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true, and that we have a living Prophet today who can give us regular guidance and blessings.

After the fireside, you guessed it, we had refreshments: Raspberry-granola-graham-cracker brownie thingamajigs. Quite delicious. We got a ride to the Metro and spent almost an hour getting home, due to our taking the wrong Metro, the right Metro going really slow, our transfer Metro being delayed....and so on. But now we’re home, and I’m going to bed to sleep off all the orange-pancake-taco-cookie-dessert food of the day.

P.s. Thanks to everyone who comments—it’s like getting mini-letters, and really does make my day, even if you only have a line or two to say. In answer to Daniel, the pictures don’t take that long individually, but it can be kind of a pain to do a whole bunch of them. I let my camera have a rest today, and was really upset later on when we ended up going to the Washington D.C. temple! But Brad had a camera with him, and I made him promise to send me a picture of all of us, so hopefully that will work out :)