Just Do It.

So this summer has turned into the summer for bucket list items:

1. Visit 50 countries by age 50  (still a work in progress)

2. Zip line in the jungle

3. Design a temple 

4. Run a half marathon

I touched on the first two in my last post but I'll tell you a little bit about the others :)

...I was lucky enough to land an internship at the Church Office building downtown. I was on the design team in the Temples and Special Projects division. Can you believe it?! I still can't. I can't give many specifics on what I did because it's all kept confidential but it was an experience I will never forget. Everything moves so fast and there is so much work to be done. I was impressed by the designers and how not a single person treated me like I was just "the intern". They listened to me and valued my opinion and made me feel like I was just another designer. I loved it!  I would get so nervous everyday before I went in hoping I wouldn't mess anything up...this is the Lord's work after all! So I was feeling the heat but it was (not surprisingly) such a spiritual experience. I was enthralled to be surrounded by people who's minds work the same way mine does. Sometimes I feel like a fluke and people don't understand me; This sounds so cheese ball but I really felt like I "belonged." haha It also solidified by testimony of this work. God will use whomever he has prepared to keep everything moving forward. I hope to be able to help more in the future!

All of those dots are temple locations around the world. Each are individually unique in design but share the same purpose.

Rome, Italy

This is a rendering of the temple that is being built in Rome. I figure I can show this since they have it up on the website now :)

Here's a link with more information about LDS Temples and what I believe:

http://www.lds.org/?lang=eng

In other news...I ran a half marathon! Hallelujah. This has been a goal of mine for a few years now but everytime I got close to actually registering, something would come up and I'd chicken out. The Bear Lake half has been the race lingering in my head for about a year now so I thought it would be fun to look into. It's usually not till September so I figured I'd have plenty of time to train...NOT! I looked it up and the race was scheduled for June 9th. Yikes. I told my sister Sam(who's also been wanting to do it) and the next thing I knew, we were both registered.

Care Bear STARE!

This is about as serious as our game faces get before a race.

Getting started. I was so mad, right as we stepped up to the start line, I went to press play on my iPod and my headphones fizzled out. Totally broken. Of all the timing!!! 

 

Eric ran miles 11-12 with me. It was so great!

Sam Killing it

That day later turned out to be pretty cold so we had to scratch out the beach and spent the rest of day at the cabin. It was so fun and relaxing!

Here are the rest of the troops:

CoCo or Grandma?

Loving the glamour shot Elias...

Pretty sure it was my Eric's genius idea to take the paddle boards out into the freezing cold water. Let's just say it ended terribly.

There's June for you folks!