Little Brother

As you all probably know, Little Brother is in Honduras on his mission. I am so proud of that boy and how hard he is working and the great attitude that he carries. This was this weeks e-mail, I usually just post them to his blog, but he gave a special shout out to the sisters in this one, so I'm posting it to mine. I couldn't agree with him more, I am so proud of him and grateful for his example to me and those around him.

Dear Mom and Everyone else,

Thank you all for all your love and support over the past few weeks. I relize it might be rude to say, but I have been taught not to lie, I am excited for Wednesday. Elder Marcia gets his wish of going home and I get a new comp who hopefully shows respect for people. I don´t know where me and him went wrong, but just know that I don´t care who my next comp is, he is going to be my favorite right from the get-go. A lot of elders in the zone see how Elder Marcia treats people like dirt and ask how I went 3 months without hitting him. I can honestly say that I prayed in the morning, mid-day, night, and a few times inbetween for patience and love, and I think it worked.

I found the thing that really got under my skin about this guy, and it is something that has angered me only once, and it is something that I learned from having 4 older sisters, a great sister in law and a fantastic mom. Marcia has absolutely NO respect for women. My wonderful sisters, sister in law and mom, have always taught to to respect woman. It is something that I have tried for a while to practice. Now, as can testify my boy Brad Johnson, there are few things that make me more angry than when a man (if he deserves that title) mistreats a woman. There is no reason for it. There is no gain from it. There is only sadness from it. This part of the email is to the guys that will recieve this. GIVE PROPER REPESCT TO WOMEN!

This part is for the women that will recieve this email. To my Madison, Melanie, Kristi, Vicki, Danielle, Mom, Kaitlin, Grandma N. and Grandma O. and any aunts cousins or any other reading. One of the few things that make me more angry than a man who mistreats a woman is when that self same woman accepts the abuse in anyform and laughs. There are times for laughter and there are funny jokes. Be wise in knowing where the line between joking and reality lies. DEMAND RESPECT! There is no reason to accept insults from low down men (and I use that title loosely). Have the courage to tell them how you feel and how they should treat you. I have seen first-hand young women down here broken down, nearly to tears, by cold unfeeling men. Yes even one man who carried the title Elder. Don´t let this happen. Don´t degrade yourselves. You are far to precious to our Heavenly Father to think of yourselves as below us men.

I´m sorry if this email sounds like a chastisement, but it is what I feel. It´s shouldn´t taken hard because the people I know that are reading it already follow this advice. This is only a warning for the future. Please give respect where respect is due, and if it is not due, help that person to earn it. I can´t remember who origionally gave this quote but I heard it in sunday school a long time ago. It refers directly to high school, but involves life as a whole. "Popularity ends on yearbook day. Respect lasts forever."

I love you all, and hope for the very best in all your endeavors.

Love,

Elder Neiswender

Isn't he a gem? I tell ya, the girl who marries this boy one day is a lucky one!!

Keep Your Head Up

So this whole week has been very missionary-esque in my world. Not in the sense that I all of a sudden feel the need to go on a mission, but just in the sense that I have had a lot of opportunities to think about the missionaries in my life right now.

1. Gonzo. AKA: Angela Glade. I have not written her in ages and Check does so much better at staying in touch with her so I just keep caught up that way. But apparently Gonz keeps bringing up how she hasn't heard from me in ages, so I finally took some time to write her a letter.

Gonz and I at Oakcrest

2. Marissa. AKA: Riss. Love this girl's guts. She is one of the few girlfriends that I made in high school that I still associate with. She is one of the best friends I have ever had. I got my first letter from her in months this last week. She sent it to my parents house so I had to wait a few days to get it, but I was thrilled. It was a perfect missionary letter and she sounds so great. She even wrote it on orange paper for me, that's how good of a friend she is. Hahaha. Also, I ran into her parents at Shay's wedding last night and spent a little while talking to Mama Purser and getting a full update on all things Marissa/all things Purser, it was wonderful.

Riss and I at a football game

3. Little Brother. AKA: Travis. We got to talk to him on Sunday for Mother's Day and it was soooooooooo great!! Sheesh that boy amazes me. He is learning and growing so much, I am so proud of him. He was still the same old funny Travis on the phone. We all sat in the same room and took turns using the two phones to talk and listen and then had the third one on speaker so that we could all hear and chime in. My whole life I felt like I had to be an example for my little brother, but with him serving a mission now, he is an example for me. We talked to him for two hours and I literally fell asleep with the phone on my ear by the end just listening to the sound of my little brother's voice. I try not to miss him too much, but sometimes, I do. However, there is nowhere else that I would rather have him be right now than serving the Lord in Honduras with everything he's got.

Me and Little Brother after his

Prince Charming competition.

As for all my other friends serving missions, sorry you got left out, but these three have been on my mind all week.

Final missionary thought for the day: As a few of us were driving back from dinner tonight, I noticed two Elders walking down a side street, probably heading to their apartment because it was getting late. I noticed that they were both slightly dragging their feet and that their heads were both down. All I wanted to do was pull them aside and say "Boys, if you are going to take on the world, you've got to lift your head up and look it in the eye." This is something that doesn't just apply to missionaries, but to all of us. I don't remember who it was that said this to me, or if it was in a general conference talk or something, all I know is that it has always stuck with me.

I used to be one of those people that would just stare at my feet when I walked not really worried about everything else around me, but the day I heard this and started practicing it, my whole view of the world changed. Literally, haha. But really, look the world in the face, have confidence in yourself and in what you are doing. Enjoy the beautiful scenery, and love every moment for what it is.

BYU Graduation 2011

One week ago from today I graduated from Brigham Young University in Exercise Science with an emphasis on Exercise and Wellness. I have been here for four years now and I have finished all my course work. I could have technically done it in two, since I graduated high school with my associates degree, but I was in no rush. I took some classes that weren't required that did me no good towards my degree, but that I thought I would enjoy. I also had some semesters where I didn't go to school full time. And I also had to retake a couple of courses. Overall, I am very pleased with my education. Looking back right now I wish that I would have studied harder, but I have all my materials still and plan on going through parts of it all over again.

So the big graduation commencement was on Thursday April 21, 2011. It was a great ceremony. Elder Richard G. Scott spoke and gave some great advice as he spoke to all the graduates.

My favorites were:

• Making consistently correct choices will build your character. Our character is the yard stick the Lord will use to measure the success of our mortal life.
• Offered the followings steps for success: 1.Make a set of standards and principles to guide your life. 2. Don't make exceptions to your standards. 3. Be loyal. 4. Live so the Lord can guide you to where He wants you to serve. 5. Serve. 6. Smile. 7. Don't complain. 8. Always have a church assignment. 9. Go to the temple. 10. Use the Savior Jesus Christ as your example for life.
• Do what is right, let the consequence follow.

I loved his whole talk, I'm trying to track it down so I can re-read it, but it was exactly what I needed to hear.

Convocation was on Friday April 22, 2011 and that is where I actually walked across the stage and they read my name. I wore 5 inch heels and may or may not have had a minor trip walking down the ramp from the stage, too funny.

Walking at convocation

I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to attend an institution where religion is not something that is Taboo conversation. As weird as some of the people are here, I am grateful for BYU and all the other life lessons it has provided me. And now that I am graduate, I must follow the phrase "Enter to learn, go forth to serve".

Dinner at Buca Di Beppo with the fam to celebrate

Me with my Diploma

"Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve"

My favorite classroom at BYU.

Room 201 in the Smith Field House.

It's the hardest room on campus to find but I had my personal

training classes there so I loved it!

Mom, Me and Dad after Convocation

Me with Dallin, Rylee and Addie

The members of my fam that came to convocation

Rylee, Dallin, Melanie, Dad, Me, Mom, Vicki, Addie

Me and my roommate Katherine Welch

Me and Momma Love

Precious little grad pic

Me and Katie. I lived with her for my first two years and

it was so fun to walk with her at Commencement.

Katherine Kerr and Me

We graduated so we don't have to work

at RC Willey forever.

Here's the Scoop

I keep saying I'll do better at blogging more frequently, but it just hasn't happened yet, so here is the latest, with pics to prove it. These are not in any kind of chronological order, just little snippets here and there of what I have been doing. (Other than working full time, finishing my internship hours/writing my final report, and getting ready for graduation later this week.)

My sister Melanie and I went to the George Straight and Reba McEntire concert. The king and queen of country music most definitely did not disappoint.

George sings my all time favorite song, "Check Yes or No". It has been my favorite probably since I was seven years old. Melanie and I used to jam to it late at night (meaning 10pm which was late in our little kids minds) and we always thought that mom and dad couldn't hear us. Silly. I took a video of that song when he sang it, but the file is too big to fit on my blog, sorry

Reba was stunning. Would you expect any less? I think not. I love her.

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For our February family activity, they all came to me! Ok, but really they came to see the Carl Bloch Exhibit at BYU's art museum, which was beautiful. So many incredible portraits of our Savior that were beautifully interpreted. My dad had told me to find a restaurant that we could make reservations at since there are so many of us now, I told him Tucanos would take reservations and that he should splurge, and he did. What a good dad to feed us all so much food. They all loved it.

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One night I was staying at my parent's house and Melanie and Rylee and Dallin were visiting, so while Dallin ate, Rylee and I played.

First Chutes and Ladders

This game kind of confuses her a little bit still, but she'll catch on soon

Then we played "Kerplunk" which turned into her putting the

sticks all throughout my hair to make me pretty. It was a masterpiece.

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Katherine got her mission call to The Washington DC North Mission, Visitor Center. Did I predict that that is where she was going? Yes I did. She reports on June 8th.

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Brandon and I got offered to watch a Jazz game from the box seats by one of his friends, so we did, this is the only picture we got, but it was pretty cool.

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Tegan, Katherine, Me and Brandon (he was taking the picture) went to the

Saturday morning session of General Conference. Sheesh I love conference.

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I am currently in charge of wellness at work and finished a big competition to encourage people to pack their lunches. I put a lot of work into and had a lot of fun practicing things I learned in my classes. Next, we are doing he SUGAR SMACKDOWN!!!!! I'm excited.

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I have recently put in a few good days of snowboarding. In January, I went with Brandon and his Texan friends, February I went to the Canyons with some boys in my ward, and then in the last week I went to Snowbird with Jon from my ward, and then Park City with Mckay for our annual spring snowboarding day. I love that sport so much.

It doesn't even look like I'm moving in this one, but I just think it looks cool because my board practically disappeared in this one

Action shot. Not doing anything cool, we were pretty tired at this point, but you can at least tell I'm moving in this one

McKay's action shot. I'm pretty proud of this picture actually.

McKay and I setting out for the annual spring snowboarding trip.

Brandon and I riding the first heated ski lift in North America just weeks after it opened

Me and Brandon kicking off snowboarding season at The Canyons

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Last Sunday, one of the girls in our ward hosted a tea party so we all dressed up and drank kool-aid and water and ate little sandwiches, muffins, and desserts for those eating sugar. (Which I was not at that point in time.) It was a lot of fun, our ward is super goofy and I love them. I am sad to see so many people go now that the semester is ending.

We got together for a group picture and it wound up looking like a wedding photo, so the hammed it up and this is what we got, it was actually really funny.

Amanda, Lexi, Jon, and then a pile of people that would be too confusing to list their names and match them to position in the picture. They were going for a world record on how many people could fit on the couch.

Ali W., Me, Erin, Ali B., K-dub in our tea party outifts

There you have it. My life as of late in a nut shell. It is entirely too much fun, I wouldn't trade it for anybody else's life in the world!!!

The Good and the Bad

The bad:

• Our internet is STRUGGLING with life. It is starting to make me crazy
• I don't get sugar for 2 weeks

The good:

• General Conference was this last weekend. Love.
• I got to spend the weekend with my fam in Murray
• I only have two more days at my internship
• My clients LOVE me and are exceptionally loyal to me
• I am going snowboarding on Friday
• I don't get sugar for 2 weeks.

Katie and I decided to go off of sugar for two weeks. Period. No exceptions. No sodas, no cookies, no chocolate, etc. This normally isn't a problem for me but lately I have been consuming mass amounts of sugar. Ok, not mass, but way more than usual and it needs to stop. I made it through day one and despite the fact that I had four meals, I still felt like I was fasting the majority of the day for some reason. But I'm happy about it, I like doing healthy things.

Re-Dedicating

Ok, so I have been meaning to write this post for some time now, but I am just now getting to it. When New Year's rolls around, everybody goes about setting "New Year's Resolutions" which tend to dissolve quickly, as we all know. So to avoid this dissolving, I make it a point to always have a few small goals that I am working on or one or two big goals. Well, towards the end of January, the speakers in our sacrament meeting gave talks on the topic of rededicating ourselves to Christ. I don't think a goal gets much more important than that. And isn't that really what goals are kind of all about? I mean we set a goal, we are trying to be better at something, attempting to perfect ourselves, if you will. Which is what we are doing here on this earth as we try to become Christ like and perfect ourselves through him.

Anyways, this has been my latest goal, re-dedicating myself to Christ. Not that I wasn't dedicated, but there is always room for improvement, and we all slip up occasionally and need to re-focus ourselves. This is a big goal, that has to be broken into micro-goals to really make it work such as spending real time reading scriptures each day, not just absent-mindedly reading them before falling asleep each night. Making a real effort to attend the temple more often, doing my visiting teaching before the end of the month, etc. Lots of little things. But by small and simple things are great things brought to pass. Each time I make a right choice, I am adding oil to my lamp and one step closer to being like my Savior. I love living the standards of the gospel and the dedication that comes with it. People outside of this religion think them to be such a burden, but my life is so incredible when I am doing what I know to be right. So I chose to re-dedicate myself to the Lord always so as to never lose sight of him.

Also, this is talk that I love that has been on my mind a lot lately as I try to be more dedicated and pick the best options for life. The principles taught in this talk are so true and are a blessing.

Click Here

I'm A Girl!!

Ok, so funny story. Two years ago when I applied at RC Willey, they ran a background check. Well I passed the background check, no biggie. However, they called me and needed to double check something. My gender. Apparently the social security administration has thought I was a boy since I was born. Well guess what? I'm a girl.

So that summer when I got some legal documents (I don't keep them in my apartment at Provo so I had to collect them from their safe location), I headed to the social security office to get this little hiccup fixed. I had my passport, my social security card, and my driver's license. And guess what? They still wouldn't change my gender. Because they needed my birth certificate. HELLLLLLLOOO!!!! Look at me!!! Really??!?!?!! I'm a girl, clearly. Plus you send in your birth certificate to get your passport, I didn't understand. I still don't understand.

Anyways, so here it is two years down the road since I found out that the government thinks I'm a man. This week I finally had some free time to take the correct documents in to change my gender, so congrats mom and dad, you have a girl.

Side note: It turns out they had some crazy Swedish name for my mom's maiden name as well, it was weird. Pretty sure somebody was falling asleep when they entered me into the government data base. No biggie.