The Heart of LIfe is Good

This week Lohren and I were working on a presentation for english and I was trying to find a scripture that went with our theme. I came across a talk by President Monson titled "Finding Joy in the Journey" well this didn't really relate to our topic but I found myself reading it anyways. He gave a quote from one of my favorite musicals, The Music Man. Professor Harold Hill states, "You pile up enough tomorrow, and you'll find you've collected a lot of empty yesterdays." This quote has stuck with me all week and I realized that this semester is flying by and I want to live up this experience as much as I can. Well, I became reassured that I was doing just that when a friend that went home after last semester came back to visit and while we were talking he looked at me and said you do everything, you are living life up here and doing this experience right. So on that note, I soon realized we only have 7 weekends left on this beautiful island which motivated Egan, Jess, and I to start making a list of the things we want to do before our time is up. So far this is what we came up with:
1. Hiking Diamond Head Volcano
2. Walking China Man's Hat
3. Getting up on a surf board (just long enough to get a picture)
4. Go to Hanama Bay
5. Go to an actual camp site instead of just 5 minutes down the road
6. Go snorkeling
I realize that many of you reading this blog don't know what some of these things are but once we do them I will make sure to blog all about them.

We've had a couple exciting things happen in the past couple weeks. Garrett Price has been called to serve in the Joao Pessoa Brazil mission and Walker Jensen was called to Paris, France. We are so excited and proud of both of them! In the meantime we have been doing much of the regular stuff. There was another surf competition a couple weeks ago we went to that was a lot of fun. Yesterday, Egan, Jess and I spent the day at Haleiwa beach where we saw 4 turtles and played paddle ball and then went to Matsumoto's for some shaved ice before heading home.

This semester is definitely a lot different, and there is a lot more school happening then play which is a good thing. I am keeping busy and continuing my new year's resolution of working out every day (I've only missed one day since being back!) and Jess and I also started diet coke/coke fridays which means I am only drinking my Diet Coke on Fridays, I am going strong so far! So overall I can say that life is pretty good right now, I just keep reminding myself of all the things I have to be grateful for, and there are a lot!!